in the 1930s N1 "Gipsy" was designed by
Uffa Fox and launched at Cowes in April 1936. The Twelve proved extremely popular and by the first championships in September of that year over 150 boats had been built. Gipsy accepted honourable retirement at the former Exeter Maritime Museum as a landmark in dinghy sailing history. Although his design, the "Uffa King", was very successful Fox himself built only two boats,
Anemone N452, and
Westwind N456, the latter for Bruce Banks, later to become famous as a sailmaker, in whose hands the boat was successfully campaigned for more than a decade, winning the Burton Cup both in 1939 and again in 1950.
Westwind is now in the collection of the
National Maritime Museum Cornwall From 1936 to the present day the class has continued to develop. Rule changes have been made where necessary, for example, a minimum width rule was introduced in 1937, and a maximum width in 1980 . Clinker construction went out in 1970 with the development of GRP hulls and 'four plank' wooden construction. Ian Proctor started experimenting with metal masts to replace wooden spars in 1952 and
Terylene sails arrived in 1954. The minimum weight was reduced to 80 kg in the 1980s. A further reduction in late 1990s and a recent reduction in 2000 reduced the minimum weight down to the currently 78 kg (this includes mast & centreboard), reflecting the ability of even amateur builders to build lightweight hulls. Today most new boats are built using carbon fibre-foam sandwich construction with a self draining floor. This makes the boats very light and stiff, adding to the responsive character of the boats. Winged rudders have been mainstream in the class since around 2010. They provide a number of benefits including: allowing the 12 to carry a little more helm/crew weight as they provide lift at the transom, increasing straight line speed in certain conditions and acting as a stabiliser on high speed reaches and runs. ==Handicap and Other Racing==