The C Scow is an American
sailing dinghy that was designed by
John O. Johnson as a
one-design racer and first built as early as 1905. Sources disagree as to the first-built date, with claims of 1905, 1906 and 1923.
[Sherwood, Richard M.: ''A Field Guide to Sailboats of North America, Second Edition'', pages 106-107. ]Houghton Mifflin Company
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Boston Financ ...
, 1994.
Production
The design was in initially built by
Johnson Boat Works of
White Bear Lake, Minnesota,
United States and, starting in 1945 by
Melges Performance Sailboats of
Zenda, Wisconsin
Zenda is an unincorporated community in the Town of Linn, Walworth County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located south of Geneva Lake and just north of the Illinois border. Its ZIP code is 53195.
History
In 1955, a meteorite (the Zenda meteori ...
. It remains in production, with 2,000 boats reported as completed by 1994.
Design
The C Scow is a recreational
sailboat, with the early examples built predominantly of wood and later ones from
fiberglass. It has a
catboat rig with wooden or
aluminum spars. The hull has a
scow hull with a plumb
transom
Transom may refer to:
* Transom (architecture), a bar of wood or stone across the top of a door or window, or the window above such a bar
* Transom (nautical), that part of the stern of a vessel where the two sides of its hull meet
* Operation Tran ...
, a transom-hung
rudder controlled by a
tiller, twin retractable
centerboard
A centreboard or centerboard (US) is a retractable hull appendage which pivots out of a slot in the hull of a sailboat, known as a ''centreboard trunk'' (UK) or ''centerboard case'' (US). The retractability allows the centreboard to be raised t ...
s and
polystyrene
Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It is a ...
foam flotation for safety. It displaces .
The boat has a
draft of with one centerboard extended and with both retracted, allowing
beaching or ground transportation on a
trailer.
For sailing the design is equipped with
running backstays, a raked mast and a
boom
Boom may refer to:
Objects
* Boom (containment), a temporary floating barrier used to contain an oil spill
* Boom (navigational barrier), an obstacle used to control or block marine navigation
* Boom (sailing), a sailboat part
* Boom (windsurfi ...
that is very low to the deck, necessitating a recessed radial track for the
boom vang. The boat's
forestays can be adjusted while sailing, controlled by a lever mounted aft of the boom vang's recessed radial track. There are quick-releases for the
backstays and
turnbuckle adjustments for the
shrouds
Shroud usually refers to an item, such as a cloth, that covers or protects some other object. The term is most often used in reference to '' burial sheets'', mound shroud, grave clothes, winding-cloths or winding-sheets, such as the famous S ...
. Class rules prohibit pulling the mast to the windward side, however. The design has a ballbearing-equipped
mainsheet traveler. The boat has a double-ended
outhaul with a 6:1
mechanical advantage, plus a
Cunningham, to control
mainsail shape.
The design has a
Portsmouth Yardstick racing average handicap of 79.7 and is normally raced with a crew of two or three
sailors, with a class-imposed maximum crew racing weight of .
Operational history
The design is regulated and racing organized by a class club, the ''National C Scow Sailing Association''.
In a 1994 review Richard Sherwood wrote, "As may be seen from the rating, this cat-rigged scow is fast. Scows were developed in the Midwest, but the C-Scow can also be found in Texas and California. There is extensive control ... These boats are one-design, with strict control of hull shape."
See also
*
List of sailing boat types
The following is a partial list of sailboat types and sailing classes, including keelboats, dinghies and multihull ( catamarans and trimarans).
Olympic classes
World Sailing Classes
Historically known as the IYRU (International Yacht Racing ...
References
External links
*
{{Sailing dinghies and skiffs
Dinghies
1900s sailboat type designs
1920s sailboat type designs
Two-person sailboats
Scows
Sailboat type designs by John O. Johnson
Sailboat type designs by Johnson Boat Works
Sailboat types built by Melges Performance Sailboats