Miami Yacht Club Florida Late 1940s

History is marked by "flowering" time periods, a confluence of time, location and people that melds in a dynamism that creates something interesting and different. (Some of these periods have enormous influence on world history, Paris in the 19th century springs to mind; a center of radicalism in mid-century, a center of frenetic artistic bounty in the late century.)  Such was the case with small boat sailing out of Miami during the post-WWII years. A combination of professional builders and amateur tinkerers pushed the development of three small boat classes, two of them local. However, in this history, the two local Miami classes, the Suicide and the Cricket, "flowered" and then disappeared, their effect negligible on the later history of small boat sailing . The long, lean, Suicide dinghy with the wishbone rig was the fastest sailing class in the U.S immediately after WWII. The Cricket was an all-out racing cat-boat with a wishbone rig and a sliding seat. (The Mothboat was the third class - what we call the Classic Moth today.) Miami Yacht Club on the causeway was the focal point for racing these unique craft.

In search of more archival material on the Suicide and Cricket class in Miami, I turned to George A of Mid-Atlantic Musings. George has a vast collection of Mothboat historical material including the Miami period. Sure enough, George was able to produce the Walter Dietel album. Walter was a German immigrant who designed and built his own Mothboats and Suicides in Miami after WWII.

Photos from the album are featured below. Some of the photos are from the Miami Y.C and some, I think, are from the Coconut Grove Sailing Club.

A Cricket coming at the camera with a Suicide in the background.

Walter Dietel Album

A Cricket on a trailer with Mothboats launching.

Walter Dietel Album

A Cricket and a Suicide. I think this is the race committee boat that is throwing them a line. (See photo below.)

Walter Dietel Album

Three Crickets. This may be a start, or possibly a leeward rounding - hard to tell. You can definitely see the sliding seat in use on the leftmost Cricket.

Walter Dietel Album

Jerry Gwynns champion Suicide Joker.

Walter Dietel Album

A Suicide kicking it up on a reach.

Walter Dietel Album

On the launching beach, a mixture of Suicides, Crickets, Mothboats and what looks to be a Whitman EZ-build chine decked canoe (International Canoe) with most likely Lou Whitman himself standing over it.

Walter Dietel Album

The peanut gallery, in rapt attention to the racing, consigned to a log on the beach, .

Walter Dietel Album

Walter Dietel, from whose photo album these images were taken, with his home-built, amateur designed Mothboat.

Walter Dietel Album

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March 4 Belle Island Anchorage Miami Beach to Cooleys Landing Marina Ft Lauderdale 35 6 Miles

An interesting passage. We pulled up the anchor at 9:45. The tide was helping us on the way out of Miami. The main ship channel was free of  cruise liners (on Wednesday) so we were able to use that channel without the police directing us to turn back, and requiring the more circuitous industrial route We had only one tow and barge to avoid.

But the wind was in our face and once we got to Government Cut proper, big rollers from the sea were coming directly in. Built up by ten to twenty knots of wind from the east or south east, over a long time and distance, those waves confronted the tide flowing out and produced waves up to ten feet high which tossed ILENE about. Our bow dove under some waves with salt water bathing the deck. Good thing the hatches were not just closed but dogged down very tight. we closed the companionway hatch cover just in case, but no salt water came that far back to enter the cabin. And when our bow was lifted high up by other waves, a few gallons of seawater entered the cockpit through the stern swim platform but drained quickly back out. The sails, our strong engine, could not be deployed to get us through this bad patch faster because the wind was in our faces. We do not give the kitties big breakfasts on such days and their crying was not from nausea but caused by fear and discomfort.
Once clear of the Cut and its extending sea walls we turned north, and put out the small jib and things stabilized a bit. But we were still close to the wind and only making 4.5 knots; not enough to get to our destination in time. So we changed to the genoa and with the wind now on or near our beam we made seven knots, on a rolly ride with five foot waves pushing on our starboard quarter. But at seven knots we were now going too fast -- we would get there too early. We had to arrive at our destination, a few miles up the New River, at 4 pm, when it would be slack tide. If we were earlier or later, the strong tidal flows in that river would make it difficult to get into the slips which lie perpendicular to the tidal flow. So about an hour before the waypoint marking our turn west into the Port Everglades Cut to Fort Lauderdale, we switched back to the small jib and slowed  back down to four knots.  We were also happy to have the self tacking small jib out because the turn to the west would involve a jibe. We had planned for the 3:30 opening of the 17th Street Bridge across the ICW in Ft. Laud, but sailing with just the small jib until a few hundred yards from the bridge, we still got there too early, and made the 3;00 opening. Better too early, which can be solved by slowing down, that too late, because there is a limit on how fast we can speed up.

