The Toronto Dinghy

Several years ago I was working on a sailing history project on the Genesee Dinghy, one of the earliest North American racing dinghies. It never got farther than a couple of chapters. Last week a canoe sailing historian contacted me with a question and I dug out the first chapter, "The Toronto Dinghy", which detailed the precursor to the Genesee Dinghy, the two Toronto dinghies introduced at the end of the 19th century. I reproduce a PDF of the first chapter here for the few Earwigoagin readers who are interested in early North American small boat history.

(As always, use the pop-out icon, top right, to open the PDF in another tab for printing or download.)



The George Aykroyd 14 footer would become the turn-of-the-century L.S.S.A. restricted 14-footer class.

And more L.S.S.A 14 history from the CBIFDA blog.

Some crash and burn to close out 2019!

The first race of the 2019 U.K. Moth Championships featured big breeze and spectacular wipe-outs. (As a change of pace, at the 2:04 mark it is amusing to see a rather slow submerge to a slow endo.)

Header Photo: Bermuda Fitted Dinghy; Transom Shot

Over the years, through several blog posts, Tweezerman has shown the Bermuda Fitted Dinghy a lot of love. They are just so damn photogenic. The previous header photo was a transom shot of "Victory" (at least this is my best guess). This and the following photos of the Bermuda Fitted Dinghy have been lifted from FB.

Music Whenever: Hot Sardines "I Wanna Be Like You"

Let's get some foot-tapping and hand-clapping going!

Header Photo: 110's bashing upwind

The previous header photo was of a pair of 110 keelboats bashing upwind back in the 1970's. The 110 was an odd-ball 1936 Ray Hunt design, born in the Great Depression era. The hull was a double-ended, narrow canoe shape, flat-bottomed. I've bumped into them occasionally.  At a wedding at Ocean City Y.C, New Jersey in early 2000's I found a small fleet on trailers in the dinghy park. There was also one that showed up at the WOOD regatta back in 2011. My friend Tom Price has one awaiting restoration. I've never sailed on a 110.

The class was originally strong in New England with pockets scattered throughout the U.S. In the present day, it seems most of the 110 activity in the U.S. has shifted West; just north of San Francisco; Tomales Bay, with a fleet at the Inverness Y.C.

More history on the Ray Hunt Ten-Series designs.

The distinctive shape of the 110 can be seen in this heeled-over photo pulled from the InterWebs.

James W. Laws

The specs for the 110 as put out in the OD-OY magazine's annual class review. The hull weight is 412 kg (910 lbs.) which is identical to some of our heaviest North American dinghies.

An early photo of Hull No. 33.

The Playboy Bunny

Next year is the fiftieth anniversary of the Teacup Regatta, the regatta famous for introducing the world to the Laser (originally named TGIF, Thank God it's Friday). The above photo is from the article on the Teacup Regatta in the December 1970 issue of One-Design and Offshore Yachting. OD-OY came up with the idea of pitting all the 1970 American off-the-beach sailboats in a regatta and judging competition and did all the leg work in putting the event together. The Teacup Regatta was held on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about a two hour drive from Chicago. In 1969 Hugh Hefner had opened a huge Playboy resort on Lake Geneva, hence this photo of a trio of Playboy Bunnies taking a spin on one of the competing dinghies between races.

This photo jogged the old memory banks about my own Lake Geneva and Playboy Bunny story. Two or three years later, as a poor college student on summer break, I decided to enter the O'Day cup, a singlehanded championship of the old USYRU (U.S. Yacht Racing Union). You qualified in ascending elimination rounds (club to district to region and then to the finals). I didn't have any lofty aspirations; my racing skills were somewhat rudimentary, but it was a cheap way to get in some sailboat racing as the host club supplied the boats and entry fees were either free or nominal. My local club, Berlin Yacht Club, put my name forward and I awaited being told where to go for the Ohio-Pennsylvania district eliminations. It turned out that there was only one other club to put up a name and he dropped out. Without sailing a race I had qualified for the Midwest Regional O'Day eliminations.

The Midwest Regional O'Days were to be held by the Lake Geneva Y.C. in Lasers, a 500+ mile trip from my home and I didn't own a car. During the 1970's this was no problem  as hitchhiking was a viable means of getting around. I had already crisscrossed the Midwest several times on the kindness of others stopping to give me a lift. I duly made it into Lake Geneva. (This may have been the time the rides dried up late at night and I had to spend the night at the Milwaukee Airport; elevator music, bright lights and trying to sleep across three hard seats.) The regatta was midweek and there were four or five of us racing in typical on-off, shifty lake conditions. I finished third or a close fourth, the memory is hazy, but I was fine with that. I had no plan B if I had improbably qualified for the finals and had to figure out how to get to a regatta during the school year and far away.

