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Classic Boat

30YEARS

MARCH 2017

1987-2017

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MULTIHULLS From ancient Polynesia to the America’s Cup PLUS Restoring a 7-Metre The fastest BMW on water All the latest boatyard news Big schooner racing

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LIFE BEFORE THE MAST

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The Bow of a Lerwick Foureen with an Upright Stem oil on linen

90 x 90 cms

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James Dodds is an artist much concerned with the tensions and alliances between the trinity of head, heart and hand.

His portrayals of boats allow the viewer to appreciate both the time distortion and the detail of a boat’s complexities as the symbolic and the real are fused together. taken from the catalogue foreword by A. L. Kennedy Writer

29 March – 21 April 28 Cork Street, London W1S 3NG

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ROB PEAKE, EDITOR

CLASSIC MULTIS

Can a multihull be a classic boat? There is no place for multihulls in classic regattas and they wouldn’t qualify for most classic yacht clubs for their lack of overhang. Nat Herreshoff managed to make Amaryllis (1876) an eye-catching craft, but at their core, multihulls are about function over form, which many would say disqualifies them from standing alongside a Fife or Mylne straight away. Admirers of the type point to the centuries of multihull heritage, going back to the Pacific islanders, who were some of the greatest seamen of all. There’s a danger that we confuse ancient history for classic heritage. Nonetheless, it’s hard to read Theo Rye’s article on p40 and not see James Wharram’s Tangaroa or the Prout brothers’ Shearwater as classics of our time. Either way, the designers were pioneers who made some extraordinary voyages. Their story is central to yachting history.

classicboat.co.uk Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ EDITORIAL Editor Rob Peake +44 (0)207 349 3755 rob.peake@classicboat.co.uk Associate Editor Steffan Meyric Hughes +44 (0)207 349 3758 steffan@classicboat.co.uk Senior Art Editor Peter Smith +44 (0)207 349 3756 peter.smith@classicboat.co.uk Senior Sub Editor Henry Giles +44 (0)207 349 3708 henry.giles@classicboat.co.uk Publishing Consultant Martin Nott ADVERTISING Olly Stevens +44 (0)207 349 3787 olly.stevens@chelseamagazines.com Harry Warburton +44 (0)207 349 3794 harry.warburton@chelseamagazines.com Brand Manager Ginny MacLean +44 (0)207 349 3750 Advertisement Production Allpointsmedia +44 (0)1202 472781 allpointsmedia.co.uk Published Monthly ISSN: 0950 3315 USA US$12.50 Canada C$11.95 Australia A$11.95 Managing Director Paul Dobson Deputy Managing Director Steve Ross Commercial Director Vicki Gavin Publisher Simon Temlett Digital Manager James Dobson

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CONTESSA 32

How does Jeremy Rogers’ classic measure up?

22 . FASTEST BMW ON WATER Built in 1950 and restored recently, the BMW-powered hydroplane Berlin III COVER STORY

34 . VARNISH A guide to the complex world of yacht varnish types and brands COVER STORY

40 . HISTORY OF MULTIHULLS From Polynesia to the America’s Cup COVER STORY

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48 . MR METRE YACHT We meet Brian Pope COVER STORY

50 . BIG SCHOONER RACING Sunny skies and Caribbean seas COVER STORY

56 . RESTORING A 7-METRE The 1910-built 7-M yacht whose restoration took longer than planned 64 . DARLING OF NEW YORK Life and times of a well-loved 19th-century working schooners

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4 . DESIGN SWANSONG Fred Shepherd’s last yacht and a star of the annual Spetses Classic in Greece

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

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C/O SPETSES CLASSIC YACHT REGATTA

NIKOS ZAGAS

GREEK CHARM We join a Fred Shepherd ketch for glorious racing off the island of Spetses in a growing classic regatta WORDS KATHY MANSFIELD

NIKOS ZAGAS; FACING PAGE C/O SCYR

SPETSES CLASSIC YACHT REGATTA

Above: the boat was sold, then reacquired by the family and restored to largely original condition on deck and below

T

wo titans battled it out near the regatta finish: the 1930 John Alden schooner Puritan, 135ft with a new and partly novice crew being expertly bossed about

by Malcolm Banks, former mate on Herreshoff schooner Elena; and 1947 Glaramara, a 50ft (15.25m) Frederick Shepherd design, owned and raced by Stratis Andreadis, once ranked 29th in world match racing. Stratis had noticed that the finish line was skewed to the direction of the light winds and was pushing down Puritan. Glaramara was ahead, then almost abeam, then ahead again, and as the line was crossed a cheer went up from Glaramara while the Puritan crew clapped in admiration, appreciating the drama even if losing the placing.

Refreshingly, this was not the usual haunt of classic regattas, we were not in Atlantic waters, or Baltic, or the French, Spanish or Italian Med – this was the Aegean, famous for sailing since the time of Odysseus. We were enjoying the Spetses Classic Yacht Regatta just south of the Peloponnese in Greece: the sky was blue, the sea sparkling clear aquamarine, the sea breeze cooling the summer heat, Hydra and other islands adding interesting wind shifts, what was not to like? It was late June 2016, a blessed escape from dull, wet Britain writhing in the aftermath of the referendum, and Greece, despite its own recent travails, was endowed to overbrimming excess with sea and islands, sunshine and wonderful boats.

That lively finish captured the atmosphere of the Spetses Classic Yacht Regatta in its sixth year. It is competition in a friendly spirit and appeals to a wide variety of sailors from the highly successful and experienced, to the complete novice, which brings a sense of fun and the joy of discovery to the regatta.

There is a wide variety of boats from the impeccably classic to the local lateen traditional boats and Aegean schooners, many built on Spetses, an historic seafaring island and one of the last centres of traditional boatbuilding in Greece. There are a growing number of spectators, who can watch from land but are often on lovely boats themselves, enjoying the setting among the islands and mountains of the Saronic Gulf. The Yacht

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

Club of Greece, formed 83 years ago near Athens, moves over to Spetses to organise the races each year with a 70-strong group of volunteers, plus RIBs, committee boats and technical equipment. It’s a huge boost to the regatta and to the Spetses Yacht Club which also does everything possible to support it. “In 2016 there were 68 boats, so there’s a dynamic behind this race,” says a committee member of the Yacht Club of Greece. “Our goal is to have this race become part of the international calendar of classic yacht racing. I think it won’t be long.”

After all, this year’s event pulled in participants including the former King of Greece (an Olympic sailing gold medal-winner), several Greek Olympic sailors, including winners at the Rio Games, and winners of big offshore races. I would recommend it to any classic boat that can sail or trail its way to this beautiful, historic island.

The regatta brings together various values, organiser Stratis told me – team spirit, chivalry, competition in a beautiful setting. “We have good sponsors and we work very hard to make sure that the race is not all work and no play, we have great receptions, great social events, we have a beautiful island with a great naval tradition.

“Spetses played an integral part in the Greek revolution of 1821 with the fearless captain Lascarina Bouboulina, the first woman in the world given the title of admiral until very recently. We encourage skippers to participate in this history by holding the skippers’ meeting in her original house, which is a traditional Spetsiot building. Our battle flags are flying behind her statue in the main square in front of the Poseidonion Hotel. The other magical component is that hotel, built in the style of 19th century hotels, the Carlton in Cannes and the Negresco in Nice, a 1914 Belle Epoque building now considered as a monument by the Greek government. It was a favourite spot for high society and royalty in its day, and again in the 1960s.”

The classic boats gathered together were of noteworthy heritage: Tara Getty’s 1937 S&S bermudan yawl Skylark was a newcomer this year and won not only most of her races but the overall prize. Puritan’s owners, the Classic Sailing Experience, have been

GLARAMARA DESIGNER

FRED SHEPHERD LOA

50ft (15.25m) LOW

38ft (11.56m) DRAUGHT

7ft 2in (2.2m) SAIL AREA

983sq ft (91m2)

NIKOS ZAGAS; C/0 SPETSESE CLASSIC YACHT REGATTA

Main picture: the 2015 SCYR, won overall by Savannah (centre), the Pedrick Yacht Designs

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modern classic launched in 1997

NIKOS ZAGAS

SPETSES CLASSIC YACHT REGATTA

Above: boom end; skipper Stratis Andreadis; the island offers variable conditions and picturesque sailing waters

restoring her near Rome. There was a 1927 Fife 6-Metre, Sunshine and a 1925 Fife 8-Metre, Carina; another Finnish Eight, several S&S yawls, the 1953 Baccarat, the 1968 Baccara, the 1965 Alexandra; the 1994 Ed Dubois Bolero designed in conjunction with her Greek owner; two Buchanan designs, Escapade and Sagittarius, a Howard Chapelle designed East Coast America fishing schooner designed in 1926, Iliopotissa; a Fred Parker design from 1965, Larne, her brightwork gleaming; a 1907 Isle of Wight Seaview Mermaid, Navisa – the list goes on.

It was hard to choose among this feast of boats, but Glaramara with her Fred Shepherd lines had captured my eye early on: her grace, her bermudan ketch rig and the fluid movements of her crew, no novices here.

She was built in Britain in 1947 at Moody’s in Bursledon for Sir Philip Bowyer-Smyth, a Royal Navy Commodore and aide-de-camp of King George VI who had fought in both world wars. He chose the same design as the 1939 Amokura but with different woods, mahogany on oak with African teak inside.

Shepherd came out of retirement to oversee her build.

Glaramara is essentially the same now, though her Ailsa Craig 20hp engine, followed by two General Motors engines, is now a Perkins.

Bowyer-Smyth sailed the coastlines of Tangiers, the Balearic Islands, the Côte d’Azur, Gibraltar and Malta before succumbing to the sudden onset of rheumatoid arthritis which brought his sailing days to an end.

Stratis’ grandfather found the boat in Cannes in 1951 and brought her to Greece where he cruised the Greek archipelago and also raced the boat, supporting the international Aegean Rally from its start in 1964. Indeed, Glaramara was one of the main yachts to beat each year and helped bring about a renaissance in offshore racing.

Stratis’s father, George, who sailed in the Mexico Olympics in 1968, is passionate about sailing which he sees as a valued part of human civilisation, a multifaceted sport encompassing a wide age and skills range. He has worked hard to promote the sport.

Glaramara has meant a great deal to the Andreadis family. “She has been the first major post-war yacht in my family that meant relaxation,” explained Stratis, “and the first serious respite after the travails of World

War II and the Greek civil war.” The chance to set sail to explore the islands has inspired two, now three, generations of the family. His grandfather sold the boat in 1987 but in 2000, his father George managed to buy her back again, returning her to her pre-1967 looks. In the meantime, Stratis grew up in Spetses above a boatbuilding workshop, which now builds Aegean schooners. His father and grandfather were both commodores of the Yacht Club of Greece – Stratis says he is not as keen a sailor as they were, but as a proficient world match racer and Spetses regatta organiser, sitting on the World Sailing youth development committees, he certainly carries on and has added to its vision.

I spoke to Stelios Sotiriou, who has sailed with Stratis for 18 years, and he compared Glaramara with the modern boats like 49ers, Farr 40s and Moths he usually sails. “It reminds you how hard it was to sail to the limit,” he reflects. “A heavy displacement, long-keeled boat needs a different type of trimming… of thinking. It took us a long time to learn just the right angle for the rudder when tacking. We have a cutter rig upwind and five sails downwind – the asymmetric spinnaker, balloon staysail, main, mizzen staysail and mizzen – we had six legs, each two nautical miles. It’s a wonderful experience, learning the old skills, and she’s such a beautiful boat.”

A SPECIAL REGATTA

“It’s a wonderful experience, learning the old skills, and she’s such a beautiful boat”

Spetses is a great place to have a classics regatta. For a start, the island is about as close to the Hellenic ideal that you can imagine: whitewashed neoclassical houses, motorbikes or horses and carts the accepted mode of travel, the smell of the sea and lavender and thyme on the pine-covered hillsides, the hidden coves and ancient churches, the locals drinking espresso and playing backgammon. Yet stylish cafes and the elegant Poseidonion Hotel line the port and the nearby mainland hides one of the finest resort destinations in Europe, the Amanzoe Hotel and villas, plus the lively Nikki Beach Hotel (see panel overleaf).

The island is not ostentatious, nor are the postfinancial crisis travails of Greece immediately apparent.

Its history is fascinating: named Spice Island by the Venetians in the 15th century as it was on an important trade route, it had been settled in Mesolithic and CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

9

SPETSES CLASSIC YACHT REGATTA Mycenean times, and by the 18th century had a powerful merchant fleet trading between the Med and the Black Sea, working both sides during the Napoleonic Wars, and using its consequent wealth to help the Greek War of Independence from the Ottomans in 1821, when Spetses was the first island to raise the new flag.

Bouboulina was at the forefront of that.

Spetses has been lucky to have proactive people who have done their best for the island. The elegant Poseidonion Hotel is a case in point: too far gone to be an easy project, it was restored by Emmanuel Vordonis and his son Antonis – who also managed to restore the 1936 Philip Rhodes Tincano which had been sunk for years in the Old Port of Spetses. The Spetses cargo and fishing boats of old are getting a new lease of life from the regatta, with masts and sails replaced and old skills relearned. Boatbuilders receive part of the proceeds from the registrations of participants, and get work repairing and refurbishing those boats when needed.

By creating this interest, lawsuits which threatened the old yards are lapsing and the yards are continuing their craft. Other events on Spetses reflect this harmonising and updating of the island’s environment and history, as Emmanuel told me, injecting old ideals back into modern society. If anyone doubts the Greek determination to work hard, look to the future and rise above their economic travails, they should visit Spetses, and their growing regatta.

A ROOM WITH A VIEW The Spetses Classic Yacht Regatta is sponsored by the Amanzoe Hotel.

The regatta will be held this year between 21-25 June.

See spetsesclassicregatta.gr or facebook.com/ spetsesclassicregatta. Email: sailing@ycg.gr

Situated on the mainland across the narrow strait from Spetses with 360° views of sea, islands and valleys, this is regarded as one of Europe’s finest hotels. American architect Ed Tuttle designed not only the buildings but the serene interior decor, which aims to fit carefully into the Peloponnese surrounding and history, using soaring Grecian columns, local woods and stone, and contemporary, large spaces. Every villa in the hotel, with its translucent marble doors and high ceilings, has its own large terraces overlooking olive groves and cypresses, herb and lavender scented gardens and a contemporary pool lined with a green marble exactly the colour of the Aegean sea. There is a gourmet chef plus a host for each villa to plan your excursions to Spetses, to Mycenae, the amphitheatre at

NIKOS ALEVROMYTIS

Epidaurus, or the chic Nikki Beach Resort and Spa, a ten minute car ride away at Porto Heli. The resort is a 20-minute helicopter ride from Athens, a two-hour ferry ride, or about two-and-a-quarter hours by car from Athens Airport. amanvillasph.com The hotel is part of the Porto Heli Collection, comprising villas at Amanzoe, Amanzoe Hotel, Nikki Beach Hotel and Nikki Beach residences.

Greek-based property developers, Dolphin Capital, have invested significantly to create an exclusive enclave on the shores of the C/O SPETSES CLASSIC YACHT REGATTA

Peloponnese. The aim is to create an upmarket destination offering the best in hospitality, villas, golf and leisure activities (hence the sponsorship of the regatta). Villas at Amanzoe are available to buy from €3 million – this would buy a two-bedroom property of approximately 300m2 in size. aman.com/resorts/amanzoe/villas-to-own To date, a total of 14 Aman Villas have been sold, seven of which are currently operational, including the nine-bedroom Villa 20.

Room rates at Amanzoe start at €850 per night (in low season). Villa rates at Amanzoe start at €4,800 per night (for a four-bedroom Villa in low season) aman.com/resorts/amanzoe Room rates at Nikki Beach, Porto Heli start at €195 per night (in low season). Residences within Nikki Beach are available from €300,000 Above: the Poseidonion Hotel is regatta HQ; the regatta has invigorated local boatbuilders and fishermen

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

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Tell Tales

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Ab Fab star and Ghurka campaigner Joanna Lumley opened the Sunseeker stand this year, telling of her childhood spent on ocean liners between ports like Ceylon, Singapore and Hong Kong. Joanna’s memories seemed warm after all these years and she regaled the large crowd with stories of the rudimentary PETER SMITH

liners of the day – “We washed in warm saltwater, with soap for that purpose, and rinsed in cold.”

DOCKLANDS, LONDON

Highlights of the London Boat Show Most of us will be familiar with the

ski boat that looked uncannily like an

Above left: the

of ply. They made a great sight.

British Seagull, that stalwart of

Albatross. It was one of the best

original Lugger with

Ex-company boss Stewart Brown

vintage British outboard engines that

stands at the show.

relatives of the first

gave a speech to commemorate the

owner and (left)

landmark, and the boat’s original owners were on the stand too.

you see at boat jumbles and, still,

On Friday (6 January) the opening

clinging onto the transoms of a few

day, we attended a special

Stewart Brown.

dinghies. The Classic Motorboat

celebration of 50 years of the

Below: CMBA’s 1973

Association stand at the London Boat

Drascombe Lugger, on the stand of

jet drive boat

Show was a treat, with lesser-known

builder Churchouse boats. The focal

will, in a new partnership, be building

outboards (two British Anzanis, a

point was the very first lugger

the hulls for future Drascombe boats.

Mallard and an early Johnson), and a

Katharine Mary, built in plywood in

Churchouse will continue to fit out

handful of interesting old speedboats,

1967, found and bought by the

the new hulls, and to refurbish all

including a 1973 jet drive boat, a 15ft

company and restored to pristine

boats. We hope this venture, between

(14.6m) Fairey inboard runabout, a

condition for the show. She was

two of the most venerable names in

1962 racing hydroplane

standing next to a new Lugger,

small British boatbuilding, will prove

almost identical but in GRP instead

C/O THE ORGANISERS

and a Simmonds

MALDON, ESSEX

Maldon frostbite rowing race celebrates 40 years The sun made a brief appearance for the Maldon Little Ship Club’s 40th sponsored row and gig race on New Year’s Eve. Competition among the 42 crews was intense, given that the event was primarily a fundraiser, making

12

Also on the stand was Peter Thomas of Cornish Crabbers, who

happy and profitable.

2017 Awards Vote in our Awards Classic Boat 2017 awards logo.indd 4

14/12/2016 14:17

Simply go online to classicboat.co.uk/awards2017 There is still time to vote in our 2017 Classic Boat Awards. Simply go online to classicboat.co.uk/ awards2017, and start ticking boxes. You are allowed to vote once in each category, in as many or few of the eight categories as you like. Last year, we received around 20,000 votes. This year marks a decade since

£7,700 for the RNLI. A good spectator turn-out estimated at 2-3,000 lined

we gave our first award – then just one category,

the Hythe (town quay), and were treated to the sight of many crews turned

Restoration of the Year – to the gaff cutter Lulworth. If

out in fancy dress: costumes included a Poldark theme, soup waitresses,

you haven’t already, have a look at our Facebook and

Hawaiians and pirates. The Basin Oars ladies’ team (‘soup waitresses’) deserve

Twitter pages (facebook.com/classicboat and twitter.

a special mention for raising two-thirds of the total donation.

com/classicboatmag) and join our 32,000 followers.

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

FASTNET 2017

Fastnet ‘sells out’ in five minutes

DANIEL FORSTER, C/O ROLEX

The 2017 Rolex Fastnet was completely subscribed to its 340-boat limit four minutes and 24 seconds after opening its online entry from this January.

The 603-mile offshore classic, from Cowes, Isle of Wight, to the Fastnet Rock off Ireland’s southern coast, then back to Plymouth, was first raced in 1925 by eight boats, with the pilot cutter Jolie Brise claiming victory.

Its fame (and, in 1979, infamy) is surely part of its appeal to a huge number of sailors – in fact, last year we ran a similar story in which the Fastnet ‘sold out’ in about 20 minutes. It is also a brilliant sailing competitors to the full in complex, tidal waters. It has not traditionally been a popular race for classic

Folly 1909

C/O PANERAI

challenge, testing the navigational skills of

yachts, but there has been a slow, but growing trend of classic participation in recent years.

1930 S&S yawl Dorade (twice Fastnet winner in the

Folly’s life-long journey

1930s) claiming second in class and seventh in IRC

The designer Charles Nicholson designed Folly for himself, taking his

overall, with a time of 4 days and 6 hours. She was

inspiration from the International 8-Metre Class Bryony which he was

just 18 minutes faster than another S&S yawl Stormy

building at his yard. Folly also belonged at one stage to Celestro

Weather, seen here leading Dorade at the Fastnet

Fernandez Branco of Argentina. Discovered at the end of the 1990s by

Rock. Two other S&S yawls (Refanut and Argyll), the

the legendary Germán Frers, she underwent a partial renovation job in a

1960s Swedish yacht Anahita and the Philip Rhodes

yard in Buenos Aires before being moved to the Cantiere Navale

yawl Infanta also all finished within around five days.

dell’Argentario di Porto Santo Stefano in Tuscany, where her gaff rig was

The last Fastnet (in 2015) was a thriller, with the

The organiser, Royal Ocean Racing Club, has not

completed. In 2000, she took part in the International 8-Metre Class

yet published an entry list for this year’s event, but

World Championship at Porto Santo Stefano. She is now a regular

we are hoping for more close racing and blistering

competitor in classic Med regattas, and here races at Les Voiles de

performances from the classic fleet.

Saint-Tropez in 2010, in the Centenarians Race held by Gstaad Yacht Club.

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

13

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GSTAAD YACHT CLUB CENTENARIAN OF THE YEAR

2017 Awards Classic Boat 2017 awards logo.indd 4

14/12/2016 14:17

Gstaad Yacht Club and Classic Boat unite to celebrate centenarians As part of our Classic Boat Awards, we have joined forces with the Gstaad Yacht Club to create a new category, Centenarian of the Year. The winner will be announced at our Awards ceremony in April in London, after having been selected by an international jury of experts.

Gstaad YC organises the annual Centenary Trophy, a race for yachts older than 100 years, held at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez. This year the race will celebrate its seventh edition. Any centenarian will be eligible for the new award, whether a race yacht or not. The expert panel includes George Nicholson, honorary president of the Gstaad YC; French sailor and AC veteran Bruno Troublé (pictured right); Italy’s Gianbattista Borea d’Olmo, director of the Port of Monaco; and a representative from Classic Boat.

Gstaad YC Commodore Peter Erzberger said: “We are both proud and happy to start this partnership with the leading media in classic yachting. Our club has always been very keen in celebrating the best centenarian sailing yachts on the water with the GYC Centenary Trophy, and this new event represents a Bruno Troublé new and exciting way of doing so onshore too.”

Above l-r: Gstaad YC rear commodore Manrico Iachia; MD Cindy Schönrich; commodore Peter Erzberger

JAMES RONSON TAYLOR

This unique race is reserved for boats that are 100 or more years old. Since 2011, the Centenary Trophy has been given to some of the loveliest and best-performing classic yachts, seen here. The event, raced in a pursuit format with staggered starts, was created and is organised annually by the Gstaad YC. The trophy features a specially created, constantly refined handicap, allowing the diverse fleet to compete equally.

GUIDO CANTINI/PANERAI

CENTENARY TROPHY WINNERS

Designed by C Nicholson, built by Camper & Nicholson, LOD 59ft (18m), rig gaff cutter Elegance distilled, but a handful to sail well. Worthy winner!

KATHY MANSFIELD

KATHY MANSFIELD

2012 MARIGOLD (1892)

Designed and built Charles Sibbick, LOD 29ft (8.8m), rig gaff cutter Victory was nothing new to this radical, Olympic gold-winning fin and bulb yacht at the first race

JUERG KAUFMANN

2011 BONA FIDE (1899)

2014 OLYMPIAN (1913)

2015 ORIOLE (1905)

2016 SPARTAN (1913)

Designed by William Gardner, built

by Wood and McClure, LOD 55ft (16.8m), rig gaff sloop A restored American P-Class that has been beating European yachts

Designed and built by Nathanael Herreshoff, LOD 43ft 6in (13.3m), rig gaff sloop Powerful NY30 yacht from the drawing board of the master

Designed and built by Nathanael Herreshoff, LOD 72ft (22m), rig gaff sloop Recently restored NY50 – like the boat on the left, but even quicker!

Gstaad YC was formed in 1998 by a group of sailors with the vision to “create a unique global yacht club away from water, instead of another local club by the water”. Based in the Swiss mountains, it was initially met with surprise, but the GYC has developed into a club with 400 members from more than 20 countries.

The GYC supports sailing projects at all levels from juniors to professional and has become a solid force on the Swiss sailing scene, especially in Olympic and classic sailing.

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

17

JAN HEIN

CORY SILKEN, C/O ANTIGUA CLASSIC

SAM FORTESCUE

TELL TALES

Top: Nelson Dockyard, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site Above: gig racing followed by afternoon tea, a great quirk Right: little and large (or rather, large and huge!)

ANTIGUA CLASSIC YACHT REGATTA PREVIEW

Antigua moves to World Heritage Site for 30th classic Classic Boat is delighted to be the official international media partner for the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta, as the event celebrates its 30th birthday, running from 19-25 April. This year the regatta will take place from the stunning site of Nelson Dockyard, recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The dockyard is a complex of 18thcentury Georgian buildings set among palm trees, by the blue waters of English Harbour, a fittingly picturesque and grand setting for the regatta, now a world-leader and sponsored by watchmaker Panerai.

