OD-OY Cover: Thistle Planing

Another post about the straight-stemmed vintage dinghies. From the July 1967 issue of One Design and Offshore Yachtsman magazine, a stunning photo by Peter Barlow of a Thistle bombing along on the sparkling sea.

Peter Barlow

I lived out in Ohio at the same time as this photo. Ohio seemed to be the epicenter of the Thistle kingdom, (the Ohio-Penn District Championships regularly saw fleets of 60 or more in the 1960's.) I raced on the Thistle several times. There is no better light air dinghy going. It was said to be faster than the Flying Dutchman when the wind turned to zephyrs so it was an ideal dinghy for the Midwest Lakes. I crewed on one in a big blow in Lake Erie once, but that is a story for another post.

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Beautifully restored wood Thistles show up occasionally. This is from the 2012 Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival in 2012.

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That Pesky Lee Shore: Europa Moth Fail

From the February, 1971 issue of OD-OY.

Lee shores are always tricky, especially if the run-in is framed by rock jetties. I ran an International Canoe straight into the beach once, but that is another story. Sometimes the safest option is to lower the main when you can still get head-to-wind and scull your way to shore.  Or leave the main about 1/4 the way up and get gently blown to shore. (Lasers and other sleeve-luff classes excluded.)

I was scratching my name at the weirdness of this Europa Moth's chemical name, "Paradichlorobenzene" until I looked it up on the InterWebs.

"Paradichlorobenzene is used as a fumigant insecticide to control clothes moths... Mothballs containing paradichlorobenzene are solids that turn into toxic gas that kills moths."

Looks like this Moth was still in payback mode for the skipper's cheeky frivolity.

Winners of the America's Teacup Regatta

In my post about The Playboy Bunny, I mentioned that 2020 is the 50th anniversary of the America's Teacup trials on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Here, from the OD-OY article on the regatta, are the winners from the various divisions racing in the Teacup. Only two of these classes (the Laser and the Hobie) would make a big impact on worldwide sailing.

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.

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.

OD-OY Art Covers from 1965

The American sailing magazine, One-Design and Offshore Yachtsman, in modern times, morphed into Sailing World, actively published art covers back in the 1960's. Here is the sampling of the OD-OY covers from 1965.

Gerado Contreras did two very expressionist covers for OD-OY in 1965.

Gerado Contreras

Another Gerado Contreras cover.

Gerado Contreras

Jim Dewitt, a San Francisco artist, has been very famous for his sailing paintings, for over 40 years. He is the one artist that seems to intimately capture the breadth of action in sailing. Here is his OD-OY cover in 1965 with big-boat action getting the sails trimmed.

Jim Dewitt

Ted Brennan was one of the major illustrators of the One Design and Offshore Yachtsman. His pen and ink sketches made it onto the cover several times. (I am sure the starter's pistol would be very mistaken in today's culture - and I think it very odd to include it even back in the 1960's, especially with the theme of youngsters and model boats.)

Ted Brennan

Another Ted Brennan sketch of the weekend exodus out to the sailing club, or the lake outside the city, or the weekend regatta, or to the big water.

Ted Brennan

The Group Boat Building Phenonema of the 1960's and the We-sort

Michael Storer mentioned in his history of the Oz Goose box boat that the ongoing group building effort in the Philippines became a key contributor to getting a good size fleet of Oz Goose's going in an area not known to be a yachting center. This reminded me how community group building in the 1960's (particularly in the U.S.A) played a huge role in the emerging popularity of the small sailing dinghy. All sorts of local chined plywood classes, Dusters, Rhode Bantams, El Toros ... were built over the winter, by groups of mostly Dad's, led by one or two experienced woodworkers, the rest following along. Usually ten or so dinghies with all the sailing bits and pieces were banged out, the hulls chosen by lot to be taken home to be painted and fitted out. This was before stitch and glue construction so most construction required a mold, which would be taken out of storage the next winter for a different group. Several winters of building would give a large and active fleet for summer training and racing.

Below is an article by Ed Perry from a 1964 issue of One-Design and Offshore Yachtsman about a community group build of the Blue Jay, the 13 foot Sparkman and Stephens junior trainer. Use the pop-out icon in the top-right to put the article in another tab on the browser for easier reading.

