Tag: racing

Airborne lifeboat converted for racing

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

‘With a fully battened mainsail, a total sail area of 20sq metres
and two sliding seats, Charles Currey’s converted airborne
lifeboat has an exciting performance. Photo: Charles Currey’

As usual, click on the thumbnail for a larger photo.

I’ve seen a converted airborne lifeboat sailing, but not for some years – so I was intrigued by this photo I found while reading a bound collection of old copies of The Yachtsman. Check the gaff rig, the battened sail and the planks for sitting out – clearly this is a very cool boat.

Are there any boats like this still sailing out there, I wonder?

For more posts on airborne lifeboats, click here.

Heckstall-Smith and du Boulay on the origin of 19th century racing yachts


Wood engraving The Yacht Race – A Sketch from the Deck of a
Competing Yacht, was published in Harper’s Weekly in  1872.
Taken from the Wikimedia Commons

Although Charles II was almost as enthusiastic about yachting as he was about his many mistresses, his collection of 16 yachts do not seem to have had much of an influence on later racers.

From their researches including studying Clark’s History of Yachting up to the year 1815, Heckstall-Smith and Du Boulay say later racing yachts derived their form largely from revenue cutters.

They write: ‘the fashionable type of cutter was about three and a quarter beams to her length, her midship section was so round it might have been drawn with a pair of compasses. She had a nearly vertical stem, and a  short counter high above the water. The greatest breadth was just abaft or close abreast of the mast. The bow was therefore bluff, and the run long and often not ungraceful.’

The type was known as ‘cod’s head and mackerel tail’ and had evolved  in competition with the craft used by smugglers. This seems to me to be a case of a rather imperfect form of evolution, if faster boats could have been achieved by moving the greatest beam aft, but there are some good stories about how the same boat builders worked for both smugglers and  the revenue men.

Living in Kent as I do, this one from Heckstall-Smith and du Boulay appeals to me particularly: ‘it has been recorded that Mr White of Broadstairs, whose descendants afterwards moved to Cowes, used to lay down two cutters side by side, very much as 19-metres and 15-metres are laid down today, and the Government officials used to puzzle their brains to puzzle out which would turn out the faster, knowing that whichever boat they bought, the other would be sold for smuggling.’

For more on revenue cutters at intheboatshed.net, click here.

Don’t miss something good – subscribe to intheboatshed.net

Sharpie schooner Sound Waters Eagle

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

Sound Waters Eagle, schooner or a variety of ketch?

From America, Peter Vanderwaart writes:

‘I found the pictures of smack and barge racing very interesting. For some reason, I especially like the shots that show several boats. I gather you can join in the fun with a fiberglass gaff cutter, if you happen to have one.

‘I noticed windmills in the background of one shot. We don’t have these in our waters yet. If you take a good look at the attached shot which shows typical summer weather, you will probably see why I think windmill builders will go elsewhere first.

‘You might be interested in the vessel if you haven’t seen it before. It’s a steel sharpie about 65 feet long. I think it was built in the Chesapeake region in the ’50s or ’60s. Currently, she is called the Sound Waters Eagle, and is used to take school kids out on educational trips. Her rig is unusual: gaff rigged on three masts, with the middle mast being the tallest. I think this should be considered a variety of ketch.

‘Olin Stephens designed a vessel with fore, main, and mizzen masts bermuda rigged, and he called it a ketch. However, the word “schooner” is deemed more romantic, and gets used.

‘Peter’

There are more photos of Sound Waters Eagle here: http://www.soundwaters.org/

Fibreglass gaff cutters are very popular here, even if many of them do have modern-style lines beneath the waterline. Some of them command astonishing high second-hand prices and, yes, you can race them along with the old gaffers.

Wind turbines may be generally less popular, but I still find the group off the Swale is an interesting and sometimes useful navigational feature,  though I may change my mind if they become very common.

There are some more photos here, and I’ve got some rather closer ones somewhere.

Schooner or ketch? I’d say the Eagle was a schooner at heart, if not in fact.

Thanks for the photo Peter!

Don’t miss something good: subscribe to intheboatshed.net!