The event's diverse fleet of Cariacou sloops, J-Class yachts, Tall Ships and classic

The 2017 Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta precedes the 35th America’s Cup, contested this year in Bermuda. With that in mind, a special

yachts large and small – some concours, some less so – will race their usual courses,

Antigua-Bermuda passage race has been

but the hub, for this year only, will move from the Antigua Yacht Club and Marina to

organised by the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club and

the dockyard. The parties late into the night with live music, plenty of dark’n’stormies

Antigua Sailing Week (itself celebrating half a

(cocktails), warm skies and the odd tropical downpour that send everyone racing, will

century this year). It’s open to all-comers over

remain unaltered. The events on the water include the singular singlehander’s race, and gig racing with afternoon tea, WI-style with cakes galore, and all with the gentle

40ft (12.1m) with an IRC or CSA rating certificate. So far more than 40 yachts have

blue mountains of swell that make the event a photographer’s delight as well as a

signed up for the 1,000-mile event, in a diverse

special one for sailing and partying.

fleet that includes modern racers and classics,

The event evolved from Antigua Sailing Week, which dates back to 1967. In 1988, three veteran captains – Uli Pruesse, Tony Fincham and Kenny Coombs – created a special classics race, and with eight entrants, Antigua Classic was born. In 1996, the regatta was a forerunner in introducing a class for Spirit of Tradition. Three years later it hosted the first J-Class race held in 30 years. Tragedy struck in October 2013, when Kenny Coombs, who ran the event since its conception, died at the age of 63. The regatta continues to grow and this year the entry list includes a great range from big schooners like Eleanora and Spirit of Bermuda to the 33ft Kim Holman Stiletto (1961). antiguaclassics.com

18

America’s Cup feeder race

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

like The Blue Peter (Mylne-designed cutter of 1930), America (replica of original schooner that won the first America’s Cup) and Spirit of Bermuda (traditional sail-training schooner).

Q&A

TELL TALES

Hannah Cunliffe National Historic Ships

EMILY HARRIS

How has the death of NHS director

SUFFOLK YACHT HARBOUR

Boost for Stellas

Martyn Heighton affected NHS? It has been a real loss for the sector, and for his team. However, we are determined to continue delivering our services to ensure that his vision for the future of NHS-UK is kept alive.

Dr Eric Kentley, who has worked as a

One of Britain’s best-loved classes, the Stella, has been

consultant for NHS-UK on many

given a boost by Suffolk Yacht Harbour on the River

occasions has stepped in as interim

Orwell. Yacht designer Kim Holman was co-founder of

director, while the process of recruiting

the marina and designer of the yacht, which first

a permanent director is put in place.

Have you had a good response to

appeared in 1959 at Burnham Week. There she won her class – the same year that a passenger hovercraft started

What have been the major successes

the First World War At Sea project,

plying the English Channel. Stellas, which have never

of the Shipshape Network?

telling veterans’ stories?

really faded away, are currently enjoying a particularly

The Shipshape Network has run since

It has been well received, telling the

strong surge in popularity, with many being restored by

2010 and now boasts seven regional

forgotten stories of how the War

individuals and by boatyards. Until this point, they have

networks. It has supported and

impacted on over 70 surviving craft

never had a hub, but there are now three at Suffolk Yacht

advised over 40 maritime projects

on our registers. Over 40 vessels have

Harbour, whose annual regatta sees an even bigger

since it started. Of these, Keeping

been visited as part of the project

showing in the Stella Class. With this in mind, SYH

History Afloat and the Shipshape

and our pop-up display has gone to

director Jonathan Dyke is offering a special discount for

Heritage Training Partnership project

nine venues. The project has inspired

Stellas – the deal is a swinging mooring in summer,

were both partnered and led by

more owners to find out about their

storage on the hard over winter and a crane in and crane

NHS-UK, securing almost £500,000

vessel’s history

out every season for £1,000 + VAT. See syharbour.co.uk

in grant aid and training 16 individuals

for details, and for a short video of last year’s regatta visit

for a career in maritime heritage.

search box to view.

How many people make up the NHS team?

classicboat.co.uk – just type ‘Suffolk yacht’ into the Are you seeking more Shipshape hubs?

Five permanent members of staff and

We set up our first Shipshape hub

five supporting volunteers.

centred around the International

OBITUARY

Robin Ford 1945-2017

Boatbuilding Training College (IBTC).

What is a historic ship?

We are looking to launch similar hubs

For our purposes, it is a vessel at least

The man credited with rescuing the annual Thames

in other regions and are working with

50 years old, with significant UK

Traditional Boat Rally from oblivion in 2014 has died

Boathouse 4 in Portsmouth Historic

associations, based in UK waters,

suddenly, at home in Amersham. Robin Ford was a

Dockyard and three other regions.

substantially intact and over 33ft

long-standing committee member of the regatta which,

Any potential hub should email info@

(10m) long. Smaller vessels are eligible

since it was revived two years ago, has been as popular as

nationalhistoricships.org.uk.

for the National Small Boat Register.

to Thames Traditional Boat Festival. He leaves behind his

Have any of the trainees in the

Does the Government recognise the

wife Kath, two children and four grandchildren.

Shipshape Training Project got jobs?

importance of maritime heritage?

Seven found employment in the

In supporting and funding us since

maritime heritage field. Of the others,

2006, yes. However, I would like to

two are volunteering and one is still

see the Government support maritime

looking for work in the sector.

heritage by implementing a formal

ever, with 200 boats attending every year, and a re-name,

TRIBUTE

Sonny Levi tribute planned

A celebration of Sonny Levi’s existing legacies – his fast V-bottomed powerboats – has already been arranged following his recent death. It will take place on 19 August at Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. Details were still scant as we went to press.

measure to protect historic vessels on Does Britain need its own Brest Fest?

our registers. There is currently no

Organisations like the OGA do a great

mechanism to prevent significant

job in holding rallies around the UK.

craft being scrapped out of hand.

Hosting on a large scale brings a wealth of organisational and financial

Do you own a historic vessel?

WORD OF THE MONTH

difficulties and occasions like the

I have sailed traditional vessels all my

Equation of time

International Festival of the Sea, while

life and five years ago my husband

popular, have not been repeated. I

and I bought Little Kingfisher, a 21ft

would like to see more recognition of

(6.4m) Harrison Butler gaff yawl

historic vessels' value in tourism so

built in 1926, which we have had

the burden of taking part is lifted from

great fun cruising and racing in

owners and custodians of these craft.

Solent waters.

“The difference between mean and apparent time, or the acceleration or retardation of the sun’s return to the meridian” Sailor’s Word Book of 1867

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

19

TELL TALES

EAST COAST

NEWS

Maine’s oldest wooden vessel returns home On 15 December, The Maine Maritime Museum (MMM) in Bath – two hours north of Boston, Massachusetts – passed the final step of acquiring the oldest remaining wooden vessel built in Maine. With

C/O MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM

the approval of the museum’s board of trustees, the schooner Mary E will be joining the museum’s impressive maritime collection in the spring of this year, writes Tyler Fields.

“This is a vessel of remarkable importance, despite its modest size,” said senior curator Nathan Lipfert. “I am very excited about Mary E becoming part of the historic collection of the museum, and I am looking forward to continuing research on her long history.”

The Mary E is a two-masted schooner of 73ft (22.3m) built in 1906 by Thomas E Hagan on the site of what is now Bath Iron Once at the Maine Maritime Museum this spring, the vessel will

Works, a US Navy-contracted shipyard that recently launched the Navy’s most advanced destroyer, the USS Zumwalt. Soon after

undergo a comprehensive restoration, after which she will be open to

launching, the Mary E sailed to Block Island – a small community 14

the public and will sail up and down the coast serving as the

miles off Rhode Island – and fished commercially for decades.

museum’s ambassador.

“We could not be more excited to restore and preserve this beautiful

After a long life of fishing, transporting mail and even rumoured alcohol-smuggling, the vessel sunk during a hurricane in 1963. The

and significant symbol of Maine’s past,” said Amy Lent, the museum’s

salvaged schooner returned home to Maine and was restored near

executive director.

the location of her original construction. Soon after her restoration was completed, she became one of the first passenger vessels of

For more information on the Mary E or the Maine Maritime Museum, visit the

the Maine Windjammer charter fleet.

museum’s website – mainemaritimemuseum.org

BARBADOS, CARIBBEAN

Speed records set in light airs race A fascinatingly diverse fleet, from windsurfers to the three-masted schooner Adix (below), raced in the 60-mile Mount Gay Round Barbados Race on 21 January. The foiling monohull record was set by Andy Budgen on his foiling Moth Nano Project, in 4h 23m, a mean speed of 14 knots, despite winds of just 12-15 knots. The outright record of 2h 38m set last year belongs to a catamaran. This year, Adix and fellow classic, 1930 Mylne cutter The Blue Peter, turned in very cretitable times of (respectively) 6h 45m and 7h 31m.

Absolute record holders are rewarded by the skipper’s weight in Mount Gay rum at this event, first held for trading schooners in 1936. This year, the Dutch trading schooner Tres Hombres reprised the tradition but did not finish.

NEW BOOK

Herreshoff: American Masterpieces A new book on the designs of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company (HMC) has been released.

Marine Historians Maynard Bray and Class van der Linde, and photographer Benjamin Mendlowitz, worked to produce this outstanding written history C/O ROUND BARBADOS RACE

including hundreds of inspiring images and archival

20

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

drawings for many of HMC’s most iconic designs. The book was produced in cooperation with the Hart Nautical Collection at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and published by WW Norton and Company of New York. Herreshoff: American Masterpieces is available now. £75 – Tyler Fields wwnorton.co.uk

E S TTRHADAITM I O NA L

Friday to Sunday

14 •15 •16

July 2017

Fawley Meadows Henley-on-Thames HENL

E Y- O N -T H A M E S

N The “Trad” will again run for 3 days this year from Friday 14th to Sunday 16th July.

Please see the website for more details.

www.tradboatfestival.com Supported by

PHYLLIS COURT MEMBERS CLUB

FREE FREEPARKING PARKING • FREE FERRY FROM HENLEY

ow in its 38th year, the Fesival returns this summer with another impressive collection of vintage and classic boats, cars and aeroplanes!

Highlights include: • The exclusive Bluebird K3 • WWII Dunkirk Little Ships • WWII fast patrol boats • WWI dog fights KIDS • Amphibious vehicles GO FREE! • Military vehicles • Over 180 traditional boats Which help make this the largest event of its type in Europe plus all the quintessentially English eccentricity that makes it so utterly unique!

ULTIMATE PLANING MACHINE The 328 Roadster helped to make BMW famous, but a hydroplane powered by the same motor was left to gather dust in a shed for half-a-century. Until now...

WORDS GÉRALD GUÉTAT PHOTOGRAPHS HENRI THIBAULT

BMW BERLIN

W

stronger oil pump on the boat to improve oil circulation ith his long and bushy beard, with the engine tilted up, a necessity to accommodate the Rolf Gersch looks like a gold angle of the propshaft going from engine to propeller. digger from a Jack London The engine, which sounds civilised in the car, rages in novel. Even wilder in the boat, particularly given that the boat is powered by appearance is his hydroplane the later Mille Miglia suped version of the car’s unit. And Berlin III which, compared particularly given that it sits high in front of you, the with the BMW 328 Roadster sitting next to it on the exhaust pipes visible in a very uncivilised way! Let me banks of the River Rhine in Mainz, looks like a coffin explain here the difference between the drivetrains of car built to house an engine. The car still looks modern, and boat: here there is no gear shift, so the driver has the homogenous from every angle, while the boat is an whole range of power and torque to play with – so long unthinkable dragster powered by the same two-litre unit, as he can keep the boat level on the constantly changing short pipes firing at the sky from an engine lying nose-up ‘racetrack’. Upon firing up, the tone is clear and neat, the like a vintage fighter plane on the runway. Rolf delivers a throttle response immediate, the revs peaking and falling few memories as a warning, memories that stretch back hungrily, despite the straight six’s long stroke of 96mm. to a meeting with the boat’s first owner, pharmaceutical With the boat and engine weighing just 500kg, I heir Jürgen Baginski, who commissioned the boat in accelerate easily towards the first bend…

1950: “It’s not an easy boat to drive. When I first drove When the 328 Roadster was released in 1936, BMW her, the engine fired right away, and I got on the plane had only been building cars for five years. The Bavarian quickly. At the end of the first stretch going into a turn, firm had started with aeronautical engines in 1916 with she almost flipped.” This from a man well-attuned to the the takeover of Rapp Motoren Werke, and started difficulties of these craft, which were often built from making motorcycles in 1923, on which the famous drawings and tradition without any real testing. emblem first appeared. In 1936, the young company, On jumping into the boat’s cockpit, there is none of struggling in the wake of the early-1930s global the softness and leather of the car. Instrumentation recession, had to establish itself in the automotive compared to the car is spartan: rev counter, Above: sector fast, and the best way to do this was to battery charge, water temp and oil pressure.

Rolf Gersch win on race circuits against its Italian and On the right, facing the potential co-pilot or driving. Facing page: the British counterparts. The 328 was born of passenger, is a set of chronometers for time ‘set’ of boat and car (from previous models – the 303 from 1933, the trials. The cooling system, common to most 1937), with details including fire 315 just a year after that, and the recent 326. boats of this sort, takes water directly from extinguisher and steering Like the engines BMW would become famous the running surface of the lake, where it is quadrant. Note the six for in later years, it was powered by a new sent to a tank which is clearly visible near the exhausts in a row from inline or ‘straight’ six-cylinder engine, this one engine compartment wall. In car and boat, the the straight six of two litres and producing 80bhp, later tuned to oil feeding system is the same; no dry sump but 130bhp in the Mille Miglia version. This was the usual oil pan. The only difference here is a

24

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

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BMW BERLIN achieved by use of a new crankshaft with nine counter balance weights, enabling the engine to rev from the original 5,000 to 6,000rpm. Given the car’s all-up weight of just 830kg, that spelled decent performance, and during the late 1930s and 40s, 328s won race after race and helped to establish BMW as a worldwide brand.

Today, the 328 is seen as an important car in the annals of mid-20th-century motoring.

Despite a design that was antiquated even in its day, the engine’s good power-to-weight ratio saw it marinised for powerboat racing, a rarefied sport in the austerity of post-war Germany. Baginski, whose father’s pharmaceutical wealth continued in peacetime, commissioned Berlin III from the naval architect Max Steaves in 1950. Steaves, as was usual at the time, took the generic drawings by the American Powerboat Federation of a Class D Racing Runabout, fitted the Mille Miglia-tuned 328 and Jürgen started racing in the two-litre European Runabout Class 2 races.

From the 1950s on, Baginski raced successfully, culminating eventually (in Berlin IV) in class victory in the world championships at Cannes.

Baginski then entrusted the care and storage of his racer to Kurt Gersch, another powerboat pilot and renowned boatbuilder settled in Mainz on the Rhine.

Berlin III, now obsolete, was stored in a shed nearby, where it rested for half a century.

In 2003, Kurt’s son Rolf, who took over the boatyard, discovered the old and forgotten racer. She no longer possessed her engine but important elements remained, such as the original hoods, much of the hardware and even its much sought-after original badges. German entrepreneur Torsten Muller decided to perform a restoration to original with the help of master carpenter Sven Hageborg. The light wooden hull was magnificently rebuilt to take, once again, the famous six-cylinder, BMW engine of the late 1940s patiently tuned by Veritas to the original Mille Miglia racing version.

The long-awaited day of a reunion in Mainz came in 2014 with the launching of Berlin III in the Rhine, at Gersch’s marina, precisely where, 60 years before, his father released the throttle for the last time before the boat was craned and entombed. Now, in 2016, she is accompanied by a 1937 328 Roadster driven by Thomas Feierabend, well-known BMW restorer, and

Right: Jürgen Baginski (in the cap) with Kurt Gersch; and Jürgen at speed

BMW BERLIN DESIGNED AND BUILT

Max Steaves, 1950 LENGTH

15ft 5in (4.7m) BEAM

5ft 6in (1.7m) WEIGHTT

Approx 500kg MAX SPEED Below: cockpit instrumentation including co-pilot’s chronometers on the right for

60mph+ ENGINE

BMW/Veritas 328 type, tuned to Mille Miglia spec (135bhp)

time trials

watched over by Gersch, who looks after the boat and still acts as her test-driver.

The trick to driving these boats successfully lies in controlling the throttle to get the best possible mix of power and torque to activate the propeller in the water, meaning at least 4,000rpm or more to get onto the plane, then 2,500-3,000rpm to stay there, with the water temperature at 80°C and oil pressure at 3.5 bars.

I soon put any ideas of record-setting to one side as I approached the first bend, trying to point the bow correctly while dosing the throttle pedal to accommodate leeway and the tendency of centrifugal force to flip a flat boat like this over as easily as a canoe. It would take hours of experience and courage to test new propellers to get the engine revving to its full potential. As I approached the dock after my modest run, the relief on Rolf’s face was visible.

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

27

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

Saleroom Left: painting by AD Blake (born 1851) shows Shamrock II tacking just ahead of Columbia before Barr finessed the American defender ahead to beat the British rival. In the background are JP Morgan’s Corsair III and

BONHAMS USA

Tommy Lipton’s Erin; oil on

BONHAMS, USA

Like Sir Ben Ainslie, fellow Brit skipper Charlie Barr did rather well in America.

In an outstanding career the diminutive Scot, born in 1864, won the America’s Cup three times in a row – for America – and was the go-to man for American millionaires battling for yachting pride.

Now two celebrated episodes from the glittering career of this uncompromising but honourable competitor from a family of racing skippers are brought back to life in paintings recently sold at auction in America.

New York. Far left: Donald Demers’ 2006 painting captures Barr’s remarkable record Atlantic crossing in schooner Atlantic that

Raising the Barr DAVE SELBY

canvas made £7,650 in

stood for nearly 100 years: the painting made £8,500

In the 1901 Cup, Barr skippered JP Morgan’s Herreshoff-designed Columbia against Sir Thomas Lipton’s larger GL Watson Shamrock II, which pundits considered had the measure of the American defender. What Shamrock II lacked was Barr and his well-honed crew.

The better-sailed Columbia won 3-0.

In 1903 Barr’s teambuilding skills and bold tactics came to the fore as he skippered the American yacht Atlantic with a crew of 31 Nova Scotia fishermen in response to Kaiser Wilhelm II’s westeast Atlantic challenge. The 187ft schooner, briefly the largest private yacht

in the world and furnished with marble bath tubs, crossed in 12 days and four hours, beating 10 rivals and setting a monohull record not beaten until 1997, and then only by less than a day.

Barr had chosen a different route, finding favourable winds where others found none, once covering 341 miles noon to noon. Yachting magazine said: “Barr seems never to have made an error, never to have wasted even half an hour.”

When Barr died in 1911, aged just 56, newspapers, peers and beaten rivals were gracious in their tributes to a man regarded as the finest racing skipper of his age.

BONHAMS

Duck sells for £68k This will certainly stand out more than a standard-issue Riva Aquarama if you want to make a real splash at the Monaco Classic.

Arguably one of the most significant vessels to come off the Sparkman & Stephens drawing board, more than 21,000 DUKW amphibious vehicles, affectionately termed ‘ducks’, were made during the four years up to 1945.

HUNTERS

In the case of this 1945 example, low mileage mattered more than S&S lineage when it came under the hammer. Offered direct from the Ministry of Defence, it may well be the longest serving

HUNTERS

military vehicle offered for sale. With just 3,983 miles on the clock,

Restore your Pride

or 522 running hours, it doubled its estimate to sell for £68,700.

A sadly neglected GRP-hulled Morecambe Bay prawner moulded off an historic original is coming up to auction in Skegness on 16 February owing to her owner’s ill health.

The hull of Pride is one of a number taken off Kathleen, a prawner in the collection of the Liverpool Maritime Museum.

Self-built over a number of years with plenty of ingenuity, including 11/2 tonnes of lead ballast melted down from the 28ft (8.5m) boat with a rebuilt BMC 1500cc engine was sailed in 2004 but has been laid up since 2010. Est: £6,000-10,000.

For more information, see hunters.com

BONHAMS

wheel-balancing weights and mahogany from a snooker table,

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

29

Objects of desire

GALLEY PUMP An elegant top-of-the-line pump with traditional styling and solid brass casting. Quality construction and detailing, designed for owners with an eye for traditional brass accessories. £246.52 inc VAT

BRITANNIA PRINT This stunning shot of Britannia taken by Alfred West in August 1894 is part of an exhibition of historic yacht photos at the new Brett Gallery, each image restored from its original glass plate. From £675 (various sizes)

classicmarine.co.uk thebrettgallery.com

AMERICA’S CUP SHIRT Available in junior sizes with your child’s name, or boat’s

WOODEN WALLET

name, printed on the back, this high-quality T-shirt makes it very clear who you’ll be supporting in the America’s Cup

In the digital era, brandishing a crisp fiver taken from a wallet made of

finals this summer. Henri Lloyd is official clothing supplier

wood will set you apart from the crowd. A spring prevents your notes

to Ben Ainslie’s Land Rover BAR team. £30

or cards from falling out. The wallets come in a range of woods. £160

henrilloyd.com woodenwallets.co.uk For more Objects of Desire, go to classicboat.co.uk/objects 30

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017 Classic Boats_March_Final.indd 1

16/01/2017 11:24

Adrian Morgan

CHARLOTTE WATTERS

CRAFTSMANSHIP

bottle or, and here we get to the rub: a glassfibre boat.

I gather there are 13,000 so-called end-of-life boats lying around Holland and there may well be 75,000 clogging the banks of the Ijsselmeer by 2030, unless something is done. France has made a start: 500 boats were recycled last year. Some start and a backlog of 15 years. Meanwhile our old wooden boats are happily ending their own lives without help from crushers or dismantlers by crumbling into dust, falling apart, rotting, collapsing and reverting to nature quite on their own.

Even as I speak I can hear the gribble at work. And there is, contrary to myth, no such thing as a polyester mite.

So no point in trying to recycle a 1923 cruising ketch beyond economical repair, aside from salvaging the bronze bits to use again on another wooden boat that will keep the cycle (and skills) going. Build afresh, and by all means play semantic games about “recreating the essence of the original” by way of a shard from the backbone, or even encapsulating the old shape so as to “enclose its spirit”. Just let’s be thankful that some things are not built to last, and when they do go leave no stain (apart perhaps from the gallons of Cuprinol that the owner before last who lived aboard on the Essex marshes poured into her bilges).

Did you know that only a handful of burials occur at sea these days in the UK, and that there are designated areas – notably off The Needles on the Isle of Wight where you are permitted to commit your Naval officer father or favourite uncle to the deep? And even then rules stipulate a 440lb weight has to be attached to the coffin which has to be of soft wood and with 50, 2in holes as well.** They leave nothing to chance. That means a five hour or so voyage, which explains why it is so rare. By the time the funeral party, aunts, uncles, wives, mistresses have spent five hours on the deck of a mackerel-bait-stinking local sea angling boat they will be glad to commit themselves to the sea, let alone their dad.

Cremation is another matter (just do it downwind).

And don’t varnish the cockpit an hour before you set out, which did happen – albeit it was wet epoxy, not varnish – to the late Robb White, Georgia boatbuilder, when he scattered a friend’s ashes from a new canoe he had finished not an hour before the ceremony. Messy.

This ability of our wooden boats to depart gracefully gives us yet another reason to claim some moral superiority over those folk who buy glassfibre boats. I am not decrying glassfibre boats; quite the opposite. It is because they are so good, so perfect, so easy to maintain, and almost impossible to destroy that makes them so, well, bad? And until we can find a way to recycle more of them into sinks (it’s being done) at a rate that will keep up with the rate at which they are dumped, then we will, by 2030 or before, have a real problem. ** gov.uk/government/publications/burial-at-seafurther-information/burial-at-sea-coffin-requirements

Consigned to the waves

Plastic boats? They’re so good, they’re bad. But what of us?

O

ne of the better reasons for considering a wooden boat is that they don’t last forever.

Nothing, you can argue, lasts for ever of course and it is a source of some anguish to me that inanimate and ecologically dodgy stuff such as the plastic spoon I just used will be floating around, possibly ground up into lethal little bits, long after I have popped my clogs. What does a Fairy Liquid bottle bring to the world in culture and brilliance I ask you? OK, brilliance. Yet it still seems, well, downright unfair. Are we humans not worth more than a plastic bottle that we should have a lifespan measured in years rather than centuries? For goodness sake; this very keyboard will outlast me, albeit buried under a tonne of landfill. It is, quite frankly, iniquitous.

Then again it is simply because we degrade, deteriorate and finally fall apart that is perhaps our greatest achievement in life: the ability to leave not a trace behind other than the stardust from which we, allegedly, were made millennia upon millennia ago. It makes us humans special. We understand our limitations, our mortality. It should be a source of pride that gives us moral superiority over a Starbucks coffee cup or a Coke

“For goodness sake; this very keyboard will outlast me, albeit buried under a tonne of landfill”

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33

VARNISH

LIFTING THE LID

Which varnish to choose to ensure your pre-season prep is brief but long-lasting WORDS NIGEL SHARP

V

Single-pack varnishes are still the most popular. Among the best-known brands in the retail market are International and Hempel (formerly Blakes), who have half a dozen single-packs between them, and also Epifanes, Jotun, Awlgrip, Skippers and Le Tonkinois.

