11.) The Problem With Old Age

This IC and I are both ancient fossils.  (The boat is about 8 years older than I am.)  I consider this a mutual restoration project.

And just as I am not the same as when I was first created, neither is this boat.
The more time I spent with it, the more I moved it around, looked at it, sanded it, and compared it to other boats of the same design, the more I began to think that time (not to mention my own efforts and those of its other owners) had changed its fundamental shape, not by a lot, but by enough to matter.

Back when I first started the project, I ordered a copy of the original S&S plans from the Mystic Seaport Museum, figuring they might come in handy at some point.  They are very complex and detailed, and far from easy for a novice to understand. So I looked at them, shook my head, and set them aside.

Now, I decided it was time to look at them carefully, figure out what they had to say, and then compared their specified dimensions to those of the boat I was working on.

Guess what?

I was right.  The boat had gradually lost some of its original, symmetrical, racing shape.

In some areas, the measurements were off by two, even three inches from what the plan called for.  That might not sound like much.  But it is actually quite a bit.  The Interclub class rules state that any boat raced must measure in within 1/4 of an inch of the scantlings (a fancy nautical term for measurements) specified by Sparkman and Stephens.  What's more, even back in 1945, the naval architects at S&S knew what they were doing. (I don't know for sure if the great Olin Stephens himself had a hand in the project, but I assume he did*.) The shape they designed is fluid and hydrodynamic (though far from up to current standards). My boat, in short, had become both illegal and alien to the very environment it was designed for.

Would anyone notice?  Well, I had. And that's enough of a reason right there. Secondly, given that my plan is to make this a fast (and controversial) boat, it is sure to draw at least some attention if I succeed. If the boat ever wins races with either me or someone else at the helm, it will get measured. More likely, though, the boat would be slow unless I addressed the defects.

* Peter Beardsley, who administrates and helps lead the Interclub class these days, passed along this story: When Olin Stephens was at Larchmont Yacht Club in 2007 for the Shields Nationals, someone sat him down and asked him what the goal was with the design of the IC Dinghy.  He stopped, paused, smiled to himself, and said "ah yes, the IC Dinghy.  The mast step was too far forward on that design, I apologize."  So, we know he at least took responsibility for these things, whether he drew the lines himself or not.