New boats and schools

A multihull and a new sailing school are to be officially launched at the Dinghy Sailing Show

With the Dinghy Sailing Show at Alexandra Palace in London due to take place on 1-2nd March the announcements about what to see and do at the show are coming in thick and fast.

More champions for Broxbourne?

Broxbourne Sailing Club in Essex, which has produced world and national champions since being founded in 1924, is launching a new sailing school this year as the popularity of sailing grows.

The club plans to open the school in April pending RYA approval, and to celebrate will be waiving its club entry fee for visitors who join the club at the Dinghy Sailing Show.

A new clubhouse is also being planned at Broxbourne, where sailing and windsurfing courses will be run throughout the year on a 70-acre lake that has increased in size by around 25 per cent after recent dredging was undertaken.

The club is also introducing a series of racing and coaching for adults on Saturdays which up to now have been run for young people only.

The club uses an electric crane for easy launching of the club's keelboat class, the Flying Fifteen. Other boats at the club include Laser, Topper, Streaker and Phantom Classes and the Challenger Trimaran for disabled sailors.

Want to see a cat turn on a sixpence?

A new racing sailing class is planned for the latest creation from the hugely successful Magnum trimaran team.

Interesting fact: naval architect extraordinaire, Guy Saillard, who created the revolutionary Magnum 21 with French boatbuilders VirusBoats, also designed a windsurf board that was sailed across the Atlantic.

The new Magnum 18, a dinghy-sized trimaran, is designed as a family day boat or as an 'S' sports version intended for class racing and offering the kind of performance usually reserved for more challenging boats.

Ahoy Boats will be exhibiting the 18S with its taller mast and bigger sail area that targets the sports/racing community at the Dinghy Sailing Show at Alexandra Palace in London on 1st and 2nd March.

"The new Magnum 18 brings the concept within the budget of the smaller, younger family," says Steve Walker from Ahoy. "It also makes for easier manhandling ashore when single-handed. It will appeal to dinghy sailors as the Magnums all have centerboards, well-balanced rudders, the flat sterns of the planing principle hulls, and short floats with lots of rocker to make exceptionally nimble boats that unlike most cats, will turn on a sixpence."