The Interclub Dinghy Frostbite class, originally envisioned as a class for Inter-Club racing on Long Island sound, attracts some of the best sailors from a variety of other “summer” classes and provides great short course sailing on Sunday afternoons in the Northeast. Frostbiting an InterClub is a funny sport. People often ask “why should I get into a small dinghy in the winter when I can sail a PHRF boat or sit home and watch football”. Then they try it and find out that IC sailing is a blast! The boats are fun to sail, tack and jibe on a dime, and require real skill to drive. Crews soon discover the importance of team work and instinctive reaction. Interclubs are deceptive boats to sail. They are easy to sail, but hard to sail well due to the cat rig and the location of the centerboard to balance the rig. The crew plays a very significant role in balancing the boat both, so while they do not have a sail to trim, they are a key ingredient to a successful program. Sure, they are slow, but that is their charm; they are very tactical and very small differences in boatspeed are the difference between winning and losing. No planing here. And one sail? It is winter after all and only one sail makes it easy to wear heavy gloves!

“A New Frostbite Racing Dinghy”

Transcribed from the April, 1946 issue of “Yachting”

Frostbite dinghy sailors from Larchmont and other Long Island Sound ports, most of whom have been sailing one-design Class B dinghies for several years, are much interested in this new class, the first of which is expected to be under sail on the Sound in April. The boat was designed by Sparkman & Stephens, and is a development of a 9’6″ dinghy they turned out several years ago. Her length is 11’6″, the same as the popular B one-design and Class X boats, and her beam 4’7″. The 72 sq. ft. sail is identical with the sails of those classes, although there will be minor changes in the rigging, and possibly an aluminum mast.

The class is being sponsored by Cornelius Shields, who believes the time is now ripe for a new class to replace the B one-design which he “godfathered” in 1934.

Construction will be of molded plywood, the boats being built by the Zephyr Boat Co., of New York, under the supervision of Edward J. Waldvogel, a member of the Larchmont Yacht Club. The weight will be a few pounds less than that of the B one-designs (which is about 160 pounds) but the main difference is in the lines. The use of molded plywood makes possible a bluff bow above the water line in conjunction with a sharp entrance. This is expected to cure the principle fault which the frostbiters have found with the BO’s, namely, that they are too fine forward and tend to become unmanageable and to capsize when running off before fresh breezes. It is anticipated that the new boats will be approximately as fast as the BOs in light to moderate going and will be much better performers in a breeze, permitting them to be sailed in weather which keeps the others ashore.

The new class is to be called the Inter-Club Class and it is expected that a good sized fleet of them will be sailing by next fall, when the yachts are laid up and the Frostbiters come into their own again. As with older classes, the masts are to be jointed so that all spars can be stowed in the boat, facilitating handling them both on the decks of yachts, and when they are used as tenders, and on trailers or car tops when being transported from race to race in the winter. The model was first displayed at the 1946 annual Frostbite regatta.