July 20, 1999

This is a good time of year for sailors with warm weather, plenty of daylight and fresh sea breezes. The conditions this year have been spectacular. I have been out on the water most race nights watching the competition. I have also seen club members enjoying themselves during the Fleet Captain sails. Two things were learned during the recent heat wave. First, the coolest spot in the city is the harbor. Second, the hot westerly wind is 10 degrees cooler south of the Ellis Island than north of the island. I am waiting for someone to explain that to me.

More skippers are needed for the Fleet Captain program! If you are a skipper, please call the office and volunteer. Our Fleet Captain program is a great way for all members to get sailing and this program has grown every year since it was founded by Vice Commodore Peter Cavrell. Currently, more skippers are needed. Fleet Captain sails are on Monday, Thursday and Friday evenings as well as Saturday and Sunday mornings and afternoons. If you are a skipper, please call the office and volunteer to take a Fleet Captain boat sailing.

The summer is such a busy sailing time, that we do not organize any club dinners. We save these for our winter off-season. However, many members gather at the club bar every week after Tuesday and Wednesday evening races. These club nights are open to all members. Even if you do not race, you are encouraged to come down to meet your fellow members. The bar is open all evening and racing sailors usually arrive back at dock around 8 p.m. Members have been seen staying at the bar until well after 9:30 p.m. (but we will not mention any names). Come on down!

In August, there also be several parties associated with the International Sandbagger Series. Foreign clubs from around the world will be visiting us and there will be welcoming parties and trophy presentations. The New York Harbor Sailing Foundation will be sending you postcards about the events so keep an eye on your mailbox and be sure to show up.

"Miss Manhattan," our club Beneteau, is preparing to travel to Newport for the remainder of the summer. Members will be using her to sail around Newport, Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard. There will be a change in her Fall schedule. Previously, we had planned to send her to the Chesapeake but will now bring her back to New York instead. This will make it possible for more members to sail on her before she heads south for her winter cruising grounds in the British Virgin Islands.

Those of you who have been to the docks recently have seen the impressive sandbaggers "Bull" and "Bear." They are a magnificent sight. Every day there are people on the railing above the boats looking down and commenting about their beauty.

As you would have read in previous newsletters, the sandbaggers have been brought to the city by the New York Harbor Sailing Foundation. The Foundation was formed several years ago by some members to promote amateur sailing of national and international importance. It is headed by Paul Olsen. Each year, the Foundation organizes the popular Sailor’s Ball and last year, it created the first biannual Lady Liberty Regatta.

This year, the Foundation has invited yacht clubs from around the world to visit our city and race on the sandbaggers. The first to arrive was a club from the Netherlands called "Loosdrecht." They raced against the Shrewsbury Sailing and Yacht Club from New Jersey. The American team successfully "defended the honor of the United States." Our club acted as proper hosts, allowing each visiting team an opportunity to feel good by beating us in practice races.

The Manhattan Sailing Club sandbagger sailing team is being organized by Stephen Yip. He has done an outstanding job of building sandbagger knowledge among members with the limited amount of sailing time available. I say "limited" because when these eager sandbaggers come down to the dock, they often find a Commodore saying "too windy, too windy." Despite the starts and stops (and the nervous Commodore), it seems that more and more members are getting involved and learning how to sail these unique and historic craft.

The history of the sandbaggers goes back to the early 1800s when oysters were a main food staple of our city. Oysters were harvested in the harbor with wide flat-bottomed sailboats which could skim over the oyster flats and still hold a large and heavy cargo.

Human nature being what it is, most oystermen thought they had the fastest boat. Soon competitions were organized and by the 1840s, a full scale racing program was underway featuring match races with gambling and significant amounts of money changing hands at the finish line.

Sandbagger races were traditionally over windward-leeward courses. Those of you who have already sailed on the sandbagger know that the extremely long boom makes it difficult to sail on a reach. This is why sandbagger races were usually to a mark and back. Our harbor has perfect conditions for such a course with the start near Manhattan, a 10 mile beat down the bay into the sea-breeze and a run for home. The winds we have today are probably the same they had many years ago.

