The Blue Nile Sailing Club in Khartoum was formed in 1924 by the British Garrison based there. The Colonel of the Regiment thought a good way of keeping officers out of trouble was to establish a sailing club. Interestingly there club premises was the ex-gunboat HMS Malik, brought down from Cairo in 1898 by Lord Kitchener to recapture Khartoum.
In the early 1930’s at the club’s request Morgan Giles produced a One-design. This was an 18ft half-decked model with a steel hull, centreboard and buoyancy tanks based on the German ‘Sharpie’ class. The sail area was 143 sq.ft comprising of a Bermuda rigged mainsail and a jib. When considering the material to construct the boats there is no wood at all in the area, at the time there was an abundance of galvanised steel which could be used brought laboriously from Cairo in case one of the old gunboats needed repair. In the hot and dry climate of the Sudan the steel hull was described as a master stroke. The first five were built my Morgan Giles and shipped to Khartoum and over 50 of these boats were built. The club handbook stated ’the design has been worked out to produce a strong boat which will stand hard use for a long time’. It is believed that a few of these boats are still in use which demonstrates the success of the design.
