I mentioned in the post about the 1969 Kingston CORK regatta, the use of "ladies aids" in the pre-trapeze era; hiking aids that were essentially aluminum tubes you hung out from when hiking out. They seemed most popular with Stuart Walker and Sinjin Martin of the Annapolis fleet. I started crewing with Sinjin Martin as a teenager and remember hiking for all I was worth, hanging from one of those tubes, in the mid-60's.
I asked Sinjin about who invented them. He wasn't sure but he did say they were around at the very beginning of the Annapolis fleet, the mid 1950's. Back then they were steel conduit, attached to a track on the gunwhales, with a wire running from the conduit tube down to the centerline. The later versions were aluminum tube slotted into a slightly larger aluminum tube.
A photo of Stuart and Sinjin, full-on, hanging from the "Ladies Aids". This was the 1967 POW at Cowes.
Bekens of Cowes
Apologies for the non-PC term "Ladies Aids" but this was the 1950's and 1960's. The guy crews used them as much or more than the lady crews.
No comments:
Post a Comment