Oldest videos of National 12 class dinghies sailing
by Magnus Smith 28 Jan 2024 05:00 PST
Salcombe was a hotbed of N12 racing © Jessica Barker, Stone Family Archive
Our video archive is fully searchable, and linked to all the clubs and classes in our database. It is updated weekly with the latest videos of sailing, but here we delve into the past, and round-up everything that shows sailing in the National 12 class, which are all from the 1950s.
The oldest video is N12 at Trent Valley SC in 1949...
A year later we can watch the 1950 championships at Royal Cornwall Yacht Club.
Then we have the Burton Cup 1952 at Weymouth.
The next Burton Cup 1953 at Torquay, which apparently features 145 boats. There are some good close-ups.
Alongside this is Burton Cup 1953 (extra footage, silent) which has some material not used in the video above. It shows the crowds on shore, launching, and finally some distant shots on the water.
Update: we later found Twelves at Teddington, 1953 - skip to 0m30s
One assumes this was Thorpe Bay YC hosting: National 12 championships at Southend-on-Sea in 1954.
Now we are in colour and you can truly enjoy the clothing worn in those days! National 12 racing at Plymouth in 1955 cover rigging up on shore, hull polishing, as well as the racing. See if you can count more than one item of personal buoyancy being worn across the hundreds of sailors featured...
Spanning 1952 to 1957, this is racing at Emsworth during the 1950s which includes brief National 12 appearances - skip along to 38 mins to see the N12s with the Firefly fleet, or skip to 41 mins to see a few more glimpses. This is a fascinating video to watch in its entirety if you have the time, but admittedly features the Twelves only fleetingly.
Also from "sometime in the 50s" is this N12 video from Trent Valley Sailing Club...
N12s appear in the footage of Dinghy Racing at Tynemouth and Ryton in early 1960s.
Update: we later found Tideway Race 1963 which includes the 12s
and 1965 Tideway Race too
We also have Dinghy Racing at Tynemouth and Ryton in 1965 but this is mostly Enterprises so skip to 4m20s!
Pevensey Bay Sailing Club members visited La Rochelle in the 60s or 70s with their N12s, but please excuse the International 14s...
Update: we later found 1968 Earls Court boat show has a brief glimpse of a 12
Our next video is also uncertain in date. Do the clothes suggest the 1960s? The colour film suggests the 1970s. The location is probably Salcombe, Devon, though we could be mistaken. Skip to 30 seconds to start the N12 coverage, which is blurry I'm afraid!
The final video is from 1976-77 and is an hour long, but has a National 12 open meeting at 21m27s to 23m20s if you want to skip straight there. It also shows mixed club racing at Burnham Overy Staithe in North Norfolk (UK). You have to watch at youtube.com/watch?v=RxPQk7wpsAk as we cannot embed the video here. If you are in a rush, there are several sections you can skip:
- swimming - 11m00s to 14m23s
- prizegiving - 29m09s to 30m35s
- International OK open meeting - 21m27s to 23m20s
- vicar - 41m45s to 44m58s
- rowing - 50m50s to the end
What of the other decades?
Do you know the location of any National 12 videos from the 1940s, 60s, 70s or 80s? We would love to share these with other sailors. You can submit video links to us for immediate review.
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