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: 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.

Les Moths Classique: Les Rendez-vous de l’Erdre

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Blog post on the original French Moth get together, the 2001 Moth design competition sponsored by the French magazine "Le Chasse Marée".

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To celebrate the 90th birthday of the Moth class, seven very different Classic Moths of the French section gathered at Sucé-sur-Erdre, mid September, for a congenial get-together. Though racing was not the central reason for this rendezvous, there was some racing in very light air. Sucé-sur-Erdre is about 15 km north of the city of Nantes. Nantes is considered the traditional center of Mothboating in France as it was there that 150 of the Nantais Moth were built during World War II. Bertrand Warion sent along a report and photos and I poached some photos from David Balkwill (who I think is an English expat living in France) that were posted on Facebook.

Bertrand Warion stumbled upon this Moth as a shell in Switzerland twelve years ago. She is a version of the Swiss Dunand design. The hull is glass and Bertrand got her back on the water with some new wooden decks and a Europe Dinghy rig.

Philippe Meunier

Calimero, owned by Jean-Jacques Cadoret, is a French cruising Moth from the 1960's; a "Moth Béarnais de Camping". George did this blogpost on the history of the French camping Moth. Lots of package in a small form, I can see this Moth being an ideal weekend gunkholer for river exploring.

Philippe Meunier

Crocodile is flat bottomed Moth, designed and built by Charentais Olivier about five years ago.

Philippe Meunier

You need some flat, wide sections to make the "Moth Béarnais de Camping" work. You can see the metal keelband up forward to protect the hull on beach landings and the use of a centerboard.

Bertrand Warion

The Moth owned by Jean-Yves. Named Felix, he built this Moth when he was 12 years old. It was designed by his father and from this shot shows some relationship to the British Moth.

Philippe Meunier

On the left is Julia, a Moth designed and built by Didier Leveille for the 2001 Moth design competition, sponsored by nautical magazine, "Le Chasse Marée". On the right is Calimero, the cruising Moth.

Bertrand Warion

Julia at speed (most likely the fastest she went during the mostly windless weekend). Didier designed Julia somewhat after the Laser with flat sections throughout. I do like the artistic sail logos. I'll have to find out what they mean. A photo of Julia's sections here.

Philippe Meunier

Launching. Jean-Yves in number 131. Bertrand Warion's red deep-V design is being remarkably docile. Usually these Moths flip right over when left unattended.

Bertrand Warion

Nola, the stunningly restored Nantais Moth of Jean-Jacques, sailed here by David Balkwill. David was none too impressed with this vintage Moth. (I dragged his opinion over from the comments.)

"My experience sailing the Nantais Nola was astonishing. I've sailed Moths, both British and International, since the seventies, but this one from 1941 was by far the most uncomfortable. We had very light winds, but after three days on the water I was covered in bruises from all the corners and edges I was squeezed up against; in conditions where you can't move or you stop the boat!

Philippe Meunier

Rigging and launching was from Didier Leveille's house on the river. On the left is Crocodile. On the right is a wooden Europe. Not sure of the builder of the Europe Dinghy but the skipper was Frédérique Larrarté,

Bertrand Warion

Let's close this blog post with the most popular Classic Moth, Frédérique Larrarté with her ubiquitous Europe dinghy.

Philippe Meunier

Kids and Classic Moths: Can it Happen Again?

Back in the Classic Moth heyday in the U.S., back in the 1960's when it wasn't the Classic Moth, just the Moth class and the U.S. was just another country sailing this 11' singlehander, the New Jersey fleet was primarily a junior class. Large fleets abounded around Philadelphia and on the Jersey shore. The Cates design reigned supreme and, though twitchy, was a hull design a junior could master. In the 1960's the Cates was readily available, parents could build a Cates or buy one from Blair Fletcher Marine. When the Moth class kept developing, as a restricted class is wont to do, when the narrow waterline Duflos showed up and wings were allowed, when the Laser showed up, all in the late 1960's, the bottom dropped out of the Moth as a junior class and the larger class collapsed. In the modern era, the International Moth class revived in the U.S. when the hydrofoils showed up (though, some might argue, at a semi-pro/pro level).

