The genre that goes under the name 'Scow' can be misleading. All along the shores of the Solent there are variations on a theme of a short, lifted bow, clinker sailing dinghy. From Bembridge around to Lymington, Scows are a charming reminder of dinghy sailing from days gone by.
But away from this 'sub species', the true scows are identified by their blunt bows and flat bottoms.
The Scow story will be featured in the April 2008 edition of Dinghy Sailing Magazine.
Follow the link below to view some unique footage of the prototype Yachting World Scow, designed by Rod McAlpine Downie, being launched by builder Mike Tremlett.
In a recent issue of Dinghy Sailing Magazine, the moment in 1928 when Uffa Fox first drew up the lines for a radically new International 14 was featured. Avenger was the first boat designed specifically to ‘plane’ and as such can be seen as the starting point for performance sailing. Since 1928 boats have got lighter, flatter and faster, to the point that today’s ‘big daddy’ - the 18ft Skiff, can be seen as representing the ultimate wild ride in a dinghy.
Maybe not, for across the Atlantic on the lakes of North America, there are a family of boats, that in many ways can provide the equal in thrills, to the skiffs of the southern hemisphere. These boats are the ‘lake’ scows, which take their name from the Dutch word ‘schouw’, meaning a large, flat bottomed boat with square ends. The lake scows rank with the sailing canoes, as America’s oldest racing dinghies, yet today, they sport rigs that are as high tech as anything seen on a conventional high performance dinghy. In terms of sail area, some of the figures are nothing short of incredible, with the lightweight ‘E’ class, sporting over 30m² of fore and aft sail, plus a 51m² spinnaker, whilst the huge ‘A’ class, 11.5m (38ft) long carries close to 160m² of sail when heading downwind. No wonder, that in the days before trapezing, crews were expected to hike from the windward daggerboard!
Classic E class scows racing on the American Lakes in the days before trapezes allowed the crew weight to be extended outboard! Photo courtesy E Class Scow Assoc.
The wide flat hull shape didn’t just give the early scows scorching performance; they were also relatively easy to build. As well as ‘building them big’ the American sailors also built smaller versions of these scows, the 11ft version of which was to become the foundling ‘Moth’. In the early 1930s, the hull lines of one of these ‘Moths’, was taken by the British designer Sydney Cheverton and modified to become the ‘British Moth’. With a short waterline and generous sail plan, the British Moth excelled when sailed on restricted waters, such as small lake or river club. Here, their quick tacking and ability to work to windward in difficult shifty conditions made them a popular small single hander. The British Moth has prospered to the point that the class recently celebrated their 75th Anniversary.
The British Moth may well be the river boat 'par excellance' but the scow hull also allows for a fair turn of speed off wind.
In 1959, after seeing the ‘Sailfish’ class out in the US, designer Ian Proctor turned to the scow hull for his ‘easy to build, easy to rig, easy to sail’ Minisail beach boat. In the pre Laser days, the Minisail offered fast and fun sailing on a budget. However, the limitations of the boat in a seaway along with the unsophisticated rig merely highlighted the gap in the market for a bigger and better boat. Peter Milne seized the opportunity with his new performance scow, the Fireball. The generous rig (for those days) set on the narrow, completely flat bottomed hull, guaranteed the maximum wow factor downwind. For getting back upwind fast, Peter’s double chined hull, just needed to be heeled a few degrees, for the boat to increase its waterline length, offering an efficient hull form for working to windward. In true scow fashion, the Fireball was not difficult to build; once the rocker line was set, the flat panels made it easy for home construction, a factor that undoubtedly helped the stellar growth of the class through the 1960s.
The Fireball remains for many dinghy sailors the 'ultimate' in scows, though designer Peter Milne always thought that it could carry a lot more sail!
Like his North American contemporaries, Peter also aimed to create both smaller and larger versions of his winning design. His ‘baby-ball’- the Bullet, looked set for success as it quickly scooped a prestigious ‘Duke of Edinburgh’ design award and as it had been envisaged as a trainer to the Fireball, was ‘adopted’ by the Fireball Association. Sadly though, the Bullet was too heavy and too expensive, to compete with both the established youth trainers like the 420 and the purpose built junior scows such as the Flipper. After a relatively short lifespan, it disappeared. At the other end of the scale, his ‘big-ball’ - the Calypso, made a fleeting appearance. However, at the same time, the sailing scene was already trying to accommodate, albeit unsuccessfully, another ‘maxi scow’, so the arrival of the Calypso resulted in two similar large scows struggling to survive.
