Sailing Flying Scots and Painting on Deep Creek Lake
Robert Yonke has sailed and painted the Flying Scot for decades on the Maryland lake where the boat is built.
The Flying Scot sailing dinghy turns 70 in 2027. For a good stretch of those 70 years, one painter has been quietly building its portrait.
Courtesy of Robert Yonke Art
Robert Yonke summers and paints at his studio on Deep Creek Lake, just a few miles from Deer Park, MD, where every Flying Scot ever made has been built. He sailed these boats on these waters for years before he painted them. His work now captures the world of the class: crews hiking out over the rail, Scots crossing the lake under a stiff breeze, and a portrait of Sandy Douglass, the man who designed the boat and gave the local regatta its name.
“When I paint a crew hiking out, I’m not imagining it. I remember it,” Yonke said. “The cold spray, the shouting, the moment the boat finds her groove, and everything goes quiet except the water.”
The fleet has noticed. At this past July’s Sandy Douglass Regatta on Deep Creek Lake, the winners went home with more than trophies: 38 sailors received a framed print of Yonke’s “Hiking Out,” depicting a moment every one of them knows from the water. Yonke’s work has also become part of the regatta’s visual tradition, appearing on the Sandy Douglass Regatta T-shirt in recent years.
Photo by Cheryl Shafer
Original sailing paintings from Yonke’s studio sell quickly and are often gone soon after they’re finished. He keeps a waiting list, giving past buyers and interested collectors the first look when a new one is ready. Prints of his sailing work, including “Hiking Out,” are available now through Fine Art America.
As the class heads into its anniversary year, the painter from the lake where the boat was born is still at the easel. Find photos of the regatta award ceremony and more about his work at appalachianstudio.com/blog.
