 Birth of the one and only Solitaire class sailing boat. The house window (background) had to be enlarged to get it out of the workshop (ex drawing room). Cold moulded in mahogany by Colin Brooks. My hope was to design a single handed racer that could be sailed by a family. It had two planing surfaces at about 20 degrees to each other. Healed, this doubled the torque due to a person sitting on the windward side. Perhaps more importantly, we had noticed that half the price of the Toy racing dinghy that we built went in fixtures, spars and fittings. Hopeless. The Laser got it just right. Round poles are cheaper. No rigging is cheaper. We used a three section mast. The first 4 feet heavy duty tube with a right angle tube rigidly fixed into which the boom could be slotted - no kicker needed. Just heavy duty purchases on the sail foot and outhaul. Boom could then be used as a cover support and a spar to lift the heavy centreplate out.
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 Maiden voyage. Sail cobbled from bits of other sails. It went very nicely. Changes in both Colin and my plans left the next stage of the project - turn it into a plug - unfinished. My mistake. Pity.
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, Youth, four times National champion. Built 12 of these 'Toy' class racers with Colin Brookes.
Family heaven. For the summer holidays we would sail from Harwich to our favourite mooring in Cornwall.
How did one have the energy? Building the workshop/barn.
Getting on top of repairs to the back house extension.
Birth of the one and only Solitaire class sailing boat. The house window (background) had to be enlarged to get it out of the workshop (ex drawing room). Cold moulded in mahogany by Colin Brooks. My hope was to design a single handed racer that could be sailed by a family. It had two planing surfaces at about 20 degrees to each other. Healed, this doubled the torque due to a person sitting on the windward side. Perhaps more importantly, we had noticed that half the price of the Toy racing dinghy that we built went in fixtures, spars and fittings. Hopeless. The Laser got it just right. Round poles are cheaper. No rigging is cheaper. We used a three section mast. The first 4 feet heavy duty tube with a right angle tube rigidly fixed into which the boom could be slotted - no kicker needed. Just heavy duty purchases on the sail foot and outhaul. Boom could then be used as a cover support and a spar to lift the heavy centreplate out.
Maiden voyage. Sail cobbled from bits of other sails. It went very nicely. Changes in both Colin and my plans left the next stage of the project - turn it into a plug - unfinished. My mistake. Pity.