A year or so ago I acquired an elderly 16 ft. clinker dinghy, described to me by its then owner as an Itchenor 0.D. This one was the first of its class, the class letter being Z and my boat being Z1. These boats — there are still two or three of the twenty or so built — obviously have a history, which I an endeavouring to unearth.

My main reason for writing to you is that, while on holiday recently in the Studland area of Dorset, I encountered Z20, with its owner, in Studland Bay. We had a brief chat, but as he was on passage, it could not be prolonged, and I was unable to get his name and address. He had had his boat since 1949, re-rigged it as a yawl, added a cuddy, and had been down the Biscay coast, also round the British Isles in it. This was as far as we got, and I would like to contact him again as there seems to be a potential member for the DCA if nothing else. If you could put a note in the Bulletin, maybe one or other of our members in the Chichester area may know him or his boat, as he said he was based at Bosham, and pass his name on. Yours sincerely I Rossiter