The builder of one of the earliest dinghy designs that stays popular to this day has visited Falmouth’s National Maritime Museum to see one of his creations.
Hugh Patton designed the OK dinghy and a model he built in 1961, named Ping Pong, is on display in the museum.
Now 90 years of age, Hugh travelled from Trowbridge in Wiltshire with his son Mike to see the dinghy.
Hugh said: “When I was building this dinghy back in the 1960s I never would have imagined that one day she’d be on display in a museum. It’s good to know that the museum is taking such good care of her. It was well worth the trip.”
Hugh built several dinghies for himself and others in the back of his watchmakers repair shop in Bath. He was also a successful sailor and sailed the dinghy in the Olympic trials of 1963, when it was thought that the class might be involved in the Tokyo Olympics of 1964. Ping Pong was sold out of the Patton family in 1968 and was donated to the National Maritime Museum Cornwall by the OK Dinghy British Class Association in 2008.
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