Offsets For A Three Plank Modified Fragniére Classic Moth

16.32 in a, Boat Plans, classic, for, fragniã©re, modified, moth, offsets, plank, three

Plans de voiliers classiques Moth, Plans de dériveur classique Moth.

Sometimes I cant help myself. Ill sit down at the computer and push the lines of an existing Moth design in another direction. This is one of those creations. I took the Fragnière design, the French design with the transom bow, and made it a three planker. (Three planker means if you look at the 1/2 model, the design consists of three plywood planks - never mind that the bottom rocker plank is actually one contiguous panel when whole.)

Why? Because I can. I would expect this design to be somewhat quicker offwind but slower upwind in a chop and light air. No plans to build this anytime soon as I have enough projects all ready.

Here is the PDF file of the offsets. Click on the pop-out icon on the top right (hover your mouse pointer over the top right corner to find it) to get this into another tab where you can print or download the file.



Another modified Fragnière (it looks like the transom bow doesnt match the plans). A 2001 build in France. I like the purple hull color.

---

Erratum: This is actually the French Bilbon design which was patterned after the French Caravelle dinghy and not the Fragnière.

---

Offsets for my other modified French Moth design, the Zippy can be found by clicking here.

Read more

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.

---

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

---

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.

Read more