SUMMER 2019
SW
022
Q Upper St. Regis Lake, New
York, is an o
-the-beaten-path
destination where members
of St. Regis YC savor their
anonymity. For more than 100
years, summer residents of this
eclectic Adirondack enclave
have combined a “great camp”
lifestyle with a passion for a
summer-long regatta. But the
big news about this fleet in the
forest is the ancient 32-foot
one-design sloop that remains
the club’s focal point.
My interest in Idem sloops
grew out of a chance encounter
at a Safety at Sea Seminar in
Larchmont, New York. A seminar
attendee approached me during
a break and asked if I’d ever
heard of an Idem sloop.
The sailboat and its name
weren’t familiar, so I asked for
further details. Ogden Reid
introduced himself as a life-
long Idem sailor and summer
resident of Upper St. Regis—no
mention was made of his six-
term tenure as a member of the
U.S. House of Representatives
or his role as a past publisher of
the New York Herald Tribune. He
did, however, share some capti-
vating tales about the lake, the
boats he raced and his family
camp, “Wild Air.”
What really caught my atten-
tion, however, was the familiar
ring of a serious competitor
describing the uniqueness of his
fleet. He extended an invitation
to come and visit for a sail, and
a few years later, while kayakingin the Adirondacks, I did finally
spot a fleet of Idems in action.
Idem owner and skipper
John Allen o
ered me a chance
to get a closer look at a special
fleet of sailboats and sailors in
harmony with their local waters.
These agile scows fit their
evergreen backdrop and the
shifty mountain breezes that
keep them animated. On the
lake, tactics are made more
by instinct than by calculation,
and local knowledge is abso-
lutely essential. All 10 of the
ga
-rigged scows I witnessed
seemed equally competitive.
Mainsail trimmers, perched
on the aft deck, didn’t have
much room to duck the over-
hanging boom during each tack
or jibe. Tightly-woven Egyptian
cotton sails were another
authentic stamp of antiquity,
and even the combination
of a 600-pound centerboard
and three or four crew in the
cockpit—all crammed to wind-
ward—didn’t always keep the
boats upright. The big mainsails
didn’t make things any easier,
and each puff arrived with a
mast-thumping punch.
The next day was a rainy,
windless washout, and the
Adirondack Museum, built on
the shore of picturesque Blue
Mountain Lake, proved to be
the right place to gather more
information about the Idem.
Woodworking and watercraft are
ingrained in the heritage of this
region, and the centerpiece ofthe Museum is the Reid family’s
sloop, Water Witch. Its designer,
Clinton Crane, a Harvard-
educated engineer from Oyster
Bay, New York, followed his
sailing interest and became an
amateur yacht designer, drawing
winning sailboats for many of
his friends. Later in his career,after a stint running his family’s
mining business, he returned to
his drawing board and added the
12-Meter sloop Gleam and the J
Class Weetamoe to his portfolio.
The Idem was one of Crane’s
first projects. Radical for its
day, at 32 feet overall and
19 feet at the waterline, theSTARTING LINE
ONE-DESIGN
BY RALPH NARANJOA Fleet in the Forest
These one-design ladies of the lake are ageless
beauties in a place where time stands still