Dinghy Cruising Around the Eye of Quebec

This is a good video if you can block out the time - 40 minutes. A duo spend two weeks going around a natural circular body of water in central Quebec, formed by the impact of an asteroid.

From the blurb accompanying the video:

"The Eye of Quebec (Lac Manicouagan) is visible from space as a perfectly ring-shaped lake. Its center island is far larger than the water that surrounds it. 100km in diameter, it is the fourth largest meteor impact site on earth. We sailed around it and think that was the first ever circumnavigation of the reservoir under sail and oar. (We can find record of two other sailboats that have attempted the trip. While were not sure of their success, both appeared to carry auxiliary engines. If it wasnt the wind pulling us it was our backs.)

Three years ago, when John and I drove the Trans-Labrador highway, we camped one night on the shores of the great Manicouaga and it captured our imaginations. Finally, this year, aboard the expedition re-fitted Wayfarer 4610, we made the voyage. We were on the water for about twelve days after a two day drive north. It is an astronomically great lake.

We camped ashore every night, and packed nearly 100 Ibs of dried food for the journey. We wore drysuits most of the time, cause the weather was typically cold and wet!

Circumanic Higher Res from Scott McDougall on Vimeo.

More information on the "Eye of Quebec" from Wikipedia.

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Australian 2015 Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta

Andrew Chapman sends along some photos of the 2015 Australian Classic Wooden Dinghy Regatta, hosted by South Gippsland Y.C, out of Inverloch, Victoria, birthplace of the Australian scow Moth. Regatta was in late January.

A Classic 16-foot skiff.

One of the starts. Left to right is the pram-bowed Mirror, Heron, two Sabres, an Oughtred Classic Shearwater dinghy, and a scow Moth.

A varnished Heron being rigged on the beach.

The Uffa Fox Jollyboat has a small fleet in Melbourne Australia. Popular in the 1960s, the 19 foot Jollyboat was eclipsed by the similar sized Flying Dutchman, with its Olympic Status.

The two Jack Holt small doublehander designs; the Mirror Dinghy, at 10 10" was the first stitch and glue kit dinghy and the earlier design, the 11 3" Heron, was also designed for home boatbuilding in plywood. Both originally had gunter rigs as seen here.

This scow Moth Maggie was just recently built by Ray Eades over two weeks and is a modified Imperium design. Mark Rimington is the owner and skipper.

Beautiful decks on this new scow. Rather than aluminum wings this scow was built with shorter wooden winglets.

South Gippsland Y.C. is on Anderson Inlet, where a small protected bay meets the Bass Strait. As Maggie sails toward the sandbar break, one can see the nastiness at the entrance to the Inlet when the breeze is on.

The Ian Oughtred Shearwater Classic Dinghy.

Fitted around the on-the-water racing shedule, the dinghies are exhibited at a seaside park for the locals to come and peruse (and vote on their favorite).

On the left is  the Rainbow Scow, a popular class in southern Australia up to about 1970.

This scow Moth is of the 1970s 1980s vintage, with aluminum wings.

The VeeJay has a bigger brother, the double plank 14 Skate dinghy. This one looks as if it is being pieced together on the beach, after a long layoff.

Here is a single plank VeeJay racing against the Heron. (The Heron being a good weight carrier,  as we see here with three sailors stuffed into this rather small dinghy - plus one more! - I was informed there was also a small child tucked out of sight.)

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Carrying A Dinghy On A Boat

My situation is a little unique.I am building a boat and a dinghy.Carrying one,however,has presented a challenge because of my boat build.Most boats use a davit system and carry the dinghy on the swim platform or transom.Some carry them on the roof.At first,I thought the roof would be a good place,but as pointed out to me on a forum post,its not.Carrying on the roof can make for a dangerous situation in rough water.Its hard to launch a dinghy while its swinging on a boom or crane.It could crash into the boat and break stuff.It could break loose and hit someone or sink.In an emergency,the boat could sink before getting the dinghy in the water, taking the dinghy down with it.

Most production boats have a lot of freeboard or height of the sides above the water.The boat I am building doesnt have much freeboard at the transom compared to production boats.Because of my boats lower freeboard than most, presents some major challenges for carrying a dinghy.I cant run a full width swim platform because my I/O comes through the transom right in the middle of it.This rules out swim platform dinghy lifts.A transom mount davit could possibly work,but it would be of my own design.Production davits wouldnt be able to lift the dinghy high enough to clear the water or I/O,at least none that I have seen.Then there is the issue of carrying the dinghy across the back.The dinghy will be longer than the boats beam is wide.This could cause problems when in tight marinas or narrow channels.Any of these options would severely limit my rear visibility, thus blocking my transom and preventing my boats name from being visible to other boats.I do plan to tow my dinghy, on the days I plan to use it,if the weather is good.

