Classic Moth Plans: Zippy Sections in PDF format

Plans de voiliers classiques Moth, Plans de dériveur classique Moth

I published the Zippy Classic Moth offsets back in August of this year. Here are the sections in PDF format, 1/7 scale (for comparison the WL are spaced at 60 mm and the buttocks are spaced at 150 mm. If you print the page out it should be suitable to build a model out of cardboard (or if you are really ambitious, balsa). Print the page out in landscape to get the proper scale. (To print or download, move your mouse over to the right top app bar, click on the upward facing arrow icon to open the PDF in another tab. You can print or download from there.)

Arabian Dhows and the Leech-Tacker

A very interesting video of Arabian dhows racing off a Kenyan resort. They sport a lateen rig, boomless and attached to a bowsprit. In watching these craft tack there are one or two crew whose job I designate as the leech-tackers. Their job is to hang onto to the leech to help the sail get around in front of the fore-gaff, a fair distance since the sail is tacked to a bowsprit. Not only do they hang on to get the sail around, they hang on until they are well outboard on the leeward side. Picking the opportune moment, the leech-tacker drops into the water, hopefully close enough to the side to haul himself onboard before the dhow gets going.

These are not planing boats. Offwind they merrily plow along with a fair number of the crew camping out at the bow. Watching the crew scamper up and down the smallish round trunk planks is also entertaining.

(At the 2:31 mark a bowman just barely saves himself from pitching off the bowsprit while going downwind.)



Boat Excursions Around Lamu Archipelago from The Majlis Resort Lamu, Kenya on Vimeo.

Beer: Happy Boxing Day with the "Merry Maker"

Nothing says the holiday more than a couple of large cubes of fruitcake washed down with the Sam Adams Gingerbread Stout, the Merry Maker. (Sorry my Classic Moth friends, my only bottle will be devoured tonight. None left for our holiday gathering tomorrow - it's all about me!)

The Transoms of E-City

Nothing gives the flavor of the Classic Moth class more than to wander around Pugh's lawn at Elizabeth City taking pictures of transoms. There cannot be a more diversified racing dinghy class going anywhere in the world. Here are some (not all) of the various sterns at the 2013 event.


The Skip Etchells designed Connecticut Moth (designed 1948).

The flattish transom from the Olympic Europe.

The early 1950's Mint design (boxy, slightly rounded).

The circular transom of the stock Mistral. Builder/skipper is Mike Parsons.

The flattish transom of the one-off Lane Reeves modified Savannah Mistral.

The modern looking transom of the 1960's John Shelly design (definitely one of the innovators during the 1960's). I have been told that he tried to patent the distinctive inward curve to the topside panel at the stern.

For further study, George A. has on-the-water photos of Classic Moth transoms over at his Mid-Atlantic Musings blog.

Music Whenever: "Life's a Long Song", Cover by Andrea Vercesi

I'm back. Therefore I must have purchased a new computer. Indeed, and this new piece of hardware is a whizbang at loading YouTube videos at a rapid clip, eclipsing my former machine that was stuttering and sputtering on handling a video feed. With this greater speed I spent a glorious two hour nostalgia trip (blogger George calls this "slob setimentality"), browsing YouTube videos of some of my favorite music artists from my college days. (I had a sparse LP collection back then; not possessing a record player and relying on friends to play my albums.) In this manner of net-mind-wasting, jumping from link-to-link, I came across this great home grown cover of one of my favorite Ian Anderson songs (Jethro Tull).

Header Photo: The Ladies, Back in the Sea Snark

The previous header photo was of the two intrepid sisters racing the Sea Snark in the Archipelago Rally in New England. They were back again in the Sea Snark for the 2013 Rally. This is my kind of goofy regatta with all kinds of small sailing craft, dinks, canoes, catboats, some odd Frankenboats, some just useful (i.e - maybe not racing) smallboats. I covered the 2012 Rally in this post, including the stellar video the sisters put together. They put together another great video this year.



One of the founders of this sailing Woodstock, Chris Museler, has a report on the 2013 Rally over here. One of these days I'd like to put this on my fall calender.

Blog on Hiatus

My desktop died last week. Not unexpected as it was getting long in the tooth in PC years. I am left at present with an even more ancient laptop that goes into paroxysms of unexplained disk thrashing when accessing the Internet. Seems like a good juncture to take a break from feeding this beast and work on some other projects.

Will be back....just not sure when. Tweezerman

Micro Dinghy: A 6-Footer Buzzing through a Cruising Anchorage

I chanced upon this video of, what I assume, is a cruiser-built micro dinghy showing her stuff in light wind around an anchorage off Senegal. A flat bottomed skiff with just a hint of a raked bow and a balanced lug rig, the performance of this tiny craft looks more than satisfactory. (Plus I'm a sucker for the African Soukous soundtrack.)

Dimensions given at the end of the video are:

• Length: 195 cm (6' 4")
• Beam: 105 cm (3' 5")
• Mast Height: (6' 6")
• Sail Area: 2 sq. meters (given, but looking at the rig I'm thinking it has to be bigger than that).

You can view some other Earwigoagin posts about micro dinghies by clicking here.

Speed, Speed and More Speed

Two videos came to light recently that showcase the really, really fast side of small boat sailing; done by truly gifted athletes.

The first one is of the foiler Moths. I know there is a gajillion foiler Moth videos out there but this video is interesting in that it is about equal parts in getting it right and equal parts in getting it wrong. With the foilers, if the wand can't stay up with the speed, it's down, down we go...real fast....Stuff City! TOH to these intrepid athletes because it looks as if the wind speed was at the upper limit of control for the foilers.



International Moth Open 2013 from Andy Whitehead on Vimeo.


The second video is of the recent speed record run of kitesurfer Alex Caizergues, probably at that specialty course set off the coast of Africa (Wavedancer has commented that the record was set on a course in France) Sit back and marvel at this guy going 60 mph, inches away from a sandy oblivion). I like how, at the end of this video, his assistant is holding a strap off his back to ensure the fellow doesn't fly away, Mary Poppin style, as he raises his arms in triumph.



Alex Caizergues - New Kitesurfing Record - 11 Nov 2013 from Valencia Sailing on Vimeo.

