ARYA ARCHIVES - OUR PAST

ARYA ARCHIVES - OUR PAST

This is an ongoing project, all Clubs & State Associations are encouraged to participate by

donating material to the ARYA Archives - Preserving Our Past for the Future

A short History of the International One Metre Class.

One of our old friends Horace Boussy of France and a few of his mates got together in 1942 to formulate a new one metre rule.

The one metre boat has been around a long time and it isn’t quite known when it actually started. In Brittany the earlier boats had to be one metre long and it had a girth measurement that had to measure one metre as well. This girth measurement was found by wrapping a bit of string around the hull, fin and deck at maximum deck width. Some of these early boats could weigh up to 10 odd kls

Boussy and his mates realized that the boat (to catch on) had to be light, easy to be built and that one had to be able to transport it on the Metro (train) or a boot of a Small French car.

The first of these boats were designed by M.Faure-Dujarric and built by H. Boussy (La Canard). Most of the early ones were hard chine boats

La Canard (the Duck) sailed well. Between 1942’ and 1962’ some 500 boats were registered. With fleets in the sixties in Italy and Germany. The class settled down into boats displacing about 4 kgs. Each year in France they had a National Championship as well as 7 other major regattas and there was also a multi hull competition.

The FRENCH RULES for the International One Metre or the 10/40 Class as published in 1945. There was no rating formula for the class but there were some restrictions. The Maximum length including appendages, could not exceed One Metre. If the rudder was on the transom it had to be included in the overall length.

Sail Area could not exceed 40 square decimeters. There were some restrictions on sail area, as well as Spinnaker measurements and draught limits.

An alternate rig was adopted by the committee of the FFYV or the Yachting Models of France in 1951. By this time some countries had designs of these one metres, including Gus Lassell from the USA.

The class stayed pretty much the same in Europe up till the late 1980s. Till about 1988. Opinions were sort World wide as to what was needed for the one metre class. Most countries opted for a low tech and low cost class. The Americans and Canadians opted for the existing Olympic One Metre rule. The MYA (UK) started looking at it as a means of encouraging young people into the sport of R/C yachting . The then General Secretary of the MYA (Russell Potts)helped formulated an idea to get the British one metres to start certifying their boats. This certificate was called “At Sight Certificate” and it stated merely that the boat fitted an existing (of 4) sets of rules of the one metre and it was an instrument to give IMYRU time to properly formulate the One Metre rules. (I might add that the MYA’s choice of these rules didn’t get up. MB88). This was finally done in about May 1989.

The MYA class register reported that the number of boat was 55 from 17 clubs and it was reported that a full range of events were envisaged for 1990 (MB 1990). The class settled down to think this through.

Foot note. The pictures are from our library (courtesy Model Boats)

1# Sister boat to La Canard.

2# late 1960s design by Draper, Coquette.

Stephen Crewes. Australian Historian ARYA 2005