Classic Boat January 2013 by The Chelsea Magazine Company

Classic Boat JANUARY 2013

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CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES

T H E W O R L D’ S M O S T B E A U T I F U L B O A T S

2013 AWARDS

CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES

Bounty tragedy My night of hell New for 2013 Latest gear

VOTE NOW! ALL THE

YEAR’S BEST BOATS

Out of Africa Schooner returns Super 6-Metre Rebuilt to race WEST END YACHT CLUB

The Royal Thames

IN THE WAKE OF THE VIKINGS

Raiding the Shannon

30 glorious years Building wooden boats on the Thames 01

WOULD YOU DARE TO . . .

Fit a bow-thruster?

9 770950 331134

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Contents

CRAFTSMANSHIP

2013 AWARDS

JANUARY 2013 Nº295

Bounty tragedy My night of hell p14

COVER STORY

60 . A WAY WITH DETAIL Patrick Donovan’s marine art is admired both sides of the Pond 62 . ROYAL THAMES London’s swishest yacht club viewed from the inside COVER STORY

68 . HEAD, HEART, HAND Colin Henwood’s 30 years of Thameside craft

74 . PEBBLE DASH Less than 60kg at more than 30 knots - what a blast!

NIC COMPTON

28 . CORAL (OF COWES) Roving schooner returns home from Cape Town

68 76

MIDDLE LEFT: MICHAEL ENGLISH

28 COVER STORY

KATHY MANSFIELD

Six Metre Valdai returns to racing

TIM WRIGHT

COVER PHOTO NIC COMPTON

VPAOTE GE 36

REGULARS 14 . NEWS 21 . OVERSEAS NEWS 22 . LOOKING AHEAD 25 . SALEROOM 27 . OBJECTS OF DESIRE ONBOARD 84 . ATLANTIC SKETCH 85 . NEW GEAR 86 . LAZARETTE 87 . BOOKS 89 . CLASSNOTES 91 . GETTING AFLOAT

76 . DOWN THE SHANNON In the wake of the Vikings: the first Irish Raid

CRAFTSMANSHIP 98 . YARD NEWS 100 . BOW-THRUSTER 102 . BOATBUILDER’S NOTES 103 . TRADITIONAL TOOL 107 . ADRIAN MORGAN

104 . BUILD A SKYLIGHT Part II of our winter project

112 . LETTERS 114 . STERNPOST CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

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ALISON LANGLEY

FROM DAN HOUSTON, EDITOR

No feature, but CB’s there

www.classicboat.co.uk Liscartan House 127-131 Sloane Street, London SW1X 9AS EDITORIAL Editor Dan Houston +44 (0)207 901 8052 cb@classicboat.co.uk Deputy Editor Sam Fortescue +44 (0)207 901 8053 sam.fortescue@classicboat.co.uk Senior Art Editor Peter Smith +44 (0)207 901 8054 peter.smith@classicboat.co.uk News/Features Editor Steffan Meyric Hughes +44 (0)207 901 8055 steffan.meyric-hughes@classicboat.co.uk Contributing Editor Peter Willis peter.willis@classicboat.co.uk Editorial Assistant Holly Thacker +44 (0)207 901 8005 holly.thacker@chelseamagazines.com Consultant Editor John Perryman FRINA Publishing Consultant Martin Nott Proofing Vanessa Bird ADVERTISING Advertisement Manager Edward Mannering +44 (0)207 901 8016 edward.mannering@chelseamagazines.com Senior Sales Executive Patricia Hubbard +44 (0)207 901 8014 patricia.hubbard@chelseamagazines.com Client Relationship Manager Louisa Skipper +44 (0)207 901 8014 louisa.skipper@chelseamagazines.com Advertisement Production Allpointsmedia +44 (0)1202 472781 www.allpointsmedia.co.uk Published Monthly ISSN: 0950 3315 USA US$12.50 Canada C$11.95 Australia A$11.95 Subscribe now: Call [UK] Tel: 0844 412 2274 YACHTS or [Overseas] Tel: +44 (0)1858 438442 YACHTING

Managing Director Paul Dobson CHELSEA CHELSEA ARINE ARINE M M Deputy Managing Director M A G A Z I N E SSteve Ross MAGAZINES Commercial Director Vicki Gavin Publisher Simon Temlett Digital Manager Oliver Morley-Norris The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd Liscartan House 127-131 Sloane Street, London SW1X 9AS +44 (0)207 901 8000 www.chelseamagazines.com

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The first week in December is usually a time for late preparations for the classic boat stand at the London Boat Show. In the office, we’d have just finished the January magazine to reflect some of the interesting exhibitors coming along to make the stand the vibrant place it was. The lastminute stuff would be making sure there were show passes for enough people, organising rosters, back issues – that sort of thing. Sadly though, there is to be no classic boat exhibit at the show this year. And it feels a bit strange, having had the special feature every year since 2007. I know readers will say: “What, no stand? What will we do for the hour or so of the show that we are not at the Guinness bar?” The stand celebrated traditional boats and boating, and changed enough every year to remain one of the Boat Show’s top attractions, after, ahem, said Guiness Bar. The reason given by organisers is that the London Boat Show is shrinking. It is going to happen in just the south hall of ExCeL this year, reflecting, perhaps, a weakened industry. This wasn’t the case at the Southampton Boat Show, where figures were down, but only by 1,500 or so “For many, (to 109k), showing a continued huge interest in London remains boats and boating. Yet for many, despite London now having about eight per cent fewer visitors THE Boat Show” than Southampton, it remains THE Boat Show, and takes its place as one of the major rites of the boating calendar. So, I am sorry we are not in a feature this year. We will continue to lobby for a traditional area, where the better life of real boats and real skills makes a stand against the all-pervading plastic culture. Do come and see us at CB though, with Sailing Today and Yachts &Yachting on Chelsea Marine Magazines stand: E165. You’ll find us promoting our new awards (right and Adventuress, above), and keen to get your votes! So pop by for a chinwag...

2013 AWARDS

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VPO TE AGE 36

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

VALDAI

Metre Maid In a class known for sleek looks and fast, wet racing, the Six Metre Valdai stands out, not least for a glorious restoration. Kathy Mansfield has the story

PREVIOUS PAGE KATHY MANSFIELD

A 8

Above: Note the two strong ring frames in way of Valdai’s mast Left: Redecked, and sporting new Meissner winches CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

mere 106 years after the first Six Metre was launched, this famous class continues to enthuse sailors, designers and boatbuilders alike, determined to keep or return these fast and exciting boats to racing condition. Sixes always were the most popular and numerous class within the Metre Rule, and they are seeing a resurgence now. Only a handful of the classics remain to be restored, and there is a full schedule of racing at national and European level, with Six Metre fleets on both coasts of the US and further afield. Valdai was one of a pair of Six Metres designed by Alfred Mylne in 1930 to the Second International Racing Rule – the other was Beausobre, restored recently and sailing on Lac Léman in Switzerland. Beausobre came to the Solent during the Six Metre Worlds and the Metre Centenary Regatta in 2007 and did well in a strong class of 25 boats. Now her sistership Valdai has been restored in Cornwall by Tom Owen, raising the tantalising prospect of a head-to-head race. Mylne started his career back in the 1890s, working in the design office of the highly respected naval architect GL Watson, known for his scientific approach to yacht design. This was not lost on the young Mylne, and the drawings for Valdai reflect this careful calculation. His boats carried

VALDAI

KATHY MANSFIELD

massive sail areas, which would have imposed large stresses on hull form, so they were carefully built and reinforced using top quality materials. Mylne and his namesake nephew encouraged contemporary designers and builders to keep standards high to achieve good value for the first owner and subsequent ones – though they would all doubtless have been amazed to see so many of these boats still sailing in the 21st century.

passed through many hands However, Valdai has had a hard life with many owners, unusually little racing and episodes of neglect. One previous owner, seeing her newly restored, was moved to say that she has at long last reached a loving family. “I doubt that she has ever looked as impressive as she does now since the day she was launched.” She was built at the well-known Bute Slip Dock Company in Port Bannatyne on the Isle of Bute, for one Robert Clark of Glasgow, who along with his brothers commissioned a number of Six Metres, all beginning with the letter ‘V.’ He very soon sold her to Dr Robert Carslaw of Rhu, Dunbartonshire, who converted her to a cruiser and renamed her Rowan III, basing her on the Clyde at Greenock. He cruised her on the west coast of Scotland with his family, having installed a Stuart Turner engine and a forward hatch.

She changed hands several times after the war, becoming Mameno, then Valdai again when George Andrews of Newcastle took over in the 1950s. He let his teenage son John sail her with two friends, one of whom was Ed Cartner, who remembers the time fondly. They day-raced the boat under the burgee of the Royal Northumberland Yacht Club. “Valdai was fast and wet, sailing through short seas rather than over them,” Ed said. “During one race, we had a fairly heavy collision with another Six Metre, Rozelle, that took a chunk out of our forefoot and resulted in a minor start of a seam at the stem. She seemed to suffer a slight but persistent leak after that. Needless to say, guardrails, lifejackets, flares, VHF and other ‘softy’ equipment was unknown, but we did carry a Fairey Duckling dinghy on long trips. “Once John and I had shown we could handle Valdai, Mr Andrews allowed us to take the boat away during the long summer holidays from school. We would be at sea for up to three weeks at a time and usually headed north to visit havens and harbours of the Scottish southeast and the Firth of Forth. Occasionally we would be invited to join a local club race. Things were primitive, but perfectly adequate for adventurous teenage lads.” Ed’s sister bought Valdai in the late 1960s and sailed her out of Sunderland until 1972, when she was bought

Previous spread and above: Valdai put in a creditable run at the British Championships off Mylor, Cornwall

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Above: The boat was retimbered Clockwise from right: Tom Owen produced a full set of moulds to correct her shape; she had new floors and new African mahogany planks below the waterline; new decks in Douglas fir; but kept her 2Â˝ tonne keel

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

KathY mansFielD

VALDAI

VALDAI Designer

Alfred Mylne Built

Bute Slip Dock Co, 1930 length

35ft 1in (10.7m) Waterline length

24ft 11in (7.6m) Beam

6ft 9in (2.1m) Draught

5ft 3in (1.6m) sail area

469sqft (43.5m2)

by three new owners, Martin Royle, Philip Robino and Tom Sillwen and based in West Mersea, Essex. She was next identified in 1995, lying neglected on her side on the saltings of the River Deben in Suffolk. A man who hoped to buy her dealt with the Harwich Harbourmaster and the Receiver of Wrecks, who finally tracked down two alleged owners. They took the matter to court, and eventually she appeared for sale on eBay and was bought by Peter Wilson of Aldeburgh Boatyard, who began the process of saving her.

careful restoration But it was boatbuilder Tom Owen who was to finish the job, and fortunately for Valdai, he had trained at the International Yacht Restoration School in Newport, Rhode Island. His interest in Tumlaren and in Scandinavian designers must have led fairly easily to an interest in Metre boats, and Six Metre expert Tim Street guided him towards Valdai. The deal done, Tom had the boat transported to his yard in Fowey, where he realised she was badly out of shape and hogged, exacerbated by the loss of her deck. He had to redraw Valdai’s lines and bring her back to the original shape, helped by the detailed plans left by Mylne, now part of the Mylne & Co archives owned by David Gray. Tom lofted the original plans, building and

installing a full set of moulds. Then the entire boat was retimbered and refloored with some good French oak sourced by John Moody in Modbury. It certainly helped that Tom works with designer Ian Howlett, ex-chairman of the International Six Metre Association’s technical committee. He had also worked with Andy Postle of Allspars rigging, who owns the classic Six Metre Titia, and Rees Martin, for many years Secretary of the British International Six Metre Association, and owner of a modern Six and a Tumlare. About two-thirds of Valdai’s mahogany planking above the waterline was saved, being of good quality and perhaps partly protected by the mud in her Deben berth. She also has her original mahogany backbone and transom, her lead keel and rudder. But there was plenty of wet plywood and glassfibre to remove from poor repairs over the years. Tom removed the 2½-tonne keel in order to replace the keelbolts with new bronze ones, and replanked the boat below the waterline with African mahogany. Tristan Stone in Salcombe found some Sitka spruce through his father in British Columbia to replace the beamshelf and the deck beams, along with some 40ft (12.2m) lengths of Douglas fir to plank the decks. John Moody also provided some beautiful Honduras mahogany for the covering boards and kingplank, coamings and trim – a wood not easy to find these days. CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

VALDAI

“People stop to gaze, to admire her lines, her uncluttered deck layout”

Clockwise from top left: Close-hauled off Mylor; boatbuilder Tom Owen; Valdai before; and after Above: As Rowan III in Scotland

Valdai’s mast needed to be repositioned and keel-stepped, an owner in the 1970s having reverted to a deckstepped mast to save money at the time. To strengthen the boat internally, Tom installed four ring frames, as per the class rules: two in way of the mast, one at the mainsheet track location and the final one where the runners are located. The two at the mast are rigged to take the full load through the shrouds, which come straight through the deck onto a metal tube. This tube is supported by the ring frames, and has an additional rigging wire and bottlescrew down to a metal plate that sits beneath the mast step. The runner turning cheek blocks are mounted on a substantial box construction, which is bonded to the aft ring frame and bolted to the keelson, helping to spread the significant loads. And the forestay is mounted on a Bartels underdeck furler in bronze finish to match the beautiful Meissner bronze winches from Holmatro. Tom had found three owners for Valdai who were able to be involved in the restoration process – Sir Robert Owen, his friend James Fairrie, and a Dutch colleague of his, Dirk Stolp. She was finished just in time to sail over from Fowey with a borrowed set of sails to the British Championships taking place at Mylor Yacht Haven near Falmouth, Cornwall. Her maiden voyage was a long one, due to lack of wind, setting out midmorning and arriving at Mylor in the early hours of the next day, and racing a few hours later.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

During the next few days, winds were lively, to say the least. It was a brave step to enter a fiercely contested championship with an untried boat, but it proved a good one. From that experience they were able to go on to the European Championships at Nynäshamn in Sweden, where they performed better still. There will be more ‘bests’ to come as Valdai’s crew gets to know her, and meanwhile she is winning the beauty stakes everywhere. People stop to gaze, to admire her lines, her uncluttered and elegant deck layout. Her white aluminium mast looks good, but Tom is determined to build a competitive wooden spar for her further down the line, to show that it is possible. Valdai will be much enjoyed. She’s balanced both upwind and down, quickest in up to 12 knots of wind and able to catch the newer Third Rule boats, though after that, her lighter frame begins to tell against her. Like all Sixes, she’s a wet ride, but that’s part of the fun. Meanwhile Tom has bought another exciting Six to restore: the 1947 David Boyd design Marletta, built to the Third Rule to race in the Olympics. She’ll be subtly different, and a great temptation for anyone considering racing with Sixes. It’s clear that Tom won’t rest on his laurels for long, it’s straight in to the next project. Tom Owen, tel: +44 (0)7976 403120, www.classicyachtrestoration.co.uk www.6mr.org.uk

A WATCH MADE FROM PARTS OF HMS VICTORY?

WE DO NOT ANTICIPATE HUGE SALES IN FRANCE OR SPAIN.

It’s hardly surprising. The Bremont Victory chronograph is an unashamed tribute to the greatest oceangoing vessel in British naval history. The ship that, under the audacious leadership of Admiral Horatio Nelson, vanquished the combined might of the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar.

The inner barrel of the case is crafted from HMS Victory copper. While the back of the case is inlaid with oak from the ship’s timbers. But although these parts date from the 18th century (the ship was built in 1759), the rest of the watch is very definitely 21st century.

If your name is Marcel or Pedro, you may want to look away now.

The automatic movement features a double retrograde date, second hand and chronograph.

Nelson went into battle outnumbered and outgunned.

And the case is built from 18 carat rose gold and hardened stainless steel.

And yet, led by HMS Victory, the British captured twenty-one French and Spanish ships, destroyed one and lost none.

(Having survived the French and Spanish guns, we wouldn’t want any part of Victory to come to harm now.)

A stunning 22- 0 away win.

As you might expect, the Bremont Victory is only available in a strictly limited edition and demand is likely to be high.

On that October day in 1805, Britannia really did rule the waves. Today, the Bremont Victory chronograph borrows more than just the name of the famous vessel. It incorporates actual material from the original ship. With the kind permission of the National Museum of the Royal Navy we’ve used oak and copper from Victory in the construction of every watch. (In return, proceeds from each sale will go to help the ship’s restoration.)

But look on the bright side. Unlike Nelson, you won’t have to fight off the French and the Spanish.

News

Classic Boat’s address: Liscartan House, 127-131 Sloane Street, London SW1X 9AS For phone numbers, please see page 5

EXCLUSIVE

Rescued from the Bounty Doug Faunt was on board as the ship foundered. He spoke to Peter Willis

HMS Bounty, the 1960 replica Tall Ship, was en route from New London, Connecticut, down to St Petersburg, Florida, (1,400nM) with 16 people on board when she hit the edge of Hurricane Sandy on 28 October. She began taking in water, lost both generators and propulsion, and with them, the ability to operate the pumps. A call for assistance was issued at 6.30pm when she was about 90 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras. She sank soon after noon the next day. Sixty-six-year-old Doug Faunt, a retired IT technician from California, had been a volunteer on Bounty for five years and was on board that night. “The storm was moving up the coast – as soon as we left New London, we were feeling it – a pitching motion on the nose at first, then rolling and corkscrewing. Always getting a bit worse. We were expecting the storm to hit inland and we were hoping to go round the east side to get to Florida – we were running for sea room, trying to get well outside. As it turned out, it didn’t go far enough in and we didn’t go far enough out. We were running with the forecourse until it split on 28 October. The crew had to go aloft to furl the two halves of the sail and we set the fore staysail, but it didn’t provide the same lift or stability. “Being a wooden boat she started racking a lot – where the hull strains within itself – and taking on water. The engine flooded and there was saltwater in the generator; we lost power. At about 3.30am we prepared to abandon ship. We were instructed to put on our Gumby [immersion] suits and move to the weather deck. I tried to carry some 14

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

provisions up, but it was impossible – the ship was listing and we had to crawl up the deck towards the aft end. We tucked in under the helm, waiting for the call to abandon ship and launch the liferafts. “We held on a little too long. Somebody called out ‘she’s going!’. The leerail was several feet underwater. I was on the high side to windward with water up to my waist. I kicked off from the drum of the wheel and tried to swim away. The rigging pushed me underwater at least twice. I looked up to see a spar coming down towards me, and swam as hard as I could to get clear of the boat.

Struggle with a liferaft

USCG

Top: Bounty, stricken and sinking Above: Doug Faunt on terra firma after his rescue by a US Coast Guard helicopter

“I found a liferaft still in its container, but was unable to activate it. I was afraid its lanyard was still attached to Bounty, so kept clear. I was doing OK, but swallowing seawater. The sea was very rough – 20ft to 30ft (6-9m) waves. “Eventually I found a liferaft that had inflated, and grabbed hold of it. There were people inside it. With a great deal of effort, they got me in – I didn’t have a harness, so they were grabbing my suit, and the legs were full of water. By that time, I’d been awake since 8am the previous morning, so lay down and rested. As soon as I got in, the amount of seawater I’d taken in caused my bowels to spontaneously evacuate.

“Somebody shouted ‘she’s going’. The lee rail was underwater. I was on the high side to windward with water to my waist.”

“The Coast Guard helicopter arrived at first light, about 6am. We found that the waves and wind tended to clamshell the raft [make it fold up] so the rescue swimmer told us to jump into the water to be towed around to get into the basket [a metal frame for hoisting people aboard the helicopter]. He asked for the weakest swimmer to go first. I decided I qualified as well as anybody. When I got into the chopper I was very pleased to find our first mate John Svendsen – he’d never made it to a liferaft; they found him because of a strobe he was holding and took him first, straight out of the water. Once there were five of us aboard, they had to end that flight for lack of fuel, so we had no idea who else had been picked up. When the second flight came in there were hugs all round – and we realised who was missing.” Two crew didn’t survive: the body of Claudene Christian (related to Fletcher Christian of the original Bounty) was picked up later that day. The body of skipper Robin Walbridge has still not been found. Doug believes both were victims of falling spars and rigging (“All of us had close calls with them”), and that Robin may have got tangled in the rigging and gone down “not intentionally” with his ship.

CREDIT

US CoaST gUaRD

“We chase hurricanes. You get a good ride out of a hurricane” – Robin Walbridge, skipper of Bounty

The Coast Guard has launched a formal inquiry, which is why Doug feels unable to discuss what led up to the disaster. He hadn’t heard the skipper’s bizarre boast that, “we chase hurricanes” (made in a video interview last August), but he says, “we did have a plan to ride the winds south. We’d double-reefed the main top in anticipation of setting it after the worst.” Tall Ship skippers Jan Miles of Pride of Baltimore II and Dan Moreland of Picton Castle expressed surprise after the event that Bounty was out at sea at all, with a hurricane forecast. “I thought: ‘You’ve got to be kidding’,” was how Moreland later put it to the LA Times. Speaking a few weeks after the sinking, Doug Faunt says “I lost a man I loved and respected and a woman I’d come to care about a great deal. We’d come to love the ship. I still have a to-do list for the Bounty rattling around in my head. “There have been lots of times I’d just break down crying. But it has brought us all together. I now have 13 more family than I had before. And we’re all looking for other boats to join. There’s a big hole in our lives.”

Coast Guard inquiry

HURRICANE SANDY

65,000 boats lost and many boatyards hit Hurricane Sandy’s 90mph winds and 4m (13ft) storm surge caused the damage or loss of up to 65,000 recreational boats, according to an estimate by BoatsUS, the nation’s largest boating organisation, reports Chris Museler from Rhode Island. The late season storm hit marinas in New Jersey and Long Island particularly hard. Heavy damage was reported at two traditional New Jersey boatyards – Beaton & Sons in Mantoloking and the Tuckerton Seaport and Baymen’s Museum. In terms of boats alone, BoatsUS reckons the damage to be around $650 million (£400 million), making the storm the single largest industry loss since the association starting keeping records in 1966.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

NEWS

KEITH ALLSO OGA

ROUND-BRITAIN RELAY

This year marks the 50th since the Old Gaffers’ Association (OGA) was set up in 1963. The OGA has gone to town with celebration plans, with a relay sail around Britain, an August Cowes regatta that is already shaping up to be the party of the year, and a new book about the association. The sail around Britain in April will leave Maldon in Essex, birthplace of the OGA, and proceed clockwise. Part of the fleet will sail around the coast of Scotland, while others are electing to ‘cut the top off’ by transiting the Caledonian Canal. The fleet will stop at various ports for more celebrations and to collect new

members, some of whom will be making a complete circumnavigation, while others will just sail a leg or two as relay participants. The fleet will arrive in Cowes for a special regatta to be held from 15 to 18 August. More than 120 boats have already registered, with 100 more expected. Gaffers and non-gaffers alike are welcome. Boat registration of £30 to £40 includes three nights’ mooring at Cowes Yacht Haven. A new book about the 50-yearhistory of the OGA by Viv Head is out in April and available to pre-order.

Fastnet celebrity Jolie Brise, the French-built pilot cutter that won the first Fastnet in 1925 and again in 1929 and 1930, a feat never equalled, has earned her place as one of the most famous yachts in history. These days, she belongs to Dauntsey’s School in landlocked Wiltshire, where pupils help to keep her winning races – most recently the Tall Ships Transatlantic Race in 2011. Jolie Brise was built in Le Havre in 1913 as a pilot boat.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Lord Nelson Just a week before the disaster on HMS Bounty (pp14-15), the British barque Lord Nelson left her home port of Southampton to begin her first circumnavigation of the world, reports Max Mudie. Lord Nelson, designed and built to take mixed physical ability crews, including those in wheelchairs, will take 14 months to sail 50,000 miles and cross the Equator four times.

For more, visit www.oga50.org

Jolie Brise 1913

Above: Last year’s Yarmouth Old Gaffers event gives a taste of what the special anniversary regatta will be like

MAX

OGA to celebrate 50 years

2013 AWARDS

VPO T E AGE 36 Pick the year’s best boats!

Our shortlist of the best new boats, restorations, yards and people of the year is now complete and we need your vote to decide the winners. Full coverage starts on p36.

Apology Due to a distribution issue, some readers did not receive the free DVD given away with the December issue. It was from the German boatyard Robbe & Berking and features their classic commuter launch. We invite readers who did not receive the DVD to view the film at www.robbeberking.com/video/ or scan image below...

NEWS

PORTSMOUTH

£5m expansion for boatbuilding school Boathouse 4 is unique in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Nat Wilson, head of IBTC, said. It sits among its Georgian red brick neighbours in utilitarian concrete and corrugated sheet metal, built in 1939 for the construction of the secret three-man midget X-Craft submarine. The building covers 22,500sqft (2,085m2) and has an 80ft (24.4m)high ceiling equipped with gantry cranes for moving boats. A 15ft (4.6m)-wide canal leads into it, so boats can come straight in for work without hauling. Another canal leads under the building to a saltwater mast pond behind. Originally, it would have been used for pickling timber in salt before it was used for spar construction. If and when it opens (2014 is the plan), the usual IBTC courses will be run here, including the main 47-week

boatbuilding course. However, other courses like traditional marine engineering and 17th-century shipbuilding techniques will also be offered, in part to train a workforce for Portsmouth Historic Dockyard’s other attractions, HMS Warrior and HMS Victory among them. The most exciting aspect for most will be the ability to watch the students at work, turning boatbuilding into a live spectacle. This aspect of Boathouse 4 will be enhanced by exhibitions centred around the small boats of the Royal Navy’s history, with some of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard’s collection displayed alongside. Also of interest to those not able to devote the time or money to a full 47-week boatbuilding course, will be a series of short courses and weekend programmes.

