The Bermuda Fitted Dinghy is a type of racing-dedicated sail boat used for competitions between the yacht clubs of Bermuda. Although the class has only existed for about 130 years, the boats are a continuance of a tradition of boat and ship design in Bermuda that stretches back to the earliest decades of the 17th century.
The Bermuda rig, also known as a Marconi rig, refers to a configuration of mast and rigging with a triangular sail set aft of the mast with its headsail raised to the top of the mast. Its luff runs down the mast and is normally attached to the mast for its entire length. The sail's tack is attached at the base of the mast; its foot controlled by a boom; and its clew attached to the aft end of the boom, which is controlled by its sheet. In many early Bermudian vessels there were no booms, or only the outward corner of the mainsail might be attached to the boom, as is the case with Bermuda Fitted Dinghies. On traditional Bermudian designs, the mast was raked, and a long bowsprit was fitted, to which more than one jib might be fastened. This rig evolved on boats and small ships built in Bermuda throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, and had matured into its more or less modern form by the early 19th century. Although the rig became almost universally used on yachts and small boats during the 20th century, the traditional designs used in Bermuda were too demanding to sail for small or inexperienced crews, and there are few vessels outside of museums that have a traditional Bermudian rig – other than Bermuda Fitted Dinghies.
The development of the rig is thought to have begun with fore-and-aft rigged boats built by a Dutch-born Bermudian in the 17th century. The Dutch were influenced by Moorish lateen rigs introduced during Spain's rule of the Netherlands. The Dutch eventually modified the design by omitting the masts, with the yard arms of the lateens being stepped in thwarts. By this process, the yards became raked masts. Lateen sails mounted this way were known as leg-of-mutton sails in English. The Dutch called a vessel rigged in this manner a bezaanjacht (nl). Captain John Smith reported that Captain Nathaniel Butler, governor of Bermuda from 1619 to 1622, employed the Dutch boat builder, who quickly established a leading position among Bermuda's boat makers obliging his competitors to emulate his designs. A poem published by John H. Hardie in 1671 described Bermuda's boats in the following way: "With tripple corner'd Sayls they always float, About the Islands, in the world there are, None in all points that may with them compare".
With the buildup of the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island, at the West End, and of the Army garrison, at first in the East End, at St. George's Garrison, [2] though the military headquarters eventually moved to Prospect Camp at the centre of the colony, the idle navy and army officers, most ex-Public School boys, introduced a number of team sports to the colony. The best known of these were football, cricket, and rugby. At English schools and colleges many had also competed in rowing, and an attempt was made to introduce this sport to Bermuda, also. The rough, wind-driven Atlantic Ocean proved unsuitable, however, and the officers soon took to employing the local work boats for sail racing. These large sloops, with their crews, were hired for weekends, and sloop racing became very popular in Bermuda throughout the century. In time, sloops were designed and built specifically for racing, though they still relied on large, hired crews. The military officers were the driving force behind the creation of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club (RBYC), in 1844, and, as with cricket, the sport developed an East End versus West End dynamic, resulting from the polar locations of the two headquarters.
By 1880 there was great concern that the need for professional crews in sloop racing was making the sport too expensive, and that its development was stagnating, as a direct result. Dinghy racing was developed as a cheaper alternative. When the Bermuda Dinghy first appeared is uncertain, but the design is scaled down from the earlier sloops, rather than appearing to be an evolution of the dinghies and small boats previously used for more mundane purposes. The first race was held on 26 August 1880. A number of types of smaller boats were raced in different classes. The dinghies were restricted to amateur crews. In 1882, the Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Association was formed, holding its first races on 28 July. This association ultimately became the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club. In 1883, Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, visited Bermuda, and she donated a trophy which was awarded to the winner of a dinghy race held on 8 March, which was restricted to boats both owned and steered by club members. A purse race was held after, which was open to all amateurs. Dinghies for this race were restricted to hulls of 12 feet (3.7 m) of keel, and 14 feet (4.3 m), 1 inch overall.
