One my first writing submissions was to Sailing World magazine in April, 1987, about the impending demise of the Clearwater Optimist Pram. Written after the last Clearwater Optimist Pram Association sanctioned regatta, held in Key Largo, it was my second submission to a sailing magazine. The mostly-a-rejection letter from editor Chris Hufstader was encouraging however, asking for a shorter, less detailed article and better, higher detailed black and white photos to be used in a later issue. The article never happened [ed note: at least to the best of my knowledge.]
A recent meeting with a youth sailing group in Port Charlotte led me to dig out my old files and the article about youth sailing was one of the files I found stuffed in an old envelope. Here is the original article, complete with the originally submitted photos.
George
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"They
didn't invite prams!” my daughter wailed as she read the racing
flyer for the 1985 Junior Orange Bowl Regatta. She had taken 2nd
place in her age division the previous year in the Clearwater
Optimist Pram class. This year, however, the event was only for
International Optimist Dinghies.
The
previous Jr. Orange Bowl regattas had separate competition for each
class, the prams and the dinghies sailing for separate trophies. The
regatta organizers, the Coral Reef Yacht Club, fearful of a small
turnout in prams, elected to concentrate on the dinghy, called the
IOD, [today universally called the "Opti"] and drop the pram altogether.
Two
separate classes for the funny little 7 foot, spit-rigged, blunt-bow
boat that has been familiar in Florida waters for many years? Yes,
the Pram and the Dinghy are different boats, with separate USYRU
governing bodies to sanction their respective events. Both classes
are identified by the 0 with the over-struck I. The pram sail,
however, is identified by it's affiliated club or group. LYC for
Lauderdale Yacht Club, MYC for Miami Yacht Club, SSS for the Sarasota
Sailing Squadron for example, followed by the assigned number. The
IOD sails are all identified with a country's letters followed by the
nationally assigned number.
 |
| International Optimist Dinghy, sailed by Josh Rosen and Clearwater Optimist Pram, sailed by Monica Mindling |
The
boats seem identical to the casual observer. In fact, many skippers
can't tell a wooden IOD hull from a fiberglass pram hull when they
are down-rigged and sitting side by side. Everyone is accustomed,
however, to seeing the two boats built the other way around, as the
IOD today is usually fiberglass and the traditional pram a varnished
mahogany. Both are racing boats. Anyone who has ever attended one of
the many youth regattas on the Florida circuit can attest to that
fact. The pram, however, is facing a shorter schedule with fewer and
fewer regattas. Why? What has happened and what is happening to the
boat that started one of the most popular racing classes in the
world? How did the odd predicament of two boats with the same
insignia come about anyway?
The
"Soapbox Derby" was directly responsible for the creation
of the original pram. Optimist Club of Clearwater member Ernie Green
had been promoting an idea of a "waterborne orange crate derby"
as an alternative to the four wheeled, home-built creations that
would more aptly suit Florida's climate and mostly flat terrain.
Colonel Clifford McKay spoke to the club in August, 1947, suggesting
a year-round activity to occupy the local boys and girls. With plenty
of sailing water at it's disposal and a want for a project to combat
juvenile delinquency (remember those days?), the Optimist Club of
Clearwater found the answer. The timing was perfect. Local boat
builder Clark Mills, who also designed the Windmill, another
one-design, had the answer in a design that a father and son (or
daughter) could build in the backyard and sail in a fleet of boats
that were all built to the same specifications. The club quickly
voted on adopting the pram as their youth project and the Clearwater
Optimist pram was born. To build a fleet of boats was a task that
would need help. Local merchants were asked to sponsor boats. For
$75.00 a sponsor could have his trade name or store name painted on
the side of the hull. No one was concerned about USYRU officials, who
today would be gasping for air, when the fleet set sail with 29 boats
boldly emblazoned with names of proud sponsors.
 |
| The last sanctioned COPCA regatta |
A
similar fleet soon was formed in nearby Dunedin. Col. McKay traveled
Florida widely extolling the virtues of youth sailing. Ernie Green
loaded prams in one of his moving vans and visited neighboring towns
where youthful skippers put on sailing and racing demonstrations for
interested parents and potential sponsors.
