Ring 21C “Double Six” History

This Ring 21c was born on the 25th July 1991.  It was Delivered to Mr John Evans and raced intermittently over a few seasons with a 2.0 litre Merc in Class 3.  The boat was set up with tandem seating and thus had a central steering position.  This would have been converted to 2 plus 2 once its race days were over.

I acquired the boat in 1999 after responding to a very traditional (magazine) Exchange & Mart advert from a group of “lads” from Sussex who co-owned it.  The boat came with a fair few stress marks on the hull and a few minor dings (a throwback to its racing days if John Evans photo evidence is anything to go by), but had a very cool V6 200hp Merc “Black Max” on the back, with an offshore leg that sounded awesome (and very vintage these days), and a 26” chopper prop.  I have heard some Merc specialists and purists rather ungraciously refer to engines of this nature as “sweep” engines, made up of bits swept up from the workshop floor.  I think Neil Holmes put this one together and it served me well.  The advert also boasted a fairly new trailer - more on that later.

I had been in the market to  replace a similar Ring 21c that I had owned a few years earlier, but unfortunately was the victim of one of number of thefts from Lyme Regis around that time.  The blue Ring was a very impressive Rig with an inventory that could easily take me off-topic here, and  in the early years of ownership, Double Six was very much a homage to the previous 21. 

The yellow Ring wasn’t quite the Blue Ring I had lost, but it was a good starting point, and after a test drive in the Solent I took the plunge and eventually collected the boat on a very wet autumn evening.  I borrowed my stepfather’s Ford Sierra auto to tow it “home”, eventually arriving after a four hour drive that included a rendezvous with the RAC at Membury services: they assured me that the car’s exhaust smoke was not a sign that I had ruined his wheels but that the auto box wasn’t enjoying its load.   It was a stressful journey that culminated with the off-side wheel of the trailer running on the brake shoes after the bearing had disintegrated.  The rain, hissing  on the red hot wheel and drum as it touched down, gave a clue to what I would find over the next few days: I was as it turned out, quite lucky that the wheel had not fallen off, and was just able to save the drum and stub axle from the debris.

Home for the first winter (and summer) was my Mother’s  driveway at her home in Kingsdown, a hamlet outside of Bath.  Due to the previous boat theft I wasn’t able to keep the new acquisition  in Lyme Regis, so I also had to invest £500 in an old MG Montego (with a tow bar) to get me to the water.

The photo evidence provided by John Evans shows why the upper deck had so many stress marks in it, over the years these have not worsened, I guess I have been more cautious than him.

Over the years, I have upgraded DoubleSix, to its current state.  I will present more on this upkeep and progressive rejuvenation in the coming months.