A scow powered by ragged red sails cut from cloth of forgotten provenance took home the trophy in the sixth annual Old Town Pond Sailor’s Regatta this weekend.
“It’s pretty heavy,” Dave Kellett said when asked to describe Thrush, his winning entry.
Fashioned from pressure-treated four by four, and scow-like in appearance with a keel cut from a fuel tank, the boat sports a plastic serpent’s head on the bow and Thrush muffler pin – hence its name, Kellett said.
Dave Kellett and
“It was entered three years ago, and I don’t remember if it even floated upright. I didn’t have time to build a new one, so we threw the Thrush in the water and man, it just tracked straight toward the finish line.”
Kellett thinks his minor adjustments to the sails, a wonky rudder of stained glass and the brisk south wind that rippled the water off the Old Town dock made the difference.
Pond boat designer and builder Larry Jones, whose grandsons Kym and Ashley Kanatsiak are familiar faces in the regatta winners circle was not to be outdone.
Scrappy, a catamaran with hulls made from detergent bottles duct taped together, came third behind Pirate, a more traditional vessel with three masts, square rigged.
Tony Foliot, regatta commodore and founder, finished out of the money for the first time in six years. The annual event drew 31 entries and more than 100 sailors and spectators to the Old Town dock Saturday evening.
