penguin sailboat class

International Penguin Class Dinghy Association

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One-Design Class Type: Dinghy

Was this boat built to be sailed by youth or adults? Both

Approximately how many class members do you have? 40

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Photo Credit:C. Krafft

Photo Credit: P. Hull

About International Penguin Class Dinghy Association

The Penguin Class dinghy was designed by famed naval architect Phil Rhodes and the first fleet was formed on the Potomac River in 1939. An article about the boat appeared in a 1940 issue of Yachting magazine and Penguin fleets soon appeared all over the US as well as in a number of countries. It was used by many clubs in their junior sailing programs, but was also popular as a frostbiting dinghy and sailed by many of the top racers of the day from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. It is still raced today, primarily on the Chesapeake Bay and Chicagoland regions, however there are boats all over the country and renewed activity in South America. It provides a nice platform for adults, juniors, adult-junior, or single-handers who can add ballast as required to meet the minimum weight. The boat is fun to sail, quite responsive to minor trim adjustments, and a great training platform to learn about sail trim, weight placement, and boat balance.

Boats Produced: 9700

Class boat builder(s):

No current active builders. Plans are available.

Approximately how many boats are in the USA/North America? 8500

Where is your One-Design class typically sailed in the USA? List regions of the country:

Chesapeake Bay, Chicago

Does this class have a spinnaker or gennaker? No

How many people sail as a crew including the helm?  2

Ideal combined weight of range of crew:  310 (modern) 290 (classic)

Portsmouth Yardstick Rating:   111.5

Boat Designed in  1938

Length (feet/inches): 11’5″

Beam: 4’8″

Weight of rigged boat without sails: 140 (hull)

Draft: 4′ (centerboard down), 4″ board up

Mast Height: 19′

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Small Boats Annual 2010

The Penguin Class

A family-friendly racing dinghy

I t had been nearly 20 years since I stepped into a Penguin when I toted one down to Bristol (Rhode Island) Yacht Club last winter for a day of “frostbite” racing. I had owned a Penguin years earlier, and I had been able to buy it back, intending to restore it to sail with my daughter some day. But in the meantime, a good friend from Long Island offered the use of his Penguin, which had hung from his garage rafters for 15 years. “I’d love to see her sailing again,” he said. I pieced it together that brisk Saturday and made it out to the race course just in time for the first start.

Maybe it was the nostalgia that had me so excited to be surrounded by so much varnish in such a little boat, one of five wooden Penguins on the starting line that day. Or perhaps it was because my co-skipper for the boat, which is sailed double-handed, was Tim Fallon, team race world champion and Beetle Cat guru from Cape Cod. Either way, watching the plumb bow punch through the dark northwesterly wavelets and feeling the windward chine lock into a wave downwind as we leaned out to weather was just plain ol’ fun and more challenging than I had remembered.

The Penguin has been one of the most prolific home-built classes in the country. “Every time I look at one of these beautiful boats, I smile,” said a 70-year-old gentleman on the pier that afternoon who had raced them in the 1950s.

Designed by Philip Rhodes in 1933, the Penguin has had an enduring legacy as a racing dinghy, with more than 9,700 built. The plywood, hard-chined boats are simple to build.

Philip Rhodes designed the Penguin in 1933 as a contender for the frostbiting fleets of Manhasset Bay and Larchmont, New York, but his design lost out to one by Olin Stephens. The boat, 11′ 5″ long with 72 sq ft of sail, has hard chines, making it easy to plank with plywood. In 1938, Rhodes dusted off the design when a group of Potomac River sailors approached him for a frostbiter. They built 12 boats together in their basements and raced on winter weekends.

“Yachting magazine sent a reporter to cover one of the regattas in 1939,” says Charles Krafft, whose father completed hull No. 6 in that original fleet. “The magazine was in competition with The Rudder, which had just published the plans for the Snipe. So they did a piece on the Penguin and told where to get plans. It went from a few fleets to a national class overnight.”

More than 9,700 Penguins have been built. Hull No. 1 is on exhibit at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Most of the boats are wood, whether built by amateurs or professionals. The class remained popular for winter racing for more than 40 years, until the advent of self-rescuing fiberglass racing dinghies.

