1 Le Jol, and Olympic History. The one-design revolution

by Bert Hamminga

Since time immemorial, speed is of vital importance in : in times where it hardly mattered whether a ship reached its destination a month later or earlier, the skipper could use speed to flee a larger ship to prevent robbery. If one had a larger ship, then speed was indispensable to be able to catch up with a ship to be robbed and to be received in the home port with cheering for the rich booty.

It is therefore not surprising that racing against each other since the invention of sailing has always been practiced as a game, as a useful, and indeed indispensable, exercise for real life. In ancient times, prizes for outstanding speed were awarded on naval fleets en route to naval battles. Admirals already knew before the battle which boats had to be given the difficult orders.

Sailing was not a number at the games in the Ancient Greek Olympia, but sailing and rowing competitions were held a lot in ancient Greece. With sailing skills, designing the ship was one of the skills in which one measured. There were sails and oars for propelling a ship, and both were used in competitions, often both at the same time. Winning with a faster ship was seen as just as honorable as winning with a faster sailing and rowing crew. 2

When peers George Cockshott (1875-1953), spiritual father of the International 12 Foot Dingy and Léon Huybrechts (1876-1956), world icon of competition sailing between the world wars, were born, rowing was rarely done anymore during sailing competitions, but the sailing classes’ rules still were very free, defined by length and sail surface. At the beginning of the new century there was a 6m, 8m and a 12m class. Within certain limits ("restricted class"), sailors were allowed to determine for themselves what they took on the water. Building specs were part of the competition.

At that time the Boat Racing Association was established in England out of the need to do more for competition in smaller sailing boats ("dinghies" under 6 meters). It was precisely in this sector that enthusiasm arose for the somewhat longer-standing idea of excluding building skills and allowing the competition to focus solely on sailing skills. That required different building rules for competition boats: a strictly defined one-design class.

Nowadays there are still "development classes" for people with a big wallet and for companies who want to stimulate or sponsor the development of certain types of technology. But the affordable competitive sport, we now know nothing else, works with one-design classes: the Dinghy, the and so on. 3

And the International 12 Foot Dinghy. Le Jol! But that was the very first one-design class ever to appear at the Olympic Games! That historic day in Belgium, at sea for Ostend, was 7 July 1920.

We first go back 8 years. That is a step back over an entire world war. In 1912, the BRA launched a design competition for a one-design 12-foot sailing boat that could also be used as a dinghy by larger yachts. With this dinghy requirement, one hoped to widen the market and make the competition class larger. George Cockshott’s design won. The name became BRA “A”-Class One-Design. Twelve-foot one- design competitions were to be organized, as well as competitions together with the BRA “B”-Restricted Class, also a twelve-foot dinghy, but with more liberties. When the IYRU chose the dinghy in 1919 to introduce the first one-design ever at the Olympic Games, it was given its current name: International 12 Foot Dinghy.

The Dutch/Flemish name twaalfvoetsjol is a confusing abbreviation. There are many types of twelve-foot dinghies, but there is only one International 12 Foot Dinghy, simply because it was defined as a one- design by the BRA in 1913. For example, the Italian AICD twelve-foot dinghy does not meet those design requirements and is therefore not an International 12 Foot Dinghy. On weighing them, for instance (sail ready), they turn out to be 25 kg too light, which alone makes them much faster. See table left, source: http://international12.org/other%20dinghies/ AICD/Towing%20test_eng.pdf.

Neither does the Dutch "Nationale Twaalfvoetsjol”, conform the original design of the International 12 Foot Dinghy any longer since 1995, after the Dutch decided to go their own national way with a revised design. Since then the Dutch dinghy no longer is BRA “A”-Class One-Design (measure details free online summary). Fortunately, most dinghies in the are from before that time. Moreover, the differences between the approximately 100 dinghies built to the revised Dutch National design and the “A”-Class One-Design are so small that hull resistance will probably come out as statistically equal in the most expensive tow tank tests. But one-design is one-design, hence the Dutch “Nationale Twaalfvoetsjol” (among other things 366cm long instead of 12’) is not an International 12.

Why did the Dutch do it? It is not known, hence all explanations remain speculative, for example, in terms of an earning model: the Dutch sailing federation claimed copyright on the apocryphal Brinkhorst drawing, which costs around 80 euros. There is a digital file but the buyer receives a paper version. That federation also "sells" annual compulsory license renewals for boats already measured and licensed - on the federation's website, this priced annual renewal is called a "product". In regular meetings of Dutch owners of the “Nationale Twaalfvoetsjol”, organised by the federation, changes are made that make the local Dutch “jollen”-fleet drift further and further away from the “A”-Class One- Design. Prior to those meetings, when invited, the owners will be warned that they will only be allowed to vote if they have paid the last renewal of their boat license. The Watersportverbond recently 4 announced that this system of annual payment for the extension of boat licenses will be abolished Januari 1, 2020.

