Tattler II - A new sandbagger

TATTLER II
A new sandbagger.

The low, white-hulled boat measures more than 63' from the tip of her bowsprit to the end of her boomkin, but less than 30' of that is the hull. The cockpit is smaller still, so the 11-man crew makes a crowd as they get her under way. They all know exactly what to do, however, so the close quarters are lled with deliberate activity. After the sails are raised, the skipper pulls the massive tiller to his chest and the boat begins to ll away. As she heels to the breeze, a barked order sends the crew to their stations. The mainsheet man trims his sail, and the port and starboard jib tenders haul in and make fast their sheets. In the center of the cockpit, four crewmen on the windward side bend toward the centerboard trunk to receive the 50-lb bags that three others hoist up from the bilges. They pile them three high, end to end, along the windward side deck, hard against the coaming. When the last of the 30 bags have been passed and stacked, the men in the bilge join the others on the high side. With their knees on the cockpit seats, they hike to windward, their stomachs pressed to the wet sandbags as the lee rail dips and the boat picks up speed. At a word from the captain, the helm is put down, and seven crew and 1,500 lbs of gravel quickly change sides again.

That was the scene aboard the sandbagger TATTLER on August 22, 1892, when she was on her way to defeating EXPERT and PRECEPT to win Lake Geneva’s coveted Sheridan Prize. The trophy was named after Civil War hero Gen. Philip Sheridan, an early visitor to this growing Wisconsin summer colony. After the race, her name was engraved on the base of the trophy, where it joined those of the other sandbaggers that had dominated sailboat racing on the lake since the mid-1870s. The first of the type on the lake was NETTIE, whose sterling-silver model adorns the trophy, first awarded in 1874.

The sandbaggers came to Lake Geneva from New York City . The wide shallow-draft centerboarders had evolved from working oyster sloops whose crews never missed a chance to see whose boat was faster. The racing boats substituted bags of sand or gravel for cargo, and the sizes of both rigs and crews grew steadily in the search for speed. They raced head to head, in classes based on hull length. In the years following the Civil War, the wealthy new summer people brought their sporting passions and financial resources to Lake Geneva, and yacht racing flourished as the area earned a reputation as “Newport of the West.” The sandbagger EXPERT dominated the Lake Geneva fleet for several years until O.W. Norton, determined to beat her, bought TATTLER sight-unseen by telegraph and had her shipped in from Long Island Sound. Racing was a serious business, and by the time TATTLER won the Sheridan Prize in 1892, an account in the Chicago Herald noted that the sandbaggers had “uniformed crews, professional skippers, sand ballast inbags, hollow spars, and all the niceties and ethics of the sport.” The sandbaggers’ extravagant requirements for brute force and large crews were difficult to sustain, and by the 1890s interest in racing them had begun to decline. By the end of that decade, they were eclipsed by the low, sleek half-raters built to the Linear Rating Rule.

These were supplanted, in turn, by the classes of the new Inland Lake Yachting Association, founded in 1897. This group fostered development of the sailing scows for which these waters have become famous. By the turn of the 20th century, the sandbaggers sailed no more on Geneva Lake. That was where things stood until just a few years ago, when Charles Colman began thinking about a new boat. Colman freely admits that bringing a new sandbagger to life on Geneva Lake is “close to the craziest project I’ve ever done.” He comes from an old Lake Geneva family, and their boating legacy is all around him. The family’s old Chris-Craft Sea Skiff is still in service on the lake, though now owned by someone else, and Colman’s father’s photographs hang on the walls of the Lake Geneva Yacht Club. A self-confessed “wooden boat guy,” his proudest memory is of winning the 1978 Sheridan Prize with his father, Walter, and brother Jeff, sailing the E scow TOMAHAWK. There are two modern wooden powerboats at his dock: NEENEMOOSHA, an evocation of a Muskoka launch by the renowned Canadian builder and restorer Peter Breen; and NOKOMIS, a Van Dam runabout. It was NOKOMIS that was to lead, in a roundabout way, to the new sandbagger.

Casting around for a boat to replace the Chris-Craft, and wanting something more substantial than their Boston Whaler, Colman sought advice from a local marina operator, who suggested that he visit Steve Van Dam of Van Dam Custom Boats in Boyne City, Michigan. Van Dam builds exquisitely executed boats inspired by history but unabashedly modern in their construction and performance. Arriving at the shop after a nine-hour drive, Colman and his wife, Dianna, were given a tour, during which they saw a limousine-style hardtop runabout Van Dam had built for another customer. By Van Dam’s reckoning, 200 of every 2,000 email queries his shop receives turn into phone calls, and about three of the phone calls result in shop visits. Half of those visits lead to orders for boats. One of these was Colman’s. He waited an hour on the drive home before asking Dianna what she thought of the boat. She liked it. They called Van Dam from the car to place the order.

