Water Wag
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The Water Wag is the oldest one-design
dinghy A dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or towed by a larger vessel for use as a tender. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor. Some are rigged for sailing but they differ from sailing dinghies, which ...
in existence, having been devised in 1886 and formalised as a one-design class in
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in 1887. It was last modified in 1900. The class is still sailed to this day, notably with large Water Wag fleets racing during summer evenings from
Dún Laoghaire Dún Laoghaire ( , ) is a suburban coastal town in Dublin in Ireland. It is the administrative centre of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown. The town was built following the 1816 legislation that allowed the building of a major port to serve Dubli ...
harbour on Dublin Bay. The Water Wag class is administered by the Water Wags club, based in Dún Laoghaire. The Water Wag inspired similar one-design fleets around Ireland and subsequently around the world.


Design

In 1886 the Water Wag was designed as a one-design sailing and rowing boat by Thomas B. Middleton of Shankill Corinthian Sailing Club. are silver-spruce-planked boats with a sloop rig and of
main sail A mainsail is a sail rigged on the main mast of a sailing vessel. * On a square rigged vessel, it is the lowest and largest sail on the main mast. * On a fore-and-aft rigged vessel, it is the sail rigged aft of the main mast. The sail's foot i ...
, and with a spinnaker and no jib. The boat is open-decked, with a single mast close to the bow. Middleton, who was a solicitor and not a professional yacht designer, prepared a concept sketch for the boat which may have been developed into a construction drawing by Robert McAllister of
Dumbarton Dumbarton (; also sco, Dumbairton; ) is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, on the north bank of the River Clyde where the River Leven flows into the Clyde estuary. In 2006, it had an estimated population of 19,990. Dumbarton was the ca ...
, Scotland. It is probable that McAllister reviewed his drawing with the eminent Scottish designer G.L. Watson before constructing the first boat "Eva" for Middleton in late 1886. In 1900 the Water Wag design was changed by the writing of a much more prescriptive specification and a transom stern, lengthening the boat by and making the stern of the boat much larger. The outward angled transom was designed to improve the aesthetics of the boat, and to save building cost. The sail area was increased from to by adding a jib. The new design was subject to some minor adjustments of sheer line and rudder size over the years 1901-1902 before the design, by James (or Maimie) Doyle from Dún Laoghaire, was finalised. Despite being a larger boat the cost of building was less. The Class has never been tempted to adopt construction materials other than wood. Traditionally the sails were made of
calico Calico (; in British usage since 1505) is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than ...
,
cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
, and subsequently
silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the ...
. In recent years
Terylene Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing, containers for liquids and foo ...
and
nylon Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic. Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from pe ...
have been used with the effect that coloured spinnakers are now used by most boats. A variant of the original design, with its double-ended hull, found its way to
Herne Bay Herne Bay is a seaside town on the north coast of Kent in South East England. It is north of Canterbury and east of Whitstable. It neighbours the ancient villages of Herne and Reculver and is part of the City of Canterbury local governmen ...
Sailing Club in Kent, England, and during the 1920s and 1930s several boats were built locally and the class was actively raced during the 1930s and 1940s. These boats, however, were not built to the strict one-design principle of the originals and as well as differing from the original in several respects (
foredeck The forecastle ( ; contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le) is the upper deck (ship), deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the ...
,
bowsprit The bowsprit of a sailing vessel is a spar extending forward from the vessel's prow. The bowsprit is typically held down by a bobstay A bobstay is a part of the rigging of a sailing boat or ship. Its purpose is to counteract the upward tensio ...
, mast position) they also differed slightly from each other and so raced as a handicap fleet. By the early 1950s most of the boats had been sold out of the Kent club and racing ceased. One of the last boats to be built in Kent, by E and B Gammon at Herne Bay in 1947, is in the collection of the
National Maritime Museum Cornwall The National Maritime Museum, Cornwall is located in a harbourside building at Falmouth in Cornwall, England. The building was designed by architect M. J. Long, following an architectural design competition managed by RIBA Competitions. The ...
. A variant of the 1900 design was adopted by many clubs in India and Sri Lanka, the main difference being the use of
teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters ( pan ...
planking which being heavier, resulted in the boat requiring more
freeboard In sailing and boating, a vessel's freeboard is the distance from the waterline to the upper deck level, measured at the lowest point of sheer where water can enter the boat or ship. In commercial vessels, the latter criterion measured relativ ...
. A small foredeck was added to assist in keeping the boat drier. Water Wags do not carry any symbol on the sails, and have no individual identifying mark beyond the sail number on the main sail and different spinnaker colours. Despite every boat of the Water Wag Class having a unique name, none of the names are painted or engraved on the hulls. All boats are generally referred to by their names and not by their numbers, particularly when hailing and congratulating a fellow sailor on a good race result.Vincent Delany class historian 18 Mar. 2019


References


External links

* {{Dublin Bay One Designs Dinghies