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Sailboat Guide

Small Point One-Design

Small Point One-Design is a 19 ′ 8 ″ / 6 m monohull sailboat designed by W. Starling Burgess and built by Brewers Boatyard (USA) starting in 1935.

Rig and Sails

Auxilary power, accomodations, calculations.

The theoretical maximum speed that a displacement hull can move efficiently through the water is determined by it's waterline length and displacement. It may be unable to reach this speed if the boat is underpowered or heavily loaded, though it may exceed this speed given enough power. Read more.

Classic hull speed formula:

Hull Speed = 1.34 x √LWL

Max Speed/Length ratio = 8.26 ÷ Displacement/Length ratio .311 Hull Speed = Max Speed/Length ratio x √LWL

Sail Area / Displacement Ratio

A measure of the power of the sails relative to the weight of the boat. The higher the number, the higher the performance, but the harder the boat will be to handle. This ratio is a "non-dimensional" value that facilitates comparisons between boats of different types and sizes. Read more.

SA/D = SA ÷ (D ÷ 64) 2/3

SA : Sail area in square feet, derived by adding the mainsail area to 100% of the foretriangle area (the lateral area above the deck between the mast and the forestay).
D : Displacement in pounds.

Ballast / Displacement Ratio

A measure of the stability of a boat's hull that suggests how well a monohull will stand up to its sails. The ballast displacement ratio indicates how much of the weight of a boat is placed for maximum stability against capsizing and is an indicator of stiffness and resistance to capsize.

Ballast / Displacement * 100

Displacement / Length Ratio

A measure of the weight of the boat relative to it's length at the waterline. The higher a boat’s D/L ratio, the more easily it will carry a load and the more comfortable its motion will be. The lower a boat's ratio is, the less power it takes to drive the boat to its nominal hull speed or beyond. Read more.

D/L = (D ÷ 2240) ÷ (0.01 x LWL)³

D: Displacement of the boat in pounds.
LWL: Waterline length in feet

Comfort Ratio

This ratio assess how quickly and abruptly a boat’s hull reacts to waves in a significant seaway, these being the elements of a boat’s motion most likely to cause seasickness. Read more.

Comfort ratio = D ÷ (.65 x (.7 LWL + .3 LOA) x Beam 1.33 )

D: Displacement of the boat in pounds
LOA: Length overall in feet
Beam: Width of boat at the widest point in feet

Capsize Screening Formula

This formula attempts to indicate whether a given boat might be too wide and light to readily right itself after being overturned in extreme conditions. Read more.

CSV = Beam ÷ ³√(D / 64)

Still actively raced at Small Point YC, ME, USA. (web link provided above) Most are wood but, a handful are fiberglass. Spinnaker permitted. Thanks to ‘dteberle’ for providing updated information.

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One Design Classes

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SMALL POINT ONE-DESIGN

Small point one-design specifications.

Hull Type: Long Keel Rigging Type: Fractional Sloop LOA: 19.70 ft / 6.00 m LWL: 17.58 ft / 5.36 m S.A. (reported): 160.00 ft² / 14.86 m² Beam: 6.00 ft / 1.83 m Displacement: 1,375.00 lb / 624 kg Ballast: 500.00 lb / 227 kg Max Draft: 2.25 ft / 0.69 m Construction: Wood/FG First Built: 1935 # Built: 37 Builder: Brewers Boatyard (USA) Designer: W. Starling Burgess

Hull Speed: 5.62 kn

ATLANTIC (BURGESS)
MALABAR JR. (1939)

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Small Point Harbor

Last edited by:

John Chandler
April 22, 2024

Maine , South Coast and Casco Bay

Photo: Dan Hinckley

Often passed by, this tight, well-protected, and largely undeveloped anchorage offers boats passing east or west a convenient stopping-off point on the east side of Casco Bay without having to head farther up the New Meadows River. Inside, it’s a lovely, quiet place. This harbor is home to the Small Point One Design, designed in the late 1930s by Starling Burgess, now a fleet of 33 boats that are lovingly maintained by summer residents and actively raced every summer. Vessels up to 40 feet and 6-foot draft can lie comfortably here. It’s possible for larger boats but can be a bit cozy. If the weather is calm, it’s also possible to anchor north of Goose Rocks.

Approach & Cautions

Photo: Aerial view of Small Point Harbor entrance - by John Chandler

The channel at the north end of the harbor can be daunting to the first-timer but, once past the mudflats, access is easy right up the center of the channel to the mooring field at the south end. The Taft/Rindlaub guide has a good discussion and useful chartlet of the approach, and the channel can also be seen in the accompanying aerial picture. Although you can carry a 4-foot draft through the north end at low water, entrance is best attempted at half-tide or better, and doing so on a rising tide gives peace of mind. Once through the channel there’s ample depth up the center of the harbor.

Click the chart to open Navionics.

Not to be used for Navigation.

Docking, Anchorages, or Moorings

Once into the inner harbor, you will pass the Hermit Island lobster wharf on the west side and a lobstermen’s pier on the east side. Next on the east side is a long float for use by the summer community and then three private docks. Just past the docks are several moorings in mid-channel, one or more of which is usually available for visitors. Mooring #522 is frequently available as a guest mooring, and has heavy chain and rope fastened to a 3,000+lb granite block. Others may be free but should not be taken without an invitation from the owner. Because of the recent proliferation of small motorboats moored in the harbor, anchoring can be tricky but is possible in the channel south of the mooring field.

Getting Ashore

Photo: View from the top of Morse Mountain by John Chandler

There is a small store and a snack bar serving lunch and breakfast at the extreme south end of the harbor maintained by the Hermit Island Campground . It can be reached by dinghy at the top of the tide. Otherwise, go ashore at the campground float southwest of the mooring field, and follow the road along the harbor’s west side.

Other Things To Do:

The Lobster House , a seafood restaurant, is located on Route 216, 1/4-mile south of Sprague Road. Call (207) 389-1590 for reservations..
Nearby off Route 216 to the north of Small Point is the Morse Mountain to Seawall Beach hiking trail .

view from hill of distant water and land

Nearby Anchorages

Sebasco Harbor Resort is 1.5 miles farther north up the New Meadows River. It is somewhat exposed to the SW. Reservations are recommended and can be made by calling 207-203-4320. It changed hands in 2022 and there has been no launch service since 2023.
The Basin – a gem – is almost 4 miles farther north up the New Meadows River and a favorite of many cruisers. It is a completely landlocked pool with houses and a few docks scattered around the edges. Click on the link (at left) to see the separate listing for this anchorage.
Cundys Harbor is about 3.3 miles to the NNW from Small Point. It sits on the west side of the mouth of the New Meadows River — just east of Quahog Bay. Holbrook’s Lobster Wharf Grill , (207) 406-4436 (or 207-729-9050–we’re trying to verify), offers lunch and dinner. This is a wide-open harbor exposed to the east. From the west, simply round the end of East Cundy Point, leaving green can #9 to port and head up-river. Leave the ﬂashing green buoy #1 to port, and the harbor and mooring ﬁeld will appear in less than a mile. Leave green can #3 to starboard and make your way easily into the mooring field and dock. You may be able to tie to their float, anchor oﬀ in about 30 feet or pick up an empty mooring as long as you don’t leave the boat unattended.

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The history and design of the racing dinghy

Pt 1.31 – “Of all models and builds”: US one designs 1895-1925

The late 1800s and early 1900s seem to be a period of turbulent growth in American centreboarder sailing. The sandbagger era was over. The canoes and the Raters had been almost killed by their excesses. The industrialisation of the Delaware had killed the tuckups. In their place came a shift to the one design concept, but a version that was quite different to the one we hold today.

The rise of the one designs in the USA was, as WP Stephens noted, “a protest against the extremes of modern racing” under simplistic rating systems and restricted class rules that had created expensive and fragile racing machines that quickly became obsolete. It was an issue that ran from the elite Seawanhaka Cup racers all the way down to local club level. As early as 1887, Forest and Stream had recognised the difficulty; “there are thousands of miles of water throughout the United States and Canada which are suitable for sailing and racing in small boats with as much benefit and as keen sport to the sailor as is found in yachts of the largest class. Already these streams and rivers float an immense pleasure fleet of canoes, sailing skiffs, catboats and similar crafts”. The problem lay in organising fair racing between such a variety of boats. “At first the fleet includes a lot of odd boats of all models and builds, perhaps a few rowboats with sprit sails, a duckboat or two, a sneakbox, and a few canoes, the dimensions varying from 12 to 16ft., with beam from 2 ½ to 5ft…..It is an extremely difficult matter for a rule which will afford fair racing to the mixed fleet of boats, canoes and sneakboxes that are usually found in first forming a club, and yet it is necessary that all be given a fair chance.” The technology of the time allowed for no such rule. The racing machines always won. One designs seemed to be the answer.

As Stephens wrote, the move to one designs arose “with no concerted action on the part of clubs and associations”. It also occurred in an era when the concept that “one-design boats….are confined to special local waters” was almost universal. “The idea seemed to be that each club must have a distinctive one-design class of its own, a boat especially designed for its particular weather conditions and different from any other one-design class” explained George W. Elder, who bought into a local 22′ Long Island Sound one design in 1914. “In other words a one-design class was considered a strictly local proposition and the private property of a given club. That was fine for the designers, but it isolated every group of small boat skippers and prevented them, as well as the clubs, from having any interests in common.”

The logistical issues of getting small boats from club to club in those days before trailers and hoists were part of the problem, but so was the mindset. As late as the early 1920s, Elder claimed, “the hundreds of little one-design classes, each restricted to one club, were keeping yachtsmen apart.” One design sailors, he wrote, “just could not visualize any small one-design being successfully developed on a widespread scale. Their yachting horizon was limited. They knew that yachts were being raced in some other places, but it was too far away to amount to much. It is difficult to understand such a frame of mind today, but conditions were very different them.”

The parochial viewpoint that Elder lamented and the lack of cooperation between clubs and associations meant that the idea of joining forces to create national classes was foreign to most sailors. Even when two clubs did adopt the same design, often they had so little interest in building a wider class that they would call it by a different name. Many sailors probably believed that no one design class could survive long enough to spread from coast to coast as the Universal Rule rating yachts had done, for the horizon of early one designs seemed to be limited in time as well as in space. Sailors, sailing journalists (who were normally vocally against one designs, claiming they stopped the development of the sport) and designers commonly expected that interest in such small local classes would fade away within two to three seasons; as late as 1902, WP Stephens found it notable that the Newport 30s had survived for seven years.

This mindset meant that just when small boat sailing was growing, it became largely restricted to small and isolated pockets of local one designs that sprang up in a confusing array of widely different classes, with no national classes or overall structure. There were classes derived from Raters, and fishing dories, from little duck-hunting “sneakboxes”, from scows, sharpies, skiffs and skipjacks, from rowing dinghies, prams and working catboats. Dozens of types appeared and faded, leaving no influence on the wider world of dinghy design. Small boat sailing had become a disorganised and localised sport without a high-profile type such as the canoes or sandbaggers. Just when centreboarders had taken over the lead in design development, they retreated into local racing and the shadow of the big yachts.

Many of the small US local classes were specifically designed for young sailors. In Elder’s words, “these were the days of the large yacht, when racing was a rich man’s game….. small boats were considered playthings for boys”. Once young sailors had learned the ropes, they were to move into a “real” boat – one that carried lead and was 25 ft long or more. There was no almost US equivalent to the contemporary expensive high-performance adult centreboarders that were sailed in places like England and Australia; perhaps there was no place for them in the colder waters, lighter winds and more affluent society of the USA’s sailing heartlands.

Given the credibility boost that the Seawanhaka Cup gave to small boat racing, it was not surprising that some clubs adopted Raters or similar types, such as the modified versions of Question that were sailed at Yale Corinthian YC. Some of them were designed by the top designers of the day, like Herreshoff, Clinton Crane, but they seem to have been comparatively expensive boats and few of them seem to have survived long or spread far. One of the most popular types, and perhaps the last survivor, was the Herreshoff 15 footers. Over one hundred were built for three clubs, but in the typical style of the day instead of sharing a single design that could allow interclub racing, each club had its own variation on the basic design. As George Elder wrote, clubs “wanted a special class of their own…unless the designer made some changes, he would hardly feel entitled to his fee.”

The expensive Rater-style one designs were an exception. Most one design fleets were modelled off the bewildering variety of cheap local working and hunting craft that had been bred by the diversity of America’s waterways. One of the first and most popular such types was the dory. In the 1890s, dory racing became popular around Massachusetts, with the usual sequence of events; “each season there would be new boats built of a newer design and perhaps larger in some ways, and would consequently be faster, which would mean that the owners of the old craft must sell at a great sacrifice and get a new one. After a while it got too expensive and the interest died out”.

The result was the formation of the one design Swampscott Club dory class in 1898. The ubiquitous and versatile Charles Mower designed the boat, which retained the dory style “because it could be built and maintained for much less than any other type”. The Swampscott sailors were an evangelical lot who promoted their class to other clubs and formed the Massachusetts Racing Dory Association in 1903. It may well have been the first class association of the modern style in the sport. Previously classes had been run by more general bodies like the American Canoe Association, regional sailing associations or a powerful club.

Within a few years there were fleets of Swampscott Dories and the related Massachusetts Racing Dory restricted class as far north as Nova Scotia, west to the Great Lakes, as far south to the Panama Canal Zone, and apparently as far east as Holland. A 1907 challenge between the Nova Scotia and Massachusetts fleets may have been the first international event for an indigenous American dinghy type, and fittingly the US team dominated. In 1908, Massachusetts sailor George Gardiner Fry (a man who could afford a big boat but preferred a small one) won an international event in Holland, although I can find no details about the event at all.

Despite the promising start, dory racing seems to have quickly faded so completely that few traces remain. Perhaps the problem was that in the typical chaotic style of the era, many clubs adopted similar but not identical one-design or restricted classes. Perhaps the Swampscott Dory’s low initial stability was another problem; most boats it inspired, like the Indian One Design and the Gravesend Knockabout, had firmer bilges and wider sterns. Sadly, not only is the class long dead but even the Swampscott Dory Club itself, once so keen and innovative, is now a social club with no interest in sailing or the boat they created.

Further south in Massachusetts around the same time, the 14ft Cotuit Skiff was developed as the “Mosquito” class for an unusual club reserved for unmarried people under 25. The Cotuit Skiff was derived from from local hard chine clamming and oyster skiffs, and remarkably it has survived to the present day almost unchanged – even tiller extensions are still banned. At one time few more than half a dozen Cotuit Skiffs were left active, but the classic boat resurgence has seen fleets climb to 30 and sometimes more. As with so many other classes of its day, the Cotuit Skiff remained a local class only.

In the same area and around the same time, the brilliant America’s Cup designer, aircraft creator and poet Starling Burgess created the Brutal Beast, named after his Great Dane dog. Another hard chine 14 ft catboat with a wide (6ft2in) beam, by the 1930s it was so popular around Marblehead that it had to be sailed in several divisions. Like many classes, the boats built for many fleets differed slightly, which would have done little to help the class grow widespread momentum. The Brutal Beast died out in the ’60s, apparently killed by construction costs and probably the move to more widespread classes.

