INTRODUCTION OF THE 'FLY' CLASS SAILING DINGHY

LEA VALLEY SAILING CLUB - RIVER LEA TOTTENHAM - LATE 50's / EARLY 60s

By Peter Tottman

 

 


Very interesting to read the article by Ray Warren about the Lea Valley Sailing Club.  In particular to read that Roger Fillery was a founding member.  Also, to see Fly No. 3 in the photo. 

Roger designed the Fly class sailing dingy. I sailed a Fly at LVSC event in the mid-sixties, photos below show the steel barge that was then the club house.

 


 

FLY CLASS DINGHY - WIKIPEDIA

The Fly class is a singlehanded sailing dinghy designed by R. Fillery and later modified by K. Ford. It was intended to be built at home, and appears to have been developed as a youth trainer for the British Moth. The early boats were built from canvas, although that changed and later boats employed a plywood bottom.

It was used as a trainer for the British Moth at the Lea Avon Sailing Club before the club folded in 1971

LEA AVON SAILING CLUB

The reference to the Lea Avon Sailing Club is not an error. Roger Fillery was, as Ray’s article sets out, associated with the Lea Valley Sailing Club and he did design the Fly. It was Ken Ford who modified the design making it more practical and comfortable to sail. Roger’s design had a canvas skin for the hull, alike to kayak canoes of the time, that necessitated that the cockpit had a false floor which meant little depth or leg room. Ken Ford’s modification used a marine ply skin not needing the false floor such that the cockpit could be full-depth and he added a little to the freeboard both giving a deeper cockpit well and a more comfortable sitting position. Ken Ford had been at LVSC and knew Roger but in the early 1960s was based at a Council run boating centre on the Lea by Springfield Park, Hackney, it is now the Leaside Trust

Ken kept his British Moth there and taught canoe building but he was more interested in sailing, the Council centre focused more on canoeing it had one Coypu ( Dinghy Class). so, Ken Ford formed a breakaway youth club – Lea Avon Sailing Club. LASC built Flys and British Moths in the winter and sailed in the summer, it had the garden of a riverside pub as its base and then in half of an old house. Neither were particularly suitable for a sailing club - the pub was surrounded by the high storage buildings of James Latham timber company obstructing the wind, and access to the river from the house was not easy. Also, at the time that part of the Lea was quite polluted by industry and the sewage treatment outfall downriver of Tottenham Lock, so LASC relocated to The Boat House, The Charter Road on a lake in Highams Park although a pleasanter setting it too was not good for sailing the lake being surrounded by the trees of the forest.

 

 

Article prepared March 2023 - Based upon Peter Tottman's notes.