Classic Boat September 2022

£4.95 US$10.99

SEPTEMBER 2022

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

FAST AND BONNIE

FIFE REGATTA Largest ever gathering

Fife racer rebuilt

DUNKIRK LITTLE SHIP Fishing ketch survivor MARINE ART

Martyn Mackrill

MORGAN GILES

Life and designs

ITALIAN AVANT-GARDE 1945 Lancia runabout WORKSHOP KNOWLEDGE

Glassing a Stella

www.classicboat.co.uk

Anne T. Converse PHOTOGRAPHY P.O. Box 209 | Marion, MA 02738 | USA 508 728 6210 anne@annetconverse.com www.annetconverse.com

MARINE

MARINE

TRAVEL

TRAVEL

EQUINE

EQUINE

PEOPLE

PEOPLE

STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES, EDITOR

THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

PAGE 23 AVANT GARDE PAGE 56

You might recall our 400th issue last year, where we discussed the most beautiful boat of all time. It’s about the most fraught issue there is: not only are you trying to apply objectivity to something subjective, but such discussions run the risk of offence to owners, and even betrayal of loyalty by those in the marine industry. Imagine you’re a boatbuilder, and you say Yacht A is the loveliest. How is the owner of yacht B, who spent a million Pounds having her restored at your yard, going to react to that? There was much agonising! Unsurprisingly, there was also a lot of consensus, implying, as we always suspected, that beauty is not quite as subjective as some may think. In this issue, there are two spectacularly pretty, small boats. The first is the little Fife day-racer UandI, restored by a time-served perfectionist and written up by his pal Tom Cunliffe.

No one will argue with me on this one. The second is the outrageous, unique, little Lancia-powered mahogany runabout, the 1945-built Insam. Its looks are bizarre, its story poignant, and I think it’s one of the prettiest motorboats ever. Do you agree?

COVER PHOTO: PAUL WYETH

ISSUE No 409

CONTENTS

classicboat.co.uk Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ

COVER STORY

EDITORIAL Editor Steffan Meyric Hughes +44 (0)203 943 9256 steffan@classicboat.co.uk Art Editor Gareth Lloyd Jones Group Editor Rob Peake Publisher Simon Temlett Publishing Consultant Martin Nott ADVERTISING Andrew Mackenzie +44 (0)207 349 3779 andrew.mackenzie@chelseamagazines.com Advertisement Production Allpointsmedia +44 (0)1202 472781 allpointsmedia.co.uk

4 . UANDI A derelict Fife yacht restored to splendour by a perfectionist? A blast from the heyday of restoration!

12 . BARCELONA’S REGATTA Photos and action from the annual Vela Puig in the Catalonian capital COVER STORY

The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ +44 (0)207 349 3700 chelseamagazines.com

22 . ANGELE ALINE The French-built fisher has been sunk, bombed and more. Now she’s thriving under family ownership 34 . BOSUN’S BAG Varnish or oil? Our resident salt Tom Cunliffe shares his experience of both 38 . MORGAN GILES First of a double feature on the life and work of a great English yacht designer 44 . FIFE REGATTA Report from the biggest ever gathering of yachts by William Fife III 50 . MARTYN MACKRILL Honorary painter to the Squadron; illustrator in this magazine; sailor; and yacht conservator

©Copyright The Chelsea Magazine Company 2020 all rights reserved ISSN 0950-3315

COVER STORY

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For cruising and racing sailors

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FIFE REGATTA

MORGAN GILES

22

50

ANGELE ALINE

MARTYN MACKRILL

56 . A STYLING EXERCISE The Insam-built 1945 runabout has an outrageous sort of beauty 62 . GLASSING THE STELLAS Sacrilege? Or a way to keep Kim Holman’s clinker classics alive?

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UANDI

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. . . .

TELL TALES SALEROOM OBJECTS OF DESIRE ADRIAN MORGAN

34 . BOSUN’S BAG 66 . GETING AFLOAT 78 . LETTERS 82 . STERNPOST

CRAFTSMANSHIP

70 . YARD NEWS 74 . YARD VISIT 76 . BOATBUILDER’S NOTES

Adria Morgan n

Imperfe c beauty t PAGE 32

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

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FIELD WITH DREAMS Cinderella treatment for UandI – the Fife racer back on top form WORDS TOM CUNLIFFE PHOTOS PAUL WYETH

UANDI

M

any a restoration article starts with a brief history of the boat before going on to describe the job, making reference in passing to the builder. Sometimes, though, the man in question is as interesting as his boat, so before taking readers through the life and changing times of Uandi, I’m going to introduce you to Alastair Garland.

Alastair and I first crossed tacks around 1990 when the foreman of the Elephant Boatyard at Bursledon sent him along to caulk my old pilot cutter. This should have been a daunting task with 50ft of planking, as he observed, on both sides. The seams were 80 years from new and had been around the block more than once, but Alastair had her ‘clattered up tight’ in short order.

Learning that he’s a Cornishman who served his time building fishing boats on the beach at Porthleven, you’ll be forgiven, as I hope I was, for assuming that big lumps of wood, heavy mauls and shifting deep-draught boats on greasy ways are his preferred stock in trade. His unique brand of Cornish longshore humour and general ‘wind-up’ does nothing to dispel the impression. It helps to give as good as you get with Alastair, and that’s when he surprises you with acts of kindness that reveal the man himself. As to the heavyweight skill-set, you couldn’t be more wrong. A few years after the great caulking bonanza, Alastair went self-employed to follow his heart. All his life, when occasion permitted, he had been restoring finely constructed smaller craft. Now, he set to it full-time in a shed just off the A36. By 1999 his own Thames motor launch Little Teasel had been awarded ‘best in show’ at Henley Regatta.

It was in 1995 that Alastair and his late wife Mary, found Uandi in a parlous state in Falmouth. Mary’s research revealed that she had raced with nine others in the Belfast Lough Class 2. Her first owners were the brothers James and Vincent Craig. These were yachtsmen of no small significance. James went on to become Viscount Craigavon, the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland in 1921/2. Whether or not he parted company with his little yacht then, or whether she was long gone by that date is unclear, but we do know that in 1922 she underwent something of a transformation.

Under the guidance of Fife, her iron keel was replaced with the lead she carries to this day. Her draught was increased by 6in, and 5ft was sawn off the long main boom. The bowsprit was shortened by 2ft. The headsail was tacked to the stem head, and studies of the ‘new’ sail plan seem to suggest nothing was set from the stump bowsprit. Alastair says that ‘Uandi must have gone from a beautiful swan to an ugly duckling overnight.’

Clearly, the Garlands found a pedigree vessel that had to be saved. There had been some desultory efforts at restoration that came to nothing, and someone else was interested in buying what there was of her, but when Alastair heard Mary demanding of the owner, ‘What’s the least you’ll take?’ He knew his fate was sealed.

DRAWING BOARD DILEMMA Given that the remains could be restored to either era, Paul Spooner the naval architect became involved.

The main criteria were that the boom must overhang the stern and the bowsprit should follow the original 6

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Right: ‘UandI’ undersail in reflective conditions Right inset: Alastair Garland deep in concentration

plans as closely as was feasible to balance the boat. The bottom line was that Uandi must look completely authentic. Paul worked from the original drawings and concluded, in my opinion correctly, that the 1897 mainsail would be too much for anything but light-airs sailing in sheltered water. He found the ideal compromise simply by trimming 18ins off the original main boom length to 19ft 9in. This kept the boat as true to Fife’s vision as possible. In one of his wind-up moments Alastair described the dreadful 1922 rig as being ‘ideal for OAPs’. What we have instead is the full 1897 character without the bad behaviour.

The boat was trucked up to the Hampshire/Wiltshire border and parked in a field where she remained, returning peacefully to nature for 16 years.

Finally, in 2011, Alastair woke one morning and said to Mary, ‘I’ve had enough. I’m going to go and get Uandi.’

The first problem was a wasp colony with a nest the size of a football that was enjoying beneficial tenancy of the yacht. The pest man relieved her of her unwanted incumbents. I asked if anything had let go during the lift, especially as the lead keel had been dumped in the grass field alongside the boat 10 years previously. She was, it appears, ‘a bit wibbly wobbly’, but she made it to the workshop in one piece.