The Lake Geneva YC had their midweek evening summer series during the O'day eliminations and I got a crewing job on a M-16 scow. (Which has now morphed into the very popular cat-rigged MC scow; the M-16 was main/jib). I remember being miffed at having to handle leeboards on every tack and came away with a better appreciation of my Dad's Y-Flyer scow which was my Berlin YC racing ride.

In the fog of long-ago recollections there is one searing memory from that race and that is of another fellow crew. One of the leading competitors in the M-16 scow class had married a Playboy Bunny who was now his crew. We were far enough back in the race that we didn't cross tacks often with the couple but I did join the gaggle of sailors that surrounded her (bikini-clad) apres-racing. I came away with the impression of a separate female race; not so much titillated by her but more having encountered something genetically unique. Hugh Hefner's vision of an ideal American woman was rooted in the 1950's and 1960's, all jutting breasts, small waist, small butt, very much top-heavy. I had the good sense, even back then, to realize this wasn't the real world.

I never went to the Playboy Club at Lake Geneva during that trip. No money and besides, when hitchhiking, travel times were always open-ended. No time to dawdle. Best to hit the road when things were wrapped up. The Lake Geneva Playboy Club closed in 1981.

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Two videos of the Lake Geneva Playboy Club.

Australian Sailfish: updated plans

News from Down Under. The Australian Sailfish class has updated their plans. From Greg Barwick:

"After many, many months of hard work, writing, editing; reviewing (repeat until you can’t sleep :-)), a new set of Building Instructions, complete with CAD drawn frame diagrams is now available. This has been an enormous task led by our own Chris Cleary, who built a boat as he went along just so he could adjust the Instructions and take photographs There was also a lot of input from Ian Urban (our CAD specialist), Ian Milton and others to get us to this point.

"When we kicked off the website and made the plans available three years ago, we had no idea how popular that would be, so plans have been sent out for the last three years without an allocated number. To mark this relaunch of the Plan Sets we are also starting numbering the plans once again.

"The highest number issued up to now was 3500, so we have decided that we will start the numbering of the new Plan Sets from 3501. I even have the original Plan Sales book to record it in!

"As well as a comprehensive set of Building Instructions, (76 pages) there are two A0 sheets of frame diagrams that will give full size Frame templates, one A0 Centreboard Plan & Section sheet and one A1 Rudder Sheet in each Plan Set.
We have also launched a new section on the website, 'Building . . . a Visual Guide', to be used in conjunction with the Building Instructions, so check that out as well.

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Click here to order a set of Australian Sailfish plans.

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Also a very earnest Earwigoagin TOH to the hard-working folks reviving this great little Australian dinghy.

Header Photo: Zephyr Dinghy OTP

OTP = On the Plane (This was the name of the U.S. International 14 newsletter - not sure if it still is - probably not since newsletters have gone the way of the Dodo bird.)

The previous photo featured the New Zealand Zephyr class ripping along. The Zephyr is one of four 11-footer conventional racing classes featured in the blog (Classic Moth, Europe Dinghy, British Moth, and the Zephyr).

Header Photo: St. Lawrence Skiff

The previous header photo is of the very pretty St. Lawrence Skiff; one of several racing classes I highlighted, over several posts, that doesn't use a rudder. The blog series was titled Look Ma, No Rudder.

Singlehand Dinghy Racing Shorts of 2019

As the night takes over the day during the winter months, time to pop over to YouTube for some vicarious thrills. Here is a compilation of some 2019 singlehanded racing dinghy videos which Earwigoagin has deemed worthy of viewing.

From the Lake Garda video maestro, two junior singlehanded classes that are not the Laser; the O'pen skiff (designed to go after the Opti market) and the Zoom 8 class (a Laser 4.7 alternative).





The English Solo Dinghy class. Move the slider to the 1:40 mark and watch some incredible planing action.



Again, the Worlds most popular Classic Moth, the Europe Dinghy.



And the two classes designed to take down the Laser in the Olympics but couldn't surmount World Sailing politics; the RS Aero and Devoti D Zero.

Watercolor of Solings at the Dock

Found this in the International Soling Association Guide 1992-1995. A beautiful, subtle ink and watercolor  (or ink wash) drawing by Michel Bernard of Paris.

