Meadowlark

[Nick Scheuer]

The first year we towed TRUE NORTH, a Shearwater Yawl by Edey & Duff, to Maine she had one leeboard missing (broken off awhile earlier) and one leeboard which fractured that very day while beating up Eggomoggin Reach in- company with another Shearwater.

Oh well, we are now a motor vessel, I thought. Wrong! Turned out she was able to sail quite well off the wind. And with her fractured leeboard trailing aft, she ould hold her own beside the other Searwater, one known to bw fast on any point of sail.

After all, "gentlemen never cruisel upwind".

Moby Nick

[JamesCaird]

HI Guys-Just catching up to answer a couple of questions and thank JonB for the photos and info on the LeeBoard Ketch. Its a handsome vessel. Meanwhile: back to question from CDragon-The earliest plans built ML seemed to be well liked by their owners. They were suprisingly fast-even LFH said so!-being long and narrow they were quite dry back aft for a 33 ft vessel. The owner- builders liked them because of the shallow draft and the fact that they were cheap and relatively easy to build, once you figure out the chine log ......
But anyway, I think folks started thinking they wanted more room so lengthened it and wanted more headroom, so the made it higher. Now you can do all those things but different people had different ways of doing things and some folks have different ideas about aethetics, etc, so the boats start looking different. Alan Vaitses built several straight 33' ML in wood and then started doing more things to customers' requests and finally figured (as a fiberglass pioneer of his time) that this would be something he could make a mold for, which he did. Some were produced as "standard ML" but others were hulls shipped out to be finished by owners. Some turned out great while some others maybe not so. For me it doesn't matter so long as the vessel does what is supposed to do. I learned about ketches first by sailing ML's and all kinds of cool tricks (like sailing backwards) with leeboards, and about balance. But mostly, I think, because of the ML's ability to get away into the untravelled spots, the mud holes, I learned about cruising and that was the greatest gift. HOpe this helps-great thread/Cheers/JC

[Joe B.]

I have been looking at the pictures of these shallow drafters and I have one question right now. How do they fit a stern cabin on these that is really usable? Maybe it's because I'm a big guy, but I just can't see how much living space you could shoehorn into the back of a Meadow Lark or its like? I find myself drawn to the 37' version of the Lark, but hey, really convince me.

All the best.

[cdragon]

Just went to inspect a meadowlark on Monday and I am very excited about owning her-should hopefully have the details worked out this week and get sailing her shortly-so much clever LFH stuff on the boat-I think I may be a convert to 18" draft boats!!

[catndahats]

Way to go Cdragon!!!!

Tell us more....how'd you locate one????
where is she located?
Age?
Wood or glass hull???
...33ft. or 37ft???

The bronze hardware on mine is pretty nifty, as are the hundreds of Mexican Centavos (large coins) the builder used throughout the boat in place of washers...

Wonderful choice you made...nothing like sailing up next to wade fishermen, or sailing right up onto the beach!

Let us know more!

Cheers,
Nate

[cdragon]

She is a 37' Vaitses boat, in pretty fine shape-but before I jinx anything I think I'd better get all the details sorted out first-promise plenty of info when it is all said and done!