NEWS Mervyn Cook passes away 06/12/2022 Save article Mervyn Cook designer of the iconic Magnum series which won 8 Worlds, 10 Europeans, 19 UK National Championships, has died after a long illness. SHOW FULLSCREEN Mervyn Cook has died after a long illness, Photo courtesy Jacque Cook Mervyn had a long interest in sailing boats with his first boat being a British Moth dinghy which he sailed on the River Thames in the late 1950s. Having raced different Moths, he soon began designing his own, convinced that relatively high rocker displacement boats, generally the norm in development classes, were not the fastest way to go. In the early 1970s, his brother-in-law, John Claridge, had just set up a business building racing dinghies and so Mervyn designed a new boat for him, a new departure for the class, which became the first of his famous Magnum line of designs. Over the years, Mervyn’s rethinking of dinghy design caused changes to the Portsmouth Yardstick ratings for handicap racing. He also designed to the National 12 and International 14 dinghy class rules and served on the International Yacht Racing Union technical committee – now the World Sailing Governing Body – and was an official measurer for the Moth class as well as contributing to ideas for Moth sail area measurement rules. He became interested in sailing International One Metre sailboats and applied to be an official measurer for this and the 7ft model A class in 2007, actively sailing both classes from Gosport. Speed on water was always his objective and more recently, he enjoyed the excitement of Mini40 multihull racing and the new design challenges. As well as enjoying the racing at Gosport, Mervyn repaid the club by becoming the Commodore in 2013. Mervyn is survived by his wife Jacque. Topics BoatbuildingIndustry NewsMagnumYacht designer

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