International
One Meter
In
1985 my father had a heated dispute with some other sailors over the design and
manufacture of a model racing yacht.
They weren’t too kind in explaining their side of the story to my father
which is typical of the Long Island style of communication, and it rubbed my
father the wrong way. The result was
that model yacht racing would be off the menu for about ten years. He was slowly becoming re-interested in
flying model airplanes so that became his full-time hobby again until the early
1990’s.
At
this time he had retired from IBM and moved to Florida. The new house for me was a resort I called
Club Dad. He had a workshop in an area
of the house that kept the noise of his table saw from bothering my
mother. It was on the waterfront and it
had a dock from which he sailed a 20-foot sailboat. My mother spent every afternoon on the back patio
watching dolphins, manatees and any other wildlife that chose to entertain
her. My father had re-established
contact with a high school buddy and they flew airplanes almost every day. This was life in a nutshell from retirement
in 1987 until about 1993 when my father found out that a model yacht club was
forming and was looking for participants.
The new club, the Space Coast Model Sailing
Club, raced International One Meter (IOM) yachts and Soling 1 Meter yachts. I don’t remember much about his IOM other
than it wasn’t white. It was yucky yellow (my term) and when I saw it, I
couldn’t believe it was his. He did
quite well with it and there are quite a few trophies
to back that up. I only have this one
picture.
For
those that are interested in the technicalities of the International One Meter
class, it’s a restricted development class.
The hull has to be one meter long (about 39 inches) and the building
materials are restricted to wood or fiberglass.
Other limits regard maximum and minimum weight and depth. The sail and rigging are tightly controlled
like in a one-design class.
Move on to the Soling One Meter