First, she had to be set up. Her sheer had dropped and she was secured with blocks and shores, ‘by eye and by luck’. I went down to see her and asked how stable she was. I’ll never forget Alastair’s response. ‘She’s like a blancmange with bits of Ryvita.’

THE SKELETON First off was the elm keel, to be replicated with a fine piece of Opepe. Alastair’s philosophy is to save and use everything he can of an original boat and to waste nothing, The new keel originated from a 32ft x 4ft 6in x 6in baulk from which Alastair had cut a different keel when restoring my daughter’s yacht, the 1909 yawl Lady Belle for her owner of the day. An off-cut had remained in the yard where the rebuild had taken place and the management wanted rid of it. As Mary said, ‘Even we can afford a free coffee.’

The old keel came off in one piece with all the rib sockets clearly where they should be. Replicating it was not too much of a challenge but fitting it was a protracted ‘up- and-down, up-and-down’ session that nobody who has been confronted with such a job would envy. It was tackled in ‘spare time and Fridays’.

The stem came out piecemeal. The fastenings were all in place but were doing very little. Installing the new stem, laminated from oak and glued with epoxy, allowed for some of the sheer to be recovered. The old oak floors were removed one at a time, to be replaced with laminated oak built up from the top and the sides for maximum strength. Dealing with the floors at this stage ensured that the shape was retained in this critical area.

The rudder post was simply renewed, but the horn timber in the counter stern was more or less intact. It could be saved, except where it jointed with the rudder post. The end had gone to glory and a new one was scarphed in. All scarphs are epoxy glued and are cut to ‘6 x thickness’ standard.

UANDI DESIGNED William

Fife BUILT Hutchinson’s of Carrickfergus 1897 Modified from drawings by William Fife 1922 LENGTH ON DECK: 24ft (7.4m) BEAM: 6ft 2in (1.83m) DRAUGHT: 4ft (1.22m) RIG: Sliding gunter sloop PLANKING: Yellow pine/larch topsides, teak top strake BOTTOM 6 PLANKS: Pitch pine

CLASSIC BOAT SETPEMBER 2022

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UANDI

With a pristine backbone now in place and the planking still on, what was left of the beam shelf was lifted out, together with the deck beams. Uandi is largely framed with bent ribs but she had sawn or grown frames in way of the mast, the rudder post, the bowsprit heel and the mainsheet horse. Alastair laminated replacements and added one or two extras to allow for the additional loads from the 1922 lead keel which were never compensated.

Working on the frames at this stage allowed Alastair to ‘pull the boat about’, to recover the rest of the sheer and set her up using ribbands.

Renewing the ribs – they all had to go – every other plank came off so that clamps could be inserted to pull the laminated units into shape. The recovery of Fife’s hull form was completed with a new Douglas fir beamshelf followed by laminated deck beams replacing 90 per cent of the originals.

PLANKING As much of the original full-length planking was to be saved as possible. Only the basket cases were junked, so every plank that hadn’t already fallen off was carefully removed. All fastening holes were plugged and new hood ends scarphed on where required. The teak top strake went on first. Next came the plank at the turn of the bilge, selected because it is usually the straightest plank on the boat. The rest followed, screw-fastened at the hood ends but still awaiting clenching. Alastair points out that when you replace planking you always end up losing a bit of wood off the edges. By starting on the bilge and planking upwards, any gap that appears is under the teak top strake where it is easier to fill and blend because it is hidden behind the beam shelf.

The bottom planks are fitted in the same way. Around the horn timber where the twist is extreme, they are close-seamed and fabricated out of thicker timber. The bottom four planks are pitch pine from reclaimed church beams. The topside seams are routed out for splines 10mm deep x 8mm wide, allowing over an inch of area for gluing. The bottom planking is largely close-seamed with some caulking at the garboards.

CLENCHING UP With the planking completed, how do you clench up singlehanded? You find a Cornish boat builder who can think outside the box. A webbing strap was devised together with a piece of wood to hold the dolly in place outside. Then, it was ‘roves on the inside’, a plate of 8

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Above, left to right: Alternate planks removed before renewing the ribs; The coaming settles onto the deck skeleton; The bottom four planks are reclaimed pitch pine

brass with a rove-sized hole in it to protect the ribs from hammer scarring while the clipped nail end was peened with the hammer. Next the riveted end was smoothed with the flat of the hammer and finished off with a small, concave piece of bronze bar fitted over the nail end and very lightly tapped all round. Alastair’s test for clenching is to pass a silk stocking over the result. If it snags, it’s not good enough.

There are a lot of clenched nails in this hull. Each one had the same treatment. The hours spent on this tricky work are mind-boggling.

SPLINING AND FAIRING Uandi’s epoxied spruce splines from sheer to waterline were left proud to use as fairing battens. With planking as old as this, maintaining skin thickness is vital and the fairing process can compromise it. Long-boarding with the splines standing out works wonders.

The whole boat is finished bright inside and only the lightest touch was allowed with the sandpaper when cleaning up the planking to take the varnish, lest vital millimetres were shaved off.

DECK With the mast partners, clamp and associated knees in place, a small teak covering board went back on with a proper toe rail, followed by 3½in deck planking in Alaskan yellow cedar, chosen for its tight grain and golden colour. Although the only living soul to see the seams on the underside will be the foredeck hand groping for a spinnaker, they are all beaded.

Because the boat will spend much of her life under cover, the decks have been varnished. The effect is an astonishing burst of warmth that can’t be achieved any other way. The teak is all reclaimed ship’s decking, bolt holes included and dry stored since the late 1950s.

LEAD KEEL Somehow, Alastair conspired with a pal’s trailer and an engine hoist to lift the lead keel from its bed in the weeds, nettles and young trees back in the field, and bring it to his garage. Nobody knew it was there, so it never came to the notice of our local prowlers in search of a quick buck. By the time they had turned around, it was in the workshop, trundled under the boat on little carts made for moving lathes, and bolted into place. If this sounds like an easy job, don’t be fooled. Alastair had to drill the bolt holes from the top of his clean new keel

LAK II

Clockwise from top left: Scroll-work as per original; The deck is Alaskan yellow cedar. Note the halyards running below decks; Bowsprit heel fitting is painted galvanised like the original; The name could be read as ‘You and I’.

What do you think?; The original mainsheet horse with thumpers to protect deck and leathered blocks; Cleats properly angled. Say no more...

CLASSIC BOAT SETPEMBER 2022

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UANDI

to mate up with the originals in the lead, passing them through a sizeable chunk of deadwood that lies between wood keel and lead keel for good measure. This deadwood is probably a throwback to 1922 when the extra draught was added together with the lead. Five 7/8in nickel bronze bolts hold the main weight, with 2½in bolts forward and aft. The throat bolts securing the floors to the wood keel are from the same stock. The keel bolts are nutted at both ends and set into the bottom of the keel.

revelation

they should be. The width of the cloths is appropriate to this and the effect is of time standing still. All the running gear is operated from the cockpit. No ‘snakes weddings’ on the lovely clean deck. They’re tucked away out of sight below.

Above right:

ON THE WATER

Above left: Uandi is so sensitive on the tiller that sailing her is a

Squared off and ghosting through history

SPARS AND FITTINGS Mast, boom and gunter spar are all built to Fife’s 1922 recommendation with the bowsprit fashioned from what remains of the original mast.

The heavy deck fittings are in galvanised iron as per 1897. Smaller fittings are bronze. The internal chain plates are custom made by Alastair and are, it must be said, an improvement on the originals. Fastened entirely fore-and-aft through the frames with no bolts through the planking, they are longer than those they replace and, like the other main fittings, are galvanised.

SAILS AND RIG Uandi breaks no new ground with her fit-out, being rigged with laid-up stainless steel wire, hand-spliced.

Paul Spooner oversaw the design of the rig and it sits perfectly with photos of the brothers Craig sailing ‘back in the day’. It’s big, very big, and it drives the boat like a marine sports car. Running rigging is English Braids buff braidline or three-strand with a few small lengths of Dyneema aloft where stretch is the villain and nobody can see. Sails from James Lawrence are cut vertically as

Alastair found a berth for Uandi at Hythe on Southampton Water, only to be told, ‘You can’t keep a boat without an engine here.’ An electric outboard from a good friend solved that problem.

When the day finally dawned to launch, Alastair went down to Hythe alone, not knowing how he was going to feel. Mary had been taken by illness the previous year and would never see what they had saved. Two winters have passed now and he feels good about the whole project. When we sailed together I could tell he was one with the boat. As we carved our way upwind, stiff to the breeze and travelling at an unlikely rate of knots, we talked of plans for the future.

