29th BYC Moth Boat Regatta. Part 1

Covid canceled the Classic Moth regatta in 2020. 2021 should have been the event's 30th running--but it wasn't. If fact restrictions were barely lifted in time for this year. The Classic Moth Boat event is traditionally held on the Saturday before Father's Day so to not conflict with the club's other events. But I suppose a cancelation once every 30 years isn't too shabby a record. This year's regatta attacted 10 boats with three Vintage Moths, four in Gen I and three Gen II boats. Conditions were a bit blowy at first but we got in seven short races and were eating lunch by 2-ish. As per usual, my daughter Ingrid helped out on the RC boat and took the photographs which follow.

The day started off cloudy and blustery with wind  predictions in the 15 to 20 knot range.  By race time the winds were 15 out of the SE and softened slightly as the day wore on.

Joe Bousquet was first to launch.  Here he finishes adjustments to Try-Umph before heading out.  Joe was using his new Evolution sail for the first time.  He used the number "11" for this regatta.  He wants to do a bit of sail testing before he decides which of his boats will have the new sail.  Once decided, he will apply the correct number.

Erik was second to test the water.

Most skippers followed Joe B's lead and rolled their boat down the small ramp that leads to the floating dock rather than use the launch ramp seen by the bulkhead.  When the wind is out of the SE or SW, it is difficult to launch from the ramp while it is much more relaxed to launch from the leeward side of the float.  Fortunately, Moths are light and narrow enough to roll down the small ramp to the float!  In this photo we see Greg Duncan's vintage division Connecticut and Mike Parsons' Gen II Mistral on the float.

Joe B. wanted Ingrid to snap some shots of him planing.  We'll see how she did as I go through the pix.

Here's Mike P. on a slight plane.

Even the Europes want to play.

Your old diarist staying sunny side up.

John Z's Mistral.  John was impressed enough with Joe B.'s new Evolution sail that he ordered one at the end of the regatta.  Blogger is giving me problems so I will end this post now and continue with Part 2 in a little minute or so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please forgive the spammy comments on numerous old posts

Some spam blot has left a comment about HIV on a number of this blogspot's old posts. No doubt some of you will receive these comments. I'm in the process of removing them and have set my comment setting to "moderate".

Lost and Found Dept.

 

While going through a bunch of Moth Boat related stuff today, I came across this old news clip from the Seven Mile Times featuring Bill Schill sailing Pegasus.  Bill was the man to beat during the 1963 racing season.  A few Mothists like Pam Taylor, (as well as Bill Jr's parents) are mentioned in the adjoining column about Comets.  Hopefully, blogger will allow interested readers to enlarge the news clip above for easier  reading.

The 2020 Nationals--The Regatta that almost wasn't

The Classic Moth Boat Nationals, by tradition, follows on the 3rd weekend in September.  The combination of Covid-19 restrictions and hurricane remnants almost derailed this year's regatta. Even delaying the regatta from the traditional date to the Columbus weekend in October didn't get us completely out of the cross hairs of this year's hurricane season. Winds were predicted to be on the light side of the spectrum for Friday and Saturday. Sunday was billed as a probable day of steady rain. Whenever one changes the date of an event, there are winners and losers due to unmoveable obligations and other commitments. We were happy to have sixteen boats assemble for the regatta. What follows is a collection of photos taken by Greg Duncan and/or Lloyd Griffin during Saturday, the single day which we sailed. Racing was abandoned on Sunday.

Joe Bousquet brought four boats.  He was uncertain as to how many student sailors would be free to sail in the morning but he rigged them all anyway.

After getting the boats set up, Joe pulled them over on their sides for the night.  Very light wind were predicted overnight.

He placed the blades on the sails for a bit of weight against the odd puff of breeze.  The boats were fine the next morning.

Bill Boyle's vintage division Abbott Moth.Add

Jay Yerkes did a lot of structural and cosmetic work to his Mistral since the last time we saw her.

The same can be said for Donald Hewitt's Mistral.

Mike Parsons' Mistral. 

For the  sake of comparison here are the bottoms of  the four boats which Joe brought down from Norfolk.  First his Mistral.

Next we see the  lines of the Lane Reeves designed "Savannah Mistral".  Lane wanted to make the Mistral shape a bit more user friendly.  He did succeed but at the expense of the amount of skipper weight which the boat will accommodate.  This would be a great boat if one weighs 90 lbs. 

The bottom of the  Fletcher-Cates.

The bottom of the Fletcher-Swiss.

Here we see Joe Bousquet in the blue Mistral leading Parker Purrington in the Swiss Moth (Nr 2739) at the weather mark.  Matthew Panek (Nr 71) and Bob Patterson (Nr 217) are keeping the Gen II boats honest.

Here, your old diarist, sailing his wood Europe, Nr 151, rounds just after Joe's Mistral proving that in light air most logs drift at about the same rate.  I was sporting a new sail, stitched up by Justin Ailsworth (Evolution Sails, Chesapeake).  This sail gave me more boat speed than I've seen in many a day.  I hope the shape works in a breeze as well!

A sign of the times.  Bill Boyle is that masked man.  We all wore masks while launching and retrieving and some forgot to remove them once away from the dock!

Jay Yerkes, Mistral.

Maggie Mayer, one of a pair of sisters racing at this regatta, is a summer sailing student at the community sailing program.

