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The Decked Canoe Archives
Assembled by Tim Gittins
Snake
Date: 1891
Designer: Theo Smith
In Dixon Kemp's "Yacht Racing Calendar and Review" for 1891 there is a race report which reads in part as follows:-
"Snake" had sailed the fourth round in 9min 51 sec.
This race is worthy of further comment, it is the fastest of which
there is any official record. The "Snake" sailed the full
6 mile course in 1:05:07, half the distance being close hauled. The
course somewhat resembles the letter Z and the water is very shallow
most of the distance. The buoys too were rounded twelve times, and
yet the "Snake" and the "Torpedo" attained an
average of nearly six miles an hour over this very difficult course.
Thus we conclude that if they sailed half the distance when close
hauled at, say, four miles an hour, they must have sailed half the
distance, too, in one-third the time, or at the rate of 9 mile per
hour. That the "Snake" attained an extraordinary pace when
running with a quarterly wind there can be no doubt, but it was in
the three or four strong puffs during the race that she left the
"Torpedo", which is 2ft longer than "Snake", a
long way astern. It was evident that this boat ha the extraordinary
power of rushing over the water at ten or twelve miles an hour,
probably more, without any wave-making apparently; only a wide
smooth wake is seen astern. Yet at five or six miles an hour she
makes waves like any other boat.
So without a shadow of doubt what we have here is a description, perhaps the first, of a planing sailboat, some thirty years before Uffa Fox and Avenger. Theo Smith of Oxford had indeed created something quite new!
Image from Georg Belitz: Seglers Handbuch, 1897
©
Freundeskreis Klassische Yachten e.V
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