Above left: The concrete bulk of Boathouse 4 in Portsmouth could house the IBTC Above right: HMS Warrior in the Historic Dockyard

WORD OF THE MONTH

Monoxylon Boats in the Ionian Isles propelled with one oar. Sailor’s Word Book of 1867 Admiral WH Smyth

CLASSIC BOAT

LONDON

One of Britain’s top boatbuilding schools is set to occupy an extraordinary building if its £5m expansion is green-lighted by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust (PNBPT), a quango entrusted with finding good uses for the historic naval buildings of Portsmouth as they fall out of MOD use, has been working closely with the International Boatbuilding and Training College (IBTC) to secure Boathouse 4 as a training centre open to the public. The new centre would complement the College’s existing base in Lowestoft, Suffolk. In November 2012, the PNBPT was awarded £240,800 of HLF funds to further its application for a full grant of £3.9m, with the rest of the money to come from the Regional Growth Fund.

Classic Boat JANUArY 2013

www.classicboat

.co.uk

£4.50 Us$12.5 0

CHELSEA MARINE

MAGAZINE S

JAnuArY 2013 . ISSue no 295

Boat Show loses its shine... but Classic Boat will be there

The Wo r l d’ s M osT BeA UTIFUl BoATs

2013 aWaRds

vote nOW

CHELSEA MARIN M A G A Z I N EE S

Sinking Bounty my night of hell our 30 years of thameside craftmanship

IS THIS THE

YEAR’S BEST BOAT?

VALdAI . COrAL .

One of the most popular features at the London Boat Show since 2004 has been the large Classic Boat stand, held in conjunction with sponsors Old Pulteney and International Paint. This year, we Born survivor A schooner’s tale Super 6-Metre are sad to report that it will not be going ahead, although we will Rebuilt to race be there selling magazines and subscriptions on a sales stand with our sister titles Yachts and Yachting and Sailing Today. A popular feature of the 2011 show returns this year: a life-sized rotating rig showing how to tack and gybe a cruising chute. And the Knowledge Box (talks) usually has something of interest too. The show has been gradually decreasing in visitor numbers over the years and last year, shared the giant ExCeL centre with a bicycle show, outdoor show and active travel show. The exhibitor list was incomplete when we went to press. BeTSIe JAne .

BOw-ThruSTer

West end yacht

club

The Royal Tham es

ExCeL’s south hall has direct access to boats on the quayside

Raiding the shannOn

With 30 open boats

WOuld yOu daRe

PLUS!

Winter projects expert notes tO . .

Fit a bow thrus. ter?

01 9 770950 331134

London Boat Show, ExCel Centre, Docklands, London, 12-20 January, 10am to 6pm Tel: +44 (0)871 230 7140, www.londonboatshow.com

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

YACHTS YACHTING

CHELSEA MARINE

MAGAZINE S

YACHTS YACHTING CHELSEA MARIN M A G A Z I N EE S

Tom Owen Classic Yacht Restorer Specialist in bespoke classic yacht restoration & wooden boatbuilding. Particular area of interest is light to medium displacement racing yachts & keelboats. Top quality work on wooden boats from small dinghies up to yachts.

Tom Owen • Classic Yacht Restoration & Wooden Boatbuilding Unit 4, Windmill Ind. Est., Fowey, Cornwall PL23 1HB www.classicyachtrestoration.co.uk • Email: tom@classicyachtrestoration.co.uk • Tel: +44 7976 403120

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Princess Anne awards CB photographer Winner of the 2012 National Historic Ships/Classic Boat Photography Competition was Ian Kippax of Ely, Cambridgeshire, for his haunting photograph of barges in the rain, titled Scorpio. It was chosen from 450 entries, the highest number yet. Ian won £1,000 to be spent on a vessel of his choice on the National Register of Historic Vessels. Also announced at the awards ceremony on HMS Belfast in London on 24 October were the Marsh Volunteers of the Year, Lisa and Derek Chafer, for their work on the Humber Sloop Amy Howson. They received £700. A second award of £300 was made to Simon Sawers, for his work on SS Explorer. The Flagship of the Year was announced too: the Thames Sailing Barge Edith May, which won £1,000 to go towards keeping the vessel operational and open to public viewing. Princess Anne spoke informally about her enthusiasm for photography. She is also a keen ‘pharologist’ (lighthouse fancier) and a sailor. NATIONAL HISTORIC SHIPS

ONLINE

MARTIN PEARSONS

Gallery prints

IRELAND

Bangor S-Class reunited

HENRI THIBAULT

Sixty-five years ago Robert Slater, a naval architect from Bangor, Co Down, designed and built the first of 23 S-Class yachts at his shipyard on Ballyholme Bay. This October, the nearby Royal Ulster Yacht Club hosted a reunion for 37 past and present owners and crew of the classic 27ft (8.2m) yachts. It was the owners of the first built, Stealaway (pictured), Martin and Ann Pearsons of West Mersea, Essex, who started many years ago the task of tracking down as many of the class as possible. All but four of the craft have now been located. Betty Armstrong

This photo of a Chris-Craft Capri 19 at speed by Henri Thibault is the same one that appeared on our May 2012 cover and is an example of a range of fine art photographic prints now available on our website. Go to classicboat.co.uk, under ‘classic photography prints’ at the top of the screen. Who says we don’t do powerboats?!

OBITUARY

Fred Barter died peacefully at the Sam Beare Hospice in Weybridge on 30 October after a brief illness. Fred was widely known as an eminent yachting journalist, designer and publisher with more than 40 books to his credit. He edited the Cruising Association’s magazine for 18 years and gave great service to the association. He leaves behind a wife, four children and six grandchildren. Geoff Doggett

James ‘Jimmy’ Robinson died suddenly at home on 7 November, at the age of 56. The many volunteering roles in his life included a stint as Mayor of Aldeburgh and Commodore of the Aldeburgh Yacht Club. At the time of his death, he was Commodore of the Loch Long class, and a photo of him sailing his Loch Long Pippin was featured prominently in last month’s issue (CB294, pp28-29). He leaves behind a wife and two children.

James Robinson 1956-2012 JACk GIFFORD

Fred Barter 1937-2012

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Introducing our new collection for Spring / Summer 2013, including our DAME Award Winning Sailcloth footwear range. In stock from March 2013 Call 0845 2700 217 for details. info@chatham-marine.co.uk

www.chatham-marine.co.uk

22.11.12.indd 1 JANUARY 2013 20CM CBMCLASSIC BOAT

22/11/2012 14:49

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Overseas news

jAMES NichOLLS

AUSTRALIA

Down Under, where the sun shines brightly Two examples of a particularly Australian design also caught my eye: the 2008-built Southerly (26ft 6in / 8.1m) and the 1989 Sylvia of the same dimensions. Both of these craft are what is known as Couta boats and developed from the vessels used for offshore fishing from the Victorian ports of Queenscliff, Port Fairy and Portland during the 1880s, being characteristically transom-sterned, short-ended and beamy. Couta boats were built to catch the local barracouta fish and they gradually took on racier and more sporty lines as the fishermen competed to get their catch back to the market first.

THe MeD

AC yAChts in sydney Three weeks earlier, 70 vessels gathered nearby at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney’s famous harbour. Outside on the water was the newly-restored America’s Cup yacht, Gretel II (KA-3). Fifty years after her first Australian America’s Cup challenge, Gretel (KA-1), the last wooden 12-M built, also bobbed regally in the Sydney sunshine. Another to catch the eye was the superb 1924 Hurrica V. This Charles Nicholson ketch features in the 2013 film The Great Gatsby starring Leonardo DiCaprio. As usual there was a magnificent turn-out of native Halvorsen motor-cruisers and launches.

OBITUARY

Great whites in the Mediterranean

Britton Chance Jr, 1940-2012

ALESSANDRO DE MADDALENA

italian shark specialist Alessandro de Maddalena published this year the most comprehensive study of great whites in the Mediterranean. The result of 16 years of research, it includes all 596 recorded sightings, many from around the Greek islands. Fifty-five attacks (19 fatal) are also recorded. Attacks are rare and the data suggests a decrease in their numbers over the last 20 years. The book costs US$55 (£35) and is available at www.mcfarlandpub.com.

Above left: Classic Halvorsen launches in Sydney Harbour Above right: Couta boat Southerly from 2008

The yacht designer responsible for three winning America’s cup yachts died this October aged 72. his cup designs included major revisions to the wooden 12-M intrepid for her defence against Australian challenger Gretel ii (newly restored, see above) in 1970, as well as Dennis conner’s famous Stars & Stripes (1987). he went on to establish chance & co in Essex, cT, famous for 5.5-M and 6-M racers. his designs have also won the One-Ton cup, Gold cup, 5.5-M Worlds and Astor Trophy. chance, who lived in Lyme, cT, is survived by a daughter. Barry Pickthall, PPL

PPL

Wooden boats of all kinds mustered on 3-4 November at the Royal Motor Yacht Club, founded in 1928. The club is in Newport near Broken Bay, Sydney – one of the Southern Hemisphere’s most beautiful boating waterways, reports James Nicholls. Under the glowering skies, the oldest boat of the 66-strong fleet was the 1897 yacht Heartsease. The 50ft (15.2m) cutter from New Zealand has a remarkable past as a customs boat, not to mention a sinking in the 1940s. Among the motor and sailing vessels was the pretty little steam launch Witch of Endor, while the newest boat on show was this year’s Karman, a speedy looking runabout.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Looking ahead Things to do in the next few weeks Until 31 December Salty Dogs Annual Christmas Exhibition 103 High St, Maldon, Essex Photographer Den Phillips and friends exhibit and sell their wares: photos, driftwood art, metalwork and a lot more besides Tel: +44 (0)7957 856242, 10am to 5pm daily. Free

7 January, 12.30pm Lunchtime lecture: The Secret Navies and the Christmas Rescue National Maritime Museum Cornwall, Falmouth

saIlINg ausTralIa

Derek Carter on the boats that linked England to Nazi-controlled France in the Second World War. £14.50 for lunch and lecture Tel: +44 (0)1326 313388, www.nmmc.co.uk 10 January, 7.30pm Cruising in Croatian Waters Stuart Bradley Early Bird pub, Maidstone, Kent Tel: +44 (0)20 7537 2828 www.cruising.org.uk, free 19 January, 6.30pm Navigating in the Arctic David Fairhall SB Melissa, RHYC Marina, Woolverstone, Suffolk Meal and free talk Tel: +44 (0)20 7537 2828 www.cruising.org.uk

CHOugH 30 January, 6.30pm Discovery Talk: Storms, Solitude and Soul-Searching NMMC, Falmouth Roz Savage on her experience as the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. £8 or £18 with a two-course buffet Tel: +44 (0)1326 214546 www.nmmc.co.uk

NEW ZEalaND 26-28 JaNuary

WILLIAM CALvER

The lively season (see p21) continues Down Under, with racing and regattas in classic classes. See www.classicyacht.asn.au/ calendar for more details of events

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

BOuNTy A tale of two boats The hull and the rig of this ketch parted company after a colourful history. We catch up with the second Bounty, fresh from restoration

Talks aND EXHIBITIONs 5-6 January Warm and Woolly Workshop Cutty Sark, southeast London Fun for kids with woollen sock puppet-making on 5 January and woolly ear muffs the next day. Free with entry to the ship Tel: +44 (0)20 8312 6608, www.rmg.co.uk/cuttysark

Next month in Classic Boat

Auckland and Mahurangi Regattas with passage races both ways – visiting yachtsmen always made to feel very welcome Tel: +64 9 44 66 081, www.classicyacht.org.nz Left: Rawhiti

A sweet-lined 18ft Itchen Ferry-type gaffer with bunks in her cabin and shoal-draughted enough to get into deserted creeks and away from it all

EurOpE By rIvEr One man and his boat Giacomo de Stefano tells of his 3,200-mile odyssey from London to Istanbul in a 19ft Ness Yawl

plus Charter feature; New York YC; Broads cruiser Betsie Jane and more!

Newport Shipyard New England’s Classic Yacht Hub

Coming in Spring 2013: 500T Travelift, the largest in New England! One Washington Street | Newport, Rhode Island 02840 | USA | 401-846-6000 | www.NewportShipyard.com

110 year old 80ft Gaff Schooner Built Itchen Ferry. 1902 Winner King’s Cup. 1926 Winner King’s Cup. 1928 Winner Queen’s Cup. 1934 Laid up in Cowes. 1939 Rebuilt Capetown. 2006 Refitted Caribbean. 2011 Shamrock Trophy. 2012 Offers invited

Nicolle Associates has the experience to listen to your needs, respond to your demands and react effectively to your personal requirements. Whether you are considering buying or selling a new or pre-owned motor boat or yacht our unique personal service will make the process easier. If you are looking for a boat we will hand pick a selection of suitable craft matched to your individual requirements and we will guide and advise you through the complete purchase at no cost. We will also take away the problems of selling your boat - let us provide the expertise and experience to actively market and promote your yacht while you carry on boating. Our competitive and professional service can help with your finance, registration, insurance and chartering requirements.

Contact Nicolle Associates on +44 (0)23 8045 6348 or email info@findaboat.co.uk

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Saleroom Left: Sunset in the South Pacific Ocean – Sooty albatross on the wing, by Herbert Ponting, Scott expedition photographer, made £2,250 Right: Dramatic, ghostly image of Shackleton’s Endurance trapped in ice, by Frank Hurley, sold for £2,375

CHRISTIE’S LONDON

Polar neck sweater BY DAVE SELBY It’s only a white polo neck jersey, albeit a quality garment that any high latitudes sailor would cherish. It’s 90 years old and still pristine, but that’s not why it sold for an astonishing £9,375 at Christie’s in London. The jersey is a prize artefact of polar adventure. To touch it, or even just to view it behind glass, delivers a gut-thumpingly tangible connection to Sir Ernest Shackleton at the very moment the great explorer’s life ebbed away aboard ship in the South Atlantic on 5 January 1922. More than that, it offers a glimpse of the private side and essential human warmth of the man whose legend as a leader was cemented years earlier by the epic 800-mile, life-saving voyage aboard a 22ft (6.7m) ship’s boat to South Georgia in 1916. The story of the jersey is best told in the words of the man to whom Shackleton gave it, Dr Alexander Macklin, who recounted in the 1950s: “I remember I went to my own berth

and got a blanket… I remember he was grateful for that. I think he gave me at the time a lovely white jersey. Three of them had been presented to him – by, I think, his girlfriend – but when I brought him this blanket he leant over and said: ‘Look here, I’ve got three of these things and I’m giving one to Wild, would you like this one?’… It was a beautiful thing.” Shackleton and Scott were one-time colleagues, later rivals, but on this occasion in a London auction room, Shackleton had to concede top billing. The Polar Sale was also billed as a Scott centenary auction and, as always happens with centenaries, it heightened market interest. One example was Scott’s marching compass, used on the tragic

Above: Scott’s marching compass sold for £37,250 Below: Shackleton’s polo neck jersey, a gift to Dr Macklin, sold for £9,375

1912 Terra Nova expedition. Expected to sell for £15,000 to £20,000, it was fiercely contested to £37,250. The most valued trophy in the saleroom, selling for £67,250, was the recently-discovered archive of letters written by youngest expedition member, Apsley CherryGarrard, who was one of the party that discovered the body of Scott and his comrades in November 1912. Inexperienced and short-sighted, Cherry-Garrard was only accepted as a member of the expedition after he made a £1,000 donation, yet the experience marked him for life, both physically and psychologically; famously, his teeth chattered so much they shattered. His letters are chilling and poignant: “We went 20 miles to see if we could see any trace of Oates’ body… it was most unlikely. But we found his sleeping bag on a cairn.” CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Rowdy

59 ft Herreshoff New York 40 Bermudan Cutter 1916

£895,000 Lying France

As a “Fighting Forty” ROWDY has dominated her class in classic regattas. Meanwhile as the cruiser for which the class was principally designed, her sister RUGOSA flew the flag in 2001 to voyage some 26,000 miles to the Americas Cup Jubilee. Authentic and her condition hard to fault, ROWDY today personifies the total versatility of this design – one of very few as capable from any era. The current owner spent time this summer cruising with his grandchildren aboard ROWDY but then still won the vintage class at the Voiles de St Tropez!

email: info@sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk

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

Objects of desire Searchlights These Francis searchlights date from 1953 to 1973. They are completely renovated with new reflectors, new wiring and upgraded to halogen bulbs. They have been meticulously rechromed, with the metal taken back to the bare surface and completely re-covered in copper – a necessity for excellent chrome finish. These days, a new 9in (23cm) light in chrome would cost around £2,500, so these are real bargains, starting at £1,065 plus VAT for the brass, up to £1,350 for the 11in (28cm) chrome. Tel: +44 (0)1502 712311 www.tradboats.com

Low-profile cleat London nautical equipment maker Davey & Co has a large range of new gear available this year (see forthcoming issue), not least of which is this bright, shiny bronze cleat. This is the 12in (31cm) version, but it’s also available in 9in (23cm) and 6¾in (17cm). Though it stands no more than 3in (8cm) off the deck, the low rake and wide cap retain rope well, and the generous base spreads the load. £189.48 plus VAT for the 12in. Tel: +44 (0)1206 500946, www.davey.co.uk

Handmade knife Finnish knifesmith Veijo Käpylä takes great pains over this superbly-balanced, tough and tactile traditional Finnish Tommi puukko knife. He selects and shapes the Arctic Raita (birch) root burl handle, then forges the 5in (125mm) tempered, razor-sharp, steel blade, casting the solid brass boulster and forming the leather swinger sheath. While it is a thing of beauty – costing £210 – this is also one of the best, most unique knives we’ve ever used.

Deck slider For optimal headsail performance, you can’t beat a deck slider or genoa track, as they are sometimes known. The problem is their aluminium and black plastic livery is rather ugly on an old classic. This bronze version from Classic Marine is more like it. It comes in two lengths and in two sizes: 1in (25mm) track width with a roller sheave for lines up to 12mm (1/2in) and 1¼in (31mm) to handle up to 16mm (5/8in). About £300 for a full set up for a 30-footer (9.1m). Tel: +44 (0)1394 380390, www.classicmarine.co.uk

www.kainuunpuukko.com

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Coral

Cowes Calling After a three-stage rebuild spanning 10,000 miles of the Atlantic, this 1902 Fred Shepherd schooner has finally returned home to the Solent. Peter Willis has the story

peter willis

Above: Coral’s glazed deckhouse is typical of the 1902 vintage

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Above left: Current owner Richard Oswald in Cowes

hen we were trawling through the list of boats in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant last June (CB288), one name caught our attention simply because we knew nothing about her, and yet she was exactly the sort of boat we should have been aware of: a 110-year-old, 80ft (24.4m) Fred Shepherddesigned gaff schooner, called (as we thought at the time) Coral of Cowes. From what we could discover, she clearly had quite a history – racing in the King’s Cup in the prewar years, rebuilt in Cape Town in the mid-2000s and then rescued and further restored in Antigua last year. In the end, she didn’t make it to the Pageant, but she did return to Cowes in early June, where we caught up with her. And the first thing to clear up is her name. It’s Coral, just like that. Richard added the ‘of Cowes’ as a sort of marketing tag. “I hope it’s not too tacky – I felt she needed some branding. We charter her, and especially in Antigua, Coral by itself could imply any sort of boat. I would never pretend Coral of Cowes is her name.” But she is very much ‘of Cowes’. Soon after Richard brought her back this summer, he was entertained to dinner at the Royal Yacht Squadron. Looking over the shoulders of his hosts, he could see the honours boards on the wall. “And there she was, up on the boards.” Although comparatively diminutive in the company of

CORAL OF COWES

previous spread and above: niGeL perT

the likes of Britannia, Cariad, Cetonia, Lulworth, Moonbeam and others, she won the King’s Cup in 1926 and again in 1928, and came second in 1930. And then, following a rule change which excluded boats of her size, she won the Queen’s Cup in 1934. That was under Frank Chaplin, whom Richard calls “her first significant owner” between 1924 and 1943. She had been built in 1902, by White Bros of Itchen Ferry, Southampton, and designed by Fred Shepherd – one of the most respected of early 20th century British yacht designers, who had only recently set up under his own name. The client was Dr J MacMahon, of Cork, Ireland, who named her Bamba III.

performance and looks Shepherd had developed a reputation for maximising the space within any given length of yacht by placing the volume low down in the hull without sacrificing her sailing qualities. He was also noted – as with Coral – for producing cruising yachts that could perform well in handicap races, and which look ravishingly beautiful, with their spoon bow and counter stern. Coral’s accommodation centres around a spacious full-width saloon amidships, with a pair of generous bucket seats to starboard, separated by a sideboard cabinet, and to port, a large, gimballed dining table with drop-leaves. Between these is a generous walkway, and a decent-sized wood-burning stove.

Richard says the table has proved useful on passage in a sea, not for a sit-down meal, where it would be either down in your lap or under your chin, but for laying out a running buffet. The owner’s cabin is forward to port, with a double bunk and its own heads and shower. A lengthy galley runs along the starboard side. Forward of these is a commodious forepeak, making up the crew’s quarters, with ample stowage and up to six berths. Going aft, the captain’s cabin is to starboard, with a convenient cut-out through the bulkhead which separates it from the companionway, so that he can – basically – yell at the helmsman from his cabin. On the other side, a corridor leads past the nav station and another heads to the “ladies’ cabin”. It’s easy to see how Coral provided a home for her second significant owner, from 1965 to 1987. This was Cowes boatbuilder Len Souter, his wife Doll and ‘Granny’ Souter – still well remembered in Cowes, as Richard found when he took Coral back up the Medina. “The guys at the fuel dock and Harbourmaster Barry all recognised her, and the Souters’ children have all been on board.” On deck, another eating or lounging area is provided by a comfy cockpit with cushioned benches all round, and a table in the centre. It’s forward of the businesslike ship’s wheel and the compass binnacle, with the card, I’m pleased to see, marked out in points as well as degrees. The companionway is sheltered by one of those glazed deckhouses beloved of this vintage of boat. Inside, narrow,

Previous spread and above right: Coral powers through quite a wave racing at Antigua

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

BeKen OF cOWes

CORAL OF COWES

CORAL OF COWES Designer

Fred Shepherd Built

White Bros, Southampton, 1902 lOA

80ft (24.4m) length Over sPArs

98ft (29.9m)

WAterline length

64ft (19.5m) BeAm

15ft (4.6m) 10ft (3.1m) OriginAl rig

Gaff yawl

current rig

Two-mast schooner 32

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

nAtiOnAl mAritime museum

DrAught

peter willis

Opposite page: Coral pictured with her original rig by Beken of Cowes in 1927, and her lines by Fred Shepherd Above: In the saloon – note the half-model on the bulkhead and the Shamrock Trophy sitting on the stove

cushioned bench seats surround a sheer drop into the bowels of the boat – a feature that has always worried the life out of me. They do, at least, provide handy stowage, which is probably the best way of preventing people from trying to sit on them. Extensive laid decks provide ample sun-lounging space, augmented these days by a deck shower (B&Q, I’m told, in brass-tap style) There’s also space for the ship’s dinghy, a venerable Lymington Scow. Up at the business end, an ancient anchor windlass called Lucifer lurks under a canvas cover; it’s still used for the main anchor chain, when deployed, but a more modern electric unit has been installed to take care of a lighter day-to-day anchor.

first of many rebuilds Coral started life as a gaff yawl but is now a two-masted gaff schooner. How that happened is tied up with Robin Reed, who had her shipped via Hamburg to Cape Town, where he rebuilt her. Twice. In 1998, he got a team to pull her apart under a Dutch naval architect and attend to important frames and planks. Then they re-rigged her with the foremast about 18in/46cm ahead of the original mainmast, relying on the same frames. When she went back in the water, they found that they hadn’t done enough, so she went back to the yard, and work continued until 2006. An engine was installed – a naturally-aspirated six-cylinder Volvo diesel that is quite the quietest engine I’ve ever heard.

