The original and still the best

Subtle, incremental refinements in the fabrication of the Flying Fifteen have kept this iconic keelboat class strong for 77 years

When Uffa Fox drew the lines of the Flying Fifteen in 1947 – in a flash of inspiration, as legend has it, that came to him Archimedes style as he lay in the bath – he knew it was something special. But he could not have expected that, three-quarters of a century later, big fleets of his elegant 20ft keelboat would still be actively racing in 10 countries. Stateof- the-art Flying Fifteens are now built in foam sandwich composites with Pro-Set epoxy rather than the original hot moulded mahogany, but it’s very much the same boat.

A healthy number of new boats are built each year and a strong class association on national and international levels ensures that older boats remain competitive. It’s a testament to the excellence of Fox’s groundbreaking design – the world’s first planing keelboat – that fleets of more than 100 boats from around the world still compete in major regattas.

Ease of transport is part of the Flying Fifteen’s appeal. It’s easily trailed behind an average family car and four boats and their rigs will fit in a 40ft container, or six boats with their keels off. The 2025 World Championships in Weymouth are limited to 86 boats and in some countries the demand to attend is high enough that a series of qualifier races is needed to decide who gets to compete.

Flying Fifteens have been built with a wide range of materials and construction techniques. Nearly all new ones are built by Ovington Boats, which has a strong interest in the class for personal as well as professional reasons. MD Chris Turner is the defending world champion – with Graham Vials he has won five of the last six biennial worlds – and sales manager Nathan Batchelor won the 2019 pre-worlds

Main picture: Ovington Boats’ Mk10 Flying Fifteen dominates class racing today.
Below: the viscosity and post cure times of Pro-Set epoxy help to optimise production at Ovington Boats

‘We’re building a batch of 15 Flying Fifteens at the moment and by the end of this week we’ll have built 480 in total,’ Turner says. ‘We’ve built them in epoxy for more than 20 years and carbon fibre was introduced 10 years ago. With the laminate spec being so robust I didn’t see the need to go to carbon. The curved shape of the boat gives a lot of inherent stiffness. It was mainly a push from the Australians who wanted it because they sail in a short chop. Once we added carbon as an option everyone wanted it, so we adopted it as standard. Now the boats are bulletproof.’

Ovington Fifteens have a glassfibre outer skin for general robustness and a carbon fibre inner skin, with straps of unidirectional carbon around the keel, from shrouds to centreline and at the mast gate. All lamination is done by hand with an exceptionally high level of skill – one of Ovington’s core USPs – before the boats are vacuum bagged and post cured.

The hull shape has barely changed in decades but Ovington has optimised the boat for speed of production and stiffness. ‘The build now takes a week from start to finish,’ Turner explains. ‘Before it was two weeks. The main thing we’ve changed is integrating the spinnaker chute – there’s a box section and stringers that tie into the hull – and reducing the number of parts. We now have one moulding for deck and chute, and a drop-in foredeck. Before we had a hull, a deck, front and aft bulkheads, a separate chute and so on. Getting all the parts to fit and painting between them added time and cost.’

The viscosity and post cure times of Pro-Set epoxy have also helped to optimise production. ‘It gives us a longer time to wet out and comb it out properly,’ Turner says. ‘The post cure time is shorter and once it is post cured it doesn’t move again. When boats are built to tight tolerances in polyester, they move.’

‘Putting that in a Flying Fifteen context, the measurements are strict. Having a resin that’s robust with no shrinkage and a quicker post cure means fewer differences in measurement. What comes out is defined, it’s the boat. The class rules are such that the minimum laminate weight per square metre is the same as for a larger keelboat. We’re not allowed to change the weight distribution and they’re really robust which is why they last so long.’

Why does Turner sail a Flying Fifteen? ‘The boats are incredibly closely matched,’ he says. ‘Recent events have shown that older boats can win. It’s about working the boat and being smart. It’s very much a technical boat, having it well calibrated and well set up is key. It’s quite physical, the harder you hike the faster you go. They’re very smooth upwind and they’re good downwind too. I don’t think there’s anything like it. Nothing compares.’

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