Geary 18

I arrived in Seattle in the summer of 1957. Many of my friends were involved with sailing. I was brought along on races and weekend cruises as moveable ballast. Now that I was being introduced to sailing I regularly checked the sports section of the Post Intelligencer and Times. Their sports pages featured news about sail racing. There were lots of repeat winners in the race reports but the winner in the weekly Flattie class was almost always Felix Moiteret and his Flattie Whippet. I had a mental image of the Flattie as a water-borne rocket.  I was working at Boeing as an architect and Felix was a superintendent of my architect group.  Eventually I felt confident enough in sailing to ask him how he always won. There was a 3 second pause and he said, as if he was responding to a “how do I walk” question: “I just let Whippet do what she was designed for.” After that Moiteret and I only spoke architectese.

It took me 40 years to understand what Felix meant. I was interviewing Norm Blanchard in 1997 about the history of Blanchard Boat Company. He was giving me the company chronology since his dad, N.J. Blanchard started building boats in 1900. Norm got to 1928 when his dad gave him his first lead project, lofting the first Flattie, and the wisdom of Felix finally made sense.

This is the story Norm told me:

In the fall of 1927 a tragic event happened on Lake Washington. A group of teenagers from the Seattle Yacht Club attempted to sail across the lake on a cold stormy day with white frothed waves abeam. Their open 23’ Star boat capsized-sunk and four of the six youth drowned.

The Seattle Yacht Club began examining the small craft that were at their docks and decided a new unsinkable type of boat was needed for youth sail training. In 1928 notices were distributed to naval architects for proposals. The SYC boat selection committee listened to many presentations. Ted Geary gave one of them. Geary had a well-deserved reputation as a designer of extreme sail racing vessels and elegant motor yachts in the 100 ton category. SYC eyebrows must have risen when they heard Ted Geary had designed a modest sail trainer, and Geary must have anticipated that because he asked to be the last to present and he began “I want you to understand this is not a boat you can sit in and watch the ducks swim by.”

Ted Geary came up with a plan that was too good to refuse. It appeared to be a simple 18’, flat bottom, transom sterned boat. It was inexpensive to build, would not sink but would be fast to sail because of its hull proportions (low freeboard  reducing windage, narrow bottom, reducing drag). To get the best balance the Flattie had a mast and inboard rudder that could easily be adjusted fore and aft. SYC selected the design. The well-regarded boatbuilder, N.J. Blanchard had already built many Geary designs. He had seen the plans before the S.Y.C. had reviewed them and was so confident it would be the chosen boat that he asked his 17 year old son, Norm, to loft the first Flattie. (To loft means laying out a full size working drawing of the lines and contours of a boat’s hull.) N.J. offered to build the first 10 for $150 (ready to sail) and following orders for $200.

Blanchard built 29 Flatties in the first two years. He also sold kits with pre cut Douglas fir frames, red cedar planking and decking. Over 100 kits were sold by Blanchard. It turned out the kits were more profitable than the built boats. The popularity of the Flatties was that they were fast, inexpensive and with the flat bottoms, could be hauled up on a float. Their competition, the Stars, cost more and because of their fixed keel, had to be left on a mooring. The Flattie was both fast because of its hull shape and also stable because its beam was carried almost full length – with the same beam 4/5 of the length. It is unsinkable because of its great stability and wide decks. 

Flatties are now called Geary 18’s for good reason. Geary made a simple, safe, flat bottom skiff that was a water-borne rocket.

Dick Wagner