Classic Boat Museum is flying with wings!

The Museum has taken delivery of the the huge solid wing used on a test boat and in the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup during the 35th America’s Cup from Ben Ainslie. The wing joins the hull which arrived a few months before the opening of the new Museum ‘Boat Shed’. This solid wing combined with the huge carbon fibre foils enabled Ben and his team to perfect ‘flying’ on foils which enabled the team to successfully compete in Bermuda in 2017.

The hull and wing create an interesting and historic story, which will take visitor to the museum back to another era when Saunders – Roe, manufacturers of marine aircraft in East Cowes, built the incredible flying boats of the time. The link between sailing and flying is closer than many may realise both use principles of aerodynamics and hydrodynamics to generate lift either in the air or the water. Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup catamaran was almost the perfect combination of the two principles whilst not completely leaving the water!

Mark Mc Neill comments: “It has been a fabulous summer for the Museum, we have opened our new ‘Boat Shed’ on the opposite bank of the Medina river to our East Cowes Gallery and hosted out first party during the Cowes Classic Week. The Boat Shed opening allowed us to take delivery of the final part Ben of Ainslie’s test catamaran and the enormous solid wing is now proudly on display in the new Shed. Interesting flying boats are all part of the Cowes heritage and it’s over a century since the first Saunders-Roe flying boat was launched from docks in East Cowes.”

He adds: “I would like to thank Ben’s team for their generosity in allowing the museum to continue immortalising the history of the America’s Cup in its original home of Cowes with a special thanks to the shore team for all their help in delivering and assembling the wing with our volunteers.”