30 YEARS AGO
MAY 1994, CB71
Then editor Robin Gates, today our tools expert (see Boatbuilder’s Notes in this and every issue) launched the issue by bemoaning the loss of excitement that surrounded a traditional slipway launch. “Large slipways are fast becoming extinct,” he says. “The gently inclined passage to the sea for a newly-built or refitted yacht has become usurped by the mobile hoist, something like a giant crab with a tractor engine and hydraulically-controlled mandibles… As if total dependence on power tools and synthetic materials have not killed traditional boatyard atmosphere enough, this anorexic mutant crane has snuffed the life out of the very culmination of the boatbuilder’s skill; the launch.” I’ve never thought of this before, but he’s right. Shouldn’t the launch of someone’s dream, the full-stop on what has been a long story of expense, effort, passion and skill, be more than what we get these days? Elsewhere in the magazine we get a feature on American émigré artist Frank Wagner, the main who fell in love with England; the start of a series by John Mellor on traditional pilotage (coastal navigation), that starts with a picture of a half-sunken schooner to illustrate the importance of getting this right; a feature on Fife III’s Fastnet-winning cutter Hallowe’en; and at the other end of the scale, a college-built compact day sailer for the Broads, written by ex-CB technical editor John Perryman. His comes in swinging with the opening sentence: “When you have, as I do, a fierce prejudice against production craft – nasty, soulless things…” Way to go John!