The
Clearwater group was to suffer a major setback in April
1949 when a fire wiped out 20 of the 29 boats in it's fleet. An appeal was made
over local radio station WTAN by Howard Hartley. The marvelous
response from the people of Clearwater not only replaced the original
20 lost in the fire, but added 22 more! The launching ceremony was
held July 2nd, 1949, and a new chapter in sailing was opened. The
popularity of the pram spread quickly to Florida's east coast. The
Miami Yacht Club started pram classes in 1951 that have been held
twice a year, for 5 months each, ever since. The Lauderdale Yacht
Club, Coconut Grove Sailing Club, Coral Reef Yacht Club, and the
Biscayne Bay Club became involved and before long, regattas were
sprouting up on both coasts. In Ft Myers, the Royal Palm Sailing
Club, and further north, the St. Petersburg Yacht club. An
interesting observation is that four of the mentioned clubs are
members of SORC, the Southern Ocean Racing Conference.
The
Clearwater Optimist Club was the sanctioning body for the class. Rule
changes were voted on and generally accepted as proposed by club
members. The popularity of the new, inexpensive boat was spread by
several magazine articles extolling the virtues of the pram and the
benefits of youth sailing. The Clearwater Optimist Prams even caught
the eye of the City of Miami and the Greater Miami Chamber of
Commerce. The second Pram National Championship was held in the Miami
Marine Stadium in 1970. Unlimited hydros do very well there because
the wind-protected facility was designed for power boat racing, but
it was a disaster for the prams. The preliminaries for the Nationals
were sailed in Biscayne Bay, but the finals were sailed in the Marine
Stadium. The young sailors simply sat in the protected waters and
floated aimlessly in front of the grandstands. It was an one hundred
boat float. First time sailing spectators were less than impressed.
The pram, however, was firmly entrenched with the sailing groups that
used them.
Back
in 1954 Axel Damgaard, a Danish architect, introduced the pram to the
Vordingborg Sailing Club of Denmark. Several were built according to
the standard pram plans and it wasn't long until the boxy, hard
chined little dinghy spread across sailing groups throughout Denmark.
Olympic champion Paul Elvstrom became involved in 1957 and in 1959
the first regatta between Denmark and Norway took place. Sweden
joined them in 1960 and a governing body was formed in Denmark to
control the increasingly popular class. Regattas spread to Germany
and England. An American delegation even competed in Denmark in 1964
and it was becoming more and more obvious an international body would
be required to govern the burgeoning class. Viggo Jacobsen of Denmark
became the first chairman of the International Optimist Dinghy
Organization in 1965. The first International regatta held in the
U.S. under IODA sanctioning was held in Miami in 1966.
However,
several major changes were made to the original Clark Mills design in
the migration to the International rules. First, the sail was
slightly larger and the shape was altered to allow the use of two
battens. There are no battens in the original Clearwater pram sail.
The main sheet was no longer controlled from the end of the boom but
from a center boom ratchet attachment, much as a Laser style versus
the Force Five style of control. The dagger board was redesigned and
the rudder was completely new. Instead of the pram's round inverted P
shape, the IOD rudder now was a squarish, angled shape with the same
width, top to bottom. The most important changes were made to the
control the skipper had over running adjustments while under sail.
The pram skipper could adjust sprit tension, down haul, vang, outhaul
and even a jibe tensioner. The IOD skippers worked only the sheet.
The changes to the hull were minimal, but enough that a properly
built pram would fail to measure in against the stricter requirements
of the IOD.
The
American clubs were impressed with the speed the dinghies had over
the prams and the fact the skippers could concentrate on racing
tactics. Also, of course, it was a truly international class. As the
lOD caught on with Florida skippers, many of the clubs began adding
two classes to the youth regattas. Having separate starts over the
same marked course for the prams and the 10D's. The Clearwater
Optimist Club elected not to adopt the IOD rules and decided not to
modify the pram to the new format as one factor was obvious; cost.
The new IOD's with certificate were far more expensive than a pram,
and they tended to be far harder to certify if home built. Trying to
refit all of the current prams would not only be next to impossible,
it might have killed the class altogether. The pram group suffered
its second major setback as the IOD became more and more popular
because of its international organization. By the middle of 1971, the
pram group was for all practical purposes dormant. But enter Susan
Bankston, of Largo, Florida. Susan's daughter, Debbie, became
interested in pram sailing. It wasn't long until Sue became the
spark-plug for the prams revival. Due to Sue's efforts, a real
organizing body was founded specifically to govern the Clearwater
Optimist Pram.