Many of these are formulated from long-established recipes – Epifanes Clear Varnish, for instance, was first made in 1902, while Le Tonkinois’ recipe goes back 200 years – and still include natural ingredients such as tung oil, pressed from the seed of the Chinese tung tree.

They are relatively inexpensive and easy to apply, and their flexibility is sympathetic to the movement, and expansion and contraction, of solid timber on traditional boats. Their downsides, however, compared with more modern alternatives, is that regular maintenance coats need to be applied, particularly in areas of high UV light such as the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, to ensure longevity. They are also relatively soft although some manufacturers produce a polyurethane version – International Compass and Skippers Topkapi UV, for instance – which give a little more durability.

While most single pack varnishes have a gloss finish, some – including International Goldspar, Hempels Dura-Satin, Epifanes Rubbed Effect and four products from Skippers – are available with a satin or matt finish for cabin interiors, and many others can have matting agents added to them.

Tonkinois. They are particularly good for filling grain on bare wood and for quickly building up film thickness, as in most cases multiple coats can be applied in one day. In fact, two of Skippers’ products – Poliglass and Acriglass UV – can have as many as six coats applied in a day. The chemical bond negates the need to sand between coats – which is not only labour-saving but also contributes to the faster build-up by not rubbing any thickness away – although many professionals might give a light rub to avoid an accumulation of imperfections. Furthermore, the finish tends to be harder – particularly with polyurethane two-packs which is what most of them are – and has greater longevity and so a reduced need for subsequent maintenance coats.

But when comparing them to single-pack products there are, of course, also downsides. They are more expensive and more difficult to apply and, as most of their hardeners contain isocyanates, there are considerably greater health and safety considerations (in fact it is now illegal for non-professional users to spray them). They are also less flexible, although this is less of a problem on cold-moulded or splined topsides, or on plywood. Acrylic two-packs are a little more flexible and a little less hard than two-pack polyurethanes (but much more similar to polyurethanes than single-packs in both respects) and they can also be polished which can be useful to remove dust from a less-than-perfect initial coating system or to breathe new life into a finish dulled by age. Awlgrip produces two such products: Awlbrite Clear (actually a three-part product, the third component being essentially thinners but with a small amount of isocyanate in it to help with the curing process) and Awlcraft 2000, marketed as a clear coat for paint finishes but just as good as a varnish.

TWO-PACK VARNISHES

SPECIALIST PRODUCTS

Two-pack varnishes have been around for a good 30 years and they are currently produced by all the singlepack manufacturers mentioned above apart from Le

In recent years some varnishes have been specially formulated for oily tropical hardwoods such as teak and iroko. These include Jotun’s Benar Marine and also

arnishes have been protecting timber and enhancing its appearance for hundreds of years and today there is a wide, and sometimes confusing, choice available to boatbuilders and owners.

SINGLE-PACK VARNISHES

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

ROBIN GATES

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

35

VARNISH Epifanes Wood Finish Gloss. “It effectively acts as a one-way membrane which allows the oil to come out but stops the water going in,” says Simon Crawford of Marineware, UK agents for Epifanes and Awlgrip.

Coelan, a single pack product which comes with its own primer (pigmented red or yellow), has been on the market for about 30 years. It is extremely flexible and has established a reputation for great durability, but it has a very short shelf life and there are varying opinions about the difficulties of application. Jeremy Freeland of spar makers Collars described it as “not an easy product to use – very thick and rubbery”. Cockwells Modern and Classic Boatbuilding used it for the brightwork and spars on the pilot cutters they built in 2007 and 2010 and both have lasted well with minimum overcoating. Although Dave Cockwell agrees that it wasn’t easy to apply, he also said: “We sprayed it and then you can get a lot of it on quickly with no problems.” Coelan’s Sonya van Horn says that it can be applied by “anybody with practical skills” but that it is “only for commercial consumption”.

Deks Olje is another coating with a separate base coat and top coat. Deks Olje D1 is a penetrating oil. This can be used as a stand-alone matt product, but overcoating it with Deks Olje D2 varnish gives a gloss finish.

Jotun have similar products in Clipper I and Clipper II, and while the data sheet for Jotun’s Ravilakk says that it should be applied on top of a Clipper I base coat, the company’s Jim Brickwood (who previously worked for Marineware) says that “lots of people have always used Ravilakk directly on to bare wood with the first coat thinned by 50 per cent”. Hempel’s Wood Impreg is another saturating primer – introduced on to the market within the last two years – which can be used as a base coat for any of the company’s single-pack varnishes.

International’s Woodskin (based on a former Sikkens product called Cetol Marine) is a matt-finish varnish/oil hybrid which is particularly easy to apply (with brush, roller or even a sponge or rag) and to repair.

Perhaps the most innovative product to hit the market in recent years is Awlgrip’s Awlwood, a single-pack moisture-activated acrylic urethane varnish. The application process (which starts with its own coloured primers) is universally acknowledged to be very quick and easy, while its quality of finish, its hardness and longevity is seen by many as almost revolutionary among single-pack products.

Inset: two-pack varnishes can be good for filling grain.

Right: Collars used Awlwood on the new wooden mast for David Murrin’s Ceteweyo

WHO USES WHAT? With such a large selection of makes and types of varnish available, choosing which one to use for a particular application can be very difficult. “But the important thing to remember,” said International’s Matthew Potts, “is that there is no one varnish that does everything.”

Below: skipper

When considering all the relevant factors – include

Andy Cully uses

purchase cost, ease of application, quality of appearance,

Epifanes on

abrasion resistance, potential longevity, and so on – it is

Panerai’s Fife

highly likely that compromises will have to be made.

Eilean; Sir Robin Knox-Johnston

COLLARS

favoured Le

Collars produces hundreds of spars every year for boats

Tonkinois when

of all sizes and, as each customer can choose their

he restored

varnish (albeit very often with advice from Freeland), the

Suhaili

company has gained experience of a variety of products.

One fundamental consideration is the size of the mast: the bigger it is the more difficult it is to unstep and so the less likely it is to receive regular maintenance coats.

“People don’t want to varnish their 50ft-plus mast every year,” said Freeland. “They want something to last three, possibly four seasons.” For them the varnish of choice is now Awlwood, which although relatively expensive, not far off twice the price of Awlspar, Awlgrip’s more traditional varnish, results in a relatively small percentage increase in the total cost of a spar.

Despite the advantages of two-pack varnishes, Freeland was always reluctant to use them because of their lack of flexibility, but thanks now to the availability of Awlwood, he no longer feels the need to do so. For customers who want a more traditional finish, he finds that Epifanes is among the most popular and is certainly one he would recommend as, in terms of finish and longevity, it is

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

among the best of all the more conventional single-pack

Above left to

– is also a big fan of Epifanes. He finds that it is necessary

varnishes. However, Epifanes is known for its relatively

right: Chantier

to strip the brightwork back to bare wood every four or

long drying times and, for this reason, Collars uses other

du Guip used

five years because by then “it has been faded by the sun

products, including a great deal of Ravilakk, typically for

Epifanes on the

and damaged and dinged so much that the repairs are

smaller masts which are more likely to be unstepped

interior of the

really showing up”. This creates an enormous amount of

annually and which are therefore more accessible for

1914 schoooner

work, to the extent that on average four people are

maintenance coats.

Morwenna;

working on the varnish for three or four months every

shining varnish

year. Whereas he used to favour single-pack Epifanes

work on

Gloss throughout, he now prefers a two-product system:

Spirit Yachts is another company that has recently been

three-masted

Epifanes PP two-pack “to quickly build up the depth of

won over by Awlwood’s benefits in terms of quick

schooner Adix

varnish and fill the grain” and then four or five coats of

SPIRIT YACHTS multiple-coat application. “But most of all to ensure a high-quality, longer-lasting finish for our owners,” said managing director Nigel Stuart.

It was Epifanes’ slow drying time which led painting

Epifanes single-pack on top.

STANLEY AND THOMAS Using this combination of two-packs for a quick and easy

contractors Finishing Touch to a change of product on the

build-up and single-pack top coats – from a variety of

80ft motor yacht Dalvina last autumn. The capping rails

different manufacturers – seems to be increasingly

needed taking back to bare wood and, having removed the

popular, but Mark Stanley of Stanley and Thomas

old Epifanes coats and knowing they would be applying

boatyard likes to start with a two-pack for a different

new varnish in less than ideal conditions, they used Awlspar

reason. He has had bad experiences of thinning first

which, they found, “dried reasonably quickly”.

coats of varnish, especially on laid decks whose modern

But in warmer climates, where a slower drying varnish

caulking compounds have prevented proper curing of

is an advantage, Epifanes, with its apparently superior

the varnish. “I now just seal the whole thing with a

UV properties, tends to be the varnish of choice. “On

two-pack – normally Skippers Poliglass or Acriglass

traditional boats in the Mediterranean,” said Mike

– and then I know I’ve got a stable surface on which to

Horsley, a broker specialising in classic boats at

build up the coats with Epifanes single-pack,” he said.

Edmistons in Antibes and owner of the 1963 Admiral’s Cupper Outlaw, “it is Epifanes, Epifanes, Epifanes!” He

DAVE COCKWELL

finds that Epifanes Rapid Clear is often used to build up

But not everyone favours putting a single-pack on top of

the thickness – “saving a huge number of man-hours in

a two-pack. “Why put a soft product on top of a hard

sanding” – and that for oily woods, “Wood Finish Gloss is

product?” says Dave Cockwell, “and if you need to repair

a great newish addition to the range”.

damage to the two-pack, you can’t as it’s got single-pack

Charlie Wroe, responsible for the upkeep of two

on top of it.” Matthew Potts of International Paints

Med-based classic schooners – the 138ft Mariette, of

broadly agrees with this and he usually advises

which he is the captain, and the 85ft Kelpie of Falmouth

customers “if you are going to use a two-pack system, CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

37

e e n ad id ai M pr Brit th t wi rea G in

Pilot Cutter “OLGA”

JAMES LAWRENCE SAILMAKERS LTD BESPOKE SAILMAKERS

22-28 Tower Street, Brightlingsea, Essex CO7 0AL Tel: 01206 302863 Email: lawrencesails@btconnect.com 38

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

VARNISH stay with it as that will give the hardest finish and your best longevity and best abrasion resistance”.

Some favour epoxy for the base coats, for its excellent grain filling and adhesion properties. But it is particularly inflexible, and it has no UV properties so it is essential to

Varnish manufacturers: a quick who’s who…

then overcoat it with varnish. Potts likes the combination of International’s Epiglass epoxy and Perfection Plus two-part varnish. “The curing of the varnish will often be inhibited,” said Crawford, “but there is no reason not to use a three-product system with epoxy, two-pack and then single-pack varnish.”

VARNISH GOLDEN RULE While it has always been a golden rule not to overcoat a single-pack with a multi-pack product – because the solvents of the latter attack the coat below – Awlgrip

Hempel The 100-year-old Danish company that bought Blakes is one of the biggest coating manufacturers in the world, offering a huge range of products. hempel.co.uk International Started in 1881 and benefiting from the backing of owner Akzo Nobel, International products are used widely across the marine world. yachtpaint.com

now has a system which involves applying Awlbright Clear over Awlspar. Said Crawford: “The reason for doing

Epifanes

it is that the Awlspar gives the traditional look and is

Launched in 1902 using a recipe based on tung oil, the

also a flexible coating which responds well to any

established Dutch brand is favoured by many yacht

movement in the timber, while the Awlbright gives a

skippers in hot climates. epifanes.com

hard-wearing finish.” Chemically the Awlbright is an acrylic varnish which dries fast enough to prevent its thinners attacking the Awlspar.

There are also often good reasons for using two

Precision Yacht Paint Formerly Precision Marine Coatings until a rebrand earlier this year, this is a three-year-old offshoot of

different single-pack varnishes in the same system.

Hull-based family-run company Teamac.

Before applying matt or satin finishing coats in cabin

precisionyachtpaint.co.uk

interiors, fill the grain with build-up coats of gloss varnish (too great a thickness of matt or satin might give a ‘milky’ effect); and Freeland said Collars “build up with five coats of Ravilakk, and then finish with three coats of Epifanes so it is well protected”.

But the choice of varnish for a particular application

Jotun Established 100 years ago in Sandefjord, where it has one of Norway's largest private R&D centres, with products sold in 100 countries. jotun.com

isn’t always down to logic. “I know some applicators who prefer one product or another often through no

Awlgrip

discernible reason,” said Potts. “You just go with the

‘The paint that won the America’s Cup’, when it was

ones you trust, don’t you?” said Nick Topp of Finishing

used as a newly launched product on 12-M Courageous

Touch. Whether or not a desirable finish is achieved is

in 1974 and 1977. Today Awlwood is widely popular for

not necessarily down to the choice of varnish anyway.

its quick application of multiple coats. awlgrip.com

“It’s partly due to the build-up of coats,” said Brickwood, “but it’s also down to the skill of applicator, and often

Skippers UK

just luck on the day.”

An experienced team set up as an outlet in the UK for

Finally, if you have any imperfections in your varnish, the words that I once heard spoken by a normally

Italian coatings brand Aemme Colori, offering a range of varnishes, in a handsome tin. skipperspaints.co.uk

unforgiving yacht captain in my boatbuilding project management days, might be comforting. “Don’t worry,” he said philosophically, “it’s never the last coat.”

Le Tonkinois A natural oil-based varnish using a Chinese formula dating back centuries. Claims to remove brush marks.

Used in Suhaili’s 2016 refit. letonkinoisvarnish.co.uk Coelan Part of the German Kemper Systems group, whose coatings protect the Empire State Building among others. The marine brand is often used in the luxury yacht and shipping industry. coelan-boat.com DeksOlje Saturating oil and varnish, part of the Owatrol Marine group, based in Miami, with origins in the Norwegian fjords and the Great Lakes of North America. deksolje.com

Spirit Yachts is a convert to the benefits of Awlwood CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

39

HISTORY

MULTIHULL PIONEERS The 2017 America’s Cup will be raced in catamarans, but the origins of multihulled boats are more humble, comprising tales of bravery and ingenuity that changed leisure sailing WORDS THEO RYE ARCHIVE PHOTOS SUPPLIED BY HANNEKE BOON

O

f all the stories to emerge from the 1968 Golden Globe race, that of Nigel Tetley is one of the most remarkable, and poignant.

Tetley managed to sail a 40ft (12.2m) plywood ‘Victress’ class trimaran, designed by the American Arthur Piver, to within 1,300 miles of his finishing line at Plymouth. He had nursed his battered vessel through the feared Southern Ocean, and had technically completed the fastest circumnavigation on record, before she finally foundered northeast of the Azores. He was pushing hard to keep ahead of his rival, Donald Crowhurst, also in a Victress trimaran, who unknown to Tetley (and to the world at that point) had never left the Atlantic, and was contemplating a fraud.

Crowhurst had timed his run in to finish just after Tetley. With Tetley’s sinking, Crowhurst took the lead, and realised the logs of his “circumnavigation” that he had faked would be scrutinised closely before the £5,000 prize for the fastest finisher would be handed over; he opted instead to take his own life. In the furore of the aftermath, and the fêting of Robin Knox-Johnston (who had been first home), Tetley’s feat was eclipsed. He had accomplished what many doubted was possible; it was a bravura performance that deserved, and deserves, more recognition; his feat was unparalleled, and brave.

Not that the multihull world ever lacked for courageous pioneers. From the ancients of the Pacific, via Sir William Petty in the 17th century, to Melling and Mackenzie in the 19th century and on to the resurgence of interest just before and after the Second World War, the story of the multihull pioneers, visionaries and eccentrics alike, is worth telling.

From origins in pre-history, reports of the remarkable speed and agility of the Pacific islanders’ craft began to filter back as soon as the early explorers found their way home. There were a bewildering range of size and types, as may be expected after hundreds, if not thousands, of years of refinement, but they can be broadly categorised into three types. The first was simply known as the ‘double canoe’, later ‘double hulls’ or ‘catamarans’; the second was the single-outrigger (‘proa’ or sometimes

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

‘Micronesian’); finally the ‘double outrigger’ (or Indonesian) type that was the basis of the modern trimaran. (As an aside the term ‘double hull’ now refers to a monohull with two layers of hull to provide protection; a change of use which can cause confusion.)

PETTY’S DOUBLE HULL The various craft were identified by locale as well as type; and it wasn’t long before drawings and even examples were found back in the ‘old world’. Sir William Petty famously built four ‘double hull’ catamarans in the 17th century. Petty, a polymath, seems to have arrived at the idea of a double-hull craft independently and there is no record that he had any knowledge of Pacific craft.

Using models and simple towing tests he established that a semi-circular hull form has the minimum wetted surface area and hence less resistance than any other shape, and proposed a twin-hulled vessel to gain the necessary stability to carry sail. He went on to build full size craft; his first was the 30ft Simon & Jude launched in 1662 at Dublin. With cylindrical hulls she evidently sailed extremely well; up to 20 knots was claimed, and despite running aground she won a race in January 1663 against all-comers that included a large Dutch yacht and two ship’s boats. (A full-size sailing replica was constructed by Hal Sisk in 1991). Emboldened, Petty built an improved version (Invention II), launched in July 1663, that won a £50 wager racing a packet ship from Holyhead to Dublin. His next, Experiment, was launched in the presence of King Charles II in December 1664 at Rotherhithe. In April 1665 she outsailed the Navy’s frigates on her way to Oporto, but on the return trip foundered with the loss of all hands in a storm in the Bay of Biscay. It was a blow, but 70 conventional ships had been lost in the same storm, and in 1684 Petty was eventually prompted to attempt an even larger vessel, St Michael the Archangel. This 128-ton behemoth, with what was described as a W-shaped hull, was a failure, and with growing concern about the implications for national security if the Dutch managed to perfect such fast and shallow craft, it was the end of the experiments.

Pacific islanders Above: reports of the speed and agility of

William Petty 17th century

the Pacific islanders’

Left: William Petty built four ‘double hull’ catamarans in

boats began to reach

the 17th century. Petty appears to have arrived at the

boat designers in the

idea of a double hull craft independently and there is

west as soon as the

no record that he had any knowledge of multihulls

early explorers found

from the Pacific tradition. He went on to build the 30ft

their way home.

Simon & Jude launched in 1662 equipped with cylindrical hulls. Sailing results were good, with up to 20 knots claimed. Invention II was launched next, in July 1663. She won a £50 wager racing a packet ship from Holyhead to Dublin.

Herreshoff designs Left: Herreshoff’s famous Amaryllis of 1876 was an early multihull in American waters. Far left drawing of John Gilpin and above Duplex sailing on the Thames in 1880.

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41

Petty died in 1687, and there the matter laid for the Nicknamed Stokes’ Folly by his friends she was best part of 200 years. Largely forgotten today, the abandoned on the beach ‘an utter failure’. That was also revival of the idea also came from Ireland. In 1868 John the fate of the 46ft (14m) ‘double-huller’ built for Mackenzie of Belfast built a ‘double boat’ 21ft (6.4m) Charles A Meigs, also of Staten Island, the same year. At long, cutter-rigged, with water ballast tanks. He listed one point in the late 1880s up to 20 multihulls were said her advantages as “greater security, comfort and capable to be sailing on the Hudson or Long Island Sound, but of carrying a larger number of persons than would be this was the high water mark: they were excluded from possible in another boat of the same length. The great nearly all of the organised racing, and perhaps partly as breadth of beam causes the boat to sail with less angles a result, did not catch on widely, although a few [sic] than is usual, and thus ensures greater facility for scattered examples did get built into the early 20th moving about the deck”. With “frequent sailing in the century.

Irish Channel” he “found her to stay [tack] well, and go to windward in a satisfactory manner. The greatest speed BLACK DEUCE attained was 10 knots”. His success was partly due to his In 1879 in Madras a Colonel Conway-Gordon had a sage recognition that a “permanent cabin on deck is…

31ft LWL hull built, then cut it down the middle and very objectionable, as it is…a serious hindrance when made it into a catamaran schooner called Black Deuce; beating to windward”. (Windage of superstructure is still he followed this in 1892 by having a 28ft (8.5m) double a concern among multihull designers today.) hull sloop called Britomart built at Rochester and then in Then in 1873 Henry Melling of Liverpool had a 30ft 1895 had a 35ft (10.6m) steel double hull sloop called ‘safety yacht’ constructed on the ‘double hull principle’.

Heavenly Twins built by ME Ratsey at Erith on the Melling said: “Happen what may, she can never sink!

Thames. Conway-Gordon was noted to have “sailed Even if scuttled she will remain as a strongly-putabout Southsea” and made “unsuccessful attempts to sail together life-raft. She can accommodate them against 5-raters on the Solent”, but herself to draw only 1ft of water. She sails again his enthusiasm seems to have generated upright and not on her side, for she no followers. Most sailors regarded requires only small spars, sails and rigging catamarans with considerable suspicion; the to sail her and can be beached at pleasure.” materials available to the early builders Also in 1874 John Dunkin Lee and John prevented their full benefits from being White designed and patented a hull form realised because they were often too heavy, which was described as having a concave and there was the ever-present danger of underside leaving “a single channel for the capsizing or pitch-poling. They remained a water amidships, and by which the rarity for a tiny minority, but their speed principal elements of displacement are potential was a tantalising prospect. transferred to the bilges, this securing the It was to the basic idea of Dunkin Lee and greatest amount of stability that can be White’s 1873 hull form that a Canadian obtained, combining the properties of two yacht designer called George Herrick Duggan ships in one fabric”. In 1874 the Thames returned in the 1890s. His 1898 racing Ironworks launched the 290ft (88.5m) ‘machine’ Dominion “humbled the pride of ‘double hull’ catamaran steamer Castalia the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club by to the designs of Captain Dicey, for the keeping in profane Canuck hands the channel ferry service between Dover and cherished international challenge cup, won Calais. However, she was underpowered with singular ease off Oyster Bay”. Dominion and failed to spark any general was protested because double hull vessels Speed record acceptance of the type. were prohibited, but Duggan successfully The 18ft catamaran Endeavour, winner of argued she only had one hull, albeit shaped to the 1955 Cowes Week speed record prize, have two waterlines; it prompted a re-write of NATHANAEL HERRESHOFF averaged 14 knots over a measured mile. the rule. An American proa featured in Nat Herreshoff’s famous Amaryllis of 1876 Rudder magazine in 1898, but nothing else is was an early multihull in American waters. known of it. Another fine designer, BB Crowninshield, Sophisticated in construction, she was swiftly followed produced the 55ft (16.7m) Hades in 1902 (which was

by Arion, Teaser, John Gilpin and Tarantella; all 31ft technically a trimaran) to challenge for the Quincey Cup; (9.4m) long or so and very similar; and then Goody Two but in evolutionary terms all the 19th-century designs, Shoes and Lodola in 1879. In an article relating a sailing on both sides of the Atlantic, seem to have been little trip he made in 1877 Nat also mentioned a small more than curious anomalies rather than the start of catamaran called Carrie; there is no record of a anything substantive.

Herreshoff catamaran of this name, which implies there There were almost certainly small scale private was at least one other early builder in the vicinity. experiments with the various multihull forms that are Captain Coffin wrote an amusing description of now forgotten; an unnamed Cork sailor made a Amaryllis pitch-poling in June 1877 while racing John catamaran in 1920 by splitting a 16ft dinghy down the Gilpin. That same year Louis Towns of Staten Island middle, but history does not relate the result. An often built a 32ft (9.75m) ‘double-hulled schooner’ Nereid, for forgotten British pioneer was Sir William Acland, who Anson Phelps Stokes, but her rigid connection between built a proa in 1938, complete with lateen sail, which the hulls meant she proved impracticable, and unsafe for was claimed to be as fast as an International 6-Metre. cruising in any water not as smooth as a millpond.

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MULTIHULL PIONEERS Jean Filloux In 1948 in France Jean Filloux and M Christiaen built the 48ft (14.6m) steel catamaran Copula and sailed it across the Atlantic with friends. However they were unhappy with the heavy design and one of their crew warned the young James Wharram in Las Palmas in 1956 not to make his crossing.

Woody Brown In 1946 Woodridge “Woody” Brown (above left) designed a 40ft catamaran with asymmetric sectioned hulls called Manu Kai (top left). It was built by Hawaiian Alfred Kumalai, with help from Rudy Choy (above right). They then refined the design to produce Waikiki Surf (above) and Brown and Choy made a 2,800 mile trans-Pacific crossing in just 16 days in 1955.

The Prout brothers In 1947 Roland Prout and his brother (left) joined together two of their canvas ‘Eskimo [or Esquimeaux] Kayaks’ (above) with planks of wood and built Shearwater in 1954 (left).

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A Russian, Victor Tchetchet, experimented for most of his life; he won a race in 1908 organised by the Imperial Yacht Club of Kiev with a vessel made by lashing two kayak hulls together to form a catamaran.

After serving in the Imperial Russian air force during World War I he emigrated to America and worked as an illustrator, while continuing with his sailing experiments.

One issue holding back the progress of multihulls in general was the relatively high cost of building and high quality of work necessary using traditional materials. The potential to bring the costs and complexity down began to dawn on several people at about the same time when, after World War II, reliable waterproof plywood became available. Tchetchet became well known on Long Island Sound from 1944 on with his various ‘double hulls’ and ‘Indonesian double outrigger canoes’, the latter of which he called ‘trimarans’, a word he is said to have coined.

