 |
History of the National One-Design Racing Association |
| CATEGORY | DESCRIPTION of FILE CONTENTS | HOT LINK to FILE |
| World Championship History | Listing of Top Finishing Skippers and Boats | worldhst.htm |
| Great Lakes Regatta History | Listing of Top Finishing Skippers and Boats | gl_hist.htm |
| Canadian National History | Listing of Top Finishing Skippers and Boats | can_hist.htm |
| Pendergast Memorial - Womens Trophy | Listing of Recipients, by Year | pndwomen.htm |
| Marcisz Memorial Jr Trophy | Listing of Recipients by Year (Junior Sailors) | marcisz.htm |
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW of NODRA
The
National One-Design (NOD) was an instantaneous hit when its plans appeared
in the January 1937 issue of The
Rudder magazine. Designed
a year earlier (1936) by William F. Crosby, who was editor of The
Rudder as well as a renowned designer, the 17-foot sloop continues to
attract sailors who want to race, sailors who enjoy day sailing and
families who like some of each.
In
those days of the Great Depression before World War II when sailing was
primarily a past time for the wealthy, the simple and elegant lines Crosby
printed in The Rudder were
transformed by dozens of backyard boat builders and a few commercial shops
into speedy and stable craft particularly suited for inland waters.
While
Crosby’s NOD design was rooted in the Snipe class he had designed two
years earlier, NOD’s hull and sail plan have some of the advanced, more
modern characteristics of the much larger 12-meter boats that would
revitalize America’s Cup racing some 20 years later.
The
National One-Design Racing Association (NODRA), founded in 1937 to manage
the new class and its activities and promote NOD sailing, conducted the
first national championship regatta a year later on Lake Wawasee in
northern Indiana. Eight boats
competed and the first champion was Joe Plaskett of Forty Wayne, Indiana,
sailing boat number 78, one of three boats built by his high school
vocational education class.
By
1941 there were 450 NODs in 27 fleets registered with NODRA and an unknown
number of unregistered boats. Class
activities resumed in 1946 after a wartime hiatus when the Milwaukee NOD
fleet sponsored the Great Lakes Championships.
Spurred on by renewed enthusiasm, a reactivated NODRA then
sponsored district, national and world championship regattas throughout
the United States, Canada and Europe.
Some 825
boats were registered in 1987, the 50th anniversary of the
publication of Crosby’s design, with an estimated additional 300 to 400
unregistered boats. Fleets
were chartered in Canada, England, Northern Ireland and Switzerland in
addition to those chartered in the United States.
Today well over 1,000 NODs are sailing in Europe and North America,
with about 850 registered in the United States.
Annually, there are many regattas in the US and Canada, including the annual World Championship. For more information regarding regattas, see our Events page.