‘Why does the Museum not feature the work of the National 12 designer, Ian Cockshot? we were asked this morning. A good question indeed.
The National 12 is a development class which means that almost no two boats are identical. The purpose of a such a class is to set out broad guidelines or constraints limiting certain aspects of the class – perhaps length, sail area and material – and then challenge designers to create individual boats which out perform others following the same ‘rule’. This means that there can be many different designers for one class of boat.
A one-design class is entirely different. These will be strictly limited, often down to minute details, and there can therefore only be one designer.
Ian Cockshot was a designer of National 12s and …