Cockshott's Belgian generation companion Léon Huybrechts always seems to have had a liking for small sailing boats, but just like in England, they were treated somewhat stepmotherly in Belgium before the First World War. At the 1908 Olympic Games, Léon sailed on by Wight with his brother Louis and Henri Weewouters in the 6-meter class and won silver. He was 32.

I would like to have witnessed the moment when Léon cut open the Yachtsman of July 1913 (that was the way it was then), and saw the prize-winning design for a twelve-foot dinghy. I can already hear him say "that is a cute dinghy!". Le Jol was born! To never disappear from the scene again. An Englishman! George Cockshott.

Léon Huybrechts and George Cockshott 5

The most important thing about the small competition boat was affordability for a wider group, which probably improved the quality of the top in the competition, and then again challenged talent - such as Léon! - to measure. Another special feature was the use of body weight in the balance. 'Hanging' and balancing front/back and port/starboard, so usual to us, then was a novelty, watched with admiration from the shore. Thus in a very short time Le Jol became a boat for the then top sailors of the world.

At the Belgium Olympic Games in 1920, Léon opted for the 6 meter (the then new 1919 type). Huybrechts again won a silver medal for his yacht Tan-Fe-Pah and his crew John Klotz and Charles Van Den Bussche. But only two of those yachts participated.

At the Belgian Olympic Games of which we are going to celebrate the Centennial in Oostende (due to postponement) on 10-11 July 2021 with Le Jol, it was no different for the International 12 Foot Dinghies. The two Dutch teams, Cornelis and Frans Hin with the Beatrijs, and Arnoud van der Biesen and Petrus Beukers with the Boreas, arrived in Oostende in July 1920. We must assume: by ship by sea. You hardly had any cars or motorways yet and the boat trailer would not be invented until decades later. The traffic was still on horseback. But they were scarce and very expensive: in the first world war, 8 million horses had just died. The Dutch asked around in Oostende, but it turned out that no other dinghy sailors had reported themselves. 6

In 1920, two years after the war, the Oostende port was far from cleared

On day 1 of the Olympic Games, the dinghies were sent to sea with the yachts. They bravely coped with the tide, unusual to them, and reached port in a freshening Westerly just without sinking. Biesen/Beukers won but there is also a story of a drifting on the rising tide. The organizers now understood: those dinghies no longer had to go at sea. A course was set out in the port for the following day. The designated officials, however, preferred to see the "real" competition and gave their starting gun and their results form to some friends to disappear themselves to the sea on the other jury boat. This came to the attention of some official Olympic baron who furiously annulled the dinghy races. Another baron, who came from the Netherlands, suggested that since the gentlemen sailors always sailed against each other on Durgerdam, near at the , deciders could be held there in September.

So it happened. At Durgerdam the wind dropped completely during the second race. After bobbing for a while, Biesen and Beukers got thirsty and rowed to the shore, hopefully - but we don't know - towards sailing pub cafe 't Sluisje that already existed and still is there. They thought silver was good enough. And so the first Olympic gold in the first real Olympic unit class went, hopefully in 't Sluisje, for that would enhance the story, to the Hin 7 family. I say: "Hin family" because Frans had to go back to school and was replaced by his brother Johan at Durgerdam, who would later become fifth at the Paris Olympic Games in 1924. Their sister Janneke later also sailed her house full of prizes.

We already seem to have passed Belgium without having heard much from Léon and Belgian jollen. But the real Belgian dinghy glory still had to begin.

The advance of Le Jol in Belgium started after the Olympic Games, with the improvement of the economy. The start of the Roaring Twenties! Belgium sailed with jollen at : RYCB = Royal Yacht Club of Belgium, the club of Léon (Galgenweel, sometimes the Wintam channel), at : RSC, later RBSC = Royal Belgian Sailing Club (Langerbrugge) and at : BRYC = Bruxelles Royal Yacht Club (canal near Brussels) and also at the Royal Yacht Club, “Bassin de Chasse”, now called Spuikom, the venue of the 2020 International 12 Olympic Centennial.

