N3081 Marmite Soldier

[National 12 Webmaster]

The life of N3081 Marmite Soldier. Design: Marmite Soldier, designed by: Phil Morrison in 1979

[edwillett]

On eBay September 2011, located in Southampton

[nicklightbody]

I worked for Phil Morrison sail-making from 1977-1979 and during that time Phil designed, amongst several other designs, Gemini - a twin trapeze concept built by Phil, Bill Twine and myself which resulted in influencing the 14s to get a second wire and Marmite Soldier. The common feature here was being a 2 planker, a cold moulded bottom and a ply topside providing both lighter simpler construction (cold moulding is much better on a curve than flat if you don't have a vacuum bag) and a change of surface to cause the spray to part from the hull. The Gemini mould was built the same way and then used to create a female glass mould.

What was tricky about Marmite Soldier was that the cold moulded lower part of the hull had to pass the double curvature rule which existed then, which it did.

It also had a delta centreboard, very triangular, which resulted in the weight of water being carried in the centreboard case being much reduced as the case was tapered to match the board. The board was designed to be used upwind with an approx vertical trailing edge hence a swept back leading edge. It was was quite tricky to build.

I built a mould and then a hull with SP Epoxy during the winter of 1977 in a garage in Hailsham. Cliff Harvey borrowed the mould and started a second hull which Jonathan Turner finished off for him.

I built a very light Proctor C mast, stabilised with Morrison wires and used sails I made at the loft with Phil.

I sailed Marmite Soldier at Ranelagh through a winter series, various opens and Burton Week at Whitstable where we were 3rd Ranelagh Team boat for the Gypsy Trophy with Mike Jackson and Chris Edwards and then sold her to Annette Hughes where she stayed at Ranelagh I believe for a while.

As designed she was an excellent displacement boat with modest planing performance. So I consulted with Phil and then added some displacement under the mast and two rear chines with SP and micro balloons which produced great downwind performance but, obviously, reduced the displacement performance, especially tacking.

So in summary Marmite Soldier included the following features which were either innovations or early examples of something reinvented or new in the Twelves at the time:

1. Delta board with a removable handle which disappeared into the case when down
2. part cold moulded part ply hull
3. built entirely with SP products
4. Morrison wires
5. After market bumps

Nick Lightbody