Some have suggested that I go with an inflatable or folding Porta boat.Ive had issues with inflatables in the past and they are heavy for their size.Some folding boats are a little to flimsy to really carry any weight.I need to be able to carry roughly 800 to 1000 pounds.I dont think its possible,so two trips to shore will be required.Maybe I could pull a ski tube behind the dinghy with our supplies in it.Wait,I know!Ill toss the kids in the ski tube and put our provisions in the boat.They will love that.

My hull draft will only be 16 to 18 inches,so I could possibly drop anchor and wade to shore.Im not sure how my significant other and our kids will like that.Got to keep Mama happy,LOL.When I am in a marina,I will more than likely moor the boat, while we go ashore for provisions.If the area will allow for it,I could beach the bow and let everyone off ,moor the boat,and take the dinghy back to meet the family.When we return,I could take the dinghy back to the boat,bring the boat back to shore,and load up.Seems like to much work.Some places will allow boats to temporarily dock for a quick trip to town for supplies.that would be the ultimate solution.

I still have a while to go before I make a final decision on how to carry a dinghy.Until then,I will be looking and watching other boats and how they carry a dinghy.Im always open to suggestions.


UPDATE!
After some discussion on the Trawler Forum,I am considering adding a rear rack to carry my dinghy and to hang the rear canvas enclosure from.I feel that this rack needs to be removable.I only plan to carry the dinghy when I do the Great Loop Cruise.Every where else I will be able to dock or trailer the boat out.Here is what I had in mind for those that are scratching their heads trying to figure out what I am rambling on about.

More info on the boats in the picture can be found at Allweather Boats.

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505 Dinghy and Annapolis 2017

I wandered over to my old sailing club, Severn Sailing Association, on Sunday and ran into Ali Meller, just in from Laser frostbiting. Ali is a long time 505 racer and I was interested in finding out how preparations are going for Annapolis to host the 505 Worlds in September, 2017. The 505 fleet at SSA is relatively small, ten boats or so, and to take on such a high-profile regatta as the 505 Worlds must be a daunting task for such a small group. To pull this one off, the 505 fleet has gone out to the Annapolis sailing community. Two yacht clubs are sharing the responsibility in running the event, SSA and Eastport Yacht Club and the RC is being recruited from the best of Annapolis. Given the strength of the dollar Ali expects the Worlds fleet to be around one-hundred, which, for North America, is huge numbers for a two man high performance dinghy.

Below is a great 505 promotional video shot by Chris Love, who does all of the Intercollegiate sailing reporting in the U.S. Although the 505 aficionados interviewed in this video downplay the intensity of the class, make no mistake; to race at the top level in the 505 is just below the commitment of an Olympic campaign. A true fanatics performance class.




International 505 Promotional Video from Chris Love on Vimeo.

Two photos of the 505 from the Earwigoagin archives; these taken at a SSAs Tuesday night series a couple of years ago.

Photo John Zseleczky

Photo John Zseleczky

For those who have dug back in Earwigoagin, you may have come across the fact that the blogmeister raced Internatonal 14s back in the 1970s and early 1980s. The International 14 of those years was very similar to the 505, single trapeze, big symmetrical kite. The modern International 14 has developed into a skiff but I occasionally wonder what the International 14 would look like today if it stuck with the rig of the 1980s - probably very similar to the current 505. A photo of the Canadian Harvey brothers ripping it, I think in 1980 (just had to sneak this in).

Photo Ellie Martin

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Edensaw Boatbuilding Competition A Sailing Dinghy Wins!

Most wooden boat shows have live boatbuilding; usually it involves a group of families assembling a quantity of small rowing skiffs which are then launched at the end of the weekend. At the Wooden Boat Festival hosted by the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townshend, Washington, Edensaw Woods sponsors a boatbuilding competition where they move away from the typical novice boatbuilding event and open it up to a diverse group of boats from professional designers and being built by skilled woodworkers. In this years competition, built alongside the traditional dory and Irish curragh were two sailing dinghies. One of them, Richard Woods Zest singlehander, won the competition

Here are two of the boats on the beach after the time-limit for boatbuilding expired, ending all construction. On the left was a dory built only with hand tools. On the right is a 14 foot, V-sectioned sailing dinghy designed by sometime Classic Mothist, Stephen Ditmore. As the photo reveals, Ditmores team got the hull done over the weekend but the decking and rigging awaits.

Winner of the competition, designer Richard Woods on board at the initial push-off of his Zest dinghy. This is definitely a racing singlehander with hiking wings. (The hull is a relatively narrow, flat bottom shape.) The hull was completed by the team over the weekend and Richard was able to scavenge sailing parts from some of his other projects to get this design sailing in short order. I think the pushee in the photo is Michael Scott who owns several sailing dinghies including a couple of Classic International 14s and who is constantly feeding news tidbits to the blogmeister.

