The legendary Uffa Fox designed the Flying Fifteen in England in the 1940s, and his vision of a high performance planing keelboat continues to flourish around the world, thanks to some judicious and intelligent class management. By carefully controlling the use of modern materials, the Fifteen has maintained its exhilarating performance without becoming too expensive to build or maintain.

Development continues and a group in the UK is looking at a new rig; the performance will be the same, but it is anticipated boat handling will be a little easier making the boat more attractive to husband & wife teams.

All changes to the class rules must be approved by all boat owners who are members of a National Flying Fifteen Class Association

We have to go back to the original concept of Uffa Fox in the late 1940’s when small sailing boats were normally built at home by amateurs. The boats were built of timber or marine plywood, around stringers. To enable the boats to measure using this type of construction Uffa allowed a 1 inch tolerance either side of the median plan lines.

As time passed the hulls were made of fibreglass using a mould and this allowed for tighter tolerances. Some builders using this new construction medium exploited the original tolerances and several designs were marketed, some suited to sea conditions and others more adept on inland waters. 

In the UK in the late 1970’s & early 80’s, British boat builder and designer Roy Windebank progressively developed about 10 Moulds over a number of years which exploited the use of the hull tolerances to extend the waterline length of the boat. In yacht racing, increasing waterline length means more speed. Many of the boats we are sailing today are based on Roy's moulds.

In 1990, the late Paul Altmann – who was the Australian measurer, campaigned to have the tolerances tightened to bring the class back to a One Design as per Uffa’s original intention. It took considerable time to persuade the UK fleet, but eventually he was successful and the tolerances were limited to +/- 7mm of the median lines of the hull, at the same time the median being adjusted to take in the most popular new design – the Windebank Mould IX.

• Mark 1 – Boats built to the original Uffa median plan lines. (now internationally known as a Classics.)
• Mark 2 – Boats based on the Mark 1, but with a flatter rocker and increased waterline

  Flying Fifteen Specifications
  Designer	Uffa Fox (1947)
  Overall Length	20 ft	6.1 m
  Waterline Length	15 ft	4.6 m
  Beam	5 ft	1.52 m
  Draft	2 ft 6 in	0.76 m
  Mast Height	22 ft 6 in	6.86 m
  Sail Area	150 sq ft	14 sqm
  Spinnaker Area	140 sq ft	13 sqm
  Min Hull Weight	304 lb	138 kg
  Min Keel Weight	372 lb	169 kg
  Racing Crew	Two

• Mark 3 – Boats based on the Windebank moulds II to V.
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• Mark 4 – Boats based on the Windebank moulds IX and X, and Shand Mk 4

Flying Fifteens were first introduced to Australia by Tally Hobbs who built Serena at Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club in WA from the original Uffa plans between 1947 – 1950. 

Bill Shand started building what we now know as the Mk 1 in 1961/62 the first boat being ffalanger number 550. Approx 200 of these mark 1’s were first measured in Victoria, plus many more would have gone interstate. Following this, several other moulds were produced around Australia, boats being built by Yachting World, Hinckley, Jarvie and Dulmison in NSW, Leader Boats in ACT and Frazer Boats in WA.

Bill Shand then developed a Mark 2 mould which was flatter aft; but only about 20 of these were built.

In the meantime Ian Anderson of Marineworld was building boats in WA from an imported Windebank mould. Several boats were built from this mould including "Supertoy", "Cockatiel"/"Frivolous", "Pink Zinc", "Glass Slipper", "Tis Irish Luck", etc.