I own 1084 RETRO built in 1960 i sail it Falmouth and unfortunately managed to bend one of the self bailers.

The original self bailers are a brass cylinder shape with a plunger like contraption (people have told me that these were also used on FireFly's)

I am struggling to find a replacement ( unsurprisingly ) and am looking for suggestions of how to get hold of one of these in order to retain the vintage beauty in the boat

Has any body got any ideas ? please !

Phil Wyatt 07779 588918

You will certainly not find any new, the best bet for a direct replacement will be a sailing club's potential bonfire.

Alternatively try removing the bent one, heating it up and bending it back into shape.

The best all round method would be to replace the probe bailers with the newer wedges. If you do it carefully noone will ever know that they were not the type origionally fitted to the boat. Probe type bailers disappeared very quickly after the wedges were bought out.

Try the forum on www.cvrda.org

Try Ray Smith Tomato Boats, West Mersea, Colchester.  He got me a pair of those tube types for my pre war N12.  They fell out of the bottom of a rotten Firefly.  He specialises in Firefly repair and renovation.

Try Adrian Foulkes of The old Barge, Bursledon Bridge, (Off A27 North East of Burseldon Bridge on the Hamble River.)He is England's last hope for such things.
01703 406349 - though this number may have changed with BT's so called modernisation.

I got one from Classic Marine second hand for a tenner for 111 - also a source of teflon blocks of all sorts - excellent service

TUFNOL blocks - my brain jumped 50 years in a microsecond!!  Also gooseneck track etc etc - well worth a visit.

Lovely brown colour weren't they? The height of fashion - brown plastic. Almost as good as bakelite...

Linen reinforced resin actually. Super stuff still got sheets of the bloody stuff in my garages.

Can be paper, cotton or glass! Depends on the grade.

Is my linen good or bad then?

Depends what you want to do with it. By using alternative resins and different types of reinforcement and addatives produces the different grades. Depends what you want to do with your piece of tufnol. The glass gives the most properties but it is not very water resistant.

I stand corrected. Mind you, still horrible stuff. The cleats they used to make out of it were just WRONG.

In the late 50's and early 60's cleats were not used for jib or main. The crews might have the luxury of a snubbing winch in the centre of the boat but usually they had to just hang on all round the course. Lew Marine (now Lewmar) came out with their Novex range whch revolutionised dinghy sheeting followed by Gibb with their small tufnol cleats. Holt/Allen also produced their first aluminium cleats at this time. How things have changed and improved.

Dont forgat Barton fittings, still got some old cleats I think somewhere

Mmmmmmmmm - 111 has new tufnol blocks so she looks like an old Merlin.  Decided against the carbon mast and boom, the dyneema sheets, and the new fangled stuff.  She seems to have most of the annual product of a Brazilian rainforest for a rudder and stock (with weight to match) She'll be at the Tideway'

I turfed out a load of fittings from my old boat shed last weekend with names like Fico, Main Marine, Seasure, Proctors. Lewmar,
Schaeffer, Harken, Holt Allen, IYE, Ronstan. Also threw out and old Proctor traveller which I think was made by Robin Fowler. How many of these companies are still in business and are there any more names to add to the list?

So some merlins have cleats now do they?!!!!!
Chris. Merlin 6

And some would be better without the way the sheets keep sticking in them!!

Chris - I have been told that apparently some of the jib fairleads are plasticky stuff these days rather than wood!!  Hard to believe isn't it?!

What with centreboards without a ton of lead at the bottom, and I gather some boats don't use cotton sails anymore - what is the world coming to?

I would support a difference in handicap, though, for old boats in original (more-or-less) condition and ones that have been thoroughly modernized with up to date rigs etc. I think vintage sailing should be about vintage sailing  and if an old boat is updated then the vital parts are not vintage. I've no problem with boats be updated  - that's all part of development. But that's not vintage sailing then.

Avon Bailers! Ralf Savory
Racing Dinghy Equipment Company - Harvey Churchward.
Both contributed to the Great Development. Harvey Especially way ahead of time made the first really good jib furler and swivel.

Is it true Chris that you have piston hanks on your COTTON jib? Oh yes and a rotating mast (sometimes!)

Yes nice heavy bronze piston hanks - nothing but the real thing!

RWO was another name to cunjor with. Threw some of their fittings out as well. If my memory serves me right, Keith Musto was a toolmaker there in the 50,s.