Bryn James Memory is totally inadequate.

First, I must explain. I set up business to design and build sailing boats in 1956, moving from Essex to Dorchester in 1962. I had to close in 1982 without having produced anything that I considered commercially viable. I kept body and soul together and sustained a large amount of design and development work, with a series of products fabricated from steel and aluminium etc sold through traders.

The Guardian IYRU trials were held in Weymouth Bay in 1965 to choose a new international dingy. Part of the beach was fenced off and it was a big do. I entered my 12ft Whippet, sailed by Hugh Turner. Big mistake, fat bowed, it came last. My subsequent 16ft Shooting Star had a lot of sailing club success.

In, I think, 1972 Players Cigarettes sponsored World Sailing Speed Record Trials in Portland Harbour. The RYA may have done the main organising, and Dr John Morwood’s AYRS may have been involved. The course was a ½ km diameter circle of twelve buoys, numbered like a clock. Timing boats lined up with pairs of buoys on opposite sides of the course. Each competitor in turn would shout which course he wanted, and the timers moved in to position.

By chance, I lived in the house nearest the course, and in 1973 I entered my Shooting Star fitted with misconceived hydrofoils. It was sailed by Bob Turner as I was much too old. It still sits, forlorn, in my garden. He was the last person to sail it and, long after, became the first Captain of HMS Ocean and the last Captain of HMS Osprey!

To exploit my high-boom rig I bought a commercial 18ft catamaran hull and fitted the same, duff, hydrofoil concept. That was ‘Boreas’ succeeded the following year by my own designed 20ft cat ‘Auster’. The speeds were not as planned but, nevertheless, got the ten-metre class prize three years running; ‘74, ’75 and ’76.

The Dorset Evening Echo of September 30th, 1974 had a picture of Robin Knox-Johnson, me, Bob Turner and Mark Caddy. The text says that the occasion was conducted from Castle Cove Sailing Club (sited opposite the entrance to the Underbarn)

The Echo of October 4th, 1976 shows player’s David Way giving me that year’s 10sq.m cup. The helmsman got the cash part!

Subsequently when Phil Gollop had built his Weymouth Sailing Centre at the end of this road, the annual Speed Week was based there. In due course the sailing academy at Portland was set up with Gollop as manager. The WSC was sold to Castle Cove Sailing Club. Other memories crowd in.

Reg Bratt

Weymouth