A decade after the runabout was launched, Colman began thinking about a new boat project. He was intrigued by some of the launches that once ran on Lake Geneva, but he also couldn’t stop thinking about NETTIE, the sandbagger atop the Sheridan Prize. He is keenly interested in the history of the lake, and wants to share it with as many people as possible. At the time, he was developing tendonitis from playing the guitar and trimming the mainsheet on E-scows, so he was looking for a different sailing experience. His friend and fellow Lake Geneva Yacht Club member Ellen Bentsen began researching NETTIE and other sandbaggers, and suggested that they make a trip to Mystic Seaport in Connecticut to see ANNIE. This venerable sandbagger, whose acquisition in 1931 began Mystic’s watercraft collection, had already inspired others to build new boats of the type. BULL and BEAR, scaled-down versions of a sandbagger called SUSIE S. (launched as BELLA in 1870), were built in the mid-1990s

The Colmans went to Mystic with Steve’s son, Ben, who is the Van Dam company president, to see ANNIE for themselves. They went over the boat in detail, took photographs and measurements, and ordered a copy of the plans from the museum’s Ships Plans collection. It all looked good until the sail plan arrived. As Colman tells it, “For the next four conversations, Steve Van Dam said, ‘Charles, you’re crazy.’ And I finally said ‘Steve, if you keep telling me I’m crazy, I’m not going to do this project.’” The discussions that followed are at the core of this intriguing new boat. Colman’s ambition to share a historical Lake Geneva sailing experience with a wide audience converged with Van Dam’s interest in building new boats that embody the spirit of tradition. Van Dam’s first concern was safety, since his name would be on the boat. Colman wanted a boat that brought history to life but could be sailed by a smaller crew with some passengers who wouldn’t need to participate fully in sailing if they didn’t wish to. It was one thing to have the boat be a sandbagger, but he didn’t want his crew to have to be sandbaggers as well. As the originals carried a racing crew of up to 12, he also didn’t want to limit his sailing opportunities by having to persuade 11 friends to join him each time he left the dock. In his words, “I’m hoping that both the wooden boat community likes it…and that people who go out in it don’t have to do too much.”

The changes began with the rig. With careful attention to preserving the original proportions, all of the dimensions were scaled back 15 percent, giving the boat a sparred length of “only” 63' 3" on a waterline of 28' 4" instead of the original’s sparred length of nearly 75'. To keep the crew size down and eliminate the need for shifting ballast, 1,400 lbs of lead was faired into the bottom of the massive, L-shaped centerboard. To ensure that the crew who did go sailing would want to come back another day, they added a hydraulic ram to raise and lower the ballasted centerboard. To ensure that other boats at the dock would be safe from puncture wounds inflicted by the magnificent bowsprit, they added a small electric motor driving a propeller in an aperture fitted into the rudder and skeg. The batteries
for this motor are housed beneath the sole, where they also act as inside ballast.

The hull, Van Dam says diffidently, was “ just building boats” (albeit to his company’s customarily high standards of fit and finish), but the rig was more of a challenge, so the new sail plan and stability calculations were reviewed by naval architect Eric Sponberg. Just as in the late 19th century, no one wants to capsize a 5,000-lb sandbagger. Even with the reduced rig and the lead in the centerboard, the boat is really more of a big dinghy than a yacht. The mast is built of hollow, glued-up Sitka spruce; the boom is also glued-up Sitka, but solid.

The hardware and fittings evoke the originals but are made of modern materials. There are no winches, so the sailing forces are managed with multi-part purchases and ample crew. Raising the sails uses a lot of modern synthetic line running through stainless-steel Harken blocks and belayed in line clutches. The mainsheet and jibsheet blocks run on old-style horses, but are modern roller-bearing units built by Van Dam. The mast hoops are aluminum, but they’re covered with hand-stitched leather. The shrouds are set up with deadeyes and lanyards, but they’re made from an exotic, heat-treated synthetic braid.

Van Dam describes the boat as “gentrified,” and says “what we did doesn’t detract from what the boat is, but we’ve changed the jewelry on it a little bit. It was kind of yachty before, but we’ve taken it up a whole other level.” It wasn’t just performance that drove the design and construction decisions.

