On any summer Saturday morning at Groton Long Point, Connecticut, the Lagoon springs to life as sailors prepare their Class A's for a race. Two or three of the 73-year-old sloops shoulder into the floats at Murphy's dock with hoses spewing bilgewater over the side and sails strewn in the cockpit. Skipper and crew take a final inventory and then scramble home, or over to Noank, to replace a wom out sheet or patch a sail. Before noon all hands forage for lunch, fold spinnakers, stock coolers, check their "Eldridge" and decide whether the building southwesterly wind will warrant a fourth crewmember.

Just after noon, mainsails blossom over the waters with jibs quickly following suit. A symphony of terse commands, running sheets, squeaky blocks and surging pumps accompanies the fleet as they slip their moorings. The sleek, shallow draft hulls reach down the Lagoon on port tack. Sails are trimmed as the boats harden up before taking a few hitches in the narrow mouth of the Lagoon. On starboard tack, they close reach past the piling, which marks the end of the south breakwater. The fleet gradually bears off toward the starting line west of Main Beach and another afternoon of guns, tides, flags, plans, tactics, trimming, easing, bailing, sail changes and refreshment.

Since they were built in 1923, the Fishers Island One Designs, as the Class A's were originally called, have been enthusiastically raced, day sailed and cruised on Fishers Island Sound. The fleet has anchored in only two harbors. The first was Hay Harbor, Fishers Island, New York, from 1923-33 and the second, the Lagoon at Groton Long Point, Conn., from 1933 to the present. Four generations of sailors have grown to love these boats and their traditions.

This was the second fleet of Fishers Island One Designs built for Hay Harbor sailors. According to John P. Gaillard, whose family owned "Swallow," the first fleet of One Designs was built at City Island in 1913. Upon launching, the first fleet was towed up Long Island Sound by Walter Ferguson's steam yacht "Christobel. " Adding the 10 years of the first fleet to the experience of the second fleet, the One Designs have plied the waters of Fishers Island Sound for 83 summers.

The boats were designed by Charles Drown Mower, a naval architect, who spent most of his professional life in New York. In May of 1942, "Yachting" noted that "his was always an artist's approach to his profession." His original plans, or "linens," for the first fleet (Design #1 30) and the second fleet (Design #697) reside in the Mower collection at the Ship's Plans Division of Mystic Seaport. The first fleet was designed before 1910. The builder of the first fleet remains a mystery. John Gaillard wrote that this fleet was constructed at City Island, New York, while Mystic Seaport lists the builder as the Dauntless Yard in Essex, Conn.

In 1941, Henry Nevins, who personally supervised the building of the second fleet at the Nevins Yard on City Island, wrote to the Rev. Jack Dorchester: "In 1923 we built 16 of these boats designed by Charles Mower, a brilliant designer of all types of sailing craft, whose schooners are seaworthy and fast and whose genius is genuinely displayed in these little boats known as the Fishers Island One Design Class. These boats were built to be moored in little Hay Harbor and used for afternoon sailing and racing in Fishers Island Sound." The designer's typewritten specifications to the Nevins Boatyard for the construction of "Swallow" in the second fleet were recently located by Kip Wiley.

They are not the oldest of this genre. One Design sailboats came of age in the late 1800's and have flourished since the early 1900's. In Europe the earliest one-design was the 131 Water Wag which first raced in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland in 1887. The North Haven Dinghy of Penobscot Bay, Maine was the first United States entry into one-design competition. Four were built in the winter of 1884-5 and raced the following summer. A "Grand Dingy Race" held in August of 1887, was won by Miss Ellen Hayward. The Dinghies still compete at Penobscot Bay.

Numerous classes preceded the Fishers Island One Design. The Clinton Crane designed Idem class of upper St. Regis Lake in the Adirondacks, which were built in 1900, are the oldest class of actively racing one-design boats with original boats participating. Other classes such as the Herreshoff 15 (Watch Hill 15) (1898), Wianno Seniors (1900) and Starts (1911) predate the Fishers Island One Design. While not the oldest one design craft, the Groton Long Point Class A's may be the only fleet, comprised solely of the original production hulls, which has raced continuously since they were built.