Several other classes followed the same general (and logical) style of hard-chine catboat. There were designs like the Cricket, St Petersburg One Design, Flattie and Shelter Island Sharpie mentioned earlier. The 14ft Sea Mew, a design from The Rudder, was sailed on the Gulf, Pacific and Atlantic coasts and on the Great Lakes. Some can still be found in California, but widespread class racing never seems to have become organised.

The most popular of all the hard chine cat-rigged classes was the Snowbird, designed in 1921 by boatbuilder Willis J Reid and quickly adopted by several clubs around Boston. The Snowbird also became popular around southern California, and when Los Angeles was chosen as the host for the 1932 Olympics it was the obvious choice for the singlehander in an era when local cities traditionally chose a local boat.

In the typical style of the era, the Snowbird’s loose rules meant that in California many of the earlier boats and those built for hire fleets soon became uncompetitive, but in the ’50s and ’60s the annual “Flight of the Snowbirds” race around Newport Harbour attracted over 150 boats, making it allegedly the world’s biggest one-class sailing event. The Snowbird’s weight and construction cost killed the Californian class in the late 1960s, although there’s one mention of them sailing at Quincy YC in Massachusetts, one of the original clubs, as late as 1982. But despite a “national” association, its brief Olympic glory, its popularity in Southern California and its toehold in the east, like so many other designs of its era the Snowbird remained essentially a local class.

Many other catboats followed the more traditional round-bottomed form. One of the smaller and longest-lasting ones is the Beetle Cat, designed in 1921 as a junior boat and still not only racing today, but still being built in traditional timber planked construction.

Oddly enough, few of the local US classes followed the style of the classic round-bilge sailing dinghy or oar-and-sail boats. Small groups of 12 and 14 footers could be found along the southern shore of the Great Lakes and the New York Canoe Club adopted a one design dinghy, but until Frostbite sailing evolved there seems to have been few US equivalents of the International 12 or the British classes that were to form the genesis of the International 14. Sailors of the USA stuck firmly to a preference for types developed as working and hunting boats.

One of the oldest and most popular types that was developed from hunting boats was was the Sneakbox, which evolved on the lagoon-like waters of Barnegat Bay in New Jersey south of New York. The Sneakbox is one of those rare traditional types that can be traced back to being the creation of one individual, boatbuilder and enthusiastic wildfowler Captain Hazelton Seaman. About 1836, he developed the low-sided spoon-bowed boat he called a “devil’s coffin”, but which others called the Sneakbox. The typical hunting sneakbox was only about 12 ft long, so it could easily be paddled, poled or sailed and lifted over patches of land and marsh. They were almost completely decked over, with a crowned deck. The low profile allowed the sneakbox to slip up to unsuspecting wildfowl, while the wide decks allowed them to handle the windy waters of Barnegat Bay. Equipped with a cockpit cover and an offset centreboard to keep the cockpit clear, the hardy hunters could sleep aboard a 12 ft Sneak Box for days.

The unique structural design dispensed with the normal keel timber; instead it relied for longitudinal strength on the planking itself. The keel-less structure and rounded bow sections allowed builders to simply run the planks up to the gunwales at the bow, rather than taking on the complex job of fitting them to a conventional stem. Many Sneakboxes were built with frames that followed different parts of a master curve to further simplify construction and cut costs.

As the renowned historian Howard Chapelle noted, “the sneak box, being practically a small racing scow in model, is a very fast boat under sail when properly modelled, rigged, and fitted” and racing and cruising sailors started adopting and adapting the Sneak Box late in the 19th century. To the apparent disgust of observers like Chapelle they abandoned the offset centreboard and moved it to the conventional centreline position, which required the boat to be extended to about 15ft to maintain sufficient cockpit space.

In 1875, Nathaniel Bishop sailed a sneakbox from Pittsburgh to the Gulf of Mexico and made the type famous with his book “Four Months in a Sneak Box”. By the 1890s, sneakbox racing had developed in 16 to 18 footers which soon developed into 20 foot sandbaggers. The 20 foot sandbagger Sneak Boxes sound like beasts of boats, carrying up to eight crew and 35 30lb sandbags and hard both on the crew who had to throw the bags from side to side, and on the helmsmen, who often required a second man to handle the weather helm. In 1914, the versatile designer Charles D Mower, of Lark and Swallow fame, created a lighter 20ft “sneakbox” that was basically an inland racing scow. The Mower type was a sneakbox in name only (as Chapelle noted, the yachtsmen had basically ‘improved’ the sneak box out of existence) and it was itself made obsolete in the 1920s by true inland scows from the Midwest. Barnegat Bay remains the eastern-most stronghold of the inland Scow classes.

But after the 20 foot sneakboxes died out, the smaller versions kept on sailing on Barnegat Bay and far further afield. Boatbuilder J H Perrine, whose grandfather had built one of the very first sneak boxes, built almost 3,000 sneak boxes from 1900 to 1958. From 1918, strong fleets of Perrine-built 15 Foot Sneak Boxes developed around Barnegat Bay and in pockets along the US east coast and even into other countries. Strong club fleets and a regatta circuit developed in Barnegat Bay, with most of the racing restricted to sailors under 17 and only boats built by Perrine and one other builder were allowed. Weighing in at 400lb, they cost only $225 and performed well for their time, although an old yardstick seems to indicate that they were barely faster than a Mirror and slower than a Sunfish. The 15 ft Sneak Box was claimed to be perhaps the most widespread one design in the world, with some 3,000 boats spread across the world, but although the Barnegat Bay fleet formed probably the biggest centre of junior racing in the USA the 15 ft Sneak Box never seemed to become organised as a widespread class. An even smaller version, the 12 ft Duck Boat, was designed in 1951 and became an established junior class around Barnegat Bay.

The performance of the smaller Sneak Boxes seems to be the subject of dispute; some early fans praised their seaworthiness while others called them tender, hard to steer in a breeze, and prone to nosediving. Others steer a middle course and say that while they do not handle when when pressed hard and unforgiving of bad handling, they are safe when sailed conservatively and well.

Despite their spread, their popularity and the strong class scene around Barnegat Bay, the Sneakbox had oddly little effect on the general course of dinghy design. Even in its home waters, it almost died out decades ago. As historian Eric Stark noted, it took much longer to build than a chine boat, took more time to maintain, could only carry a small crew, and it was hard to make in fiberglass. Not surprisingly, the arrival of Optis, Sunfish and Lasers carved a swathe through the ranks of the Sneak Boxes. Today, results show only a half a dozen 15 Footers apparently racing regularly. But the Sneakbox is part of the history of Barnegat Bay, an area that has its own sailing culture and history, and once a year local sailors dragged out their old 12 Ft Duck Boat sneak boxes together for an event they call the “Duck Boat worlds”. For years, the Duck Boat Worlds has been sponsored by philanthropist Phil Kellogg (a classic boat fanatic, who helped revive the bigger local catboats and paid for the replica Sandbaggers Bull and Bear) who provides a donation to charity for each Duck Boat that came to the line. Today the Duck Boat Worlds sees a fleet of 70 or more restored 12 ft Sneakboxes (and even one or two new ones) crossing the line every summer.

But the traditional sneakbox was more than boat for summer racing; it was a boat for winter work, and the ‘box or one of its descendants may have developed that heritage to be the fastest sailing dinghy in history. One of the sneak boxes’s tricks was that it became an amphibious boat in the winter. When the shallow waters of Barnegat Bay started to ice over, the rounded hull and sloping bow of the sneak box allowed it to be dragged onto the ice and even sail over it, steered by dragging a pole. Sneak box sailors claimed to hit speeds of up to 40mph as they careered across the ice.

While the racing sneak boxes of Barnegat Bay were evolving into boats for “soft water” only, further north in the Great South Bay of Long Island off New York a descendant of was evolving the other way. The Great South Bay freezes, but because it’s sea ice it is often rough, unstable and full of “air holes” or patches of unfrozen liquid water. Back in the 1800s, hunters and lifesavers found themselves blocked by the Bay in winter; a normal boat could not cross the ice unless it was dragged on a sled, while a normal iceboat could not handle the rough ice or the water gaps in between.

The answer was the South Bay Scooter, a development of the sneak box . Like the sneak box, the Scooter could be rowed, poled or sailed over both the water and the ice, but it soon developed lower freeboard and a shape aimed more at ice sailing. Instead of the sneak box’s standard cat rig, the Scooter developed a sloop sailplan with a long bowsprit, to allow the boat to be steered on ice by easing the jib in and out. Inevitably, they also started racing during the winter.

“Roughly, the scooter is a Barnegat “sneak box”, mounted on runners” said one 1909 guide to building a Scooter. “This craft will sail in the water as well as on ice, consequently the sailor does not fear soft ice or air-holes, but sails merrily along taking ice or water, whichever happens to be in his course….when crossing an air-hole less than forty or fifty feet…the speed of the scooter, with a good wind, is sufficient to carry her across and out on the ice again in jig time…This ability to pop in and out of the water constitutes a novel sensation and makes scootering a very fascinating sport”.

“No scooter sailor would call the day complete unless he had dashed into and out of a dozen or more air holes” wrote a Scooter sailor in Rudder. “The water, cleaved as if by a shot hurled from a cannon, is thrown into the air a distance of twenty feet, completely shrouding the schooter from view until, with speed little diminished, it glides smoothly and triumphantly out upon the ice at the other side of the opening” said one account.

As they developed the Scooters became optimised more for ice sailing, and by the early 1900s they were capable of averaging 27 knots around a course. By the 1940s they had developed roachy full-battened pocket luff rigs, but the hull had wasted away to little more than a board-like platform for the rig and runners.

Today, the Scooters reach 50 knots or more on the ice – way faster than any sailing dinghy, but they can no longer sail on “soft” water. Well, actually, they can – but only for short distances. Scooter sailors still delight in finding waterholes in the ice and planing across them. The problem is that, like a waterski or a sinker sailboard, the modern Scooter is so low on buoyancy that it sinks when it drops off the plane. If they don’t get to the ice on the other side of the hole soon enough, the Scooter and Scooter-ers will end up in icy water. Scooter sailors, obviously a strange breed, think the occasional swim in icy water is all part of a good day’s sailing. And who’s going to argue with members of a class that can claim to have been the fastest-sailing dinghy ever??

round-bowed little lug riggers”:- The Rudder . At the time they had just been changed to gunters of 96 sq ft. See also Yachting feb 1914

“There were 18 foot Prams in Portland Oregon”:- Rudder May 1911 and

“WP Stephens, never a fan of the scow type”:- ‘One Design Classes in Yachting’, WP Stephens, Outing 1902 p 481

“The influence of the Seawanhaka Cup”:- ‘Fifteen-Footers from a Massachussets Standpoint”, Forest and Stream, April 9 1904

“”The idea seemed to be that each club must have a distinctive one-design class of its own’:- Forty Years Among the Stars”, George W Elder p 36

” “wanted a special class of their own…unless the designer made some changes, he would hardly feel entitled to his fee.” Elder p 44

“”the hundreds of little one-design classes, each restricted to one club, were keeping yachtsmen apart.” George W Elder and Ernest Ratsey, ‘The International Star Class’ in Sailing Craft, Schottle (ed) 1928

“”these were the days of the large yacht, when racing was a rich man’s game….. small boats were considered playthings for boys”. Elder and Ratsey, ibid. Numerous biographies of US yachtsmen of the day show them being bought yachts of 30 ft or longer when still in their teens or early 20s.

““each season there would be new boats built of a newer design and perhaps larger in some ways:”- Forest and Stream Jan 21 1905

“The Swampscott sailors were an evangelical lot”:- ‘The Massachusetts Racing Dory Association” by J Samuel Hodge, Fore’n’Aft, April 1907

“A 1907 challenge between the Nova Scotia and Massachusetts fleet”:- Fore’n’Aft October 1907. Part of the US domination was because they hiked until “there was nothing in the boat but their feet” which is just one more piece of evidence contradicting Antipodean sailors who claim that they created the art of keeping a dinghy afloat by hiking.

“They included the Cohasset YC one design class, modelled off WP Stephens’ Scarecrow”:- Forest and Stream, Oct 10 1895.

“The typical hunting sneakbox was only about 12 ft long”:- American Small Sailing Craft; their design, development and construction, Howard I Chapelle, 1951, p 214.

“as Chappelle noted, the yachtsmen had basically ‘improved’ the sneak box out of existence”:- American Small Sailing Craft p 211. This was probably a reference more to the 20 footers than to smaller Sneak Boxes, which still bore a strong resemblance to the originals.

“built almost 3,000 sneak boxes from 1900 to 1958”:- Eric Stark, Wooden Boat magazine issue 47.

“As historian Eric Stark noted”:- Eric Stark, Wooden Boat magazine issue 47.

“”I n winter when used for gunning,” Sailing Craft TBA

” “No scooter sailor would call the day complete unless he had dashed into and out of a dozen or more air holes” The Rudder. Vol 17 1906 p253

“The water, cleaved as if by a shot hurled from a cannon, is thrown into the air a distance of twenty feet, completely shrouding the schooter from view until, with speed little diminished, it gliges smoothly and triumphantly out upon the ice at the other side of the opening”. Sci Am

Author: cthom249

A former sailing journalist and magazine editor, I was lucky enough to grow up in Sydney, one of the world's sailing hotspots and to win national and state championships in classes like J/24s, Windsurfer One Designs, offshore racers, Laser Radial open, Windsurfer OD Masters, Raceboard Masters and Laser Radial Masters, to get into the placings in a few other classes, and do a few Sydney to Hobarts. View all posts by cthom249

3 thoughts on “Pt 1.31 – “Of all models and builds”: US one designs 1895-1925”

Pingback: Introduction and contents – SailCraftblog

Really appreciate this informative post. Came here for the Snowbird, but learned so much about other interesting classes. Do you have more information or contacts on the East Coast Snowbird fleets? I’d love to see more period photos and find other survivors, but it’s hard finding very much information on this class.

We own fully-restored hull #344 (titled as built by McClure Boatbuilding in 1952). It somehow ended up near Delaware Bay and has been sailed around Chesapeake since at least 2011 or so, but originated in the Newport Beach, CA area. If I’m not mistaken, it can be seen rounding marker #3 in a still and video from the 1954(?) Flight of the Snowbirds race. The purchase included a neat, undated postcard photo of that race, one that I haven’t seen on UC Irvine Library’s online archives of photos taken by Hugh R. McMillan.

Hi Emil, and thanks for your note. I’ll chase up some other information about the Snowbird and send it to you over the next week or two. The lack of available information on the Snowbird is odd considering how popular it once was. Cheers!

Image upload small point one-design

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ONE DESIGN CENTRAL

Where to go for everything one design, what is one design sailing.