By 2010, Robin got to thinking that after 18 years of ownership, it was time to sail Coral home. They left in early February 2011, with a crew of eight, heading for St Helena, a dot in the South Atlantic about 1,700nM from Cape Town. It proved to be a difficult passage; they arrived with a broken main boom – it had “snapped like a twig” in a blow a few days earlier – and a seriously ill owner. By the time they left the island, Robin had quit the boat to return to the UK aboard RMS St Helena, the broken boom had been replaced with a pole 6ft 6in (2m) shorter, meaning that the main had to be triple-reefed, and Coral was heading for Antigua, up for sale. At this point, enter Richard, along with his chequebook, and UK broker Barney Sandeman. In fact Coral had been on the market for two years, but her owner’s health lent urgency to the situation. “Someone was needed to take her on,” says Richard. “The hurricane season was on the way, the boom was broken and she was about to arrive in Antigua. I got phoned up. I said yes.” He pauses as if he knows all this sounds a bit sketchy, and adds, by way of explanation: “You know, there’s nothing like a gaff schooner – she can handle a transatlantic with ease.” At the time he had conveniently just sold his Bowman 57 and was teaching Yachtmaster in the Algarve. “Coral arrived in Antigua just before the Classics. I flew out, had her hauled out and checked over by some boatbuilder friends, had lunch at Catherine’s Café with Robin and Barney, and the transaction was done.” CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

CORAL OF COWES

PETER WILLIS

“A great moment was watching the J-Class racing for a cup we’d already won”

Initially, when he bought her, Richard thought most of the work needed on Coral related to cosmetics and systems – both in poor shape. The capping rails in particular were black. So he took all the varnish back to bare wood and got a team started – “the Antiguans are the best varnishers in the world” – building it back up, with 10 coats of Epifanes. But trusted surveyor Frank Pearce found that the rudder box was not connected to the frames at all and there was worm in the stem. Falmouth boatbuilder Toby Millinder rebuilt the bow with local craftsman Oliver Greensmith, who also rebuilt the boom and the gaff, and transformed the owner’s cabin into a double. After the Antigua Charter Show at the beginning of December 2011, there was then a “mad thrust” to finish the work in time for 30 solid days of charter over Christmas and the New Year. “We had to keep spending to be earning,” is how Richard puts it.

home at last Coral stayed for the Antigua Classics – oldest yacht there, third in the Concours d’Elegance – then it was time to complete the homeward voyage, with the promise of a place in the Pageant. However, the weather had other ideas. “There was a big depression sitting over the Azores like a guard,” recalls Richard. “We had to beat for a week to get there. I’ve done that trip 11 times – they were the worst conditions I can remember.” They reached the Solent with a few days until the Pageant but decided to halt at Cowes. “Our project from the day I bought her had been to get her back home. Then we could take a deep breath and wonder what to do next.” What they – Richard and his small crew – have done, really, is celebrate Coral’s homecoming in the way she knows best: sailing and racing in the Solent. The crew that brought her home from Antigua consists of Daniel and Beate from Austria, and the aptlynamed deckhand Dexter from Grenada. 34

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

First mate Daniel is an expert, self-taught sailor, who sails his own engineless yacht. Richard suggested at one stage he would improve his career chances with a qualification, and sent him off to a school in Portugal. “They saw him coming in under sail – no engine – and were going: ‘This guy’s here to learn Yachtmaster?’!” The sailing, some of it, is subsidised in the way Richard knows best – by chartering, and with some success. “We need to build it up for next year, but we’ve done some corporates. The teams have a much more satisfying time on a low-tech boat like Coral, which involves pulling bits of rope, than on a modern boat, where they just sit along the rail having a horrible time.” For this year’s Round the Island Race, with half the charterers in a crew house ashore and half sleeping on board, they had two days’ training, practising manoeuvres like the ‘port tack dump’ – the fore tops’l has to come down each time she tacks. “They got the whole job – down, tack, up – done in four minutes!” The result was winning the Shamrock Trophy for first gaffer home – it sits in the saloon, bearing Coral’s name alongside those of distinguished previous winners – Chris Waddington’s Moya, Iseult, Duet, Moonbeam, Kelpie – and is obviously a great source of pride to Richard, as is the repeat booking for next year’s race. “Another great moment was watching the J-Class racing this summer for a cup we’d already won – the Queen’s Cup in 1934.” As for the future, Coral is up for sale again. Although Richard was able to step in and rescue her, the finances of maintaining a boat of this size must be forbidding, as is the asking price – just short of a million pounds. Richard recognises that sales of this magnitude take time: Coral’s schedule for 2013 is already shaping up. Round the Island is a fixture, then it’s off to the Med. www.coralofcowes.com

Above: Two views of the owner’s cabin with newly-installed double bunk

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Awards 2013 in association with

We’ve shortlisted the top traditional boats, yards and people of the last year in a sumptuous gathering of style and class. What’s more, we’re asking you to vote for your favourites to give us 11 deserving winners

Awards ur popular Restoration of the Year competition has grown! In the pages that follow, you’ll still find the world’s top classic yacht restorations from the past 12 months. But this time, you decide the winners by voting (see details below), plus we’ve broadened the awards to cover new categories as well. Better yet, many of the candidates were nominated by you. You’ll find traditionally-built new boats, spirit-of-tradition yachts, boatyards, powerboats and people for your vote. We’ve broadened it to distinguish between boats longer and less than 40ft (12.2m), and European boats and those built or restored elsewhere in the world. There’s more detail about each shortlisted candidate at www.classicboat.co.uk and you can in association browse back issues of CB for coverage. Our thanks go to Teamac for helping us to expand these awards.

Restoration 2013 EUROPE OVER 40FT (12M)

with

Vote and win! Musto MPX foulies

Awards 2013 It couldn’t be easier to vote! Simply go to www.classicboat.co.uk/awards2013 to choose your favourites from this shortlist, before February 15 2013. You can also write to us at the address on p5. Every entry will be automatically entered into a prize draw to win a brand new Musto MPX jacket and trousers, worth £750. Follow awards news and results on Twitter and Facebook

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

in association with

CARRINA

Carrina is one of the last of Fred Shepherd’s “great old ladies”. Launched in 1929 by RJ Perkins & Sons of Whitstable, she was built to an exacting standard. Surviving in great condition, she still needed serious restoration by Ventis shipyard of Enkhuizen in the Netherlands. Work took in the stem and stern, bulwarks, rig and interior panelling, but the planking and deck were fine. LOA 54ft (16.5m) LWL 42ft (12.8m) bEAM 13ft 6in (4.1m) dRAughT 9ft 2in (2.8m)

JeAn-CLAude rOSSO

BICHE

THALATTA

emILy HArrIS

After a difficult five-year restoration, Thalatta went back to sea this year (CB289). She’s a bowsprit class Thames Sailing Barge, making her easy to handle for a small crew. Ideal, then, for her role getting disadvantaged kids out on the water – with great success, to judge by the enthusiastic log entries. She was built in 1906 in Harwich and ran grain and aggregates until she left trade in 1966, when her career as a school ship began under John Kemp and Jane Benham. Work began in 2005 with Heritage Lottery Fund support, and ran to more than £1m. LOA 88ft 9in (27.1m) BeAm 20ft 6in (6.3m) drAugHT 5ft (1.5m)

Built in 1933 at Aimé Chauffeteau’s yard in les Sables d’Olonne, France, Biche hails from the heyday of French tunny-fishing. She is the only one of the hundreds of so-called dundee tunnyboats to have survived. Her fishing career ended in 1957, and she became a training ship for the royal Belgian Sailing Club in Zeebrugge. After a stint in Channel charters, she returned to Brittany in 1991 as a museum piece, but proved too costly to maintain and was abandoned in the mud at Port-rhu. She was saved in 2004, when the Friends of Biche raised, then shipped her to the guip yard in Lorient. restoration work costing c£1m (€1.3m) has included complete replanking, reframing, redecking, rerigging and more – one timber at a time. Biche is once more available for charter. LOA 69ft 3in (21.1m) BeAm 21ft 9in (6.9m) drAugHT 9ft 7in (2.9m) dISP 63 tonnes CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

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EUROPE UNDER 40FT (12M)

STAR A stint with the Royal Naval College at Osborne House, Isle of Wight, saw this gaff cutter used to train midshipmen, including the future King Edward VIII, King George VI and Prince George. Star was designed and built in 1907 by Edward Wade in St Helens, IOW, and moved to the East Coast in 1939. She’s just emerged from a detailed restoration by Costantini Shipyard on Lake Maggiore in Italy. LOA 26ft (8m) LWL 20ft (6m) BM 7ft (2.1m)

DAMSEL This beautiful little Broads yacht is a classic of her type. Her origins are somewhat murky, but she’s reckoned to date from around 1900 (see CB293). She has benefited from a number of restorations over the years, but she went back in on Barton Broad, Norfolk, in 2012 after a particularly scrupulous job. Unsympathetic glassfibre sheathing was peeled off and her planking replaced, along with some of the oak frames and part of the deck. Spars, rigging and sails were renewed, and interior work included a bespoke drinks cabinet. LOA 28ft (8.5m) BEAM 8ft (2.4m) DRAUGHT 3ft (0.9m)

PETER WILLIS

KATHY MANSFIELD

LITTLE GULL

VALDAI

GENTLY

Serial yacht restorer Peter Harrold of Lincolnshire has been restoring this Maurice Griffiths-designed Lone Gull, with a back-to-wood refinish, engine refurbishment, two new planks, steamed timbers, and an interior job – all for under £6,000.

We were impressed by the restoration of the Mylnedesigned 6-Metre Valdai from 1930. The boat herself is so pretty it hurts, then there’s the work by Cornish boatbuilder Tom Owen and the fact that he guarded the yacht while he found owners. Read the full story on p6.

Merlin 16 is the one her designer Jack Holt built for himself at Putney in 1945. She was restored over two years by Chris Barlow, a musical instrument restorer who kept her as original as possible.

LOA 28ft (8.5m) BEAM 10ft (3.1m) DRT 4ft (1.2m)

LOA 35ft 1in (10.7m) BEAM 6ft 9in (2.1m) DRT 5ft 3in (1.6m)

LOA 14ft (4.3m) BEAM 4ft 8in (1.4m)

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS

Restoration

REST OF WORLD UNDER 40ft (12M)

CATBOATS

HOANA

Not so much a boat as a tradition, the Beetle Cat has the longest production run of any wooden boat: more than 4,000 and counting. that means the supply of knackered ones available to students at the International School of Yacht Restoration in Rhode Island never dries up. A fleet of the little boats emerges at the school’s graduation day every June, and 2012 was no different. Alumnus Seth Hagen told CB: “Still fresh in my mind is the satisfaction of leaning against oak coamings, the tiller in one hand, and the sheet in the other, while we rushed through the sea as if hauled by a great, unseen tugboat. It is a magic memory.”

Yachts like this one were a common sight in Sydney Harbour in the first half of the 20th century. She is a 30ft (9.1m) Sydney Harbour Coach-house Cruiser – a powerful centreboard gaffer based on the fast fishing Couta boats of Victoria. Hoana was wrecked in a gale in 1926 and rebuilt, only to suffer a collision in Sydney Harbour last year. the damage was nearly fatal, but Sydney Harbour Wooden Boats replaced planks and frames and 1,200 nails and roves and strengthened her in the process.

LOA 12ft 4in (3.8m) BEAM 6ft (1.8m) DRAUGHt 2ft (0.6m) SAIL 100sqft (9.3m2)

LOA 30ft (9.1m) BEAM 10ft (3.1m) DRAUGHt 3ft 6in/8ft (1.1m/2.4m)

PATIENCE

TERRA LINNA

RENDEZVOUS

L francis Herreshoff’s plans ran in Rudder magazine in 1946 as a DIY series, but Patience wasn’t built until 1953 – by Chaulker & White. Since 2009, owners Ed and Bill Gibson have restored the original rig with hollow Sitka spruce spars and bronze hardware. they have put in new floors and sole, replaced 25 cracked frames and refastened around a third of the hull. that’s not mentioning the interior, cockpit and engine!

tasmania’s Wooden Boat Guild has completed a major restoration project on this 1880 cutter yacht, inspired by whaleboats. the George Luckman-designed double-ender is carvel-built of Huon pine on blackwood (acacia), and nearly ended her days stranded at Battery Point. Work has been undertaken over nine years as funding has allowed, but no expense has been spared, and the cost has run to AU$120,000 (c£75,000).

few places were immune to 6-M fever in the first half of the 20th century; nor, indeed, from the current fever of restoring the class. Rendezvous is one of the eight or so Sixes built in Australia in the 1930s and ‘40s, this one to a Wm fife III design, in 1937. Sydney Harbour Wooden Boats reverted to her original deck layout as a racer, but her original planking, just 5/8in (16mm) of Huon pine, has survived the 75 years largely intact.

LOA 36ft (11m) BEAM 11ft (3.4m) DRt 5ft 3in (1.6m)

LOA 28ft (8.5m) BEAM 9ft (2.7m) DRt 3ft 9in (1.1m)

LOA 36ft 6in (11.1m) BEAM 6ft 11in (2.1m)

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

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REST OF WORLD OVER 40FT (12M)

ALISON LANGLEY

ADVENTURESS

BOUNTY

If a Martian came to Earth to write a thesis on pretty, classic schooner yachts, you might suggest the 1924 Adventuress as a starting point. She’s a Fife III (tick), gaff-rigged (tick) and has an interesting history that includes a sinking and service in the Second World War (… you get the idea!). Her restoration for a Turkish yachtsman took place in Maine, at top yard Rockport Marine. We covered her story fully in CB293, but in brief, she’s a good example of the sort of big-yacht restoration that is so popular these days – a reinstatement to original purpose and appearance combined with many of the accoutrements of modern living.

When L Francis Herreshoff’s 1934 Bounty was thrown ashore by Hurricane Carol in 1954, she suffered botched repairs that saw her abandoned by the late ‘60s, and a new Bounty built. But the first boat was restored by Roger Riddel and now French businessman Eric Blanc-Garin has taken her on. He brought her 3,000 miles from California to Maine for restoration at Rockport Marine. Work included 40 frames and the planking below the waterline. The late Phil Bolger, naval architect and all-round guru, once called her, “the most beautiful yacht ever designed or built”. Full story here soon.

LOA 82ft 2in (25.1m) BEAM 17ft (5.2m) DRAUGHT 9ft 8in (3m)

LOA 57ft 6in (17.5m) BEAM 13ft (4m) DRAUGHT 5ft 7in/9ft (1.7m/2.7m)

CORY SILKEN

NIGEL PERT

OTTER

DORADE

CORAL (OF COWES)

Built in 1954, this Abeking & Rasmussen yawl has spent most of her sailing life in US waters. Galo Hernandez is responsible for her most recent restoration, which began in 2006 with stripping off the battleship grey paint. Then he took the deck back to white canvas, and almost every inch of weathered woodwork was sanded, stained and varnished. Similar attention to detail has been lavished below.

Once the most successful ocean racer of her time, this 1930 S&S yawl is once again restored for blue water racing (CB287). Owner Matt Brooks bought her in good condition in 2010, but decided to beef her up to go offshore at Loughborough Marine Interests in Newport, Rhode Island. A new wooden mainmast, a new engine and stem repairs followed, then new electronics and a rerig – all subtle changes, but intelligent.

The 110-year-old Fred Shepherd-designed schooner returned home to the Solent this year, after a serious restoration that took place in two parts and two places: South Africa and Antigua. After her 10,000nM passage to Cowes, she narrowly missed arriving home in time to take part in the Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the Thames and is now being chartered on the South Coast. Read our story on pp28-34.

LOA 41ft (12.5m) BM 10ft 4in (3.2m) DRT 5ft 10in (1.8m)

LOA 52ft (15.9m) BEAM 10ft 3in (3.1m) DRT 8ft (2.4m)

LOA 80ft (24.4m) BEAM 15ft (4.6m) DRT 10ft (3.1m) CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still a place, in the northernmost part of Germany, where boats are made entirely by hand using the materials and designs of the past. The wooden yachts built in the Robbe & Berking shipyard display a classical beauty and a timeless elegance â&#x20AC;&#x201C; for those who prefer wood to plastic and would rather have a unique creation than a mass

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New Build NIC COMPTON

OVER 40FT (12M)

MAYFLOWER 50

KATHY MANSFIELD

It is a big achievement to build a large, traditional wooden sailing yacht in a depression. To do so speculatively is often a sort of heroic folly, but this Mayflower 50 by boatbuilder Ashley Butler and his team at the Old Mill Boatyard in Devon has a nicer purpose: she’s now home to Ashley and his partner and two daughters. Another 50 has since been ordered and is now in build. The Mayflower boats are iroko on oak gaff cutter yachts with elegant counter sterns. Like most traditional new-build yachts in this country they hark to further back than the glory age of the 1930s (where most spirit-of-tradition yachts draw their inspiration), and all the way to the 19th century. LOA 50ft (15.2m) BEAM 12ft 2in (3.7m) DRAUGHT 6ft 3in (1.9m)

CHRISTIAN TOPF

FREJA

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

GLORIANA

Freja is the eighth boat built by Luke Powell and his Working Sail team in 15 years; she was built for a liveaboard couple, both doctors in their late 50s, who plan to sail her in challenging waters (CB291). Luke hand-mixed the paint for her topsides – a secret blend. She has three berths, a pilot berth, and plenty of space at the foot of the companionway for shrugging off wet weather gear.

Most of the world saw Gloriana leading the Thames Pageant in June. She was built at breakneck speed in a storage shed on a main road by men working around the clock, to keep her date with the Queen (CB290). She’s the only rowbarge of her kind afloat, but her predecessors were many. Her design and build, in wood and ply, included yacht designer Ed Burnett, boatbuilder Mark Edwards and sponsor Lord Sterling.

LOA 42ft (12.8m) BEAM 12ft 2in (3.7m) DRAUGHT 7ft (2.1m) DISP 18 tonnes

LOA 87ft (26.5m) BEAM 12ft 6in (3.8m) DRAUGHT 3ft (0.9m)

INTEGRITY Integrity’s transom bears the date 1879 – a reference to the period of boatbuilding that inspired Will Stirling’s design. Detailing is authentic and immaculate (see CB292) – from her specially-cast bronze deck fittings to the reconditioned windlass and the use of a lovely ceramic basin in the heads. Her build quality – larch on sawn oak – is unimpeachable. A modern classic. LoA 42ft (12.8m) BeAm 12ft 2in (3.7m) DrAugHt 7ft (2.1m)

uNDer 40ft

NIC ComPtoN

New Build 18fT DAYbOATS

SHANNON ONE DESIGN

Here’s a boat you can order in bermudan or gaff. the Hazel class 18ft (5.5m) daysailer is new this year from martha’s Vineyard builder gannon & Benjamin, to a Nat Benjamin design. the yachts have lead-encapsulated centreboards for ballast. the build is of cedar planks on steamed white oak frames, with an angelique keel. According to Nat, they offer weatherly sailing with space to seat four or five in comfort. Price $65,000 (£40,000) ready to go.

the Shannon one Design was designed by morgan giles and the first one was launched in 1921. the class is unusual in that interest has never waned, 23 having been built new in wood since 1999. they are a magic sight with their clinker build and single gunter mains (no jib). this one, Nº178, was built by Cathy macAleavey and is seen here at 12 knots on Lough ree, during the recent Irish raid (see p76 for full story).

LoA 18ft 3in (5.6m) BeAm 6ft 3in (1.9m) DrAugHt 3ft 9in (1.1m)

LoA 18ft (5.5m) BeAm 4ft 11in (1.5m) DrAugHt 4ft (1.2m) CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Partridge, Marseille 2012

Since 1790

42 Medina Road, Cowes, Isle of Wight PO31 7BY T. (01983) 294051 E. ratseysails@ratsey.com

www.ratsey.com/ratseysails

Photo © Piérick Jeannoutot

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TOM BENN

UNDER 40FT

ALVA It’s not often you hear of a new 30ft (9.1m) yacht being built in wood to a traditional design. 12ft (3.7m) clinker dinghies are being built across the land, and there is a steady trickle of much larger traditional boats in build, as evidenced by the over-40ft (12.2m) craft on these pages. The fact is that a 30-footer built new in wood is prohibitively expensive for what you get. So, sailing Alva on a cold day in February off the Cornish coast was a rare treat. She’s a great little workboat-style yacht, nicely executed by boatbuilder Ben Harris, a man brave enough to dive in and take the plunge. Cost £170,000 LOA 30ft (9.1m) BEAM 9ft 9in (3m) DRAUGHT 5ft 9in (1.8m)

ALEXANDRA SHACKLETON

FÆRING

This ship’s boat is a faithful replica of the famous James Caird, built in 2012 by the International Boatbuilding Training College in Lowestoft, Suffolk. In 1916, the James Caird made one of the most perilous small-boat voyages ever: 800nM of Antarctic Ocean from Elephant Island to South Georgia. Shackleton and five others made the voyage to raise the alarm for his crew, stranded after their ship Endurance sank. In January, explorer Tim Jarvis and team will sail the replica on the same route.

Viking Boats of Ullapool completed an Iain Oughtred Woodfish færing in October for a charity aiming to bring ecology to schoolchildren. The brief was for a færing that looked as if it might have been built by Olaf the Axeman rather than our own Morgan the Makita (AKA columnist Adrian Morgan), so the timber was treated to look darker and faint tool marks left to suggest it had been hewn from riven oak. Authenticity stopped short of iron nails, so copper roves were used. The result was a stretched version of Iain’s design, with a somewhat sleeker sheerline.

LOA 23ft 3in (7.1m) BEAM 10ft (3.1m) DRAUGHT c2ft (0.6m)

LOA 16ft (4.9m) BEAM 5ft (1.5m) DRAUGHT 9in (0.2m) CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Traditional Wooden/Epoxy or GRP It's your choice

Solent Sunbeam The classic racing keelboat

Sail and Race a Sunbeam at Itchenor Great Racing - Great Company Ask about boats for sale, joining a syndicate or crewing Come for a trial sail. Enjoy the Sunbeam experience www.solentsunbeam.co.uk Tel: 07836 768225

ArtisanBoatworks.com

207. 236 . 4231

Rockport, Maine USA

Classic Wooden Daysailers

Image ÂŠ Benjamin Mendlowitz 48

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS

New Build UNDER 40FT

GALWAY GALLEY Seemingly half of County Galway in Ireland turned up in June to watch the launch of the ‘galley’ Garumna, the latest build from local man Jimmy Horgan, aided by a team of volunteers made up of unemployed fishermen and schoolchildren in one of those projects that does much to bring communities together. These ‘galleys’ used to row out to the Galway Hookers to unload cargo. Aside from Garumna, there is only one known example that has survived. Garumna was built in 80 hours for €2,500 (£2,000) in cedar on oak. LOA 16ft 3in (5m) BEAM 5ft 6in (1.7m) DRAUGHT 1ft (0.3m)

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BOMBAY TOMTIT

ROBERTA P

AMATASI

Makai was one of four remaining Bombay Tomtits, pretty centreboard daysailers designed by Linton Hope in the 1890s. She burned down in the 2010 Aldeburgh Boatyard fire. Yard owner Peter Wilson rebuilt the yard, then Makai.

Three years ago, Robert Pulsch, a retired plumber in Port Monmouth, New Jersey, started building a Crowninshield Catboat to a 1900 design. The result is Roberta P, in white cedar on white oak, all local wood. Robert has won best boat at every show he’s been to.

It’s always great when a CB design competition winner is subsequently built, and here’s Amatasi, winner of our 2011 competition to design a boat for ‘eco’ fishing without an engine (CB265). She’s off the board of well-known British multihull designer James Wharram and was built at his yard in Devoran, Cornwall, by a team led by his partner Hanneke Boon.

