Buying an older Flying Fifteen - by John Orr of Holy Loch Sailing Club

What is Old ? Over the years design and construction within the class has been refined and new (and expensive) boats were found to have a significant speed advantage. To keep the boat a One Design the measurement rules were tightened from 1994 and the Classic and Silver handicap divisions subsequently brought in by the British Isles Flying Fifteen Association in order to keep older boats active. Flying 15s up to number 2700 are 'Classics' and 2701 - 3400 form the 'Silver' group. Numbers above this - the Open fleet ( from about 1994yr onwards) are quicker but are more expensive.

A Flying fifteen of any age is rewarding to sail and race. The Silvers are reckoned to be stiffer /quicker up wind in a breeze and modern boats faster on all points in all conditions. PY Classic 1051. PY Silver 1039 and Open fleet PY 1026.ie each class is 40 seconds per hour or so faster than its elder.

Where to buy ? The British Isles Flying Fifteen Association governs the racing of this International One Design in GB and their website www.flying15.org/gbr has a useful boat register where you can check details of boats as well as a for sale section and links to other info regarding the evolution of the design and contemporary racing. The site also shows where fleets can be found. Boats do change hands on ebay.

Buying in general: FFs are quite robust. Very old ones may be wood or GRP. Watch out for rebuilt older wooden boats which can be stiff and light belying their 'age'. Look at shroud / forestay plates and the keel join. FFs often sail too close to each other so don't be surprised to find patches around the bow area.

Keels: The keel is iron, usually coated in gelcoat and the top of the keel has a flange. Bolts pass through the flange (filled and faired) into the hull and the bolt tops/nuts are usually visible on the floor. You would not expect to see movement and a wee rust stain here and there is not a disaster. The oldest boats have a keel which tapers to a point at the bottom trailing edge whereas later boats (both classic and silver) have a cut away on the lowest part of the trailing edge.

Rudders: The rudder post comes through the middle of the back buoyancy compartment in a tube. The tube contains nylon bushes which may wear and are tricky to fix. Rudders are expensive and the modern rudder might not fit an old boat.

Decks: Some Silvers have very light forward and aft decks. Any boat left afloat or full of rain water is more prone to osmosis and the ravages of sunlight but do bear in mind that these things can be fixed . Even the boats with built in buoyancy should have bags - if these are missing they can be fitted.

Sail Control: To give the mainsail the required twist a mainsheet (operated from a centre sheeting jammer) which has a split tail from the boom end out to either side of the transom is used in conjunction with a mast puller. Kicker is less used so if your prospective purchase does not have a split tail main or a ram/puller you will want to fit these. Not difficult or expensive. Wyche and Coppocks started out with a main traveller but many will have converted to split tail. Most boats use a spinnaker chute but some crews prefer bags. All controls should be dual sided and with no forestay, the jib halyard tension ought to be adjustable.

Graham Campbell at Nicolson Hughes Sails recently produced a sail trim guide which is very handy.

There are many examples of the Wyche and Coppock all-grp Classic boat at Holy Loch and being well built these certainly don't look their age. There are also various Silvers from different builders at Holy Loch, mostly to Windebank design. A good boat badly sailed will not keep up with an average boat well sailed. So its debateable whether there is one type which is better than the rest. Study the BIFFA website boat register to see the results achieved. Given that a perfectly good sailing Classic can be had for £1000 - £2000 it is not economic to go in for a major restoration -( but a restored wooden boat looks fantastic and will go well and when did economics dictate sailing? ). New trailers and sails will often be more expensive than hulls and the Dacron sails do stretch after a bit of use so look out for good trailers and sails when buying.

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