Ben Bradley on Boatbuilding

After finishing my apprenticeship, and the forecast of the closure of J S Whites, I joined Harry Spencer, who was Skipper of a 12 metre called ‘Norsaga’ which was a trial for an America Cup Challenge mounted by the P&O Shipping Company, led by Lord Craigmyle involving the test tanks at Saunders Rowe.

By chance, an aluminum mast left over after P&O pulled the plug on the project was sold to the Pirate Radio Ship ‘Caroline’ and so started further radio ship contracts including Radio Yorkshire and Radio Scotland.

At the same time, yacht racing designers were specifying aluminum masts in place of traditional wooden masts and yachts were made from fibreglass, and in production numbers.