Dick Batt is on the move

Andy Rice talks to Dick Batt about sail-making and racing his Merlin Rocket

Dick Batt has told madforsailing that he is planning on moving his sail loft down to the Chichester area this summer. "It will be Batt Sails' 21st birthday on 1 April, so it seems appropriate to celebrate with a bit of a change," he said. "We were in Maidenhead for 10 years, and then we've been in High Wycombe for 10 years. It's good to have a move around every so often to keep things fresh."
One of Batts' unique selling points appears to have been its proximity to London, but Dick said this was of no real consequence. "We despatch everything by post these days anyway, so from that point of view it doesn't really matter. And I am weighing up whether or not to keep a satellite loft going up here whilst the main base would be on the south coast - I'm not decided on that one yet. The amazing thing is there isn't anyone making high performance sails in that area, so I think it could be great for the business and great for local sailors."

Dick believes he could make some good inroads into the local keelboat fleets, such as the X-boats and Swallows. It will also take him closer to the Itchenor fleet of International 14s, where his sails are already well represented. As for his own sailing this year, it will be a combination of Merlin sailing and crusising on his racing trimaran, a Dragonfly 800.

"I've been racing quite a bit with my 13-year-old, Ian, and the harder it blows the more we like it. But we've not got any real ambitions as long as we have fun what we're doing," he said. For a development-class, it has remained remarkably static for the past few years, though numbers have been very healthy.

"Around 40 or 50 boats have been built in the last two years, and a lot of that is down to the boat that Guy Winder has been building. The second-hand market is also very buoyant, but almost everybody is racing a boat that came out of a mould Jon Turner built over 10 years ago."

Dick jokes that he has upset the status quo by fitting his latest boat with a mainsheet traveller rather than the aluminium hoop that has become de rigueur in the Merlin over the past 20 years. "I really just wanted to use up all the old fittings I had lying round the garage, but it has caused a bit of a stir. The thing is, none of it really matters, the wind doesn't care whether it's hitting a sail that's controlled by a hoop or a traveller, provided it's set somewhere close to the centreline."

Dick says there are now about five travellers in the fleet, and he has proposed holding a traveller's trophy - not, you understand, anything to do with how far you travel round the country. "If you've got a mainsheet hoop, you can't compete," he laughed.

And when he's not upsetting the traditionalists in the Merlin fleet, Dick is planning on sailing his Dragonfly on the MOCRA circuit. "There's quite a few dinghy sailors getting into this scene," he said. "The old Lark and Iso sailors Jim Stewart and Lucy Kennedy won most things in their Dragonfly last year. And Jeremy Pudney has finally given up 14 sailing and has commissioned Phil Morrison to design him a cruising trimaran. It's great fun, you should try it some time."