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The 12' We-sort, a jaunty, flat-bottom, plywood skiff with sloop rig, was our local 1960's class. The We-sort was group built in the various communities that border the Severn River, just above Annapolis. It came out of the Indian Landing Boat Club that sat at the headwaters of the Severn River.

"Will Jacobs, caretaker of the Indian Landing Boat Club property for many years had several rowboats he rented out to locals. His boats rowed easily and were simple to build. The form had been worked up by Willie’s ancestors, Algonquin Indians, who were also responsible for the name of the area. The Indian tribe referred to themselves as We-Sorts and everyone else as They-Sorts. It seemed fitting to name the sailing/rowing skiff the We-Sort. Led by William Sands, who drew up the plans and added the sailing bits, the sailboats were built by club members in basements, garages, and in some cases living rooms. The We-Sort was a perfect fit for youngsters. It was very stable, which made the young sailors comfortable to be out on the water. By 1961, thirteen of he We-Sorts had been built."

The one-page informational blurb on the We-sort:



Tom Price, artist, learned to sail in a We-sort and drew this pencil sketch of a racing group going upwind.

Tom Price, pencil

Alan Dove has put up a couple of posts about the We-sort and I have pulled the following photos from his site.

Dennis Buckley

Dennis Buckley

From the One-Design and Offshore Yachtsman, January, 1967 class review guide:

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CBMM, Chesapeake Maritime Museum over at St. Michaels, did a group build of We-sort's. They used the fleet for a summer training program for a couple of years but I think they now only have plastic boats for sail training.

Addendum: Pete Lesher, chief curator, fills us in on the history of the We-sorts at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. (Pulled from the comments.)

"Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum's fleet of 6 We-Sorts was constructed in the late 1980s after We-Sort #2, Wee Lass, was donated to the museum. They were used for 15 years or so in the museum's summer sailing camp. At one point, a couple of the hulls were damaged in a fire in off-season storage, and at least two replacement hulls were built. When the We-Sorts were worn out from hard use, the museum considered a replacement fleet, but the sailing instructor at the time led the museum to instead acquire a fleet of plastic JY-15s. Some of the We-Sorts were sold, but one or two still remain, their rigs long gone, as rowing craft in the museum's summer boat livery. The youth sailing camp has been discontinued."

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Wesort dinghy, WeSort skiff.

Header Photo: The Dutch grote BM 16m2

 

Although I can't see the sail logo in this photo, I'm confident the previous header photo is of the woodie Dutch class, the grote BM 16m2. This is the second time I've done a header photo post on this class. You can read the first post on the 16m2, a post which has more background history. The 16m2 also features in a post I did on an unique method of recovering the 16m2 from the water to dry land.

I've also mentioned that the U.S.A. had their own version of the 16m2, the Celebrity class, now defunct. The Celebrity was built in fiberglass and had the more modern Marconi rig. From the 1968 One Design and Offshore Yachtsman sailboat catalog:

OD-OY Review: The Elvstrom Junior Dinghy

Paul Elvstrom, who, for my generation, is the greatest racing sailor of all time, introduced this dinghy in the 1960's. About the same size and weight as the Philip Rhode's cat-rigged dinghy, the Penguin , it obviously had nowhere near the popularity of the Penguin - in fact I have never, in all my travels, come across this dinghy. It remains a ghost, an entry, 50-odd years ago, in the One Design and Offshore Yachtsman's magazine annual review of dinghies, nothing more. It would be very interesting if a reader could direct me to an extant example of an Elvstrom Junior.

[Update: 05/06/17] After this post had been up for six months, Mike Scott came across an ad for the Elvstrom Jr. that was posted on Facebook. I've chunked the ad into four pieces.

This photo of the Jr. car-topped on a Beetle shows clearly the outside buoyancy tanks.

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Similar in size and weight to the Elvstrom Junior, the American Philip Rhodes Penguin (from this post).

And some geezer bloggers admiring a Penquin dinghy.

Header Photo: The El Toro dinghy

The previous header photo was of two El Toro dinghies racing. The El Toro is a 8' (2.438 meter) V-shaped, single chine, transom bowed dink, one of the many variations of the 1939 MacGregor Sabot design. Here is the entry for the El Toro in the annual class review issue of One-Design and Offshore Yachtsman magazine, circa mid 1960's.