LOA 18ft 6in (5.6m) BEAM 6ft 11in (2.1m) DRAUGHT 5ft 6in/1ft (1.7m/0.3m)

LOA 22ft 4in (6.8m) BEAM 7ft 9in (2.4m) DRAUGHT 4ft 6in/1ft 6in (1.4m/46cm)

LOA 27ft (8.2m) BEAM 12ft (3.7m) DRAUGHT 1ft (31cm) CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

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Spirit of Tradition EUROPEAN

ESSENCE 33 From her pilot cutter-inspired plumb bow to her counter stern, the Essence 33 has the trappings of a classic. But it is below the waterline that Dutch designer Andre Hoek has put his hallmark, in an extensively-tested modern hull with the long bulb keel of an ocean racer. Built by Yagt in Holland, the boat is a nippy cruiser-daysailer with clean, simple accommodation for short periods below. LOA 33ft 3in (10.1m) BEAM 8ft 10in (2.7m) DRAUGHT 6ft 6in (2m) DISP 5,180lb (2,350kg) SAIL AREA 602sqft (56m2)

C/O HOLLAND JACHTBOUW

J-CLASS RAINBOW Rainbow slipped into the water at Holland Jachtbouw’s Zaandam yard in March 2012. By the time the first of the British summer J-Class regattas began, her race crew had spent no more than three days learning the ropes, but she put in a very creditable performance (CB290, 291). She was designed by Amsterdam J-Class experts Dykstra, based on Starling Burgess’s lines, with the aluminium hull assembled by Freddie Bloemsma near Makkum. Her fin-de-siècle interior in heavy mahogany and simple white panelling was designed by deVosdeVries, and she was built with state-ofthe-art hybrid propulsion. The rig respects the original J-Class measurements, but sails, shrouds and spars are all in carbon. The original Rainbow took just 100 days to build; this one took 10 times longer, but she made a glorious sight off Falmouth and, later, in the Solent. She is now for sale. DESIGNER Dykstra Naval Architects LOA 131ft (40m) BEAM 21ft (6.4m) DRAUGHT 15ft 9in (4.8m) SAIL AREA 16,145 sqft (1,500m2) 50

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

NIGEL PERT

RUM

SPIRIT YACHTS DECKHOUSE 60 Spirit Yachts, England’s answer to the prodigious spirit of tradition output of America, Turkey and the Netherlands, has been in the game longer than most, steadily building a stream of high-end, fast sloops in wood-epoxy. This year, the Lowestoft, Suffolk-based builder launched its first Deckhouse 60, Spirit of Rani. It’s also the yard’s first boat with a varnished hull, which is a real standout feature among the world’s SoT yachts, most of which aren’t even wooden, let alone so proudly wooden. These Deckhouse models are a new addition to the Spirit range, which is better known for racier-looking boats, like Commander Bond’s Spirit 54 (featured in Casino Royale), with its long overhangs, low freeboard and low-profile cabintop. We sailed a Dh55 (CB277) and discovered that they still sail like witches, despite the increased accommodation. LOA 60ft (18.3m) BEAM 14ft 1in (4.3m) DRAuGhT 9ft 5in (2.9m)

This new boat from Dutch designer Theo Danel is one of the more unusual ‘fusion boats’ we’ve seen over the years, both in appearance and utility. The D&D43 is gaff sloop on a foam-core composite hull and comes ready to race with an IRC certificate, but unusually (uniquely probably), she has been designed to race under the rules of the CIM, the rating used for the classic regattas of the Mediterranean and elsewhere. This boat is intended quite singularly to be campaigned for these regattas. Once the Med circuit is finished, the boat is partially dismantled by its owner into boat, keel, rudder and mast, loaded on its custom trailer and pushed (obliquely!) into a 40ft shipping container to travel cheaply to, say, the Caribbean, to take on allcomers there too! Other considerations have clearly taken a back seat: “After a night in town you can fall asleep on the sail bags,” is the memorable line from Theo’s website. Clearly it’s the sort of accommodation that requires a good night out – every night. That’s the spirit! Should antique yachts be quaking in fear? Find out soon when we review the boat in CB. LOA 42ft (12.8m) BEAM 7ft 7in (2.3m) DRAuGhT 8ft 6in (2.6m) DISP 4.4 tonnes CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS

Spirit of Tradition REST OF WORLD

oNNe VAN deR WAL

RIVOLTA 43

MORRIS 52 morris Yachts has sold more than 60 of its classic m36 gRP ‘daysailers’ (it has rather a nice cabin!) since 2004. The m52, newly launched in 2012, is part of the same formula – classic lines with modern performance in a good-looking, practical gRP shell (see CB293). The idea is less maintenance and more sailing, with S&S design. There are two already afloat and two more in build – no mean feat for a $1.4m (c£860,000) yacht. LoA 52ft 11in (16.1m) BeAm 14ft (4.3m) dRAugHT 6ft 8in (2m) 52

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

We were not sure what to make of this 43-footer launched from the Rivolta yard in Florida, better known for its speedboats. Like many SoT yachts, she harks back to the mid-20th century, with bermudan rig, nice sheer and a transom stern. And like many, she’s modern in build and underwater profile (her foam sandwich construction means she weighs just 7.3 tonnes). We got stuck on the square-headed main, but in this case it makes sense, allowing the boat to cruise the Intracoastal Waterway without unstepping the mast. Then we learned that the boat is a semicustom build, so you can do away with that modern touch anyway. What you’re left with is a boat that looks as though it’s off the board of Holman or Buchanan, but will undoubtedly fly. We haven’t sailed her yet – but it looks like a nice design job by Stephens Waring, and a good build too. Lod 43ft 11in (13.4m) LWL 34ft 6in (10.5m) BeAm 13ft (4m) dRAugHT 3ft 6in/6ft (1.1m/1.8m)

ALISON LANGLEY

BUZZARDS BAY 18 Artisan Boatworks in Maine has created something of a niche for itself in recent years, recreating many of the smaller dayboats and racing yachts of yesteryear. In summer 2012, the yard built a Buzzards Bay 18, the first of these Nat Herreshoff-designed dayboats to be launched in 108 years! She’s 29ft (8.8m) LOA and built in edge-glued cedar planks on steamed oak frames with a laminated mahogany backbone and Beta 14hp diesel. The only thing that prevents her from being in the ‘trad new-build’ category is the carbon fibre mast – although allowing, as it does, sailing without the need for running backstays, that can’t be altogether a bad thing!

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LOA 29ft (8.8m) LWL 18ft (5.5m) BEAM 8ft 1in (2.5m) DRAUGHT 3ft (0.9m) SAIL AREA 475sqft (44.1m2)

SHINDELA

EGGEMOGGIN 47

This beauty from British naval architect Ed Burnett was launched this summer from the yard of Arkin Pruva near Antalya, Turkey. She’s a bermudan schooner in wood-epoxy for a private client and has a trad look with a moderate fin-and-skeg underwater profile and a rig for family cruising. She can sail fully-rigged for best performance or, for a more relaxed affair, the boom can be raised on the foremast and a built-in awning unfurled.

This is one spirit-of-tradition yacht that isn’t a flash-in-the-pan. The first one, Lark, was launched this summer by Brooklin Boatyard in Maine, based on a previous 47-footer, and there are already two more in build, both for owners. It’s a sloop-rigged ‘dayboat’ although it’s possible for a Spartan couple to weekend in some comfort. The unusual build, one layer of cold-moulded wood with a layer of carbon fibre each side, makes for a very light yacht – and she looks just about right too.

LOA 83ft (25.3m) BEAM 18ft 1in (5.5m) DRAUGHT 11ft 2in (3.4m)

LOA 47ft 6in (14.5m) BEAM 9ft (2.7m) DRAUGHT 7ft 6in (2.3m) CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

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Powerboat

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HERO

FIXITOR

No ordinary boat, this 35ft (10.7m) carvel-built launch by Andrews of Maidenhead dates from 1898, and was powered by an early electric motor. Hero later switched to a petrol engine, and in 1969 converted to a steam engine that she was never built for. Called Avondale for her first seven decades, she’s been brought up to date with a 4kW direct-drive electric motor by Norfolk-based Classic Boatworks. She is thought to have links to Cliveden on the Thames, when the Astor family were in residence.

Old boats beg the question: Fix it, or leave it? And often, it’s an owner’s passion, rather than common sense, that prevails. This boat seemed to be named for that question, but it did not stop owner Wint Taylor in his quest to get her afloat and running again. In April, the finishing touches to his restoration of this mahogany and oak Victorian gentleman’s racing trials boat were being made at Windsor. She’s fitted with a concours condition MG Marine engine – a 1950s prototype – and she looks as if she’ll go like stink. Wint believes she’s the oldest boat of her type afloat in Europe, dating from c1900.

LOA 35ft (10.7m) BEAM 5ft 8in (1.7m)

LOA 25ft (7.6m) BEAM 5ft 6in (1.7m) DRAUGHT 3ft 6in (1.1m)

OCEAN FUGUE In terms of yachts that straddle the divide between tradition and modernity, this takes the biscuit! Ocean Fugue, launched this summer by Cockwells in Mylor Creek, Cornwall, is to a spirit of tradition design by Andrew Wolstenholme, in strip-planked yellow cedar with solid teak upperworks. So, she looks the part. But she is controlled by a full dynamic joystick, whereby a computer translates user input to the bow-thruster and two Nanni 200hp diesels. Her intelligent autohelm can hold her at an angle and position to within a foot (31cm) – like a ‘virtual anchor’ – and the whole system is remote-controlled. The wheelhouse glass (actually electric windows) turns opaque at the flick of a switch. LOA 39ft (11.9m) BEAM 11ft 6in (3.5m) DRAUGHT 3ft 2in (1m) 54

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS

RIChARd JOhNStONE-BRYdEN

BETSIE JANE She was built in 1938 as a Solent launch for Lord Ebbisham, by Saunders on the Isle of Wight but, like many boats, had found herself needing a saviour. In 1991, she was taken on by retired boatbuilder Ron Bailey who worked on her for 16 years. Self-taught furniture-maker Paul Rainbird took the baton in 2007 and completed the work, which included removing her non-original cabin to revert her to an open-cockpit launch. She’s now a very unusual charter boat on the Norfolk Broads.

gARY BLAKE

LOA 40ft (12.2m) BEAm 9ft 6in (2.9m) dRAught 2ft 6in (0.8m)

BRISTOL 27

Clover is a new launch built by Kyle Abingdon in Faversham, Kent, to a 1920s design by the prolific naval architect William hand. While the hull is ply for low maintenance, the keel, transom, deck beams and other timbers are teak, with douglas fir stringers. her Ford Watermota gives 14.9 knots in open seas.

We don’t think there was one of us in the CB office who didn’t briefly, secretly, desire a motorboat when we saw the photos of Eskdale, the first Andrew Wolstenholme-designed Bristol 27 launch from Star Yachts, AKA dutch boatbuilder Win Cnoops. We went aboard on the upper thames (CB292) and loved the dramatic, stepped sheerline, neat touches like the sliding hatch and the fact that the boat is made of wood – strip-planked in cedar to be precise. the Bristol boats also come in 22ft (6.7m) and 18ft (5.5m) sizes. the 27 should be man enough for coastal use too.

LOA 18ft (5.5m) BEAm 4ft 9in (1.5m) PROPuLSION Ford Watermota

LOA 27ft 4in (8.3m) BEAm 7ft 10in (2.4m) dRt 2ft 4in (0.7m)

CLOVER

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

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Photo © Piérick Jeannoutot

Since 1790

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ROCKPORT MARINE

CHANTIER DU GUIP

Two major restorations in a single year – the 83ft (25.3m) Adventuress (CB293) and the 57ft (17.4m) ketch Bounty (full story in Feb) – is a rare feat. But Rockport Marine is a giant in the land of giants: Maine, home to lobsters, matchsticks and maybe the highest concentration of wooden boatyards on earth. Rockport was founded in 1962 by Luke Allen, whose son runs the yard today. The yard is now busy with a new 36ft (11m) centreboard daysailer in cold-moulded wood.

The three Breton yards of Chantier du Guip have been inundated with work this year, partly because of the 20th anniversary Brest Festival in July. A 200-tonne coastal sand freighter, an old open scallop boat and a 36ft (11m) gaff ketch have all been (or were being) restored in 2012, not to mention two new gigs, seven new runabouts and a big restoration of the 69ft (21m) tunnyman Biche.

LUNENBURG SHIPYARD COCKWELLS ALLIANCE Cockwells started in 1996 in Falmouth under In Canada, where dreams are big and land is cheap, three yards united to form an alliance to rebuild a Canadian icon – the 161ft (49.1m) fishing schooner replica Bluenose II. The 200 years of experience shared by Lunenburg Industrial Foundry, Snyder’s Shipyard and Covey Island Boatworks, culminated on 29 September with a relaunch that was watched by thousands of proud Canadians. 56

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CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Dave Cockwell. The yard moved three years ago to Mylor Creek and now boasts a staff of 20, a dry dock and a full order book. Dave’s apprenticeship scheme led, in 2007, to the Balvenie Award for Outstanding Support of a Traditional Skill. This year the yard relaunched a stunning 65ft (19.8m) steel motor yacht built in 1965, after restoration and a new strip-planked 39ft (11.9m) motor yacht (p54).

T NIELSEN & CO Danish shipbuilder Tommi Nielsen and wife Sarah White set up shop in the disused Gloucester Docks in 1998 with little more than a bandsaw, planer, phone and fax. Since then, the yard has restored countless wooden ships, many for film work, not to mention the big job on Jolie Brise (1992-3). Tommi has amassed a collection of Baby Blake marine loos during this time, and this year, finished work on the London fire boat Massey Shaw.

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Head, Heart, Hand a boatbuilder’s story

Head, Heart, Hand a boatbuilder’s story This beautiful limited edition book written by Colin Henwood and illustrated with superb photographs is now on sale from our website:

www.henwoodanddean.co.uk Henwood & Dean Boatbuilders, Greenlands Farm, Dairy Lane, Hambleden, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 3AS Tel: 01491 571692 • Email: boats@henwoodanddean.co.uk 58

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

New Catalogue Many new & revived products for next season Only £3 - Contact us for a copy. Tel. 01206 500945

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GIACOMO DE STEFANO

JIM THOM

ELIZABETH TIEDEMANN

What can you say about a man who sails 3,000 miles from London to Istanbul in a 19ft (5.8m) Iain Oughtred-designed Ness Yawl? Last September, Italian Giacomo de Stefano finished that voyage, passing through 12 countries. En route, he defeated a near-lethal dose of pneumonia. Giacomo’s humble, enquiring nature made him many friends, and the project was done on zero budget to raise awareness of the plight of many of Europe’s waterways. More on him and his incredible voyage next month.

JIm is best known as the captain of Mariquita, the large 19-M Fife III cutter he skippered from 2004 through to this summer. Jim’s approach to sailing was to be as authentic and traditional as possible, even placing crew adverts in the same towns that originally provided crew in the Big Class heyday. Jim has fostered a leadership style that has influenced the entire classic fleet, improving professionalism, making the spectacle of racing more exciting.

MARTYN HEIGHTON

IAN WELSH

MARK EDWARDS

Since his appointment in 2005 to run National Historic Ships, reporting to Government on Britain’s floating heritage, Martyn has raised hundreds of thousands in extra funds for nuts, bolts, planks, a photography competition, training schemes, best practice manuals and more (see CB285). These days, we think of public servants as clock-watching timewasters. Martyn is the absolute opposite.

Ian, for a long time a close friend of the magazine, has done much for old boats since he started the Classic Sailing Club in 2005. Since then, he has led a life dipped in varnish, going on to set up the annual Thames Revival yacht rally in London’s St Katharine Docks. This year, he was put in charge of gathering the entire historic fleet for the Thames Pageant. Ian has endless enthusiasm and ideas. Who knows what his next move will be?

Mark Edwards and his ‘under the arches’ yard of Richmond Bridge Boat Houses, has long been famed for his traditional Thames boats built in sweet chestnut on London’s Thames towpath. He was one of the saviours of this year’s Thames Pageant, not only building Gloriana for the Queen, but for making sure the 50+ of his creations taking part were all in fine fettle for the occasion.

There can’t be many as tirelessly devoted to yacht heritage as Rhode Island’s Elizabeth Tiedemann (CB292), widow of Robert ‘Bob’ H Tiedemann, RI’s original yacht conservator who died in 2006. Since then, Elizabeth has run the charter fleet of three classic 12-Ms, two classic motor launches and a John Alden yawl. In 2007, she won Best in Show at the 2007 Antiques and Classic Boat Rendezvous in Mystic, CT – a hard nut to crack. All 425ft (130m) of the collection is afloat and thriving.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Patrick Donovan

wATer cOLOur

With his eye for detail, Patrick Donovan’s art is loved on both sides of the Atlantic. Peter Willis met him

arine artist Patrick Donovan’s reputation rests on meticulously researched paintings of historic vessels in specific situations, though he also embraces military and aviation subjects, coastal landscapes (such as his Hollowshore Boatyard, Faversham, opposite) and private commissions for yacht portraits – he recently completed one of Arthur Ransome’s Nancy Blackett. His research frequently involves outdoor work ashore and afloat, as well as trawling through archives, and simply reading a lot. A typical example is The USS Constitution under tow off Dover 1879, 16th January. He came across a mention of the incident in a history of the founding of the US Navy, and followed it up. He checked local archives and found the correct date, as well as discovering that the only local tug available at the time would have been the paddle steamer Palmerston. The painting was shown at the Royal Society of Marine Artists’ exhibition in 2007 and later that year, it caused a mild sensation at the Mystic Seaport International Exhibition in America, as the incident, which related to a visit to the Paris Exhibition (but does not really explain what the ship was doing off Dover), had been hushed up. Patrick has been exhibiting at Mystic since 2006 and was elected to the American Society of Marine Artists

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

last year. Born in 1944 in Hampshire, he served 10 years in the RAF until a climbing injury forced early retirement and he took up painting instead. His works are now a regular feature of the RSMA’s annual exhibition (CB294), with three paintings chosen this year, and he was recently elected to associate membership of the society. He works chiefly in watercolour, because, he says, “in some ways it’s less forgiving than oils – once you start, you’re committed”. It is the sea that takes the time, he adds. “You’re always conscious of where the light is, and the weather, and what light does to the sea.” One notable departure from watercolour was a recent commission to paint the sign of The Coastguard pub, on the beach at St Margaret’s Bay, Kent. It’s a double sign, day on one side and night on the other – the Coastguard has a torch and in the background there are a couple of people running into the trees with a barrel. He used signwriting enamels, as deployed on narrowboats – and for which he had to sit through an extensive health and safety briefing before he was allowed to take them away from the makers. As well as regular trips to America, he and his wife Marilyn divide their time between their home in Kent and a house in Boulogne, also a rich source of maritime heritage subjects. Tel: +44 (0)1304 611104, www.valgouldgalleryandframers.co.uk

above: Painting of the boatyard at Hollowshore, near Faversham, kent right: Sign for the coastguard pub Far right: Painting titled the USS constitution under tow off Dover 1879, 16th January Far right bottom: Painting of French fishermen, Faskrudsfjordr, iceland 1909

INSIDE the

ROYAL THAMES CLUB VISIT

In a part of London best known for luxury boutiques is a sailing club whose roots go back to 1773. Peter Willis reports

ROYAL THAMES YACHT CLUB

all photos: peter willis

few yacht clubs can claim in some way to be the world’s oldest, but the Royal Thames is the only one whose handiwork appears as a standard form in every Lloyd’s Register of Yachts. Thames Measurement has little to do with the river, but everything to do with the club which devised it. TM was adopted at a meeting of the Sailing Committee in 1854, after a motion was proposed and carried that, “the present plan of measurement has produced results prejudicial to the interests of yacht building and it is therefore desirable to amend the law”. The problem was that the “present plan”, otherwise known as Builder’s Old Measurement, relied on keel length and this encouraged unseaworthy designs with extended overhangs. A second motion gave the new formula and even now, Tons TM, or Thames tonnage, is still used, at least by older yachtsmen, to indicate a yacht’s size. By the time TM was adopted, the club had already been in existence for some 80 years. It traces its origins back to 1775, but historian Ian Dear, writing here in 1993 (CB58), suggests it grew out of a sailing club which began in 1773, dining once a week in the Swan Tavern, Chelsea. On the club’s first anniversary, in 1774, it raced for a silver cup, and it was a year after this that Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and brother of King George III, put up a cup for a race on the Thames between Westminster and Putney bridges. Thus was born the Cumberland Sailing Society, better known as the Cumberland Fleet – a name still adopted by RTYC members when cruising in company. The race became an annual event, with a new Cumberland Cup awarded each year. Ten cups were made in all: the first was lost in a fire, but five of the others are still displayed in the clubhouse. The cup of 1776 is raced for today at the club’s annual regatta in Cowes, and is thought to be the oldest sailing trophy in existence. In 1823, the Cumberland Fleet changed its name to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society in honour of the coronation of King George IV, brother of its patron William, Duke of Clarence, but this name, perhaps CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

ROYAL THAMES YACHT CLUB

“The club has a magnificent collection of paintings, but its greatest treasure is the Model Room”

Previous spread: The hall goes for grandeur, with its marble lions, formerly of Hyde Park House Above: Some of the Cumberland Cups – five have survived Above right: The Model Room is panelled with more than 400 half models

mercifully, did not last long. The same year saw the club riven by a protest over the Coronation Race, with a subsequent hearing leading to a further protest and a vote by Cumberland Fleet owners to reject the club’s committee. The committee retained the Coronation Sailing Society name but quickly folded. Meanwhile, its members reformed on 14 August in the White Horse Tavern as the Thames Yacht Club, holding their first race on 19 September between Blackfriars and Wandsworth, with their patron in attendance. When he ascended the throne as King William IV, nicknamed the Sailor King, in 1830, it became the Royal Thames Yacht Club, the name it has retained to this day. After that, the club settled down: the present patron is the Duke of Edinburgh; Prince Charles is Admiral of the Cumberland Fleet, and the club’s Commodore is Prince Andrew. By 1830 the focus of action had moved down the Thames to Gravesend and the estuary. Indeed, the first race of the 1866 season – from the Nore to Dover – attracted “not less than 10,000 persons” to the finish line to watch the six schooners, nine luggers, the yawl Xantha and New Moon, “a gigantic open boat of 209 tons”. But the arrival of the railways and the improved communications they offered also began to draw members to the south coast and specifically the Solent for their racing. Today, there is a full reciprocal arrangement with the Cowesbased Royal London YC (which doesn’t have premises in the capital), and the club jointly owns a racing fleet of J-80s with the Royal Yacht Squadron. The Royal Thames also had a clubhouse on the Hamble at Warsash from 1946 to 1979 – now the Warsash Sailing Club – and still has moorings for members on the river.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

The club’s London homes began with the usual miscellany of coffee houses and taverns, and included the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in its early years.

a splendid interior The club settled in at 49 St James’s Street in 1857, moving on to Albermarle Street in 1860, Piccadilly in 1911 and finally to its present address, the much more commodious 60 Knightsbridge, in 1923. By 1961, the large Georgian building was considered unsuitable, and knocked down. Its replacement – the clubhouse you see today – offers a suitably self-effacing contrast to the grizzled and elaborate facades of Knightsbridge: simple 1960s rectangles. The style is maintained inside, though the foyer goes for grandeur, with a fine ceiling and a pair of marble lions, which once guarded the grand staircase of the old Hyde Park House. A replica of the 1781 Cumberland Cup is on show, presented to the Kaiser at the Kiel Regatta of 1912, when the club retook the One-Ton Cup from the Germans. As recently as 2006, this replica was spotted for sale, and bought for the club by three members; it is now the object of a biennial race. The first-floor restaurant commands a splendid view of Hyde Park, immediately to the rear of the building, and the occasional clatter of hooves alerts members to the sight of the Household Cavalry, riding past in full dress for the changing of the guard. Classic Boat has held a couple of receptions in this splendid room for special occasions – most recently our 25th birthday – an obvious choice we thought, with our offices being nearby. The club has a magnificent collection of marine paintings on the walls, but its greatest treasure is found in a small, unwindowed room off a dark corridor, and serving the day-to-day

Photo © classic-sailing.co.uk

Pilot Cutter “Cornubia”

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purpose of providing somewhere that members can plug in their laptops and check their emails. This is the Model Room, its walls arrayed with neat rows of half-models of yachts – around 400 of them, with further displays in corridors and above the first-floor Cumberland Bar. The collection, second only to that of the New York Yacht Club, was only formally started in 1935, though the club’s earliest full model dates from 1775.

america’s cup The Royal Thames has always been a racing club, adapting from its native river to coastal waters and oceans with evident ease and eagerness. In 1887, it chose to mark Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee with a race, “the like of which had never been known in the annals of yachting”. It was indeed the first ever offshore race: some 1,520nM round the British Isles. The first challenge for the America’s Cup was made through the Royal Thames by member James Ashbury in 1870 and again in 1871. Exactly a century later, the 12-Metre Sovereign again challenged under the club’s burgee. And when the idea of holding a series of races to decide the challenger for the Cup was introduced in 1974, it was run by the Royal Thames. Two other challenges were made or mooted: Graham Walker’s White Crusader in 1987, and in 2007, Sir Keith Mills began Team Origin’s campaign for the 2013 race, but pulled out after the rules permitting catamarans were established. Olympian Ben Ainslie is just one of the many distinguished sailors who are Royal Thames members. Others include 1948 gold medallist Stewart Morris and, in 1928, Crown Prince Olav of Norway, who won gold in the 6-Metre class. The Royal Thames also has plenty of time for classics. The current issue of the club’s magazine includes a full-page portrait of Mariquita, the

Above: The dining room on the first floor has a fine view north onto Hyde Park Right: The Cumberland Fleet races on the Thames near St Paul’s Cathedral

19-Metre Fife, at last year’s Régates Royales in Cannes, where she was in company with Graham Walker’s Herreshoff NY40 Rowdy and Duet, a McGruer 6-Metre and a Tofinou 9.5. Nor is the club exclusively interested in big-boat racing. In 1983, it used its local lake, the Serpentine, to organise the first Optimist regatta. It races on a reservoir near Heathrow in winter and has a lot of interest in keelboats. There’s a strong cruising membership, and four owners of Dunkirk Little Ships are members. The club also has an academy and a targeted social programme to encourage younger members; the Mansura trophy, to promote hybrid power, and a charitable trust which aims to get disadvantaged young people to sea. Living up to its status as the oldest sailing club in the world must be a heavy responsibility, but it’s one that the Royal Thames seems to accept with grace, enthusiasm and a great deal of vigour. The world of yachting would certainly be a poorer place without it. 60 Knightsbridge, London, SW1X 7LF Tel: +44 (0)20 7235 2121, www.royalthames.com CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

a river runs through it Inspired by the Thames, Colin Henwood has been building beautiful boats at Henley for 30 years. Peter Willis reports. Photos by Michael English

HENWOOD & DEAN

miability seems to be a by-product of working in wood. Or perhaps it’s a prerequisite for doing it with any degree of sympathy for the material. Either way, Colin Henwood has it down to the craftsmanly tips of his fingers, as grateful visitors to the Henwood & Dean yurt will be well aware. For there, at events such as the Beale Park Boat Show or the Thames Traditional Boat Rally, Colin and his wife Lucie dispense refreshment and good cheer. Henwood & Dean is celebrating 30 years in business, and it has to be this friendly quality, as much as the more traditional woodworking skills, and Lucie’s mastery of the mysteries of business management, that have enabled them to achieve such a milestone. However, Colin’s journey into building and restoring beautiful wooden boats was long and tortuous. It started well enough in his childhood, with family holidays in Falmouth, and building a Mirror dinghy with his father at home (including the classic realisation that a window frame was going to have to be removed if they were to get the completed hull out of the house). And at 18 he went into professional boatbuilding – of a sort – producing glassfibre ketches for the Ocean Youth CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

HENWOOD & DEAN

Club in Penryn, Cornwall. “Horrible job, filthy way of building boats” he says, still with real passion. He left after a year and went off to study geology instead. Then, following a more congenial stint, though still with glassfibre, producing Contessas for Jeremy Rogers, he discovered the River Thames, and Freebody’s. “Peter Freebody eventually gave me a job, and I was there about seven years, learning about Thames boats and wooden boatbuilding.” After that, in 1982, Colin struck out on his own, renting a lock-up shed on a farm in Hambleden a few miles outside Henley and a few hundred yards back from the river (Thames, of course). To begin with, he ticked over with anything going – furniture, fitted kitchens – until his first boat job turned up, to rebuild a Thames skiff. The craft was larger than the workshop, and so began a process of gradually turning a ramshackle farmyard into a working, but still rather temporarylooking, boatyard. Many people assume the “& Dean” on the builder’s plate refers to Lucie, but not so. Robert Dean, a photographer who had also worked at Freebody’s, joined Colin after a couple of years and stayed for six or seven, before opting out – amicably, Colin insists. “I kept the company name the same as a recognition of Robert’s contribution – had he not been with me in the first critical years, we wouldn’t have got started.” Lucie, whom Colin had met while at Freebody’s and married in 1985, was also taken into the partnership, where she has, in her way, been equally instrumental. “The problem with a little business like this,” Colin explains, “doing fancy high-quality craftsmanship, is that if the owner’s head is full of boatbuilding and woodworking techniques and problem-solving, he tends 70

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

to be forgetful of the book-keeping, the tax, the National Insurance and so on. It’s Lucie who makes sure we keep the right business balance.” As for the rest of the now quite large team of craftsmen past and present, “the people are almost as important as the boats,” says Colin, who insists that he can only work with people he likes. One suspects that this rule extends to his customers as well as his workforce. It certainly includes Bill Rose, who over the years has built up an important and, in large part thanks to Colin, immaculate collection of Thames craft.

an equal relationship “Bill’s been a huge influence on me and a real privilege to work with,” says Colin, who numbers Bill’s Pierette, a fast steam launch from 1894, as one of his favourite restoration projects. Bill first met Colin about 30 years ago, when he hired him for a repair. “We thought, ‘there’s a nice chap who does seem to understand his boating’,” says Bill, whose aim in restoring a boat is to get it back to how it was on the day it was launched. “Colin entered into the spirit of things. He approaches his work with the humility of a good craftsman – he doesn’t always want to be proving himself, as a lot of restorers do.” Their working relationship is based on a mutual respect for ‘understated elegance’ – and for each other. “There’s an equal relationship between patron and craftsman, which we like,” says Bill. Another treasured project for Colin and Lucie was restoring Gillian, a Thames skiff rescued from a soon-tobe-sold yard in the 1990s. The job demanded faithful replication of missing components, including the woven cane work of the seat assembly. They still own Gillian and entered her into the Jubilee Pageant this summer.

