Ken Lawton
Just seen the Rob O’Neil photograph of Ken Lawton on the Merlin “Face Tube” page.
I crewed for Ken in the mid to late 1970’s. I can confirm that he was a very good racer, but he was oh so crap at starting!
To make up for this minor shortfall he was however superb at wiggling his way up the front of the Welsh Harp Merlin fleet.
Although I had raced in Merlins from about 1972/3 with another well-known Welsh Harp sailor Phil Pike. It was Ken who introduced me to open meetings and my first open meeting (non-Silver Tiller) win.
He said to me that he financed the boats out of his bakery business describing the boats as “an employee recreational facility”. He been the sole employee.
As the “Face Tube” article indicated he delighted in finding boat names to reflect his trade.
His previous Merlin to Much Kneaded was a Merlin called Mischief Maker. This boat was very fast with Ken winning many club races in it. He sold the boat to Phil King. Some of my fellow old farts in the class will remember that Phil went on to win a lot of Silver Tiller events in Mischief Maker until it cracked up at the Aldenham Silver Tiller.
The boat after Much Kneaded was named Roll Tax! (Yes spelt TAX)
The big bonus for a young man barely out of his teens, was the drive to and from open meetings in Ken’s 911. He loved to burn off the boy racers from lights, despite the handicap of a Merlin perched on a trailer attached to the back of the Porsche.
I was sad to hear that he had passed away in 2020.
PS
It’s the back of my head you see in the front of Much Kneaded in photograph. Much less hair these days and very grey.
Bob O’Toole