Dixie Peach--a light weight version of the Dorr Willey design

 In 1957 Blair Fletcher won the US National Moth Regatta in a boat which he built and named Dixie Peach. This design was a light weight version of the Dorr Willey with an altered bow shape.  These boats were built of thin plywood panels rather than 3/8" cedar planking and as a result were both much lighter and also much stiffer than the design copied. The only surviving photograph of that particular boat is in the Cooper River YC brochure for the 1958 National Regatta which includes a low resolution pix of Blair sailing the boat .  In this post we shall examine the last of the photos sent to me by Jim Greenfield.  These photos show an identical boat.  The photos are undated but probably were taken during the late 1950s.  After that we'll take a look at that regatta brochure from 1958.

In this photo one can see the similarities between this boat and the earlier Dorr Willey-built Moths.  Blair's version retains the basic hard chine, gentle vee-bottom shape of the early design.  The fore deck peak is formed by two piece ply construction.  Although the rudder is still a low aspect "barn door" shape, Blair has deserted the wishbone bone tiller and stern fed sheeting arrangement for the more modern straight stick and up-the-boom routing for the sheet.  The traveler is interesting in that it appears to be a piece of sail track supported by a wood foundation with a small gap for the tiller rather than the more commonly seen bend bronze rod or wire travelers seen on other Moths of this era.  Note the tiny window in the sail.  Windows were just starting to be incorporated into the sails of small racing dinghies about this time.  Although the benefits were immediately obvious, windows in sails did not become universal until the early 1960s.  I didn't have a window until I ordered a new Seidelmann sail during the summer of '62.  The sailor in these photos is thought to be Blair's older step-daughter, Chicki Seaton.

In this shot we see that Blair's design has a good bit more keel rocker than the earlier Dorr Willey boats and that the point of maximum rocker is placed farther forward along the keel line .  The bow block is much smaller as well. 

On starboard tack with a bit more speed.

I'm not sure what class the boats moored  in the background are.  They are not Comets and I don't think they are Snipes.  Can anyone identify them?  The venue is Cooper River in Collingswood, New Jersey.

Just for fun, here are the four sides of the brochure for the 1958 U.S. Moth Nationals.  Dixie Peach is pictured above from the previous year's regatta.

Remember the old ten minute start sequence with the white, blue and red flags?  I used to have a "yachting" stop watch which oddly was not waterproof (one wore the watch on a neck strap and hoped that the rubber watch cover would protect the time piece and on a large yacht perhaps it did, but I can tell you one flip in salt water was the end of my watch, cover or no cover).  Those watches had a sweep second hand and also a separate hand which moved across white, blue and red segments of the watch's face.  Just a bit of trivia for you young kids who've known only a digital "ironman" wrist watch...  I also see that breakfast was nice and nutritious--NOT!

I don't think Cooper River YC's courses have changed much since this brochure--after all what can one do with limited water?

Gene Pilot, named above as one of the regatta organizers, also raced Moths and had a boat built by George Szabo called The Twist.  For years I thought the boat had been named after the popular dance of that era.  It was only much later that I learnt the real story behind the name.  It seems that when George S. popped the hull off the building jig she "twisted"!  I don't recall her being better on one tack compared to the other but then Gene was a rather large man for a Moth Boat.  Chickie Seaton, the young lady sailing Nr 1491 in the photos above, later owned The Twist and sailed the boat to great effect including winning the women's World Championship in 1963 so perhaps Szabo's first attempt at building a Cates-Florida wasn't so bad after all.  Other names that ring a bell include Bert Dowler.  Bert was the long standing IMCA president but sadly he passed away in 1958 and so this was one of the last events he helped organize.