Brightlingsea One Design Fleet - Nostalgia Evening
Saturday 26^th February 2008

The Brightlingsea One Design Owners Association enjoyed one of their most successful events in recent times with over 90 people attending the Colne Yacht Club for an evening of nostalgia and conviviality.

The Club dining room became a gallery, filled with photographs, historic documents, film shows, scale models and memorabilia accumulated by Association members over 81 years.  Also on display were some of the fabulous trophies that have been hotly contested and won over the years and that will again be the coveted prizes of the best of the fleet this coming season.

John Mullins instigated the evening as he had a marvellous collection of photographs that he thought others might be interested to see.  The idea snowballed with other members being able to contribute a wealth of photos, historic documents, press clippings, films and a beautiful scale model built by the late Tom Sargeant Snr of BOD C6 “Jumbo Too” as well as his oil painting of Jumbo - in mid-broach!

Graham Adams provided a high-tech slideshow of his superb 2007 regatta photos which caught the atmosphere of the keenly contested race which took place in winds in the region of force 6-7.  The photos were a great reminder of the excitement of the race involving 14 BODs who battled the elements and challenged each other in the most exhilarating match of recent years.

John Mullins brought his photo album for which he aspires to have a page for every BOD built with a quality photo of each and, hopefully a small anecdote.  The album was already ¾ full and even included photos of some of the “lost” boats.  By the end of the evening John had been promised photos of nearly all the boats that so far had eluded him.  John also displayed scale drawings of the design of the Brightlingsea One Design with the “old rig” and the “new” and he presented these to the Association.

Lance Edwards provided a continuous screen show of edited clips from the late Harold Norrington’s Film archive, footage of the 65^th Anniversary race, and footage from the film “Teddy” which features a fleet of BODs in its opening sequence, which was shot in Brightlingsea in the 1980s.

Among the throng of past-owners, current owners, boat restorers, boat builders, crews and their families were fleet veterans and novices, octogenarians and toddlers.  John Milgate built BOD C42 “Sabrina” at West Mersea in 1954 and one of her new owners, Bob Richardson was delighted to meet up with him and discover a little more of her history. 

Jean Thomas, president of the BOD Owners Association and the daughter of Robbie Stone, the designer of the Brightlingsea One Design was at the event and was able to exchange a wealth of stories and memories.  BOD C1 “Jean” was named after her when she was a very small child and her current owner Malcolm Goodwin, in recent years, has restored her to her former glory and has achieved an abundance of racing success.

In 1955 the Gibbon brothers, Bill and Robin, bought BOD C14 “Aina”, and the current owners, Steve and Carole Heppel took the opportunity to discuss with them some finer points of tuning as well as the origin of the boat’s name and the colours of her paintwork which are, and have always been yellow and blue – the colours of the Swedish flag!

The Owners Association would like to thank the following for all their efforts in achieving a highly successful event: (in no particular order)

John Mullins
John Milgate
Nick, Pam and Richard Readings
Bruce Finlayson
Malcolm Goodwin
Ian Cole
Graham Adams
Mike Hempstead
Kate Button
Ian Smith
Jean Thomas
Tom Sargeant
Lance Edwards
Sally Hare
And the catering and bar staff at the CYC.