One design is a form of racing where all boats are virtually identical or similar in design. Class-legal boats race each other without any handicap calculations, start at the same time, and the winner is the first to cross the finish line.

There are more than 200 actively raced one design classes in the U.S. The classes range from eight-foot Optimist dinghies to the 12 Meter sailboats, J/105, Farr 40s, and more.

One design classes are broken down into fleets that are located at various locations like, yacht clubs, sailing centers and other organizations. Club or fleet racing takes place on a regular basis all over the country, and many fleets welcome newcomers. Contact your local sailing organizations to get involved in one design sailing and ask for the name(s) of the fleet captain(s).

US Sailing One Design Next Gen Sailor Survey for the Under 30 Sailor

Assessing Sailing Trends of the Next Generation. The One Design Committee of US Sailing has launched a survey to determine baseline information for sailors primarily between 18 and 30 years old. We are hoping to identify trends within sailing and the wider industry including use patterns, activity levels, and attitudinal responses. This will also allow US Sailing to better understand the trends of gender and racial diversity within sailing. Everyone under 30 years of age is encouraged to participate. The Survey is Closed, Results to be posted late February/March 2023

US Sailing One Design Classes and Sailor Tracing Survey Results 2022 Survey results release February 2, 2023- Click Here

List of Classes that responded to the classes survey: Click Here

TEST RULE 18 - Learn more here CLICK HERE TO HAVE YOUR CLASS TAKE PART IN THE TEST

Subscribe to The One Design Line e-newsletter

New to sailing, news & resource center, one design awards, one design racing, class selector, class finder, fleet finder, fleet/class support, social resources, sailor resources, e-newsletters: od line, one design experiences, member benefits, contact the one design committee, one design class leaders - stay connected with us sailing, update class leadership contact information here, one design class calendars.

One Design Events

How to add events to the us sailing calendar, add your od class event *, us sailing approved world or north american class championships, is your class event on the "approved" us sailing list check below., pursuant to world sailing regulation 25, us sailing board of directors is authorized to grant approval for world and or north american championships being held in the united states. to learn more, scroll down to sailor resources, and select u.s championships, olympics, world events or, click on the "sailor resources"tab on the right sidebar., approved world or na events list click here make sure you select the sheet that represents the correct year. *please note- national championships do not need to be filed with us sailing, just world or north american events being held in the u.s.a., don't see your class event listed, have a class leader or event host file an event with us sailing: https://form.jotform.com/73543790646162.

To be updated monthly

Stay informed by subscribing to The One Design Line, a NEW e-newsletter for One Design Sailors and Classes

Thanks for subscribing. Please check your email to confirm.

One Design Sailing Awards

US Sailing recognizes One Design achievements through the One Design Sailing Awards.

One Design Awards include:

John H. Gardner Jr. Trophy for One-Design Service and Leadership, One-Design Club Award, One-Design Regatta Reward, and One-Design Creativity Award,

To learn more about each award and submit a nomination today click the link below:

US Sailing Awards

NOMINATION PERIOD March through mid-November, each year with winners announced in early January of following year.

2023 Nominations now CLOSED

Are you new to sailing?

The right sailing program for you might be just down the street!

Dinghy (Small Boats)

Dinghy sailing is a simple, inexpensive way to get started in the sport in small boats. The fundamental basics of sailing are most easily learned in dinghies. Many dinghies are designed for both youth and adults though some, like the Optimist, are designed specifically for youth sailors. Dinghy sailing can provide a lifetime of enjoyment through recreational and competitive sailing. Generally, dinghies are under 22 feet in length. They include a wide assortment of designs that typically have centerboards or daggerboards. Because of their size and simplicity, many dinghies can be sailed by just one, two, or three people.

Learning to sail is part dream, part great instruction, and part hands-on experience. Most youth start sailing in dinghies many adults do too! Many youth and community based sailing programs offer learn to sail courses for adults in small boats.

LEARN TO SAIL - DINGHIES

2022 One Design Award Winners Announced click here

The One Design Awards. From left: Eric Bussell, Kathy Dryden, Chris Wright, Rob Bowden. Not present: Kristen Zillman for San Diego Yacht Club

LEARN MORE ABOUT the US SAILING ONE DESIGN SAILING AWARDS

2023 NOMINATIONS now CLOSED

Browse our Where to Sail map for listings of sailing schools, yacht clubs, and community sailing centers near you.

Where to Sail

Small Keelboat

If you are looking to learn how to sail on a more stable platform, small keelboats might be the way to go for you. This type of boat has a weighted keel that counter-balances the force on the sails. US Sailing Accredited Keelboat Schools offer up to seven levels of courses where you can accumulate skills and experience with each level of certification. This Learn to Sail Certification Program starts with Basic Keelboat and progresses on to whatever level you choose. Having a US Sailing Keelboat Certification may make it easier for you to rent or charter a boat, but it will give you the ability to sail with confidence.

Not every learn to sail location is a US Sailing Accredited Keelboat School. Ask if they offer learn to sail courses on small keelboats.

LEARN TO SAIL- KEELBOAT

WHERE TO FIND A KEELBOAT SCHOOL

Class News and Resource Center

Share timely news, resources, and content from your class association across all classes on One Design Central. This area is NOT meant to be used for regatta specific information; event recaps, press releases.

Types of Shareable Content for posting:

Best practices
Equipment updates
Class rules updates
Human Interest story
Tips/Help/Support
Online Symposiums
Measurement updates/seminars
World Event, Rally, Sailing Festival

Please send your published content to [email protected] with URL so we can post and link back to your class website or Face Book page.

We know you are running and organizing great regattas for your classes! Thank you for serving the sport. However, this space is NOT for regatta/event recaps and press releases.

Put US Sailing on Your Email List: [email protected]

Need to Update Class Leadership Contact list with US Sailing? CLICK HERE

COMING SOON! One Design Boat Grant, Loan, or Lease to Own Programs Listing!

US Sailing One Design Next Gen Sailor Survey for the Under 30 Sailor - RESULTS to be Presented during the 2024 US Sailing National Sailing Programs Symposium and shared with Class Leaders.

Assessing Sailing Trends of the Next Generation. The One Design Committee of US Sailing has launched a survey to determine baseline information for sailors primarily between 18 and 30 years old. We are hoping to identify trends within sailing and the wider industry including use patterns, activity levels, and attitudinal responses. This will also allow US Sailing to better understand the trends of gender and racial diversity within sailing. Everyone under 30 years of age is encouraged to participate. READ MORE
SURVEY CLOSED: September 1, 2023
Results to be presented during the US Sailing National Sailing Programs Symposium - February 1-3, Savannah, GA. Be onsite for the results, Register Today https://nsps.ussailing.org/
Results will be shared with class leaders in February.
US SAILING 2022 ONE DESIGN SURVEY RESULTS PRESENTATION released February 2, 2023

Club Team Racing Gets Its Due- Article: Sailing World by Gary Jobson May 16, 2023

Peter Keck, One Design Sailing Champion Crowned at the 2022 Championship of Champions October 9, 2022 Shore Acres Yacht Club, Brick, NJ Read More
World Sailing Looking for Classes/Fleets/Clubs to Test new Rule

[email protected] .

Are you a One Design Class Leader looking to share information or learn from other class leaders? Our US Sailing One Design Class Committee created a Facebook group where is it easy to ask questions and share ideas and/or challenges with others who have similar perspectives as you.
This group is private and by invitation only. Invitations are being sent to the lead administrators for all US Sailing member classes.
It is a World Sailing requirement to file the event with US Sailing. CLICK HERE

https://youtu.be/dP-qe1jjGJo

Competition naturally results when sailors and boats get together in the same place and sail around each other. It is normal for a sailor to want to test his or her skills against other sailors. The way to do that is by racing. For one design sailors, there are many options when it comes to formats for racing.

Are You New To Racing?

Check out this great presentation for beginner racers by chris snow:.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14vGdC9AjSz9gJpWyJ5hV86QD0Ri7OSfd/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=105375812249044831950&rtpof=true&sd=true

Fleet Racing

Fleet Racing is a type of racing in One Design classes where all boats of the same type race against each other at the same time on the same course. The winner of a One Design fleet race is the boat who crosses the finish line first.

More Fleet Racing information to follow as page is built out- a redirect link to a Fleet Racing page will be placed here.

Team Racing

Team Racing is a type of racing where one team (comprised of two, three or four boats) competes against another team in the same kind of One Design boat. The team who wins the race between the two has a lower combined score than the other team using low point scoring (first =1 point; second = 2 points; third = 3 points, and so on).

LEARN MORE ABOUT TEAM RACING

Match Racing

Match Racing is a type of racing between two One Design boats. It is one boat vs. the other boat. The winner of the race is whichever crosses the finish line first with any or all obligations/penalties satisfied.

LEARN MORE ABOUT MATCH RACING

Adaptive Racing

Adaptive Racing may also be referred to as Para Sailing, and is for sailors who have a disability (physical, vision-impaired, intellectual, cognitive, etc) who are participating in an event with other sailors with a disability. Most of these races take place in One Design boats that have been adapted for the sailor to aid independent operation of the boat. Many of these races take place at events that include clinics. Para Sailors may also be found racing in "Open" events against able-bodied sailors.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ADAPTIVE RACING

Ratings Racing/Portsmouth Yardstick

Ratings racing is a type of fleet racing and is typically done by a fleet comprised of a variety of one design boats. This may be a great solution for an organization or location that doesn't have enough of any single kind of one-design boat to create its own fleet but when grouped together can form a combined fleet.

Portsmouth Yardstick is one of the most widely used handicapping system. It is based on average historic performance data of a class to assign a "rating" to each One Design boat in the fleet. The Portsmouth Yardstick is a handicapping system that allows multiple classes of one designs and other smaller boats to sail on the same starting line and race course with corrected time results. The winner is determined by the formula provided in the rating rule.

US Sailing has partnered with the RYA to create a more robust platform for Portsmouth Yardstick Racing using the PYOnline platform.

The new PYOnline platform is exclusively for US Sailing member organizations. PYOnline will produce updated ratings for each class after a day or event of sailing.

Key Advantages:

PY Online streamlines submitting race results digitally, with the potential to update ratings on a daily basis.
Each Club has their own portal in PY Online allowing local updates to specific classes for better racing based upon local conditions.
The ratings will become more accurate over time, ensuring that competition stays fresh on the water. This means no one boat or class is guaranteed a win or loss based upon ratings alone.
US Sailing will update the national ratings for a given class on an annual basis, based upon the ratings used by the individual clubs.

Portsmouth Yardstick racing becomes better, more robust and more fun with more clubs and sailors participating. Please consider adding a mixed fleet racing event or series to your calendar. Contact [email protected] with any questions or to discuss how PYOnline can help your organization.

What you need to know aoout the New Portsmouth Yardstick Online. A Q/A with Nathan Titcomb.

CLASS SELECTOR:

A phase ii build out feature that is currently under construction., what class is right for me.

This section will provide sailors with an interactive tool to help sort through various one design classes by answering a few questions. It will enable sailors to find a boat that best meets their needs. Please be patient as we work on this feature.

As we build this out, the search will filter through information based on a series of questions on things like:

Youth or Adult
Total number of crew
Physical stature
Spinnaker/non
and other search options

Wianno Senior

Weta Trimaran Class of North America

Sail and Kite Boards

Land and Ice Boat

Nite Iceboat

Radio Controlled

Need to edit your class page? Just send an email to: [email protected]

Don't see your class listed above? Ask your class administrator to fill out the form below:

SUBMIT CLASS PROFILE

FLEET FINDER

THIS FEATURE IS BEING UPDATED - Thank you for your patience as we work on this site.

Are you an experienced sailor looking for a place to get out on the water?

If you are an experienced sailor, you may find yourself traveling or looking locally for a place to race or just go sailing. Visit our FLEET FINDER SEARCH to see what class fleets are close to home or near to where you might be traveling.

Don't see a class fleet represented, reach out to your class administrator and have them contact: [email protected] to learn how they can add fleets to the Fleet Finder Search.

This page is continually being updated with new additions of fleets, so check back regularly.

FLEET FINDER SEARCH

WHERE TO SAIL ONE DESIGN

Class Governance Resources

Certified Race Officer Insurance. US Sailing extends its commercial insurance for the benefit of US Sailing’s certified race officers, certified judges, and certified umpires, and to non-certified officials acting as volunteers for US Sailing (collectively referred to as Certified Race Officials (CRO)). Each specific scenario determines if US Sailing’s insurance is primary, excess, or does not apply. Learn More
SafeSport - SafeSport training is a free online course that provides education and certification on sexual misconduct, emotional and physical misconduct and understanding your responsibilities around mandatory reporting. Learn More
Ten Commandments for Successful One-Design Management by Gay Lynn

Race/Regatta Management Resources

Whether you are running an event for the first time or an experienced event planner, US Sailing has the tools to help you succeed.

REGATTA MANAGEMENT

Regatta Management Planning Manual
World Sailing Racing Rules of Sailing 2021-2024
US Sailing Prescriptions RRS 2021-2024
US Sailing Regulations - amended February 22, 2021
Individual U.S. Championship Conditions can be found on the specific championship webpages
Code of Conduct Last update- 2017
Coaching and Support Boat Policy
US Sailing 2021 - 2024 Hearing Decision Form - Formerly, Protest form used by Protest Committee
Using Regatta Network part one (5 minute tutorial)
Using Regatta Network part two (3 minute tutorial)
Yacht Scoring
Club Spot/Regatta Toolbox
Organizing a Great Regatta
Five Tips for Regatta PR Success by Doug Wake
Race Management Tips for the Last Day by Jeff Johnson
Conduct of Championships by Clark Chapin
The Great Event - an Interview with Phil Richmond, Regatta Chair Extraordinaire
Find a Race Official (Race Officers, Judge, Umpires, Classifiers, Measurers at all levels- Club, Regional, National, International)
Become a Race Official
Race Committee 101 is a New US Sailing training program that provide an overview of race committee functions for those who are interested in learning more.
Race Participation
Participation

Fleet Support

Start Small with Big Ideas-Starting a New Sailing Club
How A Boat Grant Program Works - International Lightning Class Association
Fun is the Key by Dave Irish
Different Strokes – A Trophy for Fun by Ron Schauble
Ten Commandments for Successful One-Design Management by Gay Lynn
Racing Rules Book Club Article by Clark Chapin

We are in the process of collecting articles and information that will help a broad spectrum of one design classes and fleets with the topics listed above. If you have an article or information that you can contribute to this section, please send it via email to:

[email protected]

Safety Concerns

US Sailing is committed to fostering a fun, healthy, and safe environment for all sailor athletes.

