Gwen 12s

Painting – Acrylic on Board
61 x 45 cm

This painting depicts the 12 foot Gwen 12 sailing dinghies racing on Albert Park Lake in Melbourne in the 1960s based on some photos of the time. Included in the fleet is my Gwen 12 Tamette, sail number 123, racing towards the first mark at the western leg of the lake.

The Gwen 12 dinghies were designed by Charles Cunningham and named after the designer’s daughter Gwenda. They started as fleets on Port Phillip Bay, and quickly spread to all Australian waterways. They were one of the early two man self draining dinghies with sloop rig and flatcut spinnaker. The forward hand used a trapeze.