Chesapeake 20s: Built for the Bay
The beginning: A group of young adults and teenagers in summer homes around Cedar Point and from both shores of West River formed their own yacht club in the summer of 1930. They were a bit contemptuous of the usual clubs and chose, “Our Own Damn Yacht Club” (OODYC). At age 22, William (Billy) Heintz spearheaded the renamed West River Sailing Club as its founder.
The club held its initial Annual Regatta in 1930 over the Labor Day weekend, more of a neighborhood gathering where kids held nine events such as swimming contests, potato sack jumping and dog races with the first ashore the victor. But, the highlight was a handicap sailboat race with three classes based on sail area: less than 100 sq. ft. with a four minute head start, from 100 to 150 sq. ft. with a two minute lead, and then scratch boats of over 150 sq. ft.
These “racing” boats were mostly bateaus built by Capt. Ed Leatherbury or converted flat-bottom rowboats. At the first regatta, Capt. Ed in his 80s proceeded to lead the boys around the course in a 22 ft. heavy cypress boat with a sprit rig. The search for faster and better sailboat was on. Earnest H. (Cap'n. Dick) Hartge became West River’s major boat designer and builder. The next year, Dick Hartge built the Albatross – a 20 foot, double ender with a chine or V-bottom. He beat Captain Ed with a lighter and thinner hull who in losing proclaimed “those damn shells, they won’t stand a beating up against a wharf.”
A series of historic contests took place began between Cap'n.
Dick and the boys from Herring Bay, led by Leroy “Babe” Brooks in Lucky Strike. The latter was 20 feet long and rigged like a
log canoe. It was a happy day for
Chine or round-bottom: Osbourne “Ozzie” Owings and John Gregory were dissatisfied with the results from their Snipe during the early thirties and requested plans of a twenty footer (known at the time as a "knockabout") from well known naval architect, Charles Mower of New York. The 1931 plans were for a round-bottom 20 foot “knockabout” since at the time the Free-For-All and West River championship that was held in sailboats under 20 feet. John Gregory, a pattern maker and master craftsman, built Vanity and raced her with Owings. Cap'n Dick was sailing his Sea Witch at that time and confessed that he beat her but twice: first, when Owings was late for a St. Michael's Regatta and second, when Owings capsized during a President’s Cup Regatta in Washington D.C. While the double ended Albatross was a good boat, Vanity was much faster and she created a boat-building reaction.
Cap'n. Dick built a double ender along the lines of Vanity and named her Challenger. It was a good boat in light air but not up to Vanity in a breeze. A second double-ender named, Wings was built by Capt. Dick’s boatyard men for Carroll Smith. This boat was faster, but rumored to be flattened since the workmen sat on her every day for lunch. After Wings, Capt. Dick concentrated on building round bottom, square transom Chesapeake 20s as they exist today. He built Mermaid but did not complete her because he did not like the way she looked and gave her to his brother, Oscar Hartge, to complete. He built Defender and finally Ranger which was Cap'n. Dicks first Chesapeake 20 to consistently beat Vanity in 1938.
Class formalized: The Twenty Footer class, as it was then called, had no rules – that was about it, just 20 feet long. The bowsprit (later discontinued) and bumpkin did not count in length. In 1938 at the Annapolis Yacht Club, Ozzie Owens held the organization meeting to form the Chesapeake 20 class with dues at two dollars each. He said the purpose of the association was to prevent being overrun by “freaks and racing machines such as Double Trouble, the Owens scow.” While the sail area and length were fixed, Chesapeake 20 rules remain only about three pages long and as described by Billy Heinz in a 1942 Yachting Magazine article, an “evolution” class. Similar rules applied to Division II, chine Chesapeake 20s that gradually died out after the war.
In 1939, Cap'n. Dick was approached by Andrew Kramer, President of Annapolis Bank and Trust, who told him “to get serious about building Chesapeake 20s.” Kramer provided a loan to build twenty Chesapeake 20s which were “mass produced” in lots of four at $600 each. The first of these boats was Stormy, now registered with the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties. In 1942, the “Hartge 20” was advertised as a “racing sloop or day sailor”: By leaning the boat over on a beach, it said “No haul out necessary to keep the bottom clean.” It went on to say: “Get a Twenty, the smartest boat you will ever sail.” “Here it comes: Twenty feet of able, fast racing sloop.” With wide decks, “the buoyancy of the Hartge Twenty is such that she will not fill with water even with the masthead awash.” Cap'n Dick Hartge built about 40 round bottom Chesapeake 20s from 1939 until 1943, and only four after the war since cedar wood and materials were in short supply and expensive. He said that “I lost his my shirt” after the war and the cost to build them doubled.
Regattas were held throughout the middle Bay and on the Potomac in Washington D.C. prior to World War II. Racing continued through the war years and results were reported to the troops in the field in weekly Galesville Home News. Usually, Chesapeake 20s were either sailed or towed by water to away regattas, as they continue to be today.
Still an active fleet: Though Chesapeake 20s were most popular in the late 1930's through the 1950's, these classic boats bowed to age, maintenance and new fiberglass classes in the 1960's and later. The wooden classic 20s were covered with a light layer of fiberglass, and usually kept on dry land rather than off a buoy. While struggling to stay alive in the 1980s, the first of a series of all fiberglass hulls were built in 1989 and the class has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity with many rebuilt 65-plus year old wooden hulls joining 11 fiber glass and two cold-molded hulls. Today, the class knows of the existence of about 3/4 of the some 90 Chesapeake 20s built, and gets up to 14 out of the 25 race able boats out at major regattas.
Classic wooden 20s remain highly competitive with the newer glass versions. The fleet remains anchored at West River and still races in regattas at Rock Hall, Miles River, Oxford and Annapolis. New fiberglass boats and a cold molded 20 are planned to be built soon. Five Chesapeake 20s are ready for restoration by an enterprising woodworker and lover of traditional craft. For more details about Chesapeake 20s, checkout the class’ extensive news and archival website, www.chesapeake20.org.