Yacht design by decade
The 1960s saw a huge increase in sailing participation, fuelled in part by the DIY boatbuilding boom. Rupert Holmes reports
Part two explores the huge increase in sailing participation and the DIY boatbuilding boom of the 1960s
The 1960s was a decade of huge change in which many earlier developments, including the advent of fibreglass construction and shorter keels, with a separate rudder further aft, finally became mainstream.
At the start of the decade traditional wooden boatbuilding still dominated at most yards, but by 1970 virtually all new designs were of fibreglass and even plywood was generally reserved for home-built boats.
There was also a huge DIY boom – on which this magazine’s early rise to prominence was built – that helped fuel enthusiasm for economical home boat construction. Furthermore, this was an era of social mobility – far more so than in today’s world – which opened up the possibility of boat ownership to a far larger demographic. It’s no surprise that the popularity of boating ballooned as never before. This was helped by a proliferation of new sailing clubs throughout the country – as many on inland lakes, reservoirs and gravel pits as on the coast
– that helped to keep boating affordable and provided a ready-made social scene.
At the start of the decade most yachts were still built individually to order, but it ended with factories churning out hundreds of boats – in one notable case close to 10,000 boats – a year.
It’s easy to forget the extent to which the 1960s was a major period of discovery. The first-ever satellite, Sputnik 1, had been launched in 1957 and by the end of the decade people had walked on the moon. At the same time we were also exploring the boundaries of human endurance. In 1962 Michel Siffre, for instance, started spending time underground, in a project that eventually culminated in six months in a cave in Texas.
Racing a yacht solo across an ocean is also a great way to test the limits of endurance. The first ever such race was the 1960 OSTAR and the decade culminated with the first ever non stop solo circumnavigation. By then new orders for wooden yachts had all but dried up and designers were turning their attention to improving glassfibre boats.