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“There is a tremendous satisfaction to be had from boating, and many possible ways of going afloat, …(there is) something special in adventure and romance and particularly the satisfaction of being skipper of your own craft. That often misquoted bit by Water Rat about there being nothing half as much fun as simply messing about…

Jack Holt was one of the boating world’s most prolific and influential designers. In a career spanning more than 60 years his designs fostered an explosion of home and professionally built craft, making it possible for people who previously found sailing unaffordable to get on the water. John Lapworth Holt was born the son of…

Peter Milne, who died in 2008 aged 73, was one of Britain’s most versatile designers of small boats. Milne was born in Stockport, Cheshire, on September 20 1934, the son of an engineer. It was near Chichester that he learned to sail and was influenced his father Cecil’s interest in making things. His first boat,…

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 collaboration…

On 4-5 June 1976, Derek Hutchinson (leader), Tom Caskey and Dave Hellawell paddled their kayaks from Felixstowe Ferry, Suffolk to Ostend, Belgium, over 100 miles of open sea in 31 hours. This was to be the first recorded unsupported West-East crossing of the North Sea by kayak. In August 1975, Hutchinson, a school teacher by…

Commander John Watkinson, an experienced and accomplished Naval Officer, left the Royal Navy in 1958 and bought a boatyard, Kelly and Hall, to try his hand at a new venture. In 1964 he sold the yard and moved to Drascombe Barton in Devon, where he set about designing a family-friendly sailing boat. In his own…

During the early part of the 20th century, post war Britain was pursuing high speed technology. Between 1922 and 1936, for example, Sir Malcolm Campbell broke no less than twelve land speed records in a series of increasingly powerful cars. In 1929 at the Miami Regatta Sir Henry Segrave became the first Englishman to beat…

Although a distinct design in her own right, in many ways Sea Queen looks like a smaller version of the better known Looe Lugger or Falmouth Working Boat. Mevagissey Toshers (Tossers or Toshers is a name generically applied to small fishing boats), were built in Mevagissey and nearby Portmellon for use by Cornish fishermen for…

One of the most prolific and pioneering boat designers of the twentieth century was Uffa Fox (1898-1972). Although responsible for fewer individual designs than some other well-known designers, such as Ian Proctor, Uffa Fox has designs to his credit covering a wide range of boat types, including sailing dinghies, racing keelboats, sailing cruisers in a…