Somehow my Beschuits-toren regatta attendance wasn’t with the MS Meson after all.
There was a Barnegat boat my mate found local, available and ready to sail.
So I traveled light without trailer or roof-racked boat to the event.
The Barnegat dingy is at first glance the last boat you would want to be seen sailing in. Ok the fourth last one maybe, there are more embarrassing ones out there.
It’s a 5 meter loa fiberglass boat, aluminum sparred carrying about 14m2 sail, heavily built.
The boat was built by a local yard near the Wormer region (Dubdam in Oostknollendam), probably the main reason why so many of these are around there.
I must have missed out many boat experiences but stepping on the fore-deck for gaining access toward the (generous) cockpit of a small open centerboard sailing dinghy without any worry of tipping it over was new to me; It’s stable like a floating jetty.
More so this ugly duck was very easy to rig on the water and we were off in no time.
We hadn’t sailed one before and we needed to figure out if this boat needed facing the bow or the stern to go around, but after trying both facing the bow was best.
With hardly any room between the tiller and the main-sheet block it seemed to be the more acrobatic but most elegant way to go.
We got that right learning by doing,
Our boat was the latest donation to the club and we were the first ones to find out the weak points of it.
We did, first the port jib-sheet cleat went airborne during the race (We repaired that with a string and strong language), later on the jib sail started ripping. So we took it down to prevent any further damage.
Our Barnegat kept on going with ease.
We ended up in the race second last with our hurt Barnegat, and the overall winner sailed a Barnegat as well.
I love Barnegat’s now.
Thank you for the hospitality Wormer Watersport Vereniging. The event was very well organised, timed, pleasant, safe, loose and caring for all of us.
Building a wooden Minisail 