Covid-19 Resources
SafeSport - SafeSport training is a free online course that provides education and certification on sexual misconduct, emotional and physical misconduct and understanding your responsibilities around mandatory reporting
Life Jacket Association -COVID-19 Virus: Cleaning & Storing your Life Jackets
MTI Lifejackets - COVID-19: Recommended Methods for PFD Sanitization
Traveling with your Inflatable Lifejacket
Cold Assessment Reference Card- Hypothermia
US VHF CHannel Information

US Sailing Facebook One- Design Forum

Are you a One Design Class Leader looking to share information or learn from other class leaders? Our US Sailing One Design Class Committee created a private group on Facebook to share best practices, learn from others and grow your class.
This group is private and by invitation only. Invitations are being sent to the lead administrators for all US Sailing member classes. We have created a place where is it easy to ask questions and share ideas and/or challenges with others who have similar perspectives as you.
Class leaders will have the opportunity to invite another class member to the group once the initial emails have been sent.
Please note that you must have your own Facebook account to join a group.

Rules Related Topics

What you need to know about APPEALS

2021-2024 US Sailing Prescriptions

Dave Perry's Understanding the Racing Rules of Sailing Products

Sampling of Dave Perry's Rules Quizzes

Rules Related Publications

US Sailing 2021 - 2024 Hearing Request Form Formerly, Protest Form

Tools for Organizing Your Team:

Crew Manager Providing a boat website with features the skipper and crew will use throughout the sailing season. https://crew-mgr.com/

CrewSignUp Enabling crew members to indicate their availability and you to select who will race. http://drapers.us/crewsignup/

Phlotilla Providing an extensive set of crew / team management tools. https://phlotilla.com/

RailMeets Bringing crew and captains one click closer. https://railmeets.com/

RegattaBoard Crew Finder - Short Notice https://www.regattaboard.com/

SailConnect Helping everyone spend less time organizing and more time on the water. https://sailconnect.com/

TeamSnap Taking the work out of play. https://www.teamsnap.com/

Crew Medical & Health Insurance - Specialized health insurance with worldwide overage for professional sailors, coaches, instructors, Olympic team members, collegiate sailing athletes, paid crew/captains, and international cruisers who are members of US Sailing. Learn More .

One Design Insurance Program. Specialized insurance for one-design boats under 30-feet. Can be purchased online. US Sailing members may be eligible for a10% discount. Learn More .

Tuning Tips

Content to follow - under construction

Calibrating Your Rig On The Fly

Tuning Your Boat for Performance by Chris Snow
Finn Gybing with plenty of breeze on! 30 Knot Gusts!
Steering in waves
Finn Pumping explained by Ben Ainslie ,
Steering in waver
Finn tacking tips
Light wind sail trim/speed training Fin Club Holland
Dinghy Academy: Finn free pumping in 20 knots, a hard day at work...

Tactics & Strategy

Content under construction

North U is offers live and on-demand webinars on tactics and sail trim. US Sailing members are being offering special pricing on these sessions. Visit the North U website and use promo code USS20NU to save 25% and gain access. The North U Trim Webinar is a series of 4 sessions. Purchase individual sessions at $30 each (regularly $40) or all 4 session for $108.75 (regularly $145).
Youth Racing Central - US Sailing Members Only Feature- Login with your member ID and password- Youth and Adults Welcome

Youth/Adult - Learn to Sail- Getting Started

First Sail Opportunities/Locations

First Sail Locations

Small Boat Instructor Programs
Keelboat Instructor Programs
Teach Sailing the Fun Way for Instructors
Safety as Sea - Our Safety at Sea experts set high standards for the most authoritative and proven methods for keeping sailors safer while they enjoy the sport. Countless hours of research conducted by our dedicated volunteers have allowed US Sailing to provide instructional materials, publications, courses and seminars that are made available to all interested sailors. These educational opportunities include our widely popular Safety at Sea Courses.

One-Design Event Calendar (add your class events here)

Us sailing one design calendar, learn how to add your class event to the us sailing od calendar- click here.

*Membership with US Sailing required to access this feature through a "My US SAILING" account - Join/Renew Today

U.S. Championships, Olympics, World Events

What Are My Options
5 US Sailing Youth Championship Events
10 US Sailing Adult Championships
Hosting a US Sailing Championship
Three Planning Calendar
US Sailing Area Map and Representatives
Olympic Development Program
Filing World Events with US Sailing - https://form.jotform.com/73543790646162
Check to see if your event has been add- CLICK HERE
*National Class Championship Events do not need to be approved through this process.

ATTENTION - N.I. E. Applications no longer a required travel document for Entry to U.S.A.

On November 8, 2021, at 00:01, Presidential Proclamation Advancing the Safe Resumption of Global Travel During the COVID-⁠19 Pandemic goes into effect. All previously issued NIEs are void as of this date regardless of stated validity.

You can find out more about the new travel requirements here. Travelers can check what COVID documentation they will need here.

This change eliminates the National Interest Exemption process for upcoming regattas/events in the US.

Stay Healthy - Fitness and Training

The Starboard Portal Fitness Friday with Sailing Performance Training CLICK HERE scroll down to the Fitness Section on the page for a complete list of videos. Tune in for live classes each Friday.

Sailing Workout Plan: The 15 Best Home Exercises for Sailors - YouTube

Fitness Top Tips with Finn Sailor Andrew Mills - Pumping Iron with the British Sailing Team - YouTube

E-Newsletter

The one design line archived issues, archived editions of the one design line:, issue no. 01 - july, 2020, issue no. 02 - september, 2020, issue no. 03 - october, 2020, issue no. 04 - november, 2020, issue no. 05 - december, 2020, issue no. 06 - february, 2021, issue no. 07 - may, 2021, issue no. 08 - june 2021 - team racing, issue no. 09 - july 2021 - special olympic edition.

*If you have an idea for a future edition of The One Design Line send an email to: [email protected]

To subscribe to the One Design Line e-Newsletter, fill out the quick form at the top of the One Design Central webpage.

One Design Experiences with

My class, my story : the comet.

'One sailor’s Deep connection to his beloved one-design class serves as an example of why we sail the boats we do.'

By Dave Reed

We all have it: that human fascination with the new. Even the cereal I’ve been eating for years is now “new and improved” (which makes we wonder whether Quaker has been selling me an inferior breakfast all these years). I digress. Our curiosity is for new, new, new, all the time. New boats, new races, new classes, new experiences — you name it. We fill our social media feeds, our websites and even the pages of this magazine with new things. And while we’re all so focused on the new, it’s easy to ignore the older classes, boats and fleets that the majority of racers hold near and dear. Click here to continue reading.

If you are interested in submitting a My Class, My Story article, contact: [email protected]

My Class, My Story ARCHIVES

My Class, My Story: Interlake by Erika Seaman
My Class, My Story: The Day Sailer by Erika B Seamon
My Class, My Story: E-Scow by Rachel Beers
My Class, My Story: The Comet by Dave Reed
My Class, My Story: DN Iceboat by Pete Pierce
My Class, My Story: The Ensign by John Cutler

One Design Central Sailing World My Class My Story The Comet

US Sailing Member Benefits

To access these and other member benefits, please log into your My US Sailing account and click on Member Coupons and Benefits on the sidebar.

Membership with USSA provides sailors opportunity to the appeal process
U.S. and World Championship eligibility
Education and Training - Access to US Sailing Programs
US Sailing Store - Save 25% (certain restrictions apply) Member- only pricing on US Sailing products including publications from the US Sailing Store
Safety at Sea Training - US Sailing Members can use the following promo codes for discounts on Safety at Sea items in the US Sailing Online Store : SAS5 – $5 OFF Safety at Sea: Coastal (Units 1-5) Online SAS5 – $5 OFF Safety at Sea: Offshore Upgrade (Units 11-15) SAS10 – $10 OFF Safety at Sea: Coastal Upgrade (Units 6-15) SAS10 – $10 OFF Safety at Sea: Coastal Online Plus Safety at Sea: A Guide to Safety Under Sail and Personal Survival SAS25 – $25 OFF Safety at Sea: Offshore (Units 1-15) Online
Boat US -10% of water towing services. Access your MY USSAILING account for discount code and sign up online at BoatUS.com/join or call 800-395-2628.
Cabrinha - 20% off the retail price of any Cabrinha product. Visit https://adventuresportsusa.com/ log into your MY USSAILING account for the discount code to redeem your exclusive member benefit.
US Sailing Team Athlete
US Sailing certified Race Official
Getting started is simple and free. Go to www.expertvoice.com/us-sailing and sign up. Questions? Contact ExpertVoice Partner Services [email protected]
Fell Marine - Wireless Kill Switch (MOB+ Wireless Man Overboard System and Products). Members save 15% off – Log Into your MYUSSAILING Account to access coupon code and visit Fell Marine .
Gill - 10% off - US Sailing Members get 10% off Gill access your MY USSAILING account for discount code. Visit gillmarine.com for online purchases or show your valid membership digital card at Gill’s Flagship store in Newport (364B Thames St. Newport, RI) to recieve 10% off your purchase in-store.
Hobie Polarized : Save 25% off the retail price of Hobie Polarized Sunglasses. Log into your MY USSAILING Account to access coupon code and visit: www.hobieeyewear.com
Landfall Navigation - $15 Off - Log into your My USSAILING Account to access coupon code and visit Landfall Navigation’s website and register and checkout as a Landfall member . It is completely free to register on their website.
McLaughlin - 15% off any items on Optistuff.com excluding boats, sails and clearance items. Optistuff.com represents much more than just parts of the Optimist Dinghy. You can also purchase parts for a Laser, I-420, C420 and sailing apparel. Log into you MY USSAILING Account to unlock promo code.
PerkSpot - sailors looking for product discounts
Portsmouth Yardstick- Popularly used to rate centerboard boats, smaller keelboats, and multihulls. Portsmouth Yardstick is often used for local fleet races around the country. Learn More
Reaching Ahead Mental Performance (RAMP) Training Program - Train your mental game to perform more consistently on the racecourse! For only $12 per month, access a new module each month from Dr. Tim Herzog’s Reaching Ahead Mental Performance (RAMP) training program. As long as you keep the subscription, you will have access to every module that’s been unveiled! As a US Sailing member, get the first month free. Log into your MY USSAILING account for coupon code and details.
Safe Lakes Life Cords - US Sailing Members receive 10% off Safe Lakes Life Cords . Log into your MY USSAILING account for coupon code and details. Sail1Design - Sail1Design’s Job Board is available to US Sailing members at a 15% discount. Setting up your listing by creating a membership with Sail1Design and login to your account . Add your US Sailing member ID to your Sail1Design member information profile. Once this is automatically verified, you will see new Career Center and Marketplace posting/pricing categories appear.
SailorsHealth Insurance - Gowrie Group offers US Sailing members access to the SailorsHealth Insurance Program which is a creditable, annual health insurance plan brought to you by GeoBlue. This best-in-class annual health insurance plan features worldwide coverage, domestic coverage, prompt access to doctors and hospitals, English speaking customer service, paperless claims, and more.
SailFlow - Save 30% on SailFlow Plus or Pro memberships or purchase a bundled package including the WeatherFlow Wind Meter and a free one year SailFlow Plus Membership for $34.99. Visit SailFlow’s website to redeem.
Sailing World and Cruising World - Special Member Pricing $15/1 yr Because of our strong partnership with Sailing World and Cruising World, US Sailing has secured the lowest subscription rate offered anywhere. US Sailing members pay only $15.00 for a year-long subscription to either publication. Take advantage of this discount when renewing online or call our office at 401-342-7900.
SeaTactics offers US Sailing members discounted registration for courses. Log into your MY USSAILING account for coupon and details.
Waterway Guide - All US Sailing members receive 25% off any Waterway Guide print publications. Visit Waterwayguide.com and log into your MY USSAILING account for coupon.
Weems & Plath - 10% off all products online. Shop Weems & Plath online and access the promo code from your MY USSAILING account.
Zim Sailing - EXCLUSIVE 10% OFF EVERYTHING at ZimSailing.com . That’s 10% off sails, spars, parts, gear, dollies, and even clearance items. Log into your MY USSAILING Account to unlock coupon code.
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10 Best Small Sailboats (Under 20 Feet)

Best Small Sailboats Under 20 Feet | Life of Sailing

Last Updated by

Daniel Wade

December 28, 2023

Compact, easy to trailer, simple to rig, easy to maintain and manage, and affordable, the best small boats all have one thing in common: they offer loads of fun while out there on the water.

So whether you're on a budget or just looking for something that can offer ultimate daytime rides without compromising on safety, aesthetic sensibilities, alternate propulsion, and speed, the best small sailboats under 20 feet should be the only way to go.

Let's be brutally honest here; not everyone needs a 30-foot sailboat to go sailing. They come with lots of features such as electronics, entertainment, refrigeration, bunks, a galley, and even a head. But do you really need all these features to go sailing? We don't think so.

All you need to go sailing is a hull, a mast, rudder, and, of course, a sail. And whether you refer to them as daysailers, trailerable sailboats , a weekender sailboat, or pocket cruisers, there's no better way to enjoy the thrills of coastal sailing than on small sailboats.

There are a wide range of small boats measuring less than 20 feet available in the market. These are hot products in the market given that they offer immense thrills out on the sea without the commitment required to cruise on a 30-footer. A small sailboat will not only give you the feel of every breeze but will also give you the chance to instantly sense every change in trim.

In this article, we'll highlight 10 best small sailboats under 20 feet . Most models in this list are time-tested, easy to rig, simple to sail, extremely fun, and perfect either for solo sailing or for sailing with friends and family. So if you've been looking for a list of some of the best small sailboats , you've come to the right place.

So without further ado, let's roll on.

Table of contents

The Marlow-Hunter 15 is not only easy to own since it's one of the most affordable small sailboats but also lots of fun to sail. This is a safe and versatile sailboat for everyone. Whether you're sailing with your family or as a greenhorn, you'll love the Hunter 15 thanks to its raised boom, high freeboard, and sturdy FRP construction.

With high sides, a comfortable wide beam, a contoured self-bailing cockpit, and fiberglass construction, the Hunter 15 is certainly designed with the novice sailor in mind. This is why you can do a lot with this boat without falling out, breaking it, or capsizing. Its contoured self-baiting cockpit will enable you to find a fast exit while its wide beam will keep it steady and stable no matter what jibes or weight shifts happen along the way.

This is a small sailboat that can hold up to four people. It's designed to give you a confident feeling and peace of mind even when sailing with kids. It's easy to trailer, easy to rig, and easy to launch. With a price tag of about $10k, the Hunter 15 is a fun, affordable, and versatile boat that is perfect for both seasoned sailors and novices. It's a low-maintenance sailboat that can be great for teaching kids a thing or two about sailing.

Catalina 16.5

Catalina Yachts are synonymous with bigger boats but they have some great and smaller boats too such as Catalina 16.5. This is one of the best small sailboats that are ideal for family outings given that it has a big and roomy cockpit, as well as a large storage locker. Designed with a hand-laminated fiberglass sloop, the Catalina 16.5 is versatile and is available in two designs: the centerboard model and the keel model.

The centerboard model is designed with a powerful sailplane that remains balanced as a result of the fiberglass centerboard, the stable hull form, and the rudder. It also comes with a tiller extension, adjustable hiking straps, and adjustable overhaul. It's important to note that these are standard equipment in the two models.

