CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2016 111LETTERS
Send your letters (and also any replies, please) to:
Classic Boat, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place,
London SW3 3TQ
email: [email protected]Cowes memories
Farewell Kiel
Certifi ed Piccolo
We enjoyed Eileen Ramsay’s look back on Cowes Week in your July issue, but
it’s always been our opinion that anyone who has memories of Cowes Week
wasn’t there at all. Surely the après-sail is the best bit about this regatta?
Alan and Hamie Burch, via emailInteresting to read about the end of an era for
the British Kiel Yacht Club. I spent many
happy days there with the RAF Ocean Racing
team in 1951-1952 sailing in Flamingo for the
training cruises and then Kranich in the RORC
ocean races, Kiel-Copenhagen, and then the
Cowes-Dinard when we had to sail her to the
UK from Kiel.
David Hastings, via emailIn response to the letter in the March
issue from Adrian Simons enquiring about a
skimmer type dinghy called Piccolo, this
class was featured in the design section of
the Dinghy Year Book of 1961, a great little
book published by Adlard Coles from 1958 to
1966, which gave a complete resume of UK
and international dinghy sailing.
The Piccolo was actually designed by
Barnard Drake and Partners Ltd, Registered
Design No 896549, and not the late Peter
Milne. There were several of these designs
produced in the UK around this time, which
were promoted around the concept of a fast,
thrilling boat, quick to rig and light enough
to be carried on the roof of a car.
In one sense the Piccolo, with its low
aspect Lanteen rig was more akin to the
American Sunfi sh developed by Alcort Boats
which produced several thousand of them
for the same purpose. They were promoted
as strict one-design racers and even held
‘world titles’ and in reality they were a
forerunner of the Laser.
Of the other types of this boat produced
in the UK the Minisail was the most
successful and its rig was like the Topper.
Like many centreboard designs of the 1960s,
they had relatively short life spans, but for
those of us who were in our teens back then,
our interest in yacht design particularly in
the UK, Australia and New Zealand was
constantly stimulated by new designs that
appeared almost monthly.
Mr Simons, I hope you enjoy the
memories. Fair winds and smooth seas and
an enjoyable summer to you all.
Neil J Kennedy, Nedslocker,
Auckland, New Zealand
RYA’s
witty
responseHow wonderfully
refreshing to see the
RYA’s poetic response
to the Gareloch fl eet’s
tongue-in-cheek rules
query (Sternpost, July
issue). Would any
offi cial body have the
wit, independence or
perhaps even the time
to answer in such a
manner today? I doubt
it. The neck-less
hoardes would be
taking to Twitter in
minutes to decry the
RYA’s lack of
professionalism, or
some such nonsense.
The exchange in
question was only in
the late 1980s, but how
things have changed.
Rupert Byrne, via email54 CLASSIC BOAT JULY 2016 CLASSIC BOAT JULY 2016 55100-year-old Eileen Ramsay, once known as the queen of yachting
photography, looks back on Cowes Weeks of yesteryearF
rom 6-13 August, the Solent will be teeming with yachts and keelboats
racing in this year’s Cowes Week, the 190th anniversary of the regatta. My
fimiss a year till I fi rst Cowes Week was in 1957 and I didn’t nally hung up my cameras
in 1971. Unlike some photographers, I was never interested in chasing the Royals. I was
more interested in making good pictures. The Royal Yacht Britannia, however, provided a
great backdrop for photographing other boats and I would work the angles to picture
yachts crossing her bows. During the late 1950s, the focus at Cowes Week was on the
12-M yachts and their crews, who were gearing up for the fipost-war America’s Cup challenge in 1958. The Royal Yacht rst
Squadron was at the centre of the British campaign that saw Sceptre sent off to race against the New York YC’s defender
ColumbiaThe Squadron was just as busy encouraging foreign boats to in a one-sided match off Rhode Island.
Cowes Week, launching the Admiral’s Cup series in 1957, an event that grew to be seen as the world championship for offshore racing.
world, I continued to photograph yachting personalities. One such I’d begun my career as a portrait photographer and in the sailing
shoot I remember was of the Cowes celebrity Uffa Fox. I decided to take his pictures on the roof terrace of his house
overlooking Cowes Roads. I don’t know how many bedrooms there are in that house, but he tried to push me into each and every
one of them. He was terrible. In the end, I had to tell him very fi rmly: “I am here to take a portrait photograph of you and I think
we should get on with it!” Uffa and Max Aitken, who lived close by, were notorious friends
and between them they got up to all sorts of mischief.When I started photographing boats at Cowes Week, Frank and
later Keith Beken were at the top of this trade. I needed to develop my own style. I like to think that I made pictures, rather than took
them, and became something of an impressionist, highlighting the contrasts between clouds, sea, boat and refl ections on the water.
camera. It has an overhead viewfiI mainly used a Rolleifl ex twin-lens refl nder, which allowed me to get low ex medium-format
to the water. This was expensive on cameras – I got through at least one a year – but these low-level images became my signature.at Cowes Week were limited to taking My experiments with aerial photography
pictures from a bosun’s chair from the top of the tallest rigs. I was persuaded to fl y
in a helicopter just once, to photograph the development of Port Hamble, Britain’s
fiwas enough! rst marina during the 1960s, and once
on particularly well with was Francis Away from Cowes Week, one person I got
Chichester. He did not suffer the press that well and appointed me as his offi cial
photographer. I became the only photographer he would have aboard his
Gipsy Mothwith me directly. Francis was a real charmer and went everywhere yachts, and newspapers and magazines had to deal
with a bottle or two of champagne at the ready. I found him very good company and also got on well with Lady Chichester, who
controlled much of her husband’s life. She and I became great pals. When Francis was knighted, Sheila
asked me whether it would be appropriate for her to wear a trouser suit at the Greenwich ceremony. Sheila’s trousers caused quite a stir,
but for someone who had to help sail Thames, then jump ashore over the guard rails, they were just right.Gipsy Moth IV up the
Eric Tabarly aboard his At the start of the 2nd OSTAR in 1964, I met and photographed Pen Duick II. He was a very nice man, very
shy with little to say, but he was happy to pose for me on his yacht.At the time, we were less impressed with Alec Rose. He was
viewed as someone trying to ride on the coat-tails of Francis Chichester, who was planning to sail solo around the world and
beat the time set by circumnavigation by setting out to rival Chichester’s time, but in the Cutty Sark. Rose was trying to upstage this
end, wasn’t ready in time. He set off a year later. I photographed Rose aboard Lively Lady before he left from Portsmouth in 1968.
worked hard to persuade publishers, reluctant to spend money I was one of the fi rst to embrace colour photography and
needlessly, to gear up for colour front covers. As a result, my colour pictures were fi rst to be selected as cover shots for the
era’s big yachting magazines, including Classic Boat’s sister title, Yachts & Yachting.
For details of Cowes Week, visit aamcowesweek.co.ukMemories
during 1967 Cowes Week; British 12-M America’s Cup challenger Opposite clockwise: main picture shows Sardonyx IV, the 44ft Charles Nicholson-designed sloop built in 1964, Sceptre races in 1964; Uff a Fox in 1961; Alec Rose,
skipper of the yachtPen Duick II; Denis Doyle’s Irish ocean racer Lively Lady, 1964; Francis Chichester aboard his ketch Moonduster reaching under spinnaker during the 1967 Cowes WeekGipsy Moth III in 1960; Eric Tabarly onALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY EILEEN RAMSAY/PPLCOWES WEEKADLARD COLES NAUTICALCLAUDIA MYATTC/O DAVID HASTINGS