Colman and Van Dam went to great lengths to ensure that the finished boat would evoke the feeling of the original. For example, the cold-molded hull is immaculately fair, as are all of Van Dam’s boats, but she carries external chainplates that extend below the waterline, preserving an important historical detail at the expense of some speed. The plywood-and-epoxy centerboard trunk is finished on the exterior with mahogany raised-panel joinery. Controls for the electric motor and hydraulic ram used for raising and lowering the centerboard are housed in a discreet pedestal at the aft end of the trunk. The bowsprit and boomkin are secured with custom stainless-steel fittings that allow them to be easily removed for trailering or storage. The plywood-andepoxy deck is sheathed in buff-painted Dynel to capture the look of the original canvas.

The boat will live on a marine railway at the Colmans’ lakefront home, and this is where she was launched on June 10, 2016. Champagne glasses in their hands, the assembled guests gathered on the lawn underneath a tree for the christening. Branches had been trimmed just a few days earlier to allow the masthead fittings to clear as the boat came up the railway.

After talking about his own boating history on the lake, Colman acknowledged those who made the project happen: researcher Ellen Bentsen; Steve Van Dam, his wife, Jean, and their son, Ben; Van Dam Custom Boats Project Manager Thor Purinton and apprentice Steve Kim; and the ever-patient and supportive Dianna. Among the guests of honor was AMERICA’s Cup winner Buddy Melges, the legendary “Wizard of Zenda,” who took the helm for the inaugural sail.

The morning was hot and sunny, but calm. The flag at the end of the dock was motionless. As the crew prepared to cast off, someone asked Melges what time they would have wind. Without missing a beat, Melges, who may have spent more time on the waters of Lake Geneva than on its shores, said, without missing a beat “about ten after ten.” By 10:09, the line of a freshening westerly could be seen advancing up the lake. There is no question that, even with all of her modern conveniences, TATTLER II takes considerable effort to get under way. With her long bowsprit, boomkin, and boom, leaving and returning to the dock requires a good plan and a steady hand, notwithstanding the electric motor and a huge barndoor rudder. Neighboring boats and pilings are in some danger until she’s completely clear. All of the sheet clutches are labeled in black except for one in red, and Colman tells his crew that it is the most important one on the boat: the main topping lift, which supports the 300-lb boom until the mainsail is set. With the main up, the nimblest member of the crew goes to the end of the bowsprit to unstop the jib. During the launching, this duty fell to Ben, but Colman is recruiting an agile young local sailor to take his place as “boat monkey” for the remainder of the season.

Under sail, TATTLER II is a magnificent sight. From a distance, her low, broad rig is evocative of an earlier era. You could spend a lot of time just watching the plumb stem slice through the water. From inside the cockpit, the long, steeved-down bowsprit and boomkin go on and on, and you can alternate your gaze between those arcs and the sweeping curve of the rail and the upward kick of the sheerline toward the bow. If you get tired of the view outboard, you could always look down and admire the joinery of the mahogany gratings that Van Dam made for the cockpit sole, or the rhythm of the beaded Douglas-fir vertical staving that lines the cockpit. She handles well, albeit a little deliberately, but trouble awaits the skipper who doesn’t ease and trim as well as steer, for the rig will overwhelm the rudder if both are not used in tandem. Colman is searching for an appropriately sized ratchet block for the mainsheet so nobody gets their shoulder dislocated in a puff. The windage of her rig, even with the sails down, can make docking an adventure in a breeze but, as Colman has discovered, the large rudder offers some unusual possibilities for backing up to the pier.

The original TATTLER was raced for a few more years after her Sheridan win, and her time on the lake drew to a close along with the era of the sandbaggers. She was scuttled on New York State’s Chautauqua Lake in the early 20th century. O.W. Norton had moved there and built a house after leaving Lake Geneva in 1899. With his own health declining and his sons unable or unwilling to invest the time required to sail and maintain such a boat, he decided to give her a dignified end.

The naval architect Douglas Phillips-Birt, in his An Eye for a Yacht (1955), could have been discussing Colman’s project to bring TATTLER back to Lake Geneva when he wrote, “The pleasure derived from looking at a yacht is compounded of two elements. Firstly there is the appreciation of form as such, the perception of beauty in the blending curves of stem, stern and sheer…. Secondly, there are…memories awakened, the history which is recognized in her form. A yacht…holds a looking glass to the past.” TATTLER II is the embodiment of Charles Colman’s vision of getting people out on Lake Geneva in a historic boat. She does, indeed, hold a looking glass to the past.

by John Summers