Ask Margaret
You heard correctly. In 1947, Clark Mills
(1915-2001) designed and built a pintsized
boat for the purpose of safely
teaching children younger than 15
years of age to sail. Clarkie, as he was
known, was a well-respected boat
designer and builder whose Clark
Mills Boat Works was located in the
wooden building that still stands at
985 Douglas Ave. in Dunedin and
is now home to the Woodwright
Brewery Company. It was there that
he designed and built the first of
what he named the Optimist Pram.
Clarkie chose the boat’s two-word
name for two reasons. “Optimist”
because Major Cliff McKay, who originally
brought the boat concept to the Clearwater
Optimist Club, had asked him to design the
children’s boat on their behalf; and “pram”
as a nod to the British baby carriage.
The Clearwater Optimist Club members
felt that child-size sailboats would become
a welcome extension of their annual oneday
world-class sailboat especially
designed for children originated
children’s soap box derby races. After
all, the little boats could be used more than
once in the area’s plentiful waterways for
racing as well as for learning sailing skills.
The requirements for the boat’s design
were specific. It needed to be seaworthy,
safe, simple to build and inexpensive,
costing no more than fifty dollars. Clarkie
by Margaret Word Burnside
I’ve been told that a
in the Tampa Bay area.
Is this true?
D.H., Westchase
met the challenge by designing a wooden
prototype that he quickly assembled in
less than two days for the Optimists’ next
meeting, where he also presented them
with rights to the design.
The Optimist pram’s hull with its
squared-off bow and stern was made of five
140 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018
main pieces, cut from two sheets of 4-footby
8-foot plywood. The boat featured an
encased daggerboard to control tipping
and a crosswise bulkhead near its
center to provide sturdiness. Clarkie
attached a cross board near the bow,
which he drilled with a centered hole in
order to accommodate a vertical mast
to which he secured a horizontal boom.
The mast and boom held a four-sided
spritsail, which had its taller upper
rear corner held taut by a diagonal
wooden pole that was attached near
the mast’s center. The additional sail
area provided by the unevenly squared
sail made the boat capable of obtaining
greater speeds. A young skipper could
control the sail with easily accessible
ropes, known as lines or sheets, which
were threaded through a pulley located
behind the daggerboard. Clarkie’s two
sheets of plywood also provided the wood
for the boat’s tiller, which was used to
steer it, and for a tiller extension, so that
the seated lone sailor could control the
boat’s direction and keep the sail trimmed
while leaning backward over the water
from either side of the boat. Hiking out,
as this is called, uses body weight to help
keep the boat as level as possible in order
to gain speed. To make hiking out safer
and easier, Clarkie installed foot straps for
better balance along the boat’s inner sides.
If you have any questions about the
people, places or things in the Tampa
Bay area, please send them to
“Ask Margaret” at Tampa Bay Magazine,
2531 Landmark Drive, Suite 101,
Clearwater, Florida 33761.
We regret that not all questions
can be answered.