Top catamaran designer Rod Macalpine-Downie, had used much of his knowledge of high speed sailing, to draw up the ‘Yachting World Scow’. Like the Fireball, the idea was to sail the boat heeled in breeze, which would just leave a small part of the hull in the water and thus reduce drag. To aid sailing, heeled at an optimum angle of 25º, the twin centreboards and rudders were offset by a similar amount, which allowed the boat to point higher than would otherwise have been the case. The boat was revolutionary in other ways too, for it was sailed with a 3 man crew, 2 of which would be trapezing. The crew also worked the main and genoa sheets, leaving the helm to concentrate on keeping the boat tracking straight. This could be a challenge in a breeze, due to the boat’s offset rudders.
The overall size of the hull certainly caught out the builder of the prototype. Mike Tremlett, who had a proven track record of handling big dinghies and was a sought after FD builder, built the first YW Scow in his Southsea workshop. However, once the hull for the boat was completed, it was discovered to be too big to be removed through the workshop entrance. Instead, the windows were removed and with the aid of a number of Mike’s colleagues from the nearby Locks Sailing Club, the hull was physically manhandled out into the road. Mike’s problems persisted, for the hull was too ungainly for easy towing down to Locks SC; instead, the launching took place at Southsea, from there it was possible to sail the scow around to the waiting sailing club.
Despite the pedigree behind Calypso and the YW Scow, both were destined to fail. One possible reason for their failure could have been their size, for elsewhere, smaller scows continued to prosper. Tony Allen proved this point with his ToY (Tony’s own Yacht), his scow entry to the Trials to choose a replacement for the Finn. Tony’s boat may have lost out to the Contender, but out of all the other entries, it was the fun factor that the scow hull form delivered, that gave the ToY success, in its own right as a class. With its long, bulbous scow bow and hard chines aft, the ToY, unlike the Fireball, sailed best when upright. However, this highlighted the weakness of the scow hull, for in a seaway the hull slammed into the waves, which undoubtedly sapped away at the boats performance. Under powered against the competition, the ToY needed lots of breeze and flat water to really sparkle and in these conditions the boat showed just how fast the scow hull could be.
Another group of single-handed sailors, always in the forefront of the search for speed, were the International Moth helms. One of the few rules the class holds, is to measure hollows in the hull form, preventing the move towards a catamaran styled hull. However, there was sufficient tolerance for the creation of a ‘tunnel scow’, whereby the flat bottom panel was bowed inwards to form a shallow tunnel shape. In the predominantly strong winds of Australia, Tunnel Scow Moths, some complete with racks, were showing bursts of astonishing speed for an 11ft hull and were at times close to unbeatable. To beat the Australians at their own game, some moth sailors went back to the man with the track record in fast scow hulls - Peter Milne, with a request to design a better scow hull. The designer rose to the challenge and for a while, Milne Moths was consistent race winners. However, with no rise of floor measurements to worry about, Moth sailors were already beginning to torture their hulls into narrower shapes, although these were harder to sail that the more stable scow platform, overall the slender hulls were faster.
Despite the scow hull appearing to have fallen out of fashion by the 1970s, it was this stable, easy to build and sail hull form that Ian Proctor returned to when he was setting out the lines for the Topper. Once the construction had been changed from GRP to Polypropylene, the Topper became a runaway success. Amazingly, it seemed as though no one picked up on the fact that much of the boat’s appeal, came from the classic ‘scow’ shape. The one exception was in 1999, when Jo Richards developed the Vortex for Laser. Some might look at the Vortex and think ‘catamaran’ but it is very much a dinghy, which uses the same tunnel approach that contributed to making the Australian Scow moths so quick, back in the 1970s. Without the constraints of the ‘hollows’ rule imposed on the Moth Class, Richards was able to exaggerate the tunnel, in his design for the Vortex. At speed, the water is forced down the tunnel to create a beneficial hydrodynamic effect and together with the addition of a large asymmetric spinnaker, the Vortex comfortably occupies the niche of being a ‘fast but stable’ singlehander.
Throughout the development path of the racing dinghy, scow hulls have in their day, been hugely influential. But in today’s world, where the skiff seems to reign supreme, has the scow fallen so far from fashion that further developments are unlikely? With so much of new dinghy development being ‘market driven’, it is difficult to see one of the big manufacturers risking the investment needed to launch a ‘scow for the new millennium’. The days of amateur construction have also been and gone, so even the fact that scows are easy to build at home is no longer a significant contributor to the boats success. Another factor could be that with the widespread acceptance of windward-leeward courses, the need for the ultimate in reaching machines has passed.
Yet the fact remains that the scow hull works and delivers performance, in a way that brings smiles to the face of sailors. Using modern building techniques, could someone produce an ultra light Fireball hull, onto which is stepped large, modern skiff rig? And if they did, how would such a boat compete, not only out on the race course but in the equally important race for sales ashore.
The Fireball designer – Peter Milne, is in no doubt! He has already expressed the view that the hull could carry more power and with his track record of understanding super scows, could he again be showing the way towards the future?