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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.
2009 Single Handed Nationals ~ New Faces, Old Boats
There
were some new faces taking trophies, and lots of old boats going really
fast, at the Single Handed Championship at Lake Lotawana, MO, over the
third weekend of June.
At the top of the final results was Doug Peckover, who made the trip up from his home lake in Dallas, White Rock. They have one of the most active dinghy racing programs (Butterfly, Laser, Sunfish) in the country, with year-round racing - and as a result of all that sailing, one of the fastest groups anywhere. Doug is no rookie to small boat sailing, he has been one of the top boats on the Laser Master World circuit for many years. He had a fun, interesting battle with defending champ Jim Young from Colorado, whose one day of dinghy racing since the Open Nationals last summer - at White Rock the week before the Singles - was not enough in the shifty conditions to overcome the advantage of weekly racing in a competitive fleet. The Doug and Jim show at the top left the rest of the fleet sailing for 3rd - which was just barely taken by a past Butterfly sailor using his home lake to his advantage, Bob Cantrell.
In the Junior fleet, it was another new face at the top, Dawson Lenz (photo above), from Atlanta, GA, whose dad, Randy Lenz - an old name from 1970's Buttefly racing- convinced him to sail the regatta. He left the regatta with hardware, great memories, and a bunch of new friends.
Winds were typical Lotawana, shiftier than most sailors see anywhere else. Saturday was light, with races getting close to time limits, while Sunday was rock-n-roll time in 15 to 25 mph gusts. Temps were hot - as in, really hot, and humid as well, and a couple visiting sailors had problems with dehydration (HINT TO ALL - always have water along when racing, and drink plenty between races).
Two junior sailors who already have hardware from beating up on juniors at other regattas chose to sail in the open single-handed fleet with the big kids instead of the separate Junior fleet, and both took home trophies. Stephen Nelson from Texas took a close 4th overall, and Michigan's Lauren Hatt took home Top Woman against the fast group of local Lotawana women.
A tune-up race for about a dozen boats was run on the afternoon before official racing got underway, and it was a predictor of future success as juniors Stephen Nelson and Lauren Hatt fininished 1-2.
The theme was old boats - only Nelson's boat was a newer one, his '08 custom Texas-flagged boat, while two of the Hatts, dad Ed and daughter Lauren had decade-old boats. Otherwise, the average age of the boats was probably greater than the average age of the sailors! Peckover was sailing Bruce Faust's ancient hull, while Young sailed a 19-yr-old boat that he has borrowed for other Lotawana events in the past. There is probably no other class that has 20, 30, and 40-yr-old boats easily competitive with newer ones, a tribute to the construction quality of the first two builders, John Barnett and the Hedlund brothers.
A big class thank-you to organizer Gordon McBride and the Missouri Yacht Club members for a great event and the usual Lotawana hospitality.
2009 White Rock Wrangle Regatta
A Dallas fixture, two days of racing on White Rock in early June for their 3 dingly fleets, drew 54 boats - the 17-boat Butterfly fleet was the largest - to this years edition. Junior sailor Stephen Nelson, who sails on the other major Dallas sailing pond, Lake Ray Hubbard, stole the show, throwing out a 3rd and scoring a 2nd and 4 bullets, to dominate the fleet. Complete results
2009 Colorado Championship
With snow-capped peaks in the background, it has to be Colorado. Union Sailing Club once again hosted the state championship, with Len Dolhert retaining the title he won last year. Ten boats showed up on a cloudy, potentially stormy day to get in 7 races in excellent 6-16 knot winds before the big storm finally got too close. USC Commodore Jim Daus finished 2nd, and Mike Ruwitch 3rd. Complete results at the USC website.
2009 Events
2009 Single-Handed Nationals
are going south to visit old friends at the Missouri
Yacht Club, on Lake Lotawana on the SE side of Kansas City, over
the 19-21st of June. Lotawana hosted its first Butterfly Nationals in
1967.
NOR
Entry Form
2009 Open and Junior Nationals
will return to Spring Lake MI on 21-23 July, be there for another great
event!.
