This past Sunday was a very big day for my dad and the snipe. The boat was out on the water for the first time in who knows how long. And a zippy boat it is! Dad seemed to have a blast and the boat did superbly. See below for its first moments of wind.
The snow has finally melted in NH and Dad has gotten back to restoring the snipe. It looks great and has an anticipated launch date of July 1st. Here Dad is showing Hadley the new transom.
Originally uploaded by ksosnoff.
Here’s my dad’s snipe sailboat in its latest state of restoration. He has sanded it and removed the bronze hardware for polishing. Also note the long shadows of an autumn New Hampshire morning.
Originally uploaded by ksosnoff.
Today I’m beginning another occasional series I’ll run on my father’s restoration of an old snipe sailboat. The snipe is a single design racing boat first built in 1930s. Since then, more than 30,000 snipes have been built and each is assigned a unique, consecutive hull number. We have reason to believe that the boat my dad found stored under a friend’s house is #73! Number 1 is housed in the Smithsonian and few others this old are known to exist. Very exciting!