The Roaring 20s coming! Oostende 1920

Soon there were three Belgian International 12 builders: Devos (from 1923) and Annemans (from 1924), both based in Ghent, are the best known, but also Van Hove (from 1921) has built there.

In Sur l’Eau is a list of Belgian jollen around 1932 with sailing numbers, builders and owners. Ten Hove built from 1921, one is known in the Netherlands. -690 Doortje Dartel, registered in the Netherlands in 1980 (Dutch champion in 1986), owned by Nicky Arnoldus Devos built jollen from 1922; one still exists: -B 28, from 1923 Karekiet, the jol of Leon Huybrechts, former chairman of the RYCB, stands at the MAS on the Kaai in Antwerp. -328, registered by Barzilay in the Netherlands in 1932, last owner W. de Voogt-Tamminga in 1945, disappeared ... Annemans is said to have built two types of jollen, one for the lakes and one for the rivers, the difference was in the way the strokes ran in the head. In the Netherlands there was criticism of these jollen: they were supposed to be fast, very light, but made of cheap wood and therefore quickly worn out. He built them from 1924, possibly until 1937, but perhaps a few second-hand ones were imported to the Netherlands and registered here. The Dutch jollenregister contains: 8

- 49 Ideal II, replacement of the 49 Ideal burned in 1936, an originally Belgian jol, Diablotin B49 by A. de Hemptinne, possibly built in 1924, which was purchased by Jan Karreman from Rotterdam in or before 1927 (the time the RZV sailors regularly sailed against the Ghent club). The new Annemans jol was again assigned number 49. This was purchased and restored as a Nestor by Frans Brinkmann in 1982. Now in the possession of Hans van der Meer. -112, Anneke from 1924 ?, according to the register from 1924 to 1926 owned by Gerrit Bohré, who according to the register then also had an Abeking & Rasmussen boat, also registered in 1924 with sail number 15, also called Anneke. Possibly that jol came in 1922 as one of the first batches of A&R boats in the Netherlands. Bohré had that jol until 1929, then he sailed in a new Baay jol 229 Hunter. The 112 jol still exists, now owner Dirk Stolp, now called Anneke again, has been sailed by Bert Hamminga in recent years. -128, from 1937 ?, last recorded as Knick Knack in 1953, disappeared -143, from 1927, still exists, now from Wim Schoemakers. -185, from 1928, restored by Brinkmann, owned by widow Beatrijs Brinkmann, is now used by brother-in- law Marius van der Pas in Assen 0651261903. - 394 from 1937, is listed as perishing - 395 from 1937, last registered in 1945, disappeared

Léon got under the spell of Le Jol, and of the idea of one-design classes. His dinghy Karekiet is now in the Antwerp Scheepvaartmuseum and was exhibited for years in the Museum aan de Stroom (MAS). The pieces of that museum are temporarily stored in anticipation of the new construction. Builder and year of construction are not yet known at the museum, but elsewhere shipyard Devos and year of construction 1923 are mentioned.

Huybrecht’s Karekiet in Museum aan de Stroom (MAS), Antwerpen (closed temporarily)

The same museum has a related, but somewhat larger boat, devised about the same time as Le Jol, but in Belgium: the Scheldejol. Huybrechts was involved in this. In 1913 the Antwerp Yacht Club of Huybrechts proposed to the then "United Sailing Clubs of the Netherlands and Belgium" to make it a one-design class in the Netherlands and Belgium. That happened. It is slightly larger than Le Jol but the hull construction is very related. This dinghy had a gib and also sailed with a spinnaker. Due to the outbreak of the war, no more Scheldejollen were built in Belgium for the time being. Huybrechts fled to neutral Netherlands (Haarlem) and sailed Le Jol. After the war, the Scheldejol would take up again in Belgium.

Be a YouTube tourist in Huybrecht’s Antwerp for 8 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPfu_j4EtMs 9

The Belgian Scheldejol

As a dinghy for the Paris Olympic Games of 1924, the French chose a boat so similar to the Scheldejol that it must have been inspired by it. They were won by Huybrechts. Another top sailor, Johan Hin, who won Belgian Olympic gold with his father Cornelis in 1920, was 5 in the 1924 Paris end ranking. Hendrik Robert, who would get silver in the International 12 at the Amsterdam OS 1928, ended 2.

