Voiliers Classiques Moth, Dériveur Classique Moth.
Plans de Moth Classique
A Moth European Championship sailed in Algiers, Algeria (at that time a département - administrative region - of France - see Tillerman's comment). Looks like the late 1950's, early 1960's. We can see the transom-bowed French Fragniere Moth design as well as the scow bowed Nantais design. (The British Queen Mother makes a short appearance at the beginning of the video.)
Further French Moth stuff here.
How bizarre to hold the European Championship in Algeria!
ReplyDeleteLove the topics covered in this newsreel - royalty, sailing and the weather! How very English!
ReplyDeleteTillerman,
ReplyDeleteAstute observation. Not being truly English, but I imagine this video sort of mucked it up, the actual order of importance on the island of John Bull is weather, royalty, and then sailing.
Good luck in the RS Aero Nationals. Always good once in a while to walk into the teeth of the unknown.
Great short, love those voice-overs on the old Pathe News reels; used to play at the movies before the main film.
ReplyDeleteBut Algeria...? What was that about.....?
A possible reason for holding a European championship in Africa was that Algeria at that time was technically not a colony but a département (administrative region) of France - just like all the European mainland départements of France. Many of the possessions that we would think of as colonies were treated that way, including even today some of the French islands in the Caribbean such as Martinique and Guadeloupe.
ReplyDeleteSo if it was France's turn to hold the Moth Europeans, by holding them in Algeria, from the French perspective they were holding them in France. Just a theory.
Or perhaps it was the winter and Algeria was warmer than anywhere in mainland France?
And what's with an American team defending the America's Cup in Bermuda?
Tell me about this lovely looking blue hulled yacht in the foreground of your new Blog Page Photograph - is it a moth? I might just have to get me one of those!
ReplyDeleteYou're right Tillerman, she is a beaut. The French held a Classic Moth meet for the first decade of the new millennium - this picture is from one of those years. Unfortunately I don't know the design and currently I don't have a contact with any of the French Classic Mothists so I could find out.
ReplyDelete