THE FLEET BEHIND THE WELCOME

Fourteen Footers in Victoria

Victoria helped shape the early Australian Fourteen Footer through inventive boatbuilding and fierce competition on Port Phillip Bay. The local revival gathered pace in 1906, when Melbourne fishermen formed the St Kilda Dinghy and Angling Club. Within a few seasons, its 14-foot boats were drawing crowds and earning a reputation for close, skilful racing.

A defining Victorian innovation arrived in the 1910–11 season: the blunt-bowed “snub nose”. Associated with designer and builder Charles Peel, it fitted a powerful hull into the class’s 14-foot length limit. These boats were lighter and easier to handle than many interstate rivals, yet carried enough sail to be formidable competitors. Their success encouraged other states to follow Victoria’s lead.

The outstanding example was John Nimmo. Built in 1910, she won 13 consecutive Victorian championships and, in her first 15 years, 231 of 312 races. Her final Australian title came in the 1926–27 season. She became a symbol of Victorian achievement in a class where a well-designed boat could remain competitive for decades.

Innovation continued with Bill Osborne’s Triad, built in 1927. Her narrower, five-foot beam challenged the belief that a broader boat was essential for success. She went on to win six Australian championships, from her first in 1932–33 to her last in 1947–48. Alongside developments in rigs and the 1937 limits on sail area, Triad helped point the class towards smaller boats and more manageable sail plans.

By the middle of the twentieth century, Victoria had made a lasting contribution to Australian Fourteen Footer sailing: a strong racing community at St Kilda, influential hull designs and champion boats whose careers spanned generations of sailors.

How the Fourteens came to Black Rock

The Fourteens began putting down roots at Black Rock Yacht Club in the mid-1960s. A sailor’s recollection traces the move to a boatbuilding scheme at St Kilda and the disruption surrounding the club’s amalgamation with Royal St Kilda Yacht Club to form RMYS. A severe storm around 1964–65 badly damaged the old Fourteen Footer clubhouse, which was eventually dismantled.

One early BRYC boat was IMP, completed in the club’s old Sharpie shed during the winter of 1964 from an unfinished hull bought through the St Kilda building scheme. With Bill Bell as crew, she went on to finish fourth at the Australian championships at Henley in South Australia.

To encourage more boats to race at Black Rock, sponsorship from M J Meehan supported a new event, recalled as first held in February 1965, for dinghies up to 14 feet. After the 1965–66 nationals at RMYS, more Fourteen sailors moved to BRYC, including Dave Harrison, Alf Walker, Kevin Bradley and Jack “Pidge” Page. A club championship trophy, made from an old half-model mounted on silky oak, marked the growing fleet’s place at “the Rock”.

Based on the supplied “14 Footer History pre 1950” and a sailor’s recollection of the move to Black Rock. Approximate dates remain approximate.