Previous page: Gillian was rescued in the 1990s and is still cherished by Colin and Lucie Henwood; the boat car built by Colin Opposite Top: Bill Rose’s fast steam launch Pierette from 1894 Middle row: Traditional skills in use; Consuta’s wheel; attention to detail Bottom: The 2001 electric launch Lady Helen

HENWOOD & DEAN

“I really like getting involved with the customers and their requirements”

Above: The yard with Glenelg, Polly and Mohawk being worked on. In the background are Caprice and Flora Below: Nahlin crew launch Alexander Robertson

New-builds from Henwood & Dean are, says Colin, “quite different from most others – very much bespoke, not copies. I really like that, getting involved with the customers and their requirements.” The hand of versatile and prolific designer Andrew Wolstenholme is never far away. Polly is a thoroughly traditional electric launch, while Lady Helen, 2001, with her stunning reverse-rake transom is an elegant evolution of the Thames launch. “She [Lady Helen] was to go with a very modern house, so that suggested a more minimalist design. The Thames Trad people were a bit sniffy, but it suited the owners very well.” The owner’s launch commissioned to accompany the restoration of the 300ft (91.4m) GL Watson steamyacht Nahlin is a triumphant blend of tradition – it reflects the lines of the now-lost original – and technology, with air conditioning and electronic navigation aids all unobtrusively included. For Henwood & Dean, the build was accompanied by the restoration of the original Alexander Robertson crew launch. At present, the yard is contending with an intriguing blend of old and new. The 43ft (13.1m) Lady Charlotte was originally built in 1914 on the River Dee as Flying Fox, by J Chrichton & Sons. They were basically barge builders, but they wanted to try something a bit finer and

gave her a clipper bow and a counter stern. The hull is riveted steel, and the aim is to preserve this and add a new Wolstenholme-designed cabin, currently being assembled on the floor of the main workshop. “It’s probably our biggest job ever, all told,” says Colin. “Consuta [also restored by Henwood & Dean] is longer at 50ft (15.2m), but not as substantial.” A walk around the yard reveals numerous other boats – around 50 I’m told, either in restoration, awaiting it or just in storage. Everything from a skiff (called, and made out of, Sweet Chestnut) to a 30ft (9.1m) teak steam launch from around 1886, still with her original Simpson, Strickland & Co triple-expansion engine, looking for a new owner. In the corner is a silver Airstream caravan owned by Colin and Lucie’s folksinger daughter Megan, who uses it for festivals. It was through a new guitar for Megan and its maker that Colin met photographer Michael English, which resulted in the ravishingly illustrated book Head, Heart, Hand, celebrating his 30 years of building beautiful boats. But Colin has a way of putting things in perspective. “I was congratulating myself on having kept going 30 years when I phoned one of our timber suppliers. He told me his firm had been there for 150 years!” Perhaps Henwood & Dean won’t still be going in 150 years’ time, but it’s more than probable – and a cause of satisfaction to Colin – that some of the boats he’s built will be. Henwood & Dean, Greenlands Farm, Dairy Lane, Hambleden, Henley-on-Thames, RG9 3AS Tel: +44 (0)1491 571692, www.henwoodanddean.co.uk

LUCIE DEAN

Special book offer

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Head, Heart, Hand by Colin Henwood, photos by Michael English, is now available to CB readers for £50, inc p&p and a set of A5 postcards from www.henwoodanddean.co.uk Quote code CB1

It’s not Unusual (if you ask Classic Marine)

IF IT’S ON THE WATER

2013 catalogue now available

IT’S AT www.ClassicMarine.co.uk • 01394 380390

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POWER BOATS

LITTLe fLyer Fast as a jet ski and light as a beachball but cooler than either. Steffan Meyric Hughes has a blast in the Pebbles 3.4

ebbles is what you might call a ‘concept craft’ and is certainly the only car-toppable motor boat with seating for four I have ever seen. Its unusual styling is more ‘modern retro’ than ‘spirit of tradition’, with a compound reverse sheer to the gunwale reminiscent of naval design experiments in the 1950s and 60s – a lovely convex curve to the transom and a small pram section. I found it attractive overall, but had misgivings about the pram bow. The cockpit shape is pleasing in a more conventional sense, the coaming drawing a piscine shape from the wide front end to a slim tip at the stern. The boat is from Jürgen Völker, a product designer by trade, which explains the relative freedom of his hand from nautical convention. He left fridges and forklifts behind six years ago to design (and build) cedar-strip canoes, and you can see the Pebbles as an extension of that, with its plywood-foam sandwich construction making it extraordinarily light – under 132lb (60kg).

construction The Lloyd’s-approved sandwich construction comes with a three-year guarantee. In simple terms, it’s 20mm of closed-cell foam between two layers of marine ply with an outside veneer of sapele. The result is a great ‘modern wood’ look that should last well. The construction, as well as being very light, makes the boat unsinkable to 50 per cent more than her fully loaded weight. This means there’s enough stowage under the foredeck for a family picnic and more, as there is no need for built-in buoyancy tanks. The boat is driven by a small outboard, in this case a 15hp water-cooled Tohatsu four-stroke, although electric might also work. A 20hp engine is the maximum, giving 30 knots. The controls are led by cable to the driver’s morse lever and a fuel tank sits under the rear seat. The seating is on a dual bench that seats two facing forward and two facing aft, although the two in the back would 74

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Right: Ensign staff socket detail Opposite right: Mahogany steering wheel and natty little windscreen

Pebbles 3.4 BUILT

Rivers and Tides, near Frankfurt DESIGNER

Jürgen Völker LENGTH

11ft 2in (3.4m) BEam

4ft 9in (1.5m) DRaUGHT

1in (3cm) maX POWER

20hp

DISPLacEmENT

<132lb (60kg)

ideally be on the small side. When you release a catch, the seat flattens on rails to form a single sun pad – “essential for the German market,” says Gillian Nahum, the boat’s UK distributor, as we inspected the little boat on the hard at Chichester Harbour in September. The boat has some lovely details, like two cleats each side, a tiny fold-down windscreen and ensign staff socket. Less impressive were the blocky morse lever mount, the lining hem coming adrift under the coaming, the logo peeling off the hull and the rough finish of the seat rail.

At speed The boat is incredibly stable for its weight – at any speed or stationary. Stepping on and off is no issue. At low speed, we shipped the occasional splash even in the very modest harbour chop. This is a lake and river boat, and it showed. At speed it was a different story altogether. A shapely bilge stringer running the aft third of the hull on each side gives stability and helps the shallow V-hull

to bite the water and carve positively. Visibility, thanks to the downward slope of the foredeck, is excellent, even on the plane, which is very rapidly achieved. In fact it’s so good it’s slightly unnerving with the (unfounded) feeling that the bow is about to bury. This would fade with experience. Jürgen has just announced that the Pebbles 3.4 will be replaced by a new 4.2 model, just 44lb (20kg) heavier, but better built to a similar design without the pram bow, and at a higher price. It is scheduled to be at this year’s London Boat Show. Two 3.4s remain for sale at £14,250, including the 15hp motor, all-boat cover and trailer. Niggles aside, you would be mad not to consider the Pebbles if you are after stylish, fast, low-cost thrills on a lake: it’s a brave idea that works well. UK distributor for both boats is: Henley Sales and Charter Tel: +44 (0)1491 578870, www.hscboats.co.uk Builder, tel: +49 (0)6021 439 5177, www.riversandtides.de

Cove 18 harbour launch There was time for a quick go in the new Cove 18 as well. This is what you might think of as a generic sort of “harbour launch”, although it’s actually new in hand-laminated GRP from Salterns Boats, to the moulds from the old Sou’wester 18 sailing keelboat. The Cove is certified to seat eight, though in effect it’s much larger. With its 14hp Beta diesel, it gives 7.5 knots and handles well in reverse too. The Cove 18 does exactly what its timeless form suggests it does, and is very well built and finished in solid mahogany. £29,000 inc VAT

BUILDER

Salterns Boats LENGTH

18ft (5.5m) BEAm

7ft (2.1m) mAX POWER

14hp inboard DISPLACEmENT

2,174lb (986kg)

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Onboard IRISH RAID

CRUISING . SEAMANSHIP . EQUIPMENT

shannOn Raid A thousand years after the Vikings left Ireland, a new breed of raiders is back. Words and photos by Nic Compton

amy wickham

Left: On board Cathy MacAleavey’s self-built Shannon One Design Above: Iain Oughtred steers his Ness Yawl through the Jamestown Canal

t was Sionnan, granddaughter of Manannán mac Lir, god of the sea, who created the Shannon River. She came to a particular spot in Northern Ireland, at the foot of Cuilcagh Mountain, to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. This, as we all know, is strictly forbidden – especially for impressionable young women – so a pool of water sprang up and engulfed her. The pool overflowed and created the longest river in Ireland and, indeed, the British Isles. The Shannon flows 224 miles (360km) from its source at the Shannon Pot on Cuilcagh across the border into the Irish Republic, cutting a deep vein into the western part of the country, before taking a right turn and emerging in the sea at Limerick. For land-dwellers heading east or west, this great waterway presents an obstacle. For sailors, it is an opportunity to sail twothirds the length of Ireland in relatively benign conditions. It was a feature that the Vikings exploited, as they pillaged their way up the river many times from 800AD until they were finally defeated 200 years later. A thousand years later, it wasn’t a mob of bloodthirsty Vikings who were planning to launch a raid on the Shannon, but a hand-picked cast of sailors in the first Lakeland & Inland Waterways Ireland Sailing Raid. They came from seven countries to take part in the seven-day, 140-mile (225km) event, and included some of the most eminent names in the sport. There was transat record-breaker Patrick Morvan, Swiss Olympian Albert Schiess, Japanese Tornado champion Koji Ikeda, world windsurfing champion Jochen Krauth, Whitbread veteran Sylvie Viant, and Martine Gahinet-Charrier. The fleet was mostly drawn from two local one-design classes: the Water Wag, celebrating its 125th year in 2012 and thought to be the world’s oldest one-design, and the Shannon One Design (SOD) – a long, slippery eel of a boat with a far bigger sail area than would be deemed safe for coastal sailing. The oldest was Water Wag 37, a centenarian; the youngest SOD 178, built by former Olympian Cathy MacAleavey and launched only a few weeks before the start of the race. Raiding in the open class, there was Patrick Morvan’s recently-restored 1938 Solent sloop Gars du Lin, the CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

ONBOARD IRISH RAID

“It’s tougher than I expected. These old boats can go surprisingly fast” Iain Oughtred-designed Ness Yawl Albannagh, a Drascombe Dabber, a Wayfarer (the most modern boat in the fleet), a Dory-Plume (a French take on the classic American dory, all the way from Holland for the event), and a cat-rigged sharpie designed by Gilles Montaubin. Raids are an interesting mix of all-out racing and adventure sailing. Typically, they take place in relatively wild terrain, where competitors can enjoy unspoilt scenery while navigating unknown waters and racing against top-notch sailors. Organiser Charles-Henri le Moing has held previous raids in the Azores, Portugal, Scotland and Sweden, and the concept has spread. A recent one in Maine attracted more than 50 entries. But make no mistake, these events are not for the inexperienced, the cowardly or the sloppy. Capsizing when you’re racing around the cans off the local yacht club is one thing, but capsizing in strange waters a long way from onshore facilities is another matter. Though safety boats are on hand in case of emergency, raid competitors are expected to be as self-sufficient as possible. If you haven’t noticed a hazard on the chart, don’t expect a safety boat to shepherd you to safety. “Racing in these inland waters presents a different type of challenge,” said Sylvie, more accustomed to sailing high-tech racing machines than a 100-year-old wooden Water Wag. “It’s tougher than I expected. These old boats can go surprisingly fast, but there is a lot of tacking because of wind changes. And you can never be sure of your place – even if you are far in front or far behind, conditions can change suddenly and reverse everything.”

The Irish raid started, symbolically, in Northern Ireland, at the Loch Erne Sailing Club, a few miles north of Enniskillen. The idea was to sail south into the Republic of Ireland in a gesture of reconciliation between the two territories. Once in Ireland, the race would visit two more loughs and two more sailing clubs, bringing a neat three-part symmetry to the event.

beautiful surroundings And there was certainly plenty of beautiful scenery to be had north of the border, as it was for most of the week. Racing was more sporadic and limited by the narrow waterways beyond Lough Erne, meaning that the fleet had to be towed for several parts of the first leg in order to make the first stop at Crom Castle before nightfall. There was romance in the ruined castle by the lake, but the landscape was radically altered in the late 19th century when the water level was dropped by 10ft (3.1m), adding hundreds of acres of previously submerged land to the estate. At night, it has the quiet and profound darkness that you only get in really deep countryside. While the north-south route sounded great in theory, there was one catch: in order to ascend to the top of the waterway that feeds north from Sionnan’s pool into Lough Erne and south into the river Shannon, the boats would have to cross some 18 locks. Given the time constraints of a seven-day event, this was clearly impossible, so the organisers decided to bypass the problem by loading the boats onto trailers after Lough Erne and transporting them overland to the Shannon.

Clockwise from far left: Gars du Lin; Lars Palm and crew enjoy the rain; stopping for lunch at Enniskillen during the first leg; Iain Oughtred sails past Inniskillen Castle

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

ONBOARD IRISH RAID

This laborious process was used by Viking sailors centuries before. Back in 936AD, the notorious Olafr Ceancaireach (aka Olaf the Scabby-Head), who had already plundered most of Lough Erne, decided to move his operation to Lough Ree. Rather than make the long journey down to the sea and around the coast to the Shannon, he simply dragged his ships overland from one lough to the next. His route must have been very similar to the one taken by our modern-day raiders.

floating hotel Once on the other side of the ‘summit’, a new element of this raid came into operation. A fleet of motor-cruisers following the race from a discreet distance was pressed into action as berths for the night. Although a couple of hardy souls opted to camp, most of the competitors slept aboard from Carrick-on-Shannon onwards, creating a veritable floating community at every stop. The first proper day of racing in the Republic showed the extraordinary beauty and variety of the area – as well as the difficulty of racing in these conditions. Although a popular tourist destination, the Shannon River retains much of its natural character and an abundance of wildlife – you really do feel as though you were well away from the madding crowd. The concrete sprawl

which seems to have enveloped much of Ireland since the building boom of the 1990s is largely absent here, and the old image of rustic cottages and cosy pubs prevails. But the area’s geographic features create their own particular challenges for sailors. One moment the boats were racing across an open lough, the next paddling through the leafy idyll of the Jamestown Canal. They had to contend with sudden squalls brought by periodic thunderstorms, as well as the unpredictable effect of trees and hills. And that’s not to mention shooting bridges and negotiating locks. Charles-Henri said the course took in four locks and 15 bridges, making it the most technically difficult raid yet. And the competitors seemed to agree. “I’ve sailed in more physically challenging conditions, but these conditions are extremely tricky,” said former windsurfing champion Jochen Krauth. “It’s all about anticipation, and being prepared for anything to happen at any time. It makes the sailing very technical, which I like. The Shannon One Design looks simple, but it is very alive and very fast. They make you work hard.” After an overnight stop at Tarmonbarry, with the inevitable singsong at the Purple Onion pub, one of the most spectacular legs of the raid was the 25-mile (40km) race down Lough Ree to the Lough Ree Yacht Club (LRYC), which was to host the next overnight stop.

Above: Ian Malcolm’s Water Wag blasts down Lough Ree in a 25-knot northerly

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

International Boatbuilding Training College

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CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013 1290521535996_page1_Wave2PDFRoute.pdf 1 1290521535996_page1_Wave2PDFRoute.pdf 1

11/23/10 2:13:11 PM 11/23/10 2:13:11 PM

ONBOARD IRISH RAID

“We set a new record for crossing Lough Ree... averaging 12 knots. Now that was exhilarating!”

Soon after the start of this leg, a 25-knot northerly picked up, pushing up a chop and scattering the fleet across a wide area. Some boats revelled in the conditions, such as local Water Wag sailor Ian Malcolm, who hung on to spinnaker, main and jib for most of the way. Others weren’t so lucky. Sylvie and Martine lost the mast of their Water Wag halfway down the lough. They had to be towed most of the way to the LRYC, where a team of volunteers led by boatbuilder Patrick Lobrichon glued the spar back together. With a little help from their friends, the mast was rerigged and the pair were back on the start line the next morning.

baptism of fire The rest of the crews enjoyed a helter-skelter ride in brilliant, but windy, conditions. Competition was particularly stiff in the SOD class, where Koji and Jochen vied with LRYC commodore Alan Algoe. Despite starting last, the Japanese skipper – taking part in his eighth raid – overtook almost the whole fleet to finish the leg in second place overall, and first in class. The only nominal Vikings present – Lars Palm and his Swedish crew – actually lowered sail and steered their SOD under bare poles, so impressed were they with the Irish fury. It was a baptism of fire for Cathy MacAleavey’s brand new SOD, which she had spent the previous 18 months building. But she and her two crew, daughter Claudine and friend Amy Whickham, loved every minute of it. “That was without a doubt the best moment for us: sailing our new boat in 25 knots and sunshine with two reefs in our

sail,” Cathy said. “My daughter was helming, I was sheeting and Amy was trying to keep the nose out of the water. We set a record for crossing Lough Ree in a Shannon of 2 hours and 3 minutes. It’s about 24 miles, so we averaged 12 knots. Now that was exhilarating!” Watching the fleet fly across Lough Ree, it wasn’t hard to see why the Vikings chose to settle here: up to six miles (9.7km) wide, and peppered with about 50 islands, the lough is more like a small inland sea than a river or lake. The plunder must have been rich, judging by the valuable hoard of gold and silver found on Hare Island, close to the LRYC, which was said to have been worth almost a thousand guineas when it was discovered in 1804. From Lough Ree, the fleet sailed down the narrows towards Banagher, narrowly avoiding grazing horses. In fact, with an unhelpful southerly on the nose, some of the racing had to be abandoned and the boats towed to stay on schedule. On the way, there was an opportunity to enjoy a bit of culture by visiting the impressive ruins at Clonmacnoise. Once the busiest crossing point on the Shannon, this was the epicentre of Irish religion and education. But it was burned down by the Vikings, then rival Irish clans and finally the British. The ruins date from the 10th to 12th centuries, and are well worth the visit. For those of a more secular bent, Killeen’s Bar & Grocery shop in Shannonbridge was the place to go. An authentic taste of old Ireland, Killeen’s serves as pub, off-licence, grocery shop, fishing tackle shop and, should the need arise, undertakers. It’s also one of the most welcoming establishments this side of… well, the Shannon.

Above: Three Water Wags racing on the Upper Lough Erne

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

ONBOARD IRISH RAID

learned to fight on his father’s ships on the Shannon, and Top left: Cathy After passing the narrows, the fleet shot into the open later used the river to deliver his own forces into battle. By McAleavey surfs waters of Lough Derg. A gusty 15 knots caught some by about 1000AD, he had managed to drive the Vikings east, on Lough Ree surprise, and the raid suffered its first capsize. The boat and after a last bloody battle near Dublin in 1014, out of Above: Cathy was soon towed to shore, bailed out and resumed racing Ireland altogether. Brian died during the fighting however, half an hour later. There was an exceptionally warm paddling under and was unable to realise his dream of a united Ireland. welcome at Lough Derg Yacht Club, before the fleet set Tarmonbarry A thousand years later, Ireland is still divided, but the off on a final blast in brilliant conditions and with a fresh Bridge Shannon, which has its source in the north and flows south Above left: Among breeze from astern. It was a last chance for the crews to through the Republic, still links the two improve their standings, and racing was the rushes on Lower Lough sides. For the sailors celebrating the end of predictably competitive, with all boats Lough Erne Erne the raid at Flanagan’s bar on the riverbank finishing within 25 minutes. Lough Erne Yacht Club in Killalloe, all that mattered was the Anyone who assumed local knowledge magnificent waterway that had carried would decide this event was mistaken. them across 140 miles of fabulous r Koji and Jochen enjoyed a narrow win in Uppe Crom Lough Erne countryside and thrilling competition. the Shannon class, while Albert Schiess was triumphant in the Water Wags. Local Belturbet sailor Monica Schaefer preserved Irish Leitrim Carrick on Shannon pride by clinching first in the open class. “These old boats are slower than modern boats, but they are just as exciting to sail,” THE RAID ROUTE Tarmonbarry said Albert after blasting down the lough. From Lough Erne Yacht Club, boats raced south to Crom and Lough Ree “We’ve been lucky to have mostly northerlies, Belturbet, then overland to Leitrim and south along the whereas the usual wind is from the southwest. Shannon River to Loughs Ree and Derg, finishing on day Lough Ree Yacht Club In these strong winds, you can sit in the back seven at Killaloe of the boat and surf down the waves.” Killalloe was not only the end of the raid; NUMBER OF BOATS it also represented the end of the Viking era. A fleet of 20, mostly Shannon One Designs and Water Wags Banagher For it was in the nearby village of Kincora Lough that Brian Boru was born, the first High King NEXT EVENT Derg of All Ireland and the man who finally Keep an eye on www.sailing-raids.com Lough Derg Yacht Club crushed the Norse raiders for good. He

LOCAL INFORMATION

Killaloe

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

NeilThompsonBoats

The Norfolk Smuggler Dimensions

The Norfolk Smuggler 25 has been carefully designed to ensure a single-handed sailing ability when required. The cockpit is large to allow comfortable sailing for up to six adults and to provide ample stowage space in the cockpit lockers. The cabin trunk provides standing headroom through the yacht without looking cumbersome, and ahead of this there is a safe foredeck to provide security for the foredeck hand. This vessel has been designed to be shoal draught with a centreboard increasing draught from 2’9” with plate up to 4’11” with plate down. The centreboard is raised and lowered with an easy to operate manual winch.

