The oldest video footage of Enterprise sailing dinghies
by Magnus Smith 3 Mar 12:00 UTC
Carnage at a manned A mark during the 1978 West Lancs 24hr Race © WLYC
Our video archive is fully searchable, and linked to all the clubs and classes in our database. It is updated weekly with the latest videos of sailing, but here we delve into the past, and round-up everything that shows sailing in Enterprise dinghies.
The first old video we know of, which features an Ent, is Sailing in Emsworth during the 1950s; it's a fascinating look at all the different craft in Chichester Harbour at that time. You'll need to skip to about 40m20s in, if all you want to see is blue sails (which end at 41m20s).
David Foulkes has got a brilliant crop of videos from two sailing clubs, and here's his first: Pilkington SC open meeting 1962.
We are not sure of the location for the National Championships 1962 so let us know!
Mixed in with the Merlin Rockets and National 12s here, we have the 1962 Tideway Race at Putney, London run by Ranelagh SC. 332 entrants, apparently!
Plus the same the next year: 1963 Tideway Race at Putney. It's great that British Pathé have so much footage still available to watch for free.
From Wales now, we have the Menai Straits Regatta 1963 filmed by someone who mostly looked at the Enterprise fleet.
The next video is from sometime in the 1960s and shows a family day out, from Towing with a Mini, to sailing on a lake. The boat is E175; can you identify the couple or the location? One clue might be that this comes from "the Hayden collection".
Now we have a crop from David Foulkes again, starting with Leigh SC mixed dinghy racing from the mid 1960s (mostly showing Enterprises).
Around the same time frame is Leigh SC fleet racing.
Then, with a more accurate date, it's Northern Championships 1965 at Morecambe & Heysham YC.
Finally we have a few brief shots of an Enterprise in this footage of Thames river cruisers in the 1970s if you fast forward to 8m10s and also to 8m50s. Not much to go on! Surely there is better footage out there from this decade?
What of the rest?
Do you know the location of any Enterprise videos that show racing fleets from the 1950s to the 80s? We would love to share these with other sailors. You can submit video links to us for immediate review.
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