Page 5 - Folk Boat Year Book 2022

From the President

The Future of Folkboating in the 80th Anniversary Year of the Nordic Folkboat

During the last three years as President of
the UK Folkboat Association I have seen a
shift in the profile of the Association and of
fleets in the UK. There is a subtle change in
popularity with new and successful sailors
coming into our Nordic fleets, seeing
Folkboats as an exciting alternative to, for
example, X Boats. A new workshop has been
opened in Lymington at the former Green
Marine site at Walhampton where Simon
Osgood has invested in skilled boat-builders
who are renovating older Folkboats, both
GRP and wooden, to immaculate versions of
their old selves and which are proving as competitive as any of the newer boats. This
has been a great initiative by Simon whose dedication and promotion of Folkboating
is evident in his forty years as a successful Folkboat sailor in the UK and
internationally.

We shall be celebrating the 80th anniversary this year of one of the most popular
designs of all time, by hosting an international regatta incorporating the Sessan Cup,
the UK Nationals and Walcon Cup in September. I really hope that the camaraderie
that this event will promote between the UK and our continental visitors will lead to
more crews making the effort to enter some of the great international events, such as
the Gold Cup, Kiel Week, the Rolling Home regatta in Berlin as well as future Sessan
Cup events. The next San Francisco FB Regatta will offer 2 boats to British crews, for
the last event we had three crews competing for the two places, sadly it was
cancelled due to covid.

The opportunity to run the Sessan Cup in the UK is an honour for the Association and
for the organising club, the Royal Lymington Yacht Club. I hope that it will lead to
more international liaison and the possibility of making a bid to run the Folkboat Gold
Cup in UK waters.

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