Boat | |
---|---|
Crew | 2 |
Hull | |
Hull weight | 120 kg (260 lb) |
LOA | 4.75 m (15.6 ft) |
Beam | 1.69 m (5 ft 7 in) |
Sails | |
Spinnaker area | 5.57 m2 (60.0 sq ft) |
Upwind sail area | 6.78 m2 (73.0 sq ft) [1] |
Racing | |
D-PN | 91.6 |
RYA PN | 1035 |
The Kestrel was the first sailing dinghy especially designed to have a fibreglass hull. [2]
After a slow start, due to resistance to the new material, the Kestrel grew in popularity. This success led to more and more classes changing their rules to allow fibreglass construction. Today, the class is still a popular choice, particularly for 'club' racers and training schools. The design has been updated by Phil Morrison and has most recently been built by Hartley Laminates.[ citation needed ]
In 1955, Ian Proctor designed the Kestrel.[ citation needed ]
The first few Kestrels were constructed using timber, since fibreglass technology was still very new. Construction was soon converted to the originally intended fibreglass, but the popularity of the class grew slowly due to a widespread mistrust of the new material.[ citation needed ]
It was not until[ when? ], Gmach & Co [2] in Fordingbridge began constructing new hulls that the class started to grow. The firm made the boat for 25 years and introduced a Mark II version.[ citation needed ]
In 1988, Martin Services in Essex, UK took over construction. [3]
Since 1999, Richard Hartley's company Hartley Laminates have been the sole builders of Kestrels. [1] They have released a new Kestrel called the Kestrel 2000, which is a stronger, stiffer version of the original Kestrel.[ citation needed ]
In handicap racing, the Kestrel sails off a Portsmouth Yardstick number of 1040 [4] or a D-PN of 91.6. [5]
The Mirror is a type of popular sailing dinghy with more than 70,000 built.
The Heron Dinghy is a dinghy designed by Jack Holt of the United Kingdom as the Yachting World Cartopper. The Heron dinghy was designed to be built by a home handyman out of marine ply over a timber frame, but can now also be constructed from marine ply using a stitch and glue technique or from Fibreglass. Modern dinghies will usually have built in buoyancy tanks, older craft will have bags or retrofitted tanks.
The Albacore is a 4.57 m (15 ft) two-person planing dinghy with fractional sloop rig, for competitive racing and lake and near-inshore day sailing. Hulls are made of either wood or fiberglass. The basic shape was developed in 1954 from an Uffa Fox design, the Swordfish. Recent boats retain the same classic dimensions, and use modern materials and modern control systems.
The GP14 is a wooden or fibreglass hulled double-handed fractional Bermuda rigged sailing dinghy designed by Jack Holt in 1949.
The Laser is a class of single-handed, one-design sailing dinghies using a common hull design with three interchangeable rigs of different sail areas, appropriate to a given combination of wind strength and crew weight. Ian Bruce and Bruce Kirby designed the Laser in 1970 with an emphasis on simplicity and performance.
A Streaker is a type of sailing dinghy designed in 1975 by Jack Holt. It is a light one-person boat with a uni-rig stayed sail plan. It is sailed mainly in Britain and the Philippines, and over 2200 have been built. At first all boats were built of plywood, but since 1998 fibreglass, and fibreglass variants have been used, and now over half of new boats are of fibreglass or composite construction.
The Wayfarer is a wooden or fibreglass hulled fractional Bermuda rigged sailing dinghy of great versatility; it can be used for short 'day boat' trips, for longer cruises and for racing. Over 11,000 have been produced as of 2016.
The 470 (Four-Seventy) is a double-handed monohull planing dinghy with a centreboard, Bermuda rig, and centre sheeting. Equipped with a spinnaker, trapeze and a large sail-area-to-weight ratio, it is designed to plane easily, and good teamwork is necessary to sail it well. The name comes from the boat's length of 470 centimetres.
The OK Dinghy is an international class sailing dinghy, designed by Knud Olsen in 1956.
The Cadet is a class of sailing dinghy designed to be sailed by two children up to the age of 17. It is a one-design class, originally designed by Jack Holt in 1947. Cadets are sailed worldwide in more than 40 countries.
One-design racing is a racing method which may be adopted in sports using complex equipment, whereby all vehicles have identical or very similar designs or models, avoiding the need for a handicap system.
The Fireball is a British sailing dinghy that was designed by Peter Milne as a one-design racer and first built in 1962.
The Wanderer is a 14-foot Fibreglass hull Bermuda rigged sailing dinghy designed by Ian Proctor. One of the main objectives of the design was to produce a robust safe and versatile dinghy that could be used for knockabout day sailing and cruising as well as racing, but was light enough to be handled ashore.
The 29er is a two-person high performance sailing skiff designed by Julian Bethwaite and first produced in 1998. Derived from the Olympic class 49er class, it is raced in the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships. The 29er is able to reach high speeds fairly quickly by having a sleek and hydrodynamic hull and will often exceed the wind speed when planing both up and downwind.
The Moth is a small development class of sailing dinghy. Originally a small, fast home-built sailing boat designed to plane, since 2000 it has become an expensive and largely commercially produced boat designed to hydroplane on foils though many are still built at home, typically at much lower cost.
Phil Morrison is a British boat designer and racer rendered notable by the success of his many designs in many classes since 1967 as well as his own distinguished yacht racing career.
The Pelican is a pram dinghy, peculiar to Perth, Western Australia
The Norfolk Punt is a type of yacht, derived from the flat-bottomed gun punts that roamed the Broadland waters in the mid-to-late 19th century. However, at the turn of the 20th century, in order to get to and from the hunting grounds more quickly, the punters developed their highly unstable craft to carry a basic mast and sail for travelling with the wind. It is from these humble beginnings that one of the country's most exciting and powerful racing dinghy classes was born.
The Gull sailing dinghy was designed by Ian Proctor in 1956, originally as a frameless double-chine plywood boat. However, it has been through several incarnations: the wooden Mark I, GRP Mark III, GRP Gull Spirit and GRP Gull Calypso. Today it is popular with sailing schools, especially in the United Kingdom.
The Minisail is a 13-foot single-handed dinghy which was designed by Ian Proctor in 1959 and became popular in the 1960s. It was the predecessor to the Topper and was the first British production boat to popularise the idea of the "sailing surfboard". As the Topper gained popularity in the 1980s, the Minisail disappeared from the scene. However, on 28 August 2011, a group of enthusiasts restarted the Minisail Class Association, which now has a small but committed following mainly in north-west Europe. The class association website is https://www.minisail.org.uk/