This is someone elses idea of beauty and is big and probably fast and unusual in design and color and parked near Steven Spielbergs mega yacht that is pictured in the post from our early spring 2012 visit to this city.

So we had to slow down and solved this by drifting north in the ICW in neutral and maintained steerage  with the wind and tide until we turned left into the New River. We had a scare when we heard on the radio from a friendly power boat of New Yorkers that the railroad bridge, one of the four we passed under, was down for maintenance; it is normally up and out of the way except when a train comes. That would completely screw up our timing issue. But it went up again, just in time, and we had an easy landing and were all tied up by 4:15, talked with our new neighbors, took showers, a delicious steak dinner aboard and tried, without success, to watch Downton Abbey via WiFi.

Cooleys Landing and Marathon are both municipal marinas in Florida but they have diametrically opposite pricing policies to influence the length of ones stay. At Marathon they give a bargain price to those who stay long term. One night on a mooring at the monthly rate is only ten dollars, which is less than the price of dinghy docking and restroom use on a daily rate for those on anchor. Here in Fort Lauderdale we pay only $1 per foot per day for dockage with the BoatUS discount, but only for ten calendar days per calendar year, after which 20% higher rates apply. Here they incent short term stays unlike Marathon which favors those who stay for the long haul. We are peripatetic nomads and have never stayed on our boat anywhere for a month.

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January 2 Cooleys Landing Marina Ft Laud to Anchorage NE of Belle Isle Miami Beach 35 6 Miles

Backing out of the slip was complicated by my failure to untie the steering wheel or the line securing ILENE to the port aft piling. But these got done at 6:45 a.m. at slack water and we were off in dawns early light, down the New,

under the 17th Street bridge without a substantial wait and into the Atlantic for the run down the coast. We were near close hauled on port tack in ESE winds and I had put a reef in the main and used the small jib at first until we switched to the genoa for speed. We were 2/3 of a mile off the coast in water that was 20 to 30 feet deep. And it was a rough ride for the 25 outside miles. The kitties lost their breakfast and had to wait till we got in to be fed. I had thought to be able to sail in through Government Cut, the deep wide channel through the beach into Miami, but the seas were very turbulent with wind-built waves opposing out flowing current and the main could not be kept from jibing so we pulled the sails down and motored the rest of the way. Here is a view out to sea after we were in, with friend Rhonda and Marcs apartment among those on the left side. (See more below.)

The Main Channel through Miami Harbor to the city of Miami is a straight shot continuation of the Government Cut and had five cruise ships lined up on our port side. We got about one third of the way through this wide deep straight two mile long channel when a loud speaker from a power boat with blue flashing lights (law enforcement) got our attention : "TURN AROUND! THE MAIN CHANNEL IS CLOSED EXCEPT TO AUTHORIZED VESSELS!" So we did, and went counterclockwise around the other, south side of Purdy Island, which is loaded with commercial vessels including this large dredge (water is cleaning its teeth),

and west to the City of Miami and the ICW, on which we went north for about a mile under two open low bridges and one high bridge before having to wait ten minutes at the low Venetian Causeway bridge (all bridges to the right).