Header Photo: Gardner's 30-footer "Departure"; The Proto-Star

Picture lifted from the 1896 issue of Outing magazine. My discussions on the origin of the Star keelboat can be found here and here.

Music Whenever: Marc Cohn "Silver Thunderbird"

A great song about a man's love affair with a car. At one with a living entity - something more than a machine..... Just the same with our boats.....

"The Man and His Machine would go"

The "D" or "Dammit" Course

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I've put more specific instructions on the "D" or "Dammit" Course in a later post on this blog.

Click here to read more about how I think the "D" course should be set up.

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As mentioned in a previous post, I was the race officer for the Classic Moth Nationals this past September. With such absolute power, I allowed at the skippers meeting that I might run a different course if the conditions permitted. One of my pet peeves about the normal windward/leewards or triangle course is that they don't provide for a truly fast planing reach for singlehanded dinghies (unless the wind is hitting near to upper teens, close to twenty). I remember running Laser races out of SSA in a good southerly sea breeze, firing off windward/leeward courses as normal, and hearing the comment on shore that the only time the Lasers got to blast reach that day was on the sail home.

Given that the Classic Moth National courses are short and station the race committee halfway up the windward leg, I came up with the "D" course; a course I would use if I deemed the wind was strong enough to get the Mothboats planing. This course is not new; I remember using a variant of this for Europe Dinghies (back when they were an Olympic class) out of West River Sailing Club in the 1980's. It is called the "Reverse P" course (originally the Harry Anderson course - refer to the comments) and essentially shoves a triangle in the upper half of the course and a leeward leg in the lower half of the leg. This allows for close to a beam reach on one leg, the ideal planing angle for conventional singlehanders. As an added benefit, for me (yes, sometimes it is about me), this course would have the competitors round the RC boat, allowing the RC crew to watch and dissect some racing up close.

A rough drawing of this course shows the top heavy configuration of the two reaches, a feature that has prompted some jokesters to nickname this course the "Dolly Parton" course. To acknowledge this moniker, for the Classic Moth Nationals I renamed the "Reverse P" course the "D" course (helped by the fact that the "D" flag is not used for any other RC function and is available to designate a course).

Note: I changed the course layout as shown on the drawing. The leeward mark rounding was changed to a starboard rounding instead of a port rounding to avoid the curlicue.

With the competitors fully briefed, I was itching to try it out. The wind had been strengthening during Race 1 and before Race 2 there was the beginnings of just a hint of whitecaps. The "D" course was subsequently signaled and off they went, unfortunately in a breeze that now looked as if it was softening up. On the first reach the wind continued dropping and then just shortly after Joe Bousquet, the leader, rounded the reach mark, the wind around the RC boat completely dropped away and shifted to the south, making for a beat on the second reach. Joe was able to round the RC boat after putting in one tack but the rest of fleet got caught in a very light, frustrating, fluky beat around the RC boat. At one point, George, the brains behind the blog Mid-Atlantic Musings, loudly opined from his Europe Moth, "I don't know about this "D" course, I'd say this is closer to a "Dammit" course!" Other competitors bitched and moaned as they flopped from one tack to another but the fleet eventually drifted around the RC boat. For the third race, the wind returned to the original direction, although lighter, and I reverted back to the more conventional triangle courses for the rest of the day.

I got some good natured ribbing about the "D" course over the beer cups that night. But the "Dammit" Course is now out there and I'm itching to use it again; somewhere, sometime.

The grizzled old PRO, fiendish schemer of the "Dammit" course, on station at the Classic Moth Nationals with his able assistant Elisabeth (picture stolen from Greg Duncan's Facebook page).

Sailing Videos: Ain't Technology Grand!

Forget about strapping a GoPro to the end of your boom, or somewhere up around the bow, or at the masthead. Booooring! Get yourself one of those $600 radio-control helicopters, the four rotor kind designed to hold one of these small video cameras; fly it around and get all these cool shots from 20 to 40 feet above the water. This is the first sailing video I've seen using this new technology. Expect to see a slew of these aerial sailing movies.


Fall DinghyFest 2013 from DFWDrone.com on Vimeo.

Music Whenever: Maylee Todd and Doctor EW, "I Can't Go for That"

A great basement cover of the boppy Hall and Oates tune "I Can't Go for That". I think these two are based on the West Coast.


MAYLEE TODD & DOCTOR EW - "I Can't Go For That" by Hall & Oates from Southern Souls on Vimeo.

Correction: After more Internet browsing, I determined that Maylee Todd is out of Toronto.

The Origin of the Star Class: Tom Price adds some details

Good friend Tom Price, who likes to delve into marine history just as much as I do, and also possesses a much larger library, forwarded what he could dig up on the origin of the Star class. The following is from Tom.

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Here is some info on the Star I have.

Rudder 1911, Thornton M. Smith, some excerpts paraphrased:

Mr. George Corry originated the Bug Class for Manhasset Bay YC, giving it the title Bug, each boat was named after some type of bug. They were designed from the board of Mr. William Gardner during the Fall of 1905. AS to model and lines, and even the rig for racing purposes, it was a new departure for One Designs on Long Island Sound, although the hull was somewhat fashioned after one of Mr. Gardners earlier boats "The Departure", built for Mr. Clinton Seeley which raced with so much success in the Newport Thirty Class. After the plans had been turned over to Mr. Corry he found it was beginning to occupy too much of his time from business than he could spare to get the Class really started.

The type resembled in it's hull a half round skiff of the old Cow Bay order, but in place of the centerboard, as in the skiff, an iron fin was substituted, which had a depth of 3 ft and weighed 275 lb. Their dimensions were 19 ft overall by 4ft 7 in. breadth. Hull # 1 was knocked down flat on it's trial sail and a solid bulb shaped like a "tom-cod" weighing 200 lbs was bolted on. The addition was the crowning success of a class of racing One Designs that few such classes may boast of.

Then in C. Stanley Ogilvey's book A History of the Star Class, I found this:

The Bug's lines were drawn by Curtis D. Mabry in William Gardners office. Another young designer working there at the time was Francis Sweisguth, who was later to draw the lines of the Star. In 1961, at his home in Larchmont, he told the writer of this history, some amusing Bug anecdotes. I referred to him at the time as" a sprightly young man of 78". Economy was the keynote, said Sweisguth. The boat was to cost $100. complete except for the sails. Even then this was a "It can't be done " figure. The problem was to find someone crazy enough to build them at this price.

