The Penguin is an American

sailing dinghy Dinghy sailing is the activity of sailing small boats - usually for fun, learning necessary sailing skills (often also within family), and competition. RYA lists Five essentials of sailing dinghies as: * The sails * The hydrofoil, foils (i.e. t ...

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 ...

in 1933 as a

one design One-design racing is a racing method which may be adopted in sports using complex equipment, whereby all vehicles have identical or very similar designs or models, avoiding the need for a handicap system. Motorsport One-make racing series (also ...

racer for frostbite racing on the US east coast and first built in 1939.

Production

Rhodes drew the original design in 1933 for a competition to define a new boat for the frostbite racing fleets sailed in

Manhasset Bay Manhasset Bay, New York, is an embayment in western Long Island off Long Island Sound. Description Manhasset Bay forms the northeastern boundary of the Great Neck Peninsula and the southwestern boundary of the Cow Neck Peninsula ( Port Was ...

and at

Larchmont, New York Larchmont is a Village (New York), village located within the Town (New York), Town of Mamaroneck (town), New York, Mamaroneck in Westchester County, New York. Larchmont is a suburb of New York City, located approximately northeast of Midt ...

. Rhodes' design lost to a boat by

Olin Stephens Olin James Stephens II (April 13, 1908 – September 13, 2008) was an American yacht designer. Stephens was born in New York City, but spent his summers with his brother Rod, learning to sail on the New England coast. He also attended the Mass ...

Sparkman & Stephens Sparkman & Stephens is a naval architecture and yacht brokerage firm with offices in Newport, Rhode Island and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. The firm performs design and engineering of new and existing vessels for pleasure, commercial, and milit ...

and as a result Rhodes shelved the plans until 1938 when some

Potomac River The Potomac River () is in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography D ...

sailors were looking for a new frostbite racing boat. They home-built 12 boats and racing was started on winter weekends.

Yachting Yachting is recreational boating activities using medium/large-sized boats or small ships collectively called yachts. Yachting is distinguished from other forms of boating mainly by the priority focus on comfort and luxury, the dependence on ma ...

magazine covered a race series and advertised where plans could be obtained and that led to an expansion in interest in the boat design and it quickly grew to a national class. The design was originally intended to be built by amateur builders from wood using paper plans, but

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) is a common type of fibre-reinforced plastic, fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened i ...

was class-approved for the hull in 1959. Boats have been manufactured by

W. D. Schock Corp The W. D. Schock Corporation (usually styled W. D. Schock Corp) is an American boat builder originally based in Newport Beach, California, later in Corona, California and currently located in Santa Ana, California. The company was founded by Wi ...

, Jack A. Helms Co., Ron Rawson, Inc., Customflex and Skaneateles Boat & Canoe Co. in the United States. More than 10,000 boats have been built. The boat is no longer in production, but plans are still available for home construction. Plans are publicly provided at no charge by the class association in the form of

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

downloads. W. D. Schock Corp records indicate that that company built 32 boats between 1964 and 1967.

Design

The Penguin 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

plywood Plywood is a composite material manufactured from thin layers, or "plies", of wood veneer that have been stacked and glued together. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards, which include plywood, medium-density fibreboa ...

, with wood trim. It has a

catboat A catboat (alternate spelling: cat boat) is a sailboat with a single sail on a single mast set well forward in the bow of a very beamy and (usually) shallow draft hull. Typically they are gaff rigged, though Bermuda rig is also used. Most are f ...

rig, a

plumb 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 ...

and transom, a transom-hung

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, airship, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (usually air or water). On an airplane, the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw ...

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, rudder post or stock to provide leverage in the form of torque for the helmsman to turn ...

and a retractable

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 ...

. It displaces . The boat has a draft of with the centerboard extended and with it retracted, allowing operation in shallow water, beaching or ground transportation on a trailer or car roof. The design has a Portsmouth Yardstick D-PN handicap of 111.5.

Operational history

The boat is supported by an active class club that organizes racing events, the ''International Penguin Class Dinghy Association''. In a 2010 ''Small Boats Monthly'' profile Chris Museler wrote, "Like many racing dinghies, the boats are easy to sail but hard to sail well. 'It humbles a lot of folks,' says onathan Bartlett, a Maryland sailmaker referring to the oversized centerboard and hard chines that the boat can trip over in gusty conditions. 'If you can sail a Penguin well, you can sail anything.' It is a simple boat. 'It's not a Laser. But for the nostalgia and classic look, it's hard to beat it.'" Museler concluded, "they seem like silly little boats at first, and certainly now are considered obscure. But that seems to be the attraction of many little wooden boats—their uniqueness, and rareness. The best part about the Penguin is that whether you are hiked out with a friend inches away from a competitor or sitting on the floorboards on a lazy summer afternoon, you are surrounded by a little bit of sailing history and a lot of class."

Boats on display

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is located in St. Michaels, Maryland, United States and is home to a collection of Chesapeake Bay artifacts, exhibitions, and vessels. This interactive museum was founded in 1965 on Navy Point, once a site o ...

- Hull number 1.

References

External links