
TAMESIS CLUB
ForumNEWS >> RACE REPORTS > COMING EVENTS > FORUM > BOATS & EQUIPMENT FOR SALE > VOYAGE
HOME >> ABOUT THE CLUB > ABOUT THE SAILING > NEWS > RACE REPORTS > COMING EVENTS > LINKS
Members who wish to comment on any aspect of the club's activities are invited to send their views via the Club mailbox for publication on this page. Please type the subject heading and your name in capital letters at the top of your contribution. This facility is available only to members. Messages from people not on the current membership list will be rejected. The Officers, Management, Sailing and House Committees will take account of members' views in their future deliberations.
Windrush - is she Tamesis Club's oldest surviving boat?
Rupert Fletcher, Tamesis Club's Hon. Secretary, has received the following e-mail and pictures:![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
John Dunkley: Windrush is typical of some of the boats which have been sailed at Tamesis in the past. She
might have been a Surbiton or Thames gig, or even an early National 14.
The gigs were a Sailing Boat Association class, which included many open boats of 12 to 18 ft.
After the
1914-18 war the Yacht Racing Association (predecessor of the RYA) set up an open 14 ft class that was raced in Devon, Cornwall, the Solent, Lowestoft, and on the Thames and Norfolk
Broads. Uffa Fox designed Avenger in 1927, the first of the planing dinghies, which led to the development of the International 14s in 1930. Both the gigs and early 14s had gunter rigs,
and early gigs had lugsails. The reference to war-time use fits with activities at Tamesis during World War
2, when older members ran a river patrol as well as training RAF crew how to sail in case they had to bail out over the sea.
There is a reference to this on the
HISTORY
page of our website.
Berry Ritchie: (Author of The History of Tamesis Club) If she is 14 ft long, it is possible she was built in 1927 by Morgan Giles for Sir John Beale and raced for the first
International 14 POW challenge cup off Cowes with the sail number K 99.
James Mills has sent the follow in response to a request for further
information: I will try to find out some more from the Maritime Museum.
Windrush is 12 feet long and 4 feet 6 inches wide and I think the ribs were made with rock elm.
Andrew Thornhill, who has a collection of vintage dinghies and yachts, has sent the following, based on research by his friend Jamie Campbell:
A member of Thames SC said the photos James sent are typical of both the Thames and Surbiton gigs sailed there and at Tamesis in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He also said that many of the old boats at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth were transferred there from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, where they had been held in storage for many years.
Jim Green has acquired a copy of a British Pathe film of the Tamesis Autumn Regatta in 1933 which shows Thames gigs similar to Windrush still racing on the Teddington reach together with A raters and International 14s. One of the gigs has the number 3 on its lugsail but the boat's name is not known.
HOME >> ABOUT THE CLUB > ABOUT THE SAILING > NEWS > RACE REPORTS > COMING EVENTS > LINKS
09.05.07.