THE INTERNATIONAL MOTH CLASS...

The International Moth holds the current world record for the furthest south a sailing craft has ever ventured. A photo of the Moth, designed by Hal Wagstaff and built by his brother Gary in Wellington NZ, hangs even today in the Antartic base at McMurdo Sound. The King of Siam once sailed the Thai Moth he built and designed himself, in a Moth regatta in the UK.

It all began in 1928 when the late Len Morris built a cat rigged (single sail) flat bottomed scow to sail on Andersons' Inlet at Inverloch, a seaside resort, 130km from Melbourne in Australia. She was hard chined, was eleven foot long, and carried 80 sq ft in single mainsail. The craft was named "Olive" after his wife. The constuction was timber with an internal construction somewhat like Hargreave's box kite.

"Olive's" performance was so outstanding, that a similar boat "Whoopee" was built. Len Morris then sold "Olive", and built another boat called "Flutterby", and with those three boats, the Inverloch Yacht Club was formed. Restrictions for the class know as the Inverloch Eleven Foot class were then drawn up.

At much the same time, 1930 in fact, the American Moth Class was started by captain Van Sant of Atlantic city. The American Moth, so it turned out, was of similar dimensions to the Australian Inverloch class. News of the American boat came to Australia in 1933 when it appeared in the American yachting magazine "Rudder". The name for the American boat seemed appropriate, so the name of the Inverloch Eleven Class was changed to Moth Class.

In 1936 the Victorian Moth Class Association was formed, but it was not until after WWII, that the NSW Moth Class Sailing Association was formed with foundation members coming from Seaforth Moth Club and Woolahra Sailing Club. During this time Australian Moths were using pre-bent and wing masts in the 1950s.

From 1956 to 1961 all other states formed Moth Associations and in 1962 the Australian Yachting Federation (AYF) recognised the Australian Moth class as a national class, the FIRST small boat class in Australia to be granted national status.

In 1966-67, The King of Siam was also involved in the building of three Moths and sailed them on the pond at Chitrlada Palace. The King raced for almost 20 years on his second moth called 'Super Mod' until his design and construction efforts were cut short by the 'press of royal duties'.

Over much the same period as the Moth class was becoming established in Australia, the International Moth spread from the USA to England and Europe. Modications to align both the Australian Moth and the overseas Moth were made over a period of time culminating with the establishment of the International Moth Class Assocation (IMCA) by the IYRU in 1972 bound by the restrictions of the class (with metric measurement conversions) operating today.

During the 1970's, a lot of the Moth sailors began constructing skiff type hulls and soon added wing bars on the hull to keep the boat more balanced. These skiffs soon were faster than the old scow design, especially as the hull shapes narrowed more and more as the years went on.

The Current International Moth Class

The Future of the International Moth Class

Over the last few years, the class has seen the rules bent to their limits with some sailors manufacturing hydrofoils, winged rudders, winged centreboards and double surfaced sails. Currently the average Moth is about 30 cms wide, weighs between 9 and 13 kgs and can sail just as fast if not faster than most double or single handed monohulls or catamarans.

Very early hydrofoiling testing in Perth, Western Australia

Moths are also considered one the more difficult dinghy classes to sail in the World and hence, only those that have been sailing for some time dare take the challenge. Moth class developments have certainly taken sailing in general to a whole new level as a lot of other international classes closely watch to see what the Moths are doing next so they can try those ideas on their boat in effort to make them go faster. Some of the great names in Australian sailing that have progressed through the Moth class include Olympic representives Emmett Lazich and Andrew Landenburger and 18' skiff sailors Tim Webster and Phil Hebden.