Any "Ducks" left in Duxbury?

[coopercdrkey]

When I was young, ("Much younger than today......"), our family owned a marconi rigged sloop, 18' or so, from an Alden design. The class was known to us as a "Duxbury Duck" and there was a small fleet of them in Duxbury, Massachusetts, and perhaps a few in other coastal harbors on the South Shore. Most of them had quite a few years on them and that was 50 years ago.

They were all to be named after birds. Ours was the "Sea Robin", which, of course, is a fish!

I can recall vividly the chill of the "barn" in February as last season's bottom paint was removed with a blow torch, and the old caulk and oakum was renewed for the coming season.

I have read that a yard in Snug Harbor is building modern day approximations of this craft, but I just wondered if anybody still went to the barn in February to renew an authentic "Duck".

http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_id=4269

[coopercdrkey]

A fair sprinkling of views, but no responses, seems to indicate that the Duck's time has passed. I am not surprised, but I am nostalgic. My Dad is gone, and so it seems is his sailboat.

Good memories, though..... I think I'll name my next boat after him. How about an Oughtred Acorn Skiff named the "Robert Ross"......

[rbgarr]

A fair sprinkling of views, but no responses, seems to indicate that the Duck's time has passed.

Try some patience and wait longer than a day to draw that conclusion.

[coopercdrkey]

Thank you so much for your sage advice, so kindly stated.

[Daniel Noyes]

You've got me wondering how these boats compare with the Bay Bird sloop popular on Cape Cod esp. at Plesant Bay, similar hull, 18', decked, transom hung rudder, knockabout sloop but gaff rigged, designed by Starling Burgess of Marblehead before 1920 and built by W. Chamberlain of that same town.






Tom is that you? gotta be.

[rbgarr]

FWIW

http://maine.craigslist.org/boa/3249074302.html

[nonsly]

There are still a few around in Duxbury. Don't know about new ones though. Someone might be thinking of the 1/2 dozen or so cold-molded "Pintails" that were built before the maritime school displaced Snug Harbor Boat Works.

[nonsly]

Spotted on my bike ride back from the beach this morning.



The name appeared to be "SUSIBEL."

[coopercdrkey]

A beautiful boat, but a Duck does not have spreaders, to the best of my memory.

[nonsly]

I'm pretty sure that is a Duck hull but the jumper struts and prebend had me questioning the rig as well. Looks to me like somebody borrowed the rig from a Lightning or something similar. Not such a bad idea, actually.

[Daniel Noyes]

could it be an Alden O boat?

[coopercdrkey]

We used to moor the Sea Robin just off the beach at Shipyard Lane. I'm sure it sat on the bottom at low tide. I'm equally sure that for a week and a half after each season's launch it sank to the bottom at high tide! (Takes time for the boards to swell...)

I remember pumping her out with an old time galvanized bilge pump that needed a new leather every other year. Nothing serious seemed to happen as a result of the annual ritual. The foredeck was canvas over planking with nothing special paint- (could have been house paint for all I know), but it stayed stout year after year.

Standard issue for each of us kids, when sailing without Dad, was a pocket knife and a bandana. No problem stuffing a chunk of bandana into a new leak.

As for racing, well..... , you raced other Ducks. In any given contest the Highlanders were the kings of Duxbury Bay, followed by a few 'glass classes, (Mercurys, for example), then maybe the Ducks, and then the Bugs. ("Bugs" were beautiful little catboats, in case you didn't know.) It was well before anyone even dreamt of a Hobie or a Force 5. (I have to admit, I owned a Force 5.)

Probably the hottest contested racing, however, were the Frostbite Dinghies. (Also the coldest contested, ironically...). Those guys were nuts! Their little hulls littered the marsh all summer and fall until it got cold enough to freeze the halyards into a donut, then they all went racing! Whew!

Good memories from a fine time in a storybook town.

[nonsly]

"Bugs" for those who might not know are just Beetle Cats by another name. For some reason they were always called Bugs in Duxbury.