During the wait, a Towboat US boat came by and hailed us: "Arent you from City Island and the Huguenot YC?" "Yes", I said. It was Billy, formerly in charge of hauling boats at the Huegenot, now working here in Miami. Then it was two miles west to this nice little free anchorage NE of Belle Island, the easternmost of the islands strung together like beads by the Venetian Causeway, where we anchored in ten feet of water with 50 feet of snubbed chain. We are just SW of the huge Sunset Harbor Marina.

Dockage there is $4.00 per foot (and these guys run a whole lot of feet); we pay nothing. At about two pm as we were anchoring, inherently a very busy time, we were hailed by a large white trimaran that was leaving: "Hello Ilene!" We said hello and the lady aboard said "I know you from your blog!" Well lady, if you respond, I will be very pleased to edit this post to include information about you and your boat, where you are going, your home port, etc. Here are some of the other anchored boats, there were a lot more here when we arrived.  You can see a bit of the Venetian Causeway, the low horizontal white line, behind them.

Once settled we were hailed for the third time in an hour by our friend Jerry who with his wife Louise, sailed with us for a week in the British and US Virgin Islands early in 2012. After launching the dink I went to the dock, which Dean had told us about, and brought Jerry aboard for a cup of coffee. On rfeturn i saw a sign on the dinghy dock said that you cant tie up for longer than 20 minutes. Jerry suggested that I ask the police. I did so politely, told him that we were visiting for a few days with friends who live here and wanted to go to dinners, the beach, sightseeing, shopping, etc. He said that the sign is to inhibit live aboards who stay here all year and those who leave their boats at the dock for a week while they fly north for the holidays: "Dont worry, you wont be towed." "Thank you very much officer."

The twin engine police boat is at the dock, the police station to the right and a ramp to the left is used by stand up paddleboarders.

That evening we were picked up by Rhonda and Mark and taken to their condo overlooking the Atlantic,

Government Cut, Fishers island, Biscayne Bay, Coconut Grove (our next stop) and the city of Miami. 
Wow what a view! And the apartment is the height of luxury.They let us take showers, lubricated us and we had dinner with them at Ciba, an Italian restaurant that opened less than a month ago. It has lovely decor, great service and, in our opinion, food that is just not remarkable. Rhonda is a friend of Lene from grammar school; they go back a ways. The girls had a good time together and we guys kept each other amused.

They were flying back to New York for a week the next day and gave us their last night in town, our first, at the end of a full day.

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January 3 9 SEVEN Lay days in Miami B each Zero Miles

Miami, including the separately incorporated city of Miami Beach, is the largest city on our trip, by far. It is very much like New York, except for the temperature. Chock a block high rises, crowded urban density, traffic and parking problems, construction blocking streets frequently, lots of high income and low income people, lots of culture and a heavy Hispanic and Jewish component of the population. And while there are lots of old folks like us
down here, there are also a lot of young people in Miami Beach. Possibly the similarities are because so many retired New Yorkers have moved here -- also a lot of Canadians.
What made our stay so special -- and so long -- was the hospitality of our friends, Jerry and Louise. We swam in the surf and the pool of their condo. Those are kite board sails not gargantuan seagulls

We did our laundry there, took several showers and were ferried everywhere by auto. We had one dinner at their home, one with them and their friends, Harvey and Phyllis, at a new eclectic restaurant on Indian Creek Road at 27th Street.

