Star boat

[Betty Rogers]

I have Star Boat #5332, built in 1967 by George "Bump" Aitken, in Bronx, NY. She has been garaged her whole life. She is all wood, and gorgeous. Needs some TLC, but not in too bad a shape. I will give her to whoever would like to bring her back to shape. I have sails, mast, boom. She is in the Denver area.
Betty Rogers [email protected]

[johngsandusky]

Re: Star boat

Welcome aboard Betty. Thanks for trying to save the boat! There must be a Star Association, probably with an online site and a Facebook page. Perhaps you will find a taker there. Good luck with it.

[wizbang 13]

Re: Star boat

yes thank you
i wish we saw more star boats everywhere and everyday

[ahp]

Re: Star boat

Sandy Bay Yacht Club, in Rockport, MA has a racing fleet of Stars. Contact them. They have a Web site.

[rbgarr]

Re: Star boat

http://starclass-001.yclas.com/

[Todd Bradshaw]

Re: Star boat

Been there, done that - only mine was a 1960 Lippincott Star. My only suggestion is for a new owner to be aware of what exactly he is getting himself into. The Star is an amazing boat to sail - huge unreefable main and moderate jib. The boom crosses the deck at about belly button height for those sitting on the deck with their feet in the well. The boat is fast and fully loaded with gizmos for adjusting the shapes of the mast and the sails - upper and lower running backstays, cranks that adjust headstay tension, a powerful boom vang, a ram under the deck to help bend the mast and plenty of other adjustable bits of hardware, many of which are in play while sailing, rather than being set it and forget it situations. In the long run, the boat will teach you more about rig tuning and sail shaping than just about any boat out there.

On the other side of the equation, there are some things about Star sailing which may be found to be less than ideal. First of all, the majority of the folks in the class association have little or no interest in old wooden Stars as they are no longer competitive. The good news here is that there have recently been some class-sponsored events for old refurbished wooden Stars, so they are now less likely to end up as bonfires than they were back when I restored mine. I don't know what they are doing about rig upgrades for these, which though certainly possible, upgrading to modern, better working hardware can get very expensive very quickly. Do also be aware that most clubs lift the boats off of the trailers with a crane. We didn't have one, so the boat was a real bear to launch and retrieve. The trailer had to be stopped on the ramp, unhooked, turned around, and lowered on a rope until the boat floated off. The boat is also awfully tedious to rig and unrig for daysailing. I rented a space for mast-up storage for mine, which worked fine until the lightning strike blew a big hole in the bottom.

star (2).jpg

[johngsandusky]

Re: Star boat

I think I read an article or book about someone cruising a modified Star, and another about putting a simpler rig in one.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Re: Star boat

There was a cool one a while back where the guy used a stiffer, shorter mast, raised the boom to a more comfortable level and then outfitted it as a gaff-rigged sloop with new Egyptian Dacron sails. They called it something like the "Classic Star" and it was really nice looking. The original 1910 gunter-rigged version would also be interesting to try.

star-1910.jpg

[stromborg]

Re: Star boat

Do also be aware that most clubs lift the boats off of the trailers with a crane. We didn't have one, so the boat was a real bear to launch and retrieve. The trailer had to be stopped on the ramp, unhooked, turned around, and lowered on a rope until the boat floated off. The boat is also awfully tedious to rig and unrig for daysailing. I rented a space for mast-up storage for mine, which worked fine until the lightning strike blew a big hole in the bottom.

My dad raced a wood Star in the '70's out of Santa Barbara Harbor in California. There was a big fenced off area where the Stars and other dry-sailed racers (Solings?) were stored all rigged and ready to go. Race day was fun as a kid, watching the guys roll the boats to a crane that would lift them off their trailers and into the water. My memory is of lifting eyes bolted into the keel as opposed to slings but it was a long time ago.

[Betty Rogers]

Re: Star boat

Thanks for all the suggestions. My husband started sailing Mass Bay Hustlers in the mid-1960's in Quincy, Mass. Unfortunately for him, he married a girl from Colorado who knew nothing about sailing! But he always wanted to fix up this boat. He lost his war with cancer in May, and I would hate for this boat to continue to sit here for another 35 years! Joe loved the Star but never got to finish working on it. Thanks....

[bamamick]

Re: Star boat

Betty, if you are on Facebook there is a site there called 'Wood Stars' and you would be free to advertise your boat there. The VanderMolen's in Gull Lake, Michigan host an amazing event each year for wooden Stars-only, and it only continues to grow, so someone may very well have some interest in your boat.

Give it a look, if you would.

Mickey Lake
Star #5902 'Mabel D'

[ahp]

Re: Star boat

In very light wind, a Star will beat a Hobie 16.

[bamamick]

Re: Star boat

I have had a Star, and sometimes more than one, for over forty years, and I remember a good friend telling me years ago that MIT did an analysis on the boat and could not come up with a way to make it faster. Now, over the years different builders have tweaked the specs, and sometimes those boats do very well (the K boat, for instance, or the new C Star built by Sune Carlson), but how do you know it's the boat and not the driver?

There are tolerances in the class rules because in the beginning so many of them were put together by home-builders and they are still in there so that all of these boats are still eligible to race as Stars. My first Lippincott, which was wood, was very fast in light air. Very, very fast.

It does my heart a lot of good, what the guys in Michigan are doing, after watching so many hulls sit and rot, full of leaves and water and completely unloved because they could not compete with the newer boats. Now there is hope for your boat, now matter how old, and especially if it's wood!

Mickey Lake