History and Design of the Small Point One Sailboat
Abstract
When I was eight years old, my godmother brought me for the first time to Small
Point, ME, a small community on the water where she had summered for over 40 years.
That first summer, I learned how to sail in a very small boat called an Optimist,
graduating over the years to larger and larger boats until I finally learned to sail a unique
boat that I have come to love: the Small Pointer. The Small Point-One Design is a 19 1/2 ft Knockabout with an integral keel and keel-mounted rudder. The design originated over 70 years ago; a total of 35 craft have been built in this style by eight different builders, with the most recent completed in 2004. All but one still exist, though not all are
seaworthy; many of the older boats have been repaired and modified over the years. The
extended building window for this design combined with a relatively large number of
builders and modifiers has led to significant variances in some of the critical dimensions
of the Small Point-One Design, raising the question as to whether it represents a true One Design anymore. I am interested in understanding the differences among the individual
boats in this class and assessing how variations in the design might affect the
performance of individual boats.