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Preview of boats appearing
at Classic Boat Auction on Saturday, 3rd June 2017 Beale Park
We will display some of the boats that will be in the auction on this page. Please check back often as we will profile new boats each week. For the full list of boats at the auction then please go to our bidder registration page and fill in a registration form to order a complimentary catalogue.
6. Flying Ten
We all know there is such a thing as sibling rivalry. Perhaps a more overtly outgoing or more famous brother takes the lime light from the smaller sibling, even though that smaller sibling is as deserving of praise and recognition. May be that is the fate of the Flying Ten. It is the lesser known and smaller sister of that excellent, and ever popular racing keel boat the Flying Fifteen. Both Flying keelboats share a common father in the legendary Uffa Fox. We are pleased to offer this very rare and sweet keelboat at the auction and bring it back into the light, and front stage once more.
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Uffa Fox was a boat designer, boat builder and yachtsman sans pareil. Besides his pioneering work in creating the first planing sailing dinghy, the International 14, in the 1930's, after the war he also went on to design a very successful range of racing keelboats, starting with the Flying Fifteen.
Out of the Flying Fifteen design came Uffa's next wave of inspiration, producing a range of planing keelboats from the Flying Ten through to the Flying Twenty Five. Then using similar hulls he produced a range of cruiser/racer yachts from the Flying Twenty Five through to the Flying Fifty. Reportedly, The Flying Thirty and Thirty Five designs actually could be got up on to the plane in the right conditions, whatever the right conditions were for such a large craft.
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The Flying Ten we are offering at auction is the baby of the range. She is from Andrew Thornhill's private collection. It has a lemon yellow hull and is in Excellent Condition throughout. It is complete with rig, sails and rudder. The little boat’s dimensions are approximately, length overall 14ft; beam 3ft 11in; draught 1ft 6in; waterline length 10ft and so is a very handy and economical racer to own and store. These boats are extremely rare and do not come up for sales very often at all and to our knowledge the last one to be shown at Beale Park was back in 2007.
These boats today are getting increasingly rare. The Flying Ten was the product of collaboration between Uffa Fox and Fairey Marine and as you would expect from such a collaboration it is built to a very high standard. This high standard of workmanship and materials clearly added to the original cost of vessel and may indeed account for why so few of the baby Tens were produced. However, that craftsmanship and devotion to building the right boats in the right way, means we can still appreciate them today, and they last and last.
The Uffa Fox boats in particular are built to very high standards and represent unique record of Britains sailing heritage. However, they are thoroughbreds that want to take to water again and race. Thankfully many of the original Uffa Fox boats, including this one, have been preserved in a national private collection It is a great privilege to offer these racing heroes, from Andrew's collection, to a new generation of owners.
We would like to work with the new owners to establish a racing fleet of International 14's and include other Uffa's design once again that could then compete in an annual Uffa Fox Memorial Cup. Therefore, these boats coming up for auction may be of interest for a sailing club, collectors as well as individual yachtsmen/yachtswomen who wish to own and enter in the new trophy regatta.