OK.... so much for the Bug - designed by Gardner, based on Departure, drawn by Mabry. Sweisguth is mentioned as the subsequent one to "draw the lines of the Star" (note the distinction of the term designer for Gardner and "drafted by or drawn", for Mabry and Sweisguth).

To continue in Ogilvy's book.....

After 5 years of racing in the Bugs, Corry and others came to the conclusion that the Bugs were too small and uncomfortable. He went back to his friend William Gardner and asked him to produce a design for the same type of boat but a little larger. It was supposed to be called "Big Bug" but supposedly Stuyvesant Wainwright suggested the name "Star".

The Star's lines were drawn in Gardners office by Francis Sweisguth who has stated "It is not quite correct to say that I lengthened the lines of the Bug' into those of the Star. The Bug lines were not drawn by me, but by someone else in the office [probably Mabry] When Bill Gardner asked me to do the Star, I started from scratch without even looking at the Bug's lines. If the two boats look alike it was probably because the lines of all the chine built boats with an arc bottom are basically the same."

During the summer or fall of 1910, George Corry found six other yachtsmen willing to place orders for boats, 4 from Port Washington and 2 from New Rochelle. This was the second one design to ever have started as an inter - club class, the first being the Bugs.

So, it appears to me that Sweisguth actually "drew" the lines of the Star, "without looking at" (but obviously influenced by and with a design brief by his boss Gardner) the Bug which was drawn by Mabry but "designed" by Gardner. If we say the Sweisguth designed the Star then we probably should say that Mabry designed the Bug - which started it all. Where does that leave Gardner - who designed Departure that influenced the Bug that (sort of- according to Sweisguth) influenced the Star....? It was in his [Gardner's design] office...He originated the general design (and probably handed Mabry the initial drawings of the Bug to "draft").

As a comparison, Olin Stephens almost never "drew" (meaning actually drew the iteratively faired lines drawings for building) for his boats.Talented draughtsmen in his office actually laid down the lines from Olin's "sketches" or initial lines plans. Olin would carefully examine their work though and have final say on the design. He is ALWAYS considered the "designer" of all those excellent boats.

So, in fairness to Gardner though I have to agree that he might be considered as the designer of the Star (especially as it originated from his design office), it all depends on what kind of design freedom Sweisguth was given. (my guess was - plenty, by his statements later in life). Draw your own conclusions!

Note: I am lucky enough to have an actual blueprint from the Sparkman and Stephens office of the 12m Intrepid. In the title block there is a small MT which indicates the beautiful draftsmanship of Mario Tarabocchia. Line weights, fairness, lettering and accuracy are amazing in those pre-computer days!

The Origin of the Star Class: A Gardner Design?

Since WWII the Star Class keelboat has produced a large chunk of U.S.A's top sailors and was, for years, the pipeline to America's Cup stardom (some would still say it is still America's top racing class). It remains one of the oldest one-design classes, designed in the fall of 1910. One hundred plus years on, the Star is a beloved vintage design that has been tweaked and pushed and modified over the years to achieve a level of performance and sensitivity that still excites legions of modern racers.

In recent years I had started to wonder where the Star hull design came from. It seemed to me when looking at the hull it had some of the attributes of the Seawanhaka types that existed during the 1890's; two of them being the short waterline and the long overhanging flat bow, well above the waterline when at rest. The official class history attributes the Star class design to Francis Sweisguth, a draftsman in William Gardner's design office. The Star class design was a follow-on to the shorter Bug class (19 feet vs. 22 feet 9 inch hull of the Star) that was again designed in 1906 by another draftsman in Gardner's office, Curtis D. Mabry.

The Bug class in a photo lifted from the Star class website.

However, both these design dates, 1906 for the Bug class, and late 1910 for the Star class, sits squarely in the period when Herreshoff's Universal Rule was in the ascendancy and well outside the heyday of the Seawanhaka Rule. My hunch that the Star design originated earlier would remain only a hunch.

That was, only until I was perusing online the 1896 issues of Outing magazine, one of Google's digitization of old manuscripts projects. I was reading through an article by R.B. Burchard on the Long Island Thirty Footer class. The Thirty Footer's were a restricted development class built to rules drafted by Herreshoff. They were the sport keelboats of their time; no accomodations, length over all of 43 feet, waterline between 29 and 30 feet, beam between 7 feet 10 inches and 8 feet 1 inch, bulb keel, and separate rudder. Most of the Thirty Footers were built to a Herreshoff design, but William Gardner had designed a flat bottomed chine design, named Departure. At the end of the article, R.B Burchard had the lines to Departure.

Bingo, I had my Star class hull shape from the 1890's!

The side view of Departure shows more of the Seawanhaka influence of short waterlines and long overhangs and not so much the sheer of the Star class.

With this missing link filled in, the design progression towards the Star becomes more straightforward. When George A. Corry came knocking on the door of William Gardner's design office in 1906 with a request for an inexpensive to build, but sporty day sailor, William Gardner rolled out the plans for his chined Thirty Footer and went to work with Mabry modifying the long Thirty Footer to a nineteen footer. The sheer changed, became greater amidships and less up front, probably to make the Bug a drier boat (the Thirty Footers were extremely wet boats). The convex topsides went away to make building easier. The long aft overhang went away; this was after all only a nineteen foot boat. Somewhere between Departure, the Bug and the Star the rectangular keel and separate rudder was changed to a swept back keel with a rudder hung on a skeg. But the hull lines remain virtually the same.

To be fair, on the Star class website, from the history of the Star class by George W. Elder, Forty Years Among the Stars, George Elder does mention the William Gardner Thirty Footer design Departure.

The Departure which appeared in 1896 was designed by William Gardner to beat the Newport 30's. It was able to do so in a breeze or with plenty of reaching, but not otherwise. The Departure has straight sides, a chine and a fin keel. It is the last connecting link...

But Elder didn't make a strong enough connection between Departure and the 1910 Star design. Today William Gardner has been written out of the Star design, a design he definitely seemed to take credit for in this quote from 1931 Star class newsletter:

When I designed the Star my aim was to produce a boat that was fast, handy, seaworthy, and that could be built at a moderate cost; these qualities I was evidently fortunate enough to have obtained.

