Design number: 32 Year: 1981
For two boats that won so much in British waters in 1982 and 1983 we have far too little in the way of documented race results and we would very much like to put this right!
With Roller Skate, Mike and Mardie Delmar-Morgan wanted a competitive boat but one which offered reasonable creature comforts as well, with cockpit seats and coamings, and a moderately comfortable interior. John Cantrill’s Countdown, a slightly longer waterline design, was more spartan and had a simple trench cockpit.
Roller Skate was an influential design of the early Eighties. She was the first of a line of Humphreys Three Quarter Tonners to offer a dual-purpose, cruiser-racer role. Her major success was one that did not happen! She had the best corrected time in the famous Round the Island race but retired because the Bembridge Ledge Buoy, a mark in the course, was just kissed in the rounding.
Roller Skate in particular has had a prolonged racing career, in the hands of John Dare after the Delmar-Morgans, and more recently under the ownership of Stephanie Merry who sailed the boat to great success in 1997, winning Class III in the British CHS Nationals and Class IV in the Junior Offshore Group’s season points championship. Not bad for a fiteen year old boat.
Roller Skate was built by Neville Hutton and Steve Etheridge while Coundown was built by David Blatchford. Both were of composite epoxy around a p.v.c. core.
