Giles, That is a beautiful boat. Is it a Ron Holland design or an S&S? I remember sailing one around the Isle of Wight, what a wonderful experience.[/quote]
It's a Sparkman & Stephens from 1972. To my eyes, its one of the prettiest boats ever to come out of the Nautor yard (against some pretty stiff competition).
The photo is from the last day of the 2019 Voiles de Saint Tropez, heading in to the finish line; we beat all of the lightweight boats with fancy carbon sails in this picture; we had the lowest IRC rating in our class and had sailed a blinder that day.
She still has the original trim tab on the keel (very fashionable at the time); most of the class have got rid of them because they cost half a foot in rating under IOR, and certainly didn't give that much advantage. In the right conditions she is like a magic carpet to sail, but pretty slow in light airs, and like all boats of that era rolls like anything downwind in a blow. She has massive headsails (the big spinnaker is 150M2, and quite a handful when things get a bit frisky).
![[Linked Image]](https://tm-img.com/images/2021/01/29/44ADC302-E08B-4F21-B97E-1BFE30D8D527.jpg)