The Classic Moth class, which is the revival of the Moth singlehander of the 1960's, has had a good run of twenty eight years but the class is tending geriatric at this point and may disappear again in ten years unless there is some injection of younger blood. Joe Bousquet and Greg Duncan have made a continuing effort over the years to introduce young sailors but Joe Bousquet has redoubled his efforts this year. Joe is the coach of both the rowing team and sailing team of a small private high school and with the generous help of George Albaugh, is in the process of rehabbing three Classic Moths this winter with the intent to feed them to his young sailors for the 2018 season.

The landscape in modern junior sailing is much different from the 1960's. For established junior programs at established yacht clubs it is a set progression through the Opti, Laser Radial and then the 420. There are three strikes against the Classic Moth as a junior boat in the modern era. The Classic Moth is out of the mainstream, isn't a one-design, and doesn't have a builder. This is why the Classic Moth will never be considered by junior sailors from these high power programs.

Promoting the Classic Moth class as a parent/kid project either in building or refurbishing may be one avenue to attract more young participation. Zach Balluzo is a just graduated junior who has been sailing the Classic Moth Nationals the past couple of years in his own Moth. It appears his Dad has as much fun working on Zach's Classic Moth as Zach has fun racing them.

It will be interesting whether we find something that works in appealing to the youngsters. We shall see if something comes out of this renewed focus by the oldsters Classic Moth sailors on promoting the boat to juniors. A big Tip-of-the-Hat to Joe for giving us a kick in the butt to at least try.

Joe helping one of his junior sailors, Maggie McDonald, rig a Shelley at the 2017 Nationals. The is an ex George Albaugh's Shelley.

I just recently learned the history of this glass Shelley from George. It came over for the World Championship in the U.S (1968?). as a protective fiberglass exoskeleton for a exquisitely built British wood Shelley. At some point Joe decked this Shelley shell with the modern tub cockpit layout. I understand that after the regatta, Maggie actually bought "Say When."

2016 Downrigging Weekend: Chestertown Maryland

Chestertown Maryland is where our local Classic Moth fleet has home-base. It is also where the assorted tall-ships and traditional schooners of the Mid-Atlantic Region gather on the last weekend in October for a festival called Downrigging Weekend. John Z. was taking his now-surplussed Mistral over to Chestertown that weekend for a demo sail (and possible sale) and I tagged along with my old digital camera to hopefully get some photos of these traditional ships. The Chester River is narrow up near the town so my feeble zoom lens would not be at such a disadvantage in getting reasonable photos.

The Kalmar Nyckel is a reproduction of a 17th-century Dutch pinnace based on a design of 1625. This tall ship, under the command of Peter Minuit and financed by the New Sweden company, brought Swedish immigrants over to settle New Sweden (now the state of Delaware). The Kalmar Nyckel entered Delaware Bay in March of 1638. The modern reproduction was launched on the Christina River in 1998 and is the official tall ship of Delaware.

When I think of pirate ships, I think of a stern like this  (well maybe not the RIB).

The Sultana is an 18th century Royal Navy coastal patrol schooner used to collect duties and pursue smugglers. The original was built in Boston in 1767, made its way to England where she was purchased by the Royal Navy and sent back to patrol the East Coast. The reproduction was built in Chestertown in 2001 and is also based out of there.

The Pride of Baltimore is Maryland's official tall ship. This is a reproduction of a Baltimore clipper, a top-sail schooner best known as a privateer. Long, lean, fast, the most famous Baltimore clipper, Chasseur, gained fame (or infamy) when it raided English merchant fleet off the British Isles coastal waters during the 1812 war.

Lady Maryland is a reproduction of a pungy schooner designed for fast transport of perishable goods from the farms of the Eastern shore and lower Neck to the city of Baltimore. The heyday of this type was short, being built from the 1840's to about the 1880's. Lady Maryland is one of the older reproductions, being built in 1985.

