Sponsored by Mind The Gap Year, the Schools Championships was started in 1953 under the name of The Public Schools Firefly Invitation Championships. Its aim was to promote inter-schools sailing competition and the encouragement of young sailors. There was a very attractive winning school prize of a complete Fairey Firefly 12ft dinghy; probably a first of such a large scale prize in the UK. This was a pioneering idea of Colin Chichester-Smith and Charles Currey both of the dinghy manufacturing company Fairey Marine.

GALLERY

Click the image below to launch the entire gallery...