“It’s hard to sell a Penguin as a safe, fast boat,” says Jonathan Bartlett, a Maryland sailmaker who got into the class to teach his two daughters how to race. “If you roll over, you’re done.” Later, fiberglass Penguins based on one built by Bill Burtis had false bottoms that allowed self-rescue. They proved fast in the Long Island fleet, Krafft says, so wooden Penguin owners lost interest. On the Chesapeake, however, class restrictions neutralized the benefits of the ’glass boats, and the fleet remained comparatively strong.

“You hear less about the Penguin now than in the 1980s,” Krafft says. There were 25-boat fleets on any given winter Sunday in western Long Island Sound and 35-boat international championships. “We had a surge in the 1990s with baby boomers who grew up sailing them taking their kids out,” he says. “Now those kids are older.”

Intended as a family-friendly racing dinghy, the Penguin was outshone by light fiberglass boats that came later, yet the design is appealing for teaching sailing and racing, and for daysailing. Frostbite fleets are still active in several states.

F leets survive in Maryland, Illinois, and Rhode Island, but the design is being rekindled. Bristol Seacraft in Rhode Island started building wooden Penguins in 2008 and is now the only registered builder of what owner Al Nunes sees as a family-friendly classic design. A few years ago, the John Gardner School of Boat Building in Annapolis, Maryland, built a handful of Penguins.

Construction plans, too, are available at $50. The design is the same, Krafft says, except that the rudder profile has been altered. Aluminum masts are allowed, although the rotating wooden wing masts are works of art and are also considered competitive in light breezes. A computer-cut kit for a self-rescuing plywood boat to help spark new interest has also been discussed.

Bud Daily, who has been involved with the class since the early 1980s when he was a sailmaker on Long Island, says the allure of the boats is as much about the people sailing them as the design itself. “The original concept was a family-oriented boat,” he says. “That’s what has always appealed to me. I sail with my wife, and it also gives me an opportunity to teach someone sailing in a competitive environment.” He adds that the boats are not super fast, and with a rotating wing mast and with every sail adjustment leading to the crew, there is a lot to do.

Like many racing dinghies, the boats are easy to sail but hard to sail well. “It humbles a lot of folks,” says Bartlett, referring to the oversized centerboard and hard chines that the boat can trip over in gusty conditions. “If you can sail a Penguin well, you can sail anything.” It is a simple boat. “It’s not a Laser. But for the nostalgia and classic look, it’s hard to beat it.”

A Penguin maststep offers several alternatives for increasing or reducing mast rake, much like more modern racing dinghies.

“It is a classic design,” Krafft says, “very responsive. It doesn’t have the high thrills of other modern dinghies, but it is a beautiful boat to sail for someone who wants to step into a classic little boat.”

Penguins in garages and backyards around the country are just waiting for someone to renew them. Boats in poor condition are often free, and sailable ones can be bought for around $500, but those are snapped up pretty quickly. Pristine boats can sell for $2,000. Some have finely varnished interiors and others have flaking paint and cracked floorboards. For some reason, however, they all sail around the same speed, Krafft says.

The class has weathered the onslaught of new designs over the years by being a keepsake, something you cannot bring yourself to throw away. The fact that stalwarts have maintained the class association while other classes have gone belly-up has also buoyed the reputation of the boats.

Penguins have enough lines to keep active sailors happy. Uncommon in sailboats of today is a continuous line affixed to a tiller-like device so that the rotating mast can be adjusted as needed to improve the sail’s angle of attack.

“We’re trying to protect the integrity of the class,” Krafft says. “It doesn’t matter if you are a racer or use your Penguin for daysailing, we’re a place to ask questions, look for parts, or share experiences.” He says he gets e-mails from California, Washington, New Orleans, Tennessee, New England, and Canada from owners put- ting together or maintaining their boats. Like Bartlett, I bought mine back so I can take my daughter racing in a mellow environment when she’s old enough. I also see it as an opportunity to enjoy sunny winter afternoons with friends and their children, since we rarely race anymore and miss being on the water.

