FunToSail: Snark Stories

I thought it would be fun to post some old stories of the Sea/Super Snark owners sense the Snark last year went out of production. Some nostalgia. The Sea Snark has been in production sense 1954. The longest production run of any sailboat in history and I might add the most sold of any sailboat in the world. Sadly, the pandemic/plandemic in the state of Michigan was the death of the boat, like with so many other products/businesses. It was particularly bad in blue states like Michigan that had excessive lock downs.

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1960 Sea Snark with Kool cigarette sail logo

First Generation

When I was twelve I scraped together all the money I had made from yard work, doing piecework in my Dad's machine shop, and anything else I could scrounge and bought a sailboat--a Sea Snark, then in it's first incarnation (1960) and I've kept it ever since. My Dad taught me the basics, but soon was sailing solo. The original Snark had an unprotected hull made of expanded polystyrene ("Styrofoam") with a plastic sail and a very flimsy plywood rudder that lasted only two summers. The plastic sail was soon replaced with a red and white nylon sail bought from the manufacturers. That's me on the far left, peeking around the sail, at age twelve.

Second Generation

I sailed it on Clark Lake in Michigan for most of my growing-up years. The centerboard was lost and replaced with one made from marine plywood scrounged from the garage. It didn't see much use during my college days until the summer of my Junior year. I had my wife-to-be (then girl friend) up to visit. We had sailed it to the far West end of the lake and practically becalmed when my Dad arrived in his Aztec and buzzed the house to let us know to pick him up in Napoleon. Kathy was not pleased to meet her future father-in-law looking wind-blown and red-faced. After we were married a few years Kathy sewed up the blue and yellow sail to replace the now-shredded red and white sail.

Third Generation

When I joined the staff of Campus Crusade in 1974 and moved to Florida, I took the Sea Snark with us. We sailed it in Tampa bay and Daytona Beach. Once while sailing peacefully across Tampa Bay a dugong surfaced and exhaled noisily right next to us, scaring us well into the next century. We move to Indiana in 1976, then California in 1980 where we began to sail on Mission Bay in San Diego and Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino mountains. This picture shows me sailing with Josh at about age three.

Fourth Generation

I recently made a new sail from my old hang glider and we tried it out on Mission bay recently. It was bordered with 1" webbing that was sewn into the boom/spar edges of the sail. Where they cross they were sewn together and a brass grommet inserted. The stainless steel hinge bolt (between the boom and spar) runs through this grommet and anchors the sail. The opposite ends of the webbing are anchored to the boom and spar with hose clamps. Small holes melted every foot along the length of the edges allow nylon cable ties to fix the sail to the boom and spar leaving the aluminum entirely visible.