I've Built a Boat in the Attic. Now what do I do?

I found this vintage gem on the Riverton Historical website. How to get a newly built Duster hull out of the top floor of a Victorian home using what looks to be a flagpole.

Header Photo: 2019 Classic Moth Nationals

Ingrid Albaugh

The previous header photo was taken as the fleet crawled upwind in the light air of the 2019 Classic Moth Nationals. Twenty three Classic Moths registered for the Nationals, a definite bump-up in numbers compared with the last couple of years. This can be traced to the large number of juniors racing; the fruits of the push by E-city Mothists and Joe Bousquet to get more juniors in these great little boats. The other notable was the success overall of the Vintage class, bolstered by two experienced Mothists, Gary Gowan (Gen I winner in previous years), and John Zseleczky (top competitor in the Gen II class with a 2nd place in the Nationals) sailing Vintage this year. Walt Collins, another wily veteran, won the Gen I class, sailing his design which borrows heavily from the vintage class. The header photo shows some of the top finishers; Walt Collins, foreground, (winner Gen I), John Zseleczky, on the left, (second in Vintage), and Mike Parsons, background, (winner overall and Gen II).

I had also thrown up a header photo of John Zseleczky sailing Tweety, his yellow-decked, vintage Ventnor.

Ingrid Albaugh

The fleet off and running after one of the starts.

Ingrid Albaugh

George A. has the comprehensive report on the Nationals on his blog.

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Overall results. Mike Parsons in his Mistral took home the overall trophy.

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Worth re-posting one of my favorite videos from the E-City Nationals, this one from 2010.

James Island Boy Scout Moth

I've written before about the group small boat building craze in the 1960's. That post featured an article from a 1964 issue of the American magazine, One-Design and Offshore Yachting (OD-OY). I recently came across a similar article in the February 1970 issue of OD-OY, this time featuring a group build of Mothboats. The group was from James Island, just outside of Charleston South Carolina, and the Mothboats became James Island One-Designs.



George A, over at Mid-Atlantic Musings blog, has done a more extensive post on the Boy Scout Moth. It is ironic that two American Mothboat designs, the Skimmer Moth and the Monadnock Moth (or Boy Scout Moth), are probably responsible for more home builds than any other Moth design, even though they never featured in the racing circuit.

Music Whenever: Brunettes Shoot Blondes, "Houston"

A super-modded out musical instrument housed in a grand piano. Plus, great lyrics about a break-up.

Houston we have a problem
That's it I'm going under
Time's up for our love song
We were, just a one hit wonder
Sorry I had to text it
I'm done this is my Brexit
Tried to press rewind
I swear all of my attempts were desperate
Oh, this is so crazy
Go try to amaze me
You fire back
Start yelling in caps
Perhaps you, you'll know better someday
After the party's over
I hate it when we're sober
Play the music louder
Houston, we have a problem

Gotta gotta go down
Falling into bits
Is it time to say
It's all over now
Gotta gotta go down
If the pieces fit
Is it time we could
Start all over now

I gotta gotta go down
Gotta gotta go down
I gotta gotta go down
Gotta gotta go down

Houston, we have a problem
Come get me out from under
I've been playing my part so hard
Are you still there, I wonder
Sorry, but I'm in the taxi
Shit-talking from the backseat
I've been running away
On my way down
To this dead end street
Oh so we're just crazy
Go keep on erasing all my tracks
Say I was a mess, I guess
You, you know better someday
After the party's over
Call back when it gets colder
Play my music louder
Houston, we have a problem

Gotta gotta go down
Falling into bits
Is it time to say
It's all over now
Gotta gotta go down
If the pieces fit
Is it time we could
Start over now

I gotta gotta go down
Gotta gotta go down
I gotta gotta go down
Gotta gotta go down

I gotta gotta go down
Gotta gotta go down
I gotta gotta go down

The Jester Dinghy: The Known and the Unknown

Of late, I've been inexorably sucked into a tale of the two Jester Dinghies, one known, one unknown.

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The known Jester:

When doing a Google search, the Jester Dinghy that pops up is a 8' dink designed by Santa Cruz ULDB designer George Olson, and built by Ron Moore in the 1970's. The Jesters raced out of the Santa Cruz, harbor; a cramped short harbor, the shoreline packed full of boats and docks, the north harbor and south harbor split by a bridge. The Jester has the reputation as one of the scariest boats to sail in a breeze, probably because the short hull features the fine ends of a rowing dink combined with a large, high aspect ratio rig, stepped right at the bow. This must amp up the bow-down power downwind to uncontrollable levels. Reference this quote from Latitude 38 magazine, July 2018, page 86:

"Skip [Allan] says the only way to jibe [a Jester] when it's windy is, "You run it into the beach, turn it around, and hop back in."

