Anyone popping to the boat show this weekend? Come and say hullo at the Y&Y stand.

I've just been looking through our latest issue - 60th anniversary. Page 67 (just after the topless mermaids) shows some old national champs attendance figures, where the Merlin turnout sadly dwindled from 104 boats in 1982, to 87 in 1986. 

There is some great 50s knitwear on p70.

We had over 200 at least once. Even less popular places like Whitstable used to have more than 100. The reasons? The building slump from the mid 80s to mid 90s? Salcombe? Increasing 'professionalism'? The Championship venues? 

Does it matter?

loss of mortgage tax relief in Aug 88.
rise of interest rates to double digit figures later in 89
general business slump til about 95

exit from ERM?

they was toughish times.

Oryou can come and see me on the Dinghy Sailing Magazine stand - strategically placed by the Guinness Bar!!!

suggest visit both. free sweets?

I can offer jaffa cakes, a free past issue, and a game of virtual skipper on a swanky dome screen thinghy.....beat that Claire!!  ;o)

Beer!!! Need I say more!!!??

teehee x

Robert - Chairs,
Any of the above PLUS the loss of the three mainsay reasonably priced builders Chippendale, Wyche & Coppock and Hoare and the abandonment of the price limit which did keep the worst excesses in check.
SEe also Merlins and Darwin in the latest magazine.

Maybe the three builders mentioned by A.G.lost customers just like Jack Holt in the 50s because by the late 60s they were no longer building boats that won Championships  It's notable during that period several helmsmen with regular top six Championship finishes didn't sail Chippy, W & C or Hoare boats, they started a trend away from the traditional builders and the rest of us followed.

I can't remember when the price limit was dropped, perhaps A.G. could remind me. I do remember that it had become virtually unenforceable because of the invoicing tricks used to circumvent it.

Robert, always has a good analytical approach I do not recall what the price limit was in its various inflated values, but I do recall The late Geoffry Saffery-Cooper's analogy that it was the price of a cheap family car. Not sure that the race winning was the reason for Chippendale et al dropping out perhaps it was that the only way to make a small fortune from boat building is to start with a big fortune! As I recall most of the over price limit stuff was prettying up rather than functionality that would give boat speed. The other reason was of course the move away from Proctor designs which led to the more expensive minority builders, thence to limited production, (12 months is a long time to wait for a boat)! Plus of course the more "exciting" classes such as the Fireball which were actually not more exciting just more agressively marketed.

Wendy Fitzpatrick has just given me a copy of YandY dated 16 Nov 1973 in which Bob Fisher railed against the Merlin price limit. Apparently the limit at that time was £420 for hull, decks,centreboard and rudder.  Mainsail £50, jib and spinnaker £20 each.  There was a postal referendum in which Merlin owners voted 5 -1 for an abolition of the price limit but this was not binding as the constitution only allowed changes at an AGM and to quote Fisher "there, by a miracle the few held out".

I finished off a Freeman Satisfaction  in early '73 from an unvarnished hull and deck for a total of £600

To put this in context a Captain in the Army earned £3000 in 1973 - he would earn not far off £30,000 today.

When I was running the dinghy section of Bruce Banks Sails in the early 70's, the price limit on sails never worked as we used to charge large amount for the sailbags or battens etc. Numbers were extra and spinnaker shute patches were an add on. Bob, quite rightly, showed how ridiculous the price limit was.

Surely it was not the price limit per se (Though it was arguably not a "Good Thing">), but the lax way it was administered

Is the sum one pint of Watneys Red Barrel in 1973 = 0-1s-3d now x10 = .70p? 
I read this in a book JC

The price limit was removed at the 1974 AGM at Pwlhelli under the Chairmanship of John Ibberson. I believe this was the best attended AGM in the class's history.
The last maximum prices as from 1st March 1973 were:
Wooden hulls £420, GRP and Composite hulls £360, Mainsail £50, Foresail £20, Spinnaker £20.

