Boatbuilding the Lark Scow Shes Finished!

10.08 in Boat Plans, boatbuilding, finished, lark, scow, shes, the

Earwigoagin covered the beginning stages of Peter Gilberts building of the Lark scow and now Peter sends along photos of wrapping up the build, the fitting out, and first sail of Pinky Too.

From this perspective, the photo of the curvaceous deck with white primer looks like a spaceship ready to beam up into the light field.

Racing stripes on the deck. Now thats cool!

Floorboards look to be simple pine lath strips.

Nearly the whole Erieau Lark fleet showed up to get over the final hump of fitting out. Beer included.

Been there, done that! The blind search for the socket while you hold the nut and washer on underdeck bolt.

Sail up. Fittings still piled about the bow. The classic looking sail was made by The Sail Loft Marine Store in Barrie Ontario.

Given the smile on the face, looks like everything is holding together on the first sail of Pinky Too

First race is this weekend, but now, time for the brother build team, Peter and Scott, to enjoy a glass of bubbly and celebrate a job well done. (One of the features of the scow, at least the larger ones, is that one or more can stand comfortably on the bow.)

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The Larken Klasse Another Modified Lark Scow Resurrected

22.57 in another, Boat Plans, klasse, lark, larken, modified, resurrected, scow, the

As mentioned in my post on the Lark Scow - The Laser of the 1900s, Thomas Day of The Rudder magazine encouraged the home-builders of the Lark to be inventive; there was no strong concept of one-design strictness at this genesis of small sailboat development. So builders strayed from the plans, building Larks with yachty looking counter sterns, with cuddy cabins, longer and shorter Larks and they gleefully sent reports of their modifications into The Rudder and Thomas Day published them.

In 1903, in The Netherlands, W. Beekhuis, owner of the boat building yard "Navis" te Loosdrecht, built a small Lark, only 3.6 meters long (11.8 feet). He built them from the time period 1903-1905 but it is unclear how many he actually produced.

The 1903 Beekhuis Mini-Lark

In 1919, A Van Gool, from the northern coastal district of Friesland, The Netherlands, built a Beekhuis type Lark with additional modifications. Having traveled to America and observed American sailboats, Van Gool borrowed the Star type keel and grafted it on the Beekhuis Lark scow hull. He made the hull longer, 4 meters (13.1 feet). He replaced the squat gaff rig with a taller gunter rig. This Larken Klasse would become very popular in Friesland and Twente during the 1920s and 1930s.

The Van Gool/Friesland Larken

In 1934, Romke Vries designed an even higher aspect, full battened gunter rig for the Larken Klasse. By the end of the 1930s the more modern O-Jolle singlehander centerboarder was cutting into the Larken Klasse numbers and, as the Finn dinghy and OK dinghy were introduced after World War II, the class continued to lose popularity. In 1965, the class made its last appearance at Sneekweek, seemingly destined to fade into obscurity.

That is until 2004 where a group of Larken Klasse enthusiasts banded together to start restoring the old Larkens and build new ones. In the short span of 11 years they have built the class up to where they are now getting a vibrant 20+ turnout at the major regattas. An amazing resurrection of a true classic!

The newer Larkens have adopted a more modern keel with a separate rudder. The lead ballast is 34 kg.

The present day Larken Klasse on a reach (Anyone know who the photographer is?)

A vintage photo of a happy Larken skipper.

At this years Sneekweek regatta, artist and small boat racing enthusiast, Jan Tekstra decided to jump into a different class each day and record his race on a GoPro. This is his Larken segment.

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Acknowledgement: All of the history of the Larken Klasse was taken from this article by J.K Kuipers

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As I was tossing this post around my brain, the German Segel Reporter beat me to it by about two weeks and brought out Michael Kunsts post on the Larken Klasse.

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Boatbuilding Lark Scow Part 1

05.15 in 1, Boat Plans, boatbuilding, lark, part, scow

Other posts on the Lark scow.

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Peter Gilbert of the Erieau Lark fleet in Canada has started a new Lark scow (named Pinky Too, his Dad built Pinky 2 and Pinky 3) using the Kerr plans. He sends along some photos. The Kerr plans follow the original C.G. Davis plans in using a lot of frames. Instead of sawn frames, Peter has laminated the arc sections. He is planking the bottom of the Lark with plywood but with a hi-tech twist; he is using 3mm plywood with a carbon fiber sheathing (I wonder how this will square with the Erieau Y.C fleet as Peters construction may possibly result in a Lark considerably lighter than the current boats.)

I like how these builders determine fairness using a full glass of beer as a sight-line.

The solid timber side planks hold everything together before the bottom and deck goes on.

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Peter Gilberts Lark Scow Goes Racing

16.21 in Boat Plans, gilberts, goes, lark, peter, racing, scow

Peter Gilbert, who, in previous posts, Earwigoagin documented his build of the Lark scow, sends along a video of the new Lark in the water and racing at Erieau Y.C. The season for Pinky Too was up and down, a not unfamiliar scenario for a new racing craft. From Peter...

"The racing season was mixed. I had very high expectations and Pinky Too was finished and polished very well. Unfortunately I didn’t take into account the difference in weight relative to the standing rigging. This led to an entire season of tuning and adjusting. Adding to the frustration was Pinky Too’s performance during certain points of sail. She was untouchable at times but I could not point with the rest of the fleet. As a result the races were filled with both hope and despair. I’m also a little rusty…..

It is heartwarming to see a new one of these pre-1900 designs hit the water.



The history of the Lark Scow.

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