‘Definitely Scotland and the Fife regatta,’ said Alastair.

‘The only time you can’t afford it is when you’ve nothing in your pocket. We always said we’d do it, so that’s that.’

Later, gliding home to the lock in the evening light, my mind went back to an afternoon several years ago when we all stood by the boat in the workshop; she was still without her keel and was covered in shavings. I had been speculating about the unusual name. Mary turned to me and said, ‘It has to mean “You and I”. Two brothers, you see, both young men back in Belfast Lough with a new yacht, full of promise and optimism.’ She looked up at the letters carved in the century-old archboard. ‘It’s rather lovely, don’t you think?’

THE COAMING IN ALASTAIR GARLAND’S OWN WORDS The teak, egg-shaped coaming is laminated. Jigs were made up of the front, back and two sides.

The teak was milled down to about 3/32 laminates that would bend around comfortable. When laminating the forward and aft ones, drill a hole about 3/16 near the top in the centre put a copper nail in this. It acts as a locater when gluing. Bend the laminates round the jig to dry. Leave for week or two. That takes the kick out of them.

Then glue up and hope. Must be totally prepared. The front and back are fitted first and set in place for good, followed by the sides with shoulder scarphs inside and out.

The coaming was a reclaimed teak door from an old barge. It hung around home for years.

The scarphs had to go where they fell as length was an issue with about 2in to spare.

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2022

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Logbook BRITISH CLASSIC WEEK

20th year Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, British Classic Week attracted 50 classic sailing and motor yachts for a week of sailing, cruising, and socialising in the Solent in July. Yachts ranged from the 64ft 4in (19.6m) Spirit 65 modern classic Chloe Giselle to the 25ft 3in (7.7m) folkboat Folkdance, sailed by a double-handed crew. Winner of Class 4 and the regatta overall, Jonathan Dyke (owner of Cereste), commented: “It was a truly

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memorable week of great sailing and dockside parties. As always at British Classic Week, our fellow yachts were extremely well sailed, and we had some

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tough competition. We’ll be back next year!”

The sailing fleet competed in a six-race series overseen by the Royal Yacht Squadron: three round-the-cans races, two passage races and a femalehelmed inshore race. With weather ranging from zephyrs early in the week up to 20+ knots on the final day, racing was hard fought.

Class 1 was won by Sean McMillan in his Spirit 52 Flight of Ufford, only a point ahead of Christian Oldendorff’s Happy Forever. Equally competitive was Class 2, narrowly won by Louise Morton in her Andre Mauric sloop

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Lak II. With four wins in class to her name, Stiletto triumphed in Class 3. One of the smallest yachts in the fleet, the Stella Timoa (see p62 in this issue) won the Spirit Yachts Nab Tower and the Classic Boat Long Inshore races. Hot off the heels of the Fife Regatta

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in Scotland, the gaff cutter Viola returned to British Classic Week from her home in France to win the Je Ne Sais Quoi trophy overall.

The social scene was as lively as the sailing, with Suffolk-based brewer Adnams providing post-racing Kobold beers for all and daily champagne for the winners. Hattiers Rum and Dartmouth Gin proved popular, delivering drinks to

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yachts as they crossed the finish line of the long inshore race. Tuesday’s Pontoon Party sponsored

by Classic Boat with live music and dockside drinks from Hattiers Rum and Dartmouth Gin was once again a highlight of the week. Further event support came from Suffolk Yacht Harbour and traditional chandlery Classic Marine. OneSails GBR and Global Forecaster sponsored a day’s racing each. Tall Ships Youth Trust returned as the regatta’s charity partner to raise awareness and funds for its work.

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

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1 Champagne sailing aboard Kajsa 2 Andrew Gilmour, owner of Stella

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Timoa, won both long passage races 3 Clarionet, Folkboat Folkdance in the background 4 Andy Easdown, owner of Illiria 5 Louise Morton, owner of Lak II, won Class 2 and the female-helmed inshore race 6 All smiles aboard Lak II 7 Viola won the Je Ne Sais Quoi award 8 Cereste won the regatta overall 9 Spirit 65 Chloe Giselle, Osborne House in the background 10 Hattiers Rum deliver drinks to Spirit 52 Happy Forever 11 Spirit 65 Chloe Giselle 12 Adnams on the dock 13 Jonathan Dyke and the crew of winning boat Cereste 14 Sunmaid V 15 S&S sloop Sunstone rounding the Nab CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

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Tell Tales

Classic Boat’s address: Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ cb@classicboat.co.uk Follow the Classic Boat team on Twitter and Facebook

UKHO to withdraw paper charts There was widespread dismay from UK sailors as the UK Hydrographic

allow us to increase our focus on advanced digital services that meet

Office (UKHO) announced it would be stopping paper chart

the needs of today’s seafarers.”

production by 2026. The “sunsetting” process will begin this year, starting with larger scale charts.

The RYA’s Richard Falk responded: “It is important to highlight for those who wish to continue navigating using paper charts and more

The plans affect the UKHO’s portfolio

traditional navigational techniques,

of Admiralty Standard Nautical Charts

there are other providers of paper

(SNCs) and Thematic Charts “in response

charts within the market. The RYA will

to more marine, naval and leisure users

continue to teach both traditional and

primarily using digital products and

electronic navigational techniques

services for navigation”.

through its range of courses, although

The UKHO said its digital charts could

over time it is right to expect the

be updated “in near real-time, greatly

weighting of emphasis to shift towards

enhancing safety of life at sea (SOLAS)”.

more digitally based techniques.”

“Today’s world is unrecognisable to

Meanwhile chart

the one that existed in 1795, when our

publisher Imray said it had no plans

organisation was founded. Back then,

to withdraw paper charts, saying: “Our

mariners navigated by the stars using a

focus is the leisure and small craft

magnetic compass and surveying with a leaded line marked in

sector, which has different conditions and requirements to the UKHO’s

fathoms. They could fix where they had been, but not where they

primary commercial shipping market. There is still strong demand

were,” the UKHO said. “Withdrawing from paper chart production will

from leisure customers for paper charts.”

Fastnet 50th anniversary Setting sail from Cowes on Saturday 22 July 2023 will be the 50th edition of the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s Rolex Fastnet Race.

For most of its life the Fastnet Race has been held biennially, however from the first race until 1931 it was held annually and three editions were lost due to WW2. It gained a special standing in the years when it was part of the Admiral’s Cup. The first race, then simply known as the ‘Ocean Race’ and held on a course from Ryde to Plymouth via the Fastnet Rock, took place in 1925 with seven starters. A dinner immediately after the finish resulted in the Ocean Racing Club being established with Lt Cmdr EG Martin, owner of the first race’s winner, Jolie Brise, appointed commodore.

The race was inspired by the Newport-Bermuda offshore race (first held in 1906) and US entries have remained strong. Some notable US winners include yacht designer Rod Stephens Snr with Dorade (1931 and 1933); ; CNN founder Ted Turner’s Tenacious, which won the infamous 1979 race; and, most recently, David and Peter Askew on Wizard (2019).

The race has always attracted a powerful entry from the continent and

Close racing in Spirit Yachts’ inaugural regatta Spirit Yachts' founder Sean McMillan showed his customers a

especially France, with Eric

clean pair of heels in his own yacht Flight of Ufford as he

Tabarly winning on board

finished top of the leaderboard in Spirit Guernsey – the first

Pen Duick III in 1967. Four of

ever Spirit Yachts regatta.

the last 10 races have also been won by France.

For a second consecutive JOLIE BRISE: RICK TOMLINSON

CHANNEL ISLANDS

occasion, the 2023 race will

Ten Spirit yachts ranging from 37ft to 65ft took part in the event, which was held in partnership with Locate Guernsey, this summer.

Spirit 52 Oui Fling finished second overall, missing out on

finish in Cherbourg-en-

victory by 0.5 point, and Spirit 65 Chloe Giselle was one

Cotentin with a 695-nautical

point behind in third place overall.

mile course via the Fastnet

Experienced yachtsman McMillan said: “The regatta was a

Rock. Entry opens on 11

culmination of nearly three decades of dedication, teamwork

January 2023, with places

and passion. To see a fleet of Spirits flying across the start

expected to sell out in less

line at our own regatta was a very proud moment for all the

than five minutes.

team.”