Tom Price adds some further details on the origin of the Star over at this additional post on Earwigoagin.

Header Photo: Classic Moths Racing at E-City - 2013

Mike Parson holding a good lead upwind, with John Z chasing, on the second day of the Classic Moth Nationals, Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

Annapolis Sailboat Show Part 2 - Plastic Boats and Designing Dinghies with your Ass

Your "boots on the ground" Earwigoagin reporter looked for all the small sailing boats at the 2013 Annapolis Sailboat show. There weren't many. There weren't many under 20', and there weren't many sailboats, even keelboats, under 28'. For probably the first time since the show opened in the 1970's, the Laser wasn't there. The Laser company, Laser Performance, and their boats were nowhere to be seen. There was only one national sailing dinghy class on exhibit, the 19' Flying Scot, tucked away in a forlorn corner.

We were left with three companies specializing in small sailboats at the Annapolis show, with two of the three having large numbers of rotomolded (plastic) products (I will leave Hobie, a company whose designs I much respect, with their rotomolded sailing kayaks and tris in a different category). Rotomolding has come a long way, the newest generation rotomolded sailboats using foam core to add rigidity to what was once a floppy boatbuilding material.

Rhode Island's Zim Sailing, known for their fiberglass Byte line, was also showing their imported rotomolded Club Optimist. According to Zim Sailing's Paul Zimmerman, the Club Optimist at the show had been in a club program for three years and I was impressed at how remarkably unscathed the plastic hull looked. This is certainly a good option for a club training purchase, but not one for a junior plugged into racing for the Zim Opti wasn't class legal.

The two English companies at the show, Topper and RS Sailing, had a large plastic product line of small sailboats. Topper had their Taz and Topaz, very similar looking except for length; flat hulls with the turn of the bilge very low. The Taz was the 3 meter LOA model for junior training. The Topper salesman said the front of the cockpit was designed to fit the ass of Topper designer Robb White, the idea being an adult could sit up front, back against the mast, whilst directing the young lass or laddie at the helm.

The front end of the Taz cockpit, big enough for an ass of an adult.

One detail on the Topper line that was well thought out was the righting line that was attached below the gunwhale to make it easier to pull the boat up from a capsize. It was shock-corded with a braided cover so it retracts against the hull.

RS Sailing had their recently introduced rotomolded 16-foot catamaran. Much more performance oriented than the Hobie line of plastic cats, this cat has the potential to be the first plastic racing sailboat class in the U.S. (as far as I know, none of the rotomolded sailing craft have yet to form a viable racing class over here - though, and someone correct me, the Hobie Wave may be the exception). Rotomolding allows design details that even glass construction cannot achieve and this RS cat has several of them.

The hulls have a spray deflecting lip up forward and then a long indented hollow aft, designed as a hand hold when carrying the cat up the beach. This indent runs from forward of the cross beam almost to the stern.

The deck where the crew sits is concave rather than convex. The RS Sailing salesman and I were debating the merits of locking in the crew (something the Hobie Wave catamaran does as well with convex decks and foam pads). The typical convex deck (rounded) allows the crew to slide in and out easier, probably more important for a serious racer. Also of interest was open self-draining wells in both hulls just behind the aft cross beam to the transom. Other than filling them with ice and beer, their purpose eluded both the RS salesman and I. Still, the design details that went into getting a semi-racing cat configuration to work with plastic hulls is impressive.

I was quoted 10k for the 16-foot cat but this is probably without the spinnaker gear which I'm guessing might add another 3-4k, still an excellent price. The RS salesman said RS is trying to expand in North America because the European market is flat at the moment. This 16-foot cat looks like it may have the legs to do just that.

Annapolis Sailboat Show - Part 1 - I'm not making this up!

My annual blitzkrieg of the Annapolis Sailboat Show begins like most everyone else; park at the Navy Marine Corps stadium and take the shuttle buses (yellow school buses) the 1/2 mile into downtown Annapolis. It was getting on in the afternoon, Trade Day, and this weekend has been the rainiest of the year so their weren't many in the bus into town, just the diehards. Up towards the front, three sailors started a conversation about cruising sailboats. One had flown in from Milwaukee and owned a Sabre 28, one had come from Chicago and owned a Moody 43 and there was a third fellow in a green rain jacket who I never got his boat type, though I did catch that he had served as a jib-trimmer on an E-scow. Since I'm not a cruising type, I half-listened to the their banter; cruising and racing in an around Lake Michigan, the advantages of propane outboards, where can you go with the 6' draft of the Moody 43.........Getting close to the first downtown disembarkation stop, the guy in the green rain jacket pronounced loudly enough to jolt me out of my trance, "I read Tillerman's blog. It's about an old guy who's trying to improve his racing of the Laser." Wow! His fame is widening! Hmmmm....maybe in a couple of years, Tillerman can also have lines snaking out of a liquor store, waiting for his autograph on his favorite beer brand.

As an aside, the couple sitting just in front of me on the bus, asked the question of typical newbies; which stop was the main show entrance? I said it was the last stop. They then asked if there were a lot of sailboats to look at in the show and would they be able to see them all in one day. I replied that it depended on whether they were gawkers, like me, or buyers. If you were a buyer you would want more than one day at the show. It turns out they had flown in from Dubai, they were definitely buyers and they wanted a sailboat to ship back to Dubai. They were going to make one salesman a very happy camper. (Unlike me, who had more or less emptied his billfold to pay the parking fee.)

Music Whenever; Burning Hell "I Love the Things that People Make"

In one of the ongoing ironies of life, my music posts are the least popular segment of Earwigoagin, yet there is a coterie of readers who have complained when I stopped them. So I have resorted to occasional music posts.

This one goes out to the makers in the boating world; the Classic Mothists building, rebuilding, restoring; Doryman getting his Crocker on the water, Jeff and Amy Linton with their FrankenScot project, and all the other boatbuilders in my circle of friends and also in my blog list.

Some may question the musicality of this selection; the one-chord strumming, the odd Russian fiddle overlay, the bass vocals that eschew any range. Remember, for this song, it's all in the presentation, the costumes, and the lyrics.


THE BURNING HELL - I Love The Things That People Make from Southern Souls on Vimeo.

