The photo is obviously staged but does show a sailing day trip to the New Jersey bays. The growth of the railroads out to the New Jersey shore allowed the Philadelphia and New York crowd to enjoy day trips where local watermen would gladly take them out on "party" catboats, or if you were adventurous, you could rent out the smaller sneakbox for a sail. Date for the photo...my guess is the 1890's. No idea of the actual location.
3 comments:
The design looks similiar to a sneak box design in Howard Chapelles book 'American Small Sailing Craft'.
What always intrigues me about many historic sailing photos is what people are wearing. Often the men are wearing a coat and tie and in this case the lady looks well entrenched in the expected role of being a formally dressed passenger.
Tacking might be a problem with those hats...
Bill,
I have a feeling that this was a pure gunning sneakbox and the sail was only set when going downwind. I also have a feeling that the couple in the photo didn't really go sailing in the sneakbox (they may have taken it out for a romantic row).
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