The
Clearwater Optimist Pram Class Association, or COPCA, applied for
USYRU membership. It scheduled four sanctioned events a year in
addition to the multitude of individual club regattas. Each club had
a delegate member in addition to the club officers. COPCA elected to
tighten the rules, requiring rigid control of hull numbers and the
Measurer's design rules. Strict rules were put in place to
insure standardization by the boat builders. The pram class was designed
to develop progressive sailors, not progressive constructors. Several
well documented and publicized blatant admissions of cheating by some
of the young skippers did the pram group no good. COPCA faced the
problems by stiffening the signature over a COPCA stamp on strictly
measured sails. The rules were still not as rigid as the IOD, but
they solved the problems. At the 1978 Championships in Dunedin, Florida,
Chief Measurer Fred Dinger noted that of 47 boats measured for
specification tolerances, 23 boats, or 48% of the fleet, were
rejectable to IOD tolerances. Judges and race committee members were
enforcing the "no sculling, no rocking no ooching" rules
with new enthusiasm and the protest committees became as proficient
as anyone design class sailed anywhere. Most of the skippers were as
knowledgeable of the rule book as the adult club members. As one
protest committee member once told me after a particularly long drawn
out protest, "Do you know what its like to be in a room full of
twelve year old Ted Turners?"
The
four events were the Florida State Championships, the Pram Nationals,
The Pram Internationals, and the Clark Mills regatta. Several clubs
became annual sponsors for these events and began a lasting
association with the venerable pram. By the Early 80's, 60 boat pram
fleets were again common. The Annual Miami Yacht Club December regatta in 1981
registered 103 boats, 60 in prams and 35 in IOD's, with the remainder
in Laser M-rigs. The 1986 Nationals, sailed at Key Biscayne Yacht
Club, had over fifty prams. That year was the current zenith as pram
registration has gradually slipped backwards against the IOD.
Last
year's (1987) Florida State championship had only 35 entrants. Today, the
clubs that like to promote youth sailing are still using the wooden
pram as a training boat but finding the competition is finer tuned
and more visible in the IOD class. As one past US National champion
in prams once remarked, "No one is interested in buying my pram,
a championship boat, just because it is a pram."
While
the COPCA pram regatta schedule seems to be full, missing a regatta
isn't a traumatic event. Missing an IOD event is. Many parents find
it hard to devote the time and money necessary to run the full IOD
schedule, particularly if there is more than one skipper in the
family. The pram group, while just as fervent in their support of
their skippers, tend to make the outings a tailgate party rather than
an event of Olympic importance. However, most of the IOD skippers
still find prams to race when it comes time for the pram states and
nationals. Almost all of the top IOD skippers have shelves filled
with pram trophies. The age groups for the two classes are the same,
eight through the year of the 15th birthday. COPCA has traditionally
sponsored the fifteen to eighteen year olds in the Laser M rig, now
switched officially to the Laser Radial, at the same regattas.
Various groups pressure COPCA at times to change boats, depending on
who sells what and when, and whether a particular boat favors a
particular club, or even a particular skipper.
Consistency has been
COPCA's strong point, however, and maintaining the pram as the
sanctioned design has been its strength as well as its weakness. In
the last several years, traditional sites, dates and clubs have
slipped away from COPCA. The Pram Nationals are no longer held at the
Key Biscayne Yacht Club on Easter weekend. KBYC now hosts an IOD
event that
weekend instead. Coconut Grove Sailing Club has dropped the Clearwater prams altogether, even from their
annual October youth regatta. New clubs are cautiously picking up the
open dates. The newly revived youth group at the Royal Palm Sailing
Club held the 1986 State Championships, and the Upper Keys Sailing
Club of Key Largo, Fl, hosted the 1987 Nationals. At the Key Largo
National event there were 22 prams and 7 Laser radials, a far cry
from past Nationals. At the Key Biscayne regatta the week before
there were 35 IOD's. The cost of traveling and staying on Florida's
Gold Coast is not cheap, especially at the height of the season, and
many parents are finding themselves making a choice between the pram
and the IOD.
This
isn't the first ebb the pram youth program has suffered. It has
rebounded from inactivity as each successive group finds this
inexpensive, safe and reliable little boat. It has withstood attacks
from new designs, schedule changes, financial binds and rules
changes. It will be around a long time to come. It would be
interesting to survey the adult sailing population to see how many
learned to sail in Clark Mill's little square boat
George
Mindling
Chief Measurer, Clearwater Optimist Pram Class Association 1986-1987
Miami,
FL
