The View from the Helm

The Paine 15 is the finest small sailboat designed in many a year. Come for a sail with me in Tenants Harbor and order one from Todd French and she will enhance your life  immensely.

In the past few years I have designed, and found high quality builders for, three derivatives of the famous Herreshoff 12 1/2. I’ve written an article on the subject, which you can read by clicking here:  https://www.chuckpaine.com/boats/what-would-nat-do/

York 18 Hull Plug nearing completion

The York 18 hull pattern is near completion. Here she is getting her final coats of wax before the mold is taken off. This is some of the finest tooling I have ever seen. It is absolutely fair and smooth, and the sheerline has been tweaked to be utter perfection. It has been years since a small sailboat has been introduced to the sailing fratenity. This one will be of the highest achievable quality as I think you can easily discern. Progress should be rapid now- there are two yachts on order and demand is strong.

YORK 18 HULL PATTERN

The Paine 15

French and Webb Boatbuilders of Belfast, Maine will be building a new PAINE 15 for late Spring delivery next year.

AMELIA has become a wonderful boat salesman this summer. She has taken four persons sailing, and of those, all four have liked her performance so much they have commissioned new boats. Two are building the slightly enlarged PAINE 15 at French&Webb, and two have commissioned the further scaled-up YORK 18 at Michael York’s shop in Rockland.  Nice job, Amelia!

AMELIA, our demonstrator PAINE 14, has found a new home. We will miss her but the more of them that are built, the more beautiful our harbors will become.

Must be something in the water-  this July a PAINE 15 has been ordered from French & Webb of Belfast, Maine, for delivery next Spring. The PAINE 15 is a slightly larger version of the 14. They will be built in WEST System cold molded construction, and trimmed with varnished teak or mahogany. Needless to say they are not inexpensive, but utterly beautiful.

Here’s Tom Thumb– a FRANCES 26 built in Australia. Watch for an article on this, my first ever design, in the next issue of Classic Sailor in the UK. She’s going to windward really well in over 20 knots apparent- note that the mainsheet traveler has been let down to leeward so that the helm is dead on centerline. Reef a Frances when she heels twenty degrees, carry the headsail as long as you can, and she’ll chug ahead into a whole lot of wind.

Here I am sailing AMELIA two summers ago. Since then she ‘s been repainted a lovely green- I hated this robin’s egg blue. If you want incredible fun for modest cost, (compared to what it would cost to build a sistership at today’s inflated prices) schedule a test sail here in Maine and you’ll never regret it!

On March 12th I had the honor (honour, Peter would write)  of speaking at the Victoria/Shadow Owners’ Association 25th Anniversary luncheon in Warsash, England. Peter and Ida Gregory started with my FRANCES 26 design, then went on to build over 500 yachts to three more of my designs in the heady days of the late ’70s through the 1980s. I had not seen Peter for many years, and it was great to catch up with one of the ambitious entrepreneurs who, along with Tom Morris and Charles Maunder, propelled my firm to a position among the more successful yacht designers of the past century.

Peter Gregory and Chuck Paine

York Marine of Rockland, Maine asked us to do just one more design. It’s a 19-foot fiberglass keel/centerboarder. The use of a shallow keel has three benefits: It retains shoal draft for easy trailering and beaching; it enables some lead ballat to be fitted for enhanced stability, and it lowers the centerboard trunk so it has minimal impact upon the cockpit, merely serving as a nice footrest when seated in the bench seats. Keep your eyes on this blog to watch the design progress.

YORK 19