Published by the Open Canoe Sailing Group

Clyde One Design Pops Up Again (JanP)

A few weeks ago Solway Dory had an enquiry from MoiraN, who said that her father was Ian Campbell Robertson who designed the Clyde "C" Class sailing canoe. They lived in Scotland when

she was a child but her father died when she was 12 years old and she knew very little about his work. She is in the process of putting together some information for her brother and needed to find out all she could. He is a sailor himself and he remembers sailing with his father in their canoe as a boy.

Dave was very taken with the design of this canoe and, having obtained a set of plans, in 1998 he built two plywood canoes for ourselves, which were based on the Clyde "C" Class canoe. You may remember that LouiseH bought and sailed one of them. We

also own an original Clyde C Class canoe "Elwyn", so Dave was able to enthuse at great length about them and to pass on to Moira everything he knew, including the entry about the design from "Lines of Sailing Canoes" by John Bull as follows:

CLYDE & FORTH OD
1938 14' x 36"
The Clyde and Forth One Design sailing canoe was adopted in 1938 by the Clyde and Forth canoe clubs. She was intended as a cheap and simple boat for amateurs to build at home although a

number were professionally built by John Marshall of North Queensferry. Her prototype "Joy" had been built some years earlier aboard one of HM warships. The Clyde canoe, as they became known, found some popularity after the Second World War. Their scantlings had to be unusually heavy and they weighed about 120 pounds. Although very stiff, they suffered from wracking: the twisting of the hull between the mast (sail force) and the weight of the crew sitting out in opposition.

The profile gives some idea of her lines. She was 14 feet OA x 36" with a 5 foot cockpit between watertight bulkheads. The hull form was hard chine, the bottom being a shallow V. The same deep-chested form perfected by Uffa Fox in his canoes and dinghies. The greatest keel depth is about one third of the way aft, followed by a long, flat run. The chine is some 1½" clear of the water at the bow, is immersed about 1½" at its deepest point and terminates at the waterline aft.

The framework was constructed of Philippines mahogany, over which was stretched the canvas skin. After it was doped it became drum tight and rubbing strakes were needed to protect it. A metal centreplate was fitted. The rig was a high peaked Gunter totalling 70 square feet. 52 square feet in the main and 18 square feet in the jib and were made by Hector Barr of Wivenhoe. The estimated price for the DIY builder was £10-12 complete with all sails and fittings.

Dave bought "Elwyn", a beautiful Clyde C Class canoe built by Tony Dunn, from Sandy Seabrook in 2002. She is fragile but he took her for a very gentle sail on Loch Lomond and you can see that she had a pale blue hull, looks very elegant and is still in remarkably good condition. We also took her to the Heritage Regatta hosted by the Norfolk Punt Club on Barton Broad. Some of you may have seen the write up of the regatta in the August 2004 issue of "Canoeist".

After telling her everything he knew about the boat, Dave

suggested that Moira should get in touch with Roger Hancock, the Archivist at the Loch Lomond Sailing Club, formerly the Clyde Canoe Club. If he did not know her father himself, he may well know someone who did. The last picture, taken from the Loch Lomond Sailing Club website, is one of their archive photographs. It is very obviously a Clyde "C" Class canoe, designed by Ian C. Robertson, sailed here by someone in a tam-o'-shanter and kilt and who knows, he might be Moira's father.

Notice the lack of a kicking strap (not yet invented?).

We have a copy of the plans (dated 1947) that are entitled; "BCU 'C' class sailing canoe Clyde Design" which may imply that the BCU had created a C class and that there was more than one version of it. This is something we always meant to investigate and never got around to. It would be an interesting piece of research for someone. It is also interesting to speculate about why the class became extinct.

P.S. I have just looked at our copy of the plans. They say 'Clyde' Design. A BCU 'C' class sailing canoe drawn by I.C.R. Oct 1948. I find that we have already made a new copy of the faded sheet though this also has on it some of my notes from when I was studying the design. If you want us to copy these for you we can. Tony Dunn who built our boat was alive in 2002 but I don't have his address.

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