FOK what is Elizabeth City most
famous today? Wliat has con¬
tributed more than anything else
in recent years to the fame of the busy
little city on the Pasquotank? What
did you say? The Moth boat? Von
are absolutely right.
Although it is still in its swaddling
clothes, so to speak, the Moth type
sailboat is the fastest growing sail¬
ing class today, and there already are
more than 1,500 Moths in fleets scat¬
tered all over the face of the earth.
First Moth Built in 1929
The first Moth boat was built at
Elizabeth City in the spring of 1029
bv Cnpt. Joel Van Sant, master of a
yacht which had stopped there for re¬
pairs cn route from Florida to Atlantic
City, Xew Jersey. Captain Van Sant
had long wanted a small sailboat
which he could take along with him
on the yacht, but he didn’t particular¬
ly like any of the smaller sail boat
classes that were known at that time.
So he resolved to build a different
type of boat — a small, cheap, easy-
to-build boat that could be designed
and built by amateurs and which
could be used for sailing in shallow
and shoal bodies of water where other
types of sail boats could not Ik*
adapted.
Aided by Capt. Harry O'Neal and
Ernest Sanders of the Elizabeth City
shipyard, Capt. Van Sant completed
the Jumping Juniper, the first Moth
boat, in about two weeks, lie and
some of the other men around the
shipyard tried her out on the Pasquo¬
tank River and were pleased with the
way she performed.
WHEN GIRLS ARE YACHT CAPTAINS— Miss Violet Cohoon
was skipper, first mate and crew of the good Moth boat "Dopey”
in the international Moth boat regatta at Elizabeth City recently
when devotees of the midget sailing craft gathered for their an¬
nual meeting. The peculiar little 11-foot sailboats give the thrills
of yachting to their devotees without the cost.
Capt. Van Sant took the Jumping
Juniper to Atlantic City with him,
and had no trouble at all in interest¬
ing some of the members of the Eve¬
ning Star Yacht Club in building
Moths. By the end of the summer
several Moths had been built there
and regular races were being held on
Clam Creek.
Meanwhile, other Moths had been
built at Elizabeth City, and races
were being held on the Pasquotank.
When Capt. Van Sant passed through
Elizabeth City in the fall, cn route to
Florida, he found interest in the Moth
boat running high. He went on to
Florida, taking his Moth with him.
and that winter a Moth licet was
Started there. When he again passed
through Elizabeth City in the spring
of 1930, plans were made for inter-
club races in the fall In-tween Moth
skippers of the Evening Star Yacht
Club and the Pasquotank River
Yacht Club. Then’s when the Moth
class really started to go to town.
The class grew by leaps and bnund-
during the next few years, and in
1932 the National Moth Boat As¬
sociation was formed at Elizabeth
City to take care of the hundreds of
inquiries that were pouring in regard¬
ing plans, specifications, measure¬
ments, etc., of the Moth boat. This
had to be changed to the Interna¬
tional Moth Boat Association in 1933.
when fleets were built in several
foreign countries.
A Non-commercial Class
The Moth class is strictly non¬
commercial. No cash prizes are of¬
fered in the races, betting is friendly
and for small stakes, and there i- no
company producing Moth- commer¬
cially. Most of them are built by
their owners in their backyurds.
However, the largest and costliest
sailing trophy in the world today i-
( Continued on jnige I unity-eight)
Moth
Boats
They're a lot of fun anti
there are now hundreds
of them in this and other
countries. The original
moth was built in Eliza¬
beth City in 1929.
«!/
Win. Keith Saunders
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