MYA British Open “A” Class Championship
(Vane A week) 27th July to 2nd August 2019
The Scrutton Cup & the Yachting Monthly Cup.
This is the 90th edition of this, the longest running International Model Yachting competition in the world, having started at Gosport in 1923 & apart from a break in the war years the event has been held alternately by Fleetwood & Gosport every year since 1933.
Originally this event was the Model Yachting equivalent of the America’s cup (and gave the Americans as much difficulty trying to win it as the Brits were having trying to win the Americas Cup!!) and was a challenge in 1922 by British sailor Bill Daniels, “to any model yachtsman from anywhere in the world to meet him in a race or series of races” The first event was held at Gosport in 1923 and attracted only 12 entries including 1 from Denmark.
At these first events the British Empire Championship (for subjects of the British Empire only) for the Scrutton Cup, was raced Sun – Friday followed by the International challenge for the Yachting Monthly Cup.
After the break for the War years the event re started in 1947 & the weeks race for the Scrutton Cup was renamed the “All Nations Championship” and in 1948 the event became “The British Open A class Championship” which it remains to this day OPEN to any model yachtsman from anywhere.
Since then the event has been run annually alternating between Gosport & Fleetwood clubs and this year we at Fleetwood are hosting it for the 42nd time!
Over the years until the mid to late 1970’s the race was considered to be the “World Championship” of model yacht racing and entries reached a crescendo of 56 boats in 1973 with some 8 countries represented. With such a large number of boats it was impossible to complete the whole tournament, but after 6 days of racing the winner with 133 points from a possible 135 was Chris Dicks of Clapham MYC with a revolutionary new boat self built to his own design 7 called appropriately “REVOLUTION”
8 Days of A's at Fleetwood 2019. 