Monday, December 29, 2014

Archipelago Rally 2014

Earwigoagin has been reporting on the exploits of the Tuthill sisters racing their boat-speed challenged Snark in this one-race, come one, come all, Portsmouth handicap event hosted, every November, in a different nook and cranny of Rhode Island coastline.
This year (gasp!) the Tuthill sisters jettisoned their Snark for the race, thinking they had upped their game with a lateen-rigged dink and. as it is frequently fore-ordained when you change a good thing, they unfortunately dropped the rig during the race (looks like the jury-rigged thwart lashing to hold up the mast failed). The younger sister, usually a bored, disinterested observer, was now called to the thankless and ultimately futile duty of becoming a human sidestay. These two documented the race and the disaster in a very amusing video.




Originator Chris Museler was undoubtedly pleased to have +40 boats attend this year (including the hastily splashed Crosby Skimmer Moth). I have lifted some photos from Rufus Van Gruisen's album.

The Tuthill sisters with Maharaja in "reef" mode.




My favorite "micro" dinghy, the Cape Cod Frosty.


A catboat and Penquin at the take-out ramp.


This fellow in the Zuma dinghy has a passing facial resemblance to the blogmeister (at least the mustache).



Click here for more photos from the Archipelago Rally Facebook page.

6 comments:

Tillerman said...

This looks like a fun event. Must get round to doing it one year. Perhaps with a grandkid or two on my Laser.

Tillerman said...

I think the Frosty sailor is Eli Slater who used to maintain an excellent blog about Frosty sailing. His URL eliblog.com now seems to have been taken over by the Japanese.

Tweezerman said...

Tillerman,

Yes, I as well read Eli Slater's blog. I wrote a homage to Eli's blog back in 2011 in the post about the WOOD regatta.

"Eli wrote a very interesting boat blog called "Eli Boat", sadly, no longer around. This blog "Earwigoagin" owes much of it's style to Eli Boat. I had an interesting conversation with Eli and Ross, most of it centered around the Frosty dinghy, a class in which both are top competitors."

Trevor said...

The micro dinghies look pretty fun!

George A said...

So what's the deal with the Iceland flag? Do the Tuthill's have an Icelandic connection?

Tweezerman said...

Trevor, Cape Cod Frosty plans are available from the association.

George, Good pickup. I initially thought it was the Union Jack but now see that it is not. I have no idea why the Tuthill sisters are flying the Iceland flag but one of the strongly encouraged traditions of the Arc Rally is for each competitor to fly a personal flag.