One successful one was called Egg Nog. In 1946 Woodridge ‘Woody’ Brown, an experienced aircraft designer, designed a 40ft catamaran with asymmetric sectioned hulls called Manu Kai. Skilfully built by Hawaiian Alfred Kumalai, and helped by Rudy Choy, she came in at only 1.5 tonnes, and her speed became legendary. They then refined the design to produce Waikiki Surf and Brown and Choy made a 2,800 mile trans-Pacific crossing in just 16 days in 1955; both went on to successful careers designing and building cats.

In 1948 in France Jean Filloux and M Christiaen built the 48ft (14.6m) steel cat Copula and sailed it across the Atlantic with friends (see note opposite), and in America Robert Harris built Naramatac, a 25ft (7.6m) catamaran. However, not all the boats of this era worked; Harris said of Naramatac she was “too heavily constructed, lacked stability, and had too much wetted surface”.

Trimaran solo This prompted him to try again with a round bilge The story of Victress, the 18ft (5.5m) cat in 1954. History is also silent on round the world voyage the fate of “Commander Fawcett’s outrigger craft”

by Nigel Tetley. from the mid 1950s – photos suggest it was a remarkable vessel.

PROUT DESIGN In the UK, in 1947 Roland Prout and his brother joined together two of their canvas ‘Eskimo kayaks’ with planks of wood; it sailed “quite well but was not exceptionally fast” but prompted a second attempt in 1949; this time with racing kayaks (the brothers were Olympic canoeists) linked with bamboo. This version was about half the weight of the first, and was “very fast on a reach” but “rather slow in stays”. It was built so that each hull was able to move independently in waves, as others had previously noted the benefits of this with the traditional Pacific craft. In 1954 the brothers built Shearwater, with fully semi-circular section hulls; 17ft 6in (5.3m) long and 10ft (3m) beam, with daggerboards, she made 20 knots on occasion and was described as an “excellent sea boat”; the 18ft Shearwater II followed in 1955 and production of the Shearwater III design started in 1956. The Prouts continued R&D in catamaran design and produced very successful cruising catamarans well into the 1980s. In parallel, Bill O’Brien, who had been tinkering with multihulls for many years, developed 44

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

his Jumpahead design for the 1956 boat show and went on to develop the Oceanic 30 and BobCat cruising cats. O’Brien and the Prouts were spurred on when in August 1955 an 18ft catamaran called Endeavour, helmed by Ken Pearce, won the Cowes Week speed record prize, averaging 14 knots over a measured mile with peaks of 22 knots.

JAMES WHARRAM At the same time another Englishman, James Wharram, was taking inspiration from French sailor Eric de Bisschop and a model of a Tahitian reef canoe in the Science Museum. De Bisschop’s story was remarkable. In October 1936, after a year building her on a beach in Honolulu, he launched a 38ft (11.5m) junk-rigged ‘Polynesian double canoe’ called Kaimiloa, and proceeded to sail back to France via the Cape of Good Hope with his loyal crew Tatibouet. It was by any standards a remarkable journey of 19,000 miles and de Bisschop was greeted as a hero on arrival at Cannes. It was his 1940 book that inspired a young Wharram to set out on what has become a life-long odyssey as a catamaran designer and sailor. For £200 Wharram built a 23ft 6in (7.16m) flat-bottomed ‘double canoe’ that he called Tangaroa. With a crew of two German women, Ruth and Jutta, he took the boat across to Germany and down to Spain before setting off on a transatlantic crossing in 1956. Arriving in Trinidad and now convinced of the seagoing ability of the type, the three built a larger 40ft (12.2m) boat with V-section hulls, called it Rongo, and sailed back to the UK. Wharram wrote his well-known book, Two Girls Two Catamarans and founded a movement.

A few weeks before Wharram arrived in Trinidad, a 32ft (9.75m) steel catamaran called Gerümpel had made a similarly audacious transatlantic crossing. Her owner and builder, Wolfgang Kraker von Schwartzenfeld, was escaping from a post-war Germany that had left only one brother and his mother alive from a Bavarian family of 12. He had found illustrations of Polynesian craft in a Berlin library, and after a trial vessel with hulls built from aircraft wing tanks, moved to Rotterdam and built a full size version. Home-made from the hand-stitched sails to welded pipe mast, and never having seen the ocean before, he made his way haphazardly westwards, bumping off Suffolk and surviving a collision in Biscay; he made a landfall at Rabat in North Africa before getting to the Canary Islands. There his surviving brother Heinz joined him for the transatlantic leg to Barbados before Wolfgang continued solo to Miami. There he decided that a trimaran would be a better bet and built a 24ft (7.3m) one before setting off back to Germany.

Sadly his return trip ended in disaster; having been towed into New Jersey, on restarting he capsized half way to the Azores and was picked up by a freighter.

While in the USA the young German had befriended Jim Brown and his voyages and vessels made a lasting impression, such that Brown went on to work with Arthur Piver and became a designer and builder of trimarans in his own right; most notably with the Searunner series. Piver did a huge amount to popularise multihulls, starting in the mid-1950s on the USA’s west

MULTIHULL PIONEERS

Eric de Bisschop In October 1936, after a year spent building her on a beach in Honolulu, Eric de Bisschop launched his 38ft junk-rigged ‘Polynesian double canoe’ Kaimiloa, and sailed her back to France via the Cape of Good Hope. It was a remarkable journey of 19,000 miles and de Bisschop was greeted as a hero on arrival at Cannes, as seen above.

James Wharram On an inexpensive budget, Mancunian James Wharram built a 23ft 6in flat bottomed ‘double canoe’ that he called Tangaroa (above). With his crew of two Germans, Ruth and Jutta, he set off on a transatlantic crossing in 1956. Arriving in Trinidad and now convinced of the seagoing ability of the type, the three built a larger 40ft boat with V-section hulls, called it Rongo (right), and sailed back to the UK. CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

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MULTIHULL PIONEERS

Piver design

The current scene

The 30ft Nimble

This summer the America’s Cup will be raced in foiling

by Arthur Piver in which

multihulls, a concept that was being discussed by the

he crossed the Atlantic west

Amateur Yacht Research Society in the mid-1950s. The

to east in 1961.

late, great multihull designer Dick Newick used to say

Arthur

to clients: “Fast, cheap, comfortable; choose any two.”

It’s an adage that applies to any vehicle, but especially to multihulls; and taken to extremes, you really only get one of the three; in the case of the new America’s Cup classes, for example, you get speed – they certainly aren’t cheap or comfortable.

There are a few brave souls venturing into the foiling market but it’s not an easy environment.

There is always a market for fun beach boats, and Weta and Hobie offer popular models in a range of Bill O’Brien

sizes; meanwhile there is the evergreen Tornado and

Designed

Dart, via the Catapult, Hurricane, Sprint15, F16 and

Jumpahead (left)

F18 to the extreme A-class.

for the 1956 London Boat Show.

Most large multihull sales are of cruising cats, with the emphasis on comfort and accommodation (12 berths in a 41ft/12.5m hull!), heavily influenced by the charter market. The big players are the likes of

coast. His early simple plywood designs appealed to home builders. He communicated with Tchetchet and others via the Amateur Yacht Research Society, early technical supporters of the modern multihull movement and by 1957 Piver had developed a functional little trimaran, Frolic. In 1961 he crossed the Atlantic west to east in one of his own designs, Nimble, of which hundreds were subsequently built; and his book did for three hulls what Wharram’s did for two. By the early 1960s his designs were in production by Cox in the UK, and with his crew Rich Gerling and his 35ft (10.7m) Lodestar design he crossed both the Pacific and the Atlantic again. It was a modified Lodestar that Derek Kelsall raced in the 1964 OSTAR; five days out and lying second, a collision forced him back to Plymouth for repairs; but he still managed fourth place overall. When Eric Hiscock advocated a Piver design in his influential Voyaging Under Sail Piver’s career looked set, but he was lost at sea in 1968 in a borrowed trimaran (his own design) trying to qualify for the upcoming OSTAR. Three hundred years after Sir William Petty had astonished spectators with the speed of his Simon & Jude, multihulls had finally become more than experimental. With the combination of suitable materials, hard-won experience and co-operation (thanks in no small part to the Amateur Yacht Research Society), in the 1960s they started to make real progress into the mainstream.

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Fontaine-Pajot, Lagoon, Leopard, Nautitech and Catana. These are a far cry from the seaworthy simplicity advocated by Wharram, who continues to design for self-builders on mostly modest budgets.

Other well-known designers in the segment were early adopters. Ian Farrier, whose folding designs obviate many of the objections related to berthing of multihulls, set out on his career in 1970. Nigel Irens has long been one of Britain’s champions of yacht design, and was introduced to multihulls as his father had two Bill O’Brien catamarans in the 1960s. Nigel went on to produce successful race trimarans such as Apricot, IDEC, B&Q Castorama and, more recently, custom fast-cruising multihulls.

This feature was written by Classic Boat’s technical editor Theo Rye before his death in November 2016

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BRIAN POPE

METRE MAN He has an 8-Metre coachroof as a bookcase in his living room. We meet the man behind many Metre boat restorations STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS NIGEL SHARP

B

In 2002 Brian was invited to take part in an event which rian Pope has a lifetime connection to Penpol – a would take him in a new direction. “It was the British 6-Metre small village on the banks of Restronguet Creek near Championships in Fowey,” he said, “and I was asked to helm Falmouth – and, in particular, to Penpol Boatyard. the 1937 Erica in the Classic division which is for boats built He was born a couple of doors away from the house before 1965.

We took her out for a sail just before the event and in which he now lives, and he first worked at the yard when he pretty much everything broke or wasn’t in the right place, so we was just 13. “My father was a shipwright and engineer so I was went up very early the following morning and sorted it out as dragged up in boats from a very, very early age,” he told me, best we could.

We then came second in the British Nationals.” “and when I first worked at the yard I would repair racing Erica’s owner then asked Brian to restore her and soon after dinghies and take people out sailing in them.” that Brian bought his own Six, the 1946 Caprice in which he He then “set off on a career path”: he was in the merchant had more racing success.

“We started to fairly seriously navy, he worked for the BBC, the Royal Geological Society and dominate Metre yacht racing in the UK Burma Oil, and he then started his own and France,” he said, “and then my sailing business in Gloucester, providing garages partner Andy Postle and I bought Titia with a pre-priced menu service. But the back from the States.

She had represented lure of boats was always strong and in the Great Britain at the 1952 Olympic Games early 1980s he bought the Robert but hadn’t been used for about 25 years.

Clark-designed 72ft Whitbread from the We totally restored her and now we are Ocean Youth Club. “We refitted her for number two in the world with her.” corporate charter and also used her as a Sailing Metre boats clearly gives Brian senior management training vessel for an enormous amount of pleasure but it human interaction, team building and also provided a new dimension for his motivation.” In 1993, after ten years and business, and soon after the Fowey about 350,000 miles on Whitbread, championships he set up a separate another lure became too strong: that of company: International Metre Yacht Penpol Boatyard.

Management.

“The Metre yacht side of “It had been closed for seven years and the business really took off,” he said, was derelict,” said Brian. “It was in “and I would think by now we have receivership and owned by two different restored 25 per cent of the European banks. Initially when I took it over there 6-Metre fleet and a few Eights as well. was some confusion about the rental “My father was There aren’t many Metre boats in the agreement and it turned out I was a shipwright and word that we don’t know about.” effectively squatting there! It was very In 2015 – “after 23 successful years” – embarrassing but eventually a proper engineer, so I Brian decided to sell Penpol Boatyard. “I’m agreement was sorted out and a couple of was dragged up 64 now and I love sailing my 6-Metre but I years later I bought it.” wasn’t sailing her enough,” he explained, Brian then set to work to develop the in boats from “and last year one of my very close friends, yard and run it as a lay-up and repair a very one of my 6-Metre crew, died suddenly. facility for local boats. But he soon began That stamped my decision really.” He soon to specialise in rescuing classic yachts early age” found a buyer – Ashley Butler who also from all over the world, some of which he has a yard in Dartmouth and whose plans and his team of shipwrights in Penpol to buy into another Cornish yard hadn’t restored while others he sold on for worked out – and by December the deal was done. restoration elsewhere. “I decided that plastic boats were kind of However, Brian will continue to run International Metre boring and wooden boats were far more interesting,” he said.

Yacht Management. “We are redeveloping a plan to provide a “We travelled the globe and brought boats back from all over total service to purchasers,” he said. “Sourcing boats, Europe and both coasts of the States, some of them quite reporting on them, purchasing them, transporting them and famous.” These included two boats from Mystic Seaport – the then whatever is required, whether it’s restoration, race S&S yawl Tomahawk and the Nat Herreshoff Bar Harbour preparation or project management.”

Scud – and a Max Oertz 1906 10-Metre which he sold on to Brian’s house is liberally adorned with trophies and pictures another local boatbuilder who already had a sister ship and was of boats – including an aerial photo of Titia which he used to keen to restore both boats. explain to me the attention to detail that is necessary to make a Brian also brought the Laurent Giles yawl Lutine – built in Classic 6-Metre competitive – but the item I found most 1952 and Lloyd’s Yacht Club’s first yacht – back from interesting was in his living room. It is the original coachroof Chichester Harbour but his plans for her didn’t quite work out. from the 1936 8-Metre Helen standing upright on what used to “We offered her to the Falmouth Marine School as an be its aft end and serving as a bookshelf. When Helen was apprenticeship project,” he explained. “We were going to restored at Penpol Boatyard it was removed to make way for a finance the materials and they were going to fund all the new coachroof which Brian thinks closely resembles what Alfred apprentices, but they couldn’t get an instructor to oversee them Mylne designed before her first owner asked for more headroom. which was a great shame.” Brian then sold Lutine and she was “I couldn’t throw this away, could I?” he said. restored at Gweek on the Helford River.

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49

ROUND THE CARIBBEAN Racing the RORC Caribbean 600 on the three-masted schooner Adix WORDS AND PHOTOS LEO GOOLDEN

I

t is the middle of the night, but the full moon casts shadows on the deck, and highlights whitecaps to port and to starboard. We are heeled at an obscene angle, and above my head a ridiculous expanse of sail stretches into the sky.

Over three masts we are flying nine sails – three lowers, three topsails and three headsails. The three varnished booms (four, including the staysail boom) are almost parallel, although the sheeting angle gets slightly tighter as you look aft from the foremast to the mizzen mast. They are all under massive load and the long mizzen boom is bowed towards the deck to a worrying degree. Up aloft, the three gaffs stand in salute, holding the peaks of the lowers up and the clews of the topsails out. Each enormous piece of canvas is perfectly trimmed to the wind, which is humming fiercely through the dozens of lines and stays that make up the complex rigging. The 400-tonne three-masted topsail schooner

Adix is charging up the coast of Saint Martin on a close reach at 14 knots with a bone in her teeth. Spray and foam erupt from under the bow every few seconds, and the hawse pipe resembles a bad-tempered geyser. Even so, the size and weight of this vessel give an apparent stability that leaves the small-boat sailor dumbfounded, so that even when bashing into weather, there seems to be some sense of peaceful purpose to her trajectory.

We are making our way around the course of the Royal Ocean Racing Club Caribbean 600, we are tired and wet and aching to the bone, and yet the whole crew is thrilled and exhilarated to be racing Adix hard. On our leeward side a bermudan sloop can just be made out, and though it is 70ft or more, it looks tiny as it disappears into our wake. We are the only gaff-rigged yacht in this race, and we are by far the largest vessel on the course.

ELWJ PHOTOGRAPHY

Main picture: Adix crew enjoy the high life in the RORC 600. Above, left and right: deck furniture includes modern winches, aluminium deadeyes and wooden blocks. Above centre: Leo Goolden

RORC 600

ELWJ PHOTOGRAPHY

RORC has been organizing ocean races since 1925, when it invented the now legendary Fastnet Race. The first Caribbean 600 was held in 2009, and over the last eight years the racing fleet – and media attention – have been steadily growing. This time there were some 70 yachts, the vast majority of which were carbon-fibre, canting keel, racing machines. Black bermudan sails filled the start line, crews filled the windward rails, and rockstar bowmen posed for the helicopters.

Originally completed in Spain in 1984, Adix was going to be named Argentina until the Falklands war broke out, when her launch name became Jessica. She has been through several refits and major changes over the course of her adventurous life, including a short stint as XXXX (after one owner’s brand of beer), before her current owner renamed her Adix in 1990. Since then she has circumnavigated and been cruised extensively – from the antarctic to Alaska, from Tahiti to Trinidad, and of course around the southern capes.

MODERN TRICKS Although Adix is a traditional-looking three-masted gaff schooner, she has a few modern tricks up her sleeves too.

A refit at Pendennis Shipyard included the installation of a carbon-fibre rig. The new masts are each 4m (13ft 1in) taller than before, bringing her working sail area up by 10 per cent to 1,400m2 (15,069sq ft), and reducing the rig weight by 6.5 tonnes. On deck, modern materials have been integrated into traditional sailing in a remarkable way – for instance, the traditional deadeyes that take the lanyards at the bottom of some of the shrouds are milled from high grade aluminium; and the high-load halyards, which are spliced from three-strand into braided Dyneema core, run through beautiful wooden blocks as well as through modern alloy ones.

The way the boat is run also echoes this traditional and yet progressive ethos. She is sailed whenever possible, usually on and off the anchor, and although there are a few electric winches on the deck, they are used only for hoisting and sheeting the largest of the sails. The captain, Paul Goss, is a classic boat legend in his own right, and was the driving force behind the restoration of Altair in 1987. There are stories on board about sailing backwards out of narrow anchorages, and of doing an entire guest trip with a broken-down engine.

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

Above left to right: all smiles on board; Adix enjoys trade wind momentum; captain Paul Goss

I had flown out to join Adix in Antigua in January, to work with them as bosun. As soon as I joined, I was blown away by the scale and complexity of the rig, of course, but also by the expertise and equipment on board, which makes Adix almost self-sufficient. As well as the standard watermakers, washing machines, freezers, and so on, there is a workshop in the forepeak, and acres of sail storage in the lazarette. Three tenders can be launched from deck, one of which is a lovely sailing dingy with a gunter rig. A crew of 12 runs the boat, but for this regatta an extra eight race crew were brought in – including sailmakers and riggers. Before the race, we checked and adjusted each part of the rig, servicing winches and gear. The test days went well, and we were allocated race positions.

TOWARDS THE START The weather was fine as we left the harbour on race day, with a beautiful 14kt trade wind blowing from the southeast. Our crew worked the halyards and Adix unfurled her wings, one by one. Finally, with all topsails set, we bore away and watched the expanse of cloth fill.

The boat heeled, and with great momentum gathered speed. As we tacked towards the start line, we watched the other classes start. We were almost alone for our start.

The cannon was fired, and we slipped through the line on a close reach, glad of the southerly component of the wind that would allow us to get around the corner of Antigua without having to beat.

As we approached the first mark east of Green Island, we hoisted our asymmetric spinnaker ready for a bear-away set. We passed within a couple of metres of the orange buoy, the helm went down, and the release line was given a sharp tug. The zip split, the sock peeled away, and 856m2 (9,214sq ft) of sail billowed out before us. The peaceful quiet of a downwind leg was interrupted only by the shouts of the bowman, giving instruction to the helm regarding what course to take to avoid the many smaller boats that we were now passing.

We stowed the kite on the next leg, having gybed around the mark near Barbuda. Dropping it involves most of the crew lining up on the bow, pulling the acres of cloth down and inboard as the halyard is slipped. As you stand there trying to avoid all the flailing arms, it is easy to become enveloped by the canvas as you pull it

RORC 600

down around you, and you can find yourself trapped in a world of white thrashing shapes and distant voices, until you climb out on top of the mountain of sail.

For the next leg we kept up the fisherman and hoisted our big reaching outer jib and reaching staysail. These downwind and reaching legs were good for us, and we steadily climbed the leaderboards as we gybed again around Nevis and continued behind St Kitts and St Eustatius, in darkness now. In fact, as we rounded Saba we were leading every class, but now sailing upwind, we knew we would not be able to compete with the performance of the modern raceboats.

BEATING TO ST BARTHS We dropped our reaching sails just before the downwind mark, and hoisted smaller, flatter sails in their place. As we came up and started beating towards St Barths, Adix powered up, heeled over, and decided that we all deserved to get wet – the foredeck crew, at least.

Now the feel of our race changed slightly. Every time Adix tacked, we dropped the topsails on the fore and the main mast, and hoisted them on the other side of the lowers, to avoid fouling the triatic stays between the masts. They are not small sails, and are hoisted by hand without winches, so this meant plenty of work for everyone, and not a lot of sleep. The two deck watches started to get competitive, seeing who could make the most miles in their four-hour watch. Lee cloths were tied up, but not before a couple of people fell out of their bunks. The forepeak, which was housing eight men in four bunks, started to get really quite smelly.

Eventually the sun returned, but for the next long leg down to Guadeloupe we were still hard-pressed, with the wind well in the south. It wasn’t until we passed through the lee of Montserrat that the breeze backed a little. We gently slipped through the wind shadow in the lee of the island before beating east again. As we approached Antigua once more, with another 200 miles to sail, we passed the ludicrously fast trimaran, Concise 10, sailing south. It was a little disheartening to learn they had already finished and were sailing for Barbados at 25kt!

We passed close to Antigua, and sailed over reefs with only two metres of water under our keel, under spinnaker. Night fell, and we rounded the Barbuda buoy for a second time, using torchlight to judge the distance.

54

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

Above left and right: wrestling with the lines on two of the 26 winches; group photo with Caribbean backdrop

The next mark was the island of Radonda, but the wind increased considerably as we approached it. We emerged back into the Atlantic wind and swell. On the bowsprit, we had to hold on tight as we were dunked underwater and then flung up high into the air as 270 tons of steel schooner crashed anew into the oncoming seas.

Helming Adix was challenging at first; having spent most of my sailing time on small, responsive boats, I began by impatiently oversteering and overcorrecting, which resulted in a bad course and extra rudder drag.

After a little time driving, I became familiar with the amount of time such a boat takes to respond, and eventually found that it is possible to steer a steady course with just the occasional half-a-spoke turn of the wheel. We steered by apparent wind angle when beating, and were expected to keep within only one or two degrees of error, so ceaseless concentration was required.

After days of taking my turn at the wheel my feet ached.

THE FINISHING LINE Finally, as the sun rose for the third time during our race, we approached the finishing line, just south of English Harbour, hard on the wind and enjoying the magnificent sunlight illuminating the rugged Antiguan coastline. We turned into Falmouth harbour. Adix’s owner, who was on board for the race, thanked us, and was thanked wholeheartedly in return. On handicap, we finished 11th out of 70 overall, having clawed back a few places in the second half of the race. We came second of 10 in our IRC class, and won the SoT class by default.

The RORC 600 course seems particularly challenging for the larger, faster boats, because the marks are close with little time for rest. On Adix there is a huge amount of sail handling – bundling and carrying them around the deck, packing or flaking for the next set – as well as hoisting and sheet trimming. We had 26 winches on deck, but that was not enough to take all our sheets, gaff and boom vangs, downhauls, and so on. By the end our crew was exhausted, but with that kind of euphoric fatigue that comes with a race well sailed, with a body well exerted and well fed, with the promise of a cold beer as soon as the sails are flaked and the sun has moved to an acceptable position in the sky. It was a wonderful race. I know we would all be back to do it again next year if possible, and who knows – perhaps we shall be?

P

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Above, left to right: inlaid wood features on the hatch; Freek, the writer and Jan on board Bluebird; winch and deck light; at the Dutch Classic Yacht Regatta; nav light

18 year

RESTORATION

Two brothers found a 1910 Camper & Nicholson 7-Metre yacht in 1987 and set about restoring her. It took longer than expected WORDS RON VALENT

BLUEBIRD

A

remarkable convoy crosses the Nieuwe Meer, a lake on the outskirts of Amsterdam. It is the small tug Kenau owned by a sea scout group from Haarlem with the deckless wreck of an old wooden yacht tied alongside. Water spouts from several hoses projecting from the 30-odd-foot yacht. On the port side a section of its hull stretching to below the waterline is actually missing and is replaced by a taut tarpaulin to which some planks have been precariously attached.

Two young men working with pumps and buckets are desperately trying to stem the flow of water from small waves that wash effortlessly over the top of the makeshift plug. Undoubtedly there is a story to tell here.

This incident took place on Saturday, 29 August 1987. The two young men were 23-year-old Freek and Jan Kraak, 25, from Haarlem, the Netherlands. The two brothers had been sailing and working on the fleet of the St Joseph scouting group for years and frequently also sailed on yachts owned by their friends. Shortly before this adventurous journey they had decided it was time to buy their own boat. After some searching they saw an advert offering a yacht in Amsterdam that fitted their taste and budget. After a couple of visits the deal was struck and on 1 August that year, and for 5,500 Dutch guilders (about £1,500) they became the proud owners of a beautiful International 7-Metre from 1910.