1s3d for a pint of Red Barrel in 1973?  Dream on Jacko, don't you mean 1963 - but you were probably too young to drink then - no on second thoughts, having seen you on song in the Kings Arms at Salcombe, you were probably never too young to drink.

Not that I'm pedantic or anything, but Watney's Red Barrel wasn't 1s3d in 1973 because Mr Wilson and Dennis Healey had decimalised us in 1971 (15th Feb in fact).  When I started drinking it Whitbread Trophy was the cheapest you could get at 18p a pint.  You had to drink a lot to get any effect though.  Probably in 1975.

Wasn't that Ted heath?

Who on earth drank Red Barrel anyway? At the little club I belonged to we rebelled against it and brought in Fullers London Pride - a marked improved and still going strong whereas Red Barrel sank without trace.

So did penny black jacks a for a 1d

i recall beer at 12p pint in 1973.

not for long though

Obviously underwritten by the local brewery at that price..............................

But then petrol was once 3/6d a gallon! 5 gallons for a pound note! Pumped for you by a smiling attendant too!

My driving days started in 1971 and I recall petrol was 30p per gallon.  Once OPEC got cracking the price shot up very quickly (along with everything else).

I remember going to Alderney with John Oakley and a crowd of Ranelagh and Minima friends on John's converted MFV, must have been early to mid 50s. When we got there we had many adventures but we were astonished by the low price of alcohol e.g. bitter at 6d pint which would be two and a half pence in today's money!

And even now 50 years later his typing hand shakes so much at the thought of it he can't spell his own name!!!!!!!!!!

Robert, didn't your brother John break his leg on that trip?

That's right Led by the slightly insane adventurer Robin Beauclair (owner of 'McGinty' no. 300) all the crew, except sensible John Oakley, went rock climbing on Fort Clonque which was once occupied by German troops. It was a crazy afternoon, an accident was inevitable and it happened to John who fell 12? ft and suffered a compound fracture to one leg. Berry Richie's heroic run across the island to fetch an ambulance (taxi) deserves to be a legend. 

Robin Beauclair was an unusual member of the the M/R class. He was probably best known for sailing 'McGinty' across the Channel while his wife was having a baby!

If Beauclaire was insane we should all be mad! They make very few like him anymore. Wasn't he a bomber pilot shot down and sent to Colditz?

We revisited Fort Clonque a couple of days later ( in reefer jackets and club ties, as one did in those far off days ) and re-enacted the drama. I have a photo of Robin on the cliff at the point of Johns departure ! After a short sojourn in the 2 bed maternity ward ( the other one was empty ) in Mignot Hospital ( I have a photo of that too ) John was airlifted home. This was early in the week and I remember Robert being extremely pissed off when his Dad insisted he accompany his brother home.

Colin knows more about Robin Beauclaire than I do, they were both members of Ranelagh. I believe it's true that he was shot down on his first bombing mission and became a POW but Colditz, no I don't believe even Robin was crazy enough to be sent there.

Yes I was mad at missing the trip home with John Oakley - even by then an icon. John and I actually left after the boat and I have a vivid memory of her disappearing into the snow and darkness with a palm tree lashed to her mast and the local girls all crying on the quay!

I just can't get the hang of this technology. My follow up to my ealier comment is elsewhere on the forum !! Robert is right about the palmtree - we went to a lot of trouble to dig it up and tie it to the mast. However JohnO dredged up some highly dubious piece of nautical superstition about palmtrees being tied to masts bringing bad luck and made us take it down before entering Hamble !
We won, though, because once in we put it back and I took a photo !!!!! - Isn't it a bit sad that we are sitting at these machines shoving off out into the ether memories that probably only interest us !!

Do not do yourself down Colin there is a whole book of "Short Stories from Tall Yachtsmen" or "Tall Stories from short Yachtsmen" in these memories and perhaps what was/is fun could these days attract an ASBO! It does at least serve to demonstrate to the young that there is more to life than getting blattered in the Uni Bar!

I for one am really enjoying these stories, please carry on, it is great to hear them, thank you for sharing them

You want more? I think this thread is supposed to be about a boat show so I'll start a new one about 'The Good Old Days.