What dinghy is this?

[Benny81]

Hi, I picked up a trailer for my DIY dinghy build I have almost finished, for £150...... it had a grp dinghy on it which was unfortunate. I'm going to sell it or give it away perhaps but I have no idea what it is! Any ideas please? Many thanks

 

[B27]

If it's 14ft, I'd say it was a Lark.

 

[Minerva]

not only is it a lark, I’d go further and say it’s a mk1 baker lark.

 

[Daydream believer]

Bosun

 

[dunedin]

Bosun

100% NOT a Bosun. Totally different. As others have said a Lark - note the distinctive hull shape at the stern.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Bosuns have rolled side decks do they not? Haven’t been in one for nearly 50 years

 

[jamie N]

420.

 

[PeterV]

Yes, it’s definitely a Lark. If you haven’t got all the equipment and sails it’s quite worthless, especially without a trailer and trolley. Sad but realistic.

 

[Boathook]

Would it make a good shore to mooring tender with a few modifications?

 

[dunedin]

Yes, it’s definitely a Lark. If you haven’t got all the equipment and sails it’s quite worthless, especially without a trailer and trolley. Sad but realistic.

Yes, for some reason the Lark seems to have cornered the market as a GRP flower bed.

 

[Benny81]

Thanks all, I thought it might be worth a big fat nothing. It has a mast and the center board is there but no rudder and all lines are manky. it does have quite a few blocks and bits and pieces which I'll strip and make use of. Cheers

 

[Sybarite]

420.

+1

 

[jac]

AGree it's a lark.( I used to sail them 30 years ago at uni!) I would suggest cleaning it up quickly with a pressure washer - put the manky lines through the washing machine and then flog it on ebay with no reserve. You might get £100 if you're really lucky and some one local with a trailer fancies some Lark bits but you may end up letting it go for only a few £.

Alternative would be to flog the bits off as spares and then chop the hull for landfill.

 

[Fantasie 19]

Take anything off you can sell separately.. grind out and fill the daggerboard casing and slot (or don'tbother) , put in a wooden seat and sell as a tender... couldn't believe what I got for my old manky one recently...

 

[Refueler]

Bloody shame ... if I was in UK - I would gladly take it of your hands and put her back in water where she belongs ....

 

[magicol]

Sadly there doesn’t seem to be a market for older Larks, there are two unused and sitting miserably at my local sailing club. They are great dinghies; I raced them at university and bought one when I left. Great fun racing around the country with big fleets at many clubs in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Sadly there doesn’t seem to be a market for older Larks, there are two unused and sitting miserably at my local sailing club. They are great dinghies; I raced them at university and bought one when I left. Great fun racing around the country with big fleets at many clubs in the 1970s and 1980s.

They have a limited life at the pointy end of the fleet. There is no value in older boats of this type, whatever class they are.

 

[B27]

The boat in question was outmoded when I was at uni, and that's a long time ago.
We had boats like that, they were a bit poor really, but the point was we had 6 3/4 of them so we had evenly matched racing and team racing.

Boats like this are OK for some basic training or pottering about, but there's limited interest.
Larks are only much good for racing, tippy little sods.
I don't think it would be much good as a tender, too big, too heavy, wet in any chop and you need to keep your weight forwards.

Old boats, even GRP ones are expensive and time consuming to restore and maintain.
A lot of Larks had hard lives with student sailing. I'd check for bodged repairs before doing anything with it.
If the mast is more modern than the boat, it may have value.
The centre plate is alloy? if it's straight, someone might want it.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

without rudder it is merely an unfortunately sized tender, as sourcing a rudder and new lines would cost you money.

Sell it for whatever you can get to shift it off your drive

 

[Ian_Edwards]

The Lark's design was derived from Merlin Rockets in the late 1960's.
I sailed them in team racing events and against them in general handicap racing, when I was racing Merlin Rockets.
I remember them as fun to sail, responsive fast up wind, planed early, and quite durable, capable of surviving a bunch of late teens/early 20's aggressively team racing them.
As said, it probably has no real value for serious racing, but would be fun to race in a general handicap fleet.
Absolutely no value as a tender, too long for most people, very little initial stability, you had to actively balance the boat 2 people on one side would probably capsized it. It is also too wide to row and the thwart would be too low.
As suggested, clean everything up and advertise it for £100 or so, it may give someone a foothold in sailing at a local reservoir.
I started racing in an old Procter Mk 6 Merlin Rocket, which was quite a lot older than I was, but it was all I could afford. We got wet many times, learned a lot, much of which I'm still using, sailing my Southerly 46RS, often singlehanded handed, in my late 70's.