David Henshall's article

I think that David's article is great- he has put a lot of work into this. The is the first bit of decent stuff we have had on this forum for a long time. I would post more but I don't know if I can deal with all the cr*p. That comes from posting here! This forum has turned into a mess where the ones who shouts loudest gets heard!.   So David keep potsing ( please!) and i will read and appreciate.

While the SMODs may have played a part in the loss of technical skills, surely we must also ask whether sailing would be even weaker if the SMODs had not developed as they are? After all, the move to SMODS is surely largely reflecting changes in the wider world.

Edited by Chris 249 - 20 Dec 14 at 5:31am

Hi Chris 249. Yet another of the articles for the now defunct Dinghy Mag (but it might just get resurrected for here) was titled "whatever happened to Bob the Builder". (FYI - Bob the Builder was a popular cartoon character).You have to go back to the 1950s for the origins of the story. Post war England was still showing significant signs of wartime damage and the process of rebuilding was gathering pace. It was very much government policy to teach schoolchildren the skills that would help in the process, so woodwork (and metalwork) lessons were compulsory. There is though a lovely link to the sailing scene from an unexpected quarter. At that same time, televised 'D-I-Y' programmes started with Barry Bucknall - the man who gave us the Mirror dinghy. So, schools taught real woodwork with real woodworking tools and yes, the process of modernising the Victorian housing stock and the rise of the 'one stop DIY shop' did the rest. From there it is but a short jump to making the Holt boats, the Fireball and even more advanced boats; remember the Marine Pak kits for the Contender?
Today, the dread of all sorts of legislation has limited the ability of schools to undertake this sort of construction project - with the result that fewer and fewer teenagers have the required skillsets. Recently I spent some time with a self styled 'chippy' carpenter. Oh dear, I did watch closely looking for evidence of woodworking ability but with joist hangers, iron dovetails and on-site mitre saws meant that the biggest skill was bashing in a nail without leaving too much hammer toe. And all that is just the starting point - all the other socio-economic factors, people being time constrained, the lack of garage/workshop space, the risk of messing up...the list of contributory factors goes on and on. Like the lost domain of one design racing, apart from a few rare examples, self build has been and gone. All that dinghy racing can do as a sport is move on and look for other ways to reenergise it's fortunes.
D

There are a couple of useful ideas from David Pye (Professor of furniture design, RCA) The workmanship of certainty and the workmanship of risk.