The Kestrel was the first

sailing dinghy Dinghy sailing is the activity of sailing small boats by using five essential controls: * the sails * the foils (i.e. the daggerboard or centreboard and rudder and sometimes lifting foils as found on the Moth) * the trim (forward/rear angle of ...

especially designed to have a

fibreglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass clo ...

hull.Kestrel Owner's Association - Homepage
Retrieved on 2008-08-18. After a slow start, due to resistance to the new material, the Kestrel grew in popularity. This success led to more and more classes changing their rules to allow fibreglass construction. Today, the class is still a popular choice, particularly for 'club' racers and training schools. The design has been updated by Phil Morrison and has most recently been built by Hartley Laminates.

History

In 1955,

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 ...

designed the Kestrel. The first few Kestrels were constructed using timber, since fibreglass technology was still very new. Construction was soon converted to the originally intended fibreglass, but the popularity of the class grew slowly due to a widespread mistrust of the new material. It was not until, Gmach & Co in

Fordingbridge Fordingbridge is a town and broader civil parish with a population of 6,000 on the River Avon in the New Forest District of Hampshire, England, near the Dorset and Wiltshire borders and on the edge of the New Forest, famed for its late medieva ...

began constructing new hulls that the class started to grow. The firm made the boat for 25 years and introduced a Mark II version. In 1988, Martin Services in Essex, UK took over construction.The Dinghy. Kestrel Owner's Association. Retrieved on 2008-08-18 from http://www.kestrel.org.uk/new_dinghy_main.htm. Since 1999, Richard Hartley's company Hartley Laminates have been the sole builders of Kestrels.Hartley Laminates website
Retrieved on 2008-08-18. They have released a new Kestrel called the Kestrel 2000, which is a stronger, stiffer version of the original Kestrel.

Handicap

In handicap racing, the Kestrel sails off a

Portsmouth Yardstick The Portsmouth Yardstick (PY) or Portsmouth handicap scheme is a term used for a number of related systems of empirical handicapping used primarily in small sailboat racing. The handicap is applied to the time taken to sail any course, and the han ...

number of 1040 or a D-PN of 91.6.

References

{{Reflist Dinghies Boats designed by Ian Proctor