Thanks Trucker
Hagar, You're a lucky Man living around there, it's a beautiful part of the world. In the picture we are sailing back from Hayling island Sailing Club to Itchenor, we are just passing East Head (out of shot, on our right in the pic). We could of done with a bit more wind......We have a week down there every year in july or august.
Right, back to Fairey and the Albacore.
In the 1940s Fairey Aviation branched out into boat building, many of the skills required for manufacturing aircraft were directly transferable. A few of the aircraft names were borrowed for the boats manufactured by Fairey Marine.
Fairey Gannet Dinghy
Fairey Firefly Dinghy
Fairey Swordfish Dinghy
The Last of these, the Swordfish Dinghy was designed by Uffa Fox. Although a good design it wasn't popular because of weight and cost issues. So the team at Fairey Marine redesigned it and called it the Albacore. It became a massively popular boat in the UK and Canada ......It still is a massively popular boat, the modern ones are made of GRP (although wood is still available). There's probably at least one of these at every sailing club in the UK, many clubs have fleets of them. Although used for pleasure sailing most Albacore sailors race them.
I have sailed one on a few occasions, it's a delight to sail and very quick in a breeze. (One of these was clocked at 20 knots with a GPS, not quick in general terms but very quick for a dinghy). It's easy for a beginner to sail and challenging for an expert to sail well.....(My Wife doesn't want one though because there's no spinnaker or trapeze, she reckons she'd get bored
)
So there you have it, a boat that was both designed and built by Fairey nearly 60 years ago is still being manufactured (by other builders), it's still massively popular and shows no sign of decline.
Here's a link with more detailed/accurate info for those who want it:
http://www.classicboat.co.uk/class-notes/albacore/Here's a pic of the Albacore from which the first picture was taken by my Wife:
