Meeting at RWYC 31 October 2009
[Jonathan Seagrave writes "Your editor has to put his hands up and confess, the errors are all mine. I'd welcome more expert reports on meetings, I only do them by default! Ed". See meeting report]
I fear that your correspondent who reported on my talk on the Origins of the Racing Dinghy must have enjoyed a sleep while I was speaking - and it was before lunch!
Salcombe is confused with Sidmouth; one of my principal sources was a scrapbook detailing the dinghy racing at Sidmouth Corinthian Sailing Club between 1894 and 1912, a time when little was happening in Salcombe. The scrapbook is held at Sidmouth Museum where it can be examined on request.
Ivy Carus-Wilson (later Mrs Morgan-Giles) of Shaldon on the Teign Estuary wrote a delightful memoir describing her rowing and sailing experiences between 1904 and 1910. I tried to make the point that she informs us about matters too commonplace at the time to be recorded in the various yachting journals. Of course she moved her dinghy about by train. Many dinghy sailors did. If you were unable to sail from one regatta to another the boat had to travel by rail. Motor cars were relatively rare before the Great War (1914-18) and the first reference found to boat trailers dates from the early 1920s.
Your correspondent’s reference to the "Morgan Giles challenge" presumably relates to MG's visit to Norfolk in 1911 with a West of England 14' dinghy (moved by train) to compete with a Norfolk 14' dinghy on its home water. The MG dinghy won the match and the wager of £50 by four races to one.
From Tim Bass
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