As a result of success of this year's inaugural event, the next event is being discussed for 2024.

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

TELL TALES

ESSEX

Heybridge Basin Regatta Impressive crowds brave enough to venture to ‘Cannibal Island’ were

Maria, built at the Harris yard in Rowhedge in 1866, was the winning

rewarded with a perfect summer’s day, a good breeze and a fine

smack, helmed and owned by Paul Winter, who picked up the Clive

turnout of smacks and classic yachts and dinghies racing on Collier’s

Stebbens Challenge and Clive Memorial. East Coast One Design

Reach, writes Sandy Miller. The Heybridge Basin Regatta, first held in

Delphine, built in 1913, was the winning classic cruiser on handicap and

1859, celebrates a colourful maritime heritage, a history of ‘wayward

1st ECOD. Jasmin Klimcke, the owner and helmswoman of Polly, a

activities’ logged in local folklore from a time when ships’ crews

Howard smack built in Maldon in 1889, received a Special Smack

bringing timber and coal to this remote port dug out of the saltmarsh

Trophy, the Bill Coulson Memorial. There was also an excellent turnout

would live life to the full. It is said that only the boots of the missionary

of Blackwater Sprites, a 1934 one-design by Robbie Stone, created for

sent from Maldon to investigate these activities were never found.

the West Mersea YC but now largely based at Blackwater SC.

Wivenhoe Regatta Up until the First World War, scores of fishing smacks were a regular sight on the River Colne as they headed out on the tide to their oyster layings or spratting grounds, writes Sandy Miller.

This fishing and boatbuilding heritage is still celebrated at Wivenhoe’s annual regatta, which dates back to 1891, and over 2,000 people were on the quay this year as the smacks raced up river to the waterfront finish. These big smacks under sail in this narrow section of the river created an impressive spectacle. Sunbeam, built by Howard of Maldon in 1881 and owned and helmed by David Minster and Tony Arnaudy, crossed the finish line first to win the Jim Lawrence Trophy. It had been a

Jubilee classics

lively day of racing, with a stiff breeze out in the estuary for the early stages. There

A total of 30 classic yacht of various designs,

considering only 19 were built in total between 1935 and 1947. Alcyone 1, sailed by

including 10 gaff-rigged and six junk riggers,

Nigel Cook and Benjamin Wilton, was first over the line. There were loud cheers as

gathered to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee at

they passed the Rose & Crown pub along Maldon's popular waterfront.

were even traces of tactical encounters with the local mud on one or two of the smacks. Of the seven Wivenhoe One Designs also racing, it was a good turnout

Brixham Royal Torbay Heritage Sailing Regatta in June, writes Penny Jolley.

The inaugural regatta took place more than 100 HEYBRIDGE AND WIVENHOE PICS: SANDY MILLER

years ago under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather, King George V, whose Perpetual Challenge Cup is awarded annually to the fastest Brixham Trawler.

The event was blessed with great weather, and visitors enjoyed sea shanties, a fish pie supper at Brixham YC, a parade of sail, and friendly competition. The King George V Cup won by Vigilance and the Brixham Heritage Festival & Carter Cup awarded to Pilgrim. Class winners were Cynthia, Lexia, Minx, Capraia, Falanda, owned by Katie McCabe – 15-year-old round-Britain sailor.

The regatta take place next year on 27-28 May. CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

15

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HAMPSHIRE

Wooden craft at Southampton Boat Show The Classic & Day Boat Zone at the Southampton International Boat Show will return in 2022 after a successful debut last year.

The show takes place from 16-25 September 2022, based waterside at Mayflower Park and stretching into the heart of Southampton.

“With its myriad of beautiful craft, with plenty to see, do, learn and try, the Classic and Day Boat Zone is the place to immerse yourself in a wide range of craft, from modern boats inspired by traditional designs and craftsmanship to beautifully restored classics.

“This zone celebrates the boats

The Wooden Boat Builders Trade Association will be present, with craftsmen

and craftsmanship that stand the test

showing off dinghies, rowing boats, canoes

of time. Renowned brands showcase

and more – all boats they’ve built

their latest products and you might

themselves in timber over the past year.

grab a special boat show bargain.

Classic boat enthusiasts and

Meanwhile walking around the show visitors will find numerous newly built

seasoned boaters will be able to find

wooden boats and vintage craft. Among

all the equipment they need to keep

them will be the tall ship Morgenster, built

their treasures gliding across the

103 years ago in Holland and now a busy

water. If you marvel at traditional

sail training ship.

woodworking skills this zone is for you. See hands-on product

The show organisers, British Marine, say: “With highly varnished wooden decks, shiny sleek hulls, coloured sails

demonstrations, listen to talks on traditional and modern boat building

on gaff rigs and traditional brass fittings, classic boats are always a

techniques, and captivating accounts on how boating supports mental

much-loved feature at a boat show. Returning to this year’s

and physical wellbeing. The classic and dayboat zone is a space for

Southampton International Boat Show, is the dedicated Classic and

boaters to share their appreciation for exquisite craftsmanship.”

Day Boat Zone.

southamptonboatshow.com

New Maryland Dove afloat and on tour The new Maryland Dove is a reproduction of the 17th century trading ship that accompanied the first settlers to what is now Maryland in 1634. The first reproduction, built in the 1970s, has been nearing the end of its working life, and meanwhile modern research means the new ship could be designed to be more historically accurate.

The photo (left) shows the new Maryland Dove en route to her commissioning ceremony at Historic St Mary’s City (HSMC) on Chesapeake Bay. The boat has been built at Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (CBMM) by shipwrights and apprentices, with the work carried out in public view as an educational project.

Naval Architect Iver Franzen, CBMM shipyard lead rigger Sam Hilgartner, and HSMC Captain Will Gates lead a discussion about the design of the ship as part of the commissioning ceremony. In the next year the new Maryland Dove will tour Chesapeake Bay. HSMCdigsHistory.org

SCOTLAND

Classic motorboats shoot the Caledonian Members of the Classic Motor Boat Association (CMBA) enjoyed a three-day rally through the 54-mile Caledonian Canal in Scotland.

The small-boat fleet comprised a Mk3 Albatross (Ford 100E side valve engine, Aquaplane head and twin carbs), an Albatross Continental (Coventry Climax engine), a Mk1 Delta (Ford 1500cc twin carb’ Kent engine), a 1970s Shakespeare Mini Clubman (50hp Mercury) and a Riva Super Rudy (220hp V8). The canal includes passages through Loch Lochy, Loch Oich, and the 24-mile-long Loch Ness. The event has been re-named the ‘Mike Tarry Caledonian Canal Run’ in memory of the CMBA’s founder who died in 2019.

18

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

AWARD WINNING

S U P E R YA C H T BUILDER

As proud

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with a passion for perfection, we realize dreams

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info@hollandjachtbouw.nl

DORSET

Divers discover Britain’s oldest shipwreck Britain’s oldest shipwreck,

during the reign of King Henry

dubbed the ‘Mortar Wreck’ has

III. The results from the initial

been located on the edge of the

survey showed many of the

Swash Channel in Poole bay,

ship's timbers under threat from

Dorset, writes John Greeves. The

marine boring organisms. To

wreck was first identified by

help with the preservation

divers from Bournemouth

process therefore, exposed

University, spotted by Trevor

features were protected with

Small, of Rocket Charters.

sandbags and Terra, which is a

There was an unusual reading

robust geotextile.

from the Dorset seabed but it wasn’t until several months later that the

The vessel founded while outward bound with a cargo of grinding

54-year-old dive charter operator asked a colleague to take a look.

wheels, plus two immaculate Gothic gravestones. The finds so far

Within minutes a medieval copper cauldron appeared at the surface and

include a large cauldron for cooking soup, and mugs covered in

Trevor knew he had stumbled on “something special”. Historic England

concretion.Tim Cousins, one of the Bournemouth University

and an archaeological team from Bournemouth University were called in.

archaeologists working on the site said: “Very few 750-year-old ships

Dendrochronological analysis of the hull planking soon indicated the ship’s rarity. The Irish oak tree timber had a fell date of 1242-1265,

remain for us to be able to see today and we are extremely lucky to have discovered an example as rare as this.”