I learned to sail in an El Toro. My family moved to Maryland in the early 1960's and we bought a house in a community with a beach and small boat launching. My Dad decided we should learn to sail and for some reason he decided our first boat was going to be the diminuative El Toro, a glass version built in California and sold by a local sailboat dealer. Initially it was my Dad, my brother and I taking it out on Sappington's Creek; learning by doing. My Dad eventually decided the El Toro was too small and bought a 16 foot Rebel sailboat for family sailing. My brother just wasn't into sailing as I was. Through attrition, the El Toro became my personal watercraft, the gateway to endless summer adventures on the Severn River. I have written about some of my experiences in my El Toro dink in this previous post and also this post.

One of my most vivid memories was the first time I capsized the El Toro. As we were learning to sail the El Toro out of Severndale Beach, many times we were also accompanied by two other small wooden sailboats sporting novice sailors; a Wee-Sort 11 footer with jib and an even smaller 6 foot dinghy sailed by a friend who was the same age as me. The 6 foot sailboat was built by the father who also ingeniously made a small trailer for the boat that could be towed behind a bicycle (our community beach was about 1/2 mile and across a busy road from the community).

The day I capsized, both the 6 footer and I, in my El Toro, were sailing just off the community beach. The wind was swirly and gusty and I was dumping the main and rather fearfully watching the gunwhale ship water. Suddenly the 6 footer capsized and there was much shouted instructions from the adults on the dock. Eventually a rowboat was commandeered to traverse the 30 yards to help my friend. I, my ego near bursting, was congratulating myself on handling conditions my friend obviously found too overwhelming, when, wham!, over I went as well. I remember the initial shock and surprise to find myself swimming alongside the sail but then my book-learning kicked in. Per my readings, I had to get on the daggerboard and lever the sailboat back upright. That I did, after some time since I was a scrawny kid, and the El Toro came up, mostly filled with water (this El Toro just had a small bow tank and a small stern tank for flotation). I slithered into the water-logged cockpit, was able to bail some water out and then creep toward shore. I can't remember if I took the mainsail down and paddled in or if I was able to sail in. Either way, I was back on the shore and the adults didn't have to come out to get me.

That was the green light. That capsize and successful self-rescue replaced fear with self-confidence. I was now set to go beyond the creek and to places far into the river.

OD-OY Review: The Peanut Dinghy

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Update, March 12, 2020. Class reforming. From Jeff Moses:

"I was just able to obtain 2 Peanuts from The Augusta Sailing Club! I will be taking lines off these boats and restoring both of them. I will be offering plans, kits and complete boats to new members. We will be hosting a National Championship in 2021. You can reach me at the US Peanut Class Association, Jeff Moses, President, 490 N. Stewart St., North Liberty, Iowa 52317. Jmoses9967 (with our good friends over here at) gmail.com and 319 530 9967."

December 2020 - Jeff is going to set up a Facebook Group. More details to come.

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Ah! Memories of teenage lust ..... for a boat.

Around the age of 12, I learned to sail on an El Toro and shortly after, started to learn to race as a crew on an International 14. I became obsessed with sailing and, sometime in the 1960's, when the annual class review of the One-Design and Offshore Yachtsman came out, I spied this blurb on the Peanut class and fell in love.

Slightly longer than my El Toro and much racier, I dreamed of owning this beauty. I sent away to the class secretary and got one or two mimeographed sheets with some grainy photos in the return post. I could have bought some plans but, I was, at that time, inept with the basic hand tools and my dad wasn't much better. The money I saved from my lawn cutting jobs was to be used for other purposes.

When I was in my twenties, in a short foray in the Finn dinghy, I sailed a regatta out of Sayville, New York, just up the road from the Peanut Class home port of West Islip. My teenage obsession had long passed and I never thought of making a quick 10 mile (16km) side-trip to see if I could find a Peanut dinghy in the flesh.

In the ensuing years, despite inquiries to any Long Island sailor who has crossed my path, not one person has come forward as knowing anything of the the Peanut dinghy of West Islip, let alone have I been able to find a person who has seen one. It seems to be a class that appeared and disappeared very quickly, leaving not much trace.

But it still remains, to me, as one of those warm, fuzzy memories of early teenage years

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Addendum January 2019: An ad for a fiberglass Peanut from Yacht Racing, February 1972.

