Blue Crab sailboat

[Steve Strenge]

Anyone know anything about a Blue Crab sailboat? Has 2 sails, fiberglass hull construction. 12 ft length.How stable is this boat? Is it good for a beginner?

 

[Ric Shultz]

Duster

Does it have a square bow? I know of a Chesapeak boat called a Duster that may fit that name. A faster boat but not good for beginners. E-mail me if it is so and I will tell you more.nccgm@aol.com

 

[Roger]

Duster info

The duster is (was?) a pram bowed, 13-foot catboat , partially decked over, designed in Riverton NJ on the Delaware River. It can't be the 'Blue Crab' boat as a Duster has only one sail. Originally called the 'Saw and Hammer' class, as it could be built in the basement with regular tools, there was a pretty large fleet of them at Riverton (home of the Lippincott Boat Works) when I was growing up in the 1950's and early 60's, and fleets ina couple of other places. (Tom's River etc.) Mine was #104.One of my friends tried to use a Comet spinaker on a Duster once. Masthead pulled forward, and the boat dove straight for the bottom, with a very surprised young man at the tiller.

 

[Ric Shultz]

More Duster

Thanks for more on Dusters. I was the Manager at the Lake Naomi Club in the Poconos and the "Duster Nationals" were held there every year (about 20-30 boats). One of our members bought the mold to create the fiberglass hulls and several guys started making new ones. They were also class raced on the Chesapeak, but we are not getting to "the Blue Crab" boat.

 

[jcherubini]

Yay Dusters!!!

We're not on the subject of the Blue Crab any more, but...My dad (that designer guy) was a Duster fantatic. To him it was like a small version of an M-16 or an M-28, both of which he had and raced and won in. He built several of them in his basement in Bristol PA when you could still build your own class boat to class rules (even though the Lippincotts were right across the River). He and his brother Joe (the Raider Yacht guy) used to race as a team up and down all over NJ, PA, and MD. (Joe used to take two cigars with him-- if he was into the second cigar before the halfway mark, he was in trouble.) Reportedly they swept the mid-Atlantic regionals one-two in about 1950. This house still contains plenty of silver serving-plates and ice-buckets from those races. After that my dad went into Thistles.My cousin Peter (Joe's oldest son) won a Duster championship in 1968 using a black boat my dad built that was older than he (Pete) was... Pete was then 16. Supposedly my uncle Rich (the piano guy) still has that boat in his barn.Meanwhile all I had was a clunky Sunfish!JC 2