Thames Sailing barge Pudge is 100 Built in 1922 for the London & Rochester Barge Co Ltd, Pudge is one of the remaining Thames sailing barges, still leading an active existence. She took part in Operation Dynamo during the Dunkirk evacuations and survived after the towing tug St Fagan took a direct hit. She became a motor barge for a while but was converted back to sail in 1968 by the Thames Barge Sailing Club (now the Thames Barge Sailing Trust), a community based, not-for-profit charity run by volunteers.

Pudge is having work to renew her decks, beams, ceilings, carlings and more, by Kevin J Finch in Maldon. The Trust aims to have Pudge sailing again for a full season in 2023.

Classic Boat Festival in London St Katharine Docks in London will host its annual Classic Boat Festival over the weekend of 9-11 September. The event, which has been running for almost 30 years, has 50 boats registered so far including Sailing Barge Cambria, an array of Dunkirk Little Ships and Bates Starcraft models, Sir Francis Chichester’s Gipsy Moth IV, HRH The Queen’s Row Barge Gloriana and the tugs Portwey and Kent. The free, three-day festival includes boatbuilding workshops, live music, talks and kids activities. Visitors will be able to board some of the vessels and meet their owners, and there will be talks on stage by experts including the custodians of HRH The Queen’s Row Barge ‘Gloriana’ and Tom Cunliffe. skdocks.co.uk

Correction

The winches on the yacht Scarabee, described in our June 2022 edition, are made by Andersen, not the Classic Winch Company, as we stated. We apologise for the error.

20

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

bargetrust.org

PUDGE 1922

FOR SALE

Photo Gallery

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1913

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ANGELS WATCH OVER HER The fishing boat Angele Aline has survived Dunkirk, two sinkings and a few mine explosions. Today, she lives in a museum and sails with the family who own her WORDS AND PHOTOS NIGEL SHARP

Above: In build at Fécamp, when she was called Jean

F

or a boat to survive for a century or more, a slice of luck is needed, or more likely several slices: of equal importance are the avoidance of catastrophic disasters, and the owners who have loved her enough to spend the necessary time, money and energy at crucial times. Angele Aline has benefited from her share of the latter but has come perilously close to the former – several times.

While she was being built by Société de Construction Navale on the beach in Fécamp, she was called Jean but when she was launched in November 1921 she was christened Jules Talleux, the same name as her first owner, whose family already had a fleet of fishing boats in Gravelines. She was a Dundee, the name given to French ketch-rigged fishing boats of the time, and a derivative of the dandy, a similar type of vessel based on the English east coast.

Jules Talleux was built with oak planking on oak frames and with about six tonnes of concrete ballast.

She may have originally had a 40hp Otto Deutz engine, although this was probably used just to drive a capstan for pulling in her nets: very few Dundees had propulsion engines at that time. From her home port of Gravelines, in her early years she typically trawled for herring off the coast of Scotland in the summers and fished for cod in the Atlantic and off the Normandy coast in the winters. In 1931 she was sold to Gerard Schollaert of Nieuport who renamed her after his twin daughters, Angele and Aline. By then she almost certainly did have an auxiliary engine.

During and immediately after the war, Angele Aline had a series of potentially terminal incidents. At the end of May 1940, she was on her way to Caen from St Valery en Caux where she had had a new propeller fitted, when she was requisitioned by the French navy to help with the evacuation of British and French troops at Dunkirk, one of very few sailing vessels to take part. It isn’t known exactly what she did at Dunkirk, but it is thought that she may have rescued around 300 troops who must have boarded her from the East Mole as her draught would have prevented her reaching the beaches.

Whether she transferred them to larger off-lying vessels or brought them all the way back to Britain isn’t known.

After the fall of France she continued to fish, under a German flag, and under the close supervision of CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

23

ANGELE ALINE

occupying German troops, but later in 1940 she sank after a British plane dropped a bomb close enough to swamp her. In April 1941 she was re-floated and then refitted in Neiuport, from where she carried on fishing.

In early 1944, she suffered slight damage to her counter when a mine exploded in her trawl net, and soon afterwards German forces scuttled her in the entrance to Neiuport harbour – along with a number of other fishing vessels – to blockade the port in anticipation of an Allied invasion.

After the war she was re-floated and patched up. She still hadn’t escaped the dangers of war however, because, it is said, she caught mines in her nets three more times while fishing the North Sea. Luckily none of them caused significant damage and she continued fishing until 1963.

She was then bought by a Dutch couple, Binne and Dagmar Groenier, who converted her to a yacht – not least by transforming the fish hold into a saloon – then lived on board with their children for about two decades.

Her next owner was Gareth Wright who sailed her in a number of Tall Ships races including the spectacular, global 1984 Jacques Cartier race. He sold her to George and Meriel Thurstan who spent about two years refitting her before embarking on a major voyage, part of which was spent doing charter work in Turkey.

In 1991, Neil Attenborough bought her after his purchase survey misleadingly indicated she was in good order. So he took her to Coombes boatyard near Bosham in West Sussex, where most of the deck beams and about half the frames and planking were renewed, the small deckhouse was replaced by a substantially bigger one in teak, and a new Caterpillar diesel engine was installed.

Neil spent the next three years cruising Ireland’s southwest coast with his wife Jenny and various ex-navy colleagues joining him at various times. “That was a lovely time,” he said. “It didn’t matter which tiny harbour you tucked yourself into, the locals would be on board the boat within five minutes, and they loved her.

She is such a character.” But it then became apparent that significant further work was needed, and so Neil brought her back to Downs Road Boatyard in Maldon, Essex where she was taken “right down to the bare bones, back to a bare hull.” A new epoxy/glass sheathed plywood deck was fitted, and all engineering and electrical systems were renewed. At this time, Neil “was persuaded” that Angele Aline would be more manoeuvrable under power with twin engines and so two Beta 75hp diesels were installed. However, to allow reasonable access to these, he was advised that the keel-stepped mizzen mast needed to be removed, so she changed from a ketch to a cutter, with the mainmast moved aft by about a metre and the old mizzen mast transformed into a very long main boom. As it happened, Neil found that these modifications made her less manoeuvrable under sail and power but, nonetheless, he continued to cruise her around Britain, the Channel Islands and Brittany. On several occasions 24

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Above: Angele Aline is a Dunkirk Little Ship Facing page, clockwise from top left: Lifering; Preparing the headsails; Mainsheet tackle; Main deck house added in the early 1990s; Galley and looking forward to the family cabin; Saloon sole has been lowered by nearly 1ft (30cm); Hydraulic anchor windlass; Steering wheel and reinstated mizzen mast

they also took her back to Fécamp where they “made a lot of friends” and where, at the time, there was a commemorative plaque to her on one of the main streets.

Angele Aline’s next owner, from 2007, was Ray Dunstone who kept her in Ipswich. He found that “with the crew I had, the mainsail was far too big to put up” and he almost never did so, generally just motor-sailing under a large staysail. He regularly took her to St Katharine Docks in London, and he also crossed to Fécamp (where he was fervently welcomed by a grandson of one of the men who built her) and to Dunkirk for the 2010 commemorative return (when a son of the twin sister Aline came aboard).

“She is the sort of boat that really did get into people’s hearts,” he said.

Christopher and Harriet Casey first saw Angele Aline in 2012 in St Katharine Docks. After seeing many boats with Peter Gregson of Wooden Ships, this was finally the one. “We both sort of instantly fell for her,” said Chris.

“She looked as if she was smiling at us.” He liked the fact that she had been saved time and again, despite the odds: “People must have really loved her to go to all that trouble.” He was initially concerned that she was “at the absolute extremity” of what he could manage to handle in terms of size and displacement but, knowing that they wanted a boat on which they and their children – Isla, Sholto and Pip, now aged 14, 12 and 10 – could cruise extensively and live on for weeks at a time, Harriet pointed out to him that they would have to have a boat of that size “for our sanity.”

Once the deal was done, Chris needed to get the boat from Ipswich around the south coast to Gloucester where he had commissioned Tommy Nielsen to do some work. Peter Gregson’s son Richard came to lend a hand and was particularly useful from the very start. “I looked at the boat and where she was berthed, and I said ‘I’ve got no idea how to get her out of here’,” said Chris.

“And Richard said ‘it’s very easy, don’t worry’, and he taught me some simple lessons. I would have been lost without that.”

