Check this out!

interesting! Quite unusual a boat of that vinatage to have built in bouyancy? Assume retro fitted as is the hoop and ram? Is there any advantage of a hoop in an older boat?

Even more unusual for a merlin to be 16ft long! Or is this accounted for by the built in stern tank?

Connoisseurs of ebay all know that there is an infinitely variable tape measure at work.  Sometimes it is short and on re-measuring it is long - happens all the time.

I helped Ted Joyce collect this boat from Chippendales.  It was a bare shell and Ted completed it in his garage and sailed it at Arun.  Originally it did not have a stern tank, or built in buoyancy so it must have been completely rebuilt at some stage. As Ted was a butcher (meat not wood) he called it "One pork chop".

JC, thats interesting. As for the hoop why do virtually all old boats not have hoops and rely on transom sheeting?

Hell of a river boat...

Does it have a bow tank? How much does it weigh?

Richard I woukd suggest because hoops came in around sail no 3000 and retrofitting is hard because of the strains it puts on the hull.

Here is why older boats don't generally have hoops.  This one has a low hoop which may work OK but I would be tempted to convert it to the split aft bridle mainsheet arrangement.

1170 was at Newhaven and Seaford from approx 1965 - 1970, owned by Mick Allen. Definitely had no stern tank, hoop, strut and no spinnaker chute!

... and previously at SMYC sailed by the late John Murray .