This Boat Profile was published in Small Boats 2010. Plans are available through the Penguin Class Dinghy Association .

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Comments (11)

I remember the Penguin well. In the early 60’s I took lessons at the Severn Sailing Association in Annapolis, Maryland, where we raced Cadets. We had group races against the Annapolis Yacht Club across the harbor where they used Penguins. The Cadets had a full sloop rig, but in my memory the boats were fairly evenly matched. We being kids, of course, looked down our noses at the other team’s boats, although we knew perfectly well what nice little sailers they were. It’s great to get some background on the design and evolution of the class.

I would like to take a moment to offer you a small correction. There are no cadets at the Naval Academy. They are called Midshipmen. Just a point….

For some years we had a wooden Penguin that we sailed around our Maine coast harbor during summers and in the marsh creeks and rivers of Georgia during the rest of the year. One time we capsized right near the harbor master in his boat and he was laughing so hard he could barely help us recover. I sold the boat to someone who lived on the Severn across from the Naval Academy where my nephew was a Midshipman and I’d rowed and raced during my years at a college elsewhere. The Midshipmen were and are outstanding citizens.

The boats were called CADETS. AYC sailed Penguins and 420s and from time to time we sail through each others courses and have running water battles, and other mischief about the Annapolis Harbor. The Penguin was one boat you never want get swamped: 30 seconds of poor judgement equals 2 hours of bailing. But a ton of fun to sail ..

Our family had Penguin #5908 CIAO and we raced with the Penguin fleet in Alamitos Bay in Long Beach California in the mid-60’s. I wonder if #5908 is still racing.

We had a Penguin too. Red of course. We kept it on a sand-dolly at Alamitos Bay (close to Leeway Club). My early memory is being very uncomfortable wearing my life preserver. There was no place to sit! haha. It was my parents first sailboat before they had kids (circa 1954). After that, we also sailed/raced Sabots, Lido 14s, Lasers, Cal20 through ABYC and LBYC.

I would be interested in finding more out about the self rescuing, computer-cut plywood mentioned in the article. Also what was the self-rescuing device used on the fiberglass Penguin?

Wonderful little boats. Learned to sail in a Penguin named YACKETY-YACHT on a lake in upstate New York 65 years ago. I later became an Aviator. The Penguin is like some aircraft. Absolute delight if you stay ahead of her. If not, she’ll bite you. I had more than a few unexpected swims. Thanks for the memories.

I’ve sailed my Penguin since 1974 in Rio de Janeiro. She is still in good shape and has a lot of class. Hearing the noise of the water hitting the plywood hull refreshes my best sailing memories.

Just redid a Jon Wright Penguin. Couldn’t wait to sail her. I have another Penguin that’s been hanging in my loft for 30-plus years. Launched the Jon Wright Penguin. Great sail. Second time out rolled her over leaving the dock.

Grew up racing a Penguin in Annapolis late ’60s & ’70s. Her name was GONE WITH THE WIND and she was owned by one of my older brothers.

Family had a sailing school on Randall Street & kept many boats at the Annapolis city dock. My dad taught sailing to the midshipmen at the Naval Academy.

A few Penguin memories: During a race we were passing a much larger sailboat which was upwind of us. I prepared to jump to the leeward side when the larger boat took the wind out of our sail. My older brother didn’t see it coming. We came close to capsizing but remained in the race with a dry floor crossing the finish line.

One day we sailed the Penguin up the bay to our farm on the bay just 2 miles north of Gibson Island. We had very little wind. My brother got out of the boat and swam while pushing on the stern. Fortunately we were in no hurry that day. I don’t remember the exact time but I think it was something like 6 hours to sail about 12 miles. Prior to every race we’d beach it on a sandbar and scrape the bottom. I don’t remember any first place finishes but we came in 2nd and 3rd many times.

My older brother eventually moved up to larger boats. At one time he was Rainbow National Champion. His last boat was a Cal27 and he drowned in ’94 while scraping the hull on a sandbar in Spa Creek the day before a race. Storm kicked up and the boat came down on his head while trying to board via the stern ladder. He worked at the Naval Institute at the Naval Academy at the time.

