Folkboat Story by Loibner Dieter

Author:Loibner, Dieter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sheridan House
Published: 2002-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

United States and San Francisco

If there is a place on earth that seems to be custom-made for the rugged Folkboat it is San Francisco Bay, a body of water notorious for howling winds, rapacious currents and two trillion gallons of sub-60-degree water. The Bay covers a surface of roughly 400 square miles and is framed by a vibrant but overdeveloped urban jungle that has been fueled by economic boom times from the Gold Rush in 1849 to the emergence of Silicon Valley and dot-com mania. Today, more than six million people—or the equivalent of a small European country—are living along the shores of the Bay.

Unlike northern Europe, where good weather and wind often are mutually exclusive, the Bay offers sun and wind in abundance, especially in the summer and after noon when the fog has retreated out to sea. And then there is this vicious current that can make your chest hair stand on ends.

Starboat World Champion, America’s Cup participant, car racer and bon vivant Tom Blackaller likened racing in the Bay to bowling. “As long as you are in the lane it is OK, but once you are in the gutter it gets ugly.” It does not take a lot of fantasy to imagine what is happening here when the westerlies whistle through the Golden Gate with 25-30 knots and clash with a 4.5-knot ebb that is heading the exact opposite way. It is not for the faint of heart, but “a lovely day for a Folkboat,” as Paul Elvström accurately observed.

The first appearance of a Folkboat on San Francisco Bay happened in the mid-1950s. “We have happily sailed Folkboats on San Francisco Bay since 1955 and informally organized the class in 1956,” wrote Fred Vogelsberg, the first chairman of the San Francisco Bay Folkboat Association to Walter Burnett, who at that time headed the Fleet No. 1 of the United States Folkboat Association, in Detroit, Michigan, which also was formed in 1956.

Vogelsberg expressed pleasant surprise about the existence of a U.S. Folkboat Association as it was listed in the 1958 directory of the North American Yacht Racing Union. “Inasmuch as we have not heard of a national organization, quite likely the national organization has not heard from us.” He left no doubt that San Francisco’s Folkboaters adhered to the Scandinavian school, which mandated a one-design class without spinnakers, heads and other items for creature comfort, although some of the early boats did have an inboard auxiliary engine. He also mentioned Folkboats in Newport, California, where apparently efforts were undertaken to organize existing Folkboat owners into a fleet.

In response to the Californian inquiry, Detroit’s Burnett clarified that “at this time it would be too great an undertaking to organize, maintain and serve as a national Folkboat Association.” Detroit’s Folkboats were mostly of Swedish origin, which the locals liked for their stainless steel rigging, chrome hardware and for the fact that “they seem to finish ahead of the Danish boats.” Burnett insisted that his constituents all adhere to the Scandinavian

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