Although it may seem different at first glance, Germany was still not allowed to participate in the Paris Olympic Games. What is now known as the Hitler salute is originally the Bellamy salute: Francis Bellamy was the author of the American Pledge of Allegiance. The gesture was designed to accompany the pledge. 10

Paris Olympic Start of 1924, it is very similar to the Belgian Scheldejol but was called "Monotype National" on the Seine near Meulan

In Brussels they came up with the idea, now that everyone was in Paris, to invite the sailors to come immediately to Belgium for a world championship in the International 12 Foot Dinghy. That first world championship 1924 got a tough field with Huybrechts, of course, the Dutchman de Vries Lentsch, and the Irish Captain Payne who won and thus became the first world champion of the newborn Irish republic. It made him a hero in his brand new homeland. It had not been easy for him. Léon Huybrechts, we assume in his own Karekiet (Devos, built in 1923), became second and de Vries Lentsch third. With a man like Huybrechts among the participants it was clear to everyone: the International 12 Foot Dinghy was now THE dinghy class in which the world top competed. And at the same time, Belgium, as the organizer of the first world championship, put itself on the map as the Mecca of competition sailing.

World Cup jol in Brussels 1924 from left to right: de Vries Lentsch (third), probably his crew K. Putters, Léon Huybrechts (second), Frank Murdoch (crew of Huybrechts), Mrs Payne (crew of capt. Payne), capt. Payne (Ireland, winner) 11

Captain Payne's victory opened the way for a world championship, a year later, 1925, in Ireland at Cork: Queenstown (which was to be called Cobh). Payne repeated his feat and won, but this time very narrowly, from the young Dutchman Gerrit Bohré in the Anneke, 112, an International 12 from the Ghent shipyard Annemans (!), just like Huybrecht's Karekiet built in 1923. The Anneke is still sailing in the international competitions, now with Dutchman Bert Hamminga, who lives in Uganda. The hull of Payne’s (IRL 9 Caubeen) is still intact, and attempts will be made to get it back on track. Two other participants in these world championships, Tawney (GR) and Van Haltern (BE), we read somewhere, seem to be mentioned with Payne and Bohré in the History of Royal Cork Yacht Club, so it seems that Huybrechts was not there because it was common for every country to send one sailor.

... Poster used to promote Le Jol. Text in different font is not from the newspaper ...

In what was to be the third and last International 12 World Meeting in 1926 on the Dutch Westeinder lake, the Big Three met again. Belgium (Huybrechts/Murdoch) won, Holland (de Vries Lentsch/K. Putters) second and Ireland (Capt Payne/Mrs Payne) ended third.

Breaking news: the rumour is that the International 12 Association conspiring to plan a fourth and next world meeting for 2021. One seems to be eyeing Bosham Sailing Club, at the Solent! However this time it will not be a country competition but registration will be open to all who are able to bring an “A”-ClassOne-Design or a “B”-Restricted Class 12 Footer. 12

The Amsterdam 1928 Olympic sailing competitions were sailed on the Zuyderzee. A start had already been made with the coming Afsluitdijk at the entrance to the sea, but the tide was still there as before. Huybrechts, of course a favorite, had a lot of bad luck. It was decided that Le Jol should sail single- handed, there was a lot of wind and Léon was not the heaviest. Léon in in a Belgian interview: “But all these manne are heavier than me. That Swede ad such an ass [gesture of 1.50m]”. And Léon had to leave once for a port-starboard. Léon: "Just a little tick and I had to go out!"

End Ranking (20 participants) Contestant Country Position S.G.Thorell Sweden GOLD H.Robert Norway SILVER B.Broman Finland BRONZE W.de Vries Lentsch Holland 4 (L.Huybrechts Belgium 9) (M. Curry 10)

Yes, ninth as a clear for gold can make you sad but if I had become ninth in such a club I would have regretted not having grandchildren to tell!

"The jollekes are good," said Léon. The conceited vanity Manfred Curry would of course only have said that if he had won. But Curry sailed like a wet piece of newspaper and the grapes were sour. He started writing about Le Jol in magazines as "an insult to our sailors". He later tried to become famous again in physics through the "discovery" of a new kind of field that could explain, for example, the forces that had been assumed in water search soothsaying since the Middle Ages. But there too he was disappointed: his evidence turned out imagination and the field simply did not exist. Despite his bad luck in 1928, Huybrechts fortunately ended before this ridiculous dandy of sailing, who could not get higher than than a tenth place in the final ranking. 13

Berlin 1936. The Olympic Games had never been so well organized. A staggering amount of technical innovations, from building technology to media coverage, put the games on a totally new plan with hitherto unheard of massive public interest. But of course in a Nazi propagandist framework. The Germans had designed a new dinghy that was a dramatic advance over the International 12: the Olympiajolle. It would turn out to be only a last small step before the eternal Finn dinghy, only the mast was still on stays.

