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.)

Read More..

A Classic Moth Mistral Build in Russia

From a Russian forum thread on the Classic Moth (whew! Google does a horrific job of translating Russian to English) comes a photo of forms set up to do a Mistral build.

---

Update - January 8, 2015

Sergei provides some background on this Classic Moth build.....

"The Moth is being built in Moscow region by Serg-IF(nickname on boat forum) according to your boat plans. It is planned that Moth will strike the water of Oka-river this spring. As for me I plan to build my Moth this spring. Hope that Ill have enough time for that. Also there is one more guy from Tsimlyansk (it is on Don river) who interested in your Mistral. It could be he will start building. He have a huge experience in boatbuilding and sailing.

---

Read More..

Classic Moths in the Mist

At this years Classic Moth Nationals we had a marine layer settle in Saturday night, giving us fog on Sunday morning, a rare event for Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The fog started to creep out towards Pamilco Sound around 9 a.m. and racing commenced, on time, in sunshine.

I took a couple of photos.

The fog didnt stop the sailors kibitzing about Mothboats.

Two transoms in the mist. The Laser transom of the Maser and the wide Europe Dinghy style transom of the Mousetrap Mistral.

The view from the Pughs pier.

The original post of the 2015 Classic Moth Nationals can be found here.

Read More..

Boatbuilding More Progress by John Z on his Classic Moth

Hull panel offsets for the Mistral can be found here.

---

In the ongoing coverage of John Zs Classic Moth build, last week I stopped over at his shop to gauge his progress and have a beer. The Classic Moth modified Mistral design is now upside down awaiting gunwhales and a layer of 4 oz. glass over the bottom.

This photo, though perhaps a tad distorted, shows how deeply Veed the Mistral design sections are around the midships.

Transom view with a pretty swirly pattern from the okoume plywood.

John, with the about-to-be-opened bottle of stout peeking up above the keel-line of his Moth.

A man and his workbench. John graciously took down a Marblehead RC sailboat he built many years ago so I could take a closer look.

A man and his workbench - take 2.

From the previous photo, you can see that John has some interesting stuff hanging from his walls. This is the box containing his F1 rubber-band indoor airplanes. These are extremely finicky to make, with a minimum weight of one gram. John has all the various tools to test balsa density and strength; tools to strip balsa into extremely narrow widths; tools to check rubber band elasticity; molds to make the tricky propellers, and the various techniques to apply the ultra-thin microfilm covering.  To make a F1 takes a methodical, painstaking craftsman.

John also has two half models of the Americas Cup, IACC keelboats, the class that precedes the current foiling catamarans. Surprisingly, it was through his wifes connections and not his Naval Architect circle of friends that these two half-models now grace his shop.

Read More..

Header Photo Curvaceous French Classic Moth

Mariposa Moth Classique, Plans de Moth Classique

Mark Morell Photo

The previous header photo featured a French Classic Moth Mariposa (Spanish for butterfly) sailing in tandem with a Nantais Vintage Moth (blue sail) at the French annual Classic Moth rally and regatta which was held yearly during the early 2000s. The strong sheer gives Mariposa a traditional look which suggests a traditional round bottom shape.

Nope. The header photo above is an optical illusion as other photos reveal that Mariposa is actually a multi-chine plywood shape (a three-planker) with the bow sections developed and pulled up.

Mariposa has a flat rocker panel that starts just in front of the daggerboard case and a topside chine that curves up to meet the gunwhale about 600mm from the bow. The developed bow suggests this Moth was built using the stitch and glue method.

The French Classic Mothists weigh their Moths like the Americans - on a bathroom scale. The scratched up bottom shows that Mariposa is not a coddled racing dinghy - and gets plenty of use.

An in-the-water shot of Mariposa shows the topside chine clearly disappearing into the gunwhale.
This Moth design is visually appealing - Mariposa may not be much of a racer but thats OK.

The designer is the tall gentleman on the left. I have no idea who he is. Maybe some reader could help out on identification?

Update, August 14: Dominique Banse to the rescue with the designer indentification. Thanks Dominique!

"There is an article about this Moth in the French magazine “Chasse-Marée” number 147 from November 2001. The owner builder’s name is Bertrand Warion. The boat is built with 5mm plywood and weights 76 kg."

Update September 29, 2015: Designer Bertrand Warion adds a comment to this post updating us on the latest with Mariposa.

"Hello ,I am Bertrand Warion who designed Mariposa and usual reader of your blog.

The boat is still in good condition with great modifications, large cuts to flatten the bottom rocker and new cockpit plan, more "modern" but quite unconfortable for me. [I am] thinking to ameliorate that point.

I did not sail Mariposa [for] 5 years (leaving job, town) and [now] mainly designing and building others boats but i will recondition the boat soon.

Here are some new Mariposa pics.

---

There are a few enterprising readers of this post who could put together their own version of Mariposa, at least in model form. Earwigoagin is always open to publicizing such design experimentation.

Through the early 2000s the French Classic Mothists held an annual get together. I think it was originally held at one of the clubs on the Seine but then moved over to a small lake about 100 km. south of Paris, sponsored by Cercle de la Voile du Centre, Etang du Puits, (Google translation - the pond of the well), just off the Route dArgent. Though well attended, in a mystery still not explained, the annual French Classic Moth gathering and regatta just stopped. [Mystery somewhat explained - see below] .

---

The mystery of the French Classic Moth get-together got somewhat clearer when reader Dominique Banse emailed an article from a 2001 issue of Chasse-Marée, the French classic/traditional boating magazine. It turns out that all these photos were taken at a Classic Moth design competition that was sponsored by Chasse-Marée and held at Suc dErdre, just north of Nantes (and not at Etang du Puits as I wrote initially). There was a turn out of 20 Moths Classique, both new designs and old, as well as several IMCA narrow skiffs. There is still no explanation why the Classic Moths in France could not keep the annual event going after 2001.

---

 I recently rediscovered on the Web, photos from Marc Morell (who took all the photos used in this post) documenting the Suc dErdre. The diversity of French Classic Moths is just astounding! Ill feed more of these photos into later posts on Earwigoagin.

Read More..

Header Photo Classic International 14

The previous header photo was of a classic International 14, circa late 1960s. (One clue is the crew isnt using a trapeze which didnt get voted in until 1969.)  This is a Canadian 14 as it has the Canadian registration numbers on the bow. Design? Im guessing Proctor V or VII given the bow rocker profile. (Yes, you could say Im somewhat of a International 14 history geek, though, to be honest, I grew up with these boats.)

More classic International 14 material can be found on my companion blog.

Read More..

Boatbuilding Update on the Nantais Classic Moth

Plans de Moth Classique

---

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

"Ive 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. Im 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 Ive also sealed the inside face of the decking with epoxy. 

[Second picture] A bit of humour, here. Im 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 Im not related to Charles Atlas, Ill soon be looking for a trailer."

Lines drawing of the Nantais Moth. Typical of Moth design for France and the U.S in the 1940s. (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.

Read More..