The word beautiful referred more to the ship’s lines than her condition as the former owner had been stranded halfway between what was supposed to have been a restoration and the demolition phase where the cabin top, deck, almost all her deckbeams, her interior and engine had been removed. The pictures they got with the sale were, however, of a beautiful yacht under sail and with these images in their minds they made the first of many schedules. A couple of months’ hard winter work, launch her in May and participate in the first races of the Dutch Classic Yacht Association in June! That was the plan but in the end 18 winters were to pass before the by-now-middle-aged men finally set sail with their Bluebird. Eighteen long years in which the passion, patience and attention to detail of Jan and Freek ensured that Bluebird became a unique and extraordinary yacht.

SUNK AND RAISED Following the purchase, the brothers prepared for the trip to their Haarlem home. On Saturday, 8 August she was launched and towed to a berth where, said the shipyard boss, it was so shallow she could sit on her keel while she took up. But on arrival the next morning all they saw of their new yacht were the mooring lines rising from the water! Three weeks later and after countless adventures and disasters they managed to raise Bluebird which was solidly stuck in the mud. In one of these attempts a crane tore off a whole section of the port side of the hull. It was already an epic in the making.

Schedule No 2 called for three years of work and launching by mid-1990. At the time Freek worked with naval architect Jaap Kramer and during the winter of 1987/88 he drew the lines plan and detailed drawings with meticulously-worked-out construction details to be implemented over years. From day 1, despite the inexperience of Jan and Freek with a project of this size, 58

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

their approach was professional and precise. The only things really missing were proper facilities and the resources that would normally be associated with a project of this size. Their workshop was a muddy patch of grass in the corner of a boatyard on the banks of the Spaarne River with an inexpensive plastic tent built over the boat and old pallets as floor against the mud, which sometimes froze solid. An old drum stoked with logs or discarded parts of the boat was the heating system. Over the years, as successive tents were blown to pieces in winter storms the material improved until towards the end heavy, former tarps from train carriages were used.

After work, tools were locked in a large steel box pushed through a hole into the hull.

WORK BEGINS

Facing page: over the years since 1987, the painstaking work of Jan and Freek Kraak has borne fruit. First Bluebird’s floppy and damaged hull was coaxed, often by eye, into shape. New oak frames were steamed and fastened with copper rivets.

Iroko was the replacement for whole planks, and then the varnishing began!

The first thing done was to ensure that the floppy, broken hull was coached back into what they believed to be the right shape. Years later when they got to compare her with other surviving 7-Metres from the same period they found that their gut-feeling system of push-it-up-abit there and jack-the-hull-outwards-a-bit there had restored Bluebird back to within fractions of her original shape. Heavy plywood supports on the outside of the hull and temporarily attached cross beams inside ensured that she was fixed in the required shape. A first batch of oak was of such poor quality that it began to rot before it was even sawn and fitted and was used as stove fuel. A second batch of far more expensive iroko and oak was of better quality and the project got going in earnest.

The oak was for new frames that would be steamed and fastened in the traditional manner with thousands of copper rivets. Although initially meant only for extra frames where bulkheads would later be attached and in the area around the mast, in the end practically every frame in the yacht was replaced. The hull was originally mahogany but as this was too expensive they decided on iroko where planks were replaced. The transom was completely rotten and made new while the original horn timber was deemed acceptable but reinforced by glueing and bolting a 5cm-thick iroko plank on top of it.

Bluebird has had a bermudan rig for most of her life and so Jan and Freek decided to stay with that and not the striking – but more complex and expensive – gaff rig from 1910. Expecting a lot more backstay tension than the original structure was calculated for, they decided on the extra strength in the stern area.

The winter of 1988/89 passed with the steaming of new frames and scarphing on an extension of the beamshelf to fix the part of the hull that was broken off.

The steam box was an eight-metre-long section of a city heating pipe that they got from a friend. The warmth of the gas burner kept them warm and working during their second winter ashore.

Jan and Freek learned the profession and the tricks of a ship restorer as they went along. During the day and evenings they worked on the boat while at night they read books to work out if what they had done a few hours earlier was correct. For instance after the red-hot, steamed frames in the stern where the bend was rather extreme kept on breaking, they cut them in half for most of their length to reduce the mass of the wood that had to bend. A week later they would remove the clamps and

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

BLUEBIRD

BEKEN OF COWES

SAND, FILL, SLEEP… REPEAT

glue the halves back together. It worked perfectly and saved a lot of oak. Initially riveting was done by hand but when they realised that there were still several thousand to go, they bought a second-hand compressor.

This also made them immensely popular with the neighbours next to the yard as working on the boat was mainly done when the weather was fine with their neighbours just on the other side of the fence in their gardens. For this reason, the frames were only partially riveted, then finished at a later stage in the shed.

In March 1990 they started with the systematic replacing of the planking. At first they thought that a large portion of the hull could be saved, but when they kept on pulling new rivets straight through the old mahogany planking they realised they would have to do a lot more. Ultimately about 70 per cent of the hull was replaced and a plan, number 3, was drawn up.

By August 1991, the broken section of the hull was replaced but work slowed as Freek was busy with his studies. Jan continued to work on making a complete new stem from a massive piece of oak, finally mounted in June 1993. A year later, the deck beams were in place, and the main bulkhead. Bluebird was starting to look like a yacht once more, Jan and Freek felt the hull was now strong enough to be moved and the keel bolts were sawn through and the hull lifted off the lead keel. Using an ingenious system of beams, steel drums and a forklift the hull was turned over and pushed into the nearby shed of the boatyard. So finally, in October 1994, they could work in the relative luxury of a shed.

Above: Jan and Freek were inspired by photographs of the boat at launch, but decided against returning her to gaff-rigged days

At an early stage the brothers had decided Bluebird’s hull would be epoxy sheathed. Despite the substantial restoration they found themselves doing, they stuck by this decision. Given the quality of their work one can now safely say that the epoxy was constructively unnecessary.

Without it Bluebird would be as strong, if not stronger, than the day she slipped down the ways at the famous Camper & Nicholson shipyard in Southampton all those years ago.

In the summer of 1996 all seams were routed open so they could be filled with epoxy and pine slats. But first Jan and Freek considered giving the boat a little more sheer by jacking her up in the middle. Arguably this would have made her prettier, but a real Metre-class yacht has little or no sheer and therefore, faithful to the original design, they decided to fix Bluebird forever in this shape.

There followed a time of endless sanding and filling in order to get the hull perfectly smooth, after which the first layer of epoxy could be applied. Freek wrote: “18 July, 1996. Belt sander No 2 is bought, as well as a lot of sanding belts; new engine for the old belt sander also bought.” By alternating blue and white epoxy filler they could clearly see where, after sanding again, additional epoxy had to be applied. On 18 December 1996 an action list and a new schedule was drawn up. In plan number 4 you can read: “For 1996 and 1997, work inside the shed; winter 97-98 move outside again for finishing and launch in spring 1998.” Healthy optimism!

SHARING THE LOAD Freek studied architectural design at an art school and from 1985 worked for seven years as assistant to Jaap Kramer but in reality as a draftsman making line drawings and interiors. He made dozens of detailed drawings of every component that was to be restored or created new. In particular, the drawings of the deck and mast fittings that Freek designed, then ordered in Taiwan, are a visual feast.

Jan is an IT professional but maybe missed his calling as a boatbuilder as looking at his work you would be forgiven for thinking that an accomplished shipwright had been engaged there. In the early years Jan was mainly responsible for the construction work while Freek, busy with work and his studies, would help when an extra hand was needed. Later, when Jan was occupied with his business career and a family with four children, Freek took on more and more of the physical work such as the finishing of the cabin, cockpit and deck.

In October 1997 Bluebird was rolled out of the shed and turned over again. Back in the shed she was reunited with her lead keel and the cockpit and cabin began to take shape. Jan and Freek had become masters in the preparation of various components at home in their living room or even the bedroom and in the case of the mast, the long hallway in the former hospital where Freek lived. Freek always made detailed drawings first, sometimes followed by a scale model and then a plywood 1:1 mock up! So the interior and cockpit evolved and changed over years. In the same fashion CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

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BLUEBIRD

Above: much of the interior, including bunks, cupboards, hatches, even the cabin sole, was made by the brothers at home and fitted later

cupboards, bunks, cabin sole, hatches, doors and anything else made at home would get at least seven coats of varnish before ending up on board.

In the spring of 2000 the coach roof with its sliding hatch was finished, bunks being installed in the forepeak and – practice makes perfect – a detailed schedule number 5 is made, giving a launch date of June 2002.

During a trip to Stockholm in the winter of 2001 I visited a boatyard where I chanced upon a motley collection of old masts languishing under a thick layer of snow. Behind two massive poles that had once belonged to two 10-Metre-class yachts I noticed a long, slim one that was grey and worn on the topside but when I turned it over it was beautifully varnished Sitka spruce! It had been hanging there for 20 years and once belonged to a 6-Metre. I remembered how Freek had said that they couldn’t afford a new mast and that finishing the boat would have to wait till they found funds for that.

I thought that a 3rd Rule 6-Metre mast would be big enough for a 1st Rule 7-Metre and called Freek. I offered to bring it back in a truck with a boat I had bought to restore. Freek was thrilled, the price was right and with an inch to spare when hung obliquely next to my boat, in an empty flower truck returning to the Netherlands, it was a smooth and affordable delivery to Haarlem. After sanding, scarphing on an extension at both ends to replace a dodgy bit and also to extend it to exactly the maximum length the Class Rules for 7-Metres allow and dozens of layers of varnish, the mast was as new.

To understand why Jan and Freek spent another five years finishing Bluebird, take a closer look at the boat itself. For instance: each screw is capped with a plug that was cut from the same piece of wood and therefore fits perfectly in colour and grain. The deck prisms are not simply screwed onto the deck but are bordered by an intricately cut, varnished mahogany inlay which sets them off beautifully against the laid teak deck. A small antique-looking cabinet with tiny doors fitted with facet cut glass was tailor-made by Freek. Inside, the dials and instruments off the electrical switchboard are mounted on a hand-cut bronze plate. Freek spent weeks just drawing and making this little jewel. Perfectly fitting moulds were first made of the diesel and water tanks 62

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

BLUEBIRD BUILT

1910 DESIGNER

Charles E Nicholson LOA

34ft 5in (10.5m) LWL

24ft 11in (7.6m) BEAM

7ft 2in (2.2m) DRAUGHT

5ft 3in (1.6m)

SAIL AREA

581sq ft (54m2)

after which they were recreated in wood epoxy. Five sheets of drawings show the details of the engine mounting. A wooden mock-up was made which was then taken to a blacksmith and copied in steel. Freek made a model of the deck in autoCAD which shows the length, width and curvature of every single piece of teak fitted.

On Sunday, 19 June 2005 Bluebird was finally ready to be launched. On a sunny day, watched by friends and family, she emerged slowly from between the green doors of the shed and moved down the ways into the Spaarne River. Her striking blue hull and perfect varnish shone in the bright sunlight. “A goosebump moment I will never forget,” both brothers now recall. Jan was relaxed. Freek was quite nervous as he had done all the calculations and where the brightly painted waterline ended up, inches below or way above it, was his responsibility. To his relief she floated slightly above her lines and once mast and sailing gear were on board, she settled perfectly.

After spending the summer of 2005 as a motorboat as the mast wasn’t completely finished, in May 2006 Bluebird was finally rigged and the sails arrived. Late in the afternoon on 3 June, Jan and Freek set sail for the first time on a lake near Haarlem. “There was only a 6 or 7 knot breeze but she moved so effortlessly through the water, we just couldn’t stop grinning,” Jan still remembers clearly. A week later they were in Volendam where the VKSJ, the Dutch Classic Yacht Association, was to celebrate its 25th anniversary and where Bluebird was entered in a race for the first time in many years.

I was on board as guest helmsman and itching to test her potential but Jan and Freek, understandably after 18 years of work, had difficulty mixing in the heat of the battle and started quite conservatively, minutes behind the rest. They even kept their ensign up to indicate that they were not actually racing. Most yachts in the fleet immediately hoisted a spinnaker but despite this Bluebird kept up and slowly sailed forward through the field. In the end we came in fourth with Caribee, a famous ocean racer designed by Philip Rhodes, the 5.5-Metre Ballerina sailed by a former world champion in that class and the Tumlaren Svala just ahead of us.

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63

PRESERVING PIONEER The ‘people’s schooner’ of New York is still earning her keep, 132 years on WORDS CHEYENNA LAYNE WEBER

W

hen the little sloop Pioneer slid down the ways in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania in the early spring of 1885, she joined a national fleet of work boats essential to America’s booming industrialisation.

Their wakes washed the shores of the Delaware River, where the sloop had been built at the behest of the Pioneer Iron Foundry for hauling sand out of the Delaware Bay. The crucial difference between Pioneer and those other schooners, barges, and tugs was that while they were made of wood – a death sentence for most work vessels of that age – Pioneer was forged of iron.

Her builders gave her a shallow draught, a mostly flat bottom and a wide beam. The men would beach her to fill the hold with sand at low water and float back out with the flood, concentrating on beaches and shoals in the Delaware. When not working she took “pleasuring parties” (the term used by the Star of the Cape newspaper of Cape May, New Jersey) out all summer. It’s likely she maintained the rig of a Hudson River sloop – a gaff-rigged mainsail and substantial overhanging boom and bowsprit. She probably had topsails, too, all with a relatively small centreboard. Her generous sail area would have made her a powerful sailor.

Her unique shape – especially beamy to handle all that cargo – made Pioneer easy to track in photographs over the years. Just two years younger than the Brooklyn Bridge, her fortunes were tied to the needs of industry and her documents read like a manifesto of American maritime commerce: iron, plaster, stone, coal, lumber, diesel, lube oil, salvage, dockbuilding, submarine cable repair, workforce development, and environmental education. Now, 130 years after launching, she still spends her days on a fair number of “pleasuring parties” in New York’s upper bay but don’t let that fool you – the boat has never ceased working for her keep.

Just 10 years after launch she was sold to a Delaware River plaster company to continue hauling sand, only this time under a schooner rig with a centreboard 5ft (1.5m) shorter than it is today.

George Matteson, master of Pioneer from 1971-1974, estimates this would have greatly diminished the boat’s power: “Lines taken from the hull prior to her 1966 restoration show that she originally carried a centreboard much smaller than present. The forward wall of the centreboard trunk was 2ft 9in (84cm) aft of its present location which would have allowed the step of her original single mast to be properly placed immediately forward of the trunk.

“The original centreboard was also 5ft (1.5m) shorter in overall length, measuring 15ft (4.6m) as opposed to the present length of 20ft (6.1m). Lowered by its after end, pivoting on a pin situated at its forward bottom corner, the centreboard in profile presents a triangular plane colinear with the keel. Thus Pioneer’s original centreboard would have afforded about 33sq ft (3.1m2) of lateral surface as opposed to the present one which affords 48sq ft (4.5m2),

64

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an increase of 45 per cent. Anyone who has sailed Pioneer in her present incarnation can testify that she makes appreciable leeway, particularly in light air or chop. With a markedly smaller centreboard she must have been a fairly unsatisfactory sailer once her powerful sloop configuration was removed.”

It wasn’t the last of the improvements and redesigns Pioneer would face. In 1900 she got a petrol engine and began hauling for a stone yard and quarry on a Delaware tributary, only to be sold three years later to Chester Coal and Lumber Company. Chester was still within a few miles of her origins, but records show her in Baltimore with a pilothouse and re-rigged as a sloop. We don’t have any information on her time there but the movement of cargo out of the Delaware River to ports like Baltimore was and is common. It’s unlikely she was on a pleasure cruise.

In 1907 she was rerigged again, this time as an unmasted motor barge at the behest of Peter Carrey, a commission merchant in Philadelphia. From 1907-1929 we do not know the exact trades she plied, but her tonnage did not change. It’s likely she hauled produce on the Mantua River near Paulsboro, NJ, and sat in Wilmington, Delaware, for a time before resuming work as a tank barge for Francis MacDonald of Globe Ship Supply Co and Philadelphia Ship Repair Co.

TRADING DAYS In 1929 Francis MacDonald died and Pioneer was towed to New York City, then sold to New Bedford, Mass, the whaling town made famous by Moby Dick and still a major fishing port. Fitted with a diesel engine, Pioneer “lightered diesel fuel, lube oil, grease, and wiping rags to fishing vessels moored at South Boston Fish Pier until 1946,” according to Matteson, when she moved to New Bedford to continue trade. During the boat’s tenure lightering for the fishing fleet, four cargo tanks separated by a centreline bulkhead and a transverse bulkhead were installed, but by 1956 they had grown too porous for oil work. Pioneer was again sold.

Dan Clark operated a marine contracting business in Wood’s Hole, Mass, in an area of Cape Cod also well-known for its fisheries.

He installed a small derrick on the bow, an aft winch and a stove in the forward cabin for the comfort of crew working in the chilling New England climate. With that the boat was ready for salvaging, dockbulding, and submarine cable repair excursions – a far cry from her days of pleasure cruises and sand hauling.

Upon haul-out a few years after purchase, Clark realised the boat was floating on the concrete poured between her floors when she was an oil tanker. Entire stretches of the iron shell plating had been eaten away by years of salt and toil. Clark knew by the boat’s lines she was a sailing vessel and began to dream of her restoration.

New England is the home to a rich shipbuilding heritage with

NELSON CHIN

Pioneer at home in the waters off New York

PIONEER NYC

Pioneer showing her 1967 Gladding Hearn sail plan and her current GA

much traditional knowledge preserved in the tight-knit shore clearance to sail with passengers and began offering environmental communities. It is also home to many of the wealthy founding education to New York City schoolchildren – many of whom had families whose Puritan work ethic accrued wealth kept safe by a never been on a boat. To defray costs the boat offered charters and culture of prudence and restraint. Pioneer needed knowledge and ticketed sails on weeknights and weekends, so while in evenings she wealth: washing up on the shores of Cape Cod under the might carry cargoes of lawyers beguiled by the night-time skyline, stewardship of the well-connected Clark, who soon teamed up in daylight visually-impaired children learned to interpret their with Russell Grinnell Jr, a sailor who had spent his life in the environment beneath the shade of her foresail. An 85hp diesel and marine industry. Grinnell could ensure a proper restoration – and low-profile cabin providing living space in the former cargo holds after giving Clark $1,000 for the hull in 1966 found a tug to tow were the only changes until the 1990s.

Pioneer to the Gladding-Hearn Shipyard in Somerset, Mass.

The challenge since has been keeping the troubled museum Pioneer almost sank en route, but Grinnell drove her as far in afloat, just a few blocks from Wall Street amid prime Manhattan towards the beach as possible and there she settled, decks just out real estate. The crises faced by the museum came with the territory, of water at low tide. “By a hair’s breadth the Pioneer had arrived at but the schooner has survived through the love and labour of an her place of resurrection,” as Matteson put it. She was moved to army of volunteers who participate in the free sail-training safety and over the next two years the boat was rebuilt. programme. Nicknamed ‘the people’s schooner’ by some, Pioneer All deck and shell plating was cut away; frames, deck-beams, offers New Yorkers and visitors a chance to see the city as an and floors were renewed in the few places necessary. Then she was archipelago precariously perched at the edge of the Atlantic. entirely replated in steel, 3/8in (9.5mm) below the waterline and Just how precarious became clear when Superstorm Sandy hit in 2012, devastating the museum. Twelve feet (3.6m) of water knocked ¼in (6.4mm) above. The shape of the bow and stern were altered out the operation’s infrastructure. The boat had been safely docked to a somewhat less boxlike shape. Timber ports were installed in on the Hudson River, but for the first time since the museum the bow to accommodate lengths of piling and steel too great to fit assumed ownership, she stopped sailing. Throughout 2013, below by way of the cargo hatches reinstalled on deck. The volunteers sanded spars, tarred rigging, and practised their quarterdeck which before had been raised about 18in (46cm) was marlinspike seamanship ashore until city officials and agencies lowered by half and the centreboard trunk was lengthened by 5ft intervened. Today the museum is going from strength to strength (1.5m). Grinnell himself designed the sail, spar, and rigging plans, and Pioneer plies the harbour six days a week. and worked with the shipyard to design fittings in welded steel Pioneer’s current rig includes a main, fore, staysail, jib, close in appearance to a 19th-century freighting schooner. The goal fisherman and topsail. A few changes have been made since was to build a functional vessel based on traditional usage but Grinnell’s restoration – spreaders were removed and the backstays taking advantage of more modern materials. They added a transferred from standing to running, deck vents were added to the hydraulic winch at each mast for sails and cargo and a threeengine space and the lazarette, a cylinder Lister diesel to power them. watertight bulkhead was added in the At the age of 83 she slipped back into bow, and the boat semi-regularly the water to begin life once again receives new suits of sails and spars. under sail.

In 2012 Pioneer won the Tall Ships When Russell Grinnell Jr was America Sail Training Program of the killed in an accident, the boat found a Year in recognition of the contributions new custodian in the shape of the the schooner has made in developing a South Street Seaport Museum in new generation of traditional sailors.

1970. The boat sailed for the Big Apple and has remained there since.

For the first few years the boat Thanks to the South Street Seaport participated in a workforce Museum for allowing reprinting from development programme for George Matteson’s Seaport recovering drug addicts and in 1974 Magazine article A Centennial Pioneer during her 1960s restoration she received US Coast Guard History of the Pioneer 66

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017 FINAL_Classic_yacht_Haines_ADVERT_2016_1.indd 27

28/10/2016 14:17

67

SAVING THE ALIENS A project is underway to restore the eerie Redsand Towers in the Thames Estuary.

We paid the deserted wartime site a visit WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DICK DURHAM

REDSAND TOWERS

T

Rusting into the North Sea, but a new plan would see the towers refitted to house music studios and a wartime museum, linked by GRP walkways

hey first appeared on the horizon, through the rain, as a bunch of sinister black tulips standing on stalks in the grey-green sea. As we got closer the stalks became long splayed legs supporting what looked like giant black lice with beady eyes, ready to walk towards us.

This grotesque metamorphosis ended with a crunch as the swell rolled the hull of our 62ft (18.9m) pilot boat, X-Pilot, against one of the reinforced concrete legs, and suddenly bug transformed into fortress.

We were alongside one of the seven towers at Redsand, the War of the Worlds-like series of wartime lookouts that dominates the entrance to the Thames Estuary. Pilot boat crewmen Bob Vine and Steve Groves hastily hooked a ladder over a steel grill some 15 feet over our heads.

“Quick, up you go,” said Bob and yachtsman Adam Cutts, from London and his two teenage children Oisin and Erin nipped up the swaying ladder. I followed, clinging to the rungs as the sea crashed over the base of the tower some 25 feet (7.5m) below.

With the wind whistling up through the steel grid slatting our trousers, the melancholy tolling of the North Redsand buoy assaulting our ears, and the wash of the breaking seas waiting beneath our feet, we had the first inkling of the isolation that the servicemen who manned these platforms must have felt, as they faced their four weeks of Second World War duty.

The fort has stood here since 1943 when it was hastily erected to shoot down Luftwaffe aircraft which used the River Thames as a perfect flying guide to bomb the London docks. There was an identical set of forts constructed in the River Mersey, protecting Liverpool, but they have now disappeared.

The more important task for the Redsand Towers and their sister forts – the Nore, now demolished, and the Shivering Sand Fort, now in a state of semi-collapse – was their use as a deterrent against mine-laying. Tower crews watched German planes dropping the deadly, magnetic parachute mines – which claimed 100 ships in CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

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REDSAND TOWERS

the Thames Estuary before the forts were built – and took a note of their position. Shipping was then re-routed until the mines could be dealt with by minesweepers based in nearby Queenborough, on the Isle of Sheppey.

One of these, HM Trawler Sailor King was commanded by yacht designer Maurice Griffiths who was a Lieutenant Commander in the RNVR and who was decorated with the George Medal for ‘gallantry’ in dealing with parachute mines.

The crew of one ship, HMS Gipsy, suffered a strange twist of wartime fate as they rescued the German airmen of the Heinkel 59 bomber, which had been shot down by the fort’s guns. Before being gunned down, the bomber had managed to drop a parachute mine – the same mine that then sunk the Gipsy.

Decades on, the eerie appearance of the fort has lured people from all over the world, many from the USA and even from Japan. Musician Jools Holland and comedian Harry Hill are among those who have recently made the trip aboard X-Pilot to the fort.

X-Pilot skipper, Alan Harmer, who learnt to sail aboard Charlie Stock’s 19ft (5.8m) gaffer Shoal Waters, and has since owned three of his own gaffers, said: “When the rain comes on and the bell buoy tolls it’s a very spooky place, but that’s what people love.”

He has brought the BBC Coast presenter Neil Oliver to the fort and was even on standby for actor Brad Pitt’s director, Marc Forster, who considered, but later dropped, the fort’s location for his dystopian horror film World War Z. Engineer Guy Maunsell’s design certainly fits the bill for a vision of the apocalypse. It’s comprised of seven towers of reinforced steel citadels squatting on four concrete legs which stand on the seabed. Four towers once sported 3.7in HAA, heavy anti-aircraft guns to disrupt concentrations of enemy bombers and one tower was armed with a 40mm Bofors gun to protect the isolated fortress itself from low-flying fighter aircraft. Of the remaining two towers, one was the control tower, the other sported a searchlight.

The result looks like a platoon of giant daleks on legs at sea. For 70 years yachtsmen, freighter captains and 70

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

Above: Lieutenant Commander Maurice Griffiths Top left: minesweeper Sailor King Top right: Oisin and Adam examine a Redsand shell store

fishermen sailing up the rivers Thames, Medway and into the Swale have used these towers as a navigation mark to keep clear of estuary shallows.