Every thinking person immediately understood that the role of the International 12 Foot Dinghy as a competitive boat for the world top had ended. In the following years, Le Jol became very cheap in Belgium because all sailors switched to the German Olympiajolle.

But, and very few remember this, Le Jol nearly had a last Olympic reprise ... at the 1940 Olympics, which would take place in Tokyo.

Every dinghy sailor is ready to admit that the decision to start a world war is always taken by great leaders and those must be great minds - otherwise they would never have become great leaders. But if they start just before the last Olympic Games scheduled to feature Le Jol, there is only one word for it: mismanagement!

The Tokyo 1940 Summer Olympics were of course fully prepared when the Second World War broke out. After all, games are more easily planned than wars. Here are some nice details from the Japanese plan, in cumbersome translation to English for the barons of the Olympic Committee. What in official Olympic jargon was the IYRU 1919 International 12 Foot Dinghy was, in the Japaneze Olympic Plan, erroneously called the Olympic monotype, but ... Le Jol was planned to start! 14

The Japanese International 12 Foot Dinghy fleet as on page 72 of the programme for the planned OS Tokyo 1940 15 16

One thing is clear: twenty years from now, in September 2040, when we will all be only 20 years older, the International 12 Foot Dinghies will go en masse to Yokohama to finally hold these games, at least for fun, after 100 years!

In 1964, the IYRU judged the International 12 Foot Dinghy an intolerable and shameful blemish on its list of international classes and Le Jol was silently deleted. No one has heard of most of the plastic junk that it has been replaced with on that list, now polluting the Worlds sea floors, shore sides and wreck yards. But Le Jol is not just sustainable but, yes!, eternal indeed, both literally and figuratively, and people kept sailing it. In Italy, people did not even realize that the Finn and Laser were the modern dinghy, and they started to 'improve' the twelve-foot dinghy in the late sixties (!) with Olympiajolle- like trim ropes, plastic hulls and carbon spars. Imagine this! While in 1950 they already knew how to turn even simple wood into strong longmasts, thus make tall Bermuda riggs and render technically obsolete the rare and characteristic lug yard of Le Jol, twenty years later in Italy plastic 12 Footers came on the water with carbon lug yards, provided with in-race adjustable boltropes and mast foot positions! Well, everyone is free to hobby, but these usually plastic operetta’s are of course no BRA "A"-Class One-Design dinghies. 17

In the Netherlands, Le Jol continued to operate, until, unfortunately, also there a revision was introduced in 1995 that deviates from the BRA "A"-Class One-Design, the Brinkhorst jol. More than 100 of them have already been built. However, nothing has shown that they are faster. The old genuine Dutch originals have mostly retained their Dutch license by continuing their annual payment for the “renewal” of their license to the Watersportverbond. This avoids the requirement of remeasurement in which most of them would probably be rejected for a Dutch license. Fortunately, the Watersportverbond recently announced that this system of annual payment for the extension of boat licenses will be abolished January 1, 2020.

De renaissance of de International 12 Foot Dinghy.

International events in Le Jol have always continued to be held, the last decade under the auspices of the 12 Foot Classical Wood Club, founded by the Dutch world top sailor Pieter Bleeker and the German Reinhard Schroeder. This club is now merging into the brand new International 12 Association, an initiative of dinghy sailors from all countries where Le Jol still sails: Ireland, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Turkey and now also again ... Belgium!

Oostende 2019: three members of the brand-new Belgian International 12-club with their new mascot “Léon”: from left to right Sebbe Godefroy, a Finn Dinghy sailor of the Huybrechts stature and of course a favorite for gold on the Centennial, Philippe Royaux, the big man behind the revival of Le Jol in Belgium and Jan Scholten

Rumor has it that a Huybrechts will also sign up for the event. Cockshott's granddaughter Jane Rowe is excited about the revival and there is a good chance that we will see her there too.

All eyes are now focused on Ostend! 18 19

The 1934 Register of Belgian INternational 12 Foot Dinghies (in: Sur l’eau, handwritten Antwerp boating journal) 20

Huybrechtsstraat Antwerpen 21 22

The team of Ostend International 12 Centennial is indebted to the former dinghy sailor Dolph Blussé, editor of the Dutch jubilee book ’Twaalfvoetsjol, 100 jaar klasse 1914-2014’, who at that time researched the Belgian-Dutch relations and wrote them down in writing. He advises Belgian maritime historians to dig through all volumes of the water sports magazine "Sur l’Eau".