The dimensions of the boats from the 1883 race have remained the standard ever since. Despite the small hulls, the dinghies carried substantial rigging. Although square topsails were reportedly in use in the 1880s, the form used today soon developed, basically scaled down from the larger sloops. One early example, the Reckless, was fitted with a 28-foot (8.5 m) mast, 28-foot (8.5 m) boom, 14-foot (4.3 m) bowsprit, and 20-foot (6.1 m) spinnaker boom. She carried 70 square yards of canvas going upwind, while the spinnaker increased this to 92 square yards running downwind.
Original Bermuda Dinghies were roundbottomed and fitted with long, shallow keels so they would be easy to beach or could run over reefs without damage. During the first recorded race, held in St. George's Harbour in 1853, the existing boats were fitted with deep keel extensions fastened in place temporarily to give them the bite to sail better to windward. These metal keels (called fans) differentiated these racing boats from the "unfitted" working dinghies and gave the class its name.
The dinghy racing, today, is an inter-club activity, fought between the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club (RBYC), the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club (RHADC), the St. George's Dinghy and Sports Club and Sandys Boat Club. Whereas most of the professional crews of the earlier sloop racing, which has since died-out, were probably Black, the restriction of dinghy racing to these clubs, with their membership historically restricted to white people, means that Bermuda Fitted Dinghy racing has maintained an exclusive, all-white reputation in Bermuda. Although it is true that mounting a dinghy campaign requires significant financial and personnel resource, new entries are welcomed regardless of race, and many of Bermuda's best-known fitted sailors are black, including Stevie Dickinson and Glenn Astwood.
The racing is carried out on set dates in a variety of locations including Hamilton or St. George's Harbours, Granaway Deep, and Mangrove Bay. The dinghies sail windward leeward courses and the number of legs is decided based on the conditions at race time. Boats always finish to windward. The boats, despite their small sizes, are each normally crewed by six people, necessary to handle the large areas of sail, and also to continually bail the dinghies, which have very little freeboard, and which are often capsized by powerful gusts. A unique rule to racing states that the number of crew to finish a race can be less than the number that started. This can encourage boats to have crew dive off the transom during a race to push the boat forward, help lighten the boat and increase performance.
As of 2011, 4 boats will be raced regularly during the Bermuda Fitted Dinghy season, although there have been rumours of other boats returning to the race course.
Contest III -Royal Bermuda Yacht Club
Challenger II -Sandy's Boat Club
Victory IV -St. George's Dinghy and Sports Club
Elizabeth II -Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club
Boats Rumoured to Return in the Near Future
Bloodhound - Bermuda Maritime Museum
Port Royal II -Knight White Dinghy Association
Echo -Sandy's Dinghy Association
This trophy is awarded to the overall winner of every season. The results from the last 20 seasons are...
2022- Contest III
2021- Contest III
2020- Contest III & Elisabeth II
2019- Contest III
2018- Elisabeth II
2017- Elisabeth II
2016- Elisabeth II
2015- Contest III
2014- Contest III
2013- Contest III
2012- Contest III
2011- Contest III
2010- Challenger II
2009- Challenger II
2008- Contest III
2007- Contest III
2006- Contest III
2005- Challenger II
2004- Contest III
2003- Contest III
2002- Contest III
A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sails fore and aft, or as a gaff-rig with triangular foresail(s) and a gaff rigged mainsail.
A sailing vessel's rig is its arrangement of masts, sails and rigging. Examples include a schooner rig, cutter rig, junk rig, etc. A rig may be broadly categorized as "fore-and-aft", "square", or a combination of both. Within the fore-and-aft category there is a variety of triangular and quadrilateral sail shapes. Spars or battens may be used to help shape a given kind of sail. Each rig may be described with a sail plan—formally, a drawing of a vessel, viewed from the side.
The Bermuda sloop is a historical type of fore-and-aft rigged single-masted sailing vessel developed on the islands of Bermuda in the 17th century. Such vessels originally had gaff rigs with quadrilateral sails, but evolved to use the Bermuda rig with triangular sails. Although the Bermuda sloop is often described as a development of the narrower-beamed Jamaica sloop, which dates from the 1670s, the high, raked masts and triangular sails of the Bermuda rig are rooted in a tradition of Bermudian boat design dating from the earliest decades of the 17th century. It is distinguished from other vessels with the triangular Bermuda rig, which may have multiple masts or may not have evolved in hull form from the traditional designs.
