The Candy Boat was a small catboat raced in Tiverton, RI from 1922 – 1972 as well in Touisset, MA and Somerset, MA. This presentation will introuduce the boat and its designer and discuss its production and the development of a fleet that was raced weekly for half a century. It will also focus on the creation of a culture of youth sailing in Tiverton sustaind by generations of teens who learned sailing, seamanship, self reliance in these sweet little boats. It will also discuss contemporary work to preserve the history of the Candy Boat.

Charles M. Flanagan is a retired history educator who earned a Ph.D. in American Studies with a concentration in material culture studies. He also has about 60 years of experience of backyard wooden boat building and repair. His academic pursuits led to spending the mid-1970s to 2025 teaching in various places, concluding with 15 years as an Outreach Supervisor at the National Archives in Washington. The love of boats has engaged Charles in messing about with a long sequence of small boats since a childhood spent watching his father rebuild various boats in Somerset, MA and Portsmouth, RI. Since 1979, the center of Charles’s boating life has been his ownership of, and twice rebuilding, a 1935 Herreshoff 12 1/2 which he still sails in Annapolis, MD. You can read about his work researching the Candy Boat class in the Currents section of WoodenBoat #304.

Gail M. Martin is a Candy boat historian who has been publishing photo history books about Candy Class sailboats (and other maritime topics) for the last 10 years. She began producing them for family and friends and made them available to the public in 2023. A retired photojournalist, she has more than 65 published articles in newspapers and magazines. Her last series of articles in WindCheck magazine this past summer focused on Candy boats and Indian Class sailboats, another New England classic. Her family owned and sailed a Candy boat from 1957 through 1975 at the Tiverton Yacht Club. At the University of Rhode Island (URI), she was a member of the women’s sailing team and captain senior year. During graduate school, she was a sailing instructor for two yacht clubs on Narragansett Bay – Conanicut Yacht Club and Ida Lewis Yacht Club. She holds a BA and MA from URI in English Literature. She grew up in Tiverton, RI, but now lives in Jamestown, RI and sails a Marshall 18’ catboat with her family.