New ladies skiff

It was suggested that it may get an outing at the Ovington Inlands the other weekend, but I havn't heard mention of it since.

 

Cast your minds back to 1965 (for those of us that are old farts).. the single handed scene was pretty bleak.  The Finn back then, with wooden masts and nowhere near the sail control that you have today, was nothing short of a brute of a boat- no wonder that some of the names that featured in the class were real legends when it came to sheer physicality of sailing. The IYRU were aware of this and thought that the time was right for a boat where agility and guile played as much a part as sheer strength and resistence to the pain of hiking out hard all day! So, they decided on a set of Trials, set for Weymouth and with the aid of Yachting World agreed a set of criteria.

 

It was pretty much what we'd call today a simple box rule - but it had a sting in the tail. Aids that would allow the helm to extend his body weight out past the gunwale were to be allowed, but not trapezes.

 

Try and remeber this is 45+ years ago...so when you have documentation in which 'respected' minds of the day declared that it was not only undesireable that anyone should try to sail a boat singlehanded from the trapeze, it was unseamanlike and dangerous should racing occur, you can see how limited their experience would be!

 

The constraints of the box rule meant that the Int Canoe did not meet the criteria, however a Canoe was invited to the Trials as a benchmark (having been formally told that even if it 'won' the races it would not be in line for consideration.) The IYRU also invited a Finn to attend - again as a benchmark - and as ever the Finns pulled a flanker by sending along Valentin Mannkin - who was destined to take the Finn Gold medal at the next games.

 

With trapezes not allowed, there were some amazing, novel and to me, quite scary inventions all aimed at getting the helms weight outboard. In addition to the sliding seat there were folding panels (like you get on a camping table), sliding sections of sidedeck, poles with a tractor seat on the end that pivoted outboard. There was even one boat rigged with a dreadful device: think two struts that form a shallow V shape - you then trapezed of the underside of this!! (but worry not for it was not classed as a trapeze and besides - it didn't work!!)

 

Then, who should turn up at the Games but Paul Elvstrom with his Trapez dinghy - which was so far ahead of it's time in so many ways.... (but that too is another matter). At that time, Elvstrom was such a dominant figure in the sport that the organisers relented and he competed. Out afloat, the Canoe won all the races bar the last (it was a windy day and it did not sail) but for the rest of the time the Trapez and David Thomas in the Unit were trading places.  There's a documented observation that the expected 'Elvstrom effect' - where he was expectd to sail away over the horizon, just did not happen. As it was, with the Trapez outside of the design criteria and the Canoe already denied inclusion in the results, it could be said that the Unit 'won'.

 

But it was not to be: The IYRU had seen something in the Trapez that for once showed them where the path to dinghy development was going. They called for a second set of Trials and for these the embargo on using a trapeze had been lifted, so Elvstrom could have come and legally staked his claim. By then though he had other problems and it was left to Bob Miller to send the Contender to France ,as the leading trapeze rigged boat, only for the event to be dogged by light airs.

 

For the final set of Trials - medemblik, the IYRU said that only those who had been at la Baule could attend (though they could make radical changes to their boat - just as well as the first Contender had a number of design issues) - which ruled out any showdown between the Trapez and Contender.

 

Chris 249: I've interior pictures of the prototype Contender - both Contender (la Baule) and Skippy (medemblik) and they did NOT use a kick out bar back then.

 

If the debate on this is of any real interest to people, it is one of the winter talks that I give - Keeping it up (sadly not sponsored by Viagra) - it always seems to be well received!

 

Dougal