Legendary yachting cartoonist Mike Peyton used to sail his charter parties there aboard his 38ft (11.6m) ferro-cement classic ketch Touchstone.

“I remember the last time we went, grabbing the ladder to climb up and chunks of rust coming away in my hand. When we got up on the platform I left footprints of rust behind me and wondered if I’d get back before it collapsed,” Mike told Classic Boat.

Now I was realizing a long-held desire: to actually board the towers, myself.

We scrambled up a vertical steel ladder and through a concrete access hole in the base of the southernmost gun tower and found ourselves looking down on the rocking hull of X-Pilot tethered to a leg of the fort.

Through an open doorway in the side of the citadel a narrow balcony ran around the outside of the turret. Its guardrail had long ago fallen into the sea and its cracked bitumen floor beetled over the waves some 30 feet below.

“I wouldn’t go out there,” said Steve. “We don’t know how badly the steel floor beneath the tar has corroded.”

Instead we retreated into a large steel room which had the original radiators hanging on the wall. Crittal windows held cracked glass, once shatterproofed against the blastwave of the firing guns, but time and tide had taken their toll. “When we first accessed these towers in 2005 they were full of the bones of dead birds,” said Bob. “Scary!” said young Erin.

WALKWAYS CORRODED The seven towers were once connected by walkways which have all now corroded and fallen into the sea.

There are plans to erect new ones made of GRP. When they weren’t firing, the men kept themselves occupied with model-making, embroidery, even knitting, although this did not totally alleviate the desolation of their station: at least one soldier committed suicide by leaping into the sea.

In another room we found loos and wash-basins and in another an ancient coal stove.

These were used by the men of the No 1 Anti-Aircraft Fort Regiment whose HQ was in Gillingham, Kent.

Restoration of the Redsand Towers Pilot boat skipper Alan Harmer is a trustee of Project Redsand (PR), which is hoping to secure a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to restore the complete fort. The PR trustees were granted ‘custodianship’ of the Red Sand Towers by the Crown Estate, which owns the sea bed upon which the towers stand, but to secure a grant HLF requires PR to own the freehold of the towers. The Crown Estate are willing to let PR have the freehold, but this would mean taking on the liability of the site as well. It is this the PR team is now considering. One factor which could help contain such liability would be an exclusion

Between 165 and 265 soldiers lived and manned the guns of this fort. The numbers were increased once the Germans started deploying the V1 flying bombs, or doodlebugs.

Between them the series of forts shot down 22 Luftwaffe planes and 30 flying bombs.

We ascended steel stairs up through the intermediate level, to the top floor and up on to the roof which now sports a large radio aerial but which was once where the anti-aircraft guns were sited.

Around the circular ‘battlements’ are heavy iron doors which cover a honeycombe of tubes where the shells, fired by the anti-aircraft guns, were stored. All are still in place, although the doors proved very stiff to open as Adam and Oisin found out. The battlements are lined with a bitumen and pebble mix which is cracked and falling off, weeds are sprouting up over the citadel’s eaves and doors and windows are scabbed with rust.

Far below us we watched a container ship flit between the towers as she made her way out to sea.

zone to all craft except PR vessels, plus a permanent mooring for X-Pilot, both of which require permission from the Port of London Authority (PLA).

The work will include restoring a hoist in the turret so that workers, visitors and material can be lifted up mechanically rather then heaved up on ropes and ladders. And eventually the anti-aircraft Above left: signs of

guns, at least one of which is in a shore-based

the towers’ last

museum, will be reinstalled on the tower.

inhabitants.

Yacht clubs are welcome to book visits, but

Above: at the time of

meanwhile Alan has been busy hosting a Dutch film

their construction

crew on the towers, also pop group The Prodigy made a video to their song ‘Invaders Must Die’ which included the towers, a skate-boarding contest was held on the tower roof and a premier football club is planning a penalty shoot-out video held on the roof.

To book a visit, visit x-pilot.co.uk

COLD WAR After VE Day in 1945, the towers had a new role as part of a Cold War radar network but it was found to be unviable and they were finally abandoned in 1956. But the Redsand design was adapted for use in the first offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico in the 1940s.

In the 1960s, Radio Caroline, the floating pirate radio station, sparked off copycat stations on the Redsand Towers, which hosted Radio Invicta and the Shivering Sands fort was the home of the flamboyant Screaming Lord Sutch, who based his Radio Sutch on the upper platforms. Since then the forts have slowly disintegrated with window frames buckling, walkways collapsing into the sea, and chunks of concrete falling off.

Their shade has been welcomed by bass-angling boats, but until Alan’s bid to get the towers conserved, they had been just another scrapyard of wartime detritus. After 90 minutes the flood tide had lifted X-Pilot’s deckhouse level with the platform. Steve padlocked and chained the access gates, and all six of us took turns to leap back aboard. We steamed back to Queenborough dropping the towers astern and leaving them to their lonely and blind vigil over the Thames Estuary.

Top: pilot boat skipper Alan Harmer Above: the 1967 vessel X-Pilot

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TOM CUNLIFFE

TOM CUNLIFFE

AN EXPERT’S ADVICE A cruise in company with a friendly local?

It seemed a good idea at the time...

ILLUSTRATION CLAUDIA MYATT

T

here’s something about a working boat that encourages characters out of the proverbial woodwork, no matter where she is. Turning up in northern Norway back in the 1980s, my pilot cutter would soon find her saloon full of ancient mariners who appeared as if from nowhere, scenting the air with Stockholm tar off their smocks and telling stories about running the gauntlet of the Kriegsmarine in 1942 with the resistance. On remote islands off Nova Scotia, fishermen brought their wives and the best of their catch, then yarned the night away with tales of the Grand Banks until the tide rose with the sunrise and the longlines called them back to sea. West Indian watermen befriended us, giving us vegetables and vital weather information not available to those constrained by radio forecasts. “Wait for the next moon. The big wind will back off then and you can sail for England. And, Man, that is long, long water…”

These real people of the ocean were solid gold, but not all the individuals who showed up were quite what they seemed. One such was Jean-Pierre, a Frenchman I met in L’Aber-Wrac’h in North Brittany, the westernmost all-weather, all-tide harbour on that side of the English Channel. The entrance lies through a maze of rocks down two or three well-marked channels. Time was when the only official berths were mooring buoys cluttering up the best anchorage off the settlement. I always preferred to venture up the river for perfect shelter, even if swinging room was tight.

The best place was hard by a sunken Citroen 2CV which revealed its rusty bones at the bottom of a spring tide. I was lying in this perfect spot in pouring rain when I first saw Jean-Pierre pulling towards me from the moorings in a double-banked dory, going like a jetski. As he rounded up, my mate remarked on his outfit. He looked like one of those hoary sailormen favoured by Breton postcards depicting simpler times a hundred years ago. He proudly sported leather thigh boots turned down at the top, an old-fashioned stock was knotted at his throat inside a streaming black oilskin coat, while a proper sou-wester, also black, with the

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front brim flipped up at a jaunty angle framed a bearded face. It turned out that he owned a classic fishing ketch and, like us, was bound up-Channel. I’d already seen his boat, pretty as a picture, so when he proposed a short cruise in company, I agreed. Such a man would surely have access to privileged information not available to the average foreign intruder. Experience was soon to prove this to have been a bad idea, but any decision can only be judged on the basis of the information to hand at the time, so who can blame me?

The plan was to sail up-Channel to Tréguier. This is too long a hop for a single tide so the trip would be broken at Ile de Batz, 30 miles or so eastwards. Anyone staying overnight near Ile de Batz these days will opt for the excellent new marina at Port Bloscon just round the corner. This did not exist in those days. The only reliable deep-water shelter from westerlies lay behind the Roscoff ferry terminal. I assumed Jean-Pierre would head for this.

“Mais non,” he exclaimed, before continuing in surprisingly useful English. “No need. The west wind will die with sunset and we can anchor inside the island, then take the flood in the morning.”

So long as he was right about the wind dropping, this would be a sound enough scheme, but I should have queried it when he told me he planned to leave L’Aber-Wrac’h by way of the Chenal de la Malouine. Especially when I discovered that he wasn’t a native pêcheur at all and that, while certainly keen enough, most of his working life was spent running a business in an inland city. The Malouine gap rips through the bricks, literally a biscuit’s toss off a breaking rock and across an isolated pinnacle with very little over it at low water. This, needless to say, was when he planned to leave. He drew a mere five feet compared with my eight, so I was having none of it. If he pulled it off, the short-cut would save him nearly an hour, but he was welcome. I agreed to meet up again at Ile de Batz and anchor close by.

We showed up in his anchorage shortly before sunset. As I feared, it was wide open to the west and the wind had yet to drop,

but it was only blowing Force 4 and I was intrigued by this colourful man and his salty boat. The rocks and sandy beaches surrounding us were all covered by the high spring tide and the ketch was lying quietly enough in the last of the east-going stream, so I let go a few boats’ lengths off in deep water.

Over came Jean-Pierre in his dory, all kitted up for Cape Horn, waving bottles of wine from his bilge and fresh bread and cheese he’d somehow secured from the island. I wasn’t keen on leaving the boat in this exposed place, so his arrival saved me from any crew pressure to launch the punt and go ashore. I munched my baguette, swilled down my plonk and waited for the wind to drop until Jean-Pierre and his mates clattered away into the early darkness, showing remarkably little concern for the uneasy situation. The channel inside Ile de Batz is a formidable place described in the pilot book I write as a rock-strewn chamber of horrors. Shifting berth or running out to sea after dark was unattractive, so I let out another ten fathoms of half-inch chain and trusted to my 120lb fisherman.

The breeze didn’t drop with the night, it came on. By the small hours it was humming in at a solid force 6, bringing the sea with it.

The ebb was now running well and the wind-against-tide scene was gruesome. The cutter with her deep forefoot and mast well back in the boat lay quietly enough, but when the moon burst through the clouds I could see Jean-Pierre’s ketch behaving like a refugee from the Jive section of Strictly Come Dancing. His mistake was to let go a load more scope. This was rope and the resulting swinging

range was huge. He’d come careering towards me until collision seemed inevitable and my lads were hanging tyres along the topsides, then he’d snub round and disappear into the darkness.

Minutes later, he’d be back out of the gloom, his foredeck illuminated by the moon and my anchor light. Jean-Pierre looked like a heroic lifeboatman in one of those old posters, peering ahead, thigh boots firmly planted, one up on the bulwark, coat and souwester brim flogging in the near-gale, displaying no apparent concern for anybody’s safety, especially not mine. Again and again he barrelled up to us to be wrenched clear at the last minute. Once, he even gave me a grave salute while I was wishing I had something to shoot him with, then away he went into the darkness again.

Shortly before the midsummer dawn, he never returned from his inshore swing. I assumed his mad snatching had finally flipped the pick and that he was now dragging out of my life. And so it seemed until the light came in, grey and sullen, half an hour later. Between me and the island village the ketch lay peacefully on her beam ends. Her anchor hadn’t dragged; she had merely surged ashore at the end of her tether. It was the bottom of the tide, blowing in hard from seawards and Jean-Pierre, still in his thigh boots and hat, was setting up a breakfast table on the sand.

I’ve been seeking a moral in this true story and have actually found two. Number one is never to believe an expert. The second is that when you run aground and all seems lost, don’t admit defeat.

Make it look as though you meant it all along.

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

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2 Southford Road, Dartmouth, South Devon TQ6 9QS Tel/Fax: (01803) 833899 – info@woodenships.co.uk www.woodenships.co.uk

40’ Bermudan ketch designed and built by John Negus in 1997. Large volume cruising ketch built with 1.25” Iroko strip plank. Many upgrades and alterations in present ownership including new 90hp Beta diesel. 6 berths in 2 sleeping cabins and the saloon with 2 heads. Inside and outside helm positions make her suitable for warm and cold climate sailing. An extremely capable yacht, comfortable, very smart and well equipped she is in immaculate condition.

Devon £65,000 Another fascinating selection of traditional and classic yachts only from Wooden Ships. Call for true descriptions, genuine honest values and a service from people who know their boats.

HARRIS

WOODEN BOATS

Cornwall based wooden boatbuilding.

Newbuild, restoration, repair. tel: 01326 341282 mob: 07570 780864 www.harriswoodenboats.co.uk email: ben@harriswoodenboats.co.uk

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

Specialist classic boat brokers: Expertise, advice, storage, charter +44 (0) 1491 578870

www.hscboats.co.uk

Classnotes Buzzards Bay 15

HERRESHOFF 121/2

T

he late 1800s saw a significant change in the design of dinghies and daysailers around the world. Club racing was starting to get prohibitively expensive as rules under which new boats were being produced allowed huge differences in design, and to compete and stay ahead of the fleet meant parting with large sums of money.

One designs, however, allowed more equal racing, and consequently during this time increased numbers of clubs started to invest in them.

By the late 1890s, Beverly YC, at Marion, Massachusetts, had followed suit. Led by Robert W Emmons, it commissioned Nathanael Herreshoff to design a 15ft (4.6m) LWL daysailer for use on Buzzards Bay. It was only Herreshoff’s second one-design class, the first being the Newport 30 of 1896. The design appealed and within a year 11 were launched, with owners drawing lots to decide which boat they’d receive.

Built of cedar planking on steamed oak timbers, the Buzzards Bay 15s, or the E-Class as they were known at Beverly YC, cost $666 from the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, and were beautiful-looking daysailers, with long, fine overhangs, a pretty sheer and large gaff rig. Designed to the ‘length and sail area’ rule, they proved quick and responsive, producing little turbulence and skimming along even in light airs.

They were also shallow draught – a prerequisite of sailing on Buzzards Bay, although a centreboard in the keel increased draught to 5ft (1.5m).

Interest in Herreshoff’s design later led to two developments of the boat. The Newport 15, of which eight were built, saw an increased keel depth of 6in (15cm) to suit the deeper waters off Newport, Rhode Island, while the Watch Hill 15 of 1922, saw the Buzzards Bay 15 tweaked by Nathanael’s son, Sidney, to include a Marconi rig and modified sheer, as well as steam-bent

JANE SOUTHERN/PPL

BY VANESSA BIRD

mahogany coamings that finished closer to the mast. Of these, 11 were launched in 1923.

Four other Buzzards Bay 15s were launched to individual specifications, which included a cruising version with a full keel and a shallowdraught version with a full keel that drew just 3ft 4½in (1m).

Competitively priced, the E-Class, Newport 15s and Watch Hill 15s proved very popular with local yachtsmen, and by 1928, 92 had been built by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company. However, as with many designs of this time, light scantlings and long overhangs did not lead to long-term longevity, and many of the boats did not respond well to being pushed hard on the racecourse. Consequently, many of the Buzzards Bay 15s have been lost over the years, and today the Herreshoff Registry knows of the whereabouts of just 32 of the original fleet. Of these, around 20 are still in commission, with Eaglet, built in 1899, being the oldest.

However, while the wooden boats suffered, during the 1960s the class enjoyed a second flush of interest when Watch Hill YC commissioned a GRP version. Built by Frank Hall Boat Yard at Avondale, Rhode Island, a mould was taken off Firefly (ex-Josephine), the first Watch Hill 15 to be built, and from this 25 GRP boats were built between 1969 and 1994, many of which still sail out of the club.

The class entered its final phase shortly after GRP production ended with the building of a new cedar-onoak Watch Hill 15 by Bullhouse Boatworks in the early 1990s. Since then, ten more have been built, most recently by Artisan Boatworks.

Above: Murmur is one of the latest Buzzards Bay 15s

Robert Emmons of Beverly Yacht Club, who commissioned the Buzzards Bay 15s in 1898, was also instrumental in forming the Herreshoff 12 1/2 class. Keen to introduce younger members of the club to bigger boat sailing, in 1914 he asked Nathanael Herreshoff to design a smaller version of the Buzzards Bay 15. The resulting design proved to be Beverly Yacht Club’s most popular class, and 364 were built and sailed around the world.

to be launched,

LITTLE COLUMBIAS

built in 2008-9 by

The Buzzards Bay 15s were nicknamed ‘Little Columbias’, as at the time of their conception the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co was building a similar design on a much bigger scale. Columbia, built in 1898-99 for J Pierpoint Morgan and Edwin Dennison Morgan, was the America’s Cup defender in 1899 and 1901, and the first boat to win the prestigious trophy twice in a row.

Both Columbia and the Buzzards Bay 15s were built to the ‘length and sail area’ rule of 1887.

Artisan Boatworks in Rockport, Maine

SPECIFICATIONS

LOA 24ft 6in (7.5m) LWL 15ft (4.6m) BEAM 6ft 9in (2.1m) DRAUGHT CB UP 2ft (0.6m) DRAUGHT CB DOWN 5ft (1.5m) DISPLACEMENT 2,200lb (998kg) SAIL AREA 330sq ft (30.7m2) DESIGNER Nathanael Herreshoff Next month YORKSHIRE ONE DESIGN

MUSEUM EXHIBITS Several of the original Buzzards Bay 15s now form part of museums’ collections. Firefly (ex-Josephine), hull #880, was the first Watch Hill 15 built, and is now in the Herreshoff Marine Museum alongside the first Newport 15, Woodwinds (ex-Hope), hull #513. Fiddler (ex-Nora), hull #554, built in 1901, is now in Mystic Seaport Museum.

FAMOUS OWNERS Buzzards Bay 15s have always attracted prestigious sailors, and two current owners include Senator John Kerry and maritime historian Maynard Bray.

artisanboatworks.com Vanessa’s book Classic Classes comprises 140 of the most enduring keelboat and dinghy classes.

Available at £17.99, bloomsbury.com

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

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New Classics CONTESSA 32

The modern all-round classic IT’S RATHER HARD TO JUSTIFY going off to ‘test sail’ a

ON DECK

Contessa 32 nowadays, in the sense that it has already been

One appreciates the cockpit, larger and more comfortable than most

tested at least… well… once or twice. This is the yacht that, alone

cockpits in ‘real’ wooden classics; and with deep coamings it is a very

in Class Five, weathered the infamous 1979 Fastnet that claimed 18

safe place – definitely a boat you sail ‘in’ as they say. The plentiful

lives. The yacht that, under Willy Ker, sailed far into the frozen

Burma teak trim and laid deck are a comfort to the eye (and

poles, long before it became de rigueur to do so, and the yacht

underfoot when it’s not December!). The most noticeable thing here is

that has triumphed year after year in IRC racing. If you’re getting

the large, curved tiller with optional extension for sitting out on the

the sense that the Co32 is an all-rounder, you’d be dead right.

broad coamings. I imagine six might be comfy enough here,

She’ll take you around the cans, around the island, out feathering

particularly when not tacking. The double guardrail has a gate for

for mackerel with the kids for a day, or around the world with

embarkation, and decent side decks for foredeck work – as well as a

equal aplomb; all the while looking distinctive and beautiful, in a

chunky pulpit to hang on to if you have to anchor in the chop! You will

way that is entirely in keeping with her purpose and

also find the external chain locker here. The 6:1

genesis: her grandfather, after all, is a Folkboat, another legendary all-rounder, and her immediate predecessor, the 1966-designed Contessa 26, a close derivative of the Folkboat.

She was co-designed by David Sadler and boatbuilder Jeremy Rogers, and the first two boats were launched in 1971, leading to a ‘best in show’ at

CONTESSA 32 DESIGN DAVID SADLER AND JEREMY ROGERS BUILD JEREMY ROGERS LTD LOA 32ft (9.8m)

London the next year. Since then, more than 1,000 have been built, and the one we have come to sail is the latest off the blocks – Aldea, bound for an owner resident in San Francisco. It’s mid-December, the sun is warm and the wind is about as much as you’d want for a winter sail – 10-15 knots. Joining us are none other than Jeremy Rogers, his son Kit, the current incumbent, and his wife Jessie. Perfect.

Approaching the Contessa 32 dockside, the first thing to note is her appearance: the combination of sheer, sharp prow, retroussé counter, moderate

space. Harken self-tailers handle the jib/genoa and (optional) spinnaker.

UNDER WAY We come to the Co32’s raison d’être. It’s widely accepted that the Co32 sails like a dream: this is a sailing boat for the purist. It was hard to draw conclusions in the light conditions we had, particularly

BEAM 9ft 6in (2.9m)

genoa drew us along nicely on all points of sail, even in

DRAUGHT 5ft 6in (1.6m)

reliably and come through the wind fast. She’s perfectly

DISPLACEMENT 4.3 tonnes

attractive yacht that combines mid-20th-century

works well without intruding too much into the

LWL 24ft (7.3m)

UPWIND SAIL AREA 562sq ft (52.2m2)

overhangs and low cabin trunk produce a very

mainsheet runs to a bridgedeck-mounted track which

without instrumentation, but our upwind rig of main and the 10-15 knot winds we had. She’ll point high, run neutral (in these light winds – apparently the yachts can develop some healthy weather helm as winds pick up, as well as a fair amount of water over the deck). A particularly nice feature is the tightening nut on the tiller, which allows for a stiff helm to reduce fatigue on passage and allow a degree of self-tending, or a looser

trad with a dash of IOR in the transom shape.

BALLAST RATIO 47 per cent

BELOW DECKS

ENGINE BETA 3 cyl 20hp diesel

when the helm will want to stand for a better view.

PRICE c£189,000 + VAT

masthead, single-spreader bermudan rig is simplicity

These good looks produce a yacht that is just 24ft (7.3m) LWL and with the narrower beam of her vintage, we are not talking a huge amount of space below compared to her modern counterparts, although she’s similar in volume to contemporary and older boats. Headroom is c6ft (1.8m) under the

helm for more feel and response while docking or racing. Elevation is also variable, handy for manoeuvres She handles more like a nimble yacht than a dinghy, which is less tiring over a distance. Everything about the itself, from conception to realisation in steel wire and bottlescrews. Under engine, she’s predictable and reasonably quiet. It is a favourite cliché of the sailing

companionway but throughout most of the cabin, anyone taller

journalist to conclude these reviews by saying that, while we did not

than this reviewer’s 5ft 9in will be unable to stand fully upright. On

have the chance to try her in stiffer conditions, we’d have no doubt of

the plus side, the cabin has ‘real yacht’ charm with a traditional

her ability to handle them. On the Co32, one doesn’t have to guess.

lay-out, wooden ceiling and four square-oval portlights each side.

And that smooth underwater shape (deep forefoot leading to a long

From stern to bow, the traditional layout is: quarterberth under

fin keel with the two tonnes of lead ballast encapsulated within it, and

the starboard cockpit seating (port side is devoted to a cockpit

separate skeg-hung rudder) would give you no qualms crossing

locker); decent forward-facing chart table to starboard with galley

oceans either. For a handful of customers (they only build a new one

to port; a U-shaped settee and table to port with infill to form a

every couple of years or so), only a Co32 will do. They certainly don’t

‘double’ berth; single sette-berth to starboard; then a small,

compare well on price to their rivals but if you are after a British-built

enclosed heads to port with hanging locker to starboard, and a

yacht with incomparable looks that sails like a dream and has an

vee-berth arrangement in the forepeak, separated from the main

extraordinary provenance, it will be on a pretty short list.

cabin by a bulkhead and the foot of the keel-stepped Selden aluminium mast. For bluewater cruising on a watch system, the Co32 could accommodate six or perhaps even eight; but really, this is a good size boat for up to four to sail in reasonable comfort.

Contact jeremyrogers.co.uk. See also a short drone video made of our day sailing the Contessa 32 Aldea out of Lymington on our website (classicboat.co.uk) or at vimeo.com/198692720.

MAIN PHOTO BY JOE MCCARTHY

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

SECTION HEAD SUB SECTION

SAILING The jumper strut makes a topping lift optional. Note the (optional) wind-vane pilot

BELOW DECKS Folding saloon table

ON DECK

acts as a lee cloth in

Chunky cleats and simple layout on foredeck

the down position

COCKPIT Left to right: Kit Rogers, author, Jessie Rogers

RIG Aerial view of Aldea shows the rig and broad side decks

THE ADVENTURER Willy Ker on Assent in frozen 75 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017 latitudes

Tarbert Traditional Boat Festival

S O N N Y

14-16 July 2017

54’ SPARKMAN & STEPHENS CLASSIC SLOOP 1935 LOA: 53’-6” (16.3m) LWL: 40’-0” (12.2m)

Beam: 12’-6” (3.8m) Draft: 7’-7” (2.3m)

Builder: Jacob’s Shipyard Located: Newport, RI, USA

Very few yachts of this era have been continuously so well loved and maintained. Her condition reflects the continual ‘pursuit of perfection mentality’ of her current owner and his team.

www.tarberttraditionalboatsfestival.org.uk mallemok.live.co.uk 07713332319 (Phil Robertson)

Solent Sunbeam Racing

Photo: Mary Pudney

Come Sail With Us From Itchenor SC in beautiful Chichester Harbour

• Sheltered moorings with Club ferry service •

• Weekend and Thursday evening racing/suppers and in Cowes Week • • Take lunch or tea on the Club lawn overlooking Chichester Harbour •

• Informal suppers and formal dinners in the Club buttery/restaurant • • Overnight accommodation is available by reservation •

Easy access from A3, M27, A27 Come for a trial sail. Enjoy the Sunbeam Experience.