Instead of painting over the freshly applied epoxy, the Richard Woods team decided to apply a silver vinyl decal material over the hull (purchased at an auto supply store). Very distinctive, hence the boats name Silver Bullet.

Designer of the other sailing dinghy at the competition, Stephen Ditmore sailing his Classic Moth design. Unfortunately we have only seen his Moth show up once at Brigantine, New Jersey.

The wrap up video from the Edensaw competition.


Third Annual Edensaw Wooden Boat Building Challenge! from Al Bergstein on Vimeo.

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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 wasnt a Moth but a Penguin and was being collected by her new owner. Georges Penguin dinghy was one of six originally built in the 1960s 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 Johns 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 1960s, 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.

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OD OY Review The Peanut Dinghy

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

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Building the Optimist dinghy frames

Winter is flying by, and we are diving into our three-boats-at-once project. We have spent some time getting to know the CABBS plans. Its helped to have found some pretty nice images of other folks working on their Optimists. Nothing like a picture to make things clearer.

Here is where we would like the project to be the next time we get to work on the Optimists:

Pictured below in red are the frame stations that we are working on in the accompanying video, and how they will support the other members. We have completed the bow frames (1) and attached the bows to the strongback. The bow must be angled back at 22 degrees as can be seen below. The rest of the frames (2 and 3) are perpendicular to the strongback.

If any readers happen to stop by and read this post and watch the accompanying video, feel free to leave a comment about the "real" way to build these prams. My brothers and I have sailed boats and fixed-up wooden boats, but weve never attempted to build any from plans. This has been a fun and challenging experience so far.

You may notice from the video that we have been using scrap lumber. We have a lot of odds and ends of wood lying around, so to save on cost we have used old lumber as much as possible. We need these boats to last about ten years - we will see...

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Header Photo Sabre Dinghy and the Return of the Retro Singlehanders

The previous header photo is of Aussie Matt Kiely sailing the Australian singlehander Sabre class dinghy. The photo was lifted from the South Gippsland Y.C.Facebook page.

Probably the major trend in dinghy racing over the last 30 or so years has been the growth of singlehanded racing at the expense of doublehanded or triplehanded classes. And the trend since the millenium has been the explosive comeback of  what I call the retro hiking singlehanders; those other singlehanded classes designed before, or around the date of the introduction of the Laser (1969). For the most part, these classes are not international (excepting the OK Dinghy and Europe Dinghy); they are popular country-by-country or region, and they attract fleets of thirty, forty or more boats at major championships. They have a builder or two turning out modern hulls, some have carbon masts, many have aluminum. They seem to fill a need in the marketplace that the Laser does not.

I have compiled a list of retro singlehanders. I have excluded the Olympic Finn - 1949 (which has a huge Masters scene) and singlehanders with hiking assists (trapeze, sliding seat). Feel free to add your thoughts about this list in the comments section. (Before the Sunfish sailors jump all over me for excluding the Sunfish from the list - let me state the Sunfish has maintained high levels of popularity in parts of North America and parts of South America for many, many years - I dont see a comeback in popularity - they just maintained it.):

• Solo (U.K.) - 1956 - aluminum mast, stayed rig, full battens
• OK Dinghy (Den.) - 1957 - carbon mast, unstayed rig, short battens
• Streaker (U,K.) - 1975 - aluminum mast, stayed rig, short battens
• Phantom (U.K.) - 1971 - carbon mast, stayed rig, short battens
• Lightning 368 (U.K.) - 1977 - carbon mast, unstayed rig, short battens
• Sabre (Aus.) - 1974 - aluminum mast, stayed rig, full battens
• Impulse (Aus.) -1975 - aluminum mast, stayed rig, full battens
• O-Jolle (Ger.) - 1933 - aluminum mast, stayed rig, short battens
• Larken-Klasse (Ned.,Ger.) - 1920s - wood mast, stayed rig, full battens 
• Europe Dinghy (Moth) - 1960 - carbon mast, unstayed rig, short battens
• Zephyr (NZ) - 1956 - aluminum mast, stayed, full battens

Despite the recent introduction of the "modern" RS Aero, or Devoti D-Zero, with lightweight hulls, mylar sails (correction - the Aero has dacron sails), carbon rigs, it seems the singlehanded market is marching in the other direction. (I must admit the North American market is an anomaly here with not a lot of singlehanded classes under the Laser - still king by a long-shot-, and the Sunfish - a solid runner-up, The other singlehanded classes in North America - like my Classic Moth - are mustering small numbers...Oops! I forgot about the MC scow, now very popular in the U.S.)

