History of the Merlin Rocket Dinghy Presentation with David Henshall - RYA Suzuki Dinghy Show

[@q.e.d.9112]

The photo at ~13:35 is at More Hall reservoir which was the home of the South Yorkshire Sailing Club. This club was started in 1951. My father was one of the founders. I was seven at the time. The University of Sheffield Sailing Club was established a couple of years later and joined in our races at the weekends, but had their own racing in Ratty and Moley (their clubhouse was called Toad Hall) on Wednesday afternoons. These two boats, sail numbers in the three or four hundreds were the only boats they had for several years. In those early years members of SYSC would lend their boats to the USSC for Wednesday match racing. This photo was somewhat later, perhaps ‘62 - ‘63, by which time we had large fleets of M/Rs, GP14s, OKs and Cadets. I met my wife in her second year of Med School, when she joined USSC, in 1968. The photo almost certainly shows pre race manoeuvring, as the starting line was pretty much lined up on the house on the opposite hill. PS Ian Proctor did not invent the Self Bailer. He created the first retractable one, but the second hand 1949 Cadet that my father bought for my brother and I in 1952 had what were called “Venturi” bailers fitted either side of the keelson. These consisted of a small wedge shaped chute, open at its after end, mounted over a small round hole in the hull. An ordinary cork was shoved in the hole on the inside. You had to be going on a reach in a blow for a Cadet to get up enough speed to make them work, and the rest of the time they simply added to the drag. It was easy to dislodge a cork with your foot in which event they became “self flooders”. That was several years before the flush mounted “Proctor self bailers” started getting fitted to Merlins.

[@Stephen.Bingham]

I am a University of Sheffield Sailing Club baby. My parents met there sailing Merlins in about 1960. I regularly visited More Hall until the mid-70s as a small child.

[@q.e.d.9112]

@@Stephen.Bingham I think I remember your father, because my mother’s maiden name was Bingham. He’d be a contemporary of some of my older friends, the Ibberson brothers, perhaps, or Ross Wilcox. Mostly, I only knew USSC members by sight or first name, at that stage, because I was just that bit young to socialise with them in 1960. What was your mother’s name and your father’s given name?