This site Copyright © 2000-2008 by Jim Young
all rights reserved

Welcome

To the electronic home of the National Butterfly Association, and the sailboat it represents, the Butterfly. On this site you will find information on the Butterfly sailboat and the class Association, including historical records, recent class news, upcoming National Events, Results, Boats and Parts Wanted and For Sale in the Exchange, and details on the boat itself including builder information and parts prices.

Colorado Butterfly Championship June 7-8
at Union Sailing Club, union reservoir, Longmont CO. Check their web site for updates, this event has already changed dates once this year. unionsailingclub.org

Butterfly Wrangle June 14-15
at White Rock Lake in Dallas. NOR and Entry Form on their web site at www.butterflyfleet20.org

Jim Young's Get Ready to Race Tranining Camp and Clinic, Jun 19-20
A day and one-half of tune up and training work under the direction of Jim's whistle, right on the water where the Singles will be sailed. Contact the Singles organizers (use the Enrty Form/NOR below) to get registration and fee information.

Single-Handed Nationals June 20-22
Lake Du Bay Wisconsin
Notice of Race and Entry Form
Click the links above to get everything you need to start planing your trip to beautiful Lake Du Bay in Central Wisconsin in June, for a great event! Both are PDF files, you will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader in order to view/print them, click the link to get the lastest Reader version.

Open and Junior Nationals July 22-24
Torch Lake Michigan
Notice of Race and Entry Form
Use these links to get you started on your way to beautiful Torch Lake, near Traverse City MI, in July. Known for its wonderful water, great winds, and very good race management, The Torch Lake Yacht and County Club is THE place to be in late July! Both are PDF files, you will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader in order to view/print them, click the link to get the lastest Reader version.

The Butterfly returned to the Strictly Sail boat show in Chicago again this year, along with the other scows from Windward Boatworks. Builder John Hayshi waves for the camera, in the middle of a crowded and busy display area. Also on hand to help promote the class were Joe and Lucinda Terry, organizers of this year's Singles in Wisconsin, and Jim Young, trying to escape the deep snows in Colorado. And in the booth across from the Butterlfy was another Coloradan, '07 Colorado Butterfly champ Gib Charles.

Media Recognition ~ The Butterfly made it into Sailing Anarchy last week. Normally, that's not a place where a class wants a lot of attention (!!) but in this case it is good news. Roger Jolly of SA does an annual One-Design class review to see what classe are being actively sailed and supported. This is not a youth/junior regatta report, in fact, no junior-only events or classes are included, its about what adults themselves are actually sailing around the country. The Butterfly ended up 20th on Roger's list, and he had this to say about us:

"One of the fun things about doing this survey is discovering new classes sailing in secret somewhere. The Butterfly class is one such class. Clearly this is not one of the largest classes in the North America but there is a big fleet in Michigan that gets the class on the list. Call it a technicality but we can welcome them all the same. "

Click here to read Roger's full report and see his complete list.

Joe Terry and the Lake DuBay Sailing Association members have been hard at work planning on making the return of the Singles in 2008 to Wisconsin for the first time in over 20 years a great event. Lots of old Butterfly sailors have come out of the walls to help out, and Joe is expecting a really large turn-out. With beach space for 70 to 80 boats, registration and social areas secured, and excellent sailing on the waters of a lake that does not get the huge numbers of powerboats that have plagued some other sites and forced midweek regatta dates, they are primed for a wonderful weekend of racing. They are even going after some local grant money to make the event even better. Mark your calendars now, and watch here for more news and the official Notice of Race.

2008 Butterfly Singles, Knowlton, WI, June 20-22 - on Lake DuBay, between Stevens Point and Wausau in central Wisconsin.

2007 Western Michigan Regatta

Sailed in early August at White Lake, a total of 55 boats sailed in the Open and Junior Butterfly events, with the largest and most competitive Open fleet in many years - 21 boats, almost one-third of them women. Eric Rivard from Glen Lake got his first major regatta win in the Open fleet while White Lake junior Sam Gill walked away with the Junior title.

Junior results
Open results

Class News

Two major items came out of the Association's Committee meeting at the Open Nationals;

2008 Single-Handed Nationals is coming to Wisconsin! The Lake DuBay Sailing Association - in central Wisconsin, just north of Stevens Point - will host the Singles in late June, 2008, either the last or next to last weekend of the month. For the first time in many years, the regatta will be a weekend event, hopefully allowing greater adult participation. www.saildubay.org

2008 Open & Junior Nationals will return to beautiful Torch Lake in Michigan, in late July, one week later than it has been in recent years, 22-24.

Cam McNeil wins wild Open Nationals while Jordan Hatt continues hot streak with a Junior National win and a 2nd overall in the Open.

