CDB Fast Fleet
This fleet is huge fun as well as offering exciting and competitive sailing, and welcomes new members of all experience levels. The crewed boats allow for a mix n' match of skills and many opportunities for racing.
The Fast Fleet is comprised of the quicker classic racing dinghies, some designed back in the 1920s and 1930s like the National 18 and 12 SqM Sharpie, some with spinnakers, some with three crew, but all capable of getting around far flung parts of the harbour. These boats are capable of eating the miles. The National 18s have greatest variation in design, being one of the original development classes when dinghy racing first started over 100 years ago. Chichester Harbour 18s are a one-design hull that is similar to the N18s. Both have specified tolerances on rig designs, whilst the International Sharpies are a one-design class from 1931.
Currently we have genuinely wooden dayboats with clinker, carvel or hard chine hulls that would once have rode to moorings. They have been joined by a number of fibreglass boats, a cedar epoxy eighteen and a 1960s cold-moulded Jollyboat. National 18s are represented in both 'classic' and 'penultimate' versions, the former being predominantly clinker built and the latter being of grp carvel construction - and there is a plywood clinker boat.
An average Fast Division race would be made up of around 10-12 boats at the height of the season. The après-race is as much anticipated as the races themselves.
The representative of the CDB Fast Fleet is Peter Nuttall who can be contacted on fastfleetcdb@boshamsailingclub.com
Class organisations:
http://www.national18.com/Home.html
Last updated 14:14 on 20 December 2025