Although I've passed through Santa Cruz a couple of times in my travels, I have never seen this Jester in the flesh.

The previous header photo, plucked from the Internet, shows Jesters racing in an expansive body of water; which is obviously not the Santa Cruz harbor. You can make out the very fine, wineglass transom which suggests the Jester was more designed for rowing than sailing.

Racing in the Santa Cruz Harbor. If the sail numbers are correct, it looks like the class made it to 200 boats.

I do like the stylized logo of this Jester.

Famed naval architect, Paul Bieker, (International 14 boffin with success in that class rivaling fellow North American Bruce Kirby) put together a modified Jester for his son. (It appears the molds for the Jester have ended up in Northwest Washington State.) He has designed a gaff rig for his Jester, similar to the one he introduced on his high performance PT Dinghy, a Tasar-killer 14 foot design.

Paul had a sail made out of Tyvek which lasted a good five years.

The Santa Cruz Jester based on a generic East Coast Dinghy?

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The unknown Jester:

The last two years, on my walkabouts around my hometown of Annapolis, I had noticed a mystery dinghy tied up to the floating dock of St. John's College. It obviously was a main and jib dinghy, the length was shorter than 14 feet (4.26 meters), the design had high freeboard and she was very simply rigged. Despite staring at it for a while, I could not ID this class. I shrugged. One of those unknowns.

But it was not to be left at that. Over the summer, my good friend Mike Waters, became the latest St. John's sailing coach/boatshop manager. I gave him a hand at an Intro to Sailing event he ran at the beginning of the school year. I was taking groups out in this very same dinghy I had been pondering over. It was slow but commodious for it's size with some nice bench seats. It was then I learned that this dinghy that had been donated to the St. John's program was a different Jester class dinghy; American built, but otherwise origins unknown.

Since then Mike has hauled the Jester out to have the bottom scraped of a healthy growth of barnacles and to get some paint on her. With the hull flipped over, the hull design is very interesting; a flat bottom forward with a circular transom. This is definitely not a rerun design of Uffa Fox's formulaic deep forefoot with straight flat aft sections.

Mike with the sanded Jester on the trailer.

Flat U-sections forward. Max rocker amidships. The little data we were to glean from the Internet has the Jester at 12 foot (3.6 meters) length and 5 foot (1.5 meters) beam. Both Mike and I feel the Jester has potential in a college program like St. John's (where racing isn't the priority and the waters on College Creek are very cramped.). We are just wondering who designed her and who built her. (Again, the Internet seems to point to Ohio, but who knows.)

The Jester logo on the sail.

The rudder has the more modern rectangular shape. We are guessing a 1970's build time frame for the St. John's Jester. Anyone that has come across this Jester class in their sailing lifetime, please leave a comment.

Mike Waters in front of the St. John's boat house doors. The college has a sizeable fleet of crew shells as well as sailboats.

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Bingo, We now have the designer of the St. John's Jester Dinghy. From a comment:

The Jester was designed and built by Cleveland, OH Sailboat dealer Jack Butte. Jack sold primarily one design daysailers, and saw an opportunity to use the influence of the Thistle, Flying Scot, and Rhodes Bantam to design a 12’ dinghy... My parents sailed with Jack Butte at Edgewater Yacht Club, and I sailed with his daughter as part of the junior sailing program

Header Photo: Fireball World Championships in Montreal

Urs Hardi

Until it crossed my FB feed, I didn't realize that the International Fireball class had held their World Championships in North America this past August; hosted by Pointe-Claire Yacht Club in Montreal, Canada. Winds really picked up for the last day of the championship when this photo was taken. Brits, Ian Dobson and Richard Wagstaff won with Australia, Switzerland, Belgium, Czech Republic and France representing a good mix of countries rounding out the top ten; .

