August 2022 Papoose Article

The Lake Mohawk Yacht Club is now home to more classes of sailboat. Our ‘legacy’ fleets of Snipe, Lightning and Sunfish have been joined by some interesting new boats featured here this month. Mark Marussich tells us about the Vanguard 15, as follows:

“I was surprised to see myself sailing with my kid Catherine on the cover of the June Papoose. It was a picture of us racing our Vanguard 15 sailboat in a Yacht Club regatta. Here’s the story of how Catherine became a ‘cover girl’. It started with me sailing at a young age with my cousins in the Poconos. We would all pile onto their Sunfish sailboat and ride it around for hours. It was a blast. Later, when I moved to Lake Mohawk, I continued to sail and joined the Yacht Club.

In the early 2000’s my wife Siobhan and I bought a Lightning and raced together for a few seasons until we had a child. When Catherine was born, we traded the Lightning for a more stable, family-friendly boat called a Sun Cat 19. Our racing friends kind of just shook their heads at the sight of our slow tubby “cat boat” but it was good for us, and stable enough to bring a young child on. Catherine enjoys water sports now and has been active in the Ski Hawks.

In 2020, we picked up the Vanguard 15 from a local resident who was moving. It is a nimble lightweight sailboat, with a nice blend of racing performance and minimalist design. It is simple and easy to maintain, yet responsive and sporty – a nice small boat for an experienced sailor looking for something simple, that can still perform well in a regatta. We sail it around the lake whenever we have time and enjoy the Yacht Club races.”

As Mark indicates, lately the club has been holding more Sunday races with several different classes competing together. Another new boat story comes from Margaret Anderson who tells us about their new “420” and how she got interested in it below:

“As a girl from a landlocked part of Wisconsin, I was introduced to sailing by my husband, Perry Anderson. I enjoyed it immediately -- climbing into a sailboat and allowing the wind to carry us across a lake. Several decades into our marriage, I have crewed for Perry on Jet 14s, 470s, and the Lightning. The 470 was my favorite. When the wind was blowing steadily and I was suspended on the trapeze with my feet on the gunnel, trimming the spinnaker, it felt as if there were no boat beneath me as we skimmed over the water on a broad reach.

Perry learned to sail and race at the University of Michigan sailing club, and I met him when I moved to Ann Arbor. At that time, he was sailing a Jet 14, a two-man boat much like the Snipes you see on our lake today. The 470 was just becoming popular when the Michigan sailing club acquired a fleet of the boats from Vanguard builders. We purchased one and took that boat all over Michigan, sailing for pleasure and in regattas.

Then we joined the Devil’s Lake Yacht Club south of Ann Arbor and took our 470 with us. We sailed there for several years, then the interest in 470s declined, so we purchased a Lightning. When Perry was transferred to New Jersey and we settled in our home here on the lake, we were pleased to find that the Yacht Club sailed Lightnings, and we’ve been part of that fleet ever since.

The 420 and 470 are quite similar boats. The 420 gets its name from the metric length of the boat: 4.20 meters. Like the 420, the 470 is named for its metric length, 4.70 meters. Both boats have a single hull, a Bermuda rig, center sheeting, and a centerboard as well as a spinnaker and trapeze for flying downwind. All of these features help it to plane easily and skim across the water. The 470 is a popular class for sailing schools. It became an Olympic class boat in 1969, and it was the first Olympic boat sailed by women in 1988. We’ve had several Yacht Club sailors who sailed 470s in college.

Recently, Perry and I purchased a 420, which is much like the 470 with a spinnaker and trapeze, but a little smaller. We plan to enjoy afternoons sailing on Lake Mohawk. I expect to be trimming the jib and flying the spinnaker, but not from the trapeze…I’ll leave that to a younger crew.”

Thanks to Margaret and Mark for telling their stories of fun with different boats. I hope some readers are inspired to come down to the Yacht Club on Sundays, or whenever you see a bunch of us there, and volunteer to crew on different boats to see which ones might fit you and your family.

We owe a huge amount of thanks also to Shirley and John Miller for scraping and painting the Buoy Room counter and door, just in time for our perennially popular Fireworks Picnic which the Millers provided on the beautiful July 3 evening. It was a grand time!

Watch our website, www.LakeMohawkSailing.org for news of upcoming regattas and reach out with questions to LakeMohawkSailing@gmail.com

Until next month, Smooth Sailing and God bless America!

Submitted by Gail Miner