Uffa Fox International 14 designs

[Rod]

I have seen International 14 designs listed as a Fairey Marine Mk 10 which I assume is an Uffa Fox Mk 10.

I don't think I've seen somebody break down the various Uffa Fox International 14 designs into chronological Mark versions. I guess someone in the past did if they came up with a Fairey Mk10.

Anybody want to attempt to assign Mk numbers to Uffa's 14 designs?

[Rod]

Shoot from the hip and then do some research. From Tom Vaughn's history

Fairey Mk1 appeared in 1949. The last Fairey was built in 1962. There were 12 models with the original modeled after Uffa's Martlet design. So did Uffa supervise each Mk tweak or was this a shop modification promulgated by unknown Fairey craftsmen?

And how many distinct Uffa 14 designs are there? What was his last 14 design?

[Rupert]

Faireys had a whole team of draughtsmen, many of whom are quite well known. Alan Vines, who I believe presented the Vines Trophy to the Firefly class, and Charles Currey too, unless my memory is playing tricks on me again...
Ed may know better who was involved in the Fairey 14 development. I can tell you the Mk1 became the Gannett, and I did a fair amount of work on a Mk4, too. Beautiful boats.

[davidh]

Charles Currey was for sure the main influence on the boats development for the simple reason that he was very much out on the 'circuit'. He also had a very good eye for a hull line, as evidenced by the changes he made to an Uffa Nat 12 design to the point that it really became a 'Currey' boat. However, at the time, the Uffa name still carried a lot of kudos so the likely version is that his name was left in place.

Alan Burnard also would have had an input somewhere along the way as he was another 'thinker' and first rate designer........

One of the problems that any student of the Fairey marque will face will be the unstructured way they worked. If Charles saw something he liked when out racing he was not above getting the guys in the 'shop' to pull, push or tweak the mould - but with little in the way of a record of what had been done. If it worked, then it might be hailed as the 'latest development' but there is no record of how they put back those mods that were not such clear race winners

D

[Ed]

Not sure I can add much to the above, other than to agree with DH's words on the 'haphazard' nature of development at Fairey Marine.

My 14 (now sold - but do miss her) was a Mk1 and marked on the Fairey plate as such, with the shell number within that 'mark'.

My understanding was that the Mk1 was a pretty exact copy of the Uffa Design 'Martlett'. The only real change being of course that the tumblehome had to be removed to allow the shell to be removed from the mould. But I have also understood that 'Martlett' was not considered at the time to be Uffa's best or newest design. He was still building his own boats and was sure to keep the newest designs for himself to sell. UTSC have an interesting thesis held at their club on history of dinghies at UTSC that I think covers some of this.

After that, I suspect the development happened just like DH said. Small things were changed here and there, by lots of people putting their thoughts into it and new mk's given every now and again when it seemed worth it in design terms or 'marketing' terms.

I would not discount the effect of marketing at Fairey in this. Fairey were by far (maybe the only) bulk-producer of high-quality sailing dinghies in the world and were selling them world-wide in a fickle market. We can often see the 'marketing' of a boat getting out of sync with the reality. Fairey were often trying to move into a more 'cruising' and less 'racing' market. Hence their need for a larger cruising boat - they asked Uffa Fox for a design and got the Jollyboat (Fairey's Name? - only says 18ft dinghy on original plans), which original marketing had placed as a 'family' boat. But many a family got a bit of a shock (mine too?) when they took delivery. Fairey had to go on and develop the Falcon, before getting more what they wanted.

Sorry got a bit off-point there, but the thing is, Fairey would be both trying to use the 'Uffa Fox' name and also to stress that the design was in continual development. The question, as you say is how much input did Uffa Fox have on the later versions. As I said above, I doubt much....but I really don't know. I just imagine that Uffa would of demanded a fat fee for a re-design and Fairey would not wish to do that.