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Part 2 of the Travelogue of the French Canals in a Mirror Dinghy

Some of you, after viewing Part 1 of the Mirror Cruise on the French Canals, may have already jumped over to view Part 2. But to dot the is and cross the ts, (and to get an easy second post out of this subject) here is another beautifully done video on the second month of the Cruise.

Again, from the video description by our intrepid adventurer, Digby Ayton.

"This month was filled with sunny days, wonderful people and beautiful scenery. I travelled through the Canal du Nivernais and the Canal du Lateral du Loire where I had to finished my journey and sold my boat at the beginning of the Canal du Centre, which was closed due to water problems. I finished my adventure having rowed 700km and passed 240 locks and had an absolutely amazing time.

A Dinghy On The French Canals. Part 2 from D.A on Vimeo.

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One Hundred Years The Boys of the Genesee Dinghy Club

One hundred years ago, on this day, May 30, Decoration Day in the United States (the precursor to Memorial Day), the racers of the Genesee Dinghy Club started their 1915 season in new digs. They had moved east across the Genesee River to Summerville, a lakefront suburb of Rochester, New York. Their little club of dinghy lockers was now sandwiched between Popps Inn and the U.S LifeSaving Station, just off the beach.

It would be a good move. Launching from the beach was now mostly protected by the jetty that extended out from the Genesee River. If Lake Ontario turned too gnarly, racing could be pulled under the jetty as well. The club would grow their fleet of Genesee Dinghies over the next five years to about twenty with ten to fourteen making it to the starting line on any one day.

The Genesee Dinghy was twelve feet long, about five feet wide, a cat boat, with a low aspect gunter rig of around 90 square feet. It originally started off as a copy of Torontos 1898 Morse dinghy but, as a development class, it quickly morphed into a different craft. The Genesee Dinghy was raced singlehanded, a true novelty in the early 1900s, and they raced on open water, another novelty, but also considered extremely foolhardy for the dinghy racer of the early 1900s.

By 1915 Canada was already enmeshed in the Great War and America was two years away from joining the fight. At least two of the Genesee Dinghy Club members were to fight on the Western front.

From the Emerson collection, here is a photo montage of some sailors from the Genesee Dinghy Club - Americas first die-hard dinghy racers.

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Seen at the 2015 Annapolis Sailboat Show the Scamp Mini cruising Dinghy

I was frankly surprised to see this small dinghy cruiser at the Sailboat Show. This 12 (3.6 m) mini-dinghy cruiser designed by John Welsford has become the darling of home-builders looking for a small outside, but big inside, simple rig, able-sailing project. This community of boat builders, an alternative universe in the sailing world, revolve around the DIY wood designs of Phil Bolger, Jim Michalak, Ian Oughtred, John Welsford, Francois Vivier and others, And this alternative universe seldom intrudes on the plastic commercial world which predominates at the large boat shows. But, in 2015, there she was, a plastic Scamp, built by Gig Harbor Boatworks north of Seattle Washington.

There is no doubt this is a clever design. It has a transom bow that tapers rapidly toward the waterline, the actual sections at the bow waterline are V-ish. There is an offset centerboard under the starboard seat. This makes for an unobstructed floor, perfect to lay out a sleeping bag. The Scamp is high sided though the designer has given her a pleasant sheer to make this a jaunty looking dinghy. There is 70 kg of water ballast to dampen down what could be a very lively motion in wind and waves.

The summer of 2014, I was sitting on the back lawn at my friend Bill Ms house, just off South River, when I spotted a small sailing dinghy making her way smartly against a building sea breeze. To settle our speculation about what kind of boat we were watching, Bill promptly went to get his binoculars. Through the binoculars I could tell it was a Scamp (a very distinctive profile with her balanced lug rig) and the skipper was doing a fine job getting her upwind. He poked his nose just into the Chesapeake Bay and then turned downwind to rock and roll back into South River. As a spectator, I was mightily impressed at the Scamps sailing performance (initially being somewhat of a skeptic when the Scamp first came out). One quibble was the Scamp looked somewhat tender going offwind, rolling back and forth - not atypical for a cat-rigged boat, or maybe the skipper had dumped the water ballast for a quicker ride back home.

Two photos of the Gig Harbor Boatworks Scamp from the Annapolis Sailboat Show. Plenty of room in this 12-footer! If I remember correctly the rep said they were building about 30 a year. Base price is $13,000 USD.

The cabin is just a cuddy cabin, enough to shelter from the weather. Plenty of storage under the seats and up forward.

Wooden Scamps being built from CNC kits. This photo gives a good idea of how the kit pieces fit together. You can see in the lower Scamp the centerboard trunk incorporated into the starboard seat tank.

A Gig Harbor Boats promotional video.




Also, over on my blog list is this duo building a 17 Devlin designed daysailor-cruiser.

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