The 2007 Open & Junior Nationals at Crystal Lake MI, had something for everyone - no wind, too much wind, fog, and shifts galore. It was finally a shortened series - only 2 Junior races, with 4 in the Open fleet, the weatherman just not coorperating with settled conditions.

Each of the 4 Open races was a totally different experience - light shifty for race 1, fog and disappearing marks for Race 2, classic heavy-air racing in Race 3, and blow-your-socks-off (31 mph) winds with wild spin-outs in race 4 - that produced 4 different race winners. Michigan's light/medium air wizzard Charlie Knape took race 1, while Michael Lillyblad from Wisconsin emerged from the fog at the finish line ahead of everyone else in Race 2, to put his name on a trophy that his dad won many years ago. The heavy-air wizzard, Colorado's Jim Young, took the 3rd race in solid 20-25 mph wind, with another former champ from Michigan who now has a great heavy-air reputation in other boats, Cam McNeil, took on the extreame conditions in race 4 to win the race and the championship.

A total of 129 boats signed up for the events, 69 in the Junior Fleet, and 60 in the Open, making it the second-largest registered fleet ever.

Complete results here, photos coming soon....

Will the 2007 Open and Junior Nationals break 100 boats?

There were 97 total entries last year at Glen Lake, and 2007 Regatta Organizer Nancy Price says that there are well over 90 that have indicated they are comming this year. Best turnout ever was the huge 144-boat fleet at White Lake in 1972, the only time the class has had more than 100 boats in a regatta. Second-largest ever was in Oshkosh, WI, in 1969, with 96 boats, the Glen Lake turn-out is third on the list, and there have been a number of events with 80 to 90 boats. This year's fleet could easily take the second-largest ever title away from Oshkosh, and if enough show up at the last minute, it could threaten the record. Will you be there to be part of the amazing rejuvination of the fleet? It should be a great regatta, see you at Crystal!

2007 Single Handed
Nationals

It was a relatively young fleet that came to Grand Rapids in Michigan for the '07 Singles, and they should have taken home a lot of good lessons from the top of the fleet.

New Champ Jordan Hatt from Spring Lake is still a junior, but he has had some good results in the past. This time he put it together, doing what he had to do to win the title, by wining the last race in the 7-race series. He joins Chris Knape as the only Juniors to win both the Junior and overall titles in one event.

Younger sister Lauren Hatt helped fill the family car on the ride home, as she also won a race, and took the Top Woman trophy.

The two days were very different. The first day of racing saw big gusts and strong shifts, in a hard day of sailing. After 4 races, everyone was justifiably tired. Day 2 had little, to at times no wind, with of course large shifts, and lots of fleet mixing that scrambled the results.

A big thanks to jerry and Betsy Anderson, who organzied the event, and to everyone at GRYC who helped make it happen.

Complete results here.

2007 Colorado Championship

The first one-design Butterfly event in over 25 years in Colorado got 10 boats to show up at wakeless Union Reservoir in Longmont, CO, to sail in a weekend of wind that was either wildly shifty or non-existent. The fleet managed to get in 6 races in the two days of waiting for wind, with another tossed out. Winner was new convert to Butterflying, Mutineer National Champ Gib Charles, who won the tie-breaker against Mike Ruwitch. Butterfly National Champ Jim Young, who spent all of May in a kayak on Lake Powell (working, he claims), getting back just in time to rush to the regatta, showed his rust with a third (the conversation with wife Nancy, who made the awards for the events, went like this: "Did you win? No. Were you second?? No. Did you sail???"). Megan Johnson, in 4th, took home the Top Woman award.

Jim Brown, '76 National Champ who was responsible for the Butterfly growth and activity in Colorado in the 70's, showed up Sunday to say hello and congrats to everyone, for helping to revive what was once Colorado's largest one-design fleets.

Racing Rules of Sailing

The Racing Rules of Sailing - ISAF edition - are available at direct from the source, the ISAF site at sailiing.org, or by clicking Racing Rules of Sailing.

From Korea, a wonderful illustrated and annimated look at the ISAF Cases, by Heebum Kwon. Annimated ISAF Casebook

Knots

An annimated guide to tying all the knots you'll ever need on a sailboat. Fun learning tool.

  Does anyone have news about some of the early pioneers of the class? News clippings from early events? We'd like to hear about it, send an email to the Butterflyer webmaster.

The Butterfly sailboat is one of the originators of the "one-design" sailing concept. In existence since 1962, the class is virtually unchanged, with only updates to hardware and fittings with new materials plus refinements and innovations in the internal structure to make a stronger, longer-lasting boat. Over 10,000 boats have been built since then, with the boat finding its way to cottages as a vacation boat, at home as a family recreation boat, in yacht club programs as a very successfull junior training boat, and in racing, where the class has men, women, youth to masters, all competing togther equally on a boat where the biggest single difference is the sailor.