Great article about the birth and evolution of the Penguins. Sure did bring back memories. Many thanks for a good read!

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This classic dinghy is the perfect off-season project with promise of great sailing to come

Admittedly, our choice to find a Penguin dinghy to retrofit and head out for some sailing was driven in large part by a sense of nostalgia. Although we enjoy sailing on more modern, performance-geared dinghies such as Lasers and occasionally even an MX-Ray, we realized we rarely got the chance to take friends out sailing on a small, unimposing boat, or even to enjoy sailing together in a dinghy. And while there are several great dinghies out there suitable for just that kind of sailing, it was stories fondly recalled by a family member who built a Penguin as a boy in Sea Scouts, that ultimately swayed us in the direction of this much-loved design. Designed by Phillip Rhodes in 1939, the Penguin is a simply rigged catboat that is just over 11 feet long. Its simplicity is largely responsible for what has made it a favorite boat for all kinds of sailors, from entry-level folks wanting to putter around an inland lake to some of the best in the world who enjoy getting down to brass tacks in competitive fleets all over the country. Because the boat is so easy to move around and handle it's also a great boat for children to learn in. With the Penguin, we threw that formula out. There are great deals to be had on Penguins, and it's not uncommon to find them free for the taking, assuming you can unpile the stuff in the garage surrounding them. In many cases, retrofitting a Penguin is going to cost more than the initial cost of the boat. And since many Penguins are built as kit boats, they can be found in varying levels of completion. One listing on the Penguin class Web site advertised a boat that was "90 percent complete 30 years ago." We had a few requirements for our perfect Penguin. First of all, we were looking for a fiberglass hull. It's not that there aren't some wonderful wooden hulls out there, and certainly the sense of nostalgia is ramped up a bit with a wooden boat, but frankly dealing with wood hull repairs was beyond what we were interested in. We wanted a boat we could have out sailing by spring, not another project in the garage to be maneuvered around. We were also looking for some level of structural soundness and wanted to avoid a boat on which the rails had been broken off because we had been warned that is a tough repair that tends to come back over and over again to haunt owners. A relatively new boat, in race ready condition with lots of wins to its name in a nearby fleet recently sold for $4,300. But that would have been overkill for our purposes. We wanted a boat that would be just as much fun for a quickly thrown together daysail as it would be competitive in regional fleets. We found it through a connection in the Penguin class. It was one of those boats that had been bought several years earlier by people wanting it for the same reasons we did, but after a few years life got hectic and the Penguin ended up in a shed in the back yard. We resolved to make an attempt to keep the boat's history from repeating itself. We ended up paying $850 for the boat, which was in relatively good condition but not without enough projects to keep us busy for a few months. We didn't delay in launching it for a shakedown sail to get a better idea of what we were dealing. We started with the hull. We spent a lot of time talking with people who know a lot about Penguins, and with a class as prodigious as this one, there are plenty of them. Patrick Hilliard, who has been sailing Penguins for about 30 years, warned us to check for leaking around the centerboard trunk, and sure enough, we noticed some during our sail and it was obvious it was coming from the cracks we saw. We followed Hilliard's two pieces of advice, both of which he said he learned the hard way: We removed the centerboard before we started working and took care to avoid getting any epoxy drips inside the trunk. We ground out the cracking and chipping areas around the base of the centerboard trunk. Next we filled in the ground-out area with West System epoxy thickened with West's Colloidal Silica filler. To reduce the amount of time we would spend sanding, we laid two layers of four-inch bi-directional fiberglass tape on top while the epoxy was still wet then followed immediately with a layer of release fabric and smoothed out the whole repair area. After it cured, we pulled off the release fabric, gave it a light sanding and painted the area. The centerboard pin gaskets were plenty dried out after years of sitting in the shed so we replaced them with new rubber gaskets from the local hardware store. We also made sure the pin, as well as the fasteners on the mast and boom, were stainless steel. Hilliard told us that a lot of sailors put in stringers to stiffen the hull fore and aft. Although we could see where our boat would probably benefit from this addition, we decided we'd save that project for the next season after getting a better of idea of how competitive the boat was. Satisfied that our hull was structurally in good shape, we decided our Penguin needed some spiffing up. The paint was faded and we wanted our project to look good too. We bought a quart of Petit Easypoxy one-part polyurethane in Ocean Blue. We rolled it on with a short-nap roller then immediately tipped it with a brush. After allowing it to dry overnight, we gave it a light sanding with 220-grit sandpaper before applying a second coat. And when it was done, our little Penguin looked like a new bird. Next on our to-do list was a thorough inventory of the rigging. It came with a wooden spar that was in acceptable shape. Our initial reaction was to run out and buy an aluminum spar, but the price was prohibitive. And we were comforted by the fact that a wood mast is repairable if it should happen to break. We opted instead to give it a good sanding and recoat it with five coats of Pettit's Flagship 2015 varnish, which has the UV protection we were looking for. The control lines on the boat were in need of replacement as well. We replaced them all through Redpoint Ropes, overestimating how much of each line we would need to give us some flexibility in setting up the boat to our liking. The Penguin class has no limits on how you can set up a boat so we had free reign to experiment a little in what set-up worked best for us. We wanted tracks to adjust the shroud tension, so we picked up some track sections from Harken. We used fender washers to mount them with 3M 4000 sealant and stainless hardware. While we were shopping with Harken we picked up an auto-racheting mainsheet block and a handful of cam cleats for our control lines. The last item we wanted to attend to was some method of keeping the centerboard down. We took a page from a setup common on a lot of club racing dinghies and rigged a shock cord from the centerboard handle, back through a block on the aft end of the centerboard trunk and then tied to the base of the mast. We put a 2-to-1 block and tackle on the end of the centerboard handle to secure it in the up position. Our boat came with a sail that, although it was a big aged, was in pretty good shape for our first season. One of the best things about getting into the Penguin class is the class itself, which is filled with knowledgeable sailors who honestly just want to get more people out sailing and enjoying their boats. We're sure we'll get a lot more suggestions of what our work list should include next year (and probably a few critiques of what we've done so far). And we might get a line on a sail that's less expensive than the $620 price of a new one but in better shape than what we have. It's going to be a fun summer.

