National 12
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The National 12 is a two-person, two-sail, twelve-foot (3.6 metre) long sailing dinghy. They are sailed extensively in the UK. The class was started in 1936 by the
Royal Yachting Association The Royal Yachting Association (RYA) is a United Kingdom national governing body for sailing, dinghy sailing, yacht and motor cruising, sail racing, RIBs and sportsboats, windsurfing and personal watercraft and a leading representative for inl ...
as an alternative to the more expensive International 14s. The rules limit the length of the boat to 12 ft, beam to 6 ft 6 in, an all up weight to 78 kg and a sail area of 10.4 m2. National 12s are sailed on all types of water from narrow rivers to the open sea. The class holds a national championships on an annual basis – known as Burton Week after the premier prize of the week: The Sir William Burton Cup – at various venues around the UK coast. The National 12 is a development class where within a set of rules (and with occasional considered changes to those rules) the boats have been able to evolve over time, moving from wood and
clinker Clinker may refer to: *Clinker (boat building), construction method for wooden boats *Clinker (waste), waste from industrial processes *Clinker (cement), a kilned then quenched cement product * ''Clinkers'' (album), a 1978 album by saxophonist St ...
construction to high-performance
glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...
and carbon fibre-foam composite boats. One of the most noticeable changes in the boats is the steady increase in beam over the history of the class – early examples were less than 5 ft while modern ones are usually at the maximum 6 ft 6 in to provide maximum righting moment for the crew. The Twelve has developed into a racing boat which performs well in all conditions being highly manouvreable and challenging to sail in windy weather.


The History

N1 "Gipsy" was designed by
Uffa Fox Uffa Fox, CBE (15 January 1898 – 26 October 1972) was an English boat designer and sailing enthusiast, responsible for a number of innovations in boat design. Not afraid of courting controversy or causing offense, he is remembered for his ec ...
and launched at Cowes in April 1936. The Twelve proved extremely popular and by the first championships in September of that year over 150 boats had been built. Gipsy accepted honourable retirement at the former Exeter Maritime Museum as a landmark in dinghy sailing history. Although his design, the "Uffa King", was very successful Fox himself built only two boats, ''Anemone'' N452, and ''Westwind'' N456, the latter for Bruce Banks, later to become famous as a sailmaker, in whose hands the boat was successfully campaigned for more than a decade, winning the Burton Cup both in 1939 and again in 1950.
''Westwind''
is now in the collection of the
National Maritime Museum Cornwall The National Maritime Museum, Cornwall is located in a harbourside building at Falmouth in Cornwall, England. The building was designed by architect M. J. Long, following an architectural design competition managed by RIBA Competitions. The ...
From 1936 to the present day the class has continued to develop. Rule changes have been made where necessary, for example, a minimum width rule was introduced in 1937, and a maximum width in 1980. Clinker construction went out in 1970 with the development of GRP hulls and 'four plank' wooden construction. Ian Proctor started experimenting with metal masts to replace wooden spars in 1952 and
Terylene Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing, containers for liquids and foods ...
sails arrived in 1954. The minimum weight was reduced to 80 kg in the 1980s. A further reduction in late 1990s and a recent reduction in 2000 reduced the minimum weight down to the currently 78 kg (this includes mast & centreboard), reflecting the ability of even amateur builders to build lightweight hulls. Today most new boats are built using carbon fibre-foam sandwich construction with a self draining floor. This makes the boats very light and stiff, adding to the responsive character of the boats.


Handicap and Other Racing

In a
mixed fleet British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers ca ...
, the National 12 competes with other boats off a Portsmouth Yardstick handicap of 1064. In mixed fleet racing in North America, it is more likely to use a D-PN of 98.0.


References


External links


National 12 Class AssociationUffa Fox websiteAardvark racing - builders of National 12s
{{Sailing Dinghies and Skiffs Dinghies Two-person sailboats Development sailing classes Sailboat type designs by Uffa Fox