The Flying Scot is an old-fashioned-looking small sailboat that resembles, to a kindly eye, a bathtub toy.  When I was a young and less sympathetic sailor, I judged them a little by their adorable lines. 

Luckily, I've had the chance to live and learn. When one of our best sailing friends bought a Scot (and sailed very competitively with not just one but three children, Uncle Mark!), it became clear: if we wanted to race against our best local competition, we needed a Scot.  ​

A few NACs after that, we traded the Bean for #6133, The Scuppernong, which Harry delivered to Tampa. ​

And this year, we made a deal with Tyler Andrews at Flying Scot Inc, trading The Scuppernong for a brand-new boat made by the next generation at Flying Scot, Inc. #6305, The Molly Whomper hit the water for the first time this weekend in Jacksonville. ​

So it was a pure joy when the mast went up, the shrouds went in, and huzzah! everything fit. Zero fiddling. 

It's a testament to Tyler and all the folks at Flying Scot Inc. that the one-design portion of the class is holding true.

How did the maiden voyage go? We had a great weekend at the Rudder Club of Jacksonville. Jon Hamilton and Donna Mohr are wonderful hosts, and the breeze gods/goddesses smiled on the fleet. ​

The Rudder Club gave us five races (the district regatta in full) by 4 pm on Saturday. The Molly Whomper sailed to her first victory (and a few celebratory splashes of beer), and we are pleased as punch.

Knock wood we should be able to keep enjoying this sport and these tubby little sloops for a good long while. 

Why yes, I was briefly addicted to Days of Our Lives in the era of broadcast television.  My grandmother and my sister used to gossip on the phone about the Hortons and Bradys of fictional soundstage Salem, and frankly, I wanted in.

Plus the daytime drama fit perfectly in the timeslot between the noon and 2 pm shuttle runs when I was a cheerful first mate on Captain Alva's  shellkeyshuttle.com in Pass-a-Grille.

I barely remember the storylines, engrossing as they seemed to be.  One scene lingers, an uncomfortable bit with a stalker and a victim and the screen fading to black over an eerie recitation of Yeats' "When you are old and grey and full of sleep,/And nodding by the fire, take down this book,/ And slowly read..." 

When I consulted my sister, she remembers several literary moments during that era of the program. I imagine one of the show's writers gleefully setting gems she'd mined from her education into this lowbrow, La-Z-boy throne of American culture. 
​
Still, it's the tagline that really sings. 

I reference it frequently when looking at a calendar.  

​We've already swooped past Midwinter Regatta season. A photo recap for your reading pleasure:

Other sailing events have dropped over the horizon: we helped run an ACat regatta, Jeff sailed the Round the Point race, as well as squeezing in an IC37 regatta in Lauderdale and a full-moon race.

​The sands of time sure do hurry through that hourglass. 

Which means, as tumbling grain follows tumbling grain, it's nearly time to check on the Would-Be Farm.

To each season its own joy. 

The Classic Moth Midwinters, which my favorite skipper and I host, launches Saturday. Hoping for delicious weather for my porch-light pals. ​

And in between times, whenever the schedule allows, while I've been working on book promo and (oooh!) writing the next one, Mr. Linton fixes up the Spawn of Frankenscot.  

The Spawn of Frankenscot is a sloop that Jeff built to a design OH Rodgers and he specifically dreamed up for long-distance coastal adventure racing.

In 2014, Jeff and his crew Jahn Tihansky first pushed off the beach in St. Pete and hurtled down the coast to Key Largo in the annual Everglades Challenge human-powered race.
www.watertribe.com/events/evergladeschallenge/

Our team of doughty Spawnsters has done very well for a decade: they hold various records in the 300-mile long race, and even, in 2022, won the 1200-mile extended version of the race known as the Around Florida Challenge. 
www.amysmithlinton.com/blog/and-just-like-thatthe-racers-came-home

But with the start of the new year (in February, natch) comes refurbishment for Spawn. What needs replacing in a mothballed sailing sloop after a year? Thanks for asking!

This year the biggest piece of new gear: a new storm jib, made by himself with help from Rod "Rappin Rod" Koch using Masthead Enterprises machines.

The wires that hold the mast in place (shrouds) got refreshed. All of the velcro that attaches the storage and sleeping quarters (what looks to me like a conestoga wagon tent affair) got replaced.  

The bearings froze in the sliding rowing seat, the repair of which gobbled up an afternoon seasoned with solvent and elbow grease. 

Even with an extra day in February this year, whelp, it's flying. 

Going into the 2023 Flying Scot North American Championships, my favorite skipper verbalized his philosophy this way, “I’m going to let the race come to me.”
 
Well, okay, your highness. 

Being strictly honest, however, I knew exactly what he meant.  After lo these many years of racing together, we've come to  share this sense of regatta destiny.
 
Here’s what we know as fact: You can lose a regatta from not preparing. 

But the only way to win a regatta is to have at least one helping of good luck. Preferably many helpings.

Corollary truth: While you can be ready for good luck, you cannot force it to show up.  In a word: destiny.