Norfolk Urchin

Norfolk Oyster

Norfolk Gypsy

Length Beam Draft Sail area Weight of boat

Norfolk Smuggler 25

25’ ( 7.69m) 8’9” (2.69m) 2’9”/4’11” (0.85m/1.51m) 404 sq ft (38.3 sq m) 4.25 tonnes (inc equipment)

Norfolk Trader 45 & 65

Home of the Norfolk Range Neil Thompson Boats, Manor Farm, Glandford, Holt, Norfolk NR25 7JP +44 (0) 1263 741172 • info@neilthompsonboats.co.uk • www.neilthompsonboats.co.uk

ONBOARD

Atlantic sketch

Catching our supper DAN HOUSTON RECALLS AN OCEAN-CAUGHT FRESH FISH It’s the sound of excitement aboard: a whirring buzz as the monofilament line gets zipped off the reel of one of our trolling rods, mounted astern. And it means we’ve caught a fish... maybe even a tuna! People instantly drop what they are doing and get to the quarterdeck to take control of the rod. We have been setting the drag quite low – just enough to stop our lures from pulling the line off the back off the boat (probably about 10lb/4.5kg), and so the burring whizz of the ratchet when they do go reaches a high pitch. On this occasion, Giovanni and Stefano stabilise the reel against our line-stripping quarry before inviting photographer Yoichi Yabe to bring him in. Yoichi dons the harness Hemingway-style “a large while we bring the 72ft (22m) ketch into the mahi-mahi wind; we’ve been losing fish trying to reel them in bowling along at 10 knots or so. breaks clean while And there he is, about 150 yards astern, a large out of the iridescent blue mahi-mahi, or dorado, breaks clean out of the water as he feels the line tighten water...” against his run for freedom. These game fish are acrobatic and beautiful to watch and have to be tired before they can be brought alongside. Yoichi fights the strain, sometimes with Giovanni helping him hoist the rod against the sheer power of the bow-headed mahi-mahi. Eventually, after what feels like ages – but which is in reality only a few minutes, the fish is landed and he’s a 40-pounder (18kg). Giovanni respectfully thanks him for his life before dispatching him. He has already changed colour to greens and yellows, and the process of cleaning begins. So we’ll have ocean-caught fresh fish tonight. “I will have to put the rest in the freezer,” says Chef Stef. “He will last us a long time!” And we carefully set the troll and squid-like lure again, hoping, Dan sailed across the Atlantic still, to catch ourselves a tuna. on the Fife ketch Eilean. CB286

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Message from METS

Sam Fortescue reports from the world’s biggest marine fair

here’s nothing quite like an equipment show to stir the more materialistic passions in a boat owner, and there can be few that compete with the monster, trade-only Marine Equipment Trade Show, which took place as usual in a vast series of exhibition halls on the fringes of Amsterdam in November. METS is the largest such event in the world, and left CB feeling green-eyed and clammy-palmed at the range of products on display. There are electronic marvels that ping, squeak and flash their way to solve problems that you probably didn’t even know you had. British firm Actisense, for example, has just produced a gizmo to allow your marine diesel to talk to your iPad, or German company Oleu, which has manufactured a unique bendy ensign pole made of rubber and GRP and with a teak pommel. There was a heart-warming display of traditional hemp, sisal, manila and cotton ropes from Langman. Dutch yard Brasker Masten was showing off its innovative wooden spar-making techniques (more here soon!) and there was a cornucopia of new classic deck fittings from Davey & Co and Toplicht. From the quirky – a mooring-line fitting that will pump your boat dry of water – to the surprising – an entirely new range of day-glo wet-weather gear from Adidas, this was a treat for the imagination as well. And of course, iPad-enabled touchscreenery was everywhere. Britain was well represented in a pavilion that took up half of one of the 11 halls (by contrast, the London Boat Show is down to a single hall at ExCeL this year). And walking through the thrumming stands, there was very little sense of the economic gloom that seems to reign elsewhere in Europe. In the show’s 25th year, there were more than 1,300 exhibitors attracting a record 19,617 visitors – an increase of 2 per cent on last year. If METS is the marine industry’s future, then it’s looking pretty lively – and covered in bells and whistles.

ONBOARD

Lazarette Left: Just one of the 11 vast halls at METS, which covered more than 549,000sqft (51,000m2)

Karver blocks

Deck shoes

Nothing trad about these Karver KBR blocks, which are made of carbon fibre and titanium, for loads of 3t to 40t. They’re finished with a real wooden cover, designed in Lymington, and available in a range of woods. They can even be customised with the yacht’s name and logo. Very spirit of tradition. From c£875

Recognised with a design award at METS, Chatham Marine’s new ultralight shoes are made from Contender sailcloth. The Fibercon and Elysse G2 are breathable, water resistant, have a razor-cut sole with a water channel and look quite cool as well. Available from March, from £79

www.karver-systems.com

Tel: +44 (0)845 2700 217 www.chatham-marine.co.uk

Crewsaver lifejacket

Vesper Watchmate

New from the UK lifejacket manufacturer is this cleverly-designed ErgoFit vest, which hugs the body both before and after inflation. They’ve taken great care to eliminate discomfort without compromising safety. In fact, all models outperform their 150N or 275N rating, providing more buoyancy and keeping the head clearer of the water. Available in coastal, offshore, manual and automatic versions. From £125

The Kiwi king of AIS has updated its successful Watchmate series of AIS ‘radar’ with a new touchscreen, colour version, preloaded with world basemap. It provides a clever array of collision warning options based on vessels’ AIS data – pinpointing a growing number of leisure yachts, as well as most commercial shipping. Nifty, but expensive at £1,029.

Tel: +44 (0)23 9252 8621, www.crewsaver.co.uk

Tel: +64(0)9 950 4848, www.vespermarine.co.uk

LED nav light From the Danish LED nav light maker Lopolight comes a classic twist to its small-yacht products. Lights with a 2nM range can be given a semicustom bronze finish. Worth a thought for a current-conscious classic cruiser. Price c£600

Mainsheet horse buffer An Aladdin’s Cave of classic boat gear, the German home of all things brass and bronze has added some new items to its ever expanding catalogue of dreams. CB’s choice was this rather fine mainsheet horse with rubber buffer – all in bronze. c£1,900 (€2,349)

Tel: +44 (0)1763 241300, www.lopolight.com www.toplicht.de

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

ONBOARD LAZARETTE

N I W r a Reefe

aicor.uk h c k c e d assicboat.

cb@cl ite to the or wr s on p5 addres

A Reefer chair in tan sailcloth for the first six names out of a hat (UK readers/post only). Email or write to us before 31 Jan. Reefer wants old tan sails – every donor wins a supporter’s bag!

SUNDOWNERS

For more details, tel: +44 (0)1404 831333, www.reefersails.com

Similar to the rules governing Champagne and other French wines, rhum agricole AOC must come from Martinique and must be processed by the costly, time-consuming process of fermenting freshly squeezed cane juice. In 1887 Homere Clément launched a rum dynasty with his knowledge of French distilling. The rhum is made in a Créole single-column copper still, and is aged a minimum of four years in virgin Limousin barriques and re-charred Bourbon casks. It has a gentle flavour, smoky and warm, bearing more of a resemblance to Cognac than molasses-based rum. It has a long finish and stunning purity. Best sipped neat, opened with water or in only the simplest of cocktails. From £30

Rhum Agricole

Bodywarmer This Gill bodywarmer gilet offers thick insulation with an elasticated drawstring bottom to keep in the warmth, but its micro-ripstop shell is not waterproof. It has three zipped outside pockets, and it’s machine washable at 40º. £80 Tel: +44 (0)115 946 0844 www.gillmarine.com

Bilge pump This 12V bilge pump from Whale can manage 126 litres per minute from a 11⁄8in (28mm) outlet, making it one of the most efficient on the market. The Orca 2000 is part of a range in the traditional (small) shape for an electro submersible pump. £102 Tel: +44 (0)2891 270531, www.whalepumps.com

Hot Pot Fit some seasonal warmth with this slimline, cast iron, solid fuel stove. These things pump out an astonishing amount of heat, look great and take up little space. They’ll also keep a cuppa nice and warm. Designed for boats up to 30ft (9.1m) and available in black or vitreous enamel. They cost £374 plus VAT Tel: +44 (0)1206 500945 www.davey.co.uk

WALL CALENDARS FOR 2013

Den Phillips Renowned East Coast photographer Den Phillips has produced a brace of A3 portrait size, and supplied with an envelope. £16

Kathy Mansfield A romp through some of the year’s top sailing grounds and loveliest classics, complete with brief description of the boats featured. £10.95 ($14.95)

Beken of Cowes Two stunning A2-sized wall calendars from yachting’s most famous photographer, and today’s top Solent snappers. In glossy colour and sepia. From £17

Tel: +44 (0)1621 788589 www.denphillipsphotos.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)23 8063 4911 www.bookharbour.com

Tel: +44 (0)1983 297311 www.beken.co.uk

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

VIS SailinIT Equipm g ent clas sicboa

For ma t.co.uk productny more reviews

ONBOARD

Working Sail

By Luke Powell

Luke PoWeLL

Working Sail A life in wooden boats

Irons

Working Sail

Just why are pilot cutters so very popular? I sometimes wonder if their name is not the A life in wooden boAts subject of Chinese whispers, or even Chinese pronunciation, as in “look at that pirate cutter!” That might aptly explain some of the burgeoning popularity of the type, being built as new boats, just as, say, films like Pirates of the Caribbean are popular... and then I read this book. It’s difficult to imagine how this new breed of classic cutter could have become such a vibrant force within our traditional sailing community without the slightly piratical presence of Luke Powell. Luke more or less appropriated to himself the role of rebuilding wooden working boats, taking his influence and inspiration from bygone eras and disproving prejudice to create the market for new plank-on-frame boats and so to lead a little industry. When he built his first cutter, Eve of St Mawes, it took two years to sell her; since then he has built seven more.

9 780957 311916 >

Books

luke Powell

Forewords by Tom Cunliffe & Jeremy

Working Sail

Over the last 20 years Luke Powell has almost single-han dedly pioneered a revival in the building of traditional pilot cutters in Great Britain, and a book celebrating his influence on boatbuilding has long been overdue. Happily, he also has a flair for storytelling, both when looking back over a rich if unconventional life lived to the full, and when describin g the long struggle to win acceptan ce for the wooden boats on which he established his reputation. Luke’s interest in boats began when clambering over the rotten hulks then mudboun d in the backwater creeks of his Suffolk boyhood. Aged nine, he set sail with his family for the Greek islands. From then on the sea was his school. After an apprenticeship as a shipwrigh t restoring Thames barges, he returned to the Mediterra nean and the nomadic life of a journeyman boatbuilder. In due course he acquired a French girlfriend – the first of many long-suffering partners in his adventures – and Charmian , a 75-year-old cutter. In 1990, with a baby son on board, he sailed Charmian up the Helford River in Cornwall, little realising that seven years later it would become the home of his boatbuilding business, Working Sail. Luke’s arrival in England coincided with the renewal of interest in traditional boats. Having stumbled on a book about Scillonian pilot cutters, he vowed to build one from scratch. Risking what little money he had on buying timber, he built Eve by himself Above: Deck beams and carlins are in place and the chasing after Andy, scraping off the hardened glue that – stanchions almost with his bare hands. cameand are being fitted on the port side. Below: Andy is shooting off gradually had oozed Success from the joints scarfs., yet to this day remains underpinn ed by a passionate belief the bevel, preparing for the shutter plank. in skills, craftsmanship and values William and Arne frequently came down from London to that cannot be quantified terms the progress, bringing with in them a Fortnum and money. Other boats inspect of have since launched into thesmart Mason picnicbeen hamper and extremely friends from Helford – Lizzie May, Agnes, Hesper, Tallulah, Amelie ChelseaEzra, to see us artisans at our toil.Freja It was Rose, whose names are a rollcall – amusing to of some of of Will, a rebel and Andy thenoble moststock, admired boatsa beatnik to have recently beenwatch built inas Britain. socialist, they bristled, finding it difficult to stoop and tug

on every aspect of the build, from why we drive a tree-nail into the heel of the stem and stern posts as stop-waters, to why the stanchions are dropped down through the cover-board rather than the cover-boards let in around them. Everything has a cause and effect. It is imperative not just to know how to make a boat but also its function and behaviour when at sea. This allows one to make the right decisions during her build. The only down side to William’s involvement was that he would phone me any time of the day or night, so that I often spent my Sunday evenings, with baby Esme on my knee, chewing through ideas that had been niggling him. Bless him for his insatiable enthusiasm. This was such a contrast to the experience of Agnes and Shel’s detachment. It must be fabulous having a boat built knowing that a bunch of craftsmen are striving to create a thing of beauty just for you, that when they have finished you can take command and sail it away. How I should love to have this done for me! As Hesper took shape the decision-making became more complex: which fastenings for the decks or types of wire for

Above: Will is set the task of caulking her bottom. Below: We are now moving ahead fast. The hull is caulked and stopped. Jonny is fastening the stanchion, while Andy lays the deck.

their forelocks. Jonny, on the other hand, was oblivious to Working Sail will delight all those who love boatswith his own class war with and the sea, or for whom the spiritallofthis, being too preoccupied adventure is by the management cryptic Trotskyist messages notleaving yet dead.

intended for me, chalked randomly about the boat, always where he had been working. He never quite understood how I knew who was writing them. William enthusiastically enjoyed the process of having Hesper built. It was something he had missed with Lizzie May

as she was nearly finished by the time they bought her. The Dovecot e Press Ltd

proved a formidable researcher, and quick learner. Stanbridge,He Wimborne Minster escaped his attention, from light fittings to Dorset, UK,Nothing BH21 4JD propellers. He taught himself all he could about the gaff rig and the wooden boat. As Hesper grew, he quizzed me

£30.00

120

121

This book is the candid tale of his endeavours, from early boatbuilding in Greece and the Iron Wharf Yard at Faversham in Kent, through to the establishment of his boatyard at Gweek Quay in Cornwall. The tale is well written, gorgeously photographed and at the end of it, you realise that it’s really something special – detailing, as it does, this recreation of boats which are so marvellous to see. DMH Pub Dovecote Press, 2012, hardback, 240pp, £30 ISBN 978-0-9573119-1-6

CLASSIC BOOKSHELF

Last of the Sailormen By Bob Roberts It could be argued that the spritsail-rigged sailing barges, which used to ply the waters of the south and east coasts of England, represent one of the pinnacles of sailing ship development. With a crew of two, or sometimes three, these apparently cumbersome flat-bottomed boats carried cargoes of often well over 200 tonnes from one coastal town to another. Operating without an engine, they were just as suited to riding out a North Sea winter gale as they were to tacking up the smallest rivers to load or discharge goods. Many narratives exist of cruising under sail, written by yachtsmen, and there are various tales of voyages aboard square-rigged sailing ships, but accounts of life in these down-toearth working vessels are far less common. Bob Roberts was the last bargemaster to earn a living under sail alone, and also a gifted writer. Beginning in 1941, when he and his mate Jerry arrive in Great Yarmouth to take charge of a barge named Greenhithe, the book takes us through the difficulties of earning a living in the war years. Sailing without navigation marks, they need tremendous knowledge to take their ship safely from one place to another. With the war over, they face decline and competition from powered vessels, but after a spell ashore, Bob takes command of Cambria and continues to make a living sailing a boat without an engine as “the last of the sailormen, not quite yet, a thing of the past”. Richard Toyne

The Log of the Molly B

By Pete Hogan

We receive a regular trickle of sailor’s tales and we can’t review them all. Too often, they are glorified logbooks from an extended retirement cruise. Perhaps the authors pester so much with their stories that friends tell them “it would make a good book” in an effort to change the subject – and the authors take it literally. Many are as dull and rigidly chronological as Hansard. This story, from Irish artist turned solo round-the-world sailor Pete Hogan, is a cut above. In the early 1980s, Pete built a 30ft (9.1m) Tahiti ketch in Vancouver, Canada, and sailed it down the western seaboard of the Americas, through the Panama Canal and home to Ireland. A round-the-world voyage and a sinking followed a decade later. The first mark of quality is its abundance of charming, whimsical ink and watercolour illustrations that admirably address one of the solo sailor’s great problems: you can’t take a photo of your boat making passage! But the writing is strong too. From build to shipwreck, The Log of the Molly B paints a warm picture in drawings and words. SHMH Pub Liffey Press, 2012, p/b, 250pp, €20 (£16), ISBN 978-1-908308-21-4 CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Billy Black

Classic Boat Shop

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WATERCRAFT

ONBOARD

Classnotes Beer Lugger BY VANESSA BIRD

VANESSA BIRD

he tiny village of Beer on Devon’s east coast has been home to fleets of lug-rigged fishing boats for centuries. During the mid-18th century, up to 10 three-masted luggers were based at the village, and launched off the short, shingly beach that nestles beneath steep chalk cliffs. Like most working boats, there is no single design that defines a Beer Lugger – nearly every boat is different; developed and built according to what it was required to do – whether that was drift-netting for herring or crabbing. However, the luggers have always been launched and retrieved from the beach by hand using greasy boards, and it is this that has dictated their size and weight. Too big or heavy and you wouldn’t be able to launch the boat, so the majority were under 30ft (9m) in length. Design and construction were important, too, as the luggers had to be robust enough to withstand beaching on shingle in all weathers. The earliest Beer Luggers were around 28ft (8.5m) in length, clinker built of wych elm on oak, with a plumb stem, straight keel, round bilges and narrow transom. According to historian Edgar March, they were also “rather sharp-bottomed”, undecked, and rigged with three masts that set a high-peaked fore lug, main lug and mizzen, with the tack of the fore lug attached to the end of a short iron bumkin that projected downward from the stem at a 45-degree angle. Unlike the rest of the UK, Beer fishermen continued to work threemasted luggers into the early 1900s, with the last, the Beatrice Annie, fishing under sail until 1917. Most were used for drift-netting herring and mackerel, which were then cured on the beach, before being transported to Billingsgate Market in London. By this time, however, many of the three-masters had been replaced by smaller two-masted luggers. Charlie Chapple and Tom Rastorick built many in the mid-1800s, while Harry

Mears of Beer, Lavers and Dixons of Exmouth built the majority in the early 1900s. Inboard engines became commonplace around this time, and the 23ft (7m) Little Jim, built by Lavers in 1916, was among the first to have one installed. Many luggers lost their rig and the number of working boats fell. But in 1985, Alan Abbott and other locals formed the Beer Luggers Club, and tan lugsails are once again a regular sight off Beer. Today’s fleet of 14 varies – with clinker, carvel and even glassfibre hulls in evidence – and many have been built in recent years. LOA is now restricted to 18ft 6in (5.7m), but the luggers are still launched off the beach and regular weekly racing is held during the season.

Above: A Beer Lugger sailing off Looe at the biennial Looe Lugger Regatta

LITTLE JIM, 1916

LWL

22ft 1in (6.7m)

One of the Westcountry’s most famous smugglers – Jack Rattenbury or Rob Roy of the West – was based at Beer, and used a three-masted lugger called Brothers, which was built in 1807. In 1808, Brothers was captured off Cowes with 135 casks of spirits on board. She was subsequently broken up.

www.beerluggers.co.uk

BEAM

1ft 9in / 3ft 3in (0.5m / 1m)

BEER SMUGGLERS

The three-masted luggers used a ‘fore-girt’, which was a spar that was lashed at one end to the mast, and the other to a cringle on the luff of the fore lug, to help stretch out the sail and improve performance when sailing to windward.

23ft (7m)

DRAUGHT

The three-masted luggers were always launched with just two of their masts raised – the foremast and mizzen – and the mainmast stepped only once they had left the safety of the beach. They were also landed broadside-to against the shingle, with the sails aback, at which point the ballast – bags of shingle – was removed before they were hauled ashore.

FORE-GIRTS

LOA

8ft 6in (2.6m)

LAUNCHING THE LUGGERS

SAIL AREA

255sqft (23.7m2) DESIGNER

Lavers of Exmouth

Vanessa’s book Classic Classes is out now: www.classicboat.co.uk CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Boatyard available on the banks of the River Dart. This historic yard has a long history with wooden vessels up to 80 tons and incorporates workshops, slipway, dry-dock, drying berths, business units and accommodation in a compact but beautiful setting. It is ideal for a private collector of wooden boats or an up-and-coming business. We offer the yard for freehold sale or lease.

Enquiries to Ashley Butler +44 (O)1326 221657 or email ashley@butlers-wooden-boats.co.uk

ONBOARD

Getting afloat JEDANOR

Practical 29-footer This Privateer 30 by Westcountry yacht designer Rodney Warington Smyth was drawn (and built) in 1964 to be the smallest yacht capable of cruising with four in comfort. Jedanor benefits from pitch pine planking (it was often mahogany after the war) on oak frames. She looks like a very practical classic with her bermudan sloop rig and jib furler, and placed well in the 2008 and 2010 Round the Island Races. She looks well kept by Warington Smyth’s son, but his grandson, who is the present owner, is forced to sell by

the arrival of a baby girl. Three-yearold sails and a good electronics inventory complete the package. Lying Poole, Dorset, and asking £21,000.

“A very capable and enduring sailer...” John Leather

Tel: +44 (0)1202 724917, www.parkstonebayyachts.com

MulDONICh

Project yacht from Jamie

SWEET PROMISE

Buster Crabb’s sailing Fifie At 74, John Greenaway of Traditional Boat Supplies is ready to sell his larch-on-oak Fifie Sweet Promise (see p98). She was built in 1931 by Weatherheads of Cockenzie to fish from Port Seton in the heyday of the Scottish herring fishery, when her quarry was so plentiful she never sailed out of sight of land for the first decade. In the 1950s, she was owned by Cdr Lionel ‘Buster’ Crabb, the MI6 diver who vanished in 1956 while spying on the hull of the cruiser Ordzhonikidze in Portsmouth on Soviet state business. “His” body was found a year later with hands and head cut off. A Russian diver has since claimed he killed Crabb in an underwater knife fight.

John’s acquisition of the Fifie in the 1990s led him to found chandlery firm Traditional Boat Supplies. She’s fresh from a three-year restoration that included a conversion to singlehanded sailing, with a ‘Shetland’ rig of gaff main and bermudan mizzen – plus, a bow-thruster (see p100)! Sweet Promise is 35ft 10in (10.9m) long and powered by a 3.8lt BMC diesel. Of her sailing qualities, John reports her “honest and capable”. He has spent £165,000 on the refit and is looking for offers around half that sum. Lying Suffolk.

Just as Essex boatbuilder Jamie Clay was finishing his restoration on the 29ft (8.8m) Albert Strange yawl Venture (CB237), her near sistership Muldonich arrived near his shed on the River Blackwater. Muldonich is essentially a remake of Venture for Venture’s owner Dr Chalmers. She was designed by the GL Watson firm and launched in 1930 – last seen afloat in 2003, so in need of a major overhaul. Jamie is preparing a plan for her restoration and is looking for buyers to take her (and him!) on. “Anyone interested should look at Venture to see the potential,” he said. Two months ago, we reported that Jamie also has the world’s oldest GL Watson yacht in his care, the 1866 Spartan (CB293). He is also seeking a buyer for her. Two big projects – take your pick! Tel: +44 (0)1621 853804, www.jamieclayboatbuilding.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)1502 712311, www.tradboats.com CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

BOATS FOR SALE

Boats for sale Looking to sell your boat? Reach over 50,000 readers each month

To advertise call Edward Mannering +44 (0) 20 7901 8016 Edward.Mannering@chelseamagazines.com Copy Deadline for next issue is 20/12/2012 EAST ANGLIAN MARK 2 Buchanan design 1965, 15HP Nanni, Iroko on oak, complete history. Requires some restoration + cosmetic work, Hull v. sound. Recent inheritance. Price reflects condition. Bankside Norfolk. ÂŁ7500 ono Tel 07990 783915.

