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Flying 10s at the Lancashire Sailing Club long ago
Can anyone help Robert Macdonald please – he has written in to ask for photos and information about built examples of Flying Twelves.
I could only send him links to the posts we’ve had mentioning Flying Tens – see this and this. I should have added that early in intheboatshed.net’s career I met a pleasant elderly gentleman on a train who had sailed Twelves until recent years but I lost touch with him. The whole thing was too tantalising for words…
Anyway, this is what Robert has to say about his interest:
‘I’ve long been a fan of Uffa Fox. He has a legacy here in Toronto, Ontario where more than fifty Albacores race together every Friday night in the summer. I wish that some of his Flying Fifteens raced here as well!
‘While I was looking at the Uffa Fox website last year I discovered the Flying Twelve, the Flying Fifteen’s little sister. The idea of a sleek little planing keelboat the size of a dinghy got me hooked! I e-mailed Tony Dixon, Uffa’s nephew, and bought a set of Flying Twelve plans, which duly came in the mail. I’m not a boatbuilder and if I do build the Twelve, the project will be in many steps. I’ll probably first try a smaller flat sectioned boat, like a Mirror. If I ever do put a Flying Twelve in the water, it will be a solid and safe, and pretty boat.
‘Tony told me some about the design’s history and I found stuff on the Web (including Uffa’s wonderful story about designing the Fifteen), but there were no photos. Then I came across pictures here on intheboatshed.net of a Flying Ten at the Beale Park Boat Show; it’s the smallest of the Flying family, 14ft long, and designed for junior sailing. What immediately struck me was that it wasn’t a stubby version of the Fifteen, but slimly beautiful like its big sister. Which showed me what I wanted to see but don’t have a boatbuilder’s eye to see clearly from the plans – it’s clear that the Twelve would be a real pocket version of the Fifteen. So I’m grateful to intheboatshed editor Gavin Atkin for the pictures.
‘If you have a picture of a Flying Twelve and could forward it to Gavin (at gmatkin@gmail.com) to post for me and the world to look at, it would highlight the range of the Flying family of sailboats, and I would be very thankful. The story behind the picture would be just as good!
‘Robert MacDonald’
So… can anyoner out there help? If you can, please use the comment button below, or write to me directly at gmatkin@gmail.com and I will be delighted to pass the relevant material on to Robert.