Town Class sailboat enthusiasts celebrate 75th year of racing

NAHANT – In 1936, a fleet of 50 Town Class sailboats raced for the first time in Marblehead Harbor.This weekend at the fleet’s National Championship in Nahant, organizers expect a much reduced fleet of 15, but a large celebration of a traditional wooden boat that once dominated the local waves.”There are not a lot of people sailing them now, it’s been a bit of a struggle,” said Robert Wilson, of the Nahant Dory Club. “So we’re celebrating racing but also this Town Class family. There are so many people that have been in a Townie.”Throughout its history, the Town Class has had its dedicated family of admirers and proponents.The Town Class was designed in 1932 by Marcus Lowell of Newbury and characterized by wooden lapstrake construction – basically, you can see each overlapping plank of wood, Dory Club members explained. A Town Class vessel is a 16?-foot long, flat-bottomed boat with a 24-foot tall mast and large mainsail.”It was built as a little day-sailor,” Wilson said.He explained that the boat was basically intended as an inexpensive cruising boat for a novice skipper and crew.In fact, Wilson noted that the planks were originally fastened with iron nails, which gave them a life span of about three years in salt water before they began falling apart.But Marblehead sailors soon found the boats fun to race.By the 1950s, Marblehead Race Week had a Town Class fleet of 80 boats, and Wilson remembers 25 Townies in Nahant racing three days a week during summers when he grew up.By the 1970s, Lowell’s son Pert, who had taken over the family boat-building business, was offering Townies with a fiberglass hull, in addition to the wooden versions.But faster, lighter boats gradually usurped the Townies for young racing fans, Wilson said, and older racers graduated to bigger boats.Today, Town Class fleets consisting of only eight to 10 boats are found only in Marblehead, Nahant, Touisset Point, RI, and Spofford Lake, NH.But the National Championship Race Committee at the Dory Club remains dedicated.Rex Antrim is the “patriarch of the Nahant fleet,” according to Wilson and has won the National Championship 10 times in what Antrim said was 45 years off-and-on of racing Townies.”I just like it,” Antrim, of Nahant, said. “We went for a sail today and you get right close to the water. I like it.”In fact, Antrim’s boat Albatross is the pride of the Dory Club fleet. It has been raced continuously since 1936 and been skippered by at least three National Champions, Wilson said.And while the boats may have originally been built with an approximate three-year lifespan, the Race Committee members agreed that today’s Townies are more seaworthy than the delicate racing boats favored by new racers.”These are built to last now,” said Nick Strange.The question is whether the boat finds a new audience ? after all, no matter how dedicated, a National Championship with only 15 boats every year provides few surprises among competitors.”Let’s just say we wouldn’t exclude anybody who wanted to join us,” said Pete Dickenson.The Nahant Dory Club will host five races off of Nahant this Saturday and Sunday, beginning each day at 9 a.m. To see boats arrive and head to and from the course, visit the Nahant Dory Club at Tudor Wharf. The course starts in Nahant Harbor.