NOR
Entry Form
Other events around the country:
The Colorado Butterfly Championship at Union Sailing Club in Longmont is on 31 May, NOR and entry form are on the USC web site
And the annual White Rock Wrangle is on 6-7 June, with info on their Fleet 20 web site
Fleet News
The Lake DuBay Sailing Association, who kick-started
their Butterfly fleet by hosting the '08 Singles, will sail their Butterflys
as a one-design fleet for 2009. The Butterfly fleet will sail on Wednesdays
and not opposite any other fleet, so folks can sail their Butterfly sailboats
on Tuesdays and Saturdays Portsmouth and Wednesdays one-design.
Union Sailing Club's One Day/One Design Octoberfest
Boats were still racing on first Sunday in October in Colorado, when the Union Sailing Club hosted 4 fleets of one-design boats (Buccaneer, Butterfly, Laser, Snipe), with the 10-boat Butterfly fleet the largest. Mike Ruwitch came out on top, followed by Gib Charles and Paul Culnan in the 4-race series on a wonderful fall afternoon. The event will probably become an annual fixture at Union.
2008 Western Michigan Regatta ~ a Hatt Family Affair
Lauren Hatt coasted to victory in the 34-boat Junior fleet, while dad Ed held off White Lake's Sam Gill in the 17-boat Open fleet. The Hatt family from Spring Lake is putting together its own dynaster to rival the Knape/Anderson clan, with Lauren, Jordan, Greg and now dad winning almost all of the major Butterfly events in the last 4 years. Hosted by the Grand Rapids Yacht Club, the 51-boat total was just a bit down from the 55 in 2007, a good sign with the high gas prices and low regatta attendance in many other classes.
Mike Knape Extends the Family Dynasty with the 2008 Open National Championship
The beautiful waters of northern Michigan's lakes - this time, Torch Lake - once again hosted the Butterfly Junior and Open Nationals. A total of 54 boats sailed in the Open fleet, and 64 in the Junior fleet, putting a premium on starts. The 118 total is among the top-five ever, a great turnout in a year of record gas prices!
Grand
Rapid's Mike Knape is the latest in the long line of the Knape/Anderson
clan to win the Open title, taking it with a great second-day effort in
light/medium shifty, sloppy conditions with 1-1-2 finishes. That was good
enough to overcome Jim Young's first-day lead with his straight 1-1-1
finishes in stronger winds. While Young was busy making sure that Torch
Lake local Pete Comfort, who had straight 2nd's behind Young on the first
day, would not pull out some magic to win, Mike put himself in contention
with his two race wins and forced Young to decide who to stay with in
the last race. Young chose to stay with the local, and Mike escaped on
the first upwind. Young put on a great rush at the end, closing from 12th
early in the race to 6th - overlapped with 5th and 4th - at the finish,
but it was not enough to close the points gap on Knape, who's 2nd in that
race gave him the points to win. Mike adds the Open title to his two Junior
National wins, joining a short list of very good sailors who have won
both.
The Top Woman was Maggie Kloote from Spring Lake, with a strong 12th overall in the Open fleet.
A tune-up race was attempted for a mixed fleet of Open and Juniors, 50+ boats, in fading winds that went to the time limit and left the fleet drifting in the Torch Lake current.
The
Juniors had great racing, 5 races in lighter, shiftier conditions, the
best race series for them in a number of years. The invading Texans, Stephen
and Geoffrey Nelson, dominated, with 1-(11)-1-2-1 finishes in the 64-boat
fleet. This was only their second Butterfly event. After borrowing a boat
for the Nationals last year, they bought their new Texas-flag boat in
April and and even raced once, with the White Rock fleet, to train for
the regatta. In spite of the lack of Butterfly tiller time, both are very
experienced, successful Opti sailors - Geoffrey is on the Opti National
Team while Stephen is now running around the country doing 420 events
- and they had one other huge advantage, their choice of personal sailing
coach.
The Teddy Knape Memorial Trophy for the top junior under age 14 went to local Jacklyn Hallett, who was very competitive with the older juniors, finishing 4th in the fleet.
A big fleet thanks to organizer Kris Hallett and the crew she assembled
to make the event work.
Lots of photos on Lisa Powell's web site, and more on Nina McKeough's! Thanks to both for making the photos available to us.
Racing
Rules of Sailing 2009 edition
The new Racing Rules of Sailing - ISAF edition - are available at direct from the source, the ISAF site at sailiing.org. There are changes from the 2005 edition, the link here will give you a pdf with all the changes highlighted.
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.
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