TOPIC:

Hi Crawford and thanks for your reply. And yes I am preparing to varnish the decks as unfortunately it looks as if some water got underneath the varnish over the winter. I wasn't too confident about just patching in and in scraping off to see if there was any delamination, I found my self taking all the deck varnish off. More work than I had wanted to understake and I'd rather make a good job, although the proof of that will be in the final job!



So nice new shinny varnish will be applied and if all goes according to plan we intend to come up to Largs, complete with VW camper van and AL1717. What is the situation with campervans?

Dermod

Hi Dermod, I hope you are looking after 1717 and I,m sure Norman will reply to your question ( he is the man here with all the info) and if you look up the Albacore Regester on the US site Peter Duncan has recorded most of the history both there and UK

Regards

Crawford

PS don't you fancy bringing her back up to Scotland for the European Championships?

Andy, anything that you can get from Ian regarding the history would be great. In fact even if he just knows what I am thinking about may fire up his enthusiasm. He must have a barrel full of information with his years of experience and I would hope to speak with him some time in the future..

Thanks

Dom

Pity about the loss of the records. We have had AL709 now for forty years, and it would be interesting to know what year she was built. Her original sails are large oblique orange and white panels, very photogenic. I haven't seen that on any other Alb.

Thanks for this Richard. I am going to be away for ther next month ~ sailing in Greece ~ and when I get back I hope to be able to spend some time looking in to this. I think there is a lot to be dicovered and documented about the Albacore. It is possible that a lot is assumed but litlle is really documented.

Dermod

Dermod


Going back to one of your original posts, one of the questions you asked was


· Establish its origins, links to Uffa and other classes.


I think the ‘origin of the species’ can be traced right back to Uffa Fox's 14 Avenger (1928 I think) which Uffa claimed to be the first plaining dinghy.


If you can get hold of a copy of Uffa’s Book Sailing Seamanship and Yacht Construction there is a beautiful lines plan of Avenger. I have always wanted to compare these lines with a lines plan of an Alb but have never managed to get hold of a drawing of an Alb. I think Uffa never drew the lines for the Alb but possibly the Swordfish.





I also think any historical information gathered would be good to include as a series of articles in the association magazine, I would be interested if any one else shares this view.





Richard




1925

Aeolian

Many thanks Norman for your very prompt and helpful reply to my query.



If/when I receive a reply from the RYA I will post any further details that they may be able to supply.



Derek and Marilyn



A784 DORAI

Looks like you're pretty close to the mark!



In the good old Fairey Marine days all boats coming off the mould were stamped on the hog with successive numbers. This would have been absolutely great if they had only been turning out Albacores, but in fact they were also building Swordfish off the same mould. Thus the Fairey hull numbers slowly got further and further out of synch with the Albacore registration numbers.



I therefore think that the registration number is most likely to be the one on the sail. Low and behold, looking at 784 reveals a boat called "DORAI" that was originally measured on May 25th 1968 and registered at the RYA on 23rd October 1969. The name was not necessarily the original, but the RYA's last known record.



Hope this helps......

I have been followint this thread with interest as we too have never really been able to trace the full his tory of our own Alb.

Last week I sent an email enquiry to the RYA to seek if possible some additional guidance, but have received no reply to date. Here is an extract:



We own an original Fairey Mk 1 wooden Albacore dinghy that came to us with old sails bearing the No 784, but we do not know whether this is the correct sail number for this boat.



There is a manufacturer’s number stamped into the hog just aft of the centerboard case which is 958


From these numbers we have we have been unable to verify the original name of the boat, but it has been suggested that it could be DORAI.


Please could you tell us from your records whether you have any recorded details of this boat, and if possible whether it has been measured and has been allocated a measurement certificate at any time in the past.The boat has been maintained in good condition so it would be beneficial to have the correct details, and if possible to obtain a current certificate.





Norman has mentioned an RYA list, so I wondered whether his list may throw some light on this matter?




It does seem that there is quite an amount of Alb. history and details still in existance, but it is unfortunately so fragmented and widely distributed, both here in the UK and in the USA. This forum is doing a great job in collecting it though.



Derek and Marilyn

Norman. Very many thanks for the info. We bought her at a gravel pit near Reading in 1968, and she was fitted with a heavy metal centreplate and short white fun sails, so the children of the vendor couldn't possibly capsise ! The orange/white sails and proper centerplate were included and rapidly fitted by us. We jettisoned the heavy keel fast.

We sailed her for a few years out of the Hamble River S.C. before trailing her over to Ireland in 1974.

She's still called 'Scimitar'



Tom K.tomkirby2008-05-29 17:06:26

John,

Interesting footage. Very period dress worn by participants as well. 709 isn't there, however. One boat near the end had very broad oblique panels in grey/blue and white. 709's are similar to that, but orange.

Tom,



According to the RYA listing 709 was first measured on 12th July 1962, and was registered with them on May 10th 1963. at the last registration it was called "Scimitar".

tomkirby wrote:

Pity about the loss of the records. We have had AL709 now for forty years, and it would be interesting to know what year she was built. Her original sails are large oblique orange and white panels, very photogenic. I haven't seen that on any other Alb.

A couple of the boats in this video of the 1962 Nationals have stripey sails. Perhaps one of them is 709 ? - The sail numbers are not clear enough to read though.

JohnW2008-05-28 14:10:03

Living in Hamble and having bought a Fairey built Albacore (1717) I am interested in finding out what is known about the History of the Albacore dinghy. Does the association have a documented history and can anyone please point me the direction of good sources for potential of information?

Dermod O'Malley