Dinghy Database History Page

A brief history of dinghy sailing in Britain
1900s Sailing has been an Olympic event since 1900. Dinghy sailing in Britain was far from a nationally organised sport, and most dinghies were designed as local classes, like the Hornsea 15 and the North Norfolk 16. Click here to see some of these early boats
1930s In 1935 the only dinghy raced in the UK on a national basis was the expensive International 14, and to encourage dinghy sailing the Royal Yachting Association published rules for a simpler and cheaper boat. The first National 12 was designed by Uffa Fox and launched in 1936. The Twelve proved extremely popular, and by the first championships in September of that year over 150 boats had been built
1940s The Fairey company used the same moulded and glued veneer technique they had used to build Mosquito aircraft to make the Uffa Fox designed Firefly, which was adopted as the Olympic single-handed class at the 1948 London games.
1950s In 1952 the first glued clinker National 12s and Merlin Rockets were built, these were more durable and more easily maintained than the older nailed boats. Ian Proctor started experimenting with metal masts to replace wooden spars in 1952 and terylene sails arrived in 1954. Dinghy sailing started to grow in popularity in 1950s. There were three important reasons for this: Jack Holt, plywood, and newspapers . In 1956 Holt designed the Enterprise for the News Chronicle, which sponsored and promoted the class. 
1960s

The pairing of Holt with Barry Bucknall (TV DIY expert) to design the Mirror for the Daily Mirror in 1962 caused sailing to expand at an enormous rate. The Mirror was designed for home building, using mass produced plywood panels, and simple "stitch & glue" construction. Soon thousands of their little red sails criss-crossed lakes and rivers, sailed by their builders.
But even plywood demands hours of upkeep, and for those who did not enjoy hours of sanding and varnishing every winter, glassfibre was a god-send.

1970s

GRP brought in mass manufacture, and cut the price of what had been a hand craft built product. Boats like the 470 and 420 were designed to be constructed in GRP, and reintroduced round hulled boats instead of the flat paneled, hard chine, plywood boats.
In 1971 Bruce Kirby, a Canadian, designed a GRP singlehander called the Laser. This boat was the first to be marketed on a global scale, and sail numbers are now in the hundreds of thousands. The Laser was adopted as an Olympic class in 1996.
In 1976, Ian Proctor designed the Topper. This was intended for GRP construction, but was eventually made from injection moulded polypropylene, and has become one of the most durable dinghies.

1980- In the 1980 designers such as Phil Morrison who had cut their teeth on the same development classes (the National 12 and Merlin Rocket) as their predecessors, and went on in the 90s to develop new boats, such as the Laser 5000. These use foam sandwich FRP construction which allows for the use of lighter and flatter panels. These new designs are usually manufacturers one-designs, with fully battened mainsails and asymmetric spinnakers, which are far easier to handle than conventional sails.
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