Daphne's camp is on the Upper St. Regis Lake where you'll see a boat you can find nowhere else - the Idem, a sailing sloop designed specially for sailing competitions on this lake. It was in 1899 that the St. Regis Yacht Club commissioned a young naval architect to design a class of wooden sailing sloops specifically for their winds.
Going through my pictures back home in humid Virginia, I wanted more detail on this lovely old wooden boat that we saw when cruising the lake, so I sent Daphne the picture above and got this email back: "The old boat is an IDEM - they were designed by Clinton Crane specifically for our lake, Upper St, Regis. Twelve of them were built around the turn of the century - one is on display at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake - but the others are all being sailed and right here. They are 32 feet long, with 600 square feet of sail area - gaff rigged with Egyptian cotton sails - and take a crew of 5."
And get this - the sailing competition on the Upper St. Regis Lake still takes place every year!