Neilsens replaced the horn timber, two frames aft, some of the bulwark stanchions, all of the bulwark planking and the covering board around the stern, but very little other structural work was necessary. Various modifications were carried out to the interior including the removal of the “huge engine beds” under the sole in the saloon from when the boat had a single engine. Once these were out of the way, it was possible to lower the sole by nearly a foot, giving much-needed headroom under the full-width deck beam at the aft end of the saloon, which even now is only 5ft (1.5m).

Particular attention was paid to the forward end of the spacious interior to allow comfortable family accommodation. Right forward a large heads and shower room was installed, and immediately aft of that a family sleeping cabin with a double and four single berths. Elsewhere, various partitions were removed to

CLASSIC BOAT SETPEMBER 2022

25

ANGELE ALINE

ANGELE ALINE BUILT Société

de Construction Navale, 1921 LOA 74ft (22.6m) LOD 56ft (17.1m) LWL 50ft (15.2m) BEAM 17ft (5.2m) DRAUGHT 8ft 6in (2.6m) DISP c45 tonnes

open up the layout, and a washing machine was installed in a new aft heads compartment which was previously a small sleeping cabin.

The most significant work was to reinstate the original ketch rig. There was a small remnant of the original mainmast step but no evidence of the mizzen mast position. A 1980s photograph taken in Turkey came to light and while Tommy was analysing this, it transpired that Mark Butler at James Lawrence Sailmakers had a copy of a sail plan from which he had made new sails in the early 1980s. It was gratifying that Tommy’s conclusions almost exactly matched that sail plan. After it was extended, the cutter rig’s boom once more became the mizzen mast.

For the first couple of years after the work was completed, Angele Aline was based in the Falmouth area but spent several weeks each summer cruising the coast of Brittany. Then in 2015, Chris heard about the possibility of getting a permanent berth in La Rochelle, specifically as part of the Maritime Museum. There are about 50 boats based at the museum – including Moitessier’s Joshua and the 1908 Fife gaff cutter Viola – all of which are in commission and are allowed to come and go as their owners please. But visitors are able to view them when they are in port (albeit without going aboard) and read all about their histories. For Angele Aline to become part of this collection, an application was made to a committee including representatives of the Maritime Museum management and the Yacht Club Classique. Angele Aline has been based in the museum area of the Bassin des Chalutiers ever since.

Such a fleet inevitably attracts skilled people to look after them and one of those skilled people is Bruno Barbara who runs the Candela company. Bruno now looks after Angele Aline and does so, Chris thinks, with skills that are “completely exceptional.” He has carried out various structural work on the hull and deck including the replacement of nine stanchions and all the bulwark planking, a major repair to the stem and 26

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Above: Sailing from Fowey to Dartmouth in June Below: Chris Casey on the bowsprit netting

recaulking of the topsides. Also, after finding some rot in the mainmast at the point where the electrical cables exit near the top, this was extended by about 8ft (2.4m) as part of the repair process to negate the need for the “immensely cumbersome” topsail luff pole. This also allowed the addition of a jib topsail.

For some time Chris and Harriet have thought about taking the children out of school to go sailing for a year or two. “It’s great in principle,” said Chris, “but their ages have never been quite right for an extended period away from home. It is important for them to be old enough to participate and enjoy it, but young enough that they are not missing serious school. We are probably about there now.”

Chris is realistic and honest enough to say that owning Angele Aline has been “a huge commitment, far bigger than I ever realised it would be” and that without the support and enthusiasm of Harriet and the children it would have been untenable. “We have had huge adventures and it’s been great, great fun,” he said. “I hope the children have memories of those adventures for the rest of their lives.”

Calling all classic boat enthusiasts 53rd edition of the UK’s leading boat show DEDICATED CLASSIC & DAY BOAT ZONE Explore beautiful day boats and classic wooden vessels, as well as the equipment, materials and training to make the most of your time on the water. Live demos by industry experts and trained craftspeople will showcase how the art of traditional boatbuilding is alive and well in the UK ... not to be missed!

• 30+ boats in a dedicated Classic Boat and Day Boat Zone • Share your passion with like-minded enthusiasts and gather advice from the experts • Explore our show’s tall ship • Get onboard with a Try-a-Boat experience and glide across the Solent under sail • All new VIP experience

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Saleroom

By Dave Selby

SOTHEBY’S/CHRISTIE’S

Victory model tops £600K Nelson scored another victory, this time in the saleroom, when a full-hull model of HMS Victory sold for £630,000, the second highest price ever SOTHEBY’S

paid for a ship model at auction. The 56in-long (142cm) model (top right) constructed during Victory’s “large repair” between 1800 and 1803, during which Britain was briefly at peace with France, is the only known model of Admiral Nelson’s flagship from this period and bears witness to the very short period when Victory was in her prime Trafalgar state. The Victory of today is substantially different.

Key 1800-1803 updates shown on the 1:48 scale model include the new smaller carved figurehead of two cherubs supporting a royal standard. The open stern galleries were also closed in and glazed, with restrained painted decoration in place of the earlier, highly ornate, gilded carving. Victory was also painted in yellow and black “bumblebee livery,” though the gun ports were later painted black at Nelson’s request, to create his bespoke chequerboard effect, which emphasised the ship’s firepower.

However, as relations with France rapidly deteriorated, Nelson’s flagship was rushed back into commission without the poop railing and solid bulwarks

CHRISTIE’S

shown in the model. When a patched-up Victory finally limped into Chatham two and a half years after the 1805 battle she was shot through, her bow and galleries shattered, with only remnants of masts and yards. The subsequent major refit resulted in the round bow and flat stern we know today. The all-time auction record still belongs to an exquisite Admiralty Board model of a fith-rater, sold by Christie’s in 2003 for £663,750.

Top: Model of HMS Victory in her pre-battle prime Above: Early-1700s Admiralty Board model of a fifth-rater

RM SOTHEBY’S

The Shape of fins to come By the mid-1950s the Chevrolet Corvette had broken the mould as the world’s first fibreglass volume production car and American “land MECUM AUCTIONS

RM SOTHEBY’S

yachts” were sprouting jet-age tail fins. Cue the 1955 Chris-Craft Cobra, as the world’s largest mahogany boatbuilder made its first foray into fibreglass.

Produced for one year only in 1955, the flamboyant Cobra with an outrageous fibreglass gold fin and engine cowl was a big mission statement, with its matching gold upholstery in its three-abreast cockpit. The hull, however, was still planked in mahogany in the traditional way.

Just 56 of the 21ft (6.4m) Cobras were produced, and 52 of the 18ft (5.5m) models, such as this six-cylinder example being offered at no reserve at Marshall, East Texas on 22-24 September in an auction that also includes vintage outboard motors. As an indication of value, the first production 18ft Cobra sold for $79,200 in 2020.

The Cobra was indeed the shape of things to come as by 1971 Chris-Craft had migrated entirely to fibreglass production.

28

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Sectioned 1956 Starling Jet Troller is among 30 outboards all being offered at no reserve in a massive private museum sale in Fountain City, Wisconsin USA on September 14-17 (mecum.com)

MECUM AUCTIONS

Jet outboard didn’t fly Propulsion Research Inc’s 1956 advertising claim to have produced “America’s first production line jet-propelled outboard” turned out to be somewhat spurious, but nevertheless their Starling P-500 Jet Troller was among the first of its kind.

Marketed to fishermen wanting to navigate in weedy shallows and safety-minded swimmers, the 5hp single-cylinder trolling outboard dispensed with a propeller and replaced it with an enclosed turbine to provide “super hydro thrust.” It failed to create much of a stir and the company gave up its sales thrust a few years later.

5 6 M

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Objects of desire YETI ROADIE COOLBOX With northern hemisphere classic sailors taking a beating under the highest temperatures in decades, the arrival of the Roadie 24 Hard Cooler from Yeti is timely. It’s 10% lighter than its eponymous predecessor, holds 20% more and performs 30% better thermally.

Coolbox gurus Yeti have kindly made it tall enough to accommodate “critical bottles of wine, but slim enough to squeeze behind the driver’s or

THINNEST WATERPROOF WATCH

passenger’s

The Spence 300 Automatic from Spinnaker Watches is the “thinnest dive

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watch on the market”, just 11mm thick, yet boasting more than 300m of

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seat of a car”. It

HJ HALL ARGYLE SOFTOP SOCKS This gentleman’s rather natty yachting attire is bolstered by his choice of HJ Hall Argyle Softop socks, claimed to be as warm in winter as they are breathable in summer. They are

30

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

“contract vertically”

Exhibition 3rd – 26th August Who will be first? Westernmen, as Bristol Channel pilots were known, spent their lives at sea awaiting the arrival of some great merchant ship, in order to beat the competition and be the first to get their man aboard.