I suspect it was just a continual thing....like DH said. And I 'suspect' the moulds used at Fairey's were far more pragmatically looked after than we might imagine these days. I am pretty sure (Firefly experts - please correct me) but wasn't one of the Firefly moulds damaged and fixed and then found to be substantially a different length to the others....which led to a number of shells being out of class. This led to a feeling in the class that there was some 'fast' boats and 'slower' ones, due to their original mould.

I am on an interesting trail at the moment on another similar issue. I have looked at lots of Jollyboats in my time, but one turned up to Netley last year which had a quite different bow shape to the other....and to what I would expect. This had us very confused. I had never seen one like it, yet we could see no evidence of a repair or a change. The only deduction we could come to was that it was made on a different mould. Since then I have found another one like that....and I suspect (american ebay photo) another. So there just 'must' of been a difference in the shape of at least two of the moulds.

I reckon, if we really checked all our Fairey boats, we would find more differences than we would suspect. Peter Vinton's Fairey Finn was built by Fairey, but sold un-measured, because it wouldn't! and then needed much re-building work to bring it into class. But this would of happened with Finns because they were properly measured, but simply would not of happened with Fireflys or Jollyboats that would of been sold regardless.

One other question that this does bring up though....which I would love to know the answer to and maybe DH or our other historians can help me with is: "What relationship did Uffa have with Fairey Marine?" We know he was somewhat aggravated by builders taking advantage of the build-tolerances with the FF. But what did he think when Fairey dropped the Swordfish and pushed the Albacore - a direct copy of his design. Was there any financial arrangement as compensation or for using his design to base the Albacore? What did Fairey think when they asked for a family cruising boat and got the Jollyboat? If his 14 design was used....and then gradually changed....what did he think about that? Was he still paid a design fee for shell sold?

All questions I would love to know the answer to.

Good to hear from you Rod....and interesting IC designs on your computer at the moment?

talk later

eib

[Ancient Geek]

Someone mentioned Alan Vines, like all who raced at Ranelagh in the sixties I knew Alan, he had a National 12 Flying Suacer no 1277 a Holt boat very quick on the river.
Alan deserves more credit than he gets for his innovation apart from overseeing the worlds first builder of MOD's he designed the baggage handling hardware for LHR Terminal 3.
He certainly was in favour of using the hulls for different applications, the Ranelagh Rescue Boat was a Swordfish Hull fitted with a small diesel inboard and several launches for the Thames Conservancy and the Yare and Bure Commisioners were Flying Dutchman hulls with added freeboard.
There is a chapter or two in Robin Stevensons books of the difficulties with a Fairy Int 14 shell not being "as advertised".
He also built a rather spartan small cruiser from a Fairy large hull a Jollyboat? with a Moulded top called Suejanwizz (After his three daughters.) Sue (Still sails a Firefly at Tamesis.) Jane and Wizz that was to be the fore runner of the Atalanta, Alans' own Atalanta was called LuLu - cos it had two loos!
People and companies simply did not note the subtle changes or even quite basic ones the way we do nowadays I have friends who fly and drive vintage vehicles and even Rolls Royce are notorious for their lack of record keeping or least deviation from the records!
As Winston Churchill said history will say because I shall write the history.
That is why the CVRDA and the efforts of Henshall & Chivers et al are so important if we are maintain an accurate record.

[Ed]

Isn't that funny,

just went downstairs for lunch and saw that my latest ebay acquisition had arrived:

The Fairey Marine Atalanta - A short History by George Parker

The first photo - Alan Vines with Uffa Fox and the second - SuJanWiz.

Not that I in any way agree with the habit of making up boat names out of female family members - a habit also of my fathers, which seemed to only ever cause disagreement and a series of awful names.

eib

[Rod]

Very interesting. The Fairey 14's were a design progression instigated by Curry et all. There is really no historical record of what is different from a Fairey Mk1 I-14 and, say, a Mk10. How many of Uffa's lines plans of I-14's are archived? Certainly Avenger and Alarm hull lines are well known but what about others like Martlet, or Thunder and Lightning? Is there a complete set of lines for all of Uffa's 14 designs or again were some of them tweaked off existing molds.