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Addendum January 2020: In an email, Jeff Moses adds to the history of the Peanut dinghy.

"Arnold R. JOHNSON and his wife Lydia lived in Westo (revive the t!) Islip. She was the class secretary. Plans were $8.50. Fleets raced in the Nationals at West Islip YC and Babylon YC. Arnold worked at Grumman as an engineer. We had a fleet here in Iowa. Bernie Kuse, a professor at ISU in Ames, built several. I owned two. Fleets were in Florida also. Several hundred boats were built.

Jeff is looking for plans for the Peanut. If you know of the whereabouts of such plans, leave a comment.

Jeff also sent along photos of a Peanut that was in a Long Island Museum. I didn't realize the Peanut was a double bottom dinghy. (It wasn't, at least initially... The original design was a single bottom hull.)

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Addendum December 2020: Phil Johnson, son of Arnold Johnson, contacted me and supplied more history of the Peanut class, including photos and the background of his father. A fascinating man. (More of that later.) Phil's recollections of the Peanut:

"My memories of the Peanut were that it was versatile but you needed time to understand how your weight placement in the boat affected its performance. Once you became ‘one’ with the boat (and learned how to hike out properly on the rail), it wanted to go fast but you always had to be prepared for that sudden gust that would tip you over. It could beat the crap out of anything upwind and was pretty easy to get up on a plane while reaching. We raced against a lot of Sunfish/Sailfish back then and we would fall behind on downwind legs and always catch them upwind. They were a lot of fun to race as a class! As a trainer, my dad used the ‘Junior’ rig and a weighted centerboard for stability – as I said, versatile."

Here are two photos of the West Islip fleet back in the Peanut's heyday.

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Update December 12, 2020: In a comment I moved over to the main post, Roger Errington adds more to the history of the Peanut Class.

"I learned to sail on [a Peanut] as a kid... My dad got the plans and built a Peanut for me. Must have been the mid 60s. I raced it out of the Otsego Sailing Club on Lake Otsego in upstate New York. Also sailed in the National Championships a couple of times in West Islip. So we knew the designer, Arnold Johnson, pretty well. The Johnsons left Long Island and moved to New Hampshire at some point. I remember some of the other sailors - Lou Jones and Axel Paulsen - believe they were TWA pilots and friends of the Johnsons. My boat has been sitting in a friend's barn in Massachusetts for years. It was a great boat to learn how to sail in. Pretty tender. You had to stay on your toes in gusty conditions or it was easily capsized. One comment about some of the photos: the boat didn't initially have a double bottom. It was a good addition given how wet the boat was and how often it went over."

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Ed. Note: There is also a Norwegian Peanut sailing dink which was hot-molded and imported into the U.S during the 1960's - another instance of a class sharing a name.

Geezer Bloggers gather around a Penguin Dinghy

I went over last weekend to help George A. of Mid-Atlantic Musings> move one of his boat collection into a U-Haul. It wasn't a Moth but a Penguin and was being collected by her new owner. George's Penguin dinghy was one of six originally built in the 1960's by a guy named John Walton in Brigantine, New Jersey. This Penguin, most likely being the sole survivor of the six, was being rightfully reclaimed as a family heirloom by John's son Bill, who had flown up from Texas.

In the photo below, George is going over the history of the Penguin with the blogmeister. Turns out George helped build the six as kid. He was on the centerboard trunk building crew. (Forgive the odd colors of the photo but I wanted to highlight the beautiful interior wood of the Walton Penguin and was working from a very dark I-Phone photo.)

Photo by Bill Walton

And from the 1960's, here is the blurb on the Penguin from the magazine One Design and Offshore Sailing annual small class review, .

Some other posts about the Penguin dinghy.

OD - OY Review: The Duster

In continuing my series on U.S racing/home-built dinghies that were featured in the January issue of the One-Design and Offshore Yachtsman during the 1960's, this post features the 14' Duster, a class originating out of the Riverton Yacht Club, just outside Philadelphia on the Delaware River. A flat-bottom, pram bow dinghy designed to be home built, originally planked and then converted to plywood, the Duster spread throughout New Jersey. It sported a large cat rig, the mainsail even larger than the main on the Finn dinghy.

