Frank Prout

Frank Prout was the son of a Plymouth children’s book author. In 1922 the family moved by motorbike and sidecar to Canvey Island and built a bungalow on a plot of land they had bought. Frank and his older brother Roland enjoyed the outdoor-life at their new home, and when the two siblings were barely five-years-of-age, their father built them a canoe in which to traverse a local creek. Their father started a boat-building business in 1935 and Frank and Roland helped out in the business whenever they could. The business eventually became very successful as G. Prout & Sons. In 1964, one of their catamarans was the first multihull vessel to circumnavigate the earth, and in 1989 they won a Queen’s Award for Industry.

During World War II, Frank wanted to join the Royal Navy but couldn’t, because his mother was Swiss. Instead he became a fitter with the Royal Air Force in the Middle East. He later obtained his wings and became a flying instructor. In 1948 he married his wife Erica, who was also a keen sailor, and the newlyweds’ “honeymoon” consisted of a 140-mile cruise in a Prout canoe around the south-east coast of England from Eastbourne to Canvey Island.

In addition to sailing and canoeing, Frank was also a keen boxer and badminton player, and played rugby for the Southend first XV. Frank and Erica were both also fine golfers. To relax, Frank enjoyed playing the clarinet and harmonica, painting, calligraphy, and wood carving. For his 80th birthday he flew a Tiger Month, one of the first planes he flew after obtaining his wings.

In the early 1950s, Prouts made the world’s first production catamaran, the Shearwater, and with it came the Shearwater class of racing. Prouts catamarans became well known all over the world, and in 1963 they launched the 77ft (23.5m) Tsulamaran at Canvey Island. It was the largest European-built catamaran at the time.

Frank and Roland Prout were no newcomers to canoe racing in the post-war era and won seven prizes at the Chertsey regatta in 1949, An outdated amateur status rule, however, forbade them from competing in National Championships because they were professional boat builders. This rule changed, however, and in 1951 they made up for their long absence by winning the K-2 1,000 and 10,000 metres titles at the 1951 National Championships. They added the K-2 500 in 1952, had a clean sweep of all three kayak pairs titles in 1953, and rounded off their career by capturing the K-2 1,000 and 10,000 in 1954.

Prior to the 1952 Olympics, the siblings spent some weeks in Sweden training with the 1948 Olympic gold medallist Hans Berglund, but they disappointed at Helsinki by finishing seventh and last in their opening heat in the K-2 1,000 metres.