Contact Us: www.solentsunbeam.co.uk

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

Please contact Central Agent Paul Buttrose for information. pbuttrose@sparkmanstephens.com or +1 954 294 6962.

S PA R K M A N & S T E P H E N S , L LC www.sparkmanstephens.com

Sparkman_SONNY QP.indd 1

1/17/17 3:49 PM

Getting afloat

NORYEMA IV

AC winner There aren’t many classic yachts whose silver haul includes the Admiral’s Cup, but that’s just what Noryema IV won the year she was launched, in 1965. She was designed by Peter Nicholson for yachtsman Ron Amey (the yacht’s name is his two names run backwards) and built in double-planked mahogany by Camper and Nicholson. She was taken to Chantier Guip, one of the best restoration boatyards in France, for a complete re-work in 2003, and further improved by a subsequent owner who bought the boat in 2006. She’s a healthy size at 45ft (13.8m), bermudan sloop rigged and comes with a 42hp Vetus diesel (2003), with all other gear in date, including some recent sails.

Asking €220,000, Lying Saint Maxime, yachts-classiques.com NIGEL PERT CB ARCHIVE

CONSTANCE OF FIFE

Holiday home If you like this sort of thing (and we do) then here is a boat with enormous appeal: a JN Miller-designed and built ‘MFV

C/O BARNEY SANDEMAN

yacht’ known as a ‘Fifer’, one of several built. This one,

UNDINA

Griff’s ‘Three Men in a Boat’ yacht

Constance of Fife, was launched in 1979, in mahogany and iroko on oak frames. She features separate forward and aft cabins, giving privacy for, say, two couples or a large family; a ketch rig; and a 115hp Perkins diesel dating to 2006. Her previous owners would sail her to Brittany then spend a month there, using her as a floating holiday home.

Her unpretentious, attractive appearance, seagoing capability, easy bermudan ketch rig and accommodation should endear her to many. She’s a big boat for a 43-footer (13.1m) and a lot of value for the money.

If you enjoyed the BBC’s Three Men series or the book To the Baltic with Bob, or Griff Rhys Jones’s articles in this magazine over the years, you’ll recognise this yacht, even in her new white livery (she was previously black). She’s Undina, the

Asking £63,000, Lying UK, Tel: +44 (0)1202 330077 sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk

1953 Phillip Rhodes-designed sloop that belonged to comedian Griff and played host to fellow funnymen Dara Ó Briain and Rory McGrath. More pertinently, she’s also a great boat, built by Abeking and Rasmussen in mahogany on oak, and recently completely restored at the behest of boat addict David Messum at C/O SANDEMAN YACHT COMPANY

Traditional Shipwright Services in Poole. So she’s essentially a new craft. The design benefits are the typically American attributes of a centreboard for shoal draught sailing (5ft 6in with board down), slightly greater beam than normal for an English boat (11ft 9in over a length of 45ft/13.7m), a generous cockpit and berths for six. According to testimony, she’s fast too – and CIM optimised.

Asking £220,000, Lying Poole, Tel: +44 (0)1202 330077 sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk

See boats for sale at classicboat.co.uk/type/buy-a-boat CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

79

BOATS FOR SALE

Boats for sale Looking to sell your boat?

Reach over 50,000 readers each month

To advertise call Harry Warburton +44 (0) 20 7349 3794 harry.warburton@chelseamagazines.com

Copy Deadline for next issue is 15/02/2017 MCGRUER KETCH 1929 “Judith” formerly “Rowan II” An eye catching yacht suitable for family cruising 38 foot long, drawing 5’8”.

Carvel pitch pine on oak frames and ribs. 25HP Volvo Penta MB2B (1973) engine was completely refurbished in 2015.

Lying Dungarvan, Ireland (1 hour from Cork Airport)

£20,000

Contact: charles.chavasse@zoetis.com

NORFOLK GYPSY 1996 ‘92’

Boat and trailer ( new 2013 ) well maintained and in good condition. In board engine -Yanmar GM10 recently serviced. New 2013 McNamara sails/ Gaff/boom/ standing rigging/mainsail cover. Fully equipped and ready to launch. £19750.00 Ono. Contact 07887685969 a_rumph@btinternet.com

SHETLAND LIFEBOAT

Rare opportunity to restore an original Shetland Lifeboat. This blank canvas will allow the next owner scope to make their mark on this once stunning craft. Have a loader tractor on site which can lift the boat and load to a trailer. £1,750 O.N.O. Contact Alan Smith, 01444 892555

“Advertising my boat in Classic Boat led to finding a good buyer very quickly” OCEAN RAKER

ARAMIS - 1966 RICHARD CARLSON DESIGNED RORC CLASS III 30´ IN STRIP-PLANK MAHOGANY Constructed by Gallart in Spain. Tastefully renovated over the last 10 years, including; rebuilt engine, refurbished and strengthened hull, teak deck and underlying ply, new pine mast, re-wiring, electrical systems, electronics & instruments, safety equipment, upholstery and sails. Lying in southeast Spain. All serious offers considered.

For detailed information and price guidelines visit www.aramisboat.info or email capitain@aramisboat.info

1965 Halmatic Ocean 25, based on Fairey Christina offshore racing hull, Perkins 4.236 turbo-diesel 180hp, extensive professional refit 2014/15, superb condition, well equipped, new electronics, 2014 survey. All GRP, classic powerboat, looks lovely, easy maintenance and ready to launch. Lying Emsworth. £29,950.

Contact 07711 519257 or clivebrandon@yahoo.co.uk.

buy two month get one free online & print Looking to sell your boat?

SAMPLE STYLE A

STYLE A. 5cm x 2 columns.

Either 160 words or 80 words plus colour photograph. £275 Plus VAT Including Online

hs t n mo o tw nt y u - b & pri r e fe f n i o l SAMPLE STYLE B ial ee on c Reach over 50,000 readers e p r s f e ng n i each month plus 25k web visitors o r t e sp g There are two styles of Boats for Sales ad to choose from and with our special offer, if you buy two GOLANT GAFFER

No. 8. Excellent 2 berth coastal cruiser, built 1999. Length 18’ 9” Beam 7’ Draft 2’ 9” long keel, designed by Roger Dongray. Yanmar GM 10 regularly serviced. Very attractive boat lovingly maintained, Lying Fowey. £12,000 ono.

Email: name@classicboat.co.uk 0000 11111111

CUTTER

Built 1991, mahogany & epoxy hull similar to GRP, 1930’s spars & fittings, beautifully maintained. Visit www.idclark.force9.co.uk for photos and specification. £25,750 Contact 00000 111111

80

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

STYLE B. 5cm x 1 colums.

Either 55 words or 30 words plus colour photograph. £155 Plus VAT Including Online

months, your third month will be FREE. Pick the style which suits your requirements and email: harry.warburton@chelseamagazines.com with your text and image or call +44 (0) 20 7349 3794.

Dont miss out, the deadline for the next issue is 15/02/2017

BROKERAGE

33 High Street, Poole BH15 1AB, England. Tel: + 44 (0)1202 330077

64 ft Bagliettto Marconi Cutter 1952 EA is at the same time both glamorous and functional – Vittorio Baglietto designed in EA a yacht that won the Giraglia Race 4 times and dominating Mediterranean racing at the time. This yacht is completely at home in Mediterranean conditions and is therefore a frequent winner in her class at classic regattas. A complete restoration decade ago has rendered EA the perfect all-rounder with rather more luxury than most classic vessels for family cruising and she presents today in turnkey condition.

50 ft Ashley Butler Mayflower Class Bermudan Cutter 2012 Ashley Butler’s designs are inspired by the ergonomics, form and function of the historic working craft of the British Isles. Even on the most basic consideration of size, this hull form has already proven ideal for family cruising - perhaps defining the term Modern Classic with her carvel planking, long keel and effortless charm. BONAVENTURE was commissioned by a family who knew what they wanted and the boat’s interior is comfortably fitted out to optimise space below – the fit out beautifully understated but in fine detail.

66 ft Sangermani Cutter 1990 Over nearly 50 years, the Sangermani yard has built yachts renowned for the quality of their construction, speed and comfort and PEGASUS is a masterpiece in a long line of excellent and in many cases famous boats. Comfortable and fast she exudes an almost muscular presence of the late 70s and 80s race boats. Designed to cruise, her uncluttered expansive deck space and huge volume below mean she is well suited to this role yet she is fast enough to win regattas. Sangermani has built many beautiful boats from wood and PEGASUS their last is all the more special for this.

€700,000

£650,000

€620,000

Lying Italy

36 ft GL Watson Gaff Cutter 1894 PEGGY BAWN’s two year restoration, widely regarded as exceptionally authentic, is recognised in the almost unrivalled “Coefficient of Authenticity” in her CIM rating. Cruised and raced in the seven years following, she is noted for her perfect balance and good manners. Moreover easily rigged and sailed by two, this perfect Victorian cruiser racer offers a competent owner the opportunity to step back in time, into the shoes of her illustrious designer, who created her at the very peak of his career. The sale includes a custom made Harbeck trailer providing great versatility for regattas and storage. €300,000

Lying UK

45 ft Sparkman & Stephens New York 32 2010 In the mid-1930s the New York Yacht Club commissioned Sparkman & Stephens to design a new one-design and twenty of the now historic sailing yachts, known as the NY32 class were built by the boatyard of Henry B. Nevins of City Island, New York - none had been built since, until permission was given for the building of MASQUERADE as a one-time exception by Sparkman & Stephens. The result is considered a valued addition to the class and thus hull number 21 has been assigned – built using a strip planked and epoxy method but with many of the original fittings she is simply breathtaking! €285,000

Lying Netherlands

Lying UK

Lying Italy

45 ft Philip L Rhodes Bermudan Sloop 1953 UNDINA is a superb example of a centre board hull with a 5½ ft draft increasing to 8½ ft lowered. All owners have declared her to be very fast, comfortable and seaworthy - more recently also achieving TV fame in Griff Rhys Jones’s ownership. With elegant sheer and well-balanced coach and deckhouse, her large cockpit typical of American fifties yachts, is comfortable for a large crew.

The rig and sail plan is well proportioned and simple for both single handed cruising and efficient racing - she is CIM specified for the Med classic regatta circuit and since 2014 an extensive refit has made her totally ready for the 2017 season. £220,000 Lying UK

50 ft Ashley Butler Mayflower Class Gaff Yawl 2012 MARTHA PRIMROSE has already proven herself with cruises to the Med and back; fast, safe and comfortable – perhaps defining the term Modern Classic with her carvel planking, long keel and effortless charm. Ashley Butler’s designs are inspired by the ergonomics, form and function of the historic working craft of the British Isles. The simplicity, seaworthiness and speed follow their classicyacht splendour of form, canvas under sail, and the quality of the materials and craftsmanship.

32 ft Berthon 8 Ton Gauntlet 1939 H G May’s design concept was for a sea kindly craft with modest overhangs and draft, quite heavy displacement and easily handled sail plan. Four people could sail in comfort and strongly built with auxiliary power enough for foul tides these small yachts have proved both tough and versatile. Her current owner has masterminded an extensive refit with a view to making this vessel, not just a pretty vintage yacht but one in which a family could enjoy their time aboard in comparative luxury – rare on even a modern boat of this size ! – and moreover NAUSIKAA beat the entire fleet of the British Classic Yacht Club on corrected time in their 2014 Round the Isle of Wight race in often boisterous conditions.. £140,000 Lying UK

35 ft West Solent One Design 1928 This is a remarkably original boat - and a member of that very special class; the West Solent. They are noted not only for their stunning good looks but for some special sailing and racing qualities. Notwithstanding substantial restoration there is much that is original and authentic on this very unspoilt example – and such fittings as are “new” are still in period and arguably better in bronze than the originals - not just a rewarding boat to sail and own - HALLOWEEN has proven herself a winning boat up against her sisters and in handicap classic racing.

email: info@sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk

£295,000

£58,000

Lying UK

Lying UK

www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

81

BROKERAGE

Brokerage

To advertise call Harry Warburton +44 (0) 20 7349 3794 harry.warburton@chelseamagazines.com Copy Deadline for next issue is 15/02/2017

2 Southford Road, Dartmouth, South Devon TQ6 9QS Tel/Fax: (01803) 833899 – info@woodenships.co.uk – www.woodenships.co.uk

44’ Luke Powell gaff cutter launched in 2009. Currently coded to Cat 2 for commercial use, she is a turnkey charter business but would also make a very comfortable private yacht. 9 berths plus saloon and large inventory. A rare opportunity to take on a successful business in the traditional charter world at a time when opportunities are presenting themselves.

Hants £295,000

48’ Fred Parker Bermudan Ketch, 26 tons TM, built by Moody’s in 1962 to Lloyds100A1. Top class pedigree cruising yacht of her time, 5 berths with 2 sleeping cabins, deck saloon and lower ‘library’. Recent main mast, rigging and nav gear. ‘03 Perkins Sabre diesel. Very comfortable and stylish cruising yacht.

Currently in Portugal and heading back to UK this summer £125,000

40’ Fred Parker sloop built by Moody’s in 1957 to Lloyds 100A1. Major recent refit. Beta diesel engine, 6 berths with full headroom. Prominent racing career in her early years, she is a fast and comfortable yacht in very smart and sound condition with full documentation of work carried out.

Suffolk £69,950

Laurent Giles Wanderer built by Colne Marine in 1965 for Cpt Guthrie to complete an Atlantic circuit. Well built and solid boat, nothing more needs to be said about the sailing qualities of the Wanderer. New standing rigging, sails refurbished, recent Bukh 24hp diesel. In need of a refit hence the very reasonable price.

Devon £10,950

Maurice Griffiths Lone Gull II built by Whisstocks in 1972.

Iroko on oak hull with sheathed ply decks. Perkins 15hp diesel.

4 berths with a charcoal cabin heater. A tidy example of this spacious small cruising yacht, professionally maintained for many years.

Hants £15,500

Inchcape 45 built in Eyemouth in 1971. Iroko on massive oak frames, Cascover sheathed from new. 6 berths in 2 sleeping cabins plus the saloon, massive internal volume. Twin Perkins 4236 74hp diesels in good order. Recently steamed from Newcastle to Devon. Work required to the deck hence the price. Boat is afloat and machinery working, full work list available. Devon £25,000

43’ Buchanan Admirals Cup yacht built by Priors to Lloyds 100A1 in 1963. Fast , powerful and comfortable offshore boat, she has cruised extensively in present ownership. Major 2005 refit. Beta marine 43hp diesel. 7 berths in spacious cabin. In need of work to the deck hence the price.

Stockholm £28,000

48’ Breton fishing boat replica built in 1992 to the lines of a 1910 boat. Gaff cutter rig with pole mast. Typical Breton style with a steeply raked counter and pronounced sheer. Pitch Pine on oak hull, Perkins diesel and 3 double berths + 2 singles. Worked as a charter yacht for last 8 years. A big spacious and impressive yacht.

France €170,000Euro

Another fascinating selection of traditional and classic yachts only from Wooden Ships. Call for true descriptions, genuine honest values and a service from people who know their boats.

82

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

Craftsmanship Yard News

SECTION HEAD SUB SECTION

Edited by Steffan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk

IPSWICH, SUFFOLK

Spirit Yachts doubles in strength Spirit-of-Tradition boatbuilder Spirit

new cruising range.” The builder has

Yachts unveiled its new, energy-

Left to right: Spirit

recently started on a 63ft (19.2m)

efficient facility on 21 December in

Yachts MD Nigel Stuart,

deckhouse sailing yacht and a 70ft

Ipswich adjacent to its current

Ben Gummer MP, Spirit

(21.3m) motor yacht, with an order

premises, at the same time as

Yachts CEO Sean McMillan

confirmed for a 52ft (15.8m) sailing

announcing a 100 per cent year-on-

yacht and strong interest in the

year growth in its sales figures. To

cruising range and a superyacht.

match the extra build space, the

Spirit Yachts CEO and head

company has hired 10 new employees

designer Sean McMillan, adds: “The

and will soon recruit two finishers and

additional space will house

additional boatbuilders.

production mezzanines and a

Managing director Nigel Stuart C/O SPIRIT YACHTS

mechanical testing area. It will

said: “We have enjoyed a successful 12 months and intend to sustain our current growth with continued investment. Following a turbulent few years for the marine industry, it is key for British boatbuilders to adapt to the market. We are responding to

double the size of our existing lamination table, which allows us to increase the number of ring frames that can be built simultaneously and in turn increase efficiency.”

With access via a 7.5m x 8m (25ft by 26ft 8in) rolling door, the new 750m2 (c8,000sq ft) facility will

bespoke projects incorporating the latest technology and our popular

allow Spirit to work on yachts up to 150ft (45.7m) long. The vast

PAULBOWDEN.CO.UK

MAGALI BELLENGER

consumer demands by offering a wider range of designs, including

GIBRALTAR

Victory Class wintering After another season in the bay of Gibraltar, most of the local Victory yachts are ashore for winter, reports boatbuilder Richard Toyne. As usual in this competitive fleet, there is a collection of scrapes and bumps to repair as well as several boats requiring more major work.

V18 Boreas (grey hull) is steadily undergoing a major restoration as and when her owners have funds. The new planking and 90 per cent of the framing are complete and the ballast keel has been refitted. Next up will be re-fastening the remaining original planks and laminating a few frames into the extreme ends of the boat.

SOUTHWOLD, SUFFOLK

Boatyard photographer The Yachting World Five Tonner Dynamene was found on the grounds of Bletchley Park (now a museum) and restored by Harbour Marine Services in 2011. This recent photo was taken by professional still life photographer Paul Bowden, who takes dozens of stills at 'stations' along the boat's length from a forklift truck, then splices them together to form a final image that is

Odyssey was back sailing following major repairs, after a collision in

almost free of perspective and all in pin-sharp focus. Each image

2014 left her with severe damage to the topside planking and

is a total of about 60 hours’ work. Paul loves seeing the entirety

various broken frames (CB327, Boatbuilder’s Notes).

of a boat when it is out of the water, hence these labours of love!

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

83

CRAFTSMANSHIP FALMOUTH, CORNWALL

Luke Powell pilot cutter school to build Vincent Brian Pain, the owner of the Thames Barge Lady of the Lea, has been working for some years with the Faversham Creek Trust and shipwright Simon Grillet to develop a boatbuilding training platform. Now, Brian has branched into Cornwall and has formed the Falmouth Pilot Cutter CIC with Cornish residents Luke and Joanna Powell.

Their aim is to resurrect Cornish Maritime Heritage by training a new generation of young people in the art of wooden shipbuilding. They are setting up in the Rhoda Mary Heritage Boatyard at Truro and will build a 68ft (20.7m) Falmouth pilot cutter as a community interest project. Over the three-year build, the project will develop as a vocational training platform for maritime skills. The apprentices will not only build the vessel but also maintain and sail her once she is launched. For this project Luke has chosen one of the most famous and long-lived of Falmouth cutters, the Vincent. Built originally in 1852 for the Vincent family of St Mawes, she had a long career lasting in trade until 1922 before finishing her life as a houseboat at Freshwater, up the Percuil River near St Mawes. Today, some of her fittings, companionway, and spars have survived and can be seen incorporated into a local house.

The new vessel, a faithful copy of Vincent, will be called Pellew in honour of a local hero, the greatest British frigate captain of the Napoleonic wars.

CHICHESTER HARBOUR

Elkins classic electrified Withy II, a 1930s gaff cutter of 24ft (7.3m) built by Elkins of Christchurch, Dorset, has been given a new electric saildrive, C/O COCKWELLS

writes Emrhys Barrell. The 24ft (7.3m) gaff sloop originally had

CORNWALL

New boats from favourite British builders

a Stuart Turner petrol engine, then an unsightly outboard. The new saildrive is housed in a pod below the hull and the batteries in unused locker space. Range at cruising speed is 6-8 hours and batteries are charged overnight from marina shore supply. The motor was supplied and fitted by the Thames Electric Launch Company and joinery work was undertaken by Tim Gilmore at Dolphin Quay Boatyard in Birdham Marina.

Two of Britain’s best known boatbuilders recently announced new boats. Cockwells of Falmouth is adding substantially to its Duchy range of motorboats, which currently consists of the well-known 27 (8.3m) ‘weekend’ launch and the recently-launched 21 (6.4m) picnic boat that can seat 12. The new boats, at 35ft (10.7m), 45ft (13.7m) and 60ft (18.3m) are from the pen of Andrew Wolstenholme, been sold “off plan”.

Not to be outdone, Cornish Crabbers in Rock, one of the most venerable names in British yacht building, has released plans for the new MkV Crabber 24, which incorporates a lifting roof, in the manner of a VW camper van – or, for that matter, a Broads yacht.

84

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

EMRHYS BARRELL

designer of the 27. The first 35, which is now in build, has already

CRAFTSMANSHIP

ULLAPOOL, SCOTLAND

Flying 10 in build

Boatbuilder Tim Loftus, lately of Bristol’s Underfall Boatyard, has moved north to Ullapool, home to CB columnist and boatbuilder Adrian Morgan (Viking Boats) and, more recently, Nat and Gill Wilson (lately of IBTC Portsmouth).

The beginnings of a hub, it’s fair to say! Tim has now officially teamed up with long-term boatbuilding collaborator Dan Johnson and the duo are officially now known (“after nights of beer-fuelled debate”) as Johnson and Loftus.

Their first new-build project is an Uffa Fox-designed (in 1949) Flying 10 planing keelboat, little sister to the better-known Flying Fifteen, at just 10ft (3.1m) LWL and 14ft (4.3m) overall. Casting the “wild” keel shape has been a challenge, and the build is in double-diagonal utile. The build is “semi speculative” in that the project was initiated by a customer, but once Tim had the drawings, he could not resist. The boat will be on show at the Ali Pali dinghy show (officially titled the RYA Suzuki Dinghy Show) from 4-5 March.

C/O TIM LOFTUS

NETHERLANDS

Pain Clark’s own yacht restored A project that has been six years in the making was finally finished last summer, when Lona III was relaunched after complete restoration at Tradewind Yachts in the Netherlands. She was designed in 1906 by Pain Clark for himself and built in Burnham-on-Crouch by William King and Sons a year later in 1907. The pitch pine and teak on oak gaff cutter measures 35ft 6in (10.8m) on deck and displaces 6.8 tonnes. The photos give the impression of a very high quality project, an unusual and beautiful boat brought back to pristine condition. Lona III was raced with owners, first on the river Crouch, later in Ireland and in Scotland, and then back again on the Crouch.

"She had been out of the water and needed a caring hand to bring back her beauty," said the owner.

C/O BART CARPENTIER

considerable success by her several

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

85

MARINE CRAFTSMANSHIP DIRECTORY

BOYNE CITY, MICHIGAN, USA

New sandbagger yacht Michigan boatbuilder Van Dam will be celebrating 40 years since its inception next year. The company's self-appointed mission is to build handcrafted wooden boats to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bugatti-quality â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from tenders and runabouts to sailboats and gentlemanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s racers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no two are alikeâ&#x20AC;?. The yard's latest boat launched is this splendid sandbagger yacht Tatler II, for a client. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a â&#x20AC;&#x153;modernised design drawn by Eric Sponberg and based on the original Tatler but with a re-designed rig to make the boat more manageable.

Sandbaggers take their name from their ballast (gravel in sandbags) and were popular at the turn of the last century for racing, with their extraordinarily big rigs. The next project to launch will be Catnip, a 30ft (9.1m) custom runabout, with art deco styling, and inspired by 1930s Ventnor runabouts. The craft will, says Van Dam, â&#x20AC;&#x153;be unrivalledâ&#x20AC;?. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not about to argue.

C/O VAN DAM

BROOKLIN, MAINE

This time itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personal for John Alden design Ellery Brown of DN Hylan boat that got him started in classic

Triangle as his favourite cabin

yachts. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a John Alden-

one-design sloop, both to sail

designed Triangle, a once-

and to behold (John Alden has

burgeoning class of yachts

an enviable reputation for

designed to race as a fleet or

aesthetically pleasing boats) and

(without handicap) against

Ellery describes it as the

Bermuda One Designs and Sound

â&#x20AC;&#x153;quintessential knockabout

Interclubs, classes that were also

sloopâ&#x20AC;?. The large mainsail is

Massachusetts, in the 1920s. Kara Su, the yacht in question, was built in 1927 of mahogany on oak â&#x20AC;&#x201C; coincidentally the same year of

C/O ELLERY BROWN

editor Maynard Bray cites the

popular at the time in Marblehead,

balanced by a small jib, in the manner of early bermudan rigs, and the boat features a deep cockpit, self-tacking jib and (as original) twin runners, although

build, and length, as the 28ft (8.5m) catboat Molly B, whose

these can be replaced by standing backstays. They are also quite

recent restoration has earned DN Hylan a nomination in this

heavily lead ballasted and by reputation, decent sea boats, with

yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Classic Boat awards (classicboat.co.uk/awards2017).

berths for two in the spartan cabin, but room for â&#x20AC;&#x153;more joineryâ&#x20AC;?.

The story is personal for Ellery, as it was a sail on Kara Su as a

86

WoodenBoatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s technical

Associates has recently bought the

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not quite a basket case,â&#x20AC;? says Ellery, but would need

teenager in 1996 (â&#x20AC;&#x153;the first and only race I ever wonâ&#x20AC;?) that got

re-shaping, re-framing, partial re-planking and a new centreline.