Dinghy sailing is the activity of sailing small boats by using five essential controls:
The Mirror is a type of popular sailing dinghy with more than 70,000 built.
Dinghy racing is a competitive sport using dinghies, which are small boats which may be rowboats, have an outboard motor, or be sailing dinghies. Dinghy racing has affected aspects of the modern sailing dinghy, including hull design, sail materials and sailplan, and techniques such as planing and trapezing.
The Albacore is a 4.57 m (15 ft) two-person planing dinghy, 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.
Gaff rig is a sailing rig in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar (pole) called the gaff. Because of the size and shape of the sail, a gaff rig will have running backstays rather than permanent backstays.
A Bermuda rig, Bermudian rig, or Marconi rig is a configuration of mast and rigging for a type of sailboat and is the typical configuration for most modern sailboats. This configuration was developed in Bermuda in the 1600s; the term Marconi, a reference to the inventor of the radio, Guglielmo Marconi, became associated with this configuration in the early 1900s because the wires that stabilize the mast of a Bermuda rig reminded observers of the wires on early radio masts.
A variety of sports are played in British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, from those brought by British and International relations, and sail racing). Some sports and events have greater historical and cultural significance whilst others are played for entertainment or competition.
A mast-aft rig is a sailboat sail-plan that uses a single mast set in the aft half of the hull. The mast supports fore-sails that may consist of a single jib, multiple staysails, or a crab claw sail. The mainsail is either small or completely absent. Mast-aft rigs are uncommon, but are found on a few custom, and production sailboats.
The International One Design is a class of sail boat developed in 1936 for yacht racing. It is a 33-foot open-cockpit day sailer used for day racing, rather than for overnight or ocean races. Popularised prior to the Second World War, the International One Design class is considered a classic one today.
His Majesty's Yacht Britannia was a gaff-rigged cutter built in 1893 for RYS Commodore Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. She served both himself and his son King George V with a long racing career.
The Twelve Foot Dinghy was designed by George Cockshott, an amateur boat designer from Southport, England in response to a 1912 design contest. It became the first one-design racing dinghy to achieve international recognition. The class was granted the 'International' status by the IYRU in 1919 and remained this status until 1964 when it was revoked by the same authority. The class was selected as the dinghy class for the Olympics in 1920 & 1928. In 1924 the French wanted to use an alternate French design.
The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club (RBYC) is a private yacht club that was established as the Bermuda Yacht Club on 1 November, 1844, after the sport of racing yachts had become established in Bermuda primarily as a pastime of idle officers of the Bermuda Garrison and the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda. In 1845, Prince Albert consented to become Patron of the Club and in 1846 the club was permitted to add the adjective "Royal" to its name. The RBYC flies the blue ensign with the RBYC badge.
Charles Ernest Nicholson was a British yacht designer.
Spirit of Bermuda is a modern-built Bermuda sloop. She is a replica of a Royal Navy sloop-of-war, depicted in a well-known 1831 painting.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to sailing:
The Tech Dinghy is an American sailing dinghy that was designed by George Owen, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as a one-design racer and for sail training. It was first built in 1935.
The Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club (RHADC) is a private yacht club in the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda that was established as the Hamilton Amateur Dingey Association on, or before, 28 July 1882. It is the World's only Royal dinghy club.
The Sandys Boat Club is the home of the Challenger II, a Bermuda Fitted Dinghy.
Mr. H. B. Small's letter to-day, gives an account of the first recorded Yacht race in Bermuda, some 150 years ago which is particularly interesting as recalling the sporting tendencies of the past.
AN OLD YACHT RACE.
To The Editor of The Royal Gazette: Sir,—The recent Boat race here recalled to my mind that I had amongst my records, or Archives as I call them an account of the first yacht race held in Bermuda in the year of our Lord 1784, which is full of interest as affording an insight into life here in those "good old days of yore." Amongst the Garrison officers stationed at that time at St. George's, were a Captain Remington and a Captain Brown, both "wealthy and much addicted to sport. The former urged a Mr. J. Trott to "sail a race," and Captain Brown urged a Mr. W. Sears to accept the challenge,