Someone else building a Yellow boat in Blue Coroplast

Someone else  building a Yellow boat in Blue Coroplast

Blue Boat 1 a single piece of Coroflute

Yellow boat 1 and 2

Yellow Boat 3 

Yellow Boat 4 Balsa ply Epoxy Fiberglass tape

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The Archipelago Rally Uncovers another Gem The International 12

Last years Archipelago Rally uncovered a historical gem with the entry of Yarrow Thornes Crosby Skimmer Moth. This year, another historical rarity made an appearance at the Archipelago Rally; Woody Underwoods International 12. (this is the American International 12, not to be confused with the lapstrake, George Cockshott 12 Dinghy, which is also sometime referred to as the International 12 and popular in Europe.) The International 12 was the first sailing dinghy to be built using hot molded veneers held under pressure in an autoclave, a building method that allowed mass production of a very strong, lightweight monocoque wood hull. It was a very revolutionary technology but also a temporary technology as fiberglass construction of boats came to the fore in the late 1950s, early 1960s. Thousands of wood boats were built post WWII using hot molded, autoclave construction. Most were small outboard runabouts but some are the familiar sailboats of today including the Fairey Marine and USOD International 14s, Thistles, Luder 16s, Fireflys, Jet 14s, and Jollyboat.

Woody Underwoods International 12 appears to be one of the first in the production run. Woody comments:

"My father bought this boat (# 31) in 1940, and it could be the first boat I ever sailed in. He was away in the service after that, and the boat was washed off its float in Padanaram in Hurricane Carol, ending up in the bushes 2 miles away. About 1960, we put in an Interclub mast, and I have sailed the boat on and off since then. Condition is good, albeit dried out.

Woody and Josie Whoolam sailing in the 2015 Archipelago Rally. Woody has retained the natural mahogany veneer look on the outside of the hull.

Photo from Rufus Van Gruissen

The International 12 was designed by International 14 designer, Harry Hall, who lived in New Rochelle, New York.

Photo from Woody Underwood

The first hot molded boats had very little internal structure - a feature designed to show off the strength of the new construction. The lack of ribs and stringers was a source of amazement to most.

Photo from Woody Underwood

The wood International 12 was also used by the U.S. Coast Guard Academy for their sail training and dinghy racing program.

Photo from Woody Underwood

Ernest Ratsey sailing the International 12 prototype in the summer of 1940.

The Rudder, October 1940

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On a slightly different topic but still about the 2015 Archipelago Rally:

One cannot wrap up the 2015 Archipelago Rally without featuring the latest video report from the Tuthill Sisters. Last year, in the 2014 Rally, the younger sister had to become a human sidestay when the mast on their dinghy started falling over. This year the duo rolled out a Sailfish for the race, a choice that looked like a safe bet compared to their previous rickety dinghy and the slow - slow Snark, but the Sailfish has no cockpit and, sometime during the race the older sister ended up in the drink (she kept filming though).

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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.

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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.

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April 4 Titusville to Rockhouse Creek New Smyrna 31 2 Miles

Well the good news is that apparently felines have short memories. So Witty is not a permanent victim of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but his old pesky self. It was Saturday, the day before Easter, and warm and sunny so EVERYONE was out on the water. We saw hundreds of boats from Stand Up Paddleboards, to kayaks and canoes,

to fishing boats of all sizes,

to what I call motorized rafts.

And people were wading and swimming in the ICW too.

I put out the genoa and later the small jib but the wind was too close to our bow much of the time and too erratic. Anchor to anchor from 9:30 to 3:00. Only two opening bridges, one on request and the other every twenty minutes, which we made easily. The tide helped us the last third of our passage, except the last mile, once we got to Ponce de Leon Inlet, and we turned down the engine to near idle speed to give the watermaker two hours to make water before we arrived. We passed some nice modest waterfront houses

and some waterfront trailer parks also known as fishing camps....I think.

Rockhouse Creek runs east-west, connecting two  N-S waterways. (It is the horizontal in an "H".) When we arrived it was very crowded with perhaps fifty small boats and a few large ones. Folks had gone to the beach. We can only enter from the ICW, western end because it gets too shallow for us at the other end, but many powerboat people think that circumnavigating the unnamed island that forms its south side is a nice trip. We heard five of them comment on ILENEs name as they passed us. We had dropped anchor and settled in and by six p.m. there were only three boats left (one other sail and a trawler)

and we were too close to the sailboat, especially because there was so much room everywhere else and strong winds from the east were expected. So we picked up and dropped 150 feet further away from that sailboat. Our other neighbors were a family of campers.

There was no one on the other side of us, where we would turn right and be back in the ICW.

Im having trouble with the new snubber hook, (as well as the underline function) specifically in getting it to stay hooked onto the anchor chain; it falls off and dangles uselessly under the boat instead of doing its job. I tried tying it on but this wasnt working well so I next tried wrapping one side of the hook with rubbery tape to narrow the slot into which the chain sits, but that fell off. 

Here in Rockhouse, I knew it had fallen off when the wind came up at night: the chain took the load instead of the snubber and when ILENE hunted from side to side, the anchor chain snaps over in the bow roller making a sound like the boat is being pounded by a sledge hammer.

I created a way to mount the red and green dinghy navigation light using a suction cup, a piece of scrap plexiglass, a nut, some washers and a piece of thin line.

We have been noticing that Florida has given nicknames to its geography much as in Manhattan, neighborhoods like SOHO and Tribeca that have no legal or governmental significance  are used to define neighborhoods. The southern part of Florida: Miami, Fort Lauderdale and maybe Boca is called the Gold Coast. Heading north, next comes the Treasure Coast including Palm Springs, Stuart and Fort Pierce, so named because Spanish treasure galleons sank off this part of Florida. Cocoa, Titusville and New Smyrna are called the Space Coast. I hadnt noticed this before.

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