MAURICE GRIFFITHS TIDEWATER

Built 1959 by Seacraft, Essex. 32â&#x20AC;&#x2122;6â&#x20AC;? x 9â&#x20AC;&#x2122;6â&#x20AC;? x 3â&#x20AC;&#x2122;5â&#x20AC;? Long keel / bilge plates. Beautiful condition. Extensively re-fitted 2008. New covers, forestay, pro-furl reefing and instruments 2012. Ashore Emsworth. GBP 26,500 Further details http://tinyurl.com/ bsem3h7 Tel. 07525 100 824

CHARMINA

Classic Strange yawl, built 1923 by Woods, Cantly; Norfolk. Pitch pine on oak frames, Bukh engine 8hp. 4 berth. Well documented and cared for yacht. Lying Lymington ÂŁ22,500 Tel: Richard Rouse 07712556697 or email richard_rouse@tiscali.co.uk

1.,&*-2 )2 0110- + 2'0-*!,2,+)2 (2 #*$/2 2 1*//) 1+/ 01-(2 .#!#-(2 ) )2*,2 )2 %/012/ +2". +1 10 /-2 .,'2 .''*/*+,-2 %+12 -.%0/ 2 .-2 01%0&/2 .,' -/#1' 2.-2.2 0--0$2&.,2 0)2 ( 2 2 ( 2 2 ( 2 2 ( ) 01/ *,!2 $.&02 $0,- #1!(2 +1/ 01,2 01"., )2

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OSPREY NO.437 CLASSIC 1964 WOODEN HULL BY PLYCRAFT SOMERSET

New sails by Ullman, new centre board and rudder by Tony Mackillican. Road trailer and launch trolley by Hallmark Premier. ÂŁ1750. Please email peter_roberts01@yahoo.co.uk

1931 Scottish â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fifieâ&#x20AC;? LH 60 Sweet Promise 3 1/2 year rebuild completed June 2011. Full survey April 2011. Owned by Traditional Boat Supplies for nearly 20 years. See

www.tradboat.com for sale details

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

BOATS FOR SALE

SWN Y MOR A rare opportunity to acquire the ultimate converted Watson 1935/36 RNLI lifeboat. After 32 years of rewarding partnership, Swn Y Mor is seeking new guardians Sail her around the world again or liveaboard and cruise home waters in a beautiful and comfortable registered historic vessel. See Classic Boat magazines 69, 240, 241, and 242. Huge sail and equipment inventory. Immaculate twin Ford Mermaid engines. A truly stunning vessel admired around the world. £125,000 please call 07518042082 or email theswnymor@gmail.com

Much adMired GrP classic 19ft 2 berth steel centerboard, Gaff riGGed cruiser

Very capable coastal cruising, equally at home creek crawling with it’s shallow draft. Cabin ideal for overnight accomadation for two, plenty of space for gas cooker etc. New Tohatsu 5HP/4 stroke 2011 - in engine well. New mast hoops ( TS Rigging) 2011 Fantastic new rudder by Tony MacKillican - not yet used. Price: £9250 Contact duncan2512@btinternet.com 0r phone: 07879481467

MCA Code 2

‘Josefine’ is 66’ overall (50’ OD) a first class Small Ship suitable for commercial charter or private use, an extremely sea-worthy well maintained Gaff-rigged Ketch, built in 1931, 40 tonnes, Oak on Oak, re-built 2002, sleeps 9, all original ship’s papers from 1931, Ford 140HP. Mooring available at £2k pa, lying Plymouth UK. £157,500. Tel: 07971 376 172, Email: sailjosefine@gmail.com

SWAN DANCER

A Classic Gentleman’s Sailing Ketch. She was designed by Frederick Parker and is the last wooden Boat, built in 1970, to Lloyds 100A1 by AH Moody & Son. The traditional and graceful lines of her hull constructed of iroko on oak, are amply complimented by her magnificent teak interior. She provides exceptionally luxurious accommodation for any discerning owner who may wish to travel in safety, style and comfort. This beautiful yacht is fully equipped with modern navigation and short hand sailing aids. Price £126,000. Contact owner on 07801385788

MARY GRAY A 22’ BeRMudA RiG sloop, HARRison-ButleR Z4 tonneR,

Built by Alfred Lockharts at Brentford in 1939, number 26 out of 52. 2 berth cabin, Yanmar GM10, well maintained including: re-seated mast tabernacle; renewed floors, keel bolts, rudder and fuel-tank over last 4 years. Inventory includes main-sail, furling genoa, compass, vhf, spirit stove, 2 anchors, warps, fenders, 2 cabin oil lamps, canvas covers. Recent survey available. An extremely sound, well loved and cared for boat. Lying Chichester Harbour, Hampshire. Price £9,950. For further details call 07968 956298 or email: jennyevanson@gmail.com

Looking to sell your boat? Reach over 50,000 readers each month There are two styles of Boats for Sales ad to choose from and with our special Spring offer, if you buy two months, your third month will be free. Pick the style which suits your requirements and email: Edward.Mannering@ chelseamagazines.com with your text and image or call +44 (0) 20 7901 8016. The deadline for the next issue is 20/12/2012

SAMPLE STYLE A 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

STYLE A. 5cm x 2 columns. Either 160 words or 80 words plus colour photograph. £275 inc VAT and Internet

SAMPLE STYLE B

STYLE B. 5cm x 1 colums. Either 55 words or 30 words plus colour photograph. £155 inc VAT and Internet

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

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

BROKERAGE

Brokerage

To advertise Call Patricia Hubbard +44 (0) 207 901 8014 Patricia.hubbard@chelseamagazines.com Copy Deadline for next issue is 20/12/2012

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

54 ft Sparkman & Stephens Sloop 1969 It is very easy to love a bright finished boat. TARANTELLA was built originally for RORC racing by Cantieri Carlini of Rimini. She has only ever had two caring ownerships, spending winters inside ashore at Yacht Club Italiano. From a period when racing yachts were more versatile, her interior is extremely comfortable and moreover in very chic style. It is perhaps no wonder the YCI Genoa refer to this boat as a Stradivarius. €425,000

Lying Italy

45 ft Bristol Pilot Cutter 2007 A recreation of the pilot cutter PEGGY, built in 1904 by Rowles of Pill, POLLY AGATHA has all the charm of a classic Edwardian cutter but with a luxurious modern interior and equipped with modern technology. Her ample deck space and accommodation fit her for a variety of roles including charter and sea school use but her finish and detail befits that of a vintage yacht – and places her a long way from her work boat roots. She has 10 berths including a luxuriously appointed master cabin.

50 ft Bombigher Schooner 1982 Daniel Bombigher designed schooners for long voyages: the hull shape, deck layout, rig sail plan and internal layout make them real marine homes yet the small draught giving easy access to estuaries and rivers. HOLLANDER is in remarkable condition thanks to an owner who has maintained meticulously every last detail and equipped her to go anywhere. Schooner rigged; her dimensions and layout enable comfortable family living on an extended cruise but with very easy handling.

£395,000 VAT unpaid

€380,000

Lying UK

55 ft Bill Tripp Abeking & Rasmussen Cutter 1965 In her current ownership for over 27 years - in that time DANCER has sailed about 100,000 miles, recently enjoying the remote reaches of the Pacific. All these miles have been done with just 2 people aboard, and whether ghosting along, or shortened down in a gale, DANCER has been an easy, forgiving yacht to sail. She is long enough to comfortably knock off 200 mile days, but easy enough for one person on watch to handle. With an incredibly strong aluminum hull; top quality sail handling gear coupled with simple mechanical systems DANCER is demonstrably a superb blue water cruiser. €375,000 Lying New Zealand

45 ft Sparkman & Stephens Sloop 1970 Built in Trieste in 1970 by Astilleros Mariano Craglietto - It was a different era when a yacht this beautiful raced round the World in the first Whitbread Race – GUIA finished 5th ! S&S seemed able to blend the CCA and the then blossoming IOR Rules into capable and fast boats with good looks as a by product. Testament to her fine pedigree, GUIA is a wonderful family cruising boat and races successfully on the Mediterranean Classic Circuit.

42 ft Sparkman & Stephens Yawl 1957 FAIRWYN was built by McGruer & Co with no expense spared under the close supervision of Rod Stephens himself. She is essentially a larger version of FINISTERRE three-time winner of the Newport – Bermuda Race. FAIRWYN’S 50 years could be considered a game of two halves; as a successful racer, fondly remembered by many former crews and then as a comfortable, safe and versatile cruiser; ever displaying the style and qualities for which her designer and builder are so highly regarded. £125,000 Lying Italy

36 ft J Pain Clark Ketch 1925 It is for good reason a yacht survives nearly 100 years - LOLA is built from teak at one of the best yards at the time, William King & Sons and her history is colourful. Her current owners of nearly 20 years describe her as well mannered and utterly dependable - proven over 30,000 cruising miles...a definite character combined with almost understated good looks.

€225,000 Lying Spain

£62,500

email: info@sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk Sandeman FP Brokerage JAN 13.indd 1

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Lying Scotland

Lying Denmark

45ft Philip Rhodes Bermudan Sloop 1953 Built by Abeking & Rasmussen; the yachting press at that time labelled her; fast, comfortable and seaworthy. UNDINA has become famous in print and on TV, but more importantly her owner’s passion has left her tastefully and totally equipped for cruising and optimised for winning on the CIM Mediterranean Classic Circuit – her rig and sail plan is well proportioned and simple for both single handed cruising and efficient racing with a fair aspect ratio of 2.3. Compared with English yachts of this era, UNDINA has a broader beam at 11 ft 9. £195,000 Lying UK

33 ft Fife Sloop 1952 Extensively rebuilt by Simon Grillet - a noted Fife expert who had worked on the restoration of CLIO, William Fife’s own yacht; NYACHILWA’s design provenance is not absolutely certain. While a 1951 review in “Yachting World” of the sister ship NYATONGA described her as ‘being from the board of the master’ - and the shape very reminiscent of LATIFA and EVENLODE, most likely she was the creation of Archibald McMillan, who bought the Fife Boat Yard at Fairlie at the end of World War II, to manage it for many more years thereafter. £48,500 Lying UK

www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk 22/11/2012 16:31

BROKERAGE

M.J.LEWIS & SON (Boat Sales) LTD DOWNS ROAD BOATYARD, MALDON, ESSEX. CM9 5HG

Tel: 01621 840982 / 859373 • Mob: 07885 859373 Website: www.mjlewisboatsales.com • E-Mail: info@mjlewisboatsales.com RE DU CE D

Specialists in the brokerage of Classic Vessels, Traditional Yachts and Working Boats

23.9m Steel Cargo Ship, 1914 Was steam powered. Partially converted for working, sailing & live aboard. 240hp eng. Essex £69,000

62ft Steel Pilot Tug, 1967 Coded & working. 8 cyl Kelvin. Crew accommodation. REDUCED. Kent £80,000 RE DU CE D

27m Thames Sailing Barge, 1926 Large wooden barge. Used as a private home, ongoing conversion. Kelvin eng. All sails rigging etc. Essex £95,000 AS IS

RE DU CE D

12m Robert Clark, Mystery Class, 1936 Completely restored No1. Teak decks. Accomplished racer. Accom for 4. Yanmar diesel. Suffolk £60,000

14m Colin Archer Gaff Ketch, 1966 Heavily built Norway. Classic Regattas. Accom for 6. Northern France £75,000

14.5m MFV aux sails, 1932 Pitch Pine & Larch on Iroko. Teak decks. Gardner 4L3eng. Comfortable live/cruise vessel. 3 cabins & a bath. Kent £58,000

42ft Watson 42, 1962 Ex Lifeboat used for charter work. Coded for 12. Many original features. Twin Gardner engs. Orkney £16,000

29ft Laurent Giles Sloop, 1965 Mashford’s built. “Wanderer” like in design. Accom for 4. Comfortable cruising. Beautifully maintained. Northern France £22,000

34ft 10ton Hillyard Cutter, 1971 Bermudan main sail. 55hp ’04 Perkins eng. Centre cockpit. Hampshire £27,500

29ft Peter Duck, 1963 Porter & Haylett. Iroko on Oak. Bermudan, Ketch. Sails ’07. New keel bolts 2012. Very well kept. Hampshire £22,500

11m Kings Lynn Smack, 1904 Gostelow’s built. Inboard, twin props. Basic fit out. 4 berths. Essex £27,500

25ft Albert Strange Cutter, 1925 Attractive gaff cutter. Totally restored ‘97- 00. Accom for 2. Hdrm 5ft 8ins. 20hp Beta eng. Suffolk £25,000

RE DU CE D

28ft Miller Fifer type Motorsailer, 1963 Wooden gaff ketch rig. Enclosed wheel house. Accom for 4. Northumberland £17,950

RE DU CE D

40ft Cameret with Aux sails,1954 ex-fishing boat. Heavily constructed. Caterpillar eng, 4 berths & galley in hold, stove. North Essex £55,000

35ft Teak Gaff Yawl, 1900 Restored back to original rig. Centreboard. Small 7hp Volvo. Limited headroom. Pembrokeshire £22,500

7.5m Folkboat 25, 1960 Carvel wooden with dog house. Yanmer eng. Refurbished interior, varnished ash. Double frwd. Yard trailer. Hampshire £7,950

26ft Thames Bawley, 1965 Maurice Griffiths, Johnson & Jago. Wooden hull, alloy mast, Bermuda Cutter. Complete, in good order. Essex £10,500

16ft Salterns Gaff Cutter, “Teal”, 2002 GRP day sailer with road trailer. To be sold complete. Outboard separate. As new condition. Sussex £8,750

28ft GRP Prawner, 2003 Eric Bergqvist mould. Teak decks. Self build project. Unused, under cover since 2010. Lincolnshire £19,000

7m Vertue V22, 1947 Newman’s of Poole. Sails 2007. Yanmer 10hp, 2004 eng. Well maintained. Ashore Sussex £18,500 RE DU CE D

29ft Maurice Griffiths, “Kylix”, 1986 Iroko on Oak, Yanmer engine. 5 berths 6ft hdrm. C’board. Suffolk £25,500

RE DU CE D

33ft Drop Keel Sloop,1952 Built by Suttons of Essex. 3ft draft. Ford eng. European canals. Extends to 6ft with board. Money lavished on her. Sussex £19,000

Sterling 28, 1961 Kim Holman deign. Classic Bermudan Sloop. 6ft hdrm. Sails new ’09 re-engined Perkins 29hp. Four berths. Essex £9,950

7m Traditional Clinker Cutter, 1982 Elton Boatbuilding Co. Kirkcumbright. Kept as new & pristine with yard trailer. Complete inventory. Scotland £16,500

TSRigging Limited www.tsrigging.co.uk SPECIALIST RIGGERS & MARINE OUTFITTERS

Tel: 01621 874861 E-mail: info@tsrigging.co.uk CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

BROKERAGE

w ti s a t lis Bo for d te

International yacht brokers

Parkstone Bay Yachts

Telephone +44 (0)1202 724917 Email yachts@parkstonebay.com

STANLEY & THOMAS BROKERAGE SPECIALISTS IN RESTORATION & REPAIR OF CLASSIC WOODEN BOATS

www.parkstonebayyachts.com

MUSKETEER: Cygnus 29’

MORPHEE: Herve 37’

Price £47,500 | 1998 | BETA-25hp

Price £43,500 | 1964 | ISUZU-36hp

Gaff cutter based on the classic Falmouth oyster boat but with the benefit of a cabin with over 6 feet of head room and five berths. Lying in Falmouth.

Built in La Rochelle, she has had a remarkable life including being sailed from Australia to the UK. Double diagonal mahogany strip planking and teak decks. Lying in Plymouth.

JEDANOR: Privateer 30’

BARBAROS: Barbaros 6.50

Price £21,000 | 1964 | BETA-25hp

Price £29,500 | 2012 | YANMAR-22hp

Warington-Smyth designed sloop. Pitch pine on oak, re-fit in 2009, 4 berths with a very good inventory and a beautifully fitted out cabin. Lying in Poole.

Classic open launch, GRP hull finished with varnished mahogany. Modern construction and classic lines make for a wonderful day afloat. Lying in Poole.

Parkstone Bay Marina, Turks Lane, Poole, BH14 8EW

www.TallShipsforSale.co.uk

26m 85ft (on deck) Modern Gaff Schooner, built Borneo 2004/06.

24.7m (81ft) (on deck) Brigantine Sail Training Ship.

Yanmar 300hp diesel, two genset, aircon. 12 guests + 6 crew. Great luxury expedition yacht. Currently chartering USD $1,200,000 Based Thailand

Built Oak on Oak in 1957. Up to 20 berths, Excellent galley - bar. Scania diesel, Survey available. £375,000 - Location Edinburgh

11.5m (38ft) Modern Classic Yawl, hull by Spirit Yachts, 2000.

17.5m, 57ft on deck, Wishbone Ketch, built Oak on Oak in 1928.

6 berths in three cabins, Lister 30hp diesel, absolutely beautiful! Survey available - Please ask for a copy - £145,000 - Location - Chichester Harbour UK

ELSIE ISABEL: 30’ Gentleman’s Motor Launch, 1936, by K. R. Skentelbery, Plymouth. Twin Albin AD21 engines (in need of attention). Large aft cockpit. History and further photographs on request. £20,000

She offers accommodation for up to 17 in 5 cabins. Engine is 121kw (162hp) 6-cylinder diesel (1979) Recently chartering. Euro 89,500 - Location Gdynia, Poland

THELMARIE: 31’ Gentleman’s Motor Yacht, 1949, designed by Alfred Mylne II and built by The Bute Slip Dock Co., Scotland. BMC 1.5 lt diesel, plus a Yanmar 1GM10 wing engine. Sleeps 5. Newly refurbished in our workshops. Interesting history and further photographs on request. £45,000

Mobile:07799-654113 Tel: 01753-833166 sarah.woolley@stanleyandthomas.co.uk www.stanleyandthomas.co.uk Tom Jones Boatyard, Romney Lock, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 6HU

www.ClassicYachtsforSale.com

25m (82ft) Steel Twin Screw Gentleman’s Schooner part-finished restoration project.

14m (46ft) Modern Classic Sloop built Italy, 2003.

Hull and decks restored, Twin Gardner diesels. Drop Dead Gorgeous! 2010 Survey please ask for a copy. £260,000 - Offers invited - Location - Dorset UK

Construction is cold moulded, double diagonal over strip plank Cedar, all epoxy / glass sheathed. 6 berths. Yanmar 40hp diesel. A real stunner! Euro 198,000 - Lying Costa del Sol, Spain

10m (33ft) Fairey Marine Swordsman, fast cruiser.

12.6m, Buchanan 41, built Burma Teak on Canadian Rock Elm to Lloyds 100A1 in 1964.

Up to six berths, two heads, excellent galley, Twin Volvo Penta TAMPD41P-A 200bhp diesels installed 2000. Superbly maintained. 2010 Survey- Please ask! - £59,500 Offers Invited! - Location River Colne, Essex

Up to eight berths in two cabins, Perkins 4.107 diesel. All almost original! Now needs some refurb’ and a new Owner. 2012 Survey available, please ask £44,950 - Location - near Belfast NI.

www.EasternYachts.com See Website for Photos, Specifications & Surveys 19 Colne Road, Brightlingsea, Essex, CO7 0DL • Tel: +44 (0) 1206 305996. Planning to sell: Please call Adrian Espin for details.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

BROKERAGE

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

Laurent Giles Vertue No. 35 the very boat that Sir Humphrey Barton sailed across the Atlantic single handed in 1950. Lots of work done in last 10 years inc. New mast, rig and sails, keel bolts, deck and interior refit. A real piece of yachting history in superb condition that is as capable as the day she was launched. £24,500

25’ Vertue, built Elkins 1946. Teak hull below wl, mahogany above. Sheathed deck. Varnished teak super structure. Varnished mast. New Yanmar diesel. 2 berths + cot forward. Blakes head. A very realistic price for a good Vertue. Essex £18,950

42’ Hillyard ketch. Built 1966. Mahogany hull, sheathed deck, varnished mahogany superstructure. Bermudian ketch rig on varnished masts. Parsons 56hp diesel. Centre cock-pit model with aft cabin. 6 berths. One of the larger Hillyards, huge volume, tidy, a very good buy at this price. £34,000

32’ Brooke Marine twin engine motor yacht. Built 1937 as the company’s demonstrator. Served in Oz during the war, 2000 major refit. Yellow pine hull, totally water-tight deck. Twin BMCs give 10knts. 4 berths, 2 cabins. Heads with shower, modern galley. Original varnished pine interior. A little beauty. Suffolk £35,000

36’ Sparkman and Stephens. Built Moody 1964 for the One Ton Cup. Splined mahogany hull, laminated frames, bronze floors and straps, lead keel, teak deck, cock-pit and coach-roof. Wheel steering 30hp Volvo. 5 berths. New alloy mast. A better quality wooden boat has not been built – this is the best. Med £75,000

Westcountry fishing lugger 32’ x 10’ x 4’7”. Built in 2003 on the lines of a famous fishing lugger. Larch planking copper fastened to oak timbers. Lead keel, solid iroko laid deck. 2 masted lug rig with carbon fibre yards. Diesel electric engine. Cavernous interior with 5 berths. Extraordinary quality, proven on several ocean passages. Cornwall £45,000

40’ Robert Clark Class 2 racer, built 1968 by Crosshaven Boatyard. All teak hull, lead keel, 1998 teak deck. Wheel steering in wonderful big cock-pit. Sloop rig on ally mast. 1995 Lister Alpha 40hp diesel. 7 berths. A fine, big, long-legged boat, very capable but now in need of a refit to get her smart again. Hants. Snip at £35,000

28’ Miller Fifer, 1964. A nice example of this popular little ship. Usual Miller canoe stern with deep aft cock-pit. Mahogany and larch hull, teak deck, mahogany superstructure. Useful little ketch rig. Lister 4ST l 40hp diesel gives 6 knts cruising. 3 berths. Separate heads forward. Full head-room. Devon £16,500

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53’ Scottish MFV yacht built Forbes 1946. Larch hull. Gardner 6LX 114hp. Lister generator. 8 berths in 3 cabins + saloon heads and galley. A very tidy boat, nice size, ideal live aboard cruising and sensibly priced. Devon £42,000

Collie is an historic Admiralty Pinnace of some 36ft with four berths and a charming period interior with TV appearances and awards aplenty during her long career - £38,500

Hero (nee Avondale) stole the show at Goodwood Revival fresh from a full renovation by Classic Boatworks of Woodbastwick. Originally electric when built in 1898 she is once again capable of silent cruising with 8 passengers in great comfort - £105,000

Makhala - a steel hulled Akerboom from the reputable Dutch yard with two heads, large wheelhouse/saloon and an equally capacious flying bridge area. Owned by an engineer this boat has been well maintained with only three owners from new - £47,500

The Cove launch - our 18ft estuary launch with diesel propulsion and a comfortable fit out for eight to ten passengers, complete with cover and trailer - £32,500 including VAT

Lillie Langtry - a smart electric Frolic 31 with clerestory and unique internal fit out - £69,000

Lollipop - a 30ft bijou gentleman’s launch, finished in burgundy inside and out to contrast with the mahogany, refurbished in 2012 by Freebody - £49,000

Clover - an entrant to the Classic Boat competition and a stunning fast launch built according to a 1920’s design from the pen of William Hand - £32,500

Lady Beatrice - 26ft long with an 8ft 6in beam, probably by Banhams of Cambridge, beautifully maintained by Henwood and Dean and with roomy cockpit and cabin comprising seating, galley and loo - £59,500

CMY

For more information about any of these boats call 01491 578870 mobile 07813 917730 email sales@hscboats.co.uk www.hscboats.co.uk

For model boats, dockside clothing and boaty curios visit www.boatique.co.uk

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

Craftsmanship Yard News

Compiled by Steffan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)20 7901 8055 steffan.meyric-hughes@classicboat.co.uk

ItAlY

Dragons rising LeONARDO BORT0LAMI

PhD student Leonardo Bortolami at the University of Ferrara is combining academic study with hands-on boat restoration for his thesis about best practice in the restoration of historic vessels. The boats in question are a pair of International Dragons: Aretusa, built in 1956, and Acanto, built in 1966. The restoration work, in partnership with staff at the Cantiere Alto Adriatico yard in Monfalcone, has started with the removal of decks and hardware on both yachts and the GRP deckhouse sheathing on Acanto.

CRERAN MARINE, SCotlANd

Englishman Jamie Wagstaff bought this 45ft 6in (13.9m) 1922-built John Alden schooner Abaco (below) in Southampton three months ago. She’s now in a shed at Creran Marine near Oban, where 25-year-old boatbuilder Brendan Burgess is itching to get going. “She’s got 49 cracked ribs and has not been sailed in three years,” Jamie said. She will be rebuilt and given back her original rig. Alden drew three sail plans for the yacht. Current favourite is gaff mainsail and bermudan mizzen.

KevIN GLeAve

Alden schooner: a rebuild begins

MANCHEStER

Three Flying 15s restored Three Flying Fifteens were recently restored by members of Dovestone Sailing Club on the shores of a 100-acre (40ha) reservoir in the Peak District near Manchester. FF28 Femme Fatale (above) is one of the few built to the original Uffa Fox design of a diagonal, then a fore-andaft layer of mahogany planks on ½in (12mm) internal ash frames.

dARtMoutH, dEvoN

SoutHAMPtoN

Afloat again after 20 years...

Inspiring the Broads yachts

...but only to check the waterline. The 100-year-old Trasnagh, a 39ft 6in (12m) Islands One Design yawl drawn by Mylne (YN, CB275), is almost ready for her centenary launch this spring, when it will all be for real. This time was exciting enough for owner Ian Terblanche who reported that, “she looked as graceful and poised as I had hoped”. Boatbuilders Peter Nash and Mike Kirk have been on the job full-time and all that remains is the running rigging and the electronics which will be hidden and transmit to an iPad.

The 20ft (6.1m) gaff cutter Mystery, built in 1887, had a lifting coachroof long before they were adopted on Broads yachts. She was rebuilt in the 1980s, then laid ashore for 12 years. New owner Simon Thorne, a marine surveyor specialising in wooden boats, bought her in October 2011. After a recaulk and repaint, she was launched this summer. Apparently, even the Seagull works.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

CRAFTSMANSHIP

C/O BRuNO CIANCI

TURKEY

Steamer makes its last voyage to Istanbul In late 2007, the 53ft (16.2m) British-built steamer Ysolt was under partial tarpaulin cover and open to wind and rain in a field by Loch Lomond in Scotland. She had not moved since the owner took her there by road in the year that Britain joined the European Economic Community: 1973. A steam engineer tipped off Turkish boat collector Rahmi Koç that the yacht, built by

Simpson, Strickland & Co of Dartmouth in 1893, was original down to her quadruple expansion, four-cylinder engine. Mr Koç bought her and this autumn she left RMK Marine after four years’ work to restore her to steam. The 20-mile (32km) passage to the Rahmi M Koç Museum under her own power might be her last, as Ysolt is now in the museum’s static display.

MAINE RoUND-UP

Lobster Boats new...

BASS HARBoR BoATYARD

...and old This yard specialises in classic wooden Maine Lobster Boats. A 32ft (9.8m) working boat built by John Leonard was relaunched in October after 16 new frames, some planks and a refastening. The yard has three others under repair: a 40ft (12.2m) leisure boat built by Sim Davis in 1941 and two more leisure boats.

FRoNT STREET

Spirit of Joel White lives on

The W-Class Yacht Company is moving firmly into superyacht territory with new designs for 100ft

MCN

(30.5m), 123ft (37.5m) and 135ft (41.2m) models. The 123 (above) is the first design to have been finalised. It’s based on the late Joel White’s design for the W-76, a fast cold-moulded sloop with long overhangs and a low deckhouse. The 123 was designed by Bruce Johnson of Front Street (formerly of S&S) with Rockport Marine Yacht Design.