The Bristol Channel is a notorious bottleneck, facing the mighty Atlantic Ocean which surges into it producing six knot tides with a 50ft range.

In stormy weather the rowing skiffs, used to transfer the pilots from cutter to ship, would be stowed on deck.

In light airs they would be dropped overboard and towed, ever ready to embark their man.

Martyn Mackrill captures the dominant emotion of the Westernman – anticipation – as here, under the grey veil of an approaching depression, three great cutters await wind as well as the sight of a distant deep-water sail.

For inspiration Martyn used the former trawler, Eda Frandsen, built in Denmark in 1938 to a design which incorporated many features of the pilot cutter.

Dick Durham Author and Sailor

Visit www.messums.com to view the exhibition and download the catalogue PILOT BOATS BECALMED (detail) watercolour 76 x 57 cms 297⁄8 x 221⁄2 ins

DAVID ME SSUM FINE AR T - E ST 1963

12 Bury Street, St. James’s, London SW1Y 6AB Tel: +44 (0)20 7287 4448 www.messums.com

CHARLOTTE WATTERS

Adrian Morgan wooden boats, she was not symmetrical. I am not suggesting lopsided, bent, banana-shaped, crooked, just that one side was perhaps 1/2in out at a point amidships, a fact I discovered when trying to match port and starboard waterlines by measuring down from the gunwale.

Does it matter a damn? Of course not: as one old shipwright told me “You can’t ever see both sides at once.”

And then I began to see the flaw (which in truth only I will ever see) as not so much a flaw as a feature, part of Sally’s unique character. We are not talking the schnozzle on film star Cyrano de Bergerac, more like super model Kate Moss’s, or actor Jess Buckley’s bewitching lopsided smiles. Perfection is, quite frankly, boring.

And of course there is absolutely nothing that can be done about wiping the smile off their faces, or toning down Sally’s rather outrageous sheerline, which sweeps up from mast step to galvanised stem fitting, giving her an air of snooty confidence as if to say “with that amount of topsides above the water, I will seldom get you wet,” and that’s a fact.

We’ve had water coursing down the side decks and slopping into the cockpit on a hard beat, but never shipped it green (or muddy brown for that matter) over the bow. And thus from slight disenchantment, came an acknowledgement of Mr Laurent Giles’ forethought in giving Sally such buoyancy up front, while wishing he had given a little more thought to giving her a tad more at the stern, where her sections are positively Folkboat like; less a wineglass, more the extreme curve in the back of a gymnast or ballet dancer.

And thus, on that brilliant spring day I came full circle. Then, climbing a step ladder, set at a distance, rung by rung, from ground level upwards, and squinting, the sheerline which had looked a little too bold when crouched down, softened at rung five into a delicious concave, in which I could almost see Mr Giles’ ebony curve, as he set it down on the drafting paper back in late 1936, and hear him muttering “Too bold, hmm. I wonder?”, before inviting his partners to gather round his drawing board. Did any of them suggest anything other than what the boss had drawn was anything less than perfection? It would have been a bold move; almost as bold as the line they were scrutinising.

Perfection is overrated

You know you’re in love when flaws turn into features

T

he shock! The sudden acceptance of a fact you’d been aware of but tried to hide for years, nearly 30 in my case. Your boat, my boat, Sally, born in 1937, fashioned by the finest shipwrights, designed by a master was not, in fact, not... perfect.

Until that moment (I can date it precisely to midday on 24 May) and place, Johnson & Loftus’ yard on the shores of Loch Broom when, standing back to admire my undercoat, crouching low to inspect my waterline (it’s taken years to get it right, hopefully 28th time lucky) I noticed that Sally was not, as I said, whisper it low, perfect. The bold sheerline I had admired so much, and the little tippy-up bit at the stern, from a low perspective formed a gentle reverse S curve from bow to stern. In short, the boldness of the bow section, if I were to be picky, was a touch too bold.

It takes a strong man to admit the love of his life is flawed. Or woman. I could take the analogy further. A marriage, after lasting nearly a third of a century, falls apart for the simple reason that one, or both partners, wakes up one morning and thinks: “that nose I once thought aquiline, now appears beaky. How can I live with a man with a nose like a parrot’s?”

Don’t get me wrong. Sally is, for me, (naturally) still the finest looking small wooden boat ever designed, and her sisters possibly the finest small sea boats ever to sail the seven seas. Before that fateful day I had been forced to accept the fact that, in common with most

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“That nose I once thought aquiline, now appears beaky”

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BOSUN’S BAG PRACTICAL TIPS FOR THE TRADITIONAL BOATER

WORDS TOM CUNLIFFE ILLUSTRATION MARTYN MACKRILL

Once upon a time I sailed a smart boat that had varnished ash blocks. They looked great at first, pale in colour and made a nice contrast with the golden pine spars, but as time went by they took a few knocks and it was a different story. They suffered those small dings inevitable in a gaffer that goes sailing. The rain and salt slipped under the edge of the abrasions and the lovely blocks began to show horrid black stains. If I’d had nothing else to do with my life, I could have carefully patched the varnish as soon as it was damaged but, as with most of us, there were a number of real-world reasons why this didn’t happen. First, I was too busy sailing to notice every knock. Secondly, even if I did, I simply hadn’t the time to feather back the edge of each scar with medium-grade sand-paper, apply two carefully mixed coats of 50/50 varnish/thinners, followed, a day or two later, with several coats of rubbed-down full-strength over the gap; then, finally, a proper rub-down of the whole block and a coat overall.

You see what I mean. All this is a long way from ideal in the rough-and-tumble of trying to go for a sail at the weekend.

Varnish, I decided, had its limitations.

Things were better where the wood treated was an easier colour, such as teak or mahogany. Oak, however, tended to fall into the same category as ash. I also noted that if a varnished surface didn’t get interfered with and was well done in the first place, it would often last a season or even more without visitation. I was starting to build up a picture. Then I went ocean sailing and took a loud wake-up call. The blocks were hammered far more severely than ever they were in the Solent, and don’t even mention the bowsprit! The tropics seemed to have a private store of 120-grit sandpaper for stripping spars. It’d had a good seven coats of Spinnaker, but a trade wind crossing left it in a sorry state. I patched it as best I could, then tackled the North Atlantic for a home run. It was half bare when I landed in Ireland from Nova Scotia and I’d about had it with varnish.

The next summer I sailed to Norway, where I found the beginnings of an answer. Rather than varnish, the guys up there were anointing their brightwork with pine tar oil. They thinned the first few coats with raw turpentine – the real thing, not a ‘substitute’ – then whacked on as many top coats as they had time for. No rubbing down was needed and the results weren’t half bad. It had to be said that the surfaces to which the oil was applied were generally a little short of fine yacht finish, so you couldn’t expect too much, but I was impressed nonetheless. I acquired a five gallon drum of this unction for remarkably little outlay and laid it onto my suffering bowsprit, my more vulnerable blocks, and the oak capping on my bulwarks after

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scraping them clean of residual varnish. It didn’t look quite as good as the yacht varnish did when the seventh coat was fresh out of the can, but it lasted far better. And here’s the crunch: when it took a knock, patching it was dead easy. A quick clean-up with sandpaper – and I do mean quick – followed by a few fifty-fifties and a top-coat with no rubbing down. You couldn’t see where I’d been.

I was now well on the way to a solution for brightwork on a boat that is worked hard, but there remained the fact that the original Norwegian oil wasn’t really designed for yacht finish. I rubbed along with this for years until the monster can finally ran out. Then my long-term shipmate Pol Bergius began importing a more refined Norwegian product which he called Varnol. This, if used carefully as described on the can, could generate a finish as good as most amateurs can achieve with a varnish brush. It carried the benefits of very little work once the wood had been prepared, and great patchability. In fact, it was so non-labour intensive that, so long as the substrate was in good condition, all that was needed for a new season was to rub it with a cloth soaked in real turps, let it dry, then brush on a fresh coat.