The stern on Lady Maryland is very pretty; upswept lines meeting a transom with curved topside. The boat on the davits looked to be a traditional Chesapeake Bay small working skiff.

The A.J. Meerwald is a New Jersey oystering schooner. She is the original, built in 1928 and has been New Jersey's official tall ship since 1998.

The Chesapeake Bay's own oystering work boat, the skipjack.

Back to the Classic Moths, John Z was able to complete the sale of his Mistral, Y2KBug. Here is the new owner getting sorted out.

From the Earwigoagin archives, the Classic Moth fleet racing with Chestertown in the background.

505 Classic Moth

Continuing with the 505 theme, the image above is one that ever-vigilant Neil Kennedy plucked from the Web. It is buried deep within a very interesting article on 505 designer John Westell, written by British historian David Henshall, found on the Yachts and Yachting website. The image is the lines drawing, the waterlines and buttocks of a Classic Moth that John Westell designed on his 505 theme. (No date is given for the design but it would be safe to assume sometime in the 1960's.)

I initially thought this design would not have met the 1 inch (25mm) hollow rule the class had in the 1960's (and a rule that our modern Classic Moth class still retains) but on second look it seems that John Westell did meet the rule (the rule applies aft of the daggerboard trunk and John did reduce the gunwhale flare to what looks to be legal limits in the back of this Moth).

Speed-wise this design does not offer any advantages to our current Gen 1 race-horses (the Shelley, the Europe, the Cates) but for someone who wanted to build a lovely mini-505 and race Classic Moths, this would be a very interesting and welcome addition to our polyglot group.

A Classic - Classic Moth News Short

Voiliers Classiques Moth, Dériveur Classique Moth.

Plans de Moth Classique

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A Moth European Championship sailed in Algiers, Algeria (at that time a département - administrative region - of France - see Tillerman's comment). Looks like the late 1950's, early 1960's. We can see the transom-bowed French Fragniere Moth design as well as the scow bowed Nantais design. (The British Queen Mother makes a short appearance at the beginning of the video.)




Further French Moth stuff here.

Kaagweek, 75 Years Ago

Kaagweek and Sneekweek are the two big sailing regatta weeks in The Netherlands. Kaagweek occurs first, somewhere around the middle of July. I came across this historically interesting video of Kaagweek filmed in 1940, seventy five years ago.

Unfortunately the video settings restricts embedding on Earwigoagin, Click here to view the video.

After viewing this video several times, thinking about it and researching, I've come to the conclusion this sailing regatta video offers up so many layers of meaning and so many unanswered questions, it ranks as the most fascinating sailing video I've viewed

My first viewings of this video took in the pastoral beauty, the windmills, the myriad of, now traditional, Dutch classes heeling gracefully as they race their way up the small fingers formed by the dike systems, the spectators dining at the water's edge, the formal race committee attire, the pretty women walking the dock, ogled by young sailors. People are having fun, which is the whole point of a sailing week. The soundtrack of wistful swing tunes from that era adds to this period piece.

It was then I realized that the 1940 Kaagweek took place two months after the Nazi's had overrun Holland. This Kaagweek was taking place in occupied Holland. Kaag looks to be about 15 km. from Rotterdam and during the invasion, the Nazi Luftwaffe had completely leveled the center of Rotterdam.

The 1940 Kaagweek must have been held with the Nazi's approval. The question becomes whether this video was put together as Nazi propaganda to show that "normalcy" had returned to occupied Holland, or whether it was filmed surreptitiously as a home movie by a Dutch videographer. The production values suggests it may have been Nazi propaganda. Of note is at the 8:21 mark of the video, there is a stern-faced spectator wearing the Jewish star.