​​It was the usual Flying Scot good fortune that met us when we pulled our camper and the mighty Scuppernong into the spacious grounds of Lake Norman Yacht Club.

​Locals Tim Porter, Steve Shaw, and Dave Rink and our fellow road-show gypsies –– the Cliftons and dear Henry Picco –– had saved us a prime parking spot overlooking the swimming beach and the hoist.

Before long, more Florida teams joined in –– Donna and Jon Hamilton, Dave Helmick and Caroline Chapin, Jennifer and Michael Faugust, PJ Buhler and David Ames, Laura and Scott Marriott, and Jim and Pam Burke.
 
Measurement was as neatly organized and well-thought-out as any we remember. Preparation being key.

The weather looked promising: aside from haze from Canadian wildfires and the occasional pop-up thunderstorm, we looked forward to good sleeping temperatures and peaceable breeze in the range we like the best: 7-10 knots.

In actual fact, we sailed under beige, smoke-darkened skies, and the predicted winds –– not unexpectedly, given how regattas go –– did not quite appear as promised. Still, even after a drifter of a single qualifier race, the future looked pretty bright. After all, the race organizers fed us morning and night and provided any number of adult beverages (plus a bourbon tasting!).

Once the wind filled in on Tuesday, we headed out to the racecourse to start the actual competition. We checked the current (yes, it’s a lake, but one whose levels are carefully managed) by tossing our sponge into the water by the starting buoy and counting to one minute.  During the qualifier, current set us away from the start at one boat length per minute –– try charging that line! On Tuesday, it was far less dramatic, giving us just a nudge away from the starting line.
 
The four-legged race showed us a little of Lake Norman’s tricksy, lakey quirks in decent 7-knot-ish conditions but we managed to win the first one. ​

On Wednesday, we packed our apple-and-peanut-butter stacks, our salami-and-cheese rollups, our Gatorade, and our beer for the day.  I fondly remember once sailing to the starting line on a Lightning racecourse in Ecuador and having the guys in the boat next to us look –– and then with comedic exaggeration look at us again before exclaiming to one another: “THEY’ve got BEER!” Indeed we do. So there. 
 
The story-telling highlight of the day involved a pontoon boat trailing an inflatable laden with children. We were sailing at a pretty decent clip along the right side of the windward leg, close to shore, with Tyler and Carrie Andrews. the boat builders and speedsters, just behind us and two other lines of boats to leeward when, like a tugboat with a barge under tow, along comes the pontoon boat. Crossing right in front of our bow –– I mean, a boat-length or so in front of the plow-like bow of the mighty Scuppernong. 
 
It's a fact that nobody looks stupider to a racing sailor than Johnny Powerboat Driver taking a leisurely tour of the racecourse.  And to be fair, it’s a free country. But as Carrie and I agreed, these pontoon people must have had it up to HERE with those kids.

Belatedly noticing the fleet of pointy boats, each driven by a fierce-eyed competitor, and possibly heeding the suggestions of said competitors, the powerboat driver punched the throttle and made an abrupt left turn.  The float whip-lashed over the wake, and, as night follows day, it caught air and landed with a breath-taking wobble. But good luck (and possibly preparation) allowed  the youngsters to hold tight. But jeesh.

Intense, focused sailing (is that a puff? can we connect? Yes, trim a touch.) gave us a 3rd and a 1st at the end of the day, leaving us a decent lead. No lead, however, is safe, especially on a lake and with competitors like anyone in this fleet.

Cue Thursday, when we set sail in conditions where everything seemed magnified. Puffs were bigger. Shifts were bigger. Holes were bigger. In the space of a few minutes, we’d go from fully hiked and vang-on to me on the low side, struggling to keep moving, while boats all around us were experiencing wildly differing conditions. 
 
We didn’t find a pattern to predict the shifts: oftentimes, the wind will oscillate at a regular interval, or a cloud will indicate a puff, or wind will touch down in such a way that the initial header modulates into a lift.  These conditions were like what bull riders call a "honker." No telling which way the beastie was going to buck and twist.
 
After deciding not to hit the middle of the course, we found ourselves in the middle of the course on the first leg. When we might have tacked and ducked a bunch of our competitors, we hung left and got hung.  We passed boats and we got passed back again. It was one of the most frustrating hot-and-cold days of racing I can remember.
 
We clawed our way into 5th for the fourth race of the series, watching our comfortable cushion vaporize. Heading into last race of the series –– a 3-legger to finish us closer to the club –– we did not talk about the stakes. We never do. 
 
The conditions continued to span the spectrum, with puffs as high as the mid-teens with drifters in between. We went left and, as the phrase goes “got smushed.” We sniffed out a puff or two and made some gains downwind, noting that the wind was tending –– inconsistently –– to go left.  
 
Halfway up the last leg, we had a clear lane to go left. Leaving a lake-smart team like John Eckart and Ryan Malmgren, who were bee-lining for the right-hand shore, took some nerve. Not my nerve.  But as we got closer to the left side of the course, we could see the flags on the finish boat showing a 30 or so degree shift. A favorable shift, at that.  
 
