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The Norfolk Punt is a type of yacht, derived from the flat-bottomed gun punts that roamed the Broadland waters in the mid-to-late 19th century. However, at the turn of the 20th Century, in order to get to and from the hunting grounds more efficiently, the punters developed their highly unstable craft to carry a basic mast and sail for travelling with the wind. It is from these humble beginnings that one of the country’s most exciting and powerful racing dinghy classes was born. If racing in a mixed fleet of classes, the Norfolk Punt receives a Portsmouth number of 879 as a handicap.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The RYA Portsmouth Yardstick Number List 2003 )〕 ==The Classic, or Traditional, Punts== The older Punts are still very much in existence today and race in the same fleets as the newer boats. However, due to their rather more antiquated hull designs they compete on a handicap to allow fair racing. Boats designed and built as early as the late 1920s are still regularly seen on the water, with arguably the most successful Punt ever, winning four National Championships in the late 80s and just outside the top 3 as recently as 2003, dating back to 1935. Amongst the early designers were such famous sailors as Uffa Fox and Jack Holt, although most successful boats were from the drawing boards of local designers, the most prolific being Herbert Woods, Walter Woods, H.T. Percival and W. F. Mollett. Early boats were generally of clinker construction and varied from , although once in the 1930s pretty much all the designs were . Initially gaff rigs were the norm, but as the class entered the 1930s Punt owners adopted Bermuda rigs. Today many of the early Punts have been lovingly and painstakingly renovated or rebuilt, transformed into varnished works of art. Some have been brought into the 21st Century, sporting carbon spars, trapezes and composite sails atop their beautiful, near-century old clinker hulls. Whatever the owners’ personal choices, these older boats are well loved and still very fast, offering 29er-type speed in a gentleman’s elegant package. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Norfolk punt」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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