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Reader WaveDancer disagrees with my assessment that the video was Nazi propaganda. I've dragged his comment over to the main post:

"I doubt that this video was German propaganda. After the surrender of The Netherlands, it took some time for the German occupation to show its true Nazi colors. PS: Whereas de Kaag is definitely in Holland, Sneek is not! The country should be referred to as The Netherlands. Wavedancer (who was born there, just around that time)"

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Wikipedia states that 205,000 civilians would die in the occupation of Holland with 1/2 of that number being Dutch Jews who died in the Holocaust. Many of those young sailors shown in the video would be forced to labor in German factories during the war. I'm not sure how many sailing regattas were still held in Western Europe during the summer of 1940 but by 1941, sailboat racing had ceased (with the exception of the Nantais Moth, which the Nazis and the French Vichy government allowed to be built during the war).

July 10, 2015 also marks the 75th anniversary of beginning of the Battle of Britain, the approximate 2 month air battle where the Nazi Luftwaffe came within a sliver of destroying the British RAF. That the Nazi's didn't break the RAF would mark one of the turning points of  World War II. Goering and the Luftwaffe would then turn in September of 1940 to bombing the British cities in an attempt to force capitulation.

One of the mysteries of my life is how my loving mother, with her parents and siblings, endured the chaos, death, and destruction of the London blitz, and later the V-1 doodlebug, and V-2 rocket attacks. I never detected any true bitterness from her. She still maintains the attitude of always looking forward, never looking back - probably a residue of that British "stiff upper lip".  The courage it took to maintain day-to-day living under such conditions still amazes me.

Three Photos of Moths (Non-Foiling)

I have lots of sailing photos squirreled away on my computer. Sometimes I get confused as I did when I attached a photo of what I thought was a Fragniere Moth to a previous post. Mike Scott pointed out that it was not a French Fragniere, but himself, sailing a British Moth on the other side of the English channel - a photo he sent to me and then was misfiled. Rather than delete the photo completely, I'll just move it to this post and include two others.

Mike Scott around 1959 in a British Moth at Medway S.C. (I should have realized that this Moth has a centerboard while the Fragniere had a daggerboard.)

Here is a vintage photo of a Czechoslovakian (now Czech Republic) dinghy dock filled with Moths, a Finn, an O-Jolle and the Pirat Dinghy (Pirate in German). The two-man hiking Pirat was extremely popular in Europe in the 1960's and still sports big fleets today in Germany (as well as the singlehanded O-Jolle). It looks like the Race Officer is the one in the cap with all his starting gear on a portable desk, readying for a shore start.

We're in an extended cold snap in the Mid-Atlantic with significant portions of the creeks and tributaries off the Chesapeake Bay frozen. When all this thaws I wonder if we will have some ice floes big enough to support a person, as with this hardy Norwegian women sailor taking a break outside her Europe Dinghy!

BoatBuilding: A Mad Mothist does a Bottom-ectomy

On modifying my Classic Moths I've rebuilt decks, rebuilt daggerboard trunks, added buoyancy tanks, glassed interiors, but I've never grafted a new bottom onto an existing Moth - performing a bottom-ectomy so to speak. British Mad Mothist, Jim Champ, former Cherub sailor, dinghy historian, amateur dinghy designer, current International Canoe sailor, and webmaster of the International Canoe website is doing just that to a fiberglass Skol he purchased.

I'll let Jim explain his project in his own words.

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"The back story is I picked up this 1970'ish Skol Int. Moth because I needed something to sail while a health problem was stopping me sailing my Int Canoe in most conditions, and besides, I'd always fancied one. The fact that I am now about 5 stone too heavy even for a vintage Moth didn't deter me.

Anyway, the boat came out of someone's garage roof, and I completely failed to spot, under the layers of dust, that at some stage the boat had been sliced off at the waterline and been given a new wood bottom, replacing the original glass. This was no problem until after a season's use it became apparent that the wood bottom had been allowed to rot back in the day, and some crucial bits were now leaking badly as the water had re-penetrated.

So I ended up cutting off the wood bottom, and I'm now building a new one, and learning about cold moulding while I am at it. Shape wise its roughly based on a Cherub I drew in about 1974 but could never afford to build.

