Little gem of a film about coastal shipping,' A Passage To Wisbech'

[longjohnsilver]

Well said!

It was for exactly the same reason that sleepy little Exmouth at one time had one of the highest concentrations of Olympic, World, & National dingey racing champions in the country. If you learnt to sail a dingey well there, you could sail it verywell anywhere else.

Now my memory has been nudged, I've just remembered being taught sail trimming by James Hunt. This is the James Hunt who was a top-top dingey racer, and worked at the local sail loft (was that Rowsell Sails?). Not James Hunt the F1 driver, which is why the James Hunt who was a top-top dingey racer was semi-permanently pissed-off by people saying "Oi, you're not James Hunt the F1 Driver".

Not sure about James Hunt, not a name I recognise locally, but I'm meeting up with Phil Morrison later today for a beer after he and another mate go to collect his sons boat which broke its mooring yesterday, the son being Stevie Morrison, twice Olympic 49er competitor and former world champion , as was his dad. So yes, the Exmouth dinghy sailing tradition continues.

And the pilot may well have been a brother of Spud Rowsell, another international standard dinghy sailor of the 70s and early 80s. And there's his daughter, Steph Bridge who is a 4 time world kite sailing champ. The list is long!

 

[Wooden Boat Fittings]

Thanks for posting that. What a great film!

For some reason I was reminded of Compton Mackenzie's fictitious Island Queen, plying the Minch under Captain MacKechnie....

Mike