Sandbagger. Scale 1:112

Originally, the sandbagger was a working vessel specialized in bottom dredging fishing (oysters, scallops, etc.) on Staten Island, in the shallow waters of New York Bay. Of simple and robust construction, the sandbagger could carry a good load of oysters or other products. By habit, when the boats went out to fish, they did races informally and without respecting any rule, to show who was faster. And very soon the crews learned to move the load due to the wind to optimize the navigation conditions. To supply the lack of keel, and given the limitation they had to embark a large crew (ten men was the maximum because of the size of his hull), the sailors carried bags of sand of 25 kg. (that's where his name comes from) like a mobile ballast that changed sides when turning on board. The sandbagger thus became a very popular regatta sloop at the end of the 19th century. The races that were organized in the bay of New York saw compete the best sailors of the time, and were a field for betting. All kinds of tricks were consented to in these regattas, even becoming habitual to embark people as live ballast, which were thrown into the water at the opportune moment to be able to win in the competition. The hulls, with enough breadth, had very flat hull shapes, and with a hypertrophied sail they could reach very high speeds. To make that great sail possible, they had a very long boom, solidly attached to the hull with metal braces. The most famous of the sandbaggers, called Susie S., of 1863, with a hull of 8.30 m. of length, had a total length of 21.50 m. and had 140 m2 of sail. Unlike other models of the collection, I present the boat in this case in winter, without the sails, to be able to better appreciate its line.