I came into contact with the Fireball as a teenager in the late 1960's when my Dad moved the family to Youngstown, Ohio, a steel town in Northeast Ohio. In this most unlikely of sailing cities, there was an active Fireball fleet sailing on Pymatuning Lake, north of town. It was a fleet nourished by an even more unlikely sailor, Ken Turney. Ken loved the Fireball. He had his own boat shop in Youngtown's southern suburb, Boardman where he imported glass Fireball's built in Calgary. Ken was blue collar through and through. He had been a machinist at one of the steel plants and his standard outfit was a one-piece coverall, grungy, longitudinally striped in grey/black, with the neckline unbuttoned to reveal a grand tuft of silver chest hair topped with a broad Slavic face. Ken even raced Fireballs wearing this coverall. (One of my friends, in a not so charitable teenage side comment, remarked that it appeared Ken had a pet squirrel permanently tucked into the V-line of his coverall.) Ken would hold court at his cinder block boat shop, talking about Fireballs to one and all, building a small hot bed of performance dinghy sailing in this inland steel city; in a country not known for performance dinghies.

I actually didn't race the Fireball that much. I crewed several times on the Lake in very light winds. Unfortunately, I've never been on a Fireball in trapeze weather. Fifty years on, Ken Turney's legacy ticks along. A small group of Fireballs are still sailing out of the Pymatuning Sailing Club.

Other Earwigoagin Fireball Posts

• Remembering Peter Bateman.
• Fireball to Classic Moth.
• WOOD Regatta.
• RazMoth II

How to dig back into Earwigoagin

Just a reminder. If you want to explore back into, what has become, with close to eleven years of rambling posts, a massive tome of a blog, the best bet is to do a Google search on Earwigoagin images.

Thames Raters in the English "Three Rivers Race"

Two Thames Raters, the ultimate river sailing machine, in close quarters during the Three Rivers Race. The little camp chair on the back deck is not normal gear but necessary in this race. The mast has to be dropped several times to get under bridges and the chair keeps the mast in place when down.

Header Photo: Vintage Aussie 18; Leeward Gunwhale Close to Gone

This one has been up for a while. A great photo of Avalon looking to cross the threshold of no return. The "Open Boat" forum on FB continuously posts great vintage photos of the Eighteen's; enough quantity I could keep using them as header photos for Earwigoagin over the next year.

What's happened to this blog?

A few of you may have wondered what has happened to this blog. I've been off drawing. You know, the art thing that old people get into. Mostly nudes. Go figure.

Music Whenever: Leroy Justice covers Prince's "Purple Rain"

An acoustic version that works.

Music Whenever: Walk off the Earth "Walking on the Moon"

A boppy cover of the Police song to commemorate the first Moon landing, hence the mock up of Mission Control. The video was aided and abetted by Velcro. See how many uses of Velcro you can spot.

Header Photo: International Canoe U.K. Nationals

Rick Bowers

The last header photo was a beautiful waterline shot taken during the 2019 International Canoe U.K. Nationals. More International Canoe posts.

Time to return to a Mini Transat 6.5 post

Nothing like watching some Mini Transat 6.5's let loose downwind. Sit back and get your Internet virtual buzz-on.

Douglas Fowler Sends along another mystery hull

Douglas Fowler, he of the Mystery Sailing Canoe, picked up this interesting half model and has, yet again began the fun part; the research to figure out what this boat is.

The bow sheerline indicates a rough water boat. Douglas thinks a rowboat but I thought most rowboats sport a skeg. The sheerline does remind me of a painting, The Big Dory, by American artist, George Bellows - he of the Ashcan school; though the shape of this half model is definitely not a dory.

Duster Plans

I've had a request for the Duster plans so here they are in PDF format. As always click on the arrow icon in the top right to open in another tab for printing or downloading.

Header Photo: Joe Bousquet at it again!

Ingrid Albaugh

The 2018 CMBA (Classic Mothboat Association) national champ, Joe Bousquet, is a restless soul. Not content with winning, he branches out, searching for yet another Mothboat design that will bring him victory. He showed up at the June Brigantine regatta, having modified an early Magnum 2 design (sitting for years in his garage) to fit the CMBA rules (I won't bore the reader at how he cleverly used the rules to make this winged design legal.) The experiment wasn't a success. Joe capsized a lot and one of the capsizes was captured by Ingrid Albaugh. It may be too early to write the Magnum off. Joe has a grit to keep going on a project despite initial failures.

Joe, in his Swiss Miss, a Dunand design, winning the 2018 Nationals. (The first non-Mistral design to do that in twenty years.)

Man Overboard: Bermuda Fitted Dinghy

The previous header photo was of a sailor who became partially disconnected from his Bermuda Fitted Dinghy and is desperately trying to maintain his grip (as they say). This was a set of early season photos posted on Facebook. The always photogenic Bermuda Fitted Dinghy has been featured three previous times in the header photo of Earwigoagin.

