The Gull sailing

dinghy A dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or towed by a larger vessel for use as a tender. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor. Some are rigged for sailing but they differ from sailing dinghies, which ...

was designed by

Ian Proctor Ian Douglas Ben Proctor (12 July 1918 – 23 July 1992) was a British designer of boats, both sailing dinghies and cruisers. He had more than one hundred designs to his credit, from which an estimate of at least 65,000 boats were built. His pion ...

in 1956, originally as a frameless double-

chine A chine () is a steep-sided coastal gorge where a river flows to the sea through, typically, soft eroding cliffs of sandstone or clays. The word is still in use in central Southern England—notably in East Devon, Dorset, Hampshire and the Isl ...

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

boat. However, it has been through several incarnations: the wooden Mark I, GRP Mark III, GRP Gull Spirit and GRP Gull Calypso. Today it is popular with

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (land yacht) over a chosen cour ...

schools, especially in the United Kingdom. The original prototype Gull (the "Jolly Roger") was built by Ian Proctor to teach his own children the skills of dinghy sailing. This became a production boat, often built from a kit, and produced by Smallcraft of Blockley. A GRP version was produced from 1966 but, being a near-exact copy of the wooden boat, was not well suited to GRP manufacture. A Mark II was introduced as a cheaper GRP version without a permanent fore-deck, but did not prove very popular. The original boats became known as Mark 1 and wooden boats, probably mainly from kits, continued to be built to this specification. In the late 1970s a Mark 3 was produced, starting with no 1800. This was a radical redesign featuring a round bilge hull, greater beam and side decks. The design was optimised for and only available in GRP. Few wooden boats are believed to have been built after the Mk3 came out. The Gull Spirit, introduced in the late 1990s by Anglo Marine Services, was a major redesign in GRP: principally a return to a double-chine hull similar to those used on the original wooden boats.Margaret Dye, ''Dinghy Cruising: the enjoyment of wandering afloat'', 3rd ed. (2006), pages 172-174. The Spirit's interior was in many respects cloned from the larger Wanderer sailing dinghy (another Ian Proctor design). It was later followed by the Gull Calypso, a simplified design by Hartley Laminates with no wooden parts. The Gull has a reputation as a safe and stable boat but, particularly with the addition of a spinnaker, it is raced competitively. It is classed as a two-person boat but can easily be launched, sailed and recovered single-handed, making it a suitable cruising boat for the solo sailor. It can easily be rowed (with the addition of rowlocks) and can be fitted with an outboard engine. Hence, it is a very versatile boat. As of August 2013 there is now a new Gull available. The Mark 6 Gull has been redesigned and modernized and is now available from the builders, Hartley Laminates UK.

References

External links

The Gull Class Association

The Gull Forum
{{Sailing Dinghies and Skiffs Dinghies Boats designed by Ian Proctor