ARYA ARCHIVES - OUR PAST

ARYA HISTORIAN Steve CREWES

shcrewes@bigpond.net.au  

 Where Did the MARBLEHEAD Class Yacht Originate?

The Marblehead type of R/C Yacht, that developed into the worlds’ leading class came from the East Coast of America.

Some say it really comes from that day in 1927, when L.Francis Herreshoff, (he was the nephew of Capt. Nat Herreshoff ) joined the Marblehead Miniature Model Yacht Club which was started 2 years before in Redd’s Pond, Marblehead, near Boston, USA. Now the boats that were sailed previously to Herreshoff joining the club were in classes; 18” and 21” scows and 24”, 28” and 30” Marconi rig classes with a total of 36 boats.

          This town of Marblehead is a place given over to the sailing boat. There is literally a model boat in every window in every house and shop there. Around this time it was the leading yachting place in Eastern America. The ‘business end of town’ supported this model sailing in a big way. To ensure that the city had young people that could work with their hands and fill the many jobs that were around including on the waterfront. There were two big department stores in town that actually sold model yachting materials at this time. One of these stores ran a workshop to teach aspiring model yacht builders the art of construction and the young people could get their building supplies there at a cheaper rate. These businessmen ran a yearly summer regatta that the whole town turned out to watch.

          L. Francis Herreshoff proposed a class called the 450” S.A. class. The rules were simple. The only rule being 450 square inches of sail area. Of course this gave the would- be designers a ‘field day’ to design to his/herself life’s content. This class was adopted by the club and called simply the ‘450 square inch class’. The hulls ranged up to 45”in length. They were built in a variety of forms. The bows were rounded off, pointed, snub-nosed, shaped and the weight ranged between 3 and 6 lbs. This class allowed for the development of a large number of original designs. It wasn’t long before a model design came along, displaying all the best sailing qualities.

          Late in 1930 a founding member of the Marblehead club, Roy Clough, conceived his idea for a new class. Now this is in a place where ideas are listened to for the betterment of all.

          The thing wrong with the 450sq” class was the fact that the boats were about 45” long and no good in the light weather with the little sail area. New England is known for its light weather. An increase was needed in the sail area to push the 450s along.

          Another factor that came into the design, funnily enough, was the motor car. In Australia, in the 30s there wasn’t too many personal motor cars around but in America it was different, it had become the principle mode of transport. Even today, one can’t easily get around the town of Marblehead, if one hasn’t got a motor car. It is a beautiful town and walking through it is a pleasure. I would recommend this place to you, to go there at least once in your lifetime, (its very much like those little cute seaside towns you see on American postcards).  So the Marblehead designer had to have his creation fit onto the back seat of a motor car. Now, this is not a dumb idea.

          So this was the design that Roy Clough did. His general dimensions were 50” long, (to fit the back seat, even small cars in Aust. today have a back seat width of 50”s), with a LwL 40”, Beam 9”, draught 7”, Ballast 9lbs, Jib sail area 150 square” Main sail 650 Square”, with the total sail area around 800 sq”(roach not included) and a mast length of 60”. This is just a natural progression of that 450sq” class yacht but with more sail. Roy’s boat was also a double ender, with heavy tumblehome, going to a pointed aft end, a real pretty boat.

          This model was introduced in the 1931 sailing season. Also at this time, the U.S. Government was building model yacht ponds around the country, to give people work, for this was during the depression times.  The boat quickly became the club’s favourite class. America’s favourite too for in 1935 over 400 were registered and the following year 553 were registered with the Model Yacht Racing Association of America (MYRAA)......It became the World leader in model yacht classes.

I had the honour of sailing the 1932 national winner ‘Broom’ in the Marblehead Model Yacht Club’s 75^th anniversary regatta at Redds Pond in 2000. This boat was lent to me by John Snow for the Free- sailing  regatta. It was still in beautiful condition after all these years and I was more than a bit worried that I would damage it, freesail racing in Redds Pond.

One of the amazing things about this boat (and your going to laugh at this), was that it looked like a  modern Marblehead, we sail to day, except it only had about 9” draught in the keel, in a flipper style keel. Another feature was the bowser adjustments for the sails were at a convenient placement up the mast, so one didn’t have to get down on ones knees to adjust the boat’s booms.

The pond at Marblehead should rate a mention too.  The pond layout is in fact in the shape of a right angle triangle. The base and the perpendicular sides are properly made, (the point of the perpendicular, points east to the sea a short distance away) with a step let into the bank. The step is at water level of the pond. Stan Goodwin, the USA M Class co-ordinater, lives at the end of Marblehead lake. His front lawn runs onto it.  On the base side, where they start the free-sailing races. There is a pathway and an old village type wall, to separate the traffic from the pond sailors, along the wall is a long seat where the old locals sit and watch the races. The winds usually come from the east. The water is a bit browny when I was there, for it is a rocky place as well with a huge rock(in area) protruding from the perpendicular side, down near the base side of the lake.

          I also sailed R/C Marblehead vintage boats at that regatta. Biff Martin lent me a boat. I would say it was about a 80s design, they call them the ‘High Flyers’ in the club, with a high rig with bright blue jib. It went well and there was a lot of fun racing these boats at Redds Pond. These poor buggers have the pleasure of having a “resident” Steve Crewes as well, we met at the R/C event. Now I must tell you that at this regatta at Marblehead, nothing took place till everyone has had their “soda”(this is a bit like Aussies and vegemite) each day.

          It was really good, meeting Bill Bithell and the others. He won the 1948/9 A Class International Event for America for the first time after trying for some years. An Australian also competed in this event representing us. This Bill had a really beaut memory and could still remember the ‘Greats’ of model yachting from time immemorial at 93 years old. Like Feltwells and the Alexander brothers, etc.

NOTE## some of the historical information in this article is taken from Don Kihlstrom’s book ‘Sundays Sailors’. Some of the relevant photos are with the kind permission of the Marblehead MYC. Other photos are from Stephen Crewes’ collection (The Aussie one).

Stephen Crewes. National Historical Officer. ARYA 2005.