How would yachting have developed without GRP?

[Puffin10032]

They certainly were. We no longer had to hang the sails in the sail shed to dry before bagging them. On the other hand, terylene sails were so much more powerful and caught the wind so quickly that we had to re-learn how to sail just to avoid capsizing.

I must confess that I didn't start sailing until the late 1960s so don't have any experience of cotton sails. I'm not sure I missed much.

 

[DanTribe]

Dredging the depths of my memory I vaguely recall a dinghy made from newspaper impregnated with a resin, perhaps phenolic.
A short lived idea, possibly the Mailboat or Coypu?

 

[Puffin10032]

Dredging the depths of my memory I vaguely recall a dinghy made from newspaper impregnated with a resin, perhaps phenolic.
A short lived idea, possibly the Mailboat or Coypu?

Not the Coypu I know of. That was a gunter-rigged GRP dinghy designed and built by Dawn Craft of Wroxham. The Mailboat was made from high-density polystyrene, had a spritsail main and a jib and was truly awful.

 

[Sailing steve]

Boats would undoubtedly have been more expensive so there would have been fewer of them built. Home-building plywood dinghies from kits would probably have carried on. Marinas would be full of interesting and eclectic boats in every imaginable colour instead of walls of white plastic. And I'd still be useless at varnishing

On the other hand without the durability of GRP and significant expansion of boat ownership that followed there probably wouldn't have been any marinas

 

[Puffin10032]

On the other hand without the durability of GRP and significant expansion of boat ownership that followed there probably wouldn't have been any marinas

Good point. As to whether less marinas would be a good or a bad thing I couldn't possibly comment

 

[Wansworth]

I think marinas came from the US and the first marina was in Birdham using the old tidal mill pond,Birdham in Chichester harbour in Sussex.Its a marina along way from the more purpose built marinas ,having spent several moths living on a boat there the only downside was the walk to the nearest pub

 

[johnalison]

I think marinas came from the US and the first marina was in Birdham using the old tidal mill pond,Birdham in Chichester harbour in Sussex.Its a marina along way from the more purpose built marinas ,having spent several moths living on a boat there the only downside was the walk to the nearest pub

We bought our first cruiser in '71 and I was looking around for somewhere to keep her. In the event we ended up at Heybridge Basin, which is a sort of canal (actually a navigation) with access via a lock, but in the process I visited Tollesbury marina which had just been built. The place looked bleak and surrounded by naked earthen banks, so I gave it a miss and didn't think about marinas untilwe started to go foreign some years later.

 

[Wansworth]

We bought our first cruiser in '71 and I was looking around for somewhere to keep her. In the event we ended up at Heybridge Basin, which is a sort of canal (actually a navigation) with access via a lock, but in the process I visited Tollesbury marina which had just been built. The place looked bleak and surrounded by naked earthen banks, so I gave it a miss and didn't think about marinas untilwe started to go foreign some years later.

It hada pub though