My
10 Rater
This
is the lone relic from my racing days. It’s hard for me to look at this boat
without thinking of that famous Andy Warhol quote. This boat is responsible for my fifteen
minutes of fame. I sailed this boat on good
days and bad. This boat sailed well in the light winds at Central Park and it
sailed better at places where the wind was stronger. On one of its best days,
it embarrassed some people who laughed at it because they didn’t think it could
handle the two-foot-high waves that they raced in. While it bounded over their high waves like a
surf board, it almost sank in a collision with a J-Class boat that day.
During
my racing years I raced three classes of boats and every one of my boats were
blue with a red stripe. I had two Marbleheads. One was a Wind II and one was a design called
the Toad. It was a boat designed by a friend I met in Canada. I had a 36/600
designed and built by my father and this Big Wind 10 Rater. I had the most success with the 10 Rater which
is why it’s the only racing yacht I still have.
I want to sail it again someday.
I doubt I will race it but I am curious to see how it would do against
the 10 Raters of today. I would need new sails for it to have any kind of
chance. The problem is that as far as I know, nobody in North America races 10 Raters any more. I would
have to race it in an “open” race where anything can compete. It seems my pet dinosaur doesn’t have any
friends around it can play with.
My
10 Rater was built in early February, 1977, which makes it an Aquarius. It was never officially given a name and
along with my other racing yachts was often referred to as “My boat.” At one point I put a model railroading decal
that read “PENNSYLVANIA” on the back and informally considered the name of the
boat to be “Pennsylvania Railroad”. The boat has a beautiful redwood planked
deck backed with fiberglass. There’s a
strip of plywood in the front that provides retro-fitted reinforcement under
the jib fitting. It has a Spruce,
two-piece slotted mast. The booms are
gracefully curved and are also made of spruce. It has a drum winch that was built by my
father. The gears for it were
unknowingly donated by my sister when she stopped playing with her Dawn Fashion
Show stage.
As
I pointed out before, every model racing yacht comes with its own stories. These are some if the stories that go with
mine.
A day with Japanese Journalists
The Second Jive Turkey Regatta