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May / June Issue No. 298  Preview Now

PENGUIN CLASS DINGHY

Adrienne Keller and her father Kip launched their Penguin sailboat in October of 2007, the first boat either of them had built. Kip sailed Penguins, which were designed by Phil Rhodes, as a youth in upstate New York. They used okoume plywood on sawn oak frames, rails and thwarts are mahogany, and spruce floorboards. They bought used spars and sails to rig her with. The Penguin is as yet unnamed.

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Two-time olympian michelle sechser credits california's lake natoma for her rowing success.

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Michelle Sechser, a two-time Olympian, began her rowing career with Capital Crew at California's Lake Natoma at the age of 14.

"When I started at Capital Crew, never in a million years did I think I would be a two-time Olympian," said Sechser.

After completing her graduate school in Tulsa, Sechser pursued the national team. She then chased gold at the Tokyo Games, where she and her partner finished fifth in lightweight sculls.

"People are likening it to a marriage, you know. It's just you and this other person," Sechser said.

Sechser further explained the unique dynamics of her boat class.

"Everyone is capped in size, we're all the same mass — we all weigh in at 125.6 pounds. The margins and the races are so tiny because you don't get these huge, powerful, tall behemoth gladiator bodies the way you might in some boats, or the women or men's eights," said Sechser.

This leads to extremely close finishes.

"My doubles partner, Molly Redford and I raced a World Cup last summer, and we came in silver by 8 hundredths of a second. And it's so small you can hardly even blink your eyes that quickly," Sechser said.

However, Sechser won't be able to compete in a third Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028. Her boat class, the lightweight double scull, is being eliminated as an Olympic event.

"It's the last time it will ever happen, and I know every girl on that starting line will be having the exact same thought, which is I've got nothing to lose, cause this is it," said Sechser.

In a sport measured by seconds, Sechser's journey is filled with memories that will last a lifetime.