View all articles on the Bermuda Fitted Dinghy.

A sampling of photos of the Bermuda Fitted Dinghy from the same FB batch.

The start in the Bermuda Fitted Dinghy class is casting off from both sides a stake boat, in this case a working craft (tugboat maybe?). No idea how they determine the order or the side you will start from.

Lots of crew for a 14 footer, hence not much freeboard.

OOF! Massive squall hits the Bol d'Or mirabaud race.

A massive squall rolled through the Bol d'Or mirabaud race on Lake Geneva. This is a long distance race featuring a wide assortment of multihulls and keelboats. Luckily no fatalities in the race though a tourist died on a sightseeing boat.

Facebook has a short clip.

A view from the mast-base-cam of one of the competitors.

Header Photo: British Moths Sending It!

The previous header photo was of a British Moth,; "in a bit of a bother" as they would say in England. I have written several posts on the British Moth, as well as featuring the class in two header photos. The class seems to have a knack in getting photographers that offer up some stunning sailing shots. Here are some brilliant photos from the same webpage, same championship. Perhaps some reader can off up the photographers name?

Having a daggerboard lunch.

Yee-haw!

A scow bow parts the waves.

Music Whenever: The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band "Poor Until Payday"

Nothing more 'Murican" than good, old, rock-a-billy. And a parade to boot! (with what looks to be a wide-body Cadillac - no better representation of Murican bigness!)

Header Photo: Big Tasmanian Dinghy

As you would guess, I have a lot of sailing images collected from the Web; some filed in generic terms that give me no help in identifying them when I want to post them up on Earwigoagin. This great photo is one of them. I filed it under New Zealand-boat-planing, but I have no idea what class it is. This is quite a large dinghy, planing quite happily. I peg the date to be immediate post WWII. I'll see if any of my readers can fill in the details.

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I figured it would be Neil Kennedy, Antipodean historian par excellence, that would set me straight on this photo. Neil writes:

"That [photo] is definitely NOT a NZ class; we didn't ever wear white sailing gear and "Aussie Sunhats". I think you will find that the picture is of a 21ft restricted class that was sailed in Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia from the early 1900's till the 1950's. They had a challenge trophy which was fought out on an interstate challenge basis with a level of intensity to rival the NYY (New York Yankess for those not versed in American sports culture) v Red Socks saga's. I have a feeling that they originally sailed for the "Stonehaven Cup", donated by a Lord Stonehaven for interstate competition, but not 100% certain on that. I think a couple have been restored in Tasmania, and were featured in recent "Classic Yacht regatta's held in Hobart. Like all Aussie yachts they carried plenty of Rag ( sail) and a crew of hefty footballers to keep them afloat."

TOH to Neil of NedsLocker.

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More digging around the web shows this is the Tasmanian 21ft. Restricted Class, Tassie Too, recently restored. And the Interdominion Cup was called the Forster Cup. From the Royal Brighton Y.C. Victoria history:

Header Photo: English Moths Launching - Early 70's

Lowrider Moth Facebook Page

The previous header photo is of English Moths launching in the early 1970's. (I'm guessing) The International Rule had just been introduced and, in this transition period, you still see a wide variety of hulls and rigs. It wouldn't be long after this that the class started moving inexorably down the path of narrow skiffs with wings pushed out to max beam. On the left foreground you see the production Skol design, in the middle foreground, a scow, and on right foreground, the Duflos. In the background there is the mixture of the low-aspect Circle M rigs mixed in with the high-aspect Australian rig.

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While we are on the topic of the European Moths of this period, John Claridge, who would become the premier European builder of Moths through the 1970's and into the early 1990's, sends along his recollections of the epic heavy-air slugfest that was race 3 of the 1968 Moth Worlds. It is an interesting read.



Some photos that have been popping up on the Lowrider Moth Facebook group:

One of the light air starts during the 1968 Worlds. The Swiss and French contingent of Duflos designs with Finn-type rigs, that were to dominate the light air races and in the overall results, have launched out quickly in the left of this photo.

The KM Moth was one of the finishers in race 3. Here returning through the breakwater. From G. Albaugh, "I seem to recall seeing this photo years ago and if memory serves it was captioned as being John Shelley, sailing, at that time, from Malta." John mentions in his article that John Shelley was using a hockey stick mast, which this Moth seems to be using, so G.A.'s ID seems good-to-go.

The following photos are not of race 3 but I think they are from 1968 (maybe the European championship). A heavy air beat  in a good sea. All low-rigged Moths.