As far as the keel model is concerned, this is designed with a high aspect keel as the cast lead and is attached with stainless steel keel bolts, which makes this model perfect for mooring or docking whenever it's not in use. In essence, the centerboard model is perfect if you'll store it in a trailer while the keel model can remain at the dock.

All in all, the Catalina 16.5 is one of the best small sailboats that you can get your hands on for as low as $10,000. This is certainly a great example of exactly what a daysailer should be.

There's no list of small, trailerable, and fun sailboats that can be complete without the inclusion of the classic Hobie 16. This is a durable design that has been around and diligently graced various waters across the globe since its debut way back in 1969 in Southern California. In addition to being durable, the Hobie 16 is trailerable, great for speed, weighs only 320 pounds, great for four people, and more importantly, offers absolute fun.

With a remarkable figure of over 100,000 launched since its debut, it's easy to see that the Hobie 16 is highly popular. Part of this popularity comes from its asymmetric fiberglass-and-foam sandwiched hulls that include kick-up rudders. This is a great feature that allows it to sail up to the beach.

For about $12,000, the Hobie 16 will provide you with endless fun throughout the summer. It's equipped with a spinnaker, trailer, and douse kit. This is a high-speed sailboat that has a large trampoline to offer lots of space not just for your feet but also to hand off the double trapezes.

Montgomery 17

Popularly known as the M-17, The Montgomery 17 was designed by Lyle C. Hess in conjunction with Jerry Montgomery in Ontario, California for Montgomery Boats. Designed either with keel or centerboard models, the M-17 is more stable than most boats of her size. This boat is small enough to be trailered but also capable of doing moderate offshore passages.

This small sailboat is designed with a masthead and toe rail that can fit most foresails. It also has enough space for two thanks to its cuddly cabin, which offers a sitting headroom, a portable toilet, a pair of bunks, a DC power, and optional shore, and a proper amount of storage. That's not all; you can easily raise the deck-stepped mast using a four-part tackle.

In terms of performance, the M-17 is one of the giant-killers out there. This is a small sailboat that will excel in the extremes and make its way past larger boats such as the Catalina 22. It glides along beautifully and is a dog in light air, though it won't sail against a 25-knot wind, which can be frustrating. Other than that, the Montgomery 17 is a great small sailboat that can be yours for about $14,000.

Norseboat 17.5

As a versatile daysailer, Norseboat 17.5 follows a simple concept of seaworthiness and high-performance. This small sailboat perfectly combines both contemporary construction and traditional aesthetics. Imagine a sailboat that calls itself the "Swiss Army Knife of Boats!" Well, this is a boat that can sail and row equally well.

Whether you're stepping down from a larger cruiser or stepping up from a sea kayak, the unique Norseboat 17.5 is balanced, attractive, and salty. It has curvaceous wishbone gaff, it is saucy, and has a stubby bow-sprit that makes it attractive to the eyes. In addition to her beauty, the Norseboat 17.5 offers an energy-pinching challenge, is self-sufficient, and offers more than what you're used to.

This is a small, lightweight, low-maintenance sailboat that offers a ticket to both sailing and rowing adventures all at the same time. At about 400 pounds, it's very portable and highly convenient. Its mainsails may look small but you'll be surprised at how the boat is responsive to it. With a $12,500 price tag, this is a good small sailboat that offers you the versatility to either row or sail.

If you've been looking for a pocket cruiser that inspires confidence, especially in shoal water, look no further than the Sage 17. Designed by Jerry Montgomery in 2009, the Sage 17 is stable and should heel to 10 degrees while stiffening up. And because you want to feel secure while sailing, stability is an integral feature of the Sage 17.

This is a sailboat that will remain solid and stable no matter which part of the boat you stand on. Its cabin roof and the balsa-cored carbon-fiber deck are so strong that the mast doesn't require any form of compression post. The self-draining cockpit is long enough and capable of sleeping at 6 feet 6 inches.

The Sage 17 may be expensive at $25k but is a true sea warrior that's worth look at. This is a boat that will not only serve you right but will also turn heads at the marina.

Having been chosen as the overall boat of the year for 2008 by the Sailing World Magazine, the Laser SB3 is one of the coolest boats you'll ever encounter. When sailing upwind, this boat will lock into the groove while its absolute simplicity is legendary. In terms of downwind sailing, having this boat will be a dream come true while it remains incredibly stable even at extraordinary speed.

Since its debut in 2004, the Laser SB3 has surged in terms of popularity thanks to the fact that it's designed to put all the controls at your fingertips. In addition to a lightweight mast, its T- bulb keel can be hauled and launched painlessly. For about $18,000, the Laser SB3 ushers you into the world of sports sailing and what it feels to own and use a sports boat.

As a manufacturer, Fareast is a Chinese boat manufacturer that has been around for less than two decades. But even with that, the Fareast 18 remains a very capable cruiser-racer that will take your sailing to the next level. In addition to its good looks, this boat comes with a retractable keel with ballast bulb, a powerful rig, and an enclosed cabin.

Its narrow design with a closed stern may be rare in sailboats of this size, but that's not a problem for the Fareast 18. This design not only emphasizes speed but also makes it a lot easier to maintain this boat. Perfect for about 6 people, this boat punches above its weight. It's, however, designed to be rigged and launched by one person.

This is a relatively affordable boat. It's agile, safe, well-thought-out, well built, and very sporty.

If you're in the market looking for a small sailboat that offers contemporary performance with classic beauty, the Paine 14 should be your ideal option. Named after its famous designer, Chuck Paine, this boat is intentionally designed after the classic Herreshoff 12.5 both in terms of dimensions and features.

This is a lightweight design that brings forth modern fin keel and spade rudder, which makes it agile, stable, and faster. The Paine 14 is built using cold-molded wood or west epoxy. It has varnished gunnels and transoms to give it an old-time charm. To make it somehow modern, this boat is designed with a carbon mast and a modern way to attach sails so that it's ready to sail in minutes.

You can rest easy knowing that the Paine 14 will not only serve you well but will turn heads while out there.

Many sailors will attest that their first sailing outing was in a Lido 14. This is a classic sailboat that has been around for over four decades and still proves to be a perfect match to modern small boats, especially for those still learning the ropes of sailing.

With seating for six people, the Lido 14 can be perfect for solo sailing , single-handed sailing, or if you're planning for shorthanded sailing. While new Lido 14 boats are no longer available, go for a functional used Lido 14 and you'll never regret this decision. It will serve you well and your kids will probably fall in love with sailing if Lido 14 becomes their main vessel during weekends or long summer holidays.

Bottom Line

There you have it; these are some of the best small sailboats you can go for. While there are endless small sailboats in the market, the above-described sailboat will serve you right and make you enjoy the wind.

Choose the perfect sailboat, invest in it, and go out there and have some good fun!

I've personally had thousands of questions about sailing and sailboats over the years. As I learn and experience sailing, and the community, I share the answers that work and make sense to me, here on Life of Sailing.

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Designed for sailors weighing up to 82 lbs (37 kg). When it's time to accelerate your program, you want the best. Updated for 2023, the Quantum QX-1 was designed and tested extensively by our lofts in Spain and Brazil. The panel designs include a cross-cut body for a smoother entry and exit and features the latest in sail materials and technology. Sails come with battens, vision window, luff and leech telltales, IODA royalty button, tube bag, sail ties, and sail numbers

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Designed for sailors weighing up to 82-93 lbs (37-42kg). When it's time to accelerate your program, you want the best. Updated for 2023, the Quantum QX-1 was designed and tested extensively by our lofts in Spain and Brazil. The panel designs include a cross-cut body for a smoother entry and exit and features the latest in sail materials and technology. Sails come with battens, vision window, luff and leech telltales, IODA royalty button, tube bag, sail ties, and sail numbers.

This product may be ordered through your local rep or a class expert.

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Designed for sailors weighing 93-101 lbs and up (42-46 kg). When it's time to accelerate your program, you want the best. Updated for 2023, the Quantum QX-1 was designed and tested extensively by our lofts in Spain and Brazil. The panel designs include a cross-cut body for a smoother entry and exit and features the latest in sail materials and technology. Sails come with battens, vision window, luff and leech telltales, IODA royalty button, tube bag, sail ties, and sail numbers.

Optimist QX-1 X-Heavy

Designed for sailors weighing 101 lbs and up (46+ kg). When it's time to accelerate your program, you want the best. Updated for 2023, the Quantum QX-1 was designed and tested extensively by our lofts in Spain and Brazil. The panel designs include a cross-cut body for a smoother entry and exit and features the latest in sail materials and technology. Sails come with battens, vision window, luff and leech telltales, IODA royalty button, tube bag, sail ties, and sail numbers.

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Carter Cameron

P: 410-268-1161
E: [email protected]

Growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, Carter fell in love with sailboat racing at a young age. He sailed Optis and Club 420s but his favorite racing boat was the Lightning. He sailed for the College of Charleston where he was coached by legendary sailmaker Greg Fisher. Carter was a skipper and starting heavy crew at Charleston and was nominated for the Robert H. Hobbs Sportsman of the Year in 2019 for college sailing. It was during his time at the College of Charleston that Carter realized his passion for the art of sailmaking and the science behind sail design. Carter graduated in 2019 and moved to Annapolis to work with Quantum Sails as a service sailmaker. He quickly integrated himself into the Mid-Atlantic one-design sailing scene, excelling in the Snipe and Lightning classes. Carter also has experience with Viper 640s, E Scows, and high school and collegiate dinghies. After spending 2 years at the loft in Annapolis, Carter moved to Quantum Sails San Diego to be a One Design Sailmaker under Mark Reynolds and George Szabo. In San Diego, Carter focuses on the production, R&D, and sales of One Design Sails with the goal of providing the best sails to our clients. Carter enjoys giving back to the sport. He's a member of the Under 30 Committee for the U.S. Snipe Class, and enjoys coaching clinics, running regattas, and leading webinars. Carter is ready to help you maximize your potential in One Design sailing and any of your sailing needs.

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Position: One Design Sail Consultant
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Career highlights

2013 Club 420 National Champion Skipper
College of Charleston Sailing Team Captain, 2018-19
2017 and 2019 ICSA Co-ed Fleet Race National Champion Heavy Crew
2017 and 2018 ICSA Team Race National Champion Heavy Crew

Scott Nixon

P: 410-268-1161 x205
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Scott Nixon has been involved with racing his whole life. An All-American sailor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Scott later coached many students to the All-American ranks at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. He has a wide range of racing experiences, including dinghies, One Design keelboats, inshore big boats, and offshore distance racing. Scott joined Quantum Sails in 2000, and his experiences bring a unique skill-set to Quantum’s programs. Focusing primarily on One Design classes, he is directly involved in testing, design, and development of Quantum’s One Design sail programs, working directly with the design team to make sure Quantum® sails are at the front of the fleet. Scott has sailed with Quantum customers to win championships at the world, Gold Cup, European, North American, and national levels. His hands-on approach includes active campaigns and racing in the following classes for Quantum: J/22, J/24, J/70, J/80, J/109, J/111, C&C 30, Farr 30, Farr 40, NYYC 42, Swan 45, Melges 20, Melges 24, and Melges 32.

Nationality: USA
Position: Global Offshore One Design Director
Current Town: Annapolis

Fernando Sallent

P: +34-93-2242778
E: [email protected]

When Fernando Sallent was 10 years old, a friend of his father bought him an Optimist dinghy. From then on Fernando was hooked. As an adult, his first business venture was Technik Boats, a small Optimist shipyard, but it was the physics of sailing that really intrigued him. "I always had a passion for finding a way to make boats go faster," he said.

That passion led him to La Industrial Velera Marsal, a local sailmaker who made all of his sails by hand. Fernando worked there learning the basics of sailmaking while also running Technick Boats. After taking a year off to serve in the military, he decided to leave Technick and joined Toni Tio Sail Loft. Toni Tio was only designing cruising sails at the time, so Fernando came on board to lead the One Design section of the company.

In 1996, Toni and Fernando visited the Quantum Annapolis loft, and in 2000 they joined the Quantum Sails team. Fernando continues to design One Design sails as he works to help his clients improve on the water. "I love seeing how sailors do better when the product is improved," he said. "I love the fine tuning of boats and sails on the water."

An accomplished sailor, Fernando also works as a coach for many teams. He coached the 470 women's world, Olympic, and European champions in 1992 and the 470 women's world champions in 1995. Since 2000, he has advised the Norwegian, Swedish, Swiss, and Spanish Olympic teams.

Nationality: Spain
Position: Sail Designer
Current Town: Barcelona
1992 Olympics – 470 men’s gold medal, 470 women’s gold medal, Europe Dinghy silver medal
1996 Olympics – 470 women’s gold medal, 470 men’s bronze medal
2000 Olympics – Europe Dinghy bronze medal
2004 Olympics – Europe Dinghy gold medal, 470 women’s silver medal, 470 men’s bronze medal
2008 Olympics – Tornado gold medal, 470 men’s bronze medal
2012 Olympics – 470 women’s gold medal
470 Class – 1992-95 men’s world champion,
1992/1995-96/2005/2011 women’s world champion
Optimist – 1993-96/2004 world champion
Europe Dinghy – 2003-04/2010 women’s world champion
2004-06/2010-12 men’s world champion

Alejandro Irigoyen

P: +54 911 5421 9803
E: [email protected]

Alejandro Irigoyen started sailing when he was 12 years old. His father was a keen sailboat racer at the Yacht Club Argentino, and Alejandro spent his weekends racing and living aboard the family’s wooden S&S Finisterre. By the time he graduated high school, Alejandro knew he wanted to dedicate his life to sailing, so he started studying yacht design. He started his sailmaking career in 1982 working for Hood, before starting his own Sobstad loft. In 2001, Alejandro joined the Quantum Sails family. “It was a natural decision,” he said. “I shared the same view and goals as the founding group.” Though he’s sailed in various classes, Alejandro’s expertise includes Optimist, Cadet, 470, Snipe, J/24, J/70, J/105, Soto 33, and Soto 44 classes. Whether he’s sharing his class knowledge and experience, or helping customers organize their campaigns and training, Alejandro’s passion for excellence provides the best service, products, and support for his customers.

Nationality: Argentina
15-time National Champion in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Peru
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Coached 470 Olympic bronze medalist teams in 2000 & 2012
Coached Soto 40 Team Negra in 2010 & 2013
Has successfully raced as helm/trimmer/tactician on board various One Design and offshore boats at regattas in more than 30 countries around the world

Carlos Rodriguez

E: [email protected]

When Carlos Rodriguez was four years old, his mother worked for a One Design boat company. She started taking him to races on the weekends, and it didn’t take long before Carlos started racing. When he was just 17 years old, the Catalonian Sailing Federation offered him a job, and he’s been sailing ever since.