From the left: Harvey, Phyllis, Jerry, Lene and Louise

and were invited with them to a lovely party of about forty people in another apartment in their building. We also had pizza with them one night and burgers at the highly rated B&B restaurant near us, which took two hours! So thge place is not highly rated by us.
They introduced us to stand up paddleboarding (SUP), which Lene frequently malaprops as "waterboarding;" Vive le difference! This was at Oleta State Park, several miles north of the city. Lene proved adept at this new (for us) sport. Im a slower learner. I had no problem climbing up onto the board, raising myself to my hands and knees and then to an erect position. But each of the ten times I did this, after a few strokes with the long paddle, I tilted it and fell off. Next time, Im told, I should keep my feet closer to the center of the board rather than toward its sides. And there will be a next time because we have rented an inflatable board (lashed to the starboard rails) and paddle until we get back here in about six weeks on the way home. Pictures of it, on board ILENE and in use, will be shown in next post. Jerry and Louise are also avid cyclists and Jerry is to lead his bike club on a 26 mile bike tour from Coconut Grove soon. One afternoon I rode shotgun with him in their car, calling out the 45 turns to be made during this bike trip.
Our anchorage was very close, walking distance, to many of the attractions of the downtown area in addition to both Publix and Fresh Market, a gas station, Chase Bank, dry cleaners and many restaurants.  The sights we visited were the dramatic Holocaust Memorial

and the Miami Beach Botanical Garden











 (very small but well done with about fifteen stops where you hear a recorded explanation about the fauna at that location on your cell phone).

Lene with giant banyon

We also saw The New World Symphonys hall, where they show movies for free on the huge white wall to people like us who sat on the lawn in front with a terrific audio system, and Lincoln Road Mall, a street closed to vehicular traffic and filled with shops and restaurants. We had lunh at Yuca, (Young Urban Cuban America). We are urban and American so meet only half the requirements, but they let us in and the food was good, including. for me, a  Media Noche sandwich which though called "midnight" they served for lunch.
The movie, shown for free en plein air on the large exterior wall, was "Hole In The Head", a Frank Sinatra comedy of the late 50s, which seemed uniquely appropriate to the setting because Frank played a down and out widowed playboy hotel owner in Miami Beach with a young son. The titles were aerial shots of the beach with banners towed by those beach banner planes spelling out such things as "Directed by FRANK CAPRA." It was not a great movie, saved by the performances of Edward G. Robinson and Thelma Ritter, but the experience was terrific.
At the near end of Lincoln Road, which is only about five blocks long, is a eighteen screen movie house in which we saw Unbroken, Top Five and Selma; a movie binge after a long drought along the way.
Boat chores accomplished during our stay here included sewing the sides of the zipper at the top of the stack pack to the sides of the bag. The stitches got torn out when I forget to fully open the zipper and raised the main with the electric winch; it is so strong that the sails leach pulled the stitches out, which is not god for the sail either!
I also had to take out the interior panels of the big lazarete to locate and fix the fresh water plumbing which is hidden behind the largest and lowest such panel. We noticed that the fresh water pump did not shut off after the faucet was shut off (because, due to the leak, pressure never built up) and Lene heard a flow of water after we turned that pump off. Yes, one of the short pieces of hose that I had attached last winter had come off, so the pump was pumping our fresh water into the bilge. I added a second hose clamp to each end of that two inch long piece of rubber hose and put back all the wood panels with the eighteen screws.
While the title of this post says we traversed zero miles, we actually did motor about 2.5 miles, from one side of Belle Island to the other.

First we went west along the north side of the the Venetian Causeway (the road connecting the row of six man made islands across the center of the chart) to its low opening bridge, at its Miami (left side) end, and then back east along the causeways southern side to the Miami Beach end (right side). We started a bit northeast of Belle Island, the easternmost of the string of man made islands that the causeway connects, to end up just south of Belle Island, just .4 miles away. We passed the Flagler monument, on the tiny island to the northwest of the blue (shallow spot in the middle of the right side of the chart.

Before the move we were about 100 yards west of the police dinghy dock (just below the small rectangle in the upper right) and afterwards we were almost half a mile south west. The reason for this change of venue was the weather.  The original anchorage was crowded making it difficult to put out enough chain to feel secure without bumping into nearby boats when swinging on the anchors. And with predicted winds gusting to 30 knots from the north, this problem would have gotten worse. On the south side, there is a lot more room between the boats and we were in the lee of the island which protected us from the strong winds.
Next stop: Dinner Key, known as Coconut Grove to land people, less than ten miles away.

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