Clarky Mills, the colorful boat designer who changed the boating world with his innovative Optimist pram, died
Dec. 11 in Clearwater, FL, at
the age of 86.
Clarky Mills stands beside one of his
ComPac designs
Cindy Goebel photo
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 Mills said he was always "nutty about boats—anything that floated." He designed numerous sailboats including the Windmill, Picnic Cat, Com-Pac 16 and 23 among others and once even designed a tugboat. But his most noted design was perhaps the smallest one—the Opti.
Mills' boyish grin and modest demeanor belied the fact that he was the internationally famous designer of the most widely used small boat in the world. it is estimated that there are more than half a million Optimist dinghies worldwide. With its simple rig and light, stable, and durable hull, the Optimist is the world standard for introductory level junior sailors.
Mills started building boats in his teens when a neighborhood mom placed an order for a small, inexpensive boat for her son to sail in Clearwater Bay. A wizard at design, Mills quickly drew plans, and a completed boat followed in short order. Other boats followed with little comment about awnings that vanished periodically (and reemerged as sails).
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Mills' first shop consisted of a metal roof supported by six-by-six- inch posts every eight feet. It had no floor aside from the natural sand base. Later, Mills hired neighbors Del Hait and Jimmy Edwards to add metal walls, windows, sliding doors, and a lean-to shed with a wooden floor for sailmaking. The final touch was a "fine concrete floor." Mills was so pleased with their work that he asked them both to stay on. The two men helped him build the first fleet of Optimist Prams.
With a twinkle in his eye, Mills confessed that he had quite a time keeping the cost of the first Optimists under $50, as directed by Colonel Cliff McKay in 1947. McKay's plan was to initiate a junior sailing program for the Clearwater Optimist Club. He wanted Mills to design a safe, simple sailboat that fathers and sons could construct in a garage using simple tools. The boats would display signs with the names of local businesses that sponsored the sailors.
Mills was thrilled with the prospect of designing a boat for the club. "I was glad to do anything for the kids, especially to promote sailing," he said.
Night after night he painstakingly drew and discarded designs when the cost estimate exceeded his $50 budget objective. Mills finally isolated the problem—the price of ten-foot planks. Mills decided that the sailing skiff "did not need that nose sticking out, so I cut the bow off and made it a butt- headed pram."
Ernie Green and the Optimist Committee enthusiastically endorsed the boat design, as did Colonel McKay.
The next week, Mills completed his prototype. He hauled it to the Haven Street Dock in Clearwater and chose Cliff McKay, Jr. to be test captain. The breeze was a stout 20 knots, and Cliff shot off across the bay. He sailed on the wind, off the wind, and back to the dock. He came back, and yelled, "It was really great!"
The second skipper was Dewey Thomas, "another long- legged boy that loved sailing," said Mills. He too, came back yelling, "Perfect!"
The next gathering of the Optimist Club took place at the Grey Moss Inn. Mills hauled the Number 1 pram to Clearwater and placed her smack dab in the middle of the foyer, fully painted and rigged, varnished sticks and all. The little skiff impressed nearly everyone, and the Optimist Pram program was a go.
Before long, the Optimist Club had a fleet of 20-odd prams stored in an old fish-processing factory behind the yacht club. A late night fire burned the plant to the ground and destroyed all the boats but one. The lone survivor was a boat that a boy had taken home to paint.
A local radio personality, Howard Hartley, made it his mission to solicit donations for a replacement fleet. He spent four hours of airtime playing on the heartstrings and prying money from the locals on behalf of the sailing boys. Within 24 hours, the club had enough money to build 60 new boats.
Over time, Mills perfected his boat-building techniques. For expedience sake, he tacked eight sheets of plywood together, marked them carefully with patterns and used a skillsaw to cut them. Next he built a jig, and prams flew out of the Mills Boatworks at the rate of three a day.
At that time, a complete Optimist Pram with the carpentry complete, no paint, no hardware or sails cost $42.50. Word spread in the sailing community, and during the mid 1950s Optimist Prams entered the European market via Denmark. He claimed recognition for only a small share of the boat's success, giving much of the credit to the involvement of the Optimist Club.
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Despite the popularity of Mills' boats, he compared dedicated boat workers to priests who have taken oaths of poverty. Growing pains ate up much of his profits. The shop's inland location necessitated the use of a trailer to move boats back and forth from various yards and boat launches. Mills asked a neighbor to construct a sturdy boat trailer from an old car axle, which he then pulled with his 1931 Oldsmobile.
Mills had a hard time mastering the skill of trailering boats. He said he finally got the knack of it "after I turned the carrier and a boat fell onto the turning tire and shot off the trailer into Mr. Hovey's filling station. It turned just right and stopped beside the pumps, whereupon Mr. Sams asked if he should fill 'er up."
Mills also built Snipes, which he described as "one mean little boat to build" due to very close tolerances. Mills' wife Helen helped build them by holding up the ends of planks while he "ran the screwdriver." Some of his Snipes went on to win races, and the fame of Mills Boatworks grew.
Mills came from a time when a blue crab was "an acceptable reason to close the shop at low tide...when scallops were found lying about on the grass flats all up and down the Gulf of Mexico—free for the taking, and when people seemed to find a little more time for those simple pleasures." In those days, Mills frequently sailed over to bystanders on the shore—total strangers—and invited them to go for a sail. "Before you knew it," he recalled, "I had a new friend."
Clarky resented the restrictions of modern times. Kids no longer have the opportunity to belong to "a ragtag crazy little fleet" like the Hayden Street Dock gang in Clearwater. Sailing programs where "big mouths yell at the kids" made him angry.
He elaborated. " Just turn them loose! Why, today, kids can't move a muscle—they can't wade out on the flats or freely sail around in little sailboats, or stick a pole in the water and catch fish without someone coming up with a rule or regulation against it. Get rid of the damn monument builders who were not raised around here and who are destroying our kids' heritage. The shore is ruined. They bring in so called 'experts' and ignore the real experts—the fishermen, the dock builders who possess a lifetime of knowledge of the local waters."
Mills wrote fondly of playing as a child in Clearwater Bay—of a quieter time before Jet Skis flitted around the bay "like drunk water bugs." The conclusion of a poem he wrote is typical of Clarky Mills' sentiment and storytelling style...
My mother gave me a carte blanche to paradise. / The fun us kids had there was better than just nice. / We caught fiddlers, we poked stingrays and blue crabs. /
Mr. K. loaned us poles and we caught shiners, what fun
we did have.
The years have fled, and I am grey. /
But those dear days of my childhood, I want to say, / Were the best on Mr. K's little dock in Clearwater Harbour. /
I keep these precious memories, and what the hell
rhymes with Harbour?
Nothing could make Clarky Mills happier than to know that a couple of kids were out on the water, making new friends and having a whale of a good time in one of his boats.
The interview with Clarky Mills took place in 2001. Author Goebel recalled the memorable experience:
"When I called to request an interview with him, he said he would do whatever he could to help me, which typified his attitude toward people...even strangers. The promised 30 minutes grew into an entire morning with the dragging out of numerous photo albums and memorabilia. The interview ended only because his nurse arrived. I consider it an honor to have met him."
Length 7'9'
Beam 3'8"
Draft 2'9"
Sail area 35 sq.ft
Weight 77 lbs. (FRP hull)
Hull Wood or FRP
Spars Wood or aluminum
Racing crew 1
First built 1947
No. built 500,000 + worldwide
Designer Clark Mills, modified by Axel Damgard
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- Local News for Southern Sailors - January 2002 Next Story