The beginnings of the Duster sailboat as detailed in the history of the Riverton Yacht Club (from their website);

1933 First Duster Class boat build on third floor of 301 Main street by Jim Merrill and his father Commodore E.K. Merrill. The project was financed by the club, and the Duster could be rented by the hour. John Ayers built the next Duster "Zypher" under the direction of Mr. Merrill. Jim Story and Charlie Knight built "Quacker". As the boat caught on, five more boats were built over the next winter in Mrs. E.W.J. Hunn's cellar at 300 Howard St., under the supervision of Mr. Merrill. The new owners were Bill and Herb Parsons "TOMATER", Bert Shoemaker "COBBLER", Tom Coe "GINGER", Ted Hunn "SNITHER", Lloyde Gladney "SPRINTIN SPLINTER". 40 Dusters were built over the next 10 years. Duster fleet # 1 was chartered, Knute Hunn was the first fleet captain. 1946 September 7th - 8th. The 1st Duster National Championship was held at Riverton Yacht Club. John Knight was the first national champion with Barbara Lippincott as crew. 1947 September 6th - 7th. The 2nd Duster National Championship was help at Riverton Yacht Club. The winners again were John Knight skipper with Barb Lippincott crew.

The Duster became closely associated with the Lippincott family, the famous boat building family out of Riverton N.J. Brothers Bob and Howard Lippincott built world-class wood Stars, Lightnings and Comets with Bob winning the 1950 Star World Championship. I learned all of this because, in a twist of fate, Barb Martin, whose mother was a Lippincott, decided to attend Miami of Ohio University just shortly after Kurt Finnie and I had formed the sailing team. Barb immediately became the lynchpin of our heretofore non-existent Miami of Ohio's women's team, adding such rock-star racing ability that we qualified out of the Midwest for the Women's Collegiate Nationals (our other skipper, now Sue Ronshagen, being a converted crew).

All Lippincott children were brought up sailing Dusters, there was a bunch of them spread out over several families. It came about in the summer of 1971 (if my memory serves, which it sometimes doesn't) there was an extra Duster available for their nationals held at some lake in northern New Jersey - I assume this lake was somewhere near Tillerman's old stomping grounds for his Sunfish sailing. Barb Martin gave me a call offering me the Duster and I jumped at the chance.

The two day nationals turned into a drift-fest. I never got out of the leeward bilge, sailing the whole weekend tilted onto the leeward chine to reduce wetted surface. My memories of the weekend, though considerably faded, were of a great time. I got to meet many of the Lippincott clan, though again, the faces and names are now gone. My impression was they were very down-to-earth, just as you would expect from a boat building family.

My thoughts of the Duster as a sailboat? I always wondered what a Duster would be like to sail in a breeze. The mast is not too far from the bow, the mainsail is huge; I wonder if you would have to hike off the stern when going downwind in a breeze. Certainly with that flat bottom, the planing performance would be a blast.

If  one was looking to build a nice sailing dinghy for the lake one couldn't go very wrong with the Duster. Good light air performance, nice long cockpit to hold two comfortably, three in a squeeze. The added freeboard compared to a Laser or Sunfish makes the Duster more of a sit-in rather than a sit-on small dinghy. I think plans are available.

In another twist of fate, the father of one of my daughter's good college friends owned two Dusters. The Duster it seemed hadn't completely disappeared, chased into history by the Laser (as had happened to many of the U.S singlehanded classes around during the 1960's). The class has now collected itself at Lake Naomi, an exclusive resort community in the Poconos. According to this father, the "Duster Nationals" are still held every August on Lake Naomi. Two pictures of Dusters sailing on Lake Naomi.

• A photo of a start in the 1948 Duster Nationals.
• Duster Plans

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From an email from Rob Hulit:

"I had the pleasure of owning Duster # D-126. Built in 1949. I bought it as 14 year old kid in 1968 for $ 50.00 (included a trailer) from the Kelly Family on Long Beach Island NJ . Spent the summer sanding & painting and replaced the old cotton sail with Dacron made by Merrill Sails Delanco NJ. They would race them at the Brant Beach Yacht Club back in the early days. The Kelly`s taught me to sail, so I owe them a huge thank you. The boat would fly. Sailed it for about 15 years down at Brant Beach and she finally dry rotted badly and had to let her go. I'll always remember those endless summer days sailing that Duster from Sun up to Sun Down !

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.

