This Duckling (“Dabchick”) was purchased by my father in around 1950. At the time, we lived in Dorridge, near Birmingham. We moved to Saltdean, near Brighton in 1954.  The Duckling was used for many happy years as a learning boat for our family. She was sailed off the beach at Saltdean, at Piddinghoe and at Seaford. She took us on expeditions up the local rivers, the Cuckmere, Arun, Adur and Oose. When we all left home, she lay up at the house, either hoisted up in a porch area or later on on blocks in the garden. Around 1998, she was brought over to Dublin by my brother and has been sailed once or twice. Most of the time she was covered up on a trailer outside our house here in Carpenterstown. This website details the work being done to restore this boat to a state in which she could be safely and carefully sailed in good weather in sheltered waters. The plan is to have her seaworthy enough to sail up the Liffey on the 100th Anniversary of my father’s birth in June 2012. I hope to invite all the family to attend!

Picture shows our close family friend Georges-Eric Ulrici in the duckling on Piddinghoe in the 1970s. Piddinghoe, the first village up the river Oose from Newhaven, Sussex, is where we sailed inland. It is a disused and flooded gravel excavation that was close to the river on the Ooze flood plain. See on Google maps 50.806687, 0.041381 +50° 48' 24.07", +0° 2' 28.97"