Header Photo: IC's at Loch Lomond

The previous header photo is of the International Canoe's at their European Championships held at Loch Lomond, Scotland. In reading through the regatta reports this looks like the race where the fleet came ashore after a storm rolled through. Two of the toughest dinghy classes to land downwind on a lee shore are the Laser and the International Canoe - the Laser because it has no halyard so the sail cannot be lowered in a seamanship manner - the International Canoe because it has no stability and once the single skipper bails out, it wants to fall over. Most International Canoeists let that happen as a matter of course, as the photo shows. The release of the main halyard usually takes place in a relaxed manner, when the IC is on its side, the IC is then easily righted, the main slides down and the beast is tamed. I did, early on in my IC career, when I was exhausted after a day of racing, run the IC downwind, at speed, too close to shore, grounded and bent the thru-deck rudder. It took a fair bit of whaling away with a maul to get that stainless steel shaft straightened enough for the next days racing. May I also direct you to previous post in Earwigoagin of someone having a heckuva time getting off the lee shore.

Classic Moth Nationals 2013 - Some Pictures

I managed to squeeze off some photos in between running the races for the 2013 Nationals. Winds on Saturday started off with great promise, around 10 from the Southeast, blowing up the river, a sea breeze direction I've wished for when I've been racing but never saw and, now that I was the race officer, I was watching with envy my fellow MothBoaters enjoy the conditions. This breeze brings a little lump to the race course. In the second race the wind lightened up, shifted to the South-Southwest and died but, with some consternation and cussing, the racers were able to crawl up to the finish. For the next three races the wind shifted back to the SE and blew up the river, though at a lighter velocity of about 6-8. On Sunday we had the more typical shifty Northerly blowing across the river, 6-10 with an occasional higher gust, and finished with 4 more races to make 9 total for the weekend.

Joe Bousquet is the new overall champ. Joe re-introduced the Mistral to the Classic Moths back in the late 1990's and has just recently given Try-Umph a deck rebuild. He was untouchable on Saturday: all firsts (though Mike Parsons was leading him in one race to just at the finish). Joe trucking upwind.

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John Zseleczky in his mod-Mistral Y3K Bug was second (the E-City waterfront with watertower is visible in this photo).

Mike Parsons in another Mistral was third.

Walt Collins won the slightly slower Gen 1 division in his Europe Dinghy (though he was giving the Mistrals fits on Saturday). Here he is is to windward of another Europe Dinghy owned by John Pugh. (John and Sarah Pugh host the fleet out of their backyard on the river - a nice grass lawn - we are indeed spoiled!)

Randall Swan won the Vintage division in his 60 year old Etchell's Connecticut Moth.

Carol Terryberry borrowed a Mint design and acquitted herself well to win the Women's Trophy and Zach Balluzzo took the Junior Trophy. Fifteen Mothboats competed, down from last year, with some significant no-shows including multi National Champ, Jeff Linton. Next year will be very interesting as the class voted at the AGM to make the Vintage winner the National Champion of 2014. This is to celebrate the 25th anniversary regatta since the resurrection of the U.S. Classic Moth Class in 1989. The intention will be to highlight racing in some of the early Mothboat designs. There will be a push on for skippers to uncover unused Dorr-Willey's, Ventnor's Connecticut's, and other pre and post WWII one-off Mothboat designs for this regatta (complete with wood masts and booms).

A grateful TOH to Greg Duncan, Regatta Chair and the aforementioned John and Sarah Pugh for another delightful weekend in E-City.

Hobie Trimaran Sailing, Fishing, and Weird Accents

Two guys go fishing. Video complete with these two mugging to the camera with mashed up Country Western/Urban Homeboy accents. The Hobie Trimaran, loaded to the gills with coolers and gear, comes off as a relatively safe and simple craft for these intrepid two negotiating a lumpy, breezy day.

I know this is goofy, but, bear with me; this is my kind of goofy.


Asian Cowboys Sailing Kayak from Rex Del Rey on Vimeo.

Music is "Save a Horse" by Big n' Rich.

Classic Moth Nationals 2013 - Pre-Regatta Look

The 2013 running of the Circle M-boats at E-City is scheduled for this coming weekend, Sept 21, 22. It's been two years since I attended and this year I'm going as the PRO (Principal Race Officer) as I'm recovering from some hernia surgery. To get the pre-regatta hype going I've decided to drag two videos from previous nationals out of the Earwigoagin archives and re-post them.

From the first beat of the first race of the 2010 Nationals, Rebecca Dudzinsky gets her Europe dinghy up to the weather mark ahead of all the big names (well one big name - Jeff Linton and some smaller names like Rod Koch, Mike Parsons, Joe Bousquet, and Mark Saunders). She wasn't able to hold off the Mistrals for the regatta, finishing fourth, a good result for the Europe dinghy.



I don't think there is any class in the world that allows such a wide conglomeration of hulls to race together, designs from the 40's, 50's and 60's plus our modern interpretations, plus a wide variety of skippers. I guess you would say we are the polar opposite compared to the strict one-designs of the Sunfish or Laser.  From some on-shore photos at the 2008 Nationals:

Music Whenever: Asaf Avidan & the Mojos - "The Reckoning"

Remorse and Nostalgia; what a heart-rending combination!

Header Photo: Flying Scots at Deep Creek Lake

I took a family mini-vacation to Deep Creek Lake this summer. No sailing, some hiking, and we rented a motorboat and joined everyone else buzzing around the lake. Back in the 1950's, Sandy Douglas relocated his boat-building concern from the shores of Ohio to this long skinny lake in Western Maryland. I have no idea what prompted him to do it, though, back then, the lake was more pristine and woodsy compared to today, with the hordes of Baltimore and Washington, DC urbanites unwinding in the condos and pontoon boats and jetskis.

Deep Creek Lake is the birthplace of the Flying Scot class, one of the truly national small sailboat classes in the U.S. Nineteen feet long with flat stable sections and somewhat tubby look, the Flying Scot continues to be built in Sandy Douglas's factory in Oakland Maryland. This was a photo I took of the Flying Scot anchorage at the Yacht Club on the southern end of Deep Creek Lake.

