Here's the second part of the international moth archive. Period pictures of the boats, sailors and events. We need help identifying many of them. All are numbered so just email us any information.

Another Moth legend, Chris Eyre (pictured below), very kindly scanned and shared his old pictures with us...update: see the anecdotes from Bob Humphreys below...





This picture is Bob Humphreys (me) sailing a Shelley (knacker-cracker) towards Chris's camera. It was taken at Lymington in the river at Easter around 1965. It was very windy, I was the only finisher and got three quarters of a point. Everyone else started and promptly retired; they all got 2 points. To this day I think it was a set-up. I felt very hard done by!!!! These were the days before dry or even wet suits. You spent all day soaking wet and cold.

The boat was built by Bill McCutcheon on the Isle of Wight and had the wider stem. This was done in an effort to stop the boat nose-diving. The gooseneck on these boats was 12 inches above the deck, you had to be a real contortionist to get under the nine foot long boom when tacking.

I seem to remember that the hull cost around £35 and came across from the island on top of a milk float in order to save the cost of the ferry.

The picture under is of Charlie Reeves

Ref the visit of the King of Thailand (see below). He came to race with us at the Stock Exchange Sailling Club at Thorpe near Chertsey. After the race we were showing him the boats and he expressed an interest in my Lucky Sixpence. The hull was built by Dennis Trott but I put the decks and fittings on. I built her for light weather sailing and she was very fragile. He asked how heavy she was so I offered to lift one side whilst he lifted the other. Instead of lifting by the gunwale rubber which was weak enough anyway he grabbed the inside of the deck and lifted. The whole deck broke off!!!!
Subsequently I cruised the sixpence round the island two-up with a friend from the Nautical school where we were both cadets.

In those days it was a real adventure just getting to the meetings, Cars were not even MOT'd. Chris Eyre, Andy Francis and I once ended up hitch-hiking to a meeting with the first Australian type skiff built in the UK when our van broke down. We had walked about two miles with it before we got a lift from someone with a towing bracket. We made the start line in time.

Regards Bob Humphreys