FALMOUTH 18-FOOTERS


“The freedom that this single rule gives has inevitably resulted in boats with massive sail areas and deep, heavy keels”


Previous spread: Magpie, Whisper, Myrtle and Moey off St Mawes Above: Bob Edwards in Magpie


T 38 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2012


his is the story of a class of just nine or 10 boats – a small class by any standards – but one with a rich history spanning a period of more than 110 years. The Falmouth 18-Foot Restricted Class


came into being at the very end of the 19th Century. The word ‘restricted’ could almost be misleading as the only restriction is that the hull length has to be 18ft (5.5m) long. The freedom that this single rule gives has inevitably resulted in boats with massive sail areas and deep, heavy keels. It might seem strange that it hasn’t led to skiff-type boats such as the Sydney Harbour 18s (a class which actually has more restrictions than just the length), but this is probably because, during the period when it might have happened, there was very little racing activity in the class. The first two boats were built in St Mawes by Fred Pasco in 1898: Chow Chow (renamed Magpie in 1904) to an A E Payne design for a Mr R Paul, and Chin Chin for a Dr Harden, a founder member of Falmouth Sailing Club, to his own design. These were soon followed by two boats built in Falmouth: Marion, built by the Jacket family for themselves in 1900, and the Alfred Mylne- designed Myrtle (CB170) in 1902, and then Wahine, another Pasco/Harden collaboration, built in 1903 above a coal store (now a Co-op) in the centre of St Mawes. There is known to have been active, and often very close, racing between these five boats throughout the early part of the 20th century – in one race in 1929, for


instance, Wahine was beating Marion by one second at the end of the first round, and at the finish the positions were reversed but with the same time difference! All the boats experimented with various gaff and gunter rigs during this time, but it was not until the early 30s that an almost revolutionary change took place. In 1931, a sixth boat joined the fleet. She was the bermudan-rigged Marie – built by the legendary St Mawes boatbuilder and sailor Frankie Peters (probably using some of the Pasco moulds) for Ian B Henderson.


It would seem that Henderson was more interested in owning a boat than sailing one; right from the start he allowed Frankie to race Marie as if she was his own, and then sold her to him a few years later. She proved to be unbeatable from the start – so much so that all the other boats gradually changed to bermudan rig, although that failed to make enough of a difference initially as Frankie dominated the class for a while longer. That was to change after the war. In the late 40s,


Magpie’s then owner, a Dr Dixon, died and left her to George Corke, a boatbuilder from Mylor. From then on, and well into the 50s, there developed an intense rivalry between George and Frankie. They would race each other up to five times a week, often with incredibly close finishes. This attracted huge local interest, particularly in St Mawes where it is said ‘the whole village’ would turn out to watch them. The St Mawes Sailing Club records indicate that, over the years, honours were pretty even.


ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY NIGEL SHARP


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