Ellery hooked. He sailed and maintained the boat for many years

Spars, cabin, coamings, sliding hatch and cockpit seats are

for her owner â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and even met his wife through the boat: â&#x20AC;&#x153;She

â&#x20AC;&#x153;probablyâ&#x20AC;? salvageable. Please email Ellery if you are interested

helped me paint the bottom, in a miniskirt â&#x20AC;&#x201C; I was smitten!â&#x20AC;?

in this project, at ellery@dhylanboats.com.

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

%

MARINE DIRECTORY

Marine Directory

To advertise call Harry Warburton +44 (0) 20 7349 3794 harry.warburton@chelseamagazines.com Copy Deadline for next issue is 15/02/2017

BOATBUILDERS

Devon Wooden Boats Ltd.

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Dolphin Boatyard, Kiln Road, Galmpton Creek, Brixham, TQ5 0EH 01803 431920 â&#x20AC;˘ info@devonwoodenboats.co.uk

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ALAN S.R. STALEY

Wooden Boatbuilder

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Tel: 01795 530668

www.alanstaleyboatbuilders.co.uk

Skippool Creek, Wyre Road, Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancs FY5 5LF Telephone: 01253 893830 Email: davidmossboatbuilders@gmail.com

www.davidmossboatbuilders.co.uk

Long-established boatyard, repairs, restorations and refits for traditional and modern boats, winter laying-up, storage and cranage.

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n the upper reaches of Stage Harbor in Chatham, Massachusetts, two hours south of Boston and on the site of famed yacht designer and builder Spaulding Dunbar’s Mill Pond Boatyard, has stood Pease Boatworks and Marine Railway (PBW) since it was founded by brothers, Mike and Brad Pease, in 1982. This spring, however, sees a change of ownership and name.

After 35 years of business, the Pease brothers are passing on the company to general manager, Woody Metzger, and master builder, James Donovan, both Cape Cod natives and accomplished sailors. The yard will now be called First Light Boatworks & Marine Railway Inc. Metzger and Donovan both started boatbuilding in their teens. Before the age of 20, Metzger had his own boat repair business. At the same age, Donovan began his boatbuilding career, while building his own 30ft Lyle Hess cutter, which he then cruised in the Atlantic and Pacific.

Metzger says: “Mike and Brad Pease created a haven here and over the years some of the most beautiful boats I’ve seen have rolled out of this shop. They have inspired so many.”

The history of boatbuilding at this site goes back before America’s entry into World World II. The roots of this tradition are based in the building of smaller sloops and catboats for the shallow waters of the outer Cape. One of the shop’s ongoing

90

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

restorations is a perfect example of this. A Corsair sloop – one of the early boats built by Spaulding Dunbar – is currently being restored in the same yard she was built in 1938. The Corsair was a heavily canvassed, 20ft (6.1m) sloop raced by the Stage Harbor Yacht Club, until the sporty and tender handling of the boats encouraged members to seek a more tame design.

As mentioned in the December issue, Pease Boatworks has found great success with its Monomoy First Light (MFL) series of shallow-draft, outboard-powered boats. Seabreeze – the ninth hull in the series and the first shorter 24ft (7.3m) model – was built over the past winter and launched this spring. These boats are a true nod to traditional style while using the strength and low maintenance of modern construction methods and materials. “A First Light can be found in the ends of a shallow estuary or nosed up onto a beach as easily as running across Nantucket Sound for lunch on the island. With her tastefully situated 4-stroke and full-length skeg, she’s as well mannered as they come,” said Woody. “This has allowed the First Light to emerge as an easy choice for near coastal and inland boating.”

In the middle bay of the shop – actually a re-fitted WWII naval blimp hanger – sits the next project on the schedule, the mould for the 26ft (7.9m) Alerion Class Sloop. These modern sisters to NG Herreshoff ’s Alerion III (1912) are the product of the Sanford Boat Company and Alfred Sanford’s desire to revive the

CRAFTSMANSHIP

quality and beauty he felt had been abandoned in modern yachts. This is the 29th hull built, the second Alerion PBW built since taking over production in 2012; the first PBW hull being Myth, now sailing from the island of Nantucket, MA. This year has been a busy one for the small, passionate crew – both two and four-legged. Along with the yearly work of varnishing, painting, launching and rigging its returning customers – four new boats have been delivered, including: a Haven 121/2 and a 47ft (14.3m) L Francis Herreshoff designed Golden Ball (more on the Golden Ball in the future).

Even the usually relaxed months of last summer were fully occupied with a handful of restorations, most notably a 26ft (7.9m) Crosby catboat built in 1911.

The future of First Light Boatworks & Marine Railway is bright with next year’s schedule already filling up. The Golden Ball was barely clear of the railway before the construction of a Scandinavian inspired, 34ft (10.3m) ketch began with a completion date just over a year from now. Benefiting from a great relationship with Rhode Island naval architect Matt Smith, its passion for traditional boat building and Smith’s classic styling are finding popularity – as the new ketch build shows.

The yard’s faithfulness to the craftsmanship and quality of the past is clearly evident in its work and is now resonating with a new generation of yacht owners.

Top to bottom: owners Woody Metzger and James Donovan; The 26ft Alerion class sloop mould; Seabreeze, the latest Monomoy First light; the boatyard with the happy crew of Meg Merrilies before launching; the site in Chatham MA.

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

91

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Boatbuilder’s Notes BOATBUILDER’S SECRET

Wax the blade TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS ROBIN GATES

It’s surprising how much friction develops between steel tools and timber, increasing the work load and significantly hampering progress on a long job like planing a spar or ripping a board. Just how much friction exists comes to light when you reduce it by wiping a piece of wax along the sole of the plane or both sides of the saw – it’s like you’ve been sailing with a lump of seaweed around the rudder, as the tool suddenly feels light and eager.

To be faithful to historical precedent use tallow, otherwise paraffin candle wax such as a tea light is cheap and convenient, but as a supporter of all things apian I prefer beeswax – a 30g stick from the DIY store costs about £2 and lasts forever. In any event, avoid keeping a pad of boiled linseed oil in the workshop for this purpose, as it’s a serious fire hazard which has resulted in more than one boatyard blaze over the years.

In re-sawing this 3/4 inch (19mm) thick elm plank to make two planks 5/16 inch (8mm) thick – about 1/8 inch (3mm) was lost as saw dust – a large area of the blade was in contact with the timber, but a quick scribble with the beeswax made friction negligible and the job proceeded more smoothly.

Under its own weight If there’s much resistance to pushing a chisel by hand it’s customary to hit it with a wooden mallet, especially when cutting a mortise. But if you find yourself swinging the mallet from shoulder height to generate sufficient driving force, consider sharpening the chisel and/or using a lump hammer – also called a club hammer.

A lump hammer, traditionally a mason’s tool, typically with a short handle and a head weighing 1-1.5kg (2.2-3.3lb), is used with short sharp blows, even by letting it fall under its own weight, so it is a more controlled process than winding up like a fast bowler with the mallet. Hold the lump hammer ‘choked’, meaning close beneath the head, for greatest accuracy.

Note how the face of a good lump hammer is broad and domed, with all edges smoothly radiused, so there will be no The dense and

damage to the chisel handle. The tools not to use are common

broad-faced

carpenter’s and joiner’s hammers which, besides their low mass,

lump hammer

have small heads likely to deliver a glancing blow, thereby splintering the chisel and injuring the worker.

92

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

Boatbuilder’s Notes

Traditional Tool COPING SAW STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS

If there is a downside to the narrow

Clockwise from

like HMS Victory. The Eclipse 7CP was

(0.1 inch/2.5mm) blade it is a tendency

above: the steel

made by James Neill & Company at

to wander with immediate effect if

frame tensions

the Composite Steel Works in

If the coping saw were a boat it

concentration wavers, and the tiny

the blade; a

Sheffield, where Neill had set up a

would be a slalom kayak: light, agile

teeth have a correspondingly small

spherical wedge

steel-making business after switching

and precise, yet demanding constant

bite, so this isn’t the tool for sawing a

sawn from alder;

careers from accountancy.

vigilance. Essentially it is a small

wineglass transom to shape or ripping

levers turn

frame saw with a narrow blade

a plank to width, but for small curves

spigots to angle

composite steel-faced iron for

tensioned between rotating spigots

and intricate work in timber up to

the blade

toolmaking. After making its name

turned by levers, so the blade can be

1

ROBIN GATES

set at any angle to the frame. This

/2 inch (12.5mm) thick it is ideal.

The coping saw derives from the

An early innovation was a

with saws and saw blades the company turned to making

example is a 50-year-old Eclipse 7CP,

dainty marquetry saws of the 16th

permanent magnets for magnetos

a simple well-balanced tool with

century, although ‘coping’ refers to

during World War I, and expanded

chromed steel frame and beech

sawing one moulding to fit the curved

again with a range of precision

handle that has long been a favourite

surface of another, for example at the

engineering tools to meet the

of amateurs and professionals alike.

coped joint where muntins meet rails

demands of World War II.

The blade can be mounted with teeth facing forwards or backwards,

and stiles in a window sash, as seen in the stern cabins of a ship of the line

NEXT MONTH: Blowlamp

cutting on the push or pull stroke according to preference, and requires only light pressure to be effective.

Since the 0.02 inch (0.5mm) thick blade can slip into the narrow kerf left by a dovetail saw, then execute a sharp turn, it is often used for cutting the waste from dovetail joints. The clearance of the deep-throated frame provides an unobstructed view of the work underway, such as the spherical wedge shown here, and lends the coping saw to cutting apertures and decorative details.

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

93

Letters

C/0 MARK DUFFIELD

LETTER OF THE MONTH SUPPORTED

BY OLD PULTENEY WHISKY

Seeking more International 12s Your January issue features, so well, an International 12. The 2014 re-constituted Great Yarmouth Yacht Club (est. 1883) adopted the International 12 class along with its indigenous Great Yarmouth One Design class, which is another lugger.

Two years later, the honorary secretary is the keeper of the register of 12 owners in the UK, a very short list. The group organises regattas all over Europe where this

Theo on board Cambria

JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

delightful class is so popular. Last July the group visited Lowestoft and our friends the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club (RNSYC). We had 20 entries from the Netherlands, Germany, France, Ireland and the UK. The fleet is coming back to Lowestoft in 2017 as part of a programme of four regattas. The other three are being held in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.

Great Yarmouth Yacht Club (in conjunction with RNSYC)

Theo Rye remembered

would like to run a national championship for 12s alongside

Following your obituary of our mate Theo Rye in the January issue, my

estimated to be 750 12s, then the British Racing

mind is full of memories and conversations I was lucky enough

Association 12 (and the modified-rig Dublin Bay 12). Where

to share with him. Over the last 13 years Theo was not only a source of

are they? Lots are still out there somewhere.

historical and technical knowledge, but a sounding board in

this regatta. I think that in the mid-20th century there were

If any of your readers have a 12, or know where there is

times of need. Full of kindness and sensitivity, he was brilliant at reading

a 12, or have aspirations to own a 12 and be the first

people and that’s why he got along with so many, from all walks of life.

national champion for a very long time, would they

One of my fondest and proudest memories is of the work we did redesigning the aft cabin of Cambria in her 2008/9 refit. It had been

please contact me?

Mark Duffield, hon sec, Great Yarmouth Yacht Club

reconfigured a number of times over the boat’s then 80 years of life.

The brief was to make it more user-friendly. As is so often the case in

rearranged by the owner and then re-rearranged again to fit into the

Maun nipper tip

space. By the end of the 36 hours, the owner was happy, as were we.

Re January’s Boatbuilder’s Notes about

the world of boats, time was running short and Theo flew out to join us in Gibraltar for 36 hours, to come up with technical solutions to the owner’s and our ideas. What we put down on paper would then be

Theo drew it all up. Eight months later the refit was done and we

the Maun nipper. If you can’t track those

were then given, by William Collier of GL Watson, a copy of the original

down, we find the one in this picture very useful. As

Cambria GA, which showed, to our surprise, that we had returned

you can see, the cutting head is well offset and slightly

Cambria’s aft cabin to its original layout, just as Mr Fife had originally

angled, allowing you to get into nasty little corners which

designed it. Theo’s eye for historical detail was second to none.

will crop up even with the best of planning. Very solid, and

Theo would never do anything loudly. He trod softly through his too

long-handled for good leverage. We did a whole boat with

short a life, however for someone so humble and quietly spoken he has

these without any particular fatigue… even though I am

left an enormous void within classic yachting.

increasingly asked how long ago I retired.

Chris Barkham (skipper of Cambria)

They are made by Knipex.

Phil Stevens, West Somerset

94

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

LETTERS Send your letters (and also any replies, please) to: Classic Boat, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ email: cb@classicboat.co.uk

Our Winnie Marie I was very interested in the letter in January’s Classic Boat about the similarity between a Solent Sunbeam and a West Solent One Design. My wife Nettie and I have, over the last 40 or so years, owned both a Sunbeam, Melody, and also two

CATCHING HISTORY

West Solent ODs, Erin (1927) and Winnie Marie, our present boat, which is mentioned in Jim Hazel’s letter and which indeed Peter Nash built

The original sunk in 1927, but a replica of Starling Burgess’ Gloucester fishing schooner Columbia is finding better fortune

for us. She was launched in 2010.

WORDS AND PHOTOS JAN HEIN

Columbia and her fishing heritage

Louis Jacobs and HG May of Berthons did a wonderful job with the West Solents as joint designers.

HG May’s great-grandsons are now the joint owners of the famous Berthon yard and they helped us greatly

obsession with fishing schooners. I used to work in

Norfolk toll trouble

the shipyard at Mystic Seaport Museum where the

As well as

Westmacott, the designer and builder of the original

LA Dunton is berthed and since then my love of them

thanking you for

Sunbeams. His beautiful design always inspired me, as

has only grown.

your kind article

well as, I am sure, Louis Jacobs and HG May.

What a lovely sight to see the photos of Columbia in the issue of CB that arrived today. She is indeed a magnificent schooner and certainly one of the most significant ‘yachts’ built recently. I have had a life-long

However, I cannot help but grumble about some

with advice when building Winnie Marie. Brian May is even now restoring Ripple (formerly Dinah), which used to be owned by Peter Heaton, author of the books Sailing and Cruising in the 1950s.

However, honours are also due to Alfred

on our Norfolk

Winnie Marie is at Camaret-sur-Mer in Brittany and

errors and wrongly perceived threads of the narrative.

classic yacht in the

looks as good as ever, six years after her launch at

If the author had referred to some classic fishing

February issue we

Brest. She still has no inboard engine.

schooner books such as The American Fishing

were intrigued to

The Rev Michael Palmer, Chichester

Schooners 1825-1935 (Howard I Chapelle, published

read the article

by WW Norton in 1973), it would have been a better

headed ‘Boaters

article. Also, if more attention had been paid to the

angry at toll

fact that the current Columbia is a steel yacht based

charges’. Can we

on a wooden fishing schooner (and thus based on

wholeheartedly

traditional workboat designs) the last sentence (“with

support these

luck, that race will return the sailing world back to the

comments, as we

golden age of yachting”) would have been edited to

have just been

something much more accurate.

informed by the

As it stands, if they could see it, all the old

HISTORY

EVOLUTION OF THE CANOE YAWL

that the toll for

would be screaming with both rage and howls of

Demoiselle is

laughter, both in Canada, and in Gloucester. It wasn’t

increasing by an

‘yachting’ back then and the fishing schooners of the

amazing 24 per

past were lightyears different from the lovely

cent this year. In

schooners of today.

these times of

By W Baden-Powell: 14ft with a beam of 33in, she was probably the first canoe with a true keel. She carried 250lb of lead ballast, a 65lb centreplate and drew 15in. She won the 1879 RCC Championship Cup, beating the 1878 winner, a Pearl canoe

WORDS RICHARD POWELL

A

s many Classic Boat readers will know, the English artist and yacht designer Albert Strange was the canoe yawl’s best-known champion. As technical secretary of The Albert Strange Association, I’ve had a wonderful firsthand insight into some of his boats, so much so that I make a case, when anyone cares to listen, that the canoe yawl is simply the best type of boat for the solo or short-handed coastal cruising sailor. But there are many designers important to the story of this modest, yet seaworthy, design.

Left: pioneer ‘Rob Roy’

1,000 MILES IN A ROB ROY CANOE We start in 1865 with one man, one boat and one voyage. In 1865, the Scottish lawyer John ‘Rob Roy’ MacGregor went to boatbuilder Searles of Lambeth in London and had a 15ft (4.6m) long by 2ft 6in (76cm) wide craft built in cedar planking on oak frames and weighing about 77lb (35kg). In this craft, he undertook an unprecedented voyage through Europe’s canals and rivers that culminated in the publication of his book 1,000 Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe (which sold 2,000 copies in its first five days) the following year. He also formed the world’s first canoe club on the Upper Thames, still going strong today as the Royal Canoe Club. Canoeing rapidly took off across the country.

What MacGregor had achieved with that one voyage was the birth of canoeing and kayaking as sports, the enjoyment of inland waterways as an end in itself, and he would have a huge influence over early Corinthian sailors of that era. He went on to have two more canoes built, the first in 1866, then a later version with which he cruised the River Jordan. This boat survives at the National Maritime Museum, Cornwall. “A canoe ought to fit a man like a coat; and to secure this the measure of the man should be taken for his canoe,” said MacGregor, so she was designed “to be used by a man 6ft high, 12

Broads Authority

fishermen, and all fishing schooner race participants,

Nautilus, No5 1879

The boats that got Victorian sailors hooked on small-craft sailing.

We look at how they came to be

48

stone, and with boots 1ft long in the sole.” The result was a 14ft (4.3m) canoe, with 26in (66cm) of beam, and a main and jib totalling 19.5sq ft (1.8m2), built of oak with a mahogany ‘streak’ (sheer strake) and cedar decks.

The mast was tapered and the spars were bamboo. She weighed 71lb (32kg) complete with fittings.

The ‘Rob Roy’ designs bred two derivatives: the Nautilus and Pearl series. Nautilus was the name given to a series of canoes designed by Warrington BadenPowell, a keen sailor and the solicitor brother of the Scouts’ founder. The size varied with purpose, for example 14ft (4.3m) with a 33in (84cm) beam for sailing and sleeping aboard, or 15ft (4.6m) with a 2ft 6in (76cm) beam for sailing and paddling. The rig, now lug yawl, was larger, just over 50sq ft (4.6m2) for the cruising versions; the racers carried around 110sq ft (11.5m2). Later, much larger versions were designed including, in 1893, one of 20ft (6.2m) with a 5ft (1.5m) beam and “considerable depth” described as a “splendid cruising yawl”.

The Pearl canoes were a range of seven designs by EB Tredwen, a Cornishman who, in 1868 and aged 16, came to live in London. These canoes were fairly similar

Canoe hull forms

Lark, 1875

A comparison showing lines and midsection of four local types.

A Clyde Canoe designed by CG King, 14ft 6in x 291/2in

The Wear canoe is quite extreme but Nautilus No6 and Pearl

with a draught of 10in. The rig shown is for racing, a

No5 are fairly similar and more typical of the emerging type,

36sq ft main and 11sq ft mizzen. For cruising she

albeit the Nautilus has a much firmer bilge, whereas the Rob

carried just a 25sq ft main. The hollow waterlines and

Roy is much more of the traditional kayak hull form

pronounced sheer are features of this design

CLASSIC BOAT FEBRUARY 2017

CLASSIC BOAT FEBRUARY 2017

49

real lightweights of the maritime world. I write this

proves again that

Did duck punts evolve from canoe yawls?

not to denigrate the current schooner but in order to

this bureaucratic

The postman delivered my copy of the February issue

emphasise how different she truly is, although very

authority is totally

and I am looking forward to reading about the canoe

similar in many ways. Columbia is truly a special

out of touch with

yawls, an interesting genre that led in many directions

vessel, and Brian D’Isernia and his crew deserve every

the real world.

in the development of small sailing craft. The West

bit of credit for the incredible job that they did on the

David and Jean

Mersea Duck Punt could, by a stretch of the

boat. She is magnificent.

Hastings (below)

imagination, be said to have evolved not just from

The fishermen thought that yachtsmen were the

I have to say that in my opinion, the rig is not,

austerity this

duck gun punts, but the sailing canoes too. I have

although the blocks are fabulous. The sails still don’t

been following their increasing popularity. They are

look right in white but that is because the originals

easy to build and the rig is inevitably an old Oppi rig

would have been canvas and would have been

– both practical and a low-cost investment. There are

patched and a bit grubby.

various websites, some with video coverage, that may

Virginia Crowell Jones, West Tisbury, Massachusetts

whet the appetite for those interested.

Ted Timberlake, by email CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

95

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Is she the oldest yacht in service?

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Delphia 46

Rod Heikell explains how to arrive in style

Polish boatbuilding goes all bluewater

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The family saved by a yacht in the N Atlantic

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CONTESSA 32

Following in Shackleton’s wake at the age of 82

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The performance sailing magazine

70

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psychologist wouldn’t know where to begin with the lot of us, though soap could be a good start. The crews of superyachts have asked us if we’d been sentenced to a bizarre form of community service. The life we ‘professional crew’ lead on classic yachts isn’t always the same as that projected through the glitz and the glamour you see at a Med regatta. The part of classic yachting most viewed by the world is the one that occupies the least number of days in our year!

Countless photos of coiled lines, polished brass and glowing varnish...

What about the many days, weeks, and months in between? How do you live and work so closely with others around the clock and remain sane?

The short answer is, you don’t!

But sanity is overrated, and it’s a necessary part of the social soup that is You want to life on a big boat, which can contain every ingredient from the most closeted introvert to the extrovert. This industry draws in characters from all over the world, and fiercely independent ones at that. It’s a trait that can lead to all sorts of good, as long as it doesn’t take over. Space is limited on board any boat, both dimensionally and emotionally. If a personality comes to dominate that space, rough times can ensue. Think Lord of the Flies, but with less personal hygiene, and more beer.

It’s a rare profession where your workmates are your housemates and vice versa. Our brains need that break from those at home and those at the job. Your greatest tool as boat crew is the ability to be a good shipmate, to be patient and empathetic. Skills can be taught, proficiency learned, but for the most part human nature is already embedded. You’re a jerk, or you’re not.

That skill and proficiency can be wide-ranging. If the boats sat at a museum pier, we’d have far less to worry about. But they don’t. We race them, hard. Lines part, varnish is scratched, sails torn and sometimes rigs come down. So in between the bouts of chaos, the crews are hard at work keeping up that state of perfection.

Brightwork touch-ups, leather renewal, rig and sail inspection. Each time we put a boat on show we want her to look like it’s the first regatta of the season.

It is easy to become jaded. House owners with breathtaking views sometimes need to be reminded from the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ of guests, that what they have isn’t commonplace, and the same holds true for crew on classic boats. The bystander on the quay, eyes turned skyward: “You guys sail this thing? Lucky.”

Many assume it’s in the sailing that we find most joy, but it’s as often found in laying a great coat of varnish, or lying on a sail bag with a beer. It doesn’t hurt that you

How to stay sane on board

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2017

crew on a classic yacht? Matty Oates reveals all

“In between the bouts of chaos, the crews are hard at work keeping up that state of perfection”

can enjoy it all with a merry band of ne’er-do-wells, and they usually provide entertainment around the clock.

Going back to shore-based life is a topic we bring up regularly, though you’ll never hear a sailor wish for an office job. In our minds, that’s the same as wishing for a root canal, or a Justin Bieber album. Sailors who go ashore quite often only look for normalcy, a predictable schedule and the knowledge that their place of work is in no danger of sinking. But however seriously we might consider the idea, most of us come around at the next sunrise.

Life afloat is all the more memorable because of the people you’re there with, the ones who bring you sarnies and a cup of coffee when they come on watch. There are the themed watches, the midway fancy-dress celebrations, the parody music videos you create. When else are we going to wear those spandex unitards?

People ask: “Don’t you get annoyed with the others after a while?” Of course we do! Strangers tossed together and put in a stressful situation – it would make great reality TV. But we do well to remember that however much we gripe about somebody else, we ourselves will have at least one annoying tick that is worth griping about too.

The souls you’re surrounded by can become your fiercest friends and greatest champions. What could be a better forge of trust than hoisting your mate up 40m in the air, and bringing them back down again unscathed?

You all may go your different ways and never meet again. But if the stars do realign one day, you’ll be greeted like a brother by your former crew mates, and you can rest assured heads will turn as you lean over your pints and discuss those spandex unitards.

The colour of your boat travels at 186,000 miles per second.

Think fast. Think Epifanes.

Colour travels at the speed of light, so your boat’s new paint job stands to make an instant impression. That’s all part of the thrill we’ve discovered in combining the classic roll-and-tip technique with Epifanes premium paints; seeing beautiful results right as the paint flows on is an amazing experience. Epifanes’ expert guidance and technical support are with you every step of the way, and the final, mirror-like finish is jaw-dropping.

Look for Epifanes paints and varnishes at your local chandlery, and watch our roll-and-tip video on Facebook.

W. HEEREN & ZOON BV, Aalsmeer, Holland +31 297 360 366 MARINEWARE Southampton, U.K. +44 2380 33 02 08 EPIFANES NORTH AMERICA INC. Thomaston, ME, U.S.A. +1 207 354 0804

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