boat 15V2 feet long. It was to be known as Snipe, for it was the custom of 

 this pioneer yachting pubhcation to call all Rudder sailboats after sea birds. 

 This was the beginning of what was to become the largest class of racing 

 sailboats in the world. 



Demands for the plans became so great that copies of the original Rudder 

 article were soon out of print. Fourteen-year-old Jimmy Brown of Pass 

 Christian, Mississippi, built the first one with the help of his father, and 

 when the Snipe Class International Racing Association (SCIRA) was 

 formed in November 1932, Jimmy's boat was given the racing number 1. 

 Since then over 13,500 numbers have been issued. A Snipe authority esti- 

 mates that about 3000 of these— or the boats they represented— have gone, 

 and that there are now about 10,500 Snipes sailing, of which 7500 are 

 active in the United States. There are now 538 fleets in twenty-seven 

 foreign countries, not counting those now behind the Iron Curtain. At the 

 30th Anniversary World Snipe Championship in 1961 at the American 

 Yacht Club, Rye, New York, one representative each (as allowed) from 

 eighteen different countries raced their Snipes on Long Island Sound. The 

 countries represented, in the order in which they finished, were : Brazil, the 

 United States, Spain, Switzerland, the Bahamas, Norway, Bermuda, Ar- 

 gentina, Belgium, Denmark, France, England, Japan, Canada, British 

 Guiana, Sweden, Italy, and Uruguay. Due to the effect of winds generated 

 by Hurricane Esther, which fortunately missed the Sound, the going was 

 very rough, resulting in a few mishaps, though on the whole the Snipes 

 took it well. 



Social contacts among people of many nations are among the many pleas- 

 ant features of Snipe racing, resulting in some amusing episodes. William 

 F. Crosby describes one of these.* The occasion was an invitation to 

 British yachtsmen to race their Snipes in Northern Ireland, which ended as 

 follows : 



"Weather permitting, the Celtic twilight will be turned on at 11 p.m. each 

 evening and the local Banshee is a very fine mezzo-soprano. Apart from 

 local color we have many interesting and primitive customs; some of us 

 sail our Snipes sharp end first, as we think they go faster that way; and 

 others find the metal centerplate so handy for cutting other people's moor- 

 ings that they carry it down even when going to windward. All our protests 

 are, of course, settled with shillelaghs in front of the clubhouse, but visitors 

 will be given choice of weapons, and their Executors may appeal to 

 the Y.R.A." 



"The Snipe Story," by William F. Crosby, Yachting, June 1953. 



RACING CLASSES 183 