Because the oysterboats came in various sizes, racing classes were developed with boats of similar sizes racing against each other. The largest class were boats up to 30’. "Bull" and "Bear" are replicas of one of the most famous of these, the "Susie S." Because the only rule was length of boat, sandbaggers developed large bowsprits and boomkins to put the maximum amount of sail up. These boats became extreme examples of American ingenuity.

The reason these boats are known as sandbaggers was the bags of sand carried onboard to provide stability. According to an old sandbagger article, the bags were actually filled with gravel which dried faster and was less likely to rot the burlap bags. However, this might have been a confusion with the rocks which were kept in working sandbaggers for stability and then thrown into the harbor as the boats were filled with oysters. Whatever the real history, sandbaggers were the first American boats to race with moveable ballast.

Today, the modern sandbag is actually a water bag. This has two benefits, first that the bag is less abrasive to the boat and second, it floats. Sandbaggers are difficult to sail and they sometimes tip to windward when the wind shifts, causing one or more bags to fall overboard. The Foundation’s tender, the 26’ hard-bottomed inflatable known as "Greyhound," follows afterwards to pick up errant bags.

Sandbagger racing is historic and impressive but also dangerous. These boats can capsize as the Dutch team learned while practicing. Just north of the Statue of Liberty, they went into a jibe, caught the end of their boom in the water and slowly tripped over. It is remarkable how they go over in slow motion but once over, everyone is in the water. This is why lifejackets are required to be worn at all times. The Dutch were all experience dinghy sailors and familiar with capsizing. With the help of Greyhound, the boat was back up within 20 minutes. I mention this to all members just to let you know that unless you are fully prepared for an impromptu swim in the harbor, you should consider being a spectator rather than a participant.

Members interested in sailing on a sandbagger should consult the sandbagger bulletin board at the dock. Information is posted about how to get on the email list and with a bit of luck, onto a sailing crew. I hope it is possible for all interested members to have sail at least once this summer on a sandbagger.

The sandbaggers tell a great story. Most people do not know that sailboat racing in our country began right here in New York Harbor. The boat which started it all was the sandbagger. Beginning around the 1840s and continuing to the 1880s, the harbor was full of sandbaggers with as many as 40 taking part in a weekend regatta. Why such a great history was forgotten is not simple. Sandbaggers were considered dangerous and in the late 1800s, many people in the United States were trying to emulate the "more civilized" English culture. In England, sailors preferred heavy full-keeled boats which. A debate over hull shape began in our country with one group of sailors preferring the "skimming dishes" and the other group referred to as "cutter cranks."

There was also social history at work. Sandbaggers were sailed by average people. Although some of sandbaggers were owned by wealthy citizens, most were owned and sponsored by local bars and sailed by crews willing to settle protests with their hands. Many of the sandbagger sailors were professionals, hired by the owners or bars. At the same time, our country had a growing middle-class of amateur who wanted to remove the professionals from the sport (so they could win the trophies instead). Around 1882, these amateur created the Sewannaka Corinthian Racing Rules which effectively banned professional crews and shifting ballast (i.e. sandbags).

The final issue was a changing harbor landscape. Commercial shipping continued to grow. Sandbaggers had been kept on free mud flats which spotted the harbor. As commercial shipping increased, the shoreline was developed more and more and the mud flats disappeared. Recreational sailing was pushed out of the harbor. In fact, it was not until the 1980s when commercial shipping had declined in the harbor that recreational sailing returned to our city, thanks to our club which was founded in 1987.

We are very lucky to have the sandbaggers at our club this season thanks to the generosity of Peter Kellogg, the Wall Street stock broker who had them built and the New York Harbor Sailing Foundation. We also need to recognize Mt Gay Rum which has signed on as a sponsor of the program.

If you haven’t been the club website recently, now is a good time to go. Start with the Notices to Members page which provides late-breaking updates from the club office and notes from your fellow members. The sandbagger pages have been updated with incredible images from the first international race. And for maintenance updates, you can check the maintenance page which has each boat with all of the repairs completed this season. And finally, check the weather page for the latest forecast before you leave the office. If you have any good weather links of your own, please send these to the office for inclusion on our site.