Carlos started working at a Quantum Sails loft in 1996. After learning how to make sails on the floor, service sails, and design sails, he became a salesman. Carlos not only spends almost every weekend racing in local and national events with Quantum customers, serving as a skipper, tactician, and jib-spinnaker-mainsail trimmer, he also trims masts, finds crew members, provides certificate optimization in ORC, and even services sails during races. Carlos now serves as the Spain Regional Manager and works hard to make Quantum Sails Spain a full-service, one-stop loft for all sailing needs.

professional racing crew member since 1995, Carlos has an extensive resume, including experience on Mega Yachts, ORC boats, IRC boats, One Design, etc. He has also won several races like Copa del Rey in Palma, Maxi Yacht Cup, Swan Cup, and many important races in the Spanish ORC circuit.

Position: Spain Regional Manager
Spain Tir (X-362)
Camper and Trasmediterranea (First 40, 7)
Freixenet (JV46)
Zurich (GP42 and BC41)
Fermax (GP42)
Santa Anna (JV57)
Siemmens Mobile (Farr 42)
Icaro (D44)
Garmin (DK46)
Iberdrola (Soto 40)
Copa del Rey Champion, 2007, 2008, 2009
ORC Non-Corinthians World Championship – 3rd place, 2007
Two-time ORC Spanish Champion

Date	Regatta	Result
May 15, 2022		1, 9
Feb 20, 2022		2

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Sailboat Design: Stability, Buoyancy and Performance

Simply stated, the first requirement of sailboat design is that the yacht designer's creation is seaworthy; particularly in that it stays afloat and is highly resistant to capsize - but of course we expect rather more than that...

Good sailing performance, particularly to windward, will be high on the list of most sailors' requirements. As will the availability of sufficient space below decks to accommodate the crew and the stores, and all the other sailing paraphernalia.

And the boat must be easy to handle, both under sail at sea and under power in the marina. It must be comfortable, for it's not always just a sailing machine - at times it has to function as a home too.

So a design that successfully incorporates all these requirements won't just happen by accident - but however accomplished your yacht designer, you'll not be able to have everything...

We sailors recognise the stability element of sailboat design as the difference between a 'stiff' boat and a 'tender' one. And whether it's one or the other depends on the relationship between the righting moment applied by the hull and the heeling moment applied by the wind-loaded sails.

Relationship between Righting Moment, Centre of Gravity and Centre of Buoyancy

As can be seen in the sketch, the righting moment (Gz) is the horizontal distance between the boat's Centre of Gravity (G) and its Centre of Buoyancy (B).

The righting moment increases as the boat heels until a point is reached at which the heeling moment becomes equal to the righting moment, following which any further increase in heeling moment will cause the boat to capsize.

This is best expressed graphically by way of a Gz Curve, which plots Righting Moment against Heel Angle.

This curve establishes the Angle of Vanishing Stability , effectively the point of no return for a sailboat about to capsize, and which is a major factor in allocating any sailboat to one of the four recognised sailboat design categories - Ocean, Offshore, Inland and Sheltered Waters .

If you're planning to buy or charter a sailboat, you should always check its Design Category to make sure that it's suitable for your purposes.

Displacement, Freeboard and the Centre of Gravity

Heavy displacement boats sit lower in the water than light displacement craft, so their cabin soles are deeper below the water line. Lighter displacement boats with their higher cabin soles have to have greater freeboard to provide their occupants with sufficient headroom.

And freeboard has an impact on stability in that it raises the centre of gravity, thereby reducing the righting moment.

To compensate this, any ballast carried by a light displacement boat should always be as low as possible, ideally in a bulb at the foot of the keel - the lower the centre of gravity the better, as it improves the righting moment by maximising the righting lever Gz.

In our medium-to-light sailboat Alacazam, we have gone one stage further by building in a water ballast system .

Performance

Generally light displacement brings performance benefits due to the higher power to weight ratio and reduced hull drag through having a smaller wetted area.

This is borne out by two important design ratios, the Displacement/Length Ratio and the Sail Area/Displacement Ratio.

Length too has an impact on performance, as can be shown by another sailboat design ratio, the Speed/Length Ratio.

It will also come as no surprise that performance is also influenced by the hull shape below the waterline; a slim arrow-like hull offering less resistance that a squat, dumpy one. But what isn't so widely known is that the ideal shape for hullspeed is not the most efficient shape when sailing at less than hullspeed; which is why sailboat designers ponder long and hard over another sailboat design ratio - the Prismatic Coefficient.

Read more about these and other Design Ratios used by today's Yacht Designers...

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The Caribbean’s Hot One-Design Fleet

By Dave Reed
August 13, 2024

I’d love to look around and enjoy the scenery, but I can’t take my eyes off the leeward bow that’s slicing through the Caribbean at 20 knots. I’d been advised earlier: The fine line between full-tilt and pitchpole is somewhere right around the chine on the wave-piercing bow. The warning also came with a caveat: “The faster we go, the safer we go.”

That’s the wisdom of Pierre Altiere, a master of the Diam 24 trimaran, with whom I’ve scored a ride for the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta. The point of the exercise is to experience firsthand the hottest one-design fleet in the Caribbean. Altiere’s boat is named Cry Baby , which I may eventually come to understand, but right here, right now, all I can think about is the gust breathing down my neck.

I ease the gennaker sheet in my hand and watch the bow submerge. Oh, sh-t, I think. Here we go. I’ve seen pictures of Diams tumbleweeding, but the bow porpoises. A ball of seawater smacks the forward beam and explodes into a cloud of sunlight sparkles and foam.

With a jab of the tiller bar, Altiere redirects the boat and reloads the sails. The daggerboard hums a few octaves higher as we skim across the shallow blue flats of Phillipsburg Bay. It’s thrilling and a little terrifying, and thankfully, we’re just getting started.

It’s an early March morning on St. Maarten’s Kim Sha Beach, on the bustling Dutch coast where six identical 24-foot trimarans sit under palm trees, surrounded by umbrellas, chaise lounges and rental kayaks. Four other Diams swing on their anchors a doggie-paddle’s distance from the beach. This is the homegrown Diam 24 One Design fleet, which in a few short years has multiplied from three to 10. Soon enough, Altiere promises, if his Diam dream scheme pans out, we will be looking at as many as 20.

Altiere, I’m told, is the spark, the one who started it all, and judging by the parade of sailors seeking him out for advice, parts, assistance and you name it, it’s obvious that not much happens without Altiere. As we rig our own boat, interrupted by phone calls and favors, he gives me a quick lowdown on the Diam, which was created by Vianney Ancelin, a French multihull sailor and boatbuilder. Ancelin’s vision was a recreational multihull that average sailors could handle—sporty but not lethal, high-tech but not overpriced. That was the idea before the Tour de France a Voile—a multistage regatta—adopted the Diam as its official one-design. Pro race teams with million-dollar budgets promptly priced amateurs out the class, and then the pandemic put a fork in the Tour. The builder, ADH Inotec, stopped production at just north of 100 boats. With the Tour on hold, however, there was suddenly a pile of secondhand race-ready boats, many with containers full of unused spares, most fetching $20,000 to $30,000.

Enter Altiere, the tall, jovial and hard-charging Frenchman who taught at a sailing school as a young man and then opened his own in Tahiti before landing in St. Maarten, where he operates a thriving private catamaran charter business. As a top-level F18 catamaran sailor not far back in the day, a friend once invited him to race a Diam in France. He knew little to nothing about the boat at the time. “As an F18 sailor, I knew what I was doing,” he says. “I hadn’t raced [in Brittany] in 20 years, but we somehow made it onto the podium, everyone applauded us, and I enjoyed it so much that the next day we started talking about becoming an agent for North America.”

He did, but the big continent was impossible to crack, so he pivoted to a better plan: bring potential buyers to the boat and give them a taste. Step 1: Establish a Diam base at home in St. Maarten and show off the boats. Step 2: Enter them into the region’s big-draw regattas: the Heineken and Les Voiles de St. Barth.

“There’s nothing better than an easy flight to St. Maarten, throwing your bag in the hotel, and jumping onto a Diam that same day,” Altiere says. “Just like me, I was offered a chance, I had a great experience, and right after that, I bought a boat. That’s the easy-regatta concept here: Fly in, race, celebrate, fly out.”

And that’s how “sort-of” New Yorker Adam Holmes and his buddies Ben Ferraro and Bob Young were lured to Kim Sha in late March for the Heineken Regatta. Holmes, an advertising executive and Long Island-based racing sailor, had heard about the Diam fleet through a friend in St. Maarten, who connected him with Altiere, who had one charter boat available for the Heineken Regatta.

How much for a good time?

Five-grand—tops—according to Holmes’ mental math, and that was with a top-shelf condo, on the water, for a week. Altiere’s charter fee, which included four days of racing and two days of practice, was only $3,700—worth every penny on the speed-to-dollar scale. For months, the three of them exchanged Diam sailing videos that they found online. “That was like the start of the adrenaline rush,” Young says, and when they jumped on board for their first figure-it-out-yourself session in St. Maarten, the real thing was a real rush.

“We didn’t get a very detailed briefing before our first sail,” Holmes says. “At one point on the first practice day, we were sending it at like 19 knots, and the hull was so far underwater. Bob had the kite strapped in hard and we were just flying…like really, really on the edge. The Diam guys following us in the RIB and yelling at us in French were freaking out because we hadn’t yet signed any paperwork.”

“At the time,” Ferraro adds with a laugh, “we had no idea we were on the edge—we didn’t know any better.”

But with a few more hours of practice and less than 30 minutes of one-on-one with Altiere, they were ready enough to throw themselves straight into the races. Ferraro was nominated to drive, Holmes got the back-breaking main trimmer’s spot, and Young took on the busy end at the front of the cockpit.

On the first morning, the breeze is up to 15 knots, and even though the start is in 90 minutes, the vibe on Kim Sha is bizarrely relaxed. Beach attendants rake the sand for the inbound tourists while sailors wander about in farmer-john wetsuits, surf trunks and rash guards, most of them conversing in fast-paced French and tinkering with their boats.

Among them is Erick Clement, one of the originals. He is a master of the Caribbean multihull racing scene and enjoying his retirement from F18 catamaran racing. Daily yoga, and healthy eating keep him young and in Diam-worthy shape.

“The speed is good and the boat is not complicated, but you have to get a feeling for it,” he tells me in his best broken English. “When everything is right, the steering is balanced perfectly, and you listen for the noise of the daggerboard—that helps you know when it is right.”

As a simple three-crew boat, the roles are straightforward. Whoever has the pleasure of helm also gets the traveler—the capsize preventer. The middle crew manhandles the insanely loaded mainsheet, trims the gennaker, and assists with dousing it. The forward crew is responsible for the self-tacking jib sheet, sail controls (outhaul, cunningham, mast rotator), gennaker hoisting and the daggerboard. Between calling tactics and jibing angles, housekeeping the trampoline, and watching for traffic, it’s an active boat for all involved, especially when big-breeze buoy racing in St. Maarten.

“All crew are super-important,” Clement adds. “If one is not playing the game, you can’t do anything. You have to have a good balance with each other.”

That will be a problem for us on Altiere’s Cry Baby because we are rotating new teammates every day. With us for the first day is a strapping young Frenchman named Corentin, who goes by Coco. He’s one of Altiere’s charter boat captains and has some Diam racing experience, which is good because we’re straight into the first start without a lick of practice. It’s a chaotic five minutes of weaving through rush-hour traffic: big custom raceboats, cruisers, bareboats and two 100-footers, all pinging the starting line.

The Diam will go from zero to 15 rapidly, but it’s not the kind of boat you can luff-and-hover on the start. Full speed is Altiere’s preferred approach, and with 45 seconds remaining in the opening sequence, he is stalking next to the committee boat, mentally calculating the layline and time to kill. But the other boats are stacking up at the starboard end, making what looks to be an impossible entry. But, hey, Altiere is the man and the defending champ. This is his domain. Who am I to doubt?

At 30 seconds, he booms, “OK. We go!”

And go we do, bearing away to full hum, straight toward the big catamaran committee boat. Just when it looks like he is going to pull off a high-speed barging start, Holmes and his crew tack in front of us and stuff the boat into irons—three sun-creamed deer in our headlights.

It’s either them or the committee boat, but Altiere pulls the hand break, and we coast to a near stop. The bow of our center hull disappears beneath the catamaran’s bridge deck, and the starboard bow just clears the cat’s starboard transom. I run forward and push off, and Altiere apologizes while cursing the New Yorkers for their erratic driving.

“I mean…it was our first race, and we were still trying to figure out how to tack the damn thing,” Young says. “That was a little nutty.”

“OK, let’s go,” Altiere shouts once again. More trim!” And with that, we’re chasing down the fleet. I pull the mainsheet as hard as I humanly can. The sail is board-flat and the telltales are streaming.

“More trim!” he shouts again. “We do it together.”

He reaches forward with his big right arm, grabs hold of the sheet with one hand, and together we grunt another 2 feet. The weather hull rises higher, and then the center hull breaks the surface. I’m staring at the line that Altiere had drawn on the bow with a Sharpie. That’s my fine-line guide for the week.

“More speed,” he says. “We will get them.”

I pull but get only another inch. He reaches in and gets another 6, finds his gear, and lets it rip.

The collective opinion on Kim Sha is that Altiere is the best sailor in the fleet, and I can see why. He effortlessly threads the trimaran around oncoming traffic, across big waves, and through giant puffs that pin other boats on their ear. He will dive to leeward of another boat and sail right through its lee. Downwind, he sits inside the center hull, hunched, with his hand behind him on the tiller bar, laser-focused. He senses every subtlety of the boat and knows what it will do before it does it. And more than once, when we sail into a lull and our speed drops, he puts his hand up in the air and says, “Bwaah…come on, wind, what is wrong with you?”

He’s seriously annoyed with the breeze for denying him his speed.

The first race is a windward/leeward blur, and we somehow manage a midfleet finish. Same for the others that follow, but our mishaps reflect our thrown-togetherness. We’re fast in a straight line thanks to Altiere’s skills, but every slip-up is a dozen boatlengths lost—and that’s no lie.

Back on Kim Sha, there’s a beach bar 10 feet from the boats. It’s got reggae, cold beer and cheeseburgers in paradise. The fellas from New York are happy to be back on the beach with their recovery juices in hand.

“That was kind of devastating,” Ferraro says. “We were miles behind on all the races, like it was not even close. We weren’t going to drink, but then all of sudden, we’re standing there with a drink in our hand and were like, ‘What just happened?’”

Young isn’t bothered at all about the results. He’s whipped, but it’s worth it: “All I remember was thinking, I’ve never gone that fast on a sailboat. I think our top speed was 20.7. The sound of the boat and that hum going at that speed was just like, holy sh-t. Let’s just hold on.”

With the wind forecast to peak into the mid-20s, the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta’s legendary around-the-island race is next on the to-do list. Big island, big breeze and it’ll be big-time fun, Altiere promises me when we meet at the beach and introduces me to Camille, another of his charter boat captains. She’s petite, and Altiere confesses he had miscalculated the wind forecast when lining up crew for the regatta.