What have I learned from this project? Not to be afraid of cold moulding, and when you do it use plenty of strips. I originally was trying to use quite large panels in order to minimize the number of accurate edges I had to cut, but actually getting the sides of the strips accurate is surprisingly easy given a small sharp plane and a block and sandpaper. Its definitely right to have too many strips rather than too few. Getting the length right on a very 3d boat, on the other hand was a nightmare, but in any rational new build that wouldn't be an issue. 2mm ply was definitely much easier than 2.5mm veneer, having tried both, but if you use ply you can't varnish because the smart money is you'll go through the outer layer in some (or in my case, many) places when fairing up.

I did the boat partly in 2 * 3mm and partly in 3 * 2mm. The junction between the two was something of a pain and in any case I carried 3mm too far forward. The last bit of 3mm was definitely excessively 3d. I'm sure the boat is somewhat asymmettric in that area because with the panels at 45/45 ish, bending the last bit was problematic. The first layer has a much bigger impact on final shape than subsequent ones, and in the transition on one side the first skin was 2mm and the other 3mm. It would probably have been better to suffer the horrendous cost of the 2mm ply and done the whole boat in that. If I were doing a new boat it would be 2 * 2mm ply all over with a glass skin inside and out, uprating the inner skin appreciably in the slamming area round the bow by adding inner glass over skin and stringers, not under stringers.

This was the first project I used a router on which was interesting. Vision really was a major problem, I guess my shop isn't that well lit because I found it really hard to see what the cutting edge was doing. For a long accurate cut to put a rabett in the glass topside (ouch, terrible thing to do to a cutting tool) I stapled a batten as a guide right along the boat and that was a major win. The other thing that helped with a router was to get a marker pen and colour the area I wanted to remove, which made it soo much easier to be confident about what I was doing. I still had a few slips in the wrong places though. 

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Some photos...

Looks like Jim was able to cold mold over two stringers per side as well as the topside stringer junction.

Finished hull. The Skol featured a self-draining hull. George A, fellow Classic Moth bloggist over at Mid-Atlantic Musings, has also deconstructed a Skol back to a bare hull. Click here to read about his Skol project.

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Jim adds the history of the Skol in the comments section which I've dragged to the main post.

"From what I can make out there seem to have been 4 Skol [models].

Mk 1 may have just been 3 prototypes, which look as if they had unstayed masts and a fair gunwale line.

George A.'s boat is a Mk 2. The 1969 Moth yearbook said production was planned for two versions, a SL and regate version. The SL was to have a daggerboard and was the lighter built. The yearbook also says [it sported] an unstayed mast. I think in practice many were built with stayed rigs. They seem to have had false floors and stern tanks, at least some with drains through the stern tank. The actual production detail may have varied, but all had the little extra piece at max beam [hiking winglets].

Mine started life as a Skol Mk 3. She has a fair gunwale line, an open stern and a deck stepped mast. The shrouds were supported by glassed in alloy tubes down to the base of the mast foot.

Boatbuilding: Update on the Nantais Classic Moth

Plans de Moth Classique

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David Simms of British Columbia, Canada, sends along an update on his build of the French Moth Classique Nantais design. My first post on Dave's boatbuilding can be found here.

"I've attached a couple of pictures of the Nantais, in its present state... All of the frames are made of laminated 1 cm x 1 cm, straight-grained Douglas Fir. I'm amazed at how light, and STRONG, they are. Presently, the fairing has been nearly completed and the frames have been sealed with epoxy. There are fewer than a dozen screws in all of the deck framing. I have rough cut the plywood for the deck and I've also sealed the inside face of the decking with epoxy. 

[Second picture] A bit of humour, here. I'm struggling to move the boat into one of my sheds, for winter storage. This little struggle has convinced me that my original thoughts of building a boat that could be transported on top of a car were somewhat unrealistic. Given that I'm not related to Charles Atlas, I'll soon be looking for a trailer."

Lines drawing of the Nantais Moth. Typical of Moth design for France and the U.S in the 1940's. (The Dorr-Willey, Ventnor, and the Abbots representing similar U.S. designs, Click here to view a post on the 1940 Moth designs.), the hull has a scow type stem married to deep V sections.