The Abbott.  Bill was the default Vintage Champion since he was the only  Vintage division boat competing. 

Donald Hewitt's primary objective was to complete the course in the tippy and new to him Mistral.  In that regard he had a successful day even though he slipped in the boat and put a foot through a side tank panel.

Generation II and overall winner, Mike Parsons (nr 79)/

Bob Patterson (Shelley, Nr 217) and Logan Weeks (Europe Nr 99).

The new sail has a loose foot rather than the more familiar bolt rope foot, so I'm sure there's lots for me to learn about proper adjustment.  Additionally, the top batten is full length, and although fairly soft, the batten, at least in this wind range, had the annoying tendency of staying inverted after a tack and requiring a smart snap of the boom to get it to pop over.  So much for "attached flow"!  This was so even with no tension on the batten.  I'll need to seen if RBS has a softer tapered batten.

Glassy.  The wind ranged from zero to about 2 knots.

We get our due in the Daily Advance.  After over thirty years of holding this regatta in Elizabeth City, Moths are still newsworthy in this small northeastern North Carolina town.

One last look at 2020.  The remnants of Hurricane Delta were pushing rain up from the gulf and so racing was abandoned for Sunday.  In hindsight, we could have probably gotten several races in before the rains came, but then we would have been loading boats and driving home in the rain.  All in all I think the RC made the right decision.  With no regattas on the schedule until the Mid-Winter regatta down in Gulfport, Florida, we bid adieu to the pandemic year and hope that the virus doesn't cost us more lost regattas in 2021.

Who remembers the P. Evanson Boat Company?

While going through boxes of stuff during our virus lock-down, I rediscovered an old brochure I've had since back in the early 1960s when, way back in the pre-internet days, I wrote off for a copy.  Responding to advertisements by hand, licking a stamp and waiting patiently for a reply.  Remember that?

Of course the Moth (a Cates-Florida design) and the Penguin were what piqued my interest.  P. Evanson  produced their own boats but also imported boats both in kit form and ready to sail.  I wonder how many Evanson Penguins and Moths were sold?  On the Penguin front they would have faced stiff competition in the local marketplace against Jack Wright (Penguins) and Blair Fletcher (Moths).

The boat is as long as the car!  I think the car is an Austin A-30.

Surprisingly, Evanson pushed the Blue Jay rather than the Comet which was more commonly seen at south Jersey regattas.  IIRC, Corinthian YC of Cape May was the only club in my neck of the woods that had a fleet of Blue Jays.

The Enterprise, like the dinghy seen on the top of the Austin, was without a doubt an import from the UK.  I don't recall ever seeing one on the water.  Jack Wright had better luck importing the slightly larger GP 14.  The GP caught on while the Enterprise stalled in a fickle marketplace. 

I tried google-searching P. Evanson Boats but turned up very little extra info for the company.  They appear to have existed from the early 1950s to perhaps the mid-1980s.  Suffice to say that like many other providers of small sailing dinghies, they had their moment of commercial success and then faded away.  They live here on the pages of this brochure.

Another mis-labeled postcard?

I spotted another old post card featuring Moth Boats the other day on flea-bay.  This one supposedly taken in Surf City, NJ a beach community on Long Beach Island (or LBI in local speak).  LBI is another barrier island along the New Jersey shore, just north of  Brigantine.  Unlike Brigantine, LBI has several towns, from Holgate at the south end to Barnegat Light at the northern tip.

On the back side, the card is entitled "Taking boats out of the water after a day of racing from the Surf City Yacht Club."  The scene features Comet class boats, (a magnifying glass reveals that the Comet with the red hull and white transom is named Red Devil, if that helps jog someone's memory), as well as a stern view of a Cates-Florida Moth (the white hull with the girl in red standing next to it), and a Dorr Willey Moth seen in the background.  Folks are patiently waiting for their turn at the ramp or hoist, much as one does today.  To the right, on the pier, a crowd of people are gathered around what appears to be a third Moth with a dark blue hull being loaded onto a trailer.  That boat looks like a Shelley or perhaps a Europa Moth. If so, that would move the date of this exposure to the mid-1960s rather than the late 50s/early 60s.  The upside down boat could of course be another Cates design Moth.  It's impossible to tell even with magnification.  The cars in the photo all appear to be from the mid 50s to early 60s which seems about right.  The real sticking point with this postcard for me is the clubhouse! 

As a teenager, I raced my Moth at the Surf City YC's annual fall regatta.  This was a big multi-class two day event held the weekend after Labor Day, (September in the USA) and was a last hurrah of summer for us before having to put the boats away and get semi-serious about school and studying.  The SCYC clubhouse looks nothing like the unpretentious flat topped building seen here.  Surf City's clubhouse was (still is) a large multistory structure which reminds me in a vague sort of way of a large Dutch colonial beach house.

The building in this postcard might be the Brant Beach YC or perhaps an early shot of Spray Beach's clubhouse, but not that of Surf City.  Having said that, the photo still provides a pleasant journey back to a time which no longer exists--at least in terms of casual simplicity or the types of boats being raced--not a Sunfish, Opti, or Laser in sight.  Speaking of casual, it seems that the producers of postcards during this era exercised a lot of poetic license when labeling their products!  Can anyone comment on the actual location?