Editorial will loy 70 extraordinary years, dripping with stories filled with drama and comedy, tragedy and smiles. I have been fortunate to have witnessed first hand as champions rose to the top of the podium having mastered the subtle art of making the solo go fast. I have always been as interested in the rest of the cast as the ‘a listers’ and try to give them more than fifteen seconds of fame, they make the big fleet events so special and their sob stories make great reading.
The story of the solo began on the embankment in putney and though much of the detail is lost in the haze of time there are small glimpses into the beginnings of the solo’s life, I would like to think there is a napkin somewhere in a back of a drawer with a pencil drawn outline of the instantly recognisable bow profile, the smooth lines of the foredeck as it drops towards the thwart and the often lamented centreboard capping which was actually a stroke of genius when you understand that hiking straps had not yet been invented. Many of the pioneers including it’s creator have long since gone to that lake in the sky but fortunately the class have a sizeable library of nsca magazines to draw on for insights into those halcyon days of solo racing and development.
I do wonder what jack would think if he could walk around the modern, cutting edge, all singing and dancing solo he designed seventy years ago. Transom sheeting has long since been replaced, the trusty wooden spars and cotton mainsail has given way to tempered alloy mast extrusions and sails designed on laptops and cut by lasers and the simple controls, replaced by ball bearing, continuously controlled, carbon infused, kevlar cored systems of some complexity. I believe he would have a good look and design something better. I did have the pleasure of meeting jack once, he commented that I was a bit of an animal (after some pretty fruity racing at Chichester), I would suggest he was rightly protective of every solo as they are all his children.
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