British Moth - At Speed #2

Great video of a British Moth (our U.K. compatriots in sail insignia's - we both sport the Circle M) blasting along on a reach, getting passed by the larger Phantom dinghy (who almost bought it at the jibe mark) but also going by an overturned Laser. This shows that even a pre WWII hull shape can get up and go.

Great fun!

Some other Earwigoagin British Moth posts can be found here, including the original post "British Moth - At Speed"

Header Photo: British Moth at Chippenham SC

I have posted before about sailing on small water, for example, Cooper River just outside Philadelphia Pennsylvania. But in all my searching on the Internet, I have yet to find another sailing club that sails on anything smaller than Chippenham Sailing Club in England, a club that makes do with racing small dinghies on the upper reaches of the Avon River where the average width is between 17 and 20 meters (at least according to Google Maps measuring tool). So where the winding river would offer up a beat, the British Moth pictured here in a beautiful roll tack, would have approximately 4 boat lengths to go before preparing to tack again. I've never even sailed, much less raced on such a tiny body of water. In such close quarters. it must be a hoot!

Here are the Google coordinates for Chippenham SC.

A comment pulled into the main post from Die Hard Dinghy Sailor:

"British Moths still sail on the upper Thames above Oxford, at Medley S.C. ( I used to sail there), but that was postively huge compared to the narrow reach just a couple of miles upstream, above the famous 'Trout' inn (as featured in 'Inspector Morse' on occasions) and the site of our school sailing club. We sailed Fireflies, and they were pretty poorly maintained, so what with the narrow river, frequent tacking, gusty winds...we got pretty good at handling tricky situations! But I never liked Fireflies after that."

Header Photo: British Moth at Speed

The header photo to grace the top of this blog for almost two months is the U.K brethren class to the U.S. Classic Moth, the British Moth; in this case a great photo of one planing in some breeze. I have written about the British Moth class in this post and also this post. I snitched this photo from their website.

Midwinter Sailing in Florida in the 1930's

I have posted occasional links to some of the British sailing video shorts (under the name British Pathe', can someone elucidate on this unusual name?) put together, most likely as news reels that they would use to lead into the actual main-attraction movie, common practice circa 1930's and 1940's.

Below is a link to a midwinter sailboat race, sailed on Biscayne Bay, Florida in 1933 while those in the northern U.S (and England) froze their butts off. A Classic Moth appears at about the 45 second mark, almost getting T-boned by a larger sloop at the leeward mark.

Midwinter Sailing in Biscayne Bay, 1933

Update: Tillerman, with his first hand knowledge of English history, answers my question about the odd name British Pathe'. I've dragged his following comment over to the main post:

"Charles Pathé was a Frenchman who was one of the pioneers of the motion picture industry. When I was a boy, one of the companies he founded, Pathé News, used to make newsreels, short films covering current news that were shown in British cinemas. As I recall in those days on your trip to the cinema you would see a main feature, a B-movie (usually starring Ronald Reagan) and a Pathé newsreel.

Apparently, at some point more recently, Pathé News changed their name to British Pathé. I gather their main role theses days is in managing the newsreel archives which have been digitized and put online."

British Moth; The Other Circle M Moth; 2011 Nationals

I've posted before on the British Moth , a class that formed in 1932, with their own version of what, in that day and age, pre-WWII, was the latest Moth design, but what we today consider a vintage style Moth, a scow bow Moth with V sections designed by Englishman Sydney Cheverton. It remains a viable class in 2011, the high aspect rig fully modernized with a fair number of skippers flying aramid sailcloth on carbon fiber rigs. The class also retain the Circle M insignia, just as the USA Classic Moths. Although we share the 11 foot length, the two classes have a different ethos. We remain brother in arms, albeit on different sides of the Atlantic.

Thirty two British Moths showed up at Northhampton SC for their 2011 British Nationals and faced stiff breeze. Peter Styles was there to capture the action and I post some of his excellent photos below (I made a couple photos black and white, hope he doesn't mind). This 1932 design Moth looks plenty exciting; hard planing reaches, spray everywhere.....