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Coming fresh off the back of another successful outing for Butler Boats at this year’s Streaker National Championships held at Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy, we are already looking to the future with regard to the Streaker, how can we improve on an already fantastic dinghy? We are constantly looking to enhance the aesthetics of our dinghies; the Streaker is in a really good position in terms of Open Event turnouts, National Championship attendances, orders for new boats and a thriving second hand market.

We have developed our all wood Streaker with the removal of the floor battens, lightened keelson and short false floor and we will shortly have another under construction in which we hope to document the build from start to finish, we feel this would give a great insight into the world of ‘building a Streaker’, it’s a wonderful boat to build and as the only professional builders of the wood and composite Streaker we hope to promote the fact we can provide a Streaker at any stage of build for the discerning customer who would like to undertake their own build without the stresses and strains of fully constructing a hull and major internal structure.

There are still a good number of Open Events to attend both North and South and we look forward to seeing what developments are in store for the Streaker as we approach the second half of the year with a real buzz about the class.

We are very pleased with the outcome of the new deck design and feel we have kept the integrity of the Streaker whilst also bringing it into the 21st Century.

The seamless floor is a new innovation and designed specifically to strengthen the cockpit floor, now 12mm in thickness, this ensures the stiffness of the hull is at its optimum level without adding too much weight.

We have also incorporated into the deck mould the capacity to fit an Aft Bailer if required. In addition the deck has a non slip su rface built into the mould both on the floor and side decks, the side decks being slightly less aggressive non slip than on the floor.

Much time was spent on ensuring the gunwhale was up to the stresses and strains of sailing and are very happy with the now reinforced gunwhale with additional wing when sitting out.

We feel we have achieved our aim in re-designing the Streaker without comprising the aesthetic nature of the boat and all additional innovations and changes have been refined to ensure a most competitive and enjoyable FRP Streaker is available to all sailors new and old!

Please feel free to contact us, should you have any queries/ideas or interest in the new Butler FRP Streaker.

Butler Boats started out building wooden Streakers, we have developed the class and have increased our range to include FRP and composite builds.

The composite is a happy medium, a fibreglass hull with timber superstructure and decks.

The composite Streaker marries the strength and stiffness of a fibreglass hull with the aesthetics of a wood boat, with timber bulkheads and decks. This combination has proved very popular over recent years. It has proved to be a fast, lightweight and very stiff boat.

Developments of the composite boat include a shortened false floor, which enables us to place the bailer under the thwart out of harms way but still easily accessible and a 'part' keelson aft of the centre case which acts as a foot rest or 'push off'.

The wooden Streakers we produce are built using epoxies. The decks and hull when finished, receive six coats before the painting systems, making a wooden boat very durable

The FRP Streaker is constructed by encapsulating high density foam, this helps keep the weight of the boat down but retaining a stiff construction. The FRP also includes the now standard false floor, introduced by us in 1995. Originally for sea sailors, it has proved invaluable in displacing water, especially on capsize. FRP boat hulls are available in an extensive range of colours.