One Thursday afternoon in June of last year, 35 Sunbeams – the most to ever take part in the same race – approached a start line just outside Chichester Harbour. This was the start of the last race of a regatta which celebrated the centenary of the Solent Sunbeam class which has been entirely based at Itchenor Sailing Club since the mid-1960s.
It was at the newly-formed Hamble River SC that the first seven Sunbeams first sailed in 1923 after members of the club had asked Alfred Westmacott to produce “an improved Mermaid” which he had previously designed for Seaview YC. The result was a boat which many people, myself included, believe to be aesthetically peerless among small keelboats anywhere. It wasn’t long before these new boats came to the attention of members of the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club who decided to establish their own class in Falmouth. It was in May 1924 when seven new boats – which had been delivered by train – took part in their first race there, and so the Falmouth Sunbeam class will be holding its own centenary