OD - OY Review - The Butterball Pram

In my continuing series on home-built sailing dinghy classes from the 1960's, as featured in the One Design and Offshore Yachtsman magazine, here is the Butterball, a 9 1/2 foot pram with dory like sides presenting a very large beam for this size boat. I've never seen one in the flesh (unfortunate choice for a class name - I wonder if this was before Butterball was associated with Thanksgiving turkey?). I doubt this class never made it much past the 1970's but as with most of these classes there is probably one or two who exist in the present day. Leave a comment if you've seen one or have any more information.

From the Sailboat Classes of North America, Fessenden S. Blanchard, 1963:

"In the summer of 1958 Captain Richard T. Miller, of the Ship Design Division, Bureau of Ships, U.S.N., who lives in Annapolis, Maryland, de- signed the 9'6'^ Butterball pram dinghy as a junior training boat. The most distinctive feature of the class is said to be a thick (1'%'') daggerboard with a symmetrical airfoil section. This is said to give the boat a good lift, so that she sails close to the wind and balances nicely. The designer reports that Bob Bavier (Yachting) sailed Number 1 boat in the spring of 1959 and appeared pleased with its handling qualities. Of the thirty boats so far built, most of them are located in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina; some are at Tacoma, Washington; others are in Texas, Michigan, Missouri, Australia, and New Zealand. Material is mahogany plywood. Captain R. T. Miller (R.F.D. 3, Box 392, Melvin Rd., Annapolis, Md. ) is the source of information on the class. The principal builder is Bill Dodds Boats (Route 1, Box 156A, Johns Island, S.C.). The price is about $400 new, one of the least expensive sailing dinghies of which we have heard.

VITAL statistics: L.O.A. 9'6"; draft without centerboard 5", with C.B. 2'$^"; sail area 49 sq. ft.; weight 150 lbs.; trailable or cartop.

OD-OY Review - The Blue Jay

Back in the 1960's, a period I consider the apex of dinghy sailing in the U.S. (some might say this is old guy nostalgia but, in the 1960's, there were more people sailing and racing dinghies, more dinghy classes, and more home built dinghy fleets than at any time since), the magazine One Design and Offshore Yachtsman (OD-OY for short, the precursor to today's Sailing World) published a very well done dinghy class directory in it's January issue. As a teenager, besotted with sailing, I used to pore over this issue very closely as each class review included (and there were a lot of classes featured) dimensions, a photo, and a short blurb.

I have scanned some of these individual class reviews thanks to Elliott Oldak, long time Star class racer, who still had some old issues of OD-OY in his library. All of the classes I've picked out can be built out of plywood. The first one is of the Sparkman and Stephen's 13' Blue Jay daysailor which was the junior trainer on Long Island Sound for many years but today, as a racing class, has been supplanted by the modern nexus of the Opti and Club 420.

From OD-OY:

There are a couple of Blue Jays that show up for the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival; one young family in particular that seems to be always out sailing around the St. Michael's harbor. If you are shopping around for a stable daysailor that you could singlehand, or sail with an adult, or sail with your kids in a nice deep cockpit, and of small enough size so it is easy to manhandle on shore, you can't do much better than a Blue Jay.

I did help build a Blue Jay as an older teenager. After moving to Youngstown, Ohio we joined Berlin YC, but I also joined a nominal Sea Scout troop led by top notch Pymatuning Lightning sailor, Dr. Chuck Maltbie (I say nominal Sea Scout troop because we had no uniforms, no scheduled meetings, no formal command structure). Chuck decided a good project for this Sea Scout troop would be to build a Blue Jay (probably thought that we would all end up as Lighting sailors down the road). I don't remember much about the build other than the Blue Jay took a lot of wood screws, which had to be filled before painting (a nice canary yellow, same as Doc Maltbie's Lightning). The Blue Jay was finished (I think Doc worked on the boat 10 hours to every Sea Scout's 1 hour - the only way it was going to get on the water in any reasonable amount of time), a nice sailing dinghy, but my young head at that time was into faster racing dinghies such as the Fireball.

A photo of one of the Blue Jays at the 2012 Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival.

Update on June 29, 2013: Looks like the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum has one for sale out of it's donation pile; 1853 BLUE JAY SAILBOAT-wood-13’6”-5.17” beam- $550