“We will struggle a bit upwind because weight is very important,” he says, slapping a big hand on my shoulder and cracking a big smile. “But we will be very, very fast on the reaches.”

And he isn’t kidding.

To start our circumnavigation, the race committee dispatches us on a short upwind leg. Once we turn downwind and deploy the gennaker, we’ve got many miles of open-ocean high-speed tropical send. In these conditions, Altiere is in his element and sails right up to and past boats that got ahead of us on the upwind leg. Our top speed, according to my watch, is 22.9.

But every downhill has uphill, and way too soon we’re furling the gennaker, lashing it to the trampoline, rounding an orange tetrahedron, and pointing three bows into steep, wind-whipped waves.

“More trim!” is all I hear for the next hour, or “More speed!”

Each time, I pull with everything I’ve got, the rope shredding the palms of my cheap gloves. With only the leeward bow in the water, Cry Baby kisses wavetops, making this upwind slugfest that much more enjoyable as we short-tack the island’s coastline. After one final tack to port at the top of the island, Altiere gives us the command we’ve been waiting for: “Go gennaker, now!”

The moment that sucker fills, the daggerboard is singing, water is exploding through holes in the trampoline mesh, and we’re cruising at 20 knots. Altiere carves up and down following seas and reels in the boat to leeward of us as if it’s dragging a drogue. The three of us are pinned to the aft beam, weight back as far as it can possibly go. There will be no pitchpoling today. Lush green island to starboard, sparkling blue sea all the way to the finish. It’s heart-racing tropical sailing the likes of which I’ve never experienced.

Later, as I shuffle to a hotel shower, I get a pop-up alert on my Garmin watch that I’ve never seen before: “Recovery Time Delayed. A high level of activity today slowed your recovery.”

As if I need reminding.

The New Yorkers had a heck of time getting around, unaware of water pouring into an unsealed cockpit hatch, enough to have their Torquedo floating inside the hull. “We were hanging with everyone until we got to the top of the island,” Ferraro says. “But once we got around the top of the island, everyone just peeled away from us. We had no idea why.”

Hundreds of pounds of water sloshing around the center hull will do that to you.

Regatta organizers serve up a feast for the next day, with a full menu that includes a 20-mile distance race to Marigot Bay on the French side of the island, a windward-leeward race in the bay, and a return distance race. Our new crew for the day is 13-year-old local Optimist champ Sarah Micheaux, tiny and timid, but seemingly game for her first Diam outing. She speaks only French, so Altiere explains the ropes.

Before we even strike the line on a high-speed gennaker reaching start, Micheaux is shivering, puking, and white-knuckling Altiere’s leg. While redlining at 20 knots, he pats her on the back like a tender father, assuring her that all is well.

We round the reach mark with Micheaux out of commission, so he hands the tiller to me so he can go forward and rotate the mast by hand. It’s my first go at driving, and my tendency is to drive it like a monohull—oversteering through waves and feathering through the big gusts. Altiere corrects me and keeps goading me: “More speed. Even more speed. Good.”

All I have to do is bear away a few degrees, get the center hull unstuck, and the boat levitates with only the leeward bow punching through the waves.

“See?” he says. “Speed. Always more speed.”

After the ensuing and harried one-lap windward-leeward race in the bay, we’re lining up for the 12-mile return sprint, which is another shot-out-of-a-cannon gennaker start. Thankfully, this race has zero upwind sailing. This one’s a reach-fest, and this is why we reach through life.

“The sail back from Marigot was just epic,” Holmes says. “Just screaming. Unbelievably fun. We were finally starting to get a handle on the boat.”

On the fourth and final day, we’re back to buoy racing, and while there’s more tears than cheers on Cry Baby , the sort-of New Yorkers are feeling their mojo.

“We were in the mix,” Holmes says. “We had good starts, and we were with the group upwind. There are some cool photos of us kind of like leading the bulk of the fleet around the course—at least that’s what it looks like.”

Ferraro agrees that they were sharp upwind, “but downwind, we just couldn’t find the low and fast mode. We couldn’t figure that out.”

That’ll be next year’s challenge.

“I’m looking into buying one,” Holmes says, weeks later, back in the office and scheming with Young to go in on it with him. “It’s easy to get to St. Maarten, and from what I’ve seen, they have these cool regattas and beach parties, the sailing is amazing, and it all looks like so much fun. I think about that boat every day, so I definitely have to get back on it.”

Ferraro is hooked as well. “I can honestly say that after all the stuff that went on during the week, good and bad and stuff like that, even with all the chaos and stuff. That was still the most fun sailing I’ve had in a really long time.”

When, and if, they do get their hands on a Diam, there’s only one place they plan on putting it. “If you’re going to do it right, you gotta keep it in St. Maarten,” Young says.

And that’s how Altiere and his St. Maarten crew will get to 20 boats soon enough. If space on Kim Sha becomes an issue, no problem, he says. There are plenty of beaches on St. Maarten to spread the fun around.

“We’ll figure it out,” Altiere says. “I know we can make this work. The dream is real, and there is room for this kind of full-service experience. It’s a gateway to a sailing vacation.”

Sold. More speed coming my way.

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Arms Control Wonk

Votkinsk Portal Monitoring Facility

Within the community, we have been going back and forth on whether the United States is still present at Russia’s Votkinsk Machine Building Plant.

As far as I can tell, the US still staffs the Votkinsk Portal Monitoring Facility, which basically allows the United States to count mobile missiles leaving the Votkinsk facility. (The purpose of monitoring production is to provide some confidence that the other side isn’t attempting to break out of the treaty by building missiles that are, by design, very hard to find.)

The most recent news reference I can find is in 2006, when the Yekaterinaburg Counsel-General made a visit . (Wow, talk about a hardship post.) Votkinsk was included under both INF and START treaties . It seems likely we stopped perimeter monitoring when INF inspection regime ended in 2001 . Please, dear readers, feel free to fill in the details.

None of this should obscure the really important point: There is a Facebook Group for the Votkinsk Portal Monitoring Facility .

Oh. Hell. Yes.

God help us if we ever manage to stand up JDEC . All humor aside, the site has great images. And, best all, there is an image of the portal gates:

The caption reads: Portal Gates, I didn’t take this one, but was told it was from a long time ago and was approved, note whats missing (photoshop from their side I assume) .

I am not sure what the Russians may have ps’d out — which reminds me how much I loved The Commissar Vanishes . You can, however, see the several structures behind the portal gates in Google Earth . I am pretty sure this is the site; it is amazing how clearly you can see the three structures that hold the two gates in the satellite photograph.

Update | 12:26 November 13, 2008 We have a lot of discussion of about whether perimeter monitoring is still going on in the comments.

The big green metal gates are the factory gates; it’s some of the little crossing-guard arms that are the ‘portal gates’ in the sense of regulating traffic subject to treaty rules. At the end of INF in 2001 we stopped using the Cargoscan x-ray system to verify that SS-25s weren’t SS-20s. (It was housed on a rail spur just to the left of the frame in the ‘portals’ picture.) Now we just count SS-25s, by, IIRC, measuring the launch canisters in the railcars by hand.

I have no way of knowing if we’re still there, but unless all SS-25 and SS-27 mobile missile production ceased a year or more ago (para 3, Sec. XVI, START Inspection Protocol), we still have the right to be there, and I can’t see us having foregone that right.

Yes, I’ve been there. Once. Briefly.

Last time I visited Foggy Bottom, about six months ago, they were still monitoring communications on this. If I remember correctly, they’ll maintain presence until the expiry date – and then they’ll pull the team.

Is this a good time to plug the pretty hilarious and darn great DTRA English-Russian Dictionary for Escort Interpreters ?

Never thought this is how I’d get my photo on ArmsControlWonk…

Anyway, “the community” must not be too in tune with the dealings at Votkinsk. Of course the US is still there and will be until the treaty expires. Furthermore, I’m not sure why perimeter monitoring wouldn’t still be happening twice a day. Except when it’s below -20, of course.

“Perimeter” monitoring meant walking around the 4.5km fenceline on a concrete roadway twice a day. “Portal” monitoring is the whole enchilada. I was there for two years. Some of those shirtless people are my friends, and they have been there on the upwards of 10 years. (They guy with the fuzzy hat? A really good cook!) They are all insane.

As for what’s missing in the photo – it’s the Russian video camera to the far right…it’s blurred.

no smokestack

Thanks to all the VPMF alumni for writing in!

On the issue of losing touch with Votkinsk — sometimes things get put to bed quietly. There may be some folks over the past couple of years arguing that the expense associated with VPMF wasn’t worth it. I don’t have all the details, yet.

Yeah, that Google Earth pushpin is right on the site. You can see the outline matches the old INF site diagram from globalsecurity.org

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/votkinsk.htm

The buildings to the left (west) of the of the pushpin are the PPCM structures, including dorms, a storage barn (attached to rail siding for indoor missile canister openings/viewings under INF) and the old Cargoscan structure. The real inspectors here could annotate the whole area far better than I could.

First of all, my DTRA/OSIA arms control inspector friends are a special breed of people. That one of them brought a Slip-N-Slide to Russia is awesome.

Most of Russia’s critical ballistic missiles are produced at Votkinsk, including the Topol, Topol-M, Bulava, and Iskander. The full-time, on-site American inspectors at Votkinsk have long been a thorn in Russia’s side. Russia stopped maintaining an equivalent presence in the US years ago, and they’ve wanted the Americans to leave Votkinsk ever since.

Jeffrey’s latest update speculated on the high cost to the US in maintaining an ongoing on-site presence. The costs and trade-offs discussion has popped up at the implementer level for years. Plus, it’s not always been easy for DTRA/OSIA to get inspectors to commit to long-term deployments to Votkinsk. It’s not exactly an inviting spot.

Nevertheless, here are a few examples of Russia’s complaints on this matter:

Generals Vasiliy Lata and Midykhat Vildanov, “START Treaty: One-Way Street,” Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, 10 Oct 08:

citation The problems related to unilateral implementation by Russia of Clause 14, Article XII also need to be addressed immediately: “Each party will have the right to permanently monitor the facilities where intercontinental ballistic missiles are manufactured for the mobile missile systems to confirm the number of manufactured missiles for this type of launchers.” American observers have been staying at the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant (VMZ) where Topol and Topol-M ground-mobile missile systems are manufactured, where they monitor the perimeter and entry checkpoints of the plant to rule out the possibility of uncontrolled movement of missiles or their stages.

At the same time, the Russian side assiduously implements provisions of Clause 7 of Annex 6: “For a newly-produced ICBM for mobile launchers of ICBMs, the inspected Party shall inform the monitors of the data from the unique identifier applied to such an ICBM (the factory number of the missile)…. before such an item exits through the portal of the monitored facility and shall provide to the inspecting Party such data….” Because provisions of the START treaty apply to the Topol-M ground-mobile missile systems too, one of the first things Americans did was that they inspected unique Topol-M ground-mobile missile systems at the plant checkpoint, verified their unique identifiers and entered them in the database, as if giving permission to clear the missiles at the checkpoint. Apparently, that was the climax of partner-like and trust-based relations which many officials and so-called independent experts admire! In specialists’ assessments, these provisions of the treaty had to be revised or unilaterally annulled long ago, and Americans were to be asked to leave the plant forever. There are more than enough arguments in support of this opinion: Russian observers are not allowed to a similar plant in the United States; production volume of the Topol-M missile are is insignificant, and so on.

So, the Russian side has a number of problems with US observers’ presence at the VMZ and prospects of manufacturing of new types of strategic weapons at the VMZ. In addition, Americans’ presence at the VMZ is regulated additionally by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which has of unlimited duration. If the term of the current version of the START treaty is further extended, Americans will remain at the VMZ. citation

Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov quoted in Interfax-AVN Online, 08 Apr 09:

citation [START I] in particular allows the U.S. side to control production and technological processes at Russia’s leading missile enterprise – the Votkinsk plant, which produces Bulava and Topol -M missiles.

“I felt the national disgrace in Votkinsk because of what happened along the perimeter of the plant. Americans do everything they want there,” Mironov said.

The Russian side is not involved in the mirror monitoring of the U.S. missile plants because it gave up expensive inspection work due to the lack of funds, he said.

The U.S. side fully uses the potential of the excessive START I control mechanism, he added. citation

Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov quoted in Yuriy Filatov, “START-1 Prepared by Traitors and Criminals,” KM.RU, 08 May 09:

citation Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov reported to Russian journalists that those who signed this Treaty were criminals. And that the American intelligence services, based on its terms, monitor the Votkinsk Plant, thus getting their hands on the most up-to-date technologies. citation

Retired Colonel-General Varfolomey Vladimirovich Korobushin, the first vice president of the Academy of Military Sciences and an RVSN veteran quoted in Dmitriy Andreyev, “The New Treaty: Predictions and Expectations,” Krasnaya Zvezda, 28 May 09:

citation We need to preserve the inspections to monitor the missiles, which are on alert, but we need to reduce the number of inspections per year. Furthermore, we have an American delegation at Votkinsk, which is monitoring practically all missile production, both strategic and also operational-tactical missiles, but we don’t have that monitoring in the United States. citation

A Russian military diplomat quoted in Interfax-AVN Online, 05 Nov 09:

citation U.S. inspectors, who have been verifying Russia’s compliance with the START I Treaty at the Votkinsk Plant in Udmurtia, will end their mission on December 5, a military diplomat told Interfax-AVN in Moscow.

“The START I Treaty expires on December 5. The new agreement, which is being drafted by order of the Russian and American presidents, will suggest a new verification mechanism,” he said.

Russia says visits by the American inspectors to the defense plant manufacturing Topol M and Bulava strategic missiles is excessive and unreasonable. “There are plenty of other ways to make sure your partner is honest and open. It is totally unnecessary to admit foreign investors to the plant, which ensures national security,” he said.

Russia gave up on inspections of a similar American plant in the 1990s because of financial problems. “The current American inspection of the Votkinsk Plant has nothing to do with equality,” the diplomat said. citation

The four dorms are called Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt. Roosevelt is the dining hall, offices and gym. Lincoln was kind of a party place, though always immaculately vacuumed in the mornings.

There is a tennis court, where mostly dogdeball is played, a volleyball court, a bit of a kitchen garden out by the garbage cans, a screened-in gazebo for summer hangouts, and a really big satellite dish for picking up AFN.

Nowadays, with microwave Dish TV receivers, the need for satellite reception is unnecessary, but it feeds some wonderful paranoia all around to have a giant, white NASA-grade tracking antenna on the grounds.

The warehouse facility has a sauna in the back, though key-access was changed to host control for fire safety reasons a few years back. The fields to the north fill up entirely with snow in winter and inspectors can go out there, under escort, and tromp around on XC-skis from November through April.

The Data Control Center (DCC, or TsSD) is the small, t-shaped building nearest the road into the factory. That’s the 24-hour manning post, where one USG inspector and two contractor employees pull two 12-hour shifts every day.