When the puff came to us, we eased first for speed, and then took the lift (Ding! Ding!) all the way to the finish line, sliding into fourth place behind local skipper David Rink.  With that, by a single lucky point, we won that shiny belt-buckle of a trophy.

We’ve notched that belt a few times, but it’s always a thrill.

Thanks to the excellent organizers headed up by Tim Porter (and Jennifer), the steely-nerved race management under Matt Bounds, and the amazing Florida Flying Scot District, whose competition (six of us in the top 15 of the Championship, with two top 10s in the Challenger Division) that make us all faster and better sailors.

I visited Saratoga Springs as a 15-year-old on a 4-H trip of some stripe. I suppose it had to do with Horse Bowl or another equine-related activity. It was meant to be a treat, spending the day at this classic horse-racing center.

​I don't remember how we got there, or why we were sitting in a dining room listening to some adult talk about something or another. For seemingly eternity.

But what I do remember, with vivid, visceral detail? The sensation of the tiny packet of catsup between my restless fingers. I flipped that packet between my fingers the way a magician moves a coin from knuckle to knuckle. It had a particular squeezy resistance to pressure when I flexed a fist.

And then it didn't.

A small packet of catsup, I have every recollection, can be propelled by hand to a distance of two banquet tables.

The teaspoon of tomato-based condiment can, demonstrably, touch base with at least five innocent bystanders. And for the remainder of that day in Saratoga Springs was divided into thirds: first third: horror and mortification. Second third: silent apology. Third third: suppressed hysteria.

I competed in a horse show at Skidmore College when I was in college. I don't remember anything about the horse I rode, or how I performed, but I can recall exactly the swoop and sway of the car on its way. The upperclassman driving us in his car talked to his audience of student sardines with liberal use of both hands, regardless the conditions of the road.

This time, the trip Saratoga Springs was just delightful. 

A pleasant drive. The Saratoga Lake Yacht Club welcomed us with extraordinary warmness, our visit to the racetrack was unmarred by condiment incident, and we came home with the sailing equivalent of blue ribbons...

​

So for those sweet readers who tell me they enjoy this sort of thing, here are a couple of links to the Flying Scot webpage.

I've been doing an occasional column about boat names there for my Bar Harbor buddy Ned Johnston (Hi Ned!), who edits the class newsletter.

"Sing a Song of Sixpence" Page 18 of https://www.fssa.com/files/scots_63_4.pdf

​"From Another Shore" page 16 of https://www.fssa.com/files/scots_63_3_web.pdf

"THAT Name" page 12 of https://www.fssa.com/files/scots_63_2.pdf

"What's in a Name" tag 11 of https://www.fssa.com/files/scots_63_1.pdf

Fewer words, more photos. 

March is a busy racing month at our house. 

​Back soon.

Between the Florida District series, the North American Championships, and the other events we try not to miss like the Midwinters and Wife-Husbands, we end up racing the Scot around 25 days each year. Weather permitting of course.  

We got our first Flying Scot (The Mighty Majestic, #4925) in 2007, Eleven years later makes it 275 days of racing –– plus maybe an additional 50 days of practice sailing, where we gather together with some friends and we all try to go faster and polish our boat-handling skills. 

That's over a calendar YEAR's worth of sailing in a bit over a decade.  

That's a lot of jibes. That's a ton of tacks, a megaton of mid-line starts, zillions of billowing acres of spinnaker going up and down again, and enough cranks on that tiny winch to lift a cinderblock to the moon. Muscle memory. 

Like the Butterbean, the new Flying Scot boat is named for an obscure edible. In this case it's a kind of muscadine grape that can be found in the Carolinas, the Scuppernong.  

Scuppernongs taste like beefed-up Concord grapes. The skin is leathery and tannic, and it's riddled with seeds, but the meat is fragrant.

My favorite skipper claims that they are inedible, but I think he's wrong on this one.
​
A quick perusal of the interwebs shows a LOT of scuppernong-related music.  I cannot recommend any of it. 

On an earlier draft, I linked some YouTube Scuppernong highlights: experimental plonk-plonk music, an chaotic atonal jazz composition, an odd spoken-word performance, some only-for-serious-fans-of-high-and-lonesome bluegrass.  

​These were videos with maybe a couple of dozens of views and no comments after years of waiting in the ether.  Linking to them was akin to finding something in the fridge and offering to your buddy, saying, "Here, sniff this, it's awful!"  

You're welcome.  

Okay, okay, he doesn't have a beard or a red suit or a nose like a cherry, but the twinkle and the red sleigh full of toys for good girls and boys? He's got that!

​Thank you Harry Carpenter of Flying Scot Inc. for delivering Flying Scot #6133, The Scuppernong.

*the Flying Scot is a 60-year-old sloop design by Gordon K "Sandy" Douglass.  

​I know, I know, she who would tell so execrable a pun is just as like to pick a pocket.