NEW ZEALAND

South Sea Vagabonds yacht Ngataki restored

gREAT HARBoR BoATS

Apprentice Great Harbor Boatworks received $4,000 from the Maine Arts Commission to fund an apprenticeship for high school student Ryan Snow. He and yard owner Richard Stanley have been busy building a 19ft (5.8m) gaff-rigged daysailer.

C/O MCN SHIPWRIGHTS

AJ Enterprises only builds the AJ 28 – fast 28ft (8.5m) GRP Maine Lobster Boats with cabins. A previous model hit 60mph (102kph). The latest, for launch this winter, will fly with 315bhp of diesel power.

The YN editor has never heard of MCN Shipwrights of Helensville, New Zealand, but it seems the yard has its hands full. There’s a 38ft (11.6m) Arch Logan fisher-turned-racer in the shed: Victory (above), which lived up to her name in the 1920s by winning the first Balokovic Cup in a 100-mile ocean race. Among the work is a reinstatement to original gaff rig and low-profile cabintop. This is, rightly, de rigeur in New Zealand’s very active and authentic yacht restoration scene. There is also a 1969 Riva Super Aquarama rebuild (below) for a Hong Kong-based owner. And earlier this year, the yard finished work to the hull of the 35ft (10.7m) cutter yacht Ngataki after a full rebuild. Kiwi Johnny Wray built her in 1933 in his back garden. Then he cruised the Pacific in the halcyon interwar years and wrote a forgotten gem of a book about it, South Sea Vagabonds. Sicilian yard owner Marco Scuderi, first mate Stuart Weeds and Nutty the Huntaway will be busy, particularly when you consider that Nutty is a dog. CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

CRAFTSMANSHIP

ExpEriEncE

Playing prop forward John Greenaway’s Fifie combines classic looks with a modern propeller and even a bow-thruster. Richard Johnstone-Bryden reports

Left: The Axiom propeller has a similar blade profile to those of the Shackleton patrol aircraft 100

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

andling a long-keeled wooden boat in crowded marinas is not for the faint-hearted, but the owner of one classic boat believes that he has found the answer. Turning to modern technology below the waterline, John Greenaway has reduced the stress of manoeuvring in tight corners with a new propeller and bow-thruster. Before these alterations were carried out, his traditionallooking 36ft (11m) Scottish Fifie fishing boat Sweet Promise simply would not go to starboard astern, due to the combination of long keel and right-handed prop. Originally, such a handicap would not have been an issue, because she would have shared small fishing ports with similar boats. If the skipper misjudged it and bumped another fishing boat, the incident would have led to a loss of pride rather than a hefty insurance claim. But times have changed, and the prospect of a heavy wooden boat hitting a light glassfibre yacht is likely to result in a painful bill. John’s quest to improve Sweet Promise’s manoeuvrability led him to the Northamptonshire-based Axiom Propellers. Their distinctive props were developed by Alan Watts and his son David with rectangular blades that have a constant flat “S” profile. According to the former RAF airframe fitter, they remind him of the blades on the Shackleton patrol planes that he once worked on. Alan said the prop, “would reduce cavitation, improve fuel efficiency while motor-sailing and significantly reduce the amount of prop walk, enabling her to go astern to starboard.” This and a detailed report of trials carried out

CRAFTSMANSHIP

by Newcastle University convinced John to fit an Axiom during Sweet Promise’s recent three-year refurbishment. Each blade is tailored to the client’s boat and has the same type of hub as a conventional marine screw, so there is no need to modify the prop shaft before fitting. “Although the propeller looks odd because the blades are squared off, who is going to notice once the boat is in the water?” said John. “Since fitting the Axiom, I have virtually no cavitation and can go to starboard astern, providing I don’t use a lot of power. The best way of achieving this is simply to engage astern and put the rudder amidships, take the power off and move the rudder to starboard. When I motor-sail I have noticed a drop in fuel consumption.” John reverted to an effective but low-cost, traditional product when it came to keeping the marine growth off his new high-tech prop: tallow. “Simply melt the tallow, brush it on to the propeller, and leave it to harden. It is a proven method, because the tallow prevents the marine growth from etching itself on to the prop. Even if the boat has been left on the mooring for several weeks, the growth will simply be thrown off the prop once it has been turning for a short while.”

power up for’ard

1½in (36mm) larch on oak frames – not least how to form an effective seal without storing up difficulties for the future. The yard wanted to seal along the edge of the hole for the thruster’s 7in (18cm) glassfibre tunnel with epoxy. John was opposed to this technique and insisted on the use of the butyl-based bedding compound that is sold by his company, Traditional Boat Supplies. This compound remains soft and waterproof, which John believed would be more sympathetic to the natural properties of the larch planking. Thus, when the wooden collars were fitted either side of the planking at each end of the bow-thruster tunnel, they were bedded in with the compound and through-bolted. It has proved completely watertight. Brundall-based marine engineering company AR Peachment advised John that whilst he could get away with fitting an 80 cubic feet per minute thruster, it would be worth spending an additional £200 to buy the 100cu ft version, because of the boat’s 16-ton weight. “When Sweet Promise was relaunched after the fitting of the new thruster, I proceeded into the middle of Lake Lothing [at Lowestoft] to perform a Viennese Waltz!” John said. “Thanks to the combination of the Axiom and the bow-thruster, I can position the boat where I want. Hopefully the damage I used to inflict on other boats will be a thing of the past.”

John decided to round off the improvements to Sweet Promise by fitting a bow-thruster. He had been considering it for some time, but was concerned about the potential problems associated with installation in a hull planked with

Sweet Promise is now for sale. Contact Traditional Boat Supplies Tel: +44 (0)1502 712311, www.tradboats.com Axiom, tel: +44 (0)1832 734609, www.axiompropellers.com

Above: The bow-thruster is far enough below the waterline that there is no wake, and a threesecond burst carries a lot of momentum

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

101

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Boatbuilder’s Notes

2 all photos: RoBin Gates

EXPERT ADVIcE

Build a saw rack If you’re not quite ready to take on the skylight (p114), here’s a much simpler project from Robin Gates. Good organisation was key to success under the old apprenticeship system. A mislaid or damaged tool could bring the master down on you like a ton of teak, so a shipwright kept tools safe in a tool chest, marked with his name. Handsaws are invaluable for cross-cutting or ripping a board to size and in many instances are far quicker and easier than firing up machinery – but they can be awkward to store. The temptation is simply to lay these big, sharp, unwieldy tools aside once used, but if they lie forgotten and timber is stacked on top or other tools bang them, the blade may be distorted and teeth damaged. With today’s hardpoint saws that cannot be sharpened, that means a write-off. The simplest solution is the peg rack, which has served the busy boatyard through generations. You can instantly see which saws you have 102

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

and select the one you require with ease. A handsaw hung vertically from the handle not only preserves the straightness of the blade, but slips conveniently into the hand. In making this rack I used only traditional hand tools and worked by eye. Cut the rack to the size you need, laying the saws on it first to mark where the pegs will be. Mine was 1¼in by 2½in by 23½in (32 x 64 x 600mm) in elm.

1 2

For a decorative touch, you can scribe and/or bevel the edges. A sliding bevel was used to set the angle for the pegs – about 10°. The angle should be sufficient to prevent saws being knocked down accidentally but not so steep as to stack saws so that they don’t hang vertically. This was the only tricky operation – using the bevel as a visual reference for boring peg holes at a consistent angle with a 19th-century beech wood brace and centre bit. But the eye can see what’s right – trust it.

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Traditional Tool

RoBIN GAtES

Side fillister BY ROBIN GATES

5 4

If a peg hole is slightly out of alignment you can compensate by shaping the peg accordingly. These pegs are of straight-grained ½in (12mm) pine. The ends were tapered slightly and struck home with a mallet. Some things are best left until later – sawing the ends of pegs so they are parallel with the face of the rack, for example, when the rack itself becomes the clamp for the work. Wedges are useful for supporting angled work.

The rack was finished with boiled linseed oil and fastened with screws. It holds two rip saws, three crosscuts, a coping saw and a bow saw – with space for more.

Above: Side fillister cutting a ½in (12mm) rabbet in an elm plank

“The side fillister is to an electric router what the wellbalanced sailing boat is to a whining jet-ski”

Right: Adjustable fence determines rabbet width photoS: RoBIN GAtES

Variously known as the side fillister, moving side fillister or filletster, this is the Rolls-Royce of wooden rabbet planes. For yacht joiners making rabbeted corner joints, panelling and the meeting edges of doors it remains the benchmark hand tool. Compared to the basic rabbet plane (CB268), essentially a skewed blade in a beechwood stock, this has some telling refinements. First, the adjustable fence attached to the sole: moving it changes the width of the rabbet and, by keeping it pressed firmly against the workpiece, you can be sure the rabbet will be straight. Then there is the shapely brass depth stop, adjusted by a thumbscrew on the top of the stock, guarding against cutting the rabbet too deep. Third, note the extra blade, the nicker, accommodated ahead of the main blade and secured by a boxwood wedge. The chisel-edged nicker is used when cutting a rebate across the grain, severing wood fibres at the

corner of the rabbet in advance of the main blade so as to avoid tear-out. Even among side fillisters, this example by Gleave in Manchester from sometime before 1868 is unusually well made, having inlaid brass wear plates for the fence screws and a double-dovetailed boxwood wear strip in the sole. Setting up the plane is critical to its effectiveness and is achieved largely by eye. Holding the plane upside down, sight along the sole for the tell-tale glimmer of honed steel, then tighten the large wedge. If a test cut takes a coarse shaving, you can make it finer by tapping smartly with a hammer on the stock above the toe of the plane. If it is now too fine, tap the iron itself; simple but effective. Starting at the end of the board and working back with growing cuts, you are soon taking full-length shavings which spiral from the escapement like streamers. Comparing different means to the same end, the side fillister is to an electric router what a well-balanced sailing boat is to a whining jet-ski.

Far right: The nicker is lowered for cutting across the grain CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

103

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Making a Skylight The second step for our skylight is the central beam. Ben Jefferies continues with our winter project

Once the glue has fully cured on the frame, you can fit the centre beam. Make it in two pieces, to keep life simple. Cut the bottom piece first â&#x20AC;&#x201C; about 3Â˝in (9cm) wide, 1in (2.5cm) thick. It should be about 1in shorter than the side pieces of the skylight, so that it will fit into the socket you are about to cut.

Use any offcut wood as a template to mark out the beam sockets in the end pieces of the frame. The sockets should be deep enough to allow the beam to sit flush.

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CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

With a router, cut about halfway into the timber of the end pieces to form the socket. Make sure that the measurement from the back of one socket to the back of the other is the same as the length of the beam you cut earlier. Finish the corners by squaring off with a chisel.

Check that the beam fits snugly and adjust its length, or the depth of the sockets accordingly.

CRAFTSMANSHIP

8 5

Remove the beam and cut drainage channels with a Bullnose router bit. These channels lie beneath the hinges and are the key to diverting all the icy water away from your forehead when you are below, so make them deep enough.

Now cut the top part of the centre beam so that the bottom corners fall roughly in the centre of the channels at an angle exactly square to the roof pitch (we used 5:2 last time). Use a square!

7-9

Measure the angle you’ve just scribed, then set your table saw to this angle and cut outside the marks.

Plane the outside edges of the lower centre beam flush with the pitch of the roof.

11 12

Now rout through the ends to finish off the channels.

Glue the two beams together. I would use epoxy and clean up immediately with acetone, as you don’t want glue filling the drainage channels.

Next month: Part III – Making the leaves CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

105

Specialist Tools & Supplies for Traditional Boats

Francis searchlights cover from 1953 to 1973. Completely renovated with new reflectors upgraded to Halogen bulbs. 9inch polished brass £1065 plus delivery and VAT. 9inch chrome £1275 plus delivery and VAT 11inch chrome £1350 plus delivery and VAT.

www.tradboats.com

Call for details 31 Ravensmere, Beccles, Suffolk NR34 9DX Tel/Fax: +44 (0) 1502 712311 • John@tradboats.com Classic Advert 202 x 129.qxd:Layout 1

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10 to 150 hp - 14 very smooth, multi-cylinder, heat exchanger cooled engines.

We offer you the best, compact, reliable engines at very competitive prices! Easy engine replacement, we can supply special engine feet designed to fit your boat.

Engineered in the UK, at Beta Marine in Gloucestershire, we welcome your visit. Installation, buy through our dealer network for an installation package - see our website for dealer listings, or contact us. 3 Year ‘Self Service’ Warranty

e c i o h C s n a m t h c a Y e Th 106

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

www.betamarine.co.uk Tel: 01452 723492 Email: sales@betamarine.co.uk

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Charlotte watters

Adrian Morgan boat lying at the head of the vik, the cranky one that as good as drowned Ragnahildr when she rowed her goats across the water to market, all those years ago? And thus it was, Forkbeard got shovelled into a mound along with his goods, chattels, handmaidens (not the prettiest), etc in the old tub, and good riddance. “Never rated either of ’em, and now we’ve buried, as it were, two useless birds with one shovel.” A few hundred years down the line, and to great excitement, the mound gets excavated; the impressions of old timbers yield vital facts about Viking shipbuilding methods. Reconstructions are commissioned and naval architects analyse and marvel at the genius of the men who put it together (one Halfgr the Halfwit, to be precise). Well, even Vikings got things wrong, which is not surprising; given the absence of finite element analysis, computer modelling and advanced hydrodynamics, some of their ships must have been pretty crank. Viking shipbuilders, in other words, were not infallible, which brings me back to our friends in Valhalla, chortling into their beards at the sight of all that misplaced reverence. “Genius, by the nose of Odin. What they should be digging up is Snorri’s old boat, the one that got wrecked; the one under that drinking hall in Ullapool,” they say. “By Thor’s kneecaps, he could build a boat, could Old Snorri. Wasted on that rascal Egill.” So it must have been: would a good boat find itself being discarded as a burial ship? More likely it was the broken ones; the ones that tried to drown you. Alas, centuries later and with very few clues to guide us, we make what we can of what we find. This will not be a problem for those who seek to replicate our boats. For a start, they will remain intact for centuries, unless someone devises a method to recycle glassfibre, and there will be thousands to choose from, not half of them any good, together with detailed plans. What makes a good boat? Well, you can argue long into the night over your whisky, as they are surely doing over their Old Loki up there in Valhalla. That argument, at least, hasn’t changed over the intervening centuries.

No skin off Odin’s nose

Adrian reckons some Viking longship finds are just plain rubbish

hey’ll be laughing into their cask-strength mead beside the hearth fires in Valhalla: Hagar the Helmsman and Olaf the Axeman guffawing into their drinking horns. And no, they won’t be wearing pointy helmets for, as Viking historian Neil Oliver put it, “you wouldn’t want to poke your mate in the eye as you leapt from the prow of your longship”. Or, for that matter, staggering about, three sheets to the wind from the effects of unlimited quantities of Old Loki. So what are they chuckling about, you ask? Well, we are told to believe that the fittest alone survive, and you can presumably apply that as well to boats as you can to the human species. That is, only the best specimens manage to avoid storm and neglect, shipworm and gribble (boats, you understand). Well, perhaps not. When Forkbeard the Fearless had his head cleft from brow to larynx with a broadsword whilst attempting to seduce his kinsman Falki’s wife Finna, they were obliged to bury him with the usual palaver, alongside his sheep, oxen, goods and chattels, a few handmaidens, but not the prettiest ones, and so on – in a boat. Now, they agreed, the randy old bugger pretty much deserved his fate – he had it coming, as they say in Old Norse – so why waste a perfectly sound longship; one that took half a forest and the labours of 10 builders six months to craft? Why not bury the old so-and-so in the

“Would a good boat find itself being discarded as a burial ship?”

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MARINE DIRECTORY

Marine Directory

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Marine Directory BOATBUILDERS

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Classic Boat Jan 13 qtr page:Layout 1

MARINE DIRECTORY

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Page 1

EQUIPMENT Fastening & Fitting

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4/1/11 11:46:35 AM

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Letters LETTER OF THE MONTH SUPPORTED BY OLD PULTENEY WHISKY

JESSICA DOBBS

A McGruer’s tale on the West Coast

There are some absolutely beautiful photographs in the September issue (CB291): J-Class, Metre boats... congratulations! But on the cover photo: where are the port backstays? This is indeed a beautiful boat and should be profiled! All that is lacking is a strong ending for the cove stripe… George McAuliffe, by email

Editor replies: You’ve rumbled us George – no question. We try to let pictures tell their own story, but very occasionally there’s a good reason to tweak one – in this case to remove the profusion of lines sprouting from the helmsman’s chest! We knew that an eagle-eyed reader would spot it.

Spotted! No backstay...

Having only just got to reading your May issue (CB287), I see on p46 a photo of Rowan IV, a 1938 McGruer cutter based on a Loch Fyne skiff. Readers may be interested to know that there is a delightful book, long out of print, titled Leaves from Rowan’s Logs, written by Dr RB Carslaw. It is the story of the Carslaw family’s cruising experiences between 1927 and 1939 on the west coast of Scotland in a series of yachts all named Rowan; Rowan IV, the last in the series, was sailed from 1938 to 1939. Many of the places visited are still recognisable today, although greatly changed. Should anyone find a copy I highly recommend purchasing it. My copy cost me 5s in 1969 and is a prized possession. Tom Eeles, by email

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I have just received my signed copy of Luke Powell’s book, Working Sail, a life in wooden boats, (see p87), which I opened to some disappointment. Disappointment in that I will never be able to afford, walk the decks, admire or sail my very own Luke Powell masterpiece. Thumbing through the pages I felt a small welling up in the eyes of delight, but being British, soon put a stop to that. Working Sail is large and heavy, well-written, and profusely illustrated with drawings, paintings, old photographs and those of Luke’s boats being built or under sail. A friend popped in for a chat and was very impressed with my copy, but baulked at the price of £30. I reminded him

that he spent twice as much and more when he regularly takes his wife out for a meal, whereas this book will be feeding my mind for many years to come (probably with envy and resentment). Cheap as chips, then. Jeffery VW Please, Isle of Wight

Send your letters (and any replies please) to: Classic Boat, Liscartan House, 127-131 Sloane Street, London SW1X 9AS email: cb@classicboat.co.uk

Seaviews are Jewels There has been some correspondence recently concerning a yacht called Emerald (Letters, CB292, 293, 294), which had been identified by one of your readers as one of the Jewel class. I could be completely wrong, but from what I found out while researching the history of my boat (Tarifa, 1909, designed by GU Laws and built by the Burnham Yacht Building Co), I understood that the Jewel class was created from the original fleet of Seaview Mermaids when they were replaced by a new fleet of bermudan-rigged boats, designed by Alfred Westmacott, and built by Woodnutts of St Helens in the spring and summer of 1922. There was, in fact, an article in CB34 by Roderick Kalberer: “The old Seaview Mermaids were sold and taken by train to the Medway Yacht Club where they were renamed and known as the Jewel Class – Jade, Crystal, Onyx, Pearl, Emerald, Sapphire and Ruby. Later they were sold to individual club members and became known as the Medway One Designs.” Pearl is, as far as I know, the only surviving member of the original class of Seaview Mermaids, but how nice it would be if another one turned up. A replica, Mizpah (CB291, cover) was built more recently and lies off Seaview in the summer. The Seaview Mermaids were drawn by GU Laws and built by Arthur Taylor at Sandown. They were 25ft (7.6m) long and 17ft (5.2m) at the waterline. The rig was optional, as in the Redwing craft of the Bembridge Sailing Club. They were delivered to the Seaview Yacht Club from 1907 at a cost of £70 each. Mark Hickman, by email

Ensign etiquette I have it in my education and memory that the national ensign, when shown at the poop, is always set on the starboard side. This week, I have the pleasure to see the beautiful schooner Meteor from Huisman in front of my window, her national ensign (BVI, for tax reasons) standing proudly on port! How come that the principle of showing the ensign on starboard is ignored/considered worthless by many of today’s yachtsmen? Rob Grommé, La Ciotat, France John Perryman replies: As far as we know there is no etiquette in Great Britain about which side of the taffrail the ensign staff is positioned. It is often offset to avoid a backstay or stern lamp, but as to which side, we know of no convention.

Has she found Nirvana? My wife and I are trying to locate the whereabouts of this vessel, or indeed, whether she still exists. My wife lived aboard with her parents from 1947 until 1958. They ran the Westcountry Yacht Charters during this period, here in Falmouth harbour, until my father-in-law’s death in 1958. The vessel was called Nirvana, she was 72ft (22m) long, built by White of Cowes in 1892. Unfortunately, when

Help locate a boat

she was sold in 1958, the new owner removed the counter stern, for reasons unknown, and her funnel was also removed. It is believed that she was then sold on to another owner, who took her to the East Coast. As this vessel has deep personal memories for my wife, we would greatly appreciate any help in locating her, or of any knowledge regarding her. Derek and Jann Dawes, Penryn

READER’S BOAT OF THE MONTH

Yes, she’s a Yarecraft Saleroom, in your latest edition (CB294), seeks help identifying a “mystery sportsboat”. A penny to a pound, the boat illustrated is a Yarecraft. These were built in Great Yarmouth, and then Lowestoft, during the later ‘50s and early ‘60s. Some models where shaped from ply sheets (like the one in your photo), others were coldmoulded from wood strip. They were extensively raced, particularly by the owner of the company, Francis Holmes, on Oulton Broad. I attach a photo of Tarka (there’s a contemporary name for you!), my family’s Yarecraft moored at Surlingham Ferry on the – where else? – River Yare. Tarka, and the boat in your photo, are probably Sea Sprays. There were many models, all with Sea in the title, and even a small cabin cruiser. Mark Wells, by email

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2013

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Sternpost

GUY VEnABLES

It could just as easily have gone to Dylan Winter, who has spent the last four years sailing anticlockwise around Britain (Bembridge to Bembridge) in an ugly plastic boat that sails like a pig (a 1965 Mirror Offshore). His very existence must be an embarrassment to the fools who hurry past our coastline in expensive white yachts. These people see none of our 20,000 miles of ever-changing, crinkly, littoral coast. Not so Mr Winter, who points the Slug’s bulbous bows up every waterway he comes across. The films he has made en route – beautifully-shot sequences of waterfowl, classic yachts, glistening low-water mud and sunrises – have garnered quite a following. Or, as Dylan put it in a wild speech to some of his disciples: “It turns out there are lots of middle-aged blokes who want to watch another middle-aged bloke sail a shit boat around a small island.” The crowd laughs. “Get out there and enjoy yourself!” he then shouts and the crowd bursts into a roar of what sounds like middleaged wanderlust. A few years ago, we put Trevor Clifton up for the award. A quiet, determined ex-Army man, Trevor bought a 26ft (7.9m) glassfibre Twister and sailed to Cape Horn and back. It was, simply, something he had always wanted to do. That’s sailing is it not? Cape Horn, flying fish, self-discovery… surely that’s what it’s all about? What about the skipper of Mariquita, Jim Thom, our editor has just asked me? Jim, who has done so much for classic racing and whose watchwords might be ‘respect’ or ‘tradition’ or ‘authenticity’. Trevor never got a mention in the context of those awards, but I’m not sure he would have wanted one. For him, the journey was reward enough. This year, Ben Ainslie will win it and probably deservedly so for reasons I will never understand, and also because awards tend to be a celebration of the obvious. Having said that Giacomo de Stefano and Jim Thom are both nominated for our person of the year award (p54), so you can vote for them at least. And please take a moment to look over all our other categories, for boatyards, new boats and restorations. Think of our awards as the “go slower” awards if you like. They are all about patience, respect, and tradition handed down through generations. Nobody’s going anywhere very fast – but then who said it was a race? As for Dylan, who is in a race with his own mortality to complete his circumnavigation, if he reaches Bembridge in 20 years’ time, he can count on my vote.

Why I didn’t vote for Ainslie

Where is the magic in awards, asks Steffan Meyric Hughes?

very year, the Yachting Journalists’ Association asks its members to nominate, and vote for, a yachtsman of the year. They are generally racing sorts, and most years I haven’t even heard of them. This has never stopped me attending the prize-giving, which is a magnificent lunch in the splendour of London’s Trinity House. This year, I recognised a name on the list – Ben Ainslie, whose achievement in the Olympics was no doubt extraordinary and very hard-won. A nanosecond later, it struck me that I have no idea what sailors like Ainslie do, or how they win year after year. Like many others I know, going sailing is the antidote to speed, technology, oneupmanship and competition – the rat-race, in other words. I find it bizarre that the most celebrated facet of sailing has nothing to do with all the things that make it magic. No distant shores, no strange peoples or bird cries, no pull of a mackerel on a feathered line. In this arena, there is no exploration, no shelter from a storm, no warm fire and walking back to the boat after an evening in the Ancient Mariner under a sky full of stars. This year, I nominated Giacomo de Stefano, the Italian who sailed 3,000 miles from London to Istanbul in a 19ft (5.8m) wooden Iain Oughtred yawl he’d built himself. His quest – for it was one – was to explore the problems facing riverside dwellers and think of ways of solving them. His story (featured here next month) is in parts scarcely believable – the essence of adventurous travel.

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“No distant shores, no strange peoples or the pull of a mackerel on a line”

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