[Ed]

Rod,

the only Uffa Fox plans that I am aware of....are with Mike and Tony Dixon who have the rights to his plans.

They are available (as I am sure you know) from here: http://www.uffafox.com/plans.htm

cheers

eib

[DavidC]

Great care needs to be taken with any published plans that might in the yachting press. It was common for designers to slightly modify the plans that became public to protect their designs.

Thunder had more hollow in her waterlines than Thunder & Lightning but the plans for both show straight waterlines.

[Michael Brigg]

Hi Rod,

I don't know much about i14's and their different designs, but since you have an interest in the Fairey boats I wonder if this quote from an e-mail I had from Charles Currey's son might shed some light on the way things were done back then.

..."What you are refereing to is My Fathers 12' National designs these were called "Currey Cribs" and there is one in a meuseum somewhere in wales. Most were built by him at Burnes ( some at Itchenor Shipyard which Pa built in
1936 ) including one " Mermaid 109 which he built for a girl friend " and crewed to second place in Burton cup 1936. This was Mothers Boat. The later ones went faster and faster as Father gradually made them more prone to plane earlier and earlier...."

The quote relates to an enquiry I made of Alistair Currey about a Chichester 12ft OD's, an open undecked 12ft clinker (designed just before WW2 and built at Itchenor, just across the water from Bosham and Burnes Shipyard, also in Bosham where the Currey family (and my own family) lived.)

The quote certainly seems to imply that "tweaking" a design was common, even standard practice. I understand Charles Currey then joined the Fairey Marine company when the chairman of the Fairey company (Mr Chichester-Smith, a keen yachtsman himself) identified pleasure boating as the direction to go in now their services were no longer required in the Aeronautical division.

I would imagine that "old habits die hard" and wouldn't be atall surprised if the same process went on at Faireys.

[Nessa]

Yesterday I was talking to a chap at Hunts SC who told me he restored one of the last Uffa Fox 14s. It was a 600 some thing sail number, that's all I know. When he comes back from a 3 week spell in France I will find out more.

[ACB]

On this subject, does anyone know whether the I14's built by Uffa before WW2 - and he was practically into mass production - were built to the same plan each year - so that, say, all 1936 dinghies are the same and all 1938 dinghies are the same, with small tweaks to suit owners preferences. I am assuming that these boats must undoubtedly have been planked up over a form, removed from the form and then ribbed, as one can see in the photos of the building of "Vigilant" in "Sailing Seamanship and Yacht Construction". In that case, it would make sense to make one form per year, unless he had so many orders that it was worthwhile to make two.

[Ancient Geek]

I am pretty sure from discussions oh so long ago with Peter Scott, Keith Shackleton and Beecher Moore to drop just three names! That rather like Jack Holt and his Merlins that whilst there was a basic mark or type over a short period he was not above altering them on a whim or to customer request -(Not difficult as long as you do not change the rocker (Keel line.))- for instance Peter Scotts Daybreak was a lot finer all over being principally for lighter weather! One or two of Uffas boats were sent to the USA for "Stud" at Stewart Morris's expense and were the inspiration for the earliest moulded hulls in the USA.

Incidentally if you are ever restoring a ribbed moulded boat NEVER use stripper there is a layer of oiled silk between the veneers that keeps them (Sort of.) watertight!

[ACB]

Thanks. I suspect they float on the varnish! I can see that the hull would have been pretty floppy when taken off the planking form - I recall that Uffa first experiements with boneless Fourteens were unsucessful because they were too floppy. The planks hull may have been sat in a cradle for ribbing - it would be easy to "tweak" the shape of the cradle but difficult to vary the shape of the planking up form or the transom.