How kids helped resurrect class boat

US Sailing met with Will Holmgren, President of the North Haven Dinghy Foundation, to get the scoop on one of America’s most enduring sailboats.

The North Haven Dinghy, with its distinct wineglass stern and rich history, has long been a symbol of Maine’s sailing heritage. But as this iconic boat began to fade into the background, a group of passionate sailors, led by Holmgren, decided it was time for a comeback.

In this Q&A, Will shares how a simple conversation turned into a movement to breathe new life into the Dinghy fleet and why it’s crucial to get kids involved in sailing this classic vessel.

What inspired the creation of the North Haven Dinghy Foundation, and how did you get involved?

The Dinghy Foundation began as a cross-generational conversation about preserving this iconic class of sailboat — the oldest continually raced one-design sailboat in America.  It was basically:  these boats are part of American sailing history, but for whatever reasons they are turning into historical artifacts rather than being a vigorously active fleet.

They’re super fun to sail, so the question was, “How do we save the North Haven Dinghy?” In its heyday in the early 20th century, there were 50-60 North Haven Dinghies racing in several divisions all summer long.

The distinct wineglass stern and four-sided sail peppered the waters of Penobscot Bay.  When I first raced one, I was a teenager, and it was a gusty day and I was basically limber ballast for a 70-year-old skipper who had been racing Dinghies since he was a kid.  We ripped along in the boat and won our race against a few other boats, and I was hooked. The answer to the Foundation’s existential question seemed patently clear:  we save the Dinghies by getting kids in them having fun.

Then it was a question of access to boats.  We were able to gather some competitive Dinghies into a communal fleet (bringing some out of long-term storage).  We fixed them up, put on new sails, started working with a local yacht club to insinuate Dinghies into the youth program, particularly alongside Optimists which also have a single four-sided sail.  And voila, North Haven Dinghies were cool again.

For anyone new to sailing, what is the significance of this longstanding one-design boat to the sailing world at large?

A local Maine paper put it best, on the North Haven Dinghy’s 100th anniversary in 1987, stating of the Dinghy’s establishment of the one-design concept, “all boats are built to the same specifications, making the skipper’s skills the determining factor in a race, not the gadgetry of the boat.”

The elegance is the simplicity of the playing field.  We take it for granted now, but the invitation for anyone to compete and feel he or she has a truly fair shot at winning is a sporting principle to extol and preserve.

By the way — I point this out to my young daughters — the first North Haven Dinghy race in 1887 was won by a woman racing against two boats skippered by men.  The North Haven Dinghy’s design is simple and elegant, too.  You sit low in what feels like a canoe and you feel the water whipping along hull.  It’s visceral, and there is a reason people have loved these boats for so many years.

Tell us more about the foundation’s mission and the goals you’re working towards?

The Foundation takes a proactive, interventionist, creative approach to preservation.  Our focus is immediately on providing public access to Dinghies, emphasizing instruction to kids, and rapidly expanding the number of viable North Haven Dinghies on the water.  The more folks who catch the bug to sail these boats, the better, and with sailing it is often at first simply a question of “how can I get in a boat?”  We remove all those barriers.

If there is an owner who is not gung-ho about their Dinghy, we try to find a way to put that boat at the disposal of others who will gleefully sail it.  And like any species, regeneration is critical.  We are looking to commission new Dinghies built exactly as they always have been.  Our goal is to end up with 40 Dinghies on a starting line by 2040.

How has the foundation impacted the local community on North Haven Island?

There are several layers to this.  For the multitude of sailors on the island, it is a wonderful comeback tale.  Everyone knows the North Haven Dinghy’s place in history, and now they are seeing a vibrant renaissance.  The Foundation won the big prize at the end of the sailing season for having had the biggest impact on our community in 2024.

But it’s the kids who are having the obvious hoot, just messing around in these craft because Dinghies were not really accessible before — more of the classic-boat-don’t-touch feel has now shifted to “where are we sailing the Dinghy flotilla today?”

The island boatyards are also seeing new interest in the fleet.  We want to have new Dinghies built and there is excitement around that prospect.  There is a pride in the fact that these historically significant boats are constructed on island.

What challenges has the foundation faced, and how have you overcome them?

There’s always a challenge in trying to skin a cat in a novel way.  There were doubts about strategy and follow-through but luckily we have a pretty simple model and heaps of local support.  It’s great to have so many of the lifelong Dinghy sailors come up and say how impressed they are with the growth and appetite.

This is the “backwards” commitment of the Foundation as a functioning class association:  by focusing resources almost entirely on the enjoyment of people who do not own a North Haven Dinghy, we end up amplifying the experience for those who do.

Share more about the foundation’s educational programs and how they engage participants?

We have two basic educational initiatives.  First is a stand-alone, free, open-to-all regular clinic taught by US Sailing-certified instructors each week that meets folks wherever they are in terms of sailing skill and gets them immediately out in a Dinghy.  If the sailor wants further instruction, the boats are available for private lessons and they can arrange those with instructors.

The goal is to get anyone interested to become a “proficient Dinghy sailor,” capable of sailing Dinghies alone.  When folks arrive at that designation, the communal fleet is then available to them through a free reservation system whenever they want to go sailing.  This is a total game changer.

The second initiative is a collaboration with a local yacht club which has access to the communal fleet as teaching vessels for the youth sailing program.  This is super important.  Getting kids feeling totally familiar with North Haven Dinghies guarantees the lifeblood of the class.

What are the foundation’s plans for the future, and how can people get involved?

Head over to nhdinghy.org/give and help us expand the communal fleet.  The Dinghy Foundation is a tax-deductible 501(c)3 charitable organization wholly funded by donations.  The provision and maintenance of communal boats is our core competency and our fundamental thesis — giving more people more access means the North Haven Dinghy legacy lives on.

We have a half-dozen boats in the Foundation’s communal fleet now and would like to triple or quadruple that number in the next 15 years, with the goal of 40 Dinghies on the starting line by 2040 (a mix of communal and privately owned boats).

Sailing is a revitalizing sport.  Here, we are revitalizing the original concept of the one design and the community where this platonic ideal of equal equipment first flourished.