PINTAIL, ex-FALCON,  ALBATROSS #3

By Spud Parker

Pintail was purchased for me by my mother on May 13, 1950 from Edward J. Fletcher for the sum of $300.  The deal was arranged at a cocktail party given by Mr. and Mrs. Richard Pilkinton, our next-door neighbors in Georgetown,
D.C.

On a visit to Capt. Dick Hartge several years thereafter, I received from him the plans for the boat, complete with sail number 3 on them, and learned that she had been built in 1933, which happened to be my birth year. Copies of these plans, along with several photos, are in the Hartge Museum in Galesville.

These plans show a “20 Ft..Knockabout” double-ended sloop with LOA of 20 feet, LWL 16 feet 6 inches, beam 6 feet 8 inches, draft with board up 13 inches, and draft with board down 3 feet.  Also shown is “extra keel and ballast (400 lb. lead) when outside ballast is used”, as it was on this boat.  The Construction plan shows a hard chine, v-bottomed hull with a deadrise amidships of approximately 12 degrees.  Planking is 5/8” cedar laid fore and aft over oak frames, 1” x 1 ½”, 16 “ on centers.  The deck is ¼ inch “pressed wood”, as I think plywood was called at that time.

The mast is shown as 27 feet above deck and the boom 14 feet in length giving a sail area of 225 square feet.

The boat was in a shed at Shady Side Boatyard when we purchased her.  She was trailered to Buzzard Point Boatyard on the Anacostia River for some repairs by my older brother, Henry S. Parker, who was of immense assistance in this undertaking.  It was necessary to replace the top foot or so of the mast because it had rotted and to build a new centerboard.

Shortly after these jobs were completed, my brother and I set out to sail the boat down the Potomac to the family summer cottage on the Virginia shore about 8 miles above Smith Point.  We left Buzzards Point early on a Saturday morning and arrived midmorning Monday, after spending nights anchored along the Maryland shore and in the mouth of Nomini creek.  The wind was fresh out of the northwest, and I feel that, had we been more familiar with the boat, we could have made much better time.

Pintail was then sailed out of Hull Creek every summer, spending the winters there in the water as well.  Routine maintenance was accomplished by hauling the boat on the shore on a couple of fish trap poles or, if more was needed, by taking her to Headley’s Railway on Coan River.  Over the years, the hull was fiberglassed twice, the midships portion of the keel was replaced, a new centerboard trunk and board installed and some ribs replaced or sistered, all stumbling but reasonably effective efforts by the owner.

At one point a lower shroud pulled out of the turnbuckle and the mast broke off in jagged fashion several feet above the deck.  This occurred well offshore in the
Potomac, but a crabber generously towed us into Headley’s Railway.  Giles Headley, the woodworker of the two-brother team (Sam did the caulking and painting and incidentally convinced me to replace the black hull with Endeavour Blue and the gray deck with buff) looked at the job and opined that he might be able to fix it.  I was instructed to come back in a couple of days.  When I did I was barely able to see the glue joint that he had accomplished after putting a solid plug in the hollow mast at that point and pushing the two parts together.  Indeed, to this day, almost 50 years later, viewers have to be convinced that the mast was ever broken.  When asked the cost, Capt.  Headley replied, “Well, I guess I used about a dollar’s worth of glue.  That should do it”.

Sometime in the 80’s the boat was leaking so badly that I could no longer leave her in the water between visits.  I hauled her out and she stayed there for several years.  Then she was taken to the Reedville Marine Railway in Reedville,
VA, where George Butler, the third generation owner and operator of that yard, replaced the after portion of the keel.

At that time my wife and I built a retirement home in Reedville and Pintail was relaunched there.  Since that time she has been sailed regularly and often hard.  Additional work has included replacement of the deck (fiberglass over plywood) along with a new coaming shape, which opened up the cockpit a bit and narrowed the side decks.  Likewise, cockpit floorboards were replaced somewhere along the line and the rudder was lengthened to improve control in the  very light airs and tight quarters that we often encountered in getting in and out of Hull Creek.

Another very significant adjustment that has been made is the shortening of the boom and of the mainsail foot.  This, along with moving the centerboard trunk about 6 inches aft when it was replaced has had a most welcome effect on the weather helm.  Now she balances nicely under full sail in winds up to 9-10 knots and continues to do so when reefed, so that there is no weather helm in 15 knots or more when double reefed.

For this owner, Pintail has been a remarkably satisfactory and satisfying boat.  So much so, that were she to give up the ghost and I were younger, I would have the Reedville Marine Railway build me a copy with no modifications. (As it is, I hope that we will finish our voyages at about the same time.)  The outside ballast stabilizes the boat so that I always sail on the same side from down in the cockpit and so that a complete knockdown will put only about a bucketful of water in the boat.  Likewise, the cockpit is sufficiently deep that I have felt comfortable taking my children and grandchildren sailing with me alone as soon as they could walk holding onto the coaming.  And she sails amazingly in light airs.  I don’t know what more could be asked of a boat.

See photo of Pintail below.