Penguin Class Dinghy

The Penguin is an 11 ft 5 in cat-rigged racing dinghy drawn by Philip Rhodes in 1933 for a frostbite competition on Long Island Sound. It lost that contest, and Rhodes put the drawings away until 1938, when sailors on the Potomac River wanted a boat they could build themselves for winter racing. They built a dozen in plywood the next year, and the class grew to thousands of boats racing in the United States, Argentina and Brazil.

She is a hard chine plywood hull with a centerboard and a transom-hung rudder, about 4 ft 8 in in beam and 140 lb, with roughly 70 sq ft of sail. She is normally sailed by two, and can be raced single-handed at minimum weight. Fiberglass hulls were allowed from 1959, but wooden boats still race alongside them. The International Penguin Class Dinghy Association publishes the plans free, including a 2015 set with CNC cutting files for a self-rescuing wooden hull, and answers questions at info@penguinclass.org. Not to be confused with John Welsford's 21 ft Penguin trailer yacht, which is a different boat entirely.