National Small Boat Collection

The Cadet dinghy, produced from the drawing board of the prolific Jack Holt in 1947, is a one design racing dinghy for crews between the ages of 8 and 17. Cadet is one of many boats designed by Holt in conjunction with Yachting World, whose editor, Group Captain E F Haylock, felt that not enough was…

Brynhild was designed and built by Uffa Fox in 1935. Having already designed and sailed 17ft single handed racing canoes, he now wanted a boat that would not be so hard to work, but would provide some exhilarating sailing at speed. He wrote: “I am now getting on in life, and have only a few…

Mistletoe is the first boat of one of Britain’s oldest one design classes. It helped to establish what has become a fundamental concept in small boat racing. One designs first appeared in the 1890s. The term refers to classes where the boats are as identical as possible so that the sailor’s skill wins the race…

The OK is a classic design that has stood the test of time and remains to this day one of the most widespread international dinghies, with a loyal worldwide following. It is sailed in over 20 countries and has inspired many sailors to become involved in the sport. The OK was the brainchild of Danish…

  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or Superdocious for short, was sailed by Rodney Pattisson and Iain Macdonald-Smith to Gold Medal victory in the 1968 Olympic Games. They won a record–breaking 6 out of 7 races, and used the trapeze, a device which had in earlier years been banned as unsporting. The Flying Dutchman Class was designed through a…

The Peterborough canoe is a direct descendant of the Canadian birch bark canoes that were built and used by the Indians of Ontario’s Otonabee Valley. However its narrow cedar planking, steam bent ribs and clenched nail fastenings mean its construction has more in common with European boat building techniques than those used by the natives…

Possibly one of the earliest and simplest forms of waterborne travel, this type of boat, made from a single trunk of Goiticia, a rot-resistant hardwood, has been common on the east coast of Brazil for thousands of years. No preservatives are used in the construction, although sometimes paint is added for decoration and identification purposes.…

This is the original Merlin Class Dinghy built by Jack Holt in 1945 for the Ranelagh Sailing Club in West London; it is from this model that many of the wide-beamed and hi-tech Merlin Rockets, familiar to so many competitive dinghy sailors, have developed over the last 40 years. The idea for Britain’s first post…

Rose of Portloe is a Cornish crabber. The term “crabber” covered all boats which fished with pots for crabs, lobsters and crayfish. They were small, well-built craft, with good load carrying and seakeeping abilities. Crabbers, then as now, worked out of most of the Cornish coves, although most were situated in south and west Cornwall.…