Flicka Ben Main Jr
Hull 315 · Built 1985 · Suttons Bay, Michigan / USA
In Flicka Friends
Hull #315 is one of only eight gaff-rigged Flickas Pacific Seacraft built, and when Tom Davison profiled her in Flicka Friends #19 (Fall 2000) she was thought to be the only grey one — Bruce Bingham could not recall another. Under Richard (Dick) Shepherd of Cincinnati she lived at Suttons Bay, Michigan, and sailed Grand Traverse Bay: a wooden-sparred gaff-headed cutter in 1990, a sloop with an overlapping roller-furling jib by 1995, and by 2000 a gaff rig on varnished wooden spars with a stays'l and a roller-furling 120% genoa. Shepherd fitted a trim tab to the rudder, worked by a short motorboat steering cable running to a brass plate on the tiller and adjusted with one wing nut, to take the load off the helm when sailing under main alone. Her dodger, bimini and side and aft curtains close the cockpit in completely; built about 1990 by Bill Buchbinder of Blue Water Sail & Canvas in Traverse City, the enclosure was described in Flicka Friends #20 (Winter 2000) as adding another room to the boat. Shepherd also kept a Trinka dinghy named Little Ben, painted to match.
By 2003 Ben Main Jr. belonged to Tom Grimes, and Davison helped him set her on a new trailer; Flicka Friends #30 (Summer 2003) pictures her at the Northport Bay Boatyard in Northport, Michigan. Once Grimes had his Triad trailer the old wooden cradle went unused, and the marina that had stored the boat cut it up before he could retrieve it; #39 (Summer 2006) records the pieces being fitted back together to take its dimensions — 9 ft 6 in long by 48 in wide. Flicka Friends #44 (Spring 2008) shows her on a Lake Charlevoix cruise, docked at Boyne City and lying at Charlevoix at sunrise.
Photographed in #49 p.2 (as BEN MAIN, Jr), #49 p.6 (as BEN MAIN, Jr), #49 p.6 (as BEN MAIN, Jr), #49 p.7 (as BEN MAIN, Jr), #49 p.7 (as BEN MAIN, Jr), #49 p.9 (as BEN MAIN, Jr), #51 p.3, #51 p.4 (as BEN MAIN, Jr), #51 p.9 (as BEN MAIN, Jr)
Written up in Flicka Friends6
Issues of the owners’ newsletter that mention Ben Main Jr. Links open the PDF at the page.
- #19Flicka Profile: s/y BEN MAIN, Jr by Tom DavisonFall 2000 · page 6
- #20Adding Another Room To s/v BEN MAIN, Jr by Tom DavisonWinter 2000 · page 6
- Also mentioned in
- #3Letter by Tom DavisonWinter 1995 · page 3
- #30Shroud Modification-- by Eric JungemannSummer 2003 · page 2
- #39A Wooden Cradle For Your Flicka by Tom DavisonSummer 2006 · page 10
- #44Charlevoix, Michigan by East Jordan, MichiganSpring 2008 · page 2
More about Ben Main Jr
BEN MAIN, Jr. is a gaff-rigged Pacific Seacraft Flicka with spruce spars. The hull was ordered from the Pacific Seacraft Factory and the factory approved rig was installed in Michigan. This Flicka has always been in fresh water and stored inside every winter since new. Quite a few stories about BEN MAIN, Jr. can be found in the class newsletter: Flicka Friends
Passages
Lake Michigan and Lake Huron: Beaver Island, Grand Traverse Bay, Mackinac Island, Lake Charlevoix, Les Cheneaux Islands.
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Other boats in the registry with a similar era, maker, or rig.
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