A matter of perspective: Classic Moth Boat transom designs.

The photos of Moths generally featured on this blogspot are often bow shots with spray flying and the skipper with his main sheet and hiking stick all crossed up, such as the one below:

Your diarist rounding the leeward mark in OOH LA LA at the recently concluded 2011 CMBA National Regatta.  The venue is Elizabeth City,  North Carolina.  Photo credit for all images in this post: Lennie Parker.

However in a continuation of my earlier attempt to help both of my readers in the task of distinguishing between various Classic Moth Boat designs,(see the Gulfport, Florida Mid-Winter Regatta posts), this post will concentrate on an aspect of the boat which rarely is highlighted: the transom.

Here we see Walt Collins driving his Europe towards the weather mark.  Click on photos to enlarge.

Next we have John Zseleczky on the same point of sail in his Mistral design Moth.

Here are the two boats side by side.  Note that the Mistral (Nr 2000) has a deeper and more elliptical transom than the Europe. What is less obvious in this exposure is that the Mistral also has more rocker in her keel line as well.

In an attempt to introduce a degree of stability into the Mistral design, Jeff Linton has tortured the stock Mistral skin panels to fit the shallower Europe transom shape.  Jeff calls his modification a Mousetrap, as in "built a better one..."  Note the cassette style rudder on Jeff's boat.

This is Joe Courter's Maser.  The Maser is a Moth Boat derived from a dead Laser hull, hence the name of the design is a contraction of the words Moth and Laser.

The Maser has a similar transom shape and amount of rocker as a Europe but has a narrower maximum beam. This can be discerned by comparing the two boats seen in this photo.

Finally, John Pugh's Mint design reminds us that hard chine designs can be competitive.