The M Scow, also called the M-Scow and the M-16 Scow, is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

/ American sailing dinghy that was designed by Johnson Boat Works and

Melges Boat Works Melges Performance Sailboats, is an American sailboat manufacturer founded by Harry Melges, father of former Olympic sailor Buddy Melges. Melges Boat Works, Inc. was founded by Harry C. Melges, Sr. in 1945. The company was originally named ''M ...

as a one-design racer and first built in 1950.Sherwood, Richard M.: ''A Field Guide to Sailboats of North America, Second Edition'', pages 70-71. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994.

Production

The design was built by

Tanzer Industries Tanzer Industries Limited was a Canadian boat manufacturer based in Dorion, Quebec. The company specialized in the design and manufacture of fibreglass sailboats. History The company was founded by Johann Tanzer in 1966 and went bankrupt in M ...

Dorion, Quebec Vaudreuil-Dorion () is a suburb of Greater Montreal, in the Montérégie region of southwestern Quebec, Canada. The result of the merger of two towns, Vaudreuil and Dorion, it is located in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality. ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

as well as by Windward Boatworks in

Middleton, Wisconsin Middleton is a city in Dane County, Wisconsin, United States, and a suburb of the state capital, Madison. Middleton's motto is "The Good Neighbor City." The population was 21,827 at the 2020 census. In 2007, Middleton was chosen as the best p ...

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 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

and

Melges Performance Sailboats Melges Performance Sailboats, is an American sailboat manufacturer founded by Harry Melges, father of former Olympic sailor Buddy Melges. Melges Boat Works, Inc. was founded by Harry C. Melges, Sr. in 1945. The company was originally named ''M ...

in Zenda, Wisconsin, also in the United States, but it is now out of production.

Design

The M Scow 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 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 cl ...

, 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 ...

rig with tapered or untapered

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 h ...

or wooden spars. The hull is a reverse sheer

scow A scow is a smaller type of barge. Some scows are rigged as sailing scows. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, scows carried cargo in coastal waters and inland waterways, having an advantage for navigating shallow water or small harbours. S ...

design, with dual internally-mounted

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 air or water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw a ...

s 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 dual retractable bilgeboards. It displaces . The boat has a

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a ves ...

of with a bilgeboard extended. It can be transported on a trailer. For sailing the design was originally equipped with end- boom sheeting to a

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 ...

mainsail 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 ...

and jib windows for improved visibility. It also has a

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 (sailing), boom and thus control the shape of the sail. The Collins English Dictionar ...

and

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 ...

barber hauler Running rigging is the rigging of a sailing vessel that is used for raising, lowering, shaping and controlling the sails on a sailing vessel—as opposed to the standing rigging, which supports the mast and bowsprit. Running rigging varies betw ...

s, and a jib traveler. The dual rudders, rotating mast and the mainsheet traveler were done away with in a 1999 redesign. The hull and rigging were also changed to the

MC Scow The MC Scow is an American sailing dinghy that was designed as a one-design racer and first built in 1956.Sherwood, Richard M.: ''A Field Guide to Sailboats of North America, Second Edition'', pages 70-71. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994. ...

hull and rigging designs. In the 2020 the MC Scow remained in production, while the M Scow was no longer offered for sale. The design 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 ha ...

racing average handicap of 89.3 and is normally raced with a crew of two

sailor A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the ...

Operational history

In a 1994 review Richard Sherwood wrote, "the M-16 scow is raced on the East Coast, in the Southeast, and in the Southwest, but most boats are found in the Midwest ... limiting specifications are issued by the Inland Lake Yachting Association, which holds a championship regatta with 60 to 90 competitors."

References

External links

* {{Sailing dinghies and skiffs Dinghies Scows 1950s sailboat type designs Two-person sailboats Sailboat type designs by Johnson Boat Works Sailboat type designs by Melges Boat Works Sailboat types built by Tanzer Industries Sailboat types built by Windward Boatworks Sailboat types built by Melges Performance Sailboats

Production

Design

Operational history

See also

References

External links