Ronstan Bridge2Bridge Race - Aussie 18 "C-Tech"

Since all eyes are on San Francisco, waiting with bated breath for ...... the results of the Ronstan Bridge to Bridge Race, a high speed downwind burn between the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco-Oakland Bridge. Usually the domain of the kiteboarders, windsurfers, and the Aussie 18's with perhaps one of the big scow-like French singlehanders, the 2013 edition is taking place as I type this.

One of my favorite skiff videos is of the Aussie 18 C-Tech navigating the course in double-quick time. This video gives a good feel for the dashing back and forth the crew does during the jibes. (You also see the 18 scooting along on the back foot or so of the hull, everything else pointed skyward.)

Update: Johnny Heineken bested 60+ entrants on a foiling kiteboard, completing the 5.3 mile course in 11 minutes (yes! 11 minutes!).

Johnny Heineken

Johnny Heineken

Johnny Heineken

C-Tech's 2012 Ronstan Bridge 2 Bridge from Joshua McCormack on Vimeo.

Annapolis Walkabout

One of my odd peccadilloes (if you want a complete list, contact my wife) is that I have a large camera collection (I think six digital and one old film SLR) for someone who doesn't take many pictures and who really isn't that well versed in cameras. True to form, this summer I bought another waterproof point and shoot Fuji camera (even though I have a perfectly good previous waterproof camera). To test it out, I went on a walkabout around Annapolis (I can't think of a better small town to do this in, at least in the U.S.A). Destination photos are a popular feature on many blogs, one that I enjoy perusing. Since I haven't gone anywhere exciting for some time hometown photos are OK as well!

The Navy 44 training offsore keelboats at the Robert Crown Sailing Center Basin, U.S. Naval Academy.

"Ego Alley" is the sliver of the Annapolis Harbor that cuts all the way downtown. Nicknamed "Ego Alley" by the locals for its attraction to the Cigarette/Donzi motorboat types who like to slowly parade up and down this waterway, their combined thousand horsepower motors loudly complaining of the slow speed in a reverberating, slow syncopation, the owner, hairy-chested with gold-bling necklace, and two shapely, bikini'd ornaments on the bow languidly ignoring us poor gawkers on the shore. During my walkabout I wasn't able to catch any of this though I did get some racy motorboats tied up (owners and bikini'd ornaments probably imbibing in one of the many bars that surround the downtown harbor).

Ego Alley was a very pleasant place this early evening, as this couple taking in the view will attest.

And finally a walk up East Street towards State Circle, with the Maryland State House, seat of both Maryland legislative bodies and the nations oldest wooden dome.

Crewing Flying Dutchman

The earlier post about woman Mothist, Pat Duane, who was also one of the U.S.A's earliest Flying Dutchman sailors, reminded me of the one time in my sailing career I sailed with a current Olympic Sailing Team skipper. Norm Freeman, who had finished sixth out of twenty in the Flying Dutchman class at the 1976 Kingston Olympic Regatta that summer, had come to Annapolis in the fall of that year to race the Flying Dutchman invitational at SSA; sans crew, as it turned out, as his Olympic crew had taken a break. Initially Norm tried to recruit my friend, Duncan Skinner, who, at 6'7" height and string-bean physique, was the ideal FD crew (the FD sporting 190 sq. ft. of sail area with a large percentage of it packed in a massive genoa jib). Duncan had already made commitments for the weekend and put forth my name even though I was small for FD crew (5' 10 1/2" (1.79) m. and 175 lbs. (80kg) weight). I was game, though I had never stepped on a Flying Dutchman, my trapeze-hand experience mostly with International 14's.

The fall regatta was windy and I must admit, my crew-work was definitely not of Olympic caliber, it taking forever to horse that big genoa in on the tacks. I was probably taking 2 to 3 times as long as his Olympic crew. No matter! His FD was so much faster than the rest of the fleet that 1/2 way up the first beat we had a clear lead that we extended throughout the race. We ended up with all firsts.

There are a lot of strings on a Flying Dutchman but Norm did all the adjustments. I found the Flying Dutchman very smooth and much more stable than the International 14. I do remember, in one race, concentrating on the spinnaker downwind, blasting along comfortably, when I felt some unnatural shakiness in the steering. Experienced crews know to check the skipper when that happens. He might have fallen out of the boat, or tripped, but it wasn't a disaster this time. Norm was standing up, straddling the tiller, worried about a particular nasty gust coming up on us. To me the FD was handling the breeze beautifully, with predictable responses, so I was somewhat puzzled by his concern. Eventually Norm settled down and we won another one.

The current crop of skiffs are thought to call for a more athletic crews. To my mind, the demands on a top-notch FD crew are just as athletic if not more so. It takes lots of strength to handle that genoa.

Dr. Stout took the picture below to memorialize my one regatta with an Olympic Team skipper.

Header Photo: Brigantine Y.C (New Jersey) Classic Moths - 1960

This is a photo I lifted from fellow Mothist, George A's blog. The original post can be found here. This is a Moth Regatta at Brigantine Y.C in 1960 with George A in the boat on the right and on the left is Kenn Clauss sailing a Titan design. Classic Mothists still flock to Brigantine Y.C in June for the annual regatta on the small bay behind the barrier island that holds Brigantine, one of a string of ocean-front communities up and down the Jersey shore. Several years ago I wrote a post about the pre-regatta party that Joe Courter hosts from his fantastic house on the land-side of the bay.

For those who may have an interest in the Classic Moth, the Nationals are scheduled for Elizabeth City, North Carolina over the weekend of Sept 21 - 22.

Another Topper Daysail with grins

I keep running into great daysailing videos featuring adults enjoying the English Topper scow. Normally used as a transition singlehander in England for the juniors coming out of the Opti programs, it seems adults who are not racers, enjoy kicking around in this plastic boat. (In the U.S.A. I would vote the Sunfish more than the Laser as the one adults more enjoy as a kick-around singlehander.)


Topper on Oulton Broad from John Fielding on Vimeo.

I like the music. Anyone know the name of the group? - Ahh! Found It! Ben Howard with the song "Promise".

Louis Vuitton Cup - Aliens and other ruminations

I finally sat down at the TV last Sunday to watch some AC72 catamaran sailing. It seems very hard to get two of them in the same TV picture. There was some nice shots of one of them flying around the marks and gybing on stilts but they seem to be solitary craft - they don't like the company of another AC72; something the TV commentators continually make excuses for.