The biggest issue out there is isolation and morale. As such, the gym is remarkably modern, all the dorm dayrooms have large-screen TVs, the food budget provides for fresh strawberries and prime steaks pretty much year round, and sometimes the only sound is the sweep of easy wind and downy flake.

15 years+ ago, I applied for the job after seeing a story in the WSJ, but never heard anything back. I guess you had to know someone. On the other hand, staying in Baikonur for a few weeks for a launch campaign did give me a taste for a lot of Baltika 5 after the first week.

VPMF will be closing for good on 5 Dec 09. Turn out the lights, the party’s over. It was a great gig for a lot of people, myself included.

I posted an article here that has a bit of news on Votkinsk:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23261353/Secret-Disagreements-Have-Emerged-in-the-Negotiations-between-Russia-and-the-United-States-on-Strategic-Offensive-Weapons

I use hyperbole as much as anyone, but c’mon:

“Goodbye Votkinsk – US is losing control over Russia’s nuclear weapons”

http://rt.com/Top_News/Press/eng/2009-12-03/goodbye-votkinsk.html

The deal was signed way ago…

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/05/arms-control-treaty-expires/?feat=home_headlines

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History and Design of the Small Point One Sailboat

KCollege.Access.Contact	If you are not a current Kalamazoo College student, faculty, or staff member, email [email protected] to request access to this thesis.
Askew, Thomas R., 1955-
Cartterfield, Aaron
2011-08-02T19:00:34Z
2011-08-02T19:00:34Z
2009
24 p.	en_US
When I was eight years old, my godmother brought me for the first time to Small Point, ME, a small community on the water where she had summered for over 40 years. That first summer, I learned how to sail in a very small boat called an Optimist, graduating over the years to larger and larger boats until I finally learned to sail a unique boat that I have come to love: the Small Pointer. The Small Point-One Design is a 19 1/2 ft Knockabout with an integral keel and keel-mounted rudder. The design originated over 70 years ago; a total of 35 craft have been built in this style by eight different builders, with the most recent completed in 2004. All but one still exist, though not all are seaworthy; many of the older boats have been repaired and modified over the years. The extended building window for this design combined with a relatively large number of builders and modifiers has led to significant variances in some of the critical dimensions of the Small Point-One Design, raising the question as to whether it represents a true One Design anymore. I am interested in understanding the differences among the individual boats in this class and assessing how variations in the design might affect the performance of individual boats.	en_US
application/pdf
http://hdl.handle.net/10920/23017
en_US	en_US
Kalamazoo College Physics Senior Individualized Projects Collection
Senior Individualized Projects. Physics.;
U.S. copyright laws protect this material. Commercial use or distribution of this material is not permitted without prior written permission of the copyright holder. All rights reserved.
History and Design of the Small Point One Sailboat	en_US
Thesis	en_US

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Izhevsk: 200 years at the forefront of Russian rifle production

Mikhail Kalashnikov, world famous inventor, with an AK-47 assault rifle, 1997. Source: Vladimir Vyatkin / RIA Novsoti

By the early 19 th century, small arms manufacturing in Russia had hit a bottleneck where demand was so great that the only two functioning arms factories in Tula and Sestroretsk could not keep up. As the storm clouds gathered again over Europe, mining engineer Andrei Deryabin was given and fulfilled the seemingly impossible task of creating a whole new arms manufacturing center in just a short time.

In the first years of the new century, rifles were still being hurried off crude, makeshift production lines at the cost of quality, leaving the Russian army’s troops struggling to compete with prized weapons like the French 1777 infantry musket. Instead, the tsar’s forces bore a chaotic mix of 28 small arms of different calibers, severely complicating the logistics of supplying ammunition.

A timely solution

There was no quick fix for this situation amid an acute lack of capacity and time. Pressured by growing external threats, the government ordered the construction of additional weapons production facilities. One new site was located in the forests on the Izh river 750 miles (1,200 km) east of Moscow, near an existing but run-down metallurgical plant. Founding the arms factory gave it a powerful development boost and the plant became the nucleus of the future city of Izhevsk in the Russian republic of Udmurtia.

The area could not have been better suited to the task, abounding in plentiful raw materials like Urals iron and charcoal fuel from the dense surrounding forests. The Izh flows into the wider Kama and thus into the Volga, which provided a huge ready-made network for the delivery of production to the center of Russia.

Production of AK-47, at the Izhevsk Machine Building Factory. Source: Vladimir Vyatkin / RIA Novosti

The weapons factory was built under the tireless supervision of Deryabin, whose monument stands today at the site. He faced the ambitious task of quickly creating from scratch a complete production cycle more powerful than any other Russian company and with specialized workshops for each stage of rifle manufacture, from calibration to locking mechanisms. Foreign specialists were also brought here to train local gunsmiths.

Five years on, in 1812, the plant was up and running. By the outbreak of the war against Napoleon it had produced 2,000 units of the 1808 17.7 mm smooth-bored rifle, which were comparable in quality to the French model. During the years of the war with Napoleon the plant made another 6,000 rifles, as well as cavalry rifles and short hunting rifles, pistols, bayonets and different swords, sabers and cutlasses.

Production kept growing, and 25 years after Deryabin set to work, the Izhevsk plant was turning out 25,000 rifles a year. In 1836, it set an absolute record among Russian arms companies, clearing 30,000 units of small arms. Meanwhile, a city in its own right had grown steadily around the complex.

From 1853-1856. Russia fought a gruelling war in Crimea , during which it took on Europe’s great military powers. The conflict saw the timely introduction of the new Izhevsk percussion rifle in place of the flintlock, marking a sea change in traditional rifle design. By the start of the war the plant had managed to produce around 40,000 units, while another 130,000 firearms came from Izhevsk during the war years.

From privatization to mass production

Deputy company commander A. Dovgerd teaches lady cadet how to shoot a Kalashnikov assault rifle, 1993. Source: Oleg Lastochkin / RIA Novosti

In 1884, Tsar Alexander III decreed that the plant should be returned to the Treasury for the large-scale production of the new Russian “3-line” caliber (7.62mm) Mosin bolt-action rifle. The model became a staple of the plant in the coming decades, with production of 2,000 units a day during the First World War and a total of 1.5 million units from 1914 to 1918. The plant survived the Civil War, after which it mastered the new production of hunting rifles, which today are still considered the best in Russia.

The Izhevsk Mosin was a primary weapon of Soviet soldiers during World War II, after which the plant was expanded on an unimaginable scale after the late gunsmith Mikhail Kalashnikov laid down a landmark in the history of global weapons production. In 1949, production of the legendary Kalashnikov assault weapon began at the plant, which was later named the Kalashnikov Concern in honor of its designer. The plant today is the country’s largest and supplies its weapons to 30 countries.

Russian Megafactories: The true story of the Kalashnikov assault rifle

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IMAGES

Small Point One-Design
Small Point One-Design
SMALL POINT ONE-DESIGN
Small Point One Design of Small Point, Maine
One-design sailboat / sport keelboat / classic / open transom
Small Point One-Design Regatta Line Up Photograph by Robin R Robinson

COMMENTS

SMALL POINT ONE-DESIGN
SMALL POINT ONE-DESIGN. Save to Favorites . Beta Marine. BOTH. US IMPERIAL. METRIC. Sailboat Specifications Definitions Hull Type: Long Keel: Rigging Type: Fractional Sloop: LOA: 19.70 ft / 6.00 m ... more powerful boat that will be better able to stand up to the wind. Bal./Disp = ballast (lbs)/ displacement (lbs)*100
Small Point One-Design
Small Point One-Design is a 19′ 8″ / 6 m monohull sailboat designed by W. Starling Burgess and built by Brewers Boatyard (USA) starting in 1935. Great choice! Your favorites are temporarily saved for this session.
Small point one design
The Small point one design is a 19.7ft fractional sloop designed by W. Starling Burgess and built in wood or fiberglass since 1935. 37 units have been built. The Small point one design is a light sailboat which is a high performer. It is stable / stiff and has a low righting capability if capsized. It is best suited as a racing boat.
Review of small point one-design
The DL-ratio for small point one-design is 200 which categorizes this boat among 'light racers'. Heavy Light 42% 0 50 100. 42% of all similar sailboat designs are categorized as heavier. A heavy displacement combined with smaller water plane area has lower acceleration and is more comfortable.
History and Design of the Small Point One Sailboat
The Small Point-One Design is a 19 1/2 ft Knockabout with an integral keel and keel-mounted rudder. The design originated over 70 years ago; a total of 35 craft have been built in this style by eight different builders, with the most recent completed in 2004. All but one still exist, though not all are seaworthy; many of the older boats have ...
One Design Classes
J/22-The International J/22 is a popular fixed keel one design racing sailboat normally raced with a crew of three or four people (total crew weight is restricted to 275 kg/605 lb). Because of its strict one design rule, older boats are equally competitive with new boats. It races with the "class jib," a non-overlapping jib,… Continue Reading
SMALL POINT ONE-DESIGN Sailboat Specifications, Characteristics
SMALL POINT ONE-DESIGN Specifications. Hull Type: Long Keel Rigging Type: Fractional Sloop LOA: 19.70 ft / 6.00 m LWL: 17.58 ft / 5.36 m S.A. (reported): 160.00 ft² / 14.86 m² Beam: 6.00 ft / 1.83 m Displacement: 1,375.00 lb / 624 kg Ballast: 500.00 lb / 227 kg Max Draft: 2.25 ft / 0.69 m Construction: Wood/FG First Built: 1935 # Built: 37 Builder: Brewers Boatyard (USA) ...
Visit Small Point Harbor, Maine for Cruisers and Boaters
Click on the link (at left) to see the separate listing for this anchorage. Cundys Harbor is about 3.3 miles to the NNW from Small Point. It sits on the west side of the mouth of the New Meadows River — just east of Quahog Bay. Holbrook's Lobster Wharf Grill, (207) 406-4436 (or 207-729-9050-we're trying to verify), offers lunch and dinner.
Small Point One-design Class Sail Data
Complete Sail Plan Data for the Small Point One-design Class Sail Data. Sailrite offers free rig and sail dimensions with featured products and canvas kits that fit the boat. Javascript is disabled on your browser.
Pt 1.31
Author: cthom249 A former sailing journalist and magazine editor, I was lucky enough to grow up in Sydney, one of the world's sailing hotspots and to win national and state championships in classes like J/24s, Windsurfer One Designs, offshore racers, Laser Radial open, Windsurfer OD Masters, Raceboard Masters and Laser Radial Masters, to get into the placings in a few other classes, and do a ...
Most Popular One-Design Sailboats
Popular one-design sailboats include Laser, 49er, I-420, and Ideal 18. Some popular multihull one-design boats are A-Cat, Isotope, and Hobie 16. Various one-design boat brands will cater to specific races and sailor's needs in order to provide the best experience. In my experience the Laser is one of the popular one-design brands in existence ...
Understanding Sailboat Design Ratios
Our 'Sailboat Design Ratio Calculator' takes all the hard work out of calculating the numbers andwill provide a valuable insight into a sailboat's performance and handling characteristics. We make a small charge of $4.99 for this useful tool as a contribution towards the costs of keeping this website afloat. ThisSailboat Design Ratio Calculator ...
Upload of small point one-design, data
Image upload small point one-design. All our reviews are 100% dependent of the illustrations and specific data elements we have in our database. In our reviews we would like to illustrate the following: The boat as such; The saloon; The galley; The toilet; The cockpit; For sailboats: The keel; For sailboats: The rig;
One Design Central
One design is a form of racing where all boats are virtually identical or similar in design. Class-legal boats race each other without any handicap calculations, start at the same time, and the winner is the first to cross the finish line. There are more than 200 actively raced one design classes in the U.S.
10 Best Small Sailboats (Under 20 Feet)
Catalina 16.5. jlodrummer. Catalina Yachts are synonymous with bigger boats but they have some great and smaller boats too such as Catalina 16.5. This is one of the best small sailboats that are ideal for family outings given that it has a big and roomy cockpit, as well as a large storage locker.
Optimist Sails
Optimist QX-1 Light. Designed for sailors weighing up to 82 lbs (37 kg). Sails come with battens, vision window, luff and leech telltales, IODA royalty button, tube bag, sail ties, and sail numbers. Optimist QX-1 Medium. Designed for sailors weighing up to 82-93 lbs (37-42kg). This product may be ordered through your local rep or a class expert.
Sailboat Design: Stability, Buoyancy and Performance
Performance. Generally light displacement brings performance benefits due to the higher power to weight ratio and reduced hull drag through having a smaller wetted area.. This is borne out by two important design ratios, the Displacement/Length Ratio and the Sail Area/Displacement Ratio. Length too has an impact on performance, as can be shown by another sailboat design ratio, the Speed/Length ...
Small Sailboats for Sale
Ovington ILCA - Race. Ovington Boats. $9,495.00 - $9,695.00. The most popular single handed one-design sailboat of all time. The ILCA is a single-handed racing dinghy with over 200,000 boats in 140 countries, it is the world's most popular adult and youth racing sailboat. This makes it one of the most...
The Caribbean's Hot One-Design Fleet
The Caribbean's Diam 24 One Design fleet got its start in St. Maarten only a few years ago, but today, it's hot, hot, hot. ... "At one point on the first practice day, we were sending it at like ...
Votkinsk Portal Monitoring Facility
Credit: Otto Stokes. Within the community, we have been going back and forth on whether the United States is still present at Russia's Votkinsk Machine Building Plant. As far as I can tell, the US still staffs the Votkinsk Portal Monitoring Facility, which basically allows the United States to count mobile missiles leaving the Votkinsk facility.
History and Design of the Small Point One Sailboat
The Small Point-One Design is a 19 1/2 ft Knockabout with an integral keel and keel-mounted rudder. The design originated over 70 years ago; a total of 35 craft have been built in this style by eight different builders, with the most recent completed in 2004.
Izhevsk: 200 years at the forefront of Russian rifle production
Production kept growing, and 25 years after Deryabin set to work, the Izhevsk plant was turning out 25,000 rifles a year. In 1836, it set an absolute record among Russian arms companies, clearing ...
The Kalashnikov Museum and Exhibition Complex of Small Arms
The derivatives have identical automatic action, design and operating principle to give great advantage to the armament of military forces. The origin of Izhevsk city was the Armory Factory founded by the order of the Emperor Alexander I in 1807. The factory became the ground point of Izhevsk and many enterprises of the city go back to it.
Izhevsk
Izhevsk (Russian: Иже́вск, IPA: [ɪˈʐɛfsk] ⓘ; Udmurt: Ижкар, romanized: Ižkar, or Иж, Iž) is the capital city of Udmurtia, Russia.It is situated along the Izh River, west of the Ural Mountains in Eastern Europe.It is the 21st-largest city in Russia, and the most populous in Udmurtia, with over 600,000 inhabitants.. From 1984 to 1987, the city was called Ustinov (Russian ...