The Rhodes 19 is an American trailerable

day sailer A daysailer, day sailer, or dayboat is a small sailboat with or without sleeping accommodations but which is larger than a dinghy. Dayboats can be mono hull or multihull, and are typically trailer-able. Many dayboats have a small cabin or "cu ...

sailing dinghy Dinghy sailing is the activity of sailing small boats by using five essential controls: * the sails * the foils (i.e. the daggerboard or centreboard and rudder and sometimes lifting foils as found on the Moth) * the trim (forward/rear angle of ...

, that was designed by

Philip Rhodes Philip Leonard Rhodes (1895–1974) was an Americans, American naval architect known for his diverse yacht designs. Life Rhodes designed a wide variety of vessels from 7' dinghies to 123' motor-sailors, from hydrofoil racers to America's Cup win ...

as a one-design racer and first built in 1958.Sherwood, Richard M.: ''A Field Guide to Sailboats of North America, Second Edition'', pages 104-105.

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. The Rhodes 19 shares the same hull design as the 1962

Mariner 19 The Mariner 19 is an American Trailer sailer, trailerable sailboat, that was designed by Philip Rhodes and first built in 1962.Sherwood, Richard M.: ''A Field Guide to Sailboats of North America, Second Edition'', pages 102-103. Houghton Miffli ...

Production

The design was built by

O'Day Corp O'Day Corp. was a America sailboat builder, located in Fall River, Massachusetts. History It was founded in 1958 by George O'Day, the American Olympic and World champion sailor. George O'Day sold the company to Bangor Punta Corporation in 1966. ...

and later by Stuart Marine in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It remains in production, with 3,200 boats completed.

Design

The Rhodes 19 traces its linage to the 1945 Hurricane 19 sailboat design. The Hurricane 19 was constructed of moulded

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

, had an open cockpit and was initially built by the Allied Aviation Corporation. Another boat builder, Palmer Scott, purchased some incomplete Hurricane hulls and modified them with a foredeck, a

cuddy cabin A cuddy is a small room or cupboard, particularly on a boat. Sometimes a cuddy refers to a small but cosy hut. The origin of the term is not clear. Cuddy was in use in colonial America as early as 1655. The term may derive from the Dutch ''kaj ...

and a fixed keel, marketing the resultant boat as the ''Smyrna''. Marscot Plastics used one of the wooden Smyrnas as a plug to build a mold from and created a

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...

version, which became the Rhodes 19. The Rhodes 19 is a recreational

sailboat A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails and is smaller than a sailing ship. Distinctions in what constitutes a sailing boat and ship vary by region and maritime culture. Types Although sailboat terminology ...

, built predominantly of fiberglass, with wood trim. It has a fractional

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

rig with

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...

spars, including an optional tapered mast. The hull has a

raked stem The stem is the most forward part of a boat or ship's bow and is an extension of the keel itself. It is often found on wooden boats or ships, but not exclusively. Description The stem is the curved edge stretching from the keel below, up to ...

, 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 A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...

controlled by a

tiller A tiller or till is a lever used to steer a vehicle. The mechanism is primarily used in watercraft, where it is attached to an outboard motor, rudder post or stock to provide leverage in the form of torque for the helmsman to turn the rudder. ...

and a fixed fin

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

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 ...

. The design has sleeping accommodation for two people in the cuddy cabin and includes a built-in

icebox An icebox (also called a cold closet) is a compact non-mechanical refrigerator which was a common early-twentieth-century kitchen appliance before the development of safely powered refrigeration devices. Before the development of electric refrig ...

. For sailing the design has cockpit space for six to eight people. It is equipped with a stern-mounted

mainsheet traveler A traveller is a part of the rigging of a boat or ship that provides a moving attachment point for a rope, sail or yard to a fixed part of the vessel. It may take the form of anything from a simple ring on a metal bar or a spar to, especially in a ...

, adjustable

jib A jib is a triangular sail that sets ahead of the foremast of a sailing vessel. Its tack is fixed to the bowsprit, to the bows, or to the deck between the bowsprit and the foremost mast. Jibs and spinnakers are the two main types of headsails ...

leads and foam flotation for safety. Factory options included a boom tent,

boom vang A boom vang (US) or kicking strap (UK) (often shortened to "vang" or "kicker") is a line or piston system on a sailboat used to exert downward force on the boom and thus control the shape of the sail. The Collins English Dictionary defines it as ...

Cunningham Cunningham is a surname of Scottish origin, see Clan Cunningham. Notable people sharing this surname A–C *Aaron Cunningham (born 1986), American baseball player *Abe Cunningham, American drummer * Adrian Cunningham (born 1960), Australian ...

, cockpit bailers,

whisker pole A spinnaker pole is a spar used in sailboats (both dinghys and yachts) to help support and control a variety of headsails, particularly the spinnaker. However, it is also used with other sails, such as genoas and jibs, when sailing downwind with ...

and a

spinnaker A spinnaker is a sail designed specifically for sailing off the wind on courses between a reach (wind at 90° to the course) to downwind (course in the same direction as the wind). Spinnakers are constructed of lightweight fabric, usually n ...

of .

Variants

;Rhodes 19 :This

keelboat A keelboat is a riverine cargo-capable working boat, or a small- to mid-sized recreational sailing yacht. The boats in the first category have shallow structural keels, and are nearly flat-bottomed and often used leeboards if forced in open wat ...

model displaces and carries of iron ballast. The boat has a draft of with the standard keel fitted. The boat has a

Portsmouth Yardstick The Portsmouth Yardstick (PY) or Portsmouth handicap scheme is a term used for a number of related systems of empirical handicapping used primarily in small sailboat racing. The handicap is applied to the time taken to sail any course, and the han ...

DP-N racing average handicap of 99.0. The fixed keel Rhodes 19 is the only variant used for class racing. ;Rhodes 19 CB :This centerboard

model displaces and carries no ballast. The rudder is a "kick-up" design. The boat has a draft of with the centerboard down and with it retracted. The boat has a Portsmouth DP-N racing average handicap of 97.4.

Operational history

The boat has an active class club, the ''Rhodes 19 Class Association'', that organizes racing. In a 1994 review Richard Sherwood wrote, "a Sail magazine 'breakthrough boat' with tremendous influence upon sailing, the Rhodes 19 is the first popular day sailer. Centerboard and keel versions are available, with the former found mostly on lakes and the latter in coastal waters ... The 19 is actively raced."

References

External links