I did get to watch over and over and over again, Team New Zealand's face plant upon rounding a mark on the Saturdays race. Which brings me to Rumination 1 and 2.

1. For syndicates that spend umpteen millions of dollars, the rescue of the two sailors flung overboard at 40 knots left something to be desired. (I have a fetish about crash boats and rescues.) Hauling the two over the high transom of the big, expensive RIB, between four massive outboards was just wrong. Rescue personnel are very careful with car accident victims, usually keeping them very still until they can ascertain any injuries. With the ETNZ AC72's, the procedure seems to be; grab them under both armpits and heave them into the boat - we'll check out any physical problems later. And hauling them up next to the outboard motors just gives me the heebie-jeebies. This is highly operator dependent; the motors must be in neutral, remain in neutral, and never be engaged during the rescue - a risk I do not like to take. I would hope that if any of the two men overboard had a more severe injury, where they were incapacitated, there was a different procedure and a different boat.
2. The wind limits, as frustrating as they seem to the racing, do make a difference. ETNZ's nose dive was the same as Team Oracle's earlier this year. ETNZ was able to recover without a disastrous cart wheel over the bow because the wind wasn't blowing as hard as in the Team Oracle disaster.

Today Race 4 and 5 are scheduled. Let's hope the AC72's act more sociable. When you get them together they do look cool as this video of the two Oracle AC72's training together shows.

Oracle Team USA - Foiling Upwind !!! from pete carney on Vimeo.

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I use my wife, being a non-sailor, as a sounding board for how these foiling catamaran's might play with the general viewing public. Her comment, "I miss the graceful sailboats, these look too alien". Part of this is due to the Italian team's sailing outfits or as Tillerman puts it, "their chromeness". They look like a team of Tin Men, spawned out of the Wizard of Oz. All that is missing is redesigned helmets to look like upturned funnels and some chrome zinc-oxide face paint. But that just might be the difference between backward Americans and more fashion conscious Europeans. Below, a promotional puff video on the Italians (but interesting just the same).

Luna Rossa: Luna Challenge // Marmoset from marmoset on Vimeo.

Classic Moth Plans: Offsetts for Zippy Design

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(Update December 2013: For those who like the visual lines drawing the Zippy sections in PDF format are posted here.)

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(Update February 2015: I finally have compiled and posted here the 8 station offsets which will make it easier to plot out frames.)

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Plans de voiliers classiques Moth, Dériveur classique Moth.

There are two "wide-body" Classic Moth designs currently kicking around, the round-bilged Titan, an American design, which is featured in this header photo, and the French Proust design which I profiled in this post. The Proust design is a simple, v-bottom shape and should be easy to plank in plywood though Jim Young built his version in fiberglass/foam-core. If you build it with the open cockpit as Jim Young did (rather than the racing cockpit), the Proust should be more than capable in taking an adult and a young kid for a pleasant day-sail.

Jim Young named his Proust version Tippy, a misnomer since this design has more than enough stability for a Mothboat. I've taken the Proust and made some changes and in keeping with the Jim Young naming convention, I've deemed my version  Zippy.

The Jim Young Tippy at the 2008 Elizabeth City Nationals.

The original Proust had a chine log which I've eliminated to make it a true V-bottom. I changed the rocker and the sheer slightly. I have it on my list to make a model of Zippy but as my friends know, my projects take a very long, long time. If anyone out in the bloggosphere would like to make of model of Zippy, please send along photos and I'll post them.

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Here are the the 8 station offsets for Zippy in metric. To print or download, click on the pop-out icon on the top-right corner. It will open the PDF in another tab where you can print or download.

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Here are the offsets for Zippy for stations set at 336mm (13 inch English) which is really too many for a traditional build where you leave the frames in the boat (like the Nantais or Little Mae Moths).

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And here is "Zippy the Pinhead", the cartoon star, the enigmatic master of dry wit from another dimension, a cartoon I always checked in with daily even when I didn't understand where he was going.

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Where to put the mast and daggerboard in a Classic Moth?

Luckily, John Shelley's construction drawings for the Shelley Mk 1, which he used in a patent application, have now surfaced on the internet. His mast and daggerboard placement as indicated in the drawings below are good placements, though, if you went around the fleet with a measuring tape, you would find this might vary by up to 75 mm from boat to boat.

Center of mast back from stem - 695 mm.

Leading edge of daggerboard back from stem - 1453 mm.

Header Photo: Cotuit Skiff

The previous header photo was of a Cotuit Skiff, a vintage design, circa 1906, that is raced in great numbers on Cotuit Bay, on the South Shore of Cape Cod. A jumbo low-slung, gaff-rigged cat sail powers this 14 foot flat bottomed craft, as is shown by the juniors in this photo desperately hiking her down. If one was closely inspecting the photo, one could wonder what happened to the skippers aft, steering arm. It has completely disappeared. Well this fellow is using both hands on the sheet and steering with his foot. The Cotuit Skiff doesn't allow tiller extensions! I suppose this is something the young and fit would do; any attempt on my part to sail a small boat, steering with my feet while hiking out, would inevitably result in a capsize.

The Cotuit Mosquito Yacht Club was formed around the Cotuit Skiff early on as a junior club. No member could be older than 25 or married. Today the club remains though there is the "Association of the Cotuit Mosquito Club" to allow the parents and older citizens to be involved. Indeed the Cotuit skiff is raced by all ages.

Some other pics:

Micro Dinghy: Bolger "Queen Mab" Catboat

Several years back, at the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival, a builder of the beautiful micro-dinghy, the Bolger designed Queen Mab catboat, was offering a spin. No one else was taking her up on the offer, so I eased myself into this 7 1/2 foot craft and aimed her out of the harbor. You sail reclined, using your feet to steer, `a la the Hobie kayak/trimarans. After some trepidation with how this tiny craft would handle the motor boat chop out on the Miles River, I had an enjoyable sail. There were some equipment sore-spots. The steering cable, similar to a bicycle brake cable, was very sticky. The sail was very overbuilt and had trouble setting in the lightish breezes. The offset centerboard (offset close to the gunwhale so as to give the skipper legroom on the centerline) had a tendency to float up. But overall, the Queen Mab sailed, slowly but smartly, bobbing over the wakes. Besides the cuteness of the catboat's classical lines in a very small size, I could see this design offering up some memorable cruises on a small pond. The blogger over at 70.8 percent has a much more detailed look at the Queen Mab and her first-time builder, the post probably coming from the same MASCF I sailed her.

