Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
In today’s feature, written by Ian Benyon who is described as “a reminiscing F.D. owner who pleads for at least one class of “self-reliant, seaworthy, dinghy” – like the good old Linton Hope Redwing.”
Open-water sailing without anxiety is Ian Benyon’s plea – in seaworthy boats (not sailing machines) that last for years and require a minimum of maintenance.
“As I was browsing round the yard at the Zeekoe Vlei Yacht Club the other day, watching others work (with that certain smug contentment of knowing that one’s own fitting-out was well advanced), I met an old-timer, whose sturdy build was in marked contrast to the slim moulded ply and fibre-glass hulls of the modem racing
craft- a Redwing Dinghy.
“My eyes followed her proud sheer, just a trifle flattened by 30 years of service – and in latter years, of abuse – and my mind went back to the days when in the company of her kind, her bows lifted to the seas beyond the breakwater. I studied anew the strength and the beauty of her lines, so cunningly contrived to produce that ease and grace with which she swung to the crests of the long Cape rollers – an embodiment of self-reliance and purpose.”
READ MORE HERE: 1961 09-10 – SA Yachting – redwing nostalgia – OCR
