The oldest video footage of Moth dinghy sailing
by Magnus Smith 6 Jul 04:00 PDT
A stable, and well rockered hull, with a higher aspect and more efficient rig than was found on the International Moths of the day, the British Moth became the inland, restricted water performer par excellence © British Moth Class
With the 2025 Moth World Championship starting today in Lake Garda, it's a great time to delve into our video archive to find the oldest possible footage that shows Moth racing. Are these International Moths, British Moths... or was the class name still the original Olive, Inverloch 11ft, National Moth or Brent One-Design? It all gets a bit confusing!
Luckily we have expert dinghy historian Dougal Henshall who gives the full and detailed history of all Moth class developments from the 1920s onwards. In summary, the class was birthed in Australia and the USA around the same time, and both agreed to use the word 'Moth', which then spread to the UK and France, before becoming international. Muddled up in there are all sorts of splits and diversions, and even talk of a full merger. Read Dougal's article to learn the fine detail.
Since we only found videos from the 1950s onwards, it is fairly easy to know whether an International or British Moth is shown.
The oldest video was European Championship in Algeria, 1955 and despite the unity of name at this point, there are still a variety of sail insignias showing.
Or could it be that this footage (exact date unknown) is slightly older than the above? Moth class racing in South Florida says "in the mid-1950s" so who knows! Again, the insignia still shows the 'M' in a circle, not the winged insect.
This next video was submitted by a reader (thank you R Gibson!) and is from the late 1950s, showing Harry Leggett's #100 on Albert Park Lake, Victoria, Australia.
The other side of the schism is shown here in the UK: British Moths on the Welsh Harp reservoir in London (Brent Cup) 1957. Curiously, these show no sail insignias at all!
And again in this silent video: British Moth sailing at Lymington in 1960 shows kids at Salterns SC.
Finally we have something from the southern hemisphere! Dinghy racing at Weymouth, Auckland around 1963 only shows a Moth at the very start, and at 1m53s though.
British Pathé have some footage which sadly we cannot embed here; you will have to open this link in a new tab: www.britishpathe.com/asset/115109 to see the Australian National Championships 1962 at Largs Bay, Adelaide.
Happily we found some Kiwi action too. New Zealand Moth 601 at Port Waikato sometime in the 1960s.
In the UK now, we have a variety of events bundled together: International Moths 1969-1972 includes Europeans, Lymington Town SC, and more.
This next video is long, and shows a whole variety of classes racing - Dinghy sailing at Port Hacking, Sydney in the early 70s - so if you purely want to see a Moth, skip straight to 8m03s for the best shot (also see 6m20s and 7m06s and 18m10s for lesser moments).
Here's a brief clip from the start of the International Moth World Championship 1990 so you can see the size of the fleet.
More from Australia. New South Wales to be precise: Grafton Moth States - Lowriders on the Clarence River from sometime in the early 1990s.
A short clip from Ratzeburg, Germany: International Moth World Championship 1996.
Once the 2000s arrive, video footage goes digital, and Moths begin to foil, so we end our history lesson at this point.
What of the rest?
Do you know the location of other Moth videos from any time between 1920 to 1999 which we have missed? We would love to share these with other sailors. You can submit video links to us for immediate review.
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