wooden boat: Going to Town
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Old-time wooden boat class goes to battle for National Championship
With about six boats each year, just enough to get their own start at the Land's End NOOD Regatta at Race Week, the Town Class is present but not dominating in Marblehead.
The "Townies," which they are affectionately referred to as, are an old wooden boat with a local history going back 74 years. This year, on the weekend of Aug. 19-20, Corinthian Yacht Club will be the host of the Town Class National Championships.
"We are very proud in Marblehead harbor and especially at Corinthian to have the Townies," said Dennis Esposito, of the Corinthian Yacht Club Race Committee. Corinthian Yacht Club ran the 2002 Nationals, when the Town Class celebrated its 70th year.
The Town Class, originally built by Pert Lowell and Company of Newburyport, which still manufactures both fiberglass and the old wood style Townies, has always been a generally local fleet. The first organized racing for Town Class sloops took place in Nahant in 1939.
"The Town Class was designed as an affordable boat for the townspeople, thus the name," said former fleet captain Jonathan Tilton, in 2002. "The history is very long on these boats."
The 2002 Nationals brought in 18 boats, and Esposito is hoping for "20-plus Townies" this year.
"We'll run them closer to shore," Esposito said. "They'll race in the vicinity of Cat Island around regular racing marks on windward-leeward courses. This a class with sturdy boats and hardy sailors."
Wooden glory
Just before the Town Class comes to, uh, town, the Corinthian Yacht Club will host its annual Classic Wooden Boat Regatta, on Saturday, Aug. 12.
What started four years ago as a regatta to celebrate the arrival in Marblehead of Carribean musician Foxy Callawood has evolved into a yearly opportunity to show off some old masterworks.
This year, Esposito said, the Classic
Wooden Boat Regatta will be combined with a circuit of similar wooden boat regattas along the New England coast.
"It's scheduled in such a way that it will take place after a Maine regatta and before the Nantucket race," Esposito said. "There should be an increasing number of folks who will come out and see the boats."
