Ebay bargain - rather unusal

Spooky, round someone's house the other day and they had one in their garden. They didn't know what is was and neither did I. At last I know. Different one though unless they shipped it to the other side of the country

Mags..... you'll have to look back through the old issues but I did do a piece on all of these boats! You had the Piccolo, Bonito (from Pearsons who were also making Contenders at the same time - badly!) Sea Bat, Beachcomber, Man of War and a whole host more.  Then there was the Minisail (brought back from the dead by forumite Rupert) which for a while was Europe's fastest growing class. People talk of the fragmentation of classes in the sport today but if you go back into the past, things could have actually been worse rather than better. Some of the boats were pretty grim, others were quite good but in the grand scale of things it mattered not, for when the Laser came along, the writing was very much on the wall. Y&Y scribe Jack Knights was a leading supporter of the Laser and the magazine was full of column inches on how good the new boat was. Within two seasons the beat boat genre was about as popular as fax machines and telex..... you just didn't see them any more. Also caught out as collateral damage - the ToY (which had an active European circuit) - the Harrier (popular at Elton and other northern clubs) and Peter Milnes's classy 'HIT' dinghy. Today these are history BUT...it would be wrong to think that they were all  boats better suited to Crufts - in their day some of these were clever and innovative designs. but then again, so was the Ford Anglia!

Doesnt Nigel have a beachcomber. If fact somewhere in favourite photos there are some pics of him sailing it in a blow.

That sails from one of my old pirate galleons!

Jack Holt Vagabond?

http://www.jackholtvagabond.co.uk/JackHoltVagabond/Home.html