Queen Mab sitting on the lawn in all her regal glory.

You intrepid blogmeister, game for a go in any small craft, showing his legs.

OD - OY Review; The Classic Moth

Voiliers classique Moth, dériveur classique Moth.

Well it wasn't the Classic Moth when One-Design and Offshore Yachtsman published their yearly dinghy review in 1964. These were the International Moths, plain and simple. (Well, the Aussies were doing their own 11-foot thing as well.). The OD-OY blurb shows a picture of a Cates design to leeward of a Ventnor/Dorr Willey type.

Update: George A., Classic Moth historian has posted a comment that the two sailors in the following thumbnail were Warren Bailey and Lewis Twitchell. If that's the case then the leeward Moth is not a Cates but one of Bailey's Mach designs (later massaged into the Cates/Florida design by boat builder Harry Cates).

Here is a picture of Pat Duane from the same time period, winning a Moth regatta in a Cates Moth. One of the best women dinghy sailors in the 1960's, she would go on to be one of the top three U.S teams (sailing with her husband) in the newly introduced Flying Dutchman two-man (or woman!) Olympic class.

Beer: Ahead of the Curve; Elysian Super Fuzz

Back when I was a young buck, my favorite summer beer after sailing was one of my own concoction. Sort of like a shandy (lemonade and beer) I would mix orange juice and beer. Through experimentation, my taste buds settled on a pilsner type beer (the original Budweiser does fine) - 2/3 of a glass with orange juice making up the other third. Most of my friends thought I was crazy and I could never entice them to try it. Now with the craft beer revolution, some of these brewers are bringing out their own version of orange juice and beer. I decided to buy a 6-pack of the craft Elysian Super Fuzz, a blood orange beer - whatever that means. I was intrigued with what a master brewer would do with this combination. Turns out it didn't taste all that different from my home-grown mix, plus, if you mix your own you can tune the beer vs. orange juice ratios - depending on your mood. But, I'm still curious. If I see another brewer with a beer/orange style, I'll probably give it a go.

Header Photo: Tillerman to the Rescue! Ladies Day at Larchmont YC

Mr. Tillerman, I doff my baseball cap to your marvelous powers of observation and unsurpassed ability to sift through and discover relevant Internet material. In two hours you have deduced much more than I have in two months. I can only repost your comments in a main post so all my readers can follow along and appreciate a master at work on his computer, piecing the puzzle together.

"The burgee on that swimming platform does look remarkably like the burgee for Larchmont Yacht Club.

"And Manor Park in Larchmont is famous for its gazebos and striated rocks.

"If you look at Manor Park on Google Maps satellite view you can actually see two gazebos on striated rocks very much like those in the second picture. But I can't identify the exact spot with those specific striations.

"Could this be a more recent photo of the same spot?

"Note that the gazebo may have been rebuilt in 100 years and a stone wall added. But look at the pattern of striations in the rock.

"Check out this photo from the Larchmont Gazette.

"Not the same day but surely the same view? Look at the trees on the point in the distance, for example.

"This is a postcard from Horsehoe Harbor in Larchmont c.1900. There is a Horseshoe Harbor YC (which is probably why your correspondent from Larchmont YC said it wasn't LYC but he did know it?)

"Oh, and I forgot to mention, Horseshoe Harbor is in Manor Park.

"On the other hand check out this photo of Ladies Day at Larchmont YC in 1911.

"This looks like a better match to your scene than that postcard of Horseshoe Harbor. The trees on the point look similar in both pictures but this one is claerly a wider stretch of water more similar to your picture. Would also explain why the swim platform has an LYC burgee.

"Maybe your header photo was of Ladies Day at LYC?

"This NYT article from 1910 does say that the fleet was dressed for Ladies Day.

"And this NYT article from 1913 about Ladies Day at Larchmont that year says that more than 200 yachts dressed ship and that possibly the fleet was larger in "former years."

"So I am pretty sure both photos are looking across Larchmont Harbor. If you look on a map you will see that the views from the gazebo in Manor Park and from LYC are both towards the same point on the opposite side of the harbor, to the NE and E respectively.

"And there's a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that this could be Ladies Day. There were canoeing and swimming races on Ladies Day which explains a lot of the foreground in the header picture too.

These photos are from the Emerson collection of Rochester N.Y.. Other photos in the collection fix the time frame. There is no explanation why young Mr.Emerson was at Larchmont YC but he did, in 1917, marry the daughter of Fred A. Mabbett, the Commodore of Rochester Yacht Club. Perhaps Fred Mabbett had chartered a yacht on the East Coast.There are some yacht racing photos in this collection.

Below are all the photos in the spectator set, including a larger version of the header photo.

Header Photo: Where Is This?

I have noticed in the bloggosphere that these quiz posts about mystery locations are very popular. The blogger puts out some picture with some obscure hints about where it was taken, or the context, people comment about where they think the photo was taken; someone, obviously brilliant or good at Google searches, comes up with the correct answer. This one has a little twist.

I have no clue where this vintage photo was taken.

I have puzzled over it for several months and come up with two educated guesses and one obvious fact.

• The photo was probably taken in the 1913 to 1918 time frame.
• Given the size and abundance of large yachts, this may be the dressing of the fleet for the New York Yacht Club Cruise.
• There is a parade of small craft, canoes, rowing skiffs for the spectators, with youngsters swimming off a large houseboat-structure.

So this may be one of the old yacht clubs on Long Island Sound - or not? I emailed someone at Larchmont Y.C who wrote back that it wasn't Larchmont Y.C, that he had an good idea of where it was and then was never heard from again.

To add to the confusion, here is another photo in the set (that may not be in the same location) that shows a gazebo and yachts, but also shows a rocky shore indicating a Maine location, or possible a L.Y.R.A rendezvous on Lake Ontario (this was my first guess but a L.Y.R.A. get together would not have so many large yachts, only the wealth of New York City could support this in the early 1900's).

Have at it.

Oh, and here is the schedule for the New York Yacht Club Cruise - from the 1916 issue of Rudder magazine. (As always, click on any of the pics to get a larger view.)