The shallow draft hull measures 24 feet in length, 15 feet on the waterline and has a 7-foot beam. She draws 18 inches with the centerboard in the trunk and 4 and a half feet with it down. The bottom sweeps up to the topsides through rounded chines. Mower's description of another of his designs aptly fits the One Designs. "The boat has a good beam and fairly hard bilges, so that she will carry her sail and always be stiff and Weatherly." There is no head, no engine, no hatch, and no provision for sleeping. The boats were converted from a gaff to a Marconi rig in 1929 at the Dauntless Yard in Essex, Conn. Other changes made at that time included lead bricks placed under the floorboards beside the centerboard trunk for added stability and air tanks which were placed laterally fore and aft to aid in the rescue should a boat capsize.

Marie Lee Gaillard of Hay Harbor fondly recalls sailing aboard those "wonderful One Designs" in the 1920's. "Our boat was "Swallow," anchored off our dock in Hay Harbor. (We) boarded by a rowboat piles with sails. Breezing out the channel with a southwest wind was a cinch. The channel is very narrow and winding, bordered by rocks and sandbars. Tacking back, however, was a challenge, especially against an ebb tide." When the channel at Hay Harbor began to silt in during the early 1930's, the skippers decided to move their racing venue to West Harbor and purchase a fleet of keel boats. They initially bought Herreshoff 23's and later, Luders 16's. They sold the fleet of One Designs in 1933.

Bert Ferguson, an early Class A skipper at Groton Long Point, reported that the Hay Harbor owners "turned the fleet over to Ernest and Franklin Post in Mystic with an understanding that it would be sold intact to a single (yacht) club." He called it "a thoughtful arrangement, and our good fortune." Available records from the Post Boat Yard (which is best remembered for two sleek eight foot "rum runners" built there in the early days of Prohibition) fail to mention the brokering of the A boats. Edward P. Jones of Mystic reported that they were purchased by Post for $100 each, and sold for $200. Marie Gaillard watched the fleet leave with mixed emotions. "I am so glad they found such a good haven even though I grieved at the time they left."

The sail numbers and names of the boats have drifted through several intentional or accidental alterations. Except for "Kite," current sail numbers don't agree with the original hull numbers. The number of the hull had been engraved on the rudder post by the Nevins Yard. Workmen at the Post Boat Yard mistakenly interchanged the rudder posts without regard to the original numbers. Eight of the boats, "Sandpiper..... Kite," "Widgeon," "Pelican," "Skimmer," "Petrel," "Swallow," and "Kittiwake" still answer to their maiden names. All of the boats, except "Ginger," which was named for Russ Viering's dog, are named for birds.

Groton Long Point families maintained and energized the fleet after its arrival. For 56 summers, four generations of Washbums have raced "Kite." She was purchased by John Washburn, Sr. after the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. His sons, Jack and Dick Washburn, have skippered her for over 50 years. Dick recalled first seeing "Kite" in the boathouse at the Post Yard with "bruises" on her topsides from banging against nearby boats during the Hurricane. Frank Murphy has campaigned "Skimmer" with various combinations of children and grandchildren for over 40 years. Bill Young bought "Pelican" to Yale University with him in the late 1930's, mooring her in Branford Harbor. He subsequently raced "Petrel" and "Ginger." Bill suffered a fatal heart attack while crewing for his grandson, Joe Devine IV, aboard "Petrel" in 1987. The Bill Fisher family traces their fleet roots back through "Kittiwake" and "Curlew."

No boats remain from the first fleet. Of the sixteen boats in the second fleet, fourteen still exist. The other two, "Turstone" and "Curlew," broke up on the rocks off East Beach at Groton Long Point during Hurricane Carol in 1954. All fourteen existing boats are located at the Point, as are relics of the two lost hulls.