National 18 - classic

The National 18 began in 1938 following a design competition organised by the then YRA (now RYA) and Yachting World magazine. The original idea was that of Frank Knowling of Whitstable YC (later to be known as the father of the class) for an 18-foot sailing dinghy, suitable for day sailing, yet fast enough to be of interest to racing sailors and at a reasonable cost. (The first rather hopeful restriction of the original class rules was : Price not to exceed £125 complete with spars, all equipment and designer's fee but not including sails). The plan was to produce an affordable national alternative to the many local one-designs of about this size to be found right round the coast of the British Isles. Many of these local estuary classes survive today, for example the Mermaid in Dublin, Thames Estuary OD, Chichester Harbour 18 etc. The well-known designer Uffa Fox won the competition (over the Laurent Giles submitted version) with his 'Ace' design for a clinker-built wooden boat. National 18 number 1, 'Hurricane', was owned by Stanley Beale and sailed at Whitstable, with No.2 'Gust' and No.3 'Foam'. Initial enthusiasm was held back by the effects of World War II but a good deal of 18 building got underway soon afterwards, when mahogany was again available for boat-building and the class became active especially in the Thames Estuary area. By 1950, fleets had appeared at clubs dotted all around the British Isles and Ireland, the Class Association having been formed in 1947. Although most boats were built to the 'Ace' design, the class had always been 'restricted' rather than 'one-design' and boats with a reduced number of wider planks were built when glued plywood construction was adopted and even one moulded carvel boat was built (252 'Sabon') By the mid 1960s, competition from the ever-increasing number of smaller, lighter dinghies, especially the many new grp built classes, almost consigned the racing 18 to history. The first generation of 18 racers were moving to bigger boats or golf and their heirs were left with high maintenance, old-fashioned looking boats. One step towards improving things, taken in 1967, was to reduce the minimum weight of the metal centreboard from 175 lbs to 65lbs (ie: the same size and shape plate but in aluminium instead of cast iron). However, the expense of traditional wooden boat building brought the production of new boats to a halt. In the same year, the Class voted to allow grp construction and commissioned Ian Proctor to design a new 18, with the informal brief that these should not outclass the wooden boats overnight. By 1969, the plug and mould had been produced and the first grp 18 built was number 266 'Genevieve' owned by Murray Vines. Murray Vines was Class President from 1954 to 1989. The grp boat gave the class a new lease of life with over 40 new boats registered within 5 years. The excessive weight in the 'over-engineered' Proctor deck and floor plans ensured that the grp boats did not outpace the wooden ones; although the set-up of the wooden boats, which continued to win the National championships up to 1977, didn't resemble the original ones too closely. The last wooden boat to win the Nationals was the mahogany 'Ace' number 183 'Maid Mary' from the Isle of Man. The 18 of course remained a restricted class and in 1978 a foam-sandwich one-off, 'Woodstock' (314) was built in the Isle of Man, designed by (sixth-former) Jonathan Hudson. This design was rather like an 18-foot Merlin Rocket at the time with very little rocker, narrower waterline, flatter run aft and a beam of 8 feet at deck level. Despite shortcomings in the foils and rig, this very stable boat was unbeatable downwind and the leverage of moving the three crew out an extra foot made her stiffer all round, In 1980, the Class voted to grandfather 'Woodstock' and go back to the Proctor hull design for all future grp boats. This was to protect the interest of existing owners, as the entire fleet may as well have been scrapped there and then if further development was to be permitted. In the wake of the considerable fuss, a number of rules were changed to help up-date the boats. By 1982, 18s were allowed: a full top batten, a single trapeze (though remaining a three person boat), a 2540 mm spinnaker pole (instead of 1830 mm), air-tanks (instead of polystyrene foam blocks) for buoyancy, and a 10 kgs centreboard (instead of 65 lbs/29.5 kgs) - material optional. Development of the standard grp hull 18s now came on apace. Within certain limits, the rules for the design of floors, buoyancy and decks still allow scope for experiment and many variations are now to be seen. With less weight, better spars, sails and foils a lot more potential has been realised, confirmed by the reduced RYA Portsmouth handicap figure (currently Recorded Number 957). Through the 1980s new boats were produced in England, by Chris Haswell (and others) and in Ireland, by Jim McCarthy (and others). By the late 1980s both the existing moulds, one in Ireland and one in England were well past their sell by date and were scrapped. In the early 1990s Peter Hinds, Isle of Man, produced new hull and deck moulds for the Class from the hull of number 330, a boat bought from Derek Newman in London. Derek was Class Secretary from 1960 to 2000. From these moulds, Peter produced numbers 347 to 350 inclusive. In 1995 the moulds were transported to Ireland for the Cork Harbour fleet to build replacement boats at the new reduced minimum weight. For decades, there had been pressure from the racing fraternity for a reduction in boat minimum weight and, after the building of the experimental number 348 in the Isle of Man, the weight was reduced from 250 kgs to 200 kgs in 1996. This change made the boats a lot easier to handle afloat and ashore. Although 200 kgs still looks high these days, the deep-chested 1960s hull design means that any further reduction in weight just lifts the bow out of the water. No point in having an 18-foot boat with a 16-foot waterline! Following the trend in many classes, loose-footed mainsails were also adopted in 1996. Since 1996, twenty-seven (grp hull and deck) boats have been built to the current standardised 'Irish' version, producing a near one-design 18 fleet in Cork. With so many boats on the water enjoying the best of racing, Cork Harbour is the stronghold of the racing 18 and has supplied the Class Champion in all but 9 years since 1965. Please look at the Results page for details. The building of wooden 18s seemed to be forgotten with rule changes aimed at the grp boats. So in 1997 when Peter Collett (Falmouth) came along, keen to build a new wooden 18, the Class, still smarting from 'Woodstock' perhaps, decided to limit new wooden boats to the familiar Uffa Fox 'Ace' hull design. The modern method of clinker building using (6mm) plywood glued planks would give a much cleaner interior than the original ribbed version. As far as we know, this is the only new wooden 18 built since the mid 1960s. However, in practice, all new boats now come out of the Class mould to the 1968 Ian Proctor grp hull design. A few of the earlier grp boats have been re-decked and floored providing competitive boats at reasonable cost. The 18 is a rewarding powerful dinghy to sail in the right hands and is one of a very few three-person centre-boarders available. Many 18 sailors today are the third generation of families who have long appreciated both the rather special boats and the lifetime friendships within the Class.