DRAWN TO WATER
CALIFORNIA DREAMING
Restoring a glass Cal 40
DIVING DEEP
Her new nesting ground in Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight, is the ideal base for this 39ft Fife-built cutter to begin the new phase of her nomadic life ...
WORDS NIGEL SHARP PHOTOS BEN WOOD
MOUSEHOLE, CORNWALL
Sea, Salts & Sail
WORDS AND PHOTOS NIC COMPTON
The Sea Salts & Sail festival in Mousehole attracts a certain type of sailor. The type who doesn’t mind getting up at 7am to leave harbour at high water, then be unable to return until the next high water 12 hours later (give or take an hour or two). The type of sailor who doesn’t mind drying out with five other boats rafted alongside and having their decks trampled by countless jolly sailors in the dead of night. The type who doesn’t mind sculling an engineless wooden boat through the 36ft (11m) wide harbour entrance while being watched by a large crowd.
Yet the biennial festival has had no trouble attracting boats since its inception in 1996. And no wonder. Not only is the village itself ridiculously pretty (Dylan Thomas called it “the loveliest village in England”) but the whole setting is stunning, with St Clements Isle (little more than a large rock) opposite the harbour entrance, St Michaels Mount on the other side of Mounts Bay to the left and the fresh fury of the Atlantic Ocean to the right. You could hardly ask for a prettier place to hold a traditional boat festival. This year’s participants included a large contingent of luggers, including two local heroes: the 1881 St Ives mackerel driver Barnabas and the 1904 Porthleven-built Happy Return. From further afield, Breton boatbuilder Benoît Cayla and friends brought two engineless boats: the 43ft zulu Maggie Helen and the huge ga ketch Swallow, which skipper Élise Neau manoeuvred through the narrow harbour entrance with remarkable sang froid. The fastest boats were the 1911 pilchard driver Guide Me, owned by Judy and Jono Brickhill, and the 1901 Manx nobby Gladys, owned by floating restaurateur Charlotte Whyte, which tore around the course almost in a class of their own. Gladys eventually won Class 1 (over 32ft), the 29ft Tamarisk Lowenna taking Class 2 (23-32ft), and the 1894 Itchen Ferry Blue Jacket in Class 3 (under 23ft). The next Sea Salts & Sail festival will be in July 2026.
1 Mousehole makes an idyllic venue
2 St Ives boatbuilder Jonny Nance is in charge of the sculling race 3 Former boatbuilder Jonny Mills sails Rebecca Kate the day after the capsize 4 The St Ives Jumbo Celeste built by Jonny Nance puts a reef in 5 The all-girl crew on the steel Colin Archer type Omo smile for the camera
6 Hoisting sail on the Brittany-based ketch Swallow 7 Sculling through the narrow harbour entrance on the engineless Maggie Helen 8 A Cornish ’sea lion' keeps a close eye on proceedings from a rock o St Clements 9 The Manx nobbie Gladys owned by Charlotte Whyte was the party boat 10 "Ho hisse, les gars!" The crew of Swallow haul in the jib sheet 11 Elle Demaus at the helm of Maggie Helen 12 Aboard Swallow on the approach to Mousehole 13 Looe lugger Guide Me and nobby Gladys were in a league of their own
CANNES DO ATTITUDE
A Porsche racing car champion in the 1950s, Gonzague Olivier set up a boatyard in Cannes out of a passion for water skiing. Today, only a handful of his small production run remain
WORDS GERALD GUETAT PHOTOS HENRI THIBAULT ARCHIVES HJ & C PECHDIMALDJIAN COLLECTION
ATLANTIC
The chance to sail on the three-masted schooner Atlantic was almost too good to be true; perfect weather and a 65-mile passage race with 11 other classics were just icing on the cake
WORDS AND PHOTOS NIGEL SHARP
STAR
Getting afloat
Altair and Peggy Bawn
LITTLE AND LARGE
Two of the yachts most pivotal to the classic boat movement are on sale at the same time, through Sandeman Yacht Company. The first, the Fife-designed schooner Altair, is among the world’s most famous and beautiful classic yachts; some would say Altair was the first authentic ‘big boat’ restoration back in the 1987 and the pivotal project that started the whole classic boat movement. The other is the 36ft (11m) GL Watson-designed gaff cutter Peggy Bawn from 1894. We would say that it triggered the second phase of the classic sailing yacht restoration movement, being among the first small yachts to be restored to the very highest standard, something we covered in a long series of articles in 2007. Both boats come from the boards of two of the world’s most celebrated designers: Wm Fife III and GL Watson, both Scottish. Both yachts were the best of their sort in their day, and both must be considered today as among the crème de la crème of the world classics fleet. There, though, the similarities end.
Above: Peggy Bawn Below: Altair
PHOTO: BOB AYLOTT
PHOTO: OCEAN IMAGES/SANDEMAN YACHT CO