Sound Inter Club (iSc) one design sailboats have a rich history.

Long Island Sound was the world's hot bed for sailboat design and racing in the 1920's and '30's. Wealthy New York families, who were members of prestigious yacht clubs (such as the New York, Larchmont, and Seawanhaka Corinthian, Yacht Clubs), sponsored design, build and racing of several one-design classes.  

Several men, led by Mr. C. B. Alker, and including famous names like Lewis Iselin and Chas H. Appleby, sponsored such a one-design boat in 1925/6. They turned to the premier yacht designer and builder of the time - Charles D. Mower and Harry B. Nevins respectively. The resulting boat, at 28 feet, 9 inches (but just over 19 feet at the water line) and driven by a 425 square feet Marconi rig, was fast and beautiful.  In their first season in 1926, the twenty-eight iSc boats proved to be extremely fast and competition was fierce. In fact, in the first racing season of 1926, the top three finishing boats were all sailed by racers other than their owners. One of these sailors, Cornelius (Corny) Shields, sailing #25 (Aileen), went on to purchase this boat and nurture the class through its time on LI Sound.  He was also responsible for the development of the class that replaced iSc's, the International Class.  (Corny made the cover of TIME magazine in July,1953, and his son Corny Jr. went on to be a world class sailor as well.) 

The majority of the twenty-eight boats are documented to have sailed on the Sound throughout the period 1926 through 1937 (when the IC's were introduced). These boat races are extremely well documented in the Rosenfeld Collection at Mystic Seaport Museum. Weekend racing results often appeared the following Monday in detailed NY Times articles. 

Several boats also traveled to Bermuda in the Spring of 1927 to race the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. iSc's won the series of four races, performing much better then the narrower Bermuda boats, especially in high wind conditions.

Two of the twenty-eight original boats were reported as having been lost in the March 1931 issue of Yachting Magazine: "...one was driven onto a reef of off New Rochelle in a gale, and the other sank in a squall off Hempstead Harbor last June...". The latter boat was #16, Shorty II, but the owners "promptly bought another Interclub, christened her Shorty III, and returned to the wars without delay. " Interestingly, one boat which disappeared from all records early on after 1930, was #15 "Ariel". Originally owned by Lewis Iselin, and often sailed by his daughter Marie, it was transferred to her in 1929.

In 1931, Marie Iselin bought iSc #1 ("Chicks") from H. A. Alker and named her "Ariel". (This boat went on to be named "Spindrift" by its new owner in 1937.)  A boat named Ariel did appear in the 1950's owned by Ben Marion.  Research on the origins of this boat, and its possible connection to a boat currently in restoration, continue.  Where #15 went, and whether she was the first boat lost off Hempstead Harbor, or the boat bought and renamed Shorty III after Shorty II sank, is not known at this time, but is the subject of ongoing research.

In 1937 and '38, several iSc owners replaced them with new International Class boats. This opened up the opportunity for several iSc's to make their way north, to Lake George, NY.