Insect dinghies are like buses. You wait for ages (in this case, years), and then two (or more) turn up at once.
The exciting aspect of this is that Insect dinghies are over seventy years old and a testament to the builders that there are several still around and hopefully lying in wait to be found.
At the end of 1948, Ballyholme Yacht Club on Belfast Lough showed an interest in adopting a new dinghy and initially looked at the Royal Naval Sailing Association dinghy owned by a Mr Leach, thinking it would be a suitable class for adoption.
It was then decided it would be too expensive and a cheaper 14-foot boat on the same lines should be investigated. This was the first reference to the Insect class.
Grasshopper at Orlock circa 1954 with Ed Wheeler (now Vice Commodore RUYC ) and James Nixon gutting mackerel at Orlock Photo: courtesy W M Nixon
Subsequently, so that members would have an idea of what an Insect would look like, a local Garage owner exhibited Mr Leech’s RNSA dinghy in his showroom! One of the conditions of ownership was that the Club would retain financial interest £10 to prevent it from being sold outside the club. And so the local boat builders French and McDermott were commissioned to build the boats. In early 1950 the club commissioned the new One Design dinghy class, and they ordered six from the local boat builders French and McDermott.
(Above and below) Ballyholme Yacht Club YC 14ft Insect Dinghy and Brief Specifications and plans
Ballyholme Yacht Club YC 14ft Insect Dinghy and Brief Specifications and plans
By Opening Day on 20th May that year, six were ready to sail and two were in construction. In all, 17 Insects were built and in those pre-Bangor Marina days, were moored in Ballyholme Bay with the inevitable capsizes in the Bay’s notorious Northerlies.
I understand that a second-hand Insect in 1959 cost £90 – today’s equivalent is over £2200!
1953 Ballyholme Yacht Club Regatta listing Insect dinghies
Insects were clinker-built and had a sliding gunter rig with a short mast which was designed not to touch the bottom of Ballyholme Bay if they capsized at moorings in rough weather. The sails were cotton of various colours which gave the boats spectator appeal as each was easily identified. Unfortunately, this changed with the advent of terylene, which came in only white and pale blue. And with the increasing popularity of the GP14 class, the class declined.
Insect dinghies racing at Ballyholme in their hey-day
Ownership varied between teenagers (or even younger) and more ‘mature’ sailors. In the younger age spectrum, Afloat’s Winkie Nixon recalls, “At a certain age – before any of us was even into our teens – we were given a new 14ft clinker sailing dinghy of the Ballyholme Insect Class and told to get on with it on the assumption that, having sailed with adults in keelboats, we’d know how it was done”.
Is it that a few stories about revived old dinghies have awakened interest in boat restoration, or has it always been there? One person who caught my attention is Yonkers and his work on an Insect dinghy no 11 called Lacewing.
Insects 5 Moth and 6 Hornet
Someone nicknamed Yonkers is bound to have a reason for being Yonkers. So I have found out, at long last, why Ewan Rathbone-Scott is not as I thought, called after the city in New York State, but was given that nickname by Jimmy Laird who ran the rowing boats in Bangor Bay in the Forties through to the Sixties. It was to distinguish Ewan, who worked for Laird’s boats as a teenager, from his twin brother! And Laird’s was where he gained the vast woodworking skills which have served him well since, as he is an avid boat restorer and builder as well as a member of the Bangor Marina staff and a valued lifeboat man.
Ewan is currently restoring Lacewing, labelled as owned by a Mr K Thorstensen in the 1953 BYC Regatta programme. Subsequently, a well-known Bangor fisherman, the late Jack Millar, owned it around 1973, and then the late Norman Henry, (a Master boatbuilder in Bangor Shipyard) passed it on to Ewan in 2016, on the proviso that Ewan restored it.
Lacewing was in a sorry state when Ewan retrieved it from the vegetation in Norman Henry’s back garden in Bangor, but it did have the buoyancy tanks and the old cotton mainsail. After five years work Ewan is proud of the restoration progress and says, “Lacewing will basically be as good as the day she was first built - maybe a little stronger as I’ve made the ribs are a bit wider as deeper than the original. The keel will also strengthen the bottom of the boat and new gunwales will do the same topside and will be slightly wider than the original. The hull planking was ok with only one plank being replaced, and most of the fastenings are new. The top of the stern board had to be replaced as it was rotten”.
A chance conversation with a family on Sketrick Island in Strangford Lough revealed that Noel Lindsay has bought a reconstructed Grasshopper, the Insect Winkie talks about here. Noel says he bought it in Holywood on Belfast Lough, and that as only a few fittings and the sails were salvageable, it had been rebuilt. He put it in the water last year. It is currently for sale.
Moth (No 5) was listed in the Ballyholme YC Regatta programme of 1953 as belonging to Michael McKee, a long-standing member of Royal Ulster Yacht Club. Subsequently, the Sea Ranger crew in Bangor acquired it in the mid-1950s under the leadership of the late Mrs. Elisabeth Imrie (Ferguson). Moth was sailed regularly by the Sea Rangers (the then senior Girl Guides) and used for training and racing. It was then acquired, I’m told, by the Jess family of East Down Yacht Club on Strangford Lough. Now it is with Silvery Light Sailing, based in a workshop in Newry, Co Down. There Moth is undergoing restoration by Project Manager Pat Conway and shipwright Ricky le Bloas with a team of volunteers from Tools for Solidarity, a not-for-profit charity with the main focus being to support artisans in the poorest parts of the world and mostly in the countries of Africa. Their time with Silvery Light gives them skills in woodworking. The project is funded by the National Heritage Fund. Pat says that his purpose is to get Moth back in the water - restoration, not preservation.
Pat Conway (left) and Shipwright Ricky le Bloas (seated third right) with the Tools for Solidarity volunteers with the Insect dinghy, Moth
Pat Conway shows Christine Wilson the stern restoration of the Inset dinghy, Moth. Christine's mother Elisabeth Ferguson, was the Skipper of the Sea Rangers who owned Moth
Insect dinghy Lacewing in a sorry state
Insect dinghy Lacewing stripped out inside during restoration
Restored Lacewing in January 2023
Red Admiral is no 3 of the fleet listed in 1953 as belonging to P McAuley. Interestingly she is owned and being restored in Greenwich by Noel Campbell of Greenwich Yacht Club. She has completely dried out having been under cover for many years and Noel is about to work on the restoration.
Insect dinghy Red Admiral
He says, “The badly split planks probably need replacing. I doubled up the hog to make the centreboard casing more watertight and to compensate for the wear on the keel caused by the plate. I strengthened the thwart by the mast because the strain had caused a crack in the hull where the thwart joined. I made a frame to double the thickness of the transom so that I could improve the fixing of the planks at the stern. I may try to be truer to the original plan since I now know so much more about the class, and I may even employ a shipwright for some of the work – if I feel I have the spare cash”.
It seems that several other Insects are still around, but I’ve been unable to categorically determine where they are. But I do know that Mantis has been photographed sailing in 2012 and 2013 at Dundrum and at Ardglass on the south Co Down coast.
Hopefully, there will be at least two more sailing in the not-too-distant future.
The Insect dinghy Mantis sailing at Ardglass in 2013