All good things come to an end, however, and when I could not longer source Varnol, I was obliged to visit the chandlery to try my luck with Owatrol’s commercial version, which is known as Deks Olje, D1 and D2. I had heard mixed reports about this product, as one does for any system, but after my experience with the real thing I took the trouble to read the instructions.

Following them to the letter produced results that are not far short of any you’ll see outside a factory varnish finish or an expensive professional job.

So here’s the policy that came out of all this mixed experience: any brightwork that is not under pressure from weather or getting knocked, such as coachroof sides or hatch coamings well clear of the sea, is treated to the traditional varnish experience. It lasts well and it does look great. Blocks that fly around, toerails that suffer fender lanyards and big feet, cockpit coamings that are chafed by sheets and bottoms, all get the Deks Olje option now, as do bowsprits. And the good news is that the old trick with the turps still works, which saves sandpaper and a good deal of hard work.

After a decade of the Deks Olje treatment, my once-sorry pine bowsprit went a deep, dark golden colour that looked gorgeous.

One or two darker marks where I hadn’t quite got the patching right just blended in. Many of our boats are far from new, and there’s beauty in maturity wrought by the years that’s often missed when striving after a different idea of perfection.

Squadron. His depictions of classic boats, from clinker rowing boats to Edwardian schooners, have made him one of the most sought-after marine artists, and his work forms part of major collections worldwide. He and his wife, Bryony, sail the restored 1910 gaff cutter Nightfall (Classic Boat 328).

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

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B U Y

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S E L L

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B U I L D

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C H A R T E R

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M A N A G E

FRANK MORGAN GILES

A LIFE UNEARTHED – FRANK MORGAN GILES The first biography of Frank Morgan Giles will soon be published, and those who thought they knew him might be in for a surprise WORDS CLARE MCCOMB

S

o often when researching the stories of famous naval architects, family shipyards or sailors, we spend our time listing what they did, where and when. Most times you can only guess what people felt about their life’s achievements.

Frank Morgan Giles, of course, was remarkable in the three fields of design, construction and competition.

He is also remarkable because his professional influence extended from first setting up his own business around the turn of the last century, until his death in 1964. He was driving his ideas forward at a Morgan Giles board meeting only seven weeks before he died.

In some senses Frank’s biography can be divided into two parts: the years he shared with his wife Ivy, and the cold decades after she died so suddenly and unexpectedly, following a stroke, in December 1937.

He learned his trade from gentle mentor Pengelly who taught him to be “an artist with the adze”, how to aim for the highest standards in his work, and to embrace lifelong teetotalism. He designed and built small craft, both in Shaldon at the mouth of Devon’s River Teign, and then at Hammersmith in west London. Later he linked up professionally with Harry May, later of Berthon Boats, until their huge bust up just before World War One, shortly after they had moved to a new yard at Hythe, on England’s south coast.

We can guess the bitterness and acrimony because surviving papers show that, at one point, Frank was denied access to the yard! We can also guess the happiness of his romance and marriage. His wife’s journal tells of the regatta at Babbacombe where “Mr Giles”, had been swimming round the tip of his capsized dinghy Mabel’s mast, prior to raising her ready to compete the following day. The date was 8 August, 1904 and Ivy’s first day afloat. She was allowed to steer an old yacht’s gig that evening “with a yoke and lines,” describing that moment as “the height of bliss ... a horror to steer of course, but I thought her perfect.”

Whether she also thought Mr Giles to be “perfect”, we are not told. Once again we have to read between the lines for the feelings behind the unfurling of that

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love story. In 1909 Ivy’s mother ordered a dinghy, Myosotis, which Frank and Harry May completed in just 11 days, working through the nights, before transportation to Devon by train and then a “fish truck.” Frank taught Ivy how to sail, and her respectful admiration for him peppers the pages of her journal.

After they were married, the war years must have been very hard, with Frank eventually away captaining motor launches out of Queenstown, where he may also have been involved advising on the Q ships that operated from there. He fought two enemies, Irish patriots as well as Germans, although IRA activity was not always deadly: there is a story of a stolen ship’s dog being returned, dyed in the Irish flag tricolour of green, white and orange.

In 1920, Frank founded the Morgan Giles Yard, underpinned by his wife’s money. That same year, according to Yachting World magazine, Lieut Morgan Giles RNVR’s national reputation as a naval architect was being brought very prominently to the fore by the great post-war swell of interest in dinghy racing. Three “very important classes” then being published, namely the 12-Foot International OD, the British National 14–foot dinghies and the newly adopted Essex Yacht Club OD, were from his board. In fact the Essex Class was successor to his previous 17ft (5.2m) design over a decade before. Frank had been an immensely successful designer and helmsman of West of England Conference dinghies , and 18ft (5.5m) Jolly Boats before the war.

Yachting World reminded its readers how Algernon Maudslay had won the One Ton Cup for England and the Royal Thames in 1913, in his Morgan Giles 6-Metre Cremona; Stella, which Frank had produced to defend the trophy in 1914, was so markedly superior to her rivals that “she would undoubtedly have scored a slashing victory” had the guillotine of war not fallen.

The magazine then claimed that if the latest yacht Frank had designed for the 1920 One Ton Cup were to be victorious, he should be credited with a “moral hattrick.’

The 6.5-Metre Cordella did carry off of the cup, not just in 1920 but for four years running, meaning five

Clockwise from top left: Ivy rigging Myosotis at Putney, London in 1911 (c/o Berthon Boat Company); Myosotis in 1909 (c/o Morgan Giles Heritage Project/MGHP); Algernon Maudslay’s 6-M Cremona 1913 (c/o Kirk); Frank sailing Imp in 1908 (c/o MGHP); Ivy at the helm of Wamba III in 1913 (c/o Kirk); Watercolour of Morgan Giles Shipyard before he bought it in 1920 (c/o MGHP)

FRANK MORGAN GILES

wins and one ‘moral’ victory on the trot: a double hattrick in one of the most prestigious international competitions of the time.

Given this recognition, and the subsequent muchlauded transatlantic adventure Frank and Ivy took in 1927, to race against the best of the world in their recently renamed 6-Metre yacht English Rose, you might think the financial future was rosy, but not according to the thick file of letters from an increasingly threatening bank manager, which details the growth of their business and personal overdrafts, and their financial struggles to keep to keep the business afloat.

CASH FLOW DRYING UP Much of the yard’s basic work in those early years involved supporting the local seagoing community, with construction and maintenance of a huge range of different craft, as well the laying up of regional racing yachts over winter. Cash flow was always an issue. While requests were coming in for designs to be built in many corners of the world, and individual yachts were often extremely successful at home and abroad, especially on the continent, Frank was constantly concerned there might not be enough in the bank to cover weekly pay packets. The English Rose expedition to America shows he and Ivy still dared to dream. Part of that dream was the building and shipping over of the first International 14 dinghy class to reach the US, years before Uffa Fox, who is often credited with that milestone.

The breakthrough Morgan Giles Ltd was working towards never really happened. There was success here and success there, but Uffa was gathering his forces, determined to knock Frank off his perch as dinghy supremo. Given his results in the Prince of Wales Cup, the top tournament for the International 14s, Uffa succeeded. However Frank won a marvellous victory in 1931 in Catherine with his eldest son, Morgan, as crew.

All those years of seamanship came to fruition with a crazy decision to hoist the spinnaker when no one else dared. Catherine capsized just across the finish, at some danger to the Morgan Gileses, but the Prince of Wales Cup was theirs, at last.

In 1936, writing to his second son Michael, Frank outlined what his true motivation in life had become.

By now he and Ivy had five children. The task of giving them the education to prepare them for a decent life had overruled any chance of fulfilling his own personal destiny. He wrote “I call upon God as my witness that your parents have left no stone unturned to achieve the virtually impossible... your mother and I have thrown every personal desire and ambition to the winds in order to provide for you.” Then he listed how all the family capital, investments, even the freehold of their house had gone to give his children their chance. The letter makes startling reading.

Until now we have only had glimpses of how Frank felt. After Ivy died, all this is changed. His daily diary for 1938 has survived and then from 1940 until he died in 1964: an extraordinary document and, I believe, a 40

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national treasure. In those daily pages, Frank lists every activity, every journey to inspect and select timber, every trip to the cinema or theatre, every deal finalised through his yacht agency, every deal struck with important and less important clients, every disagreement with those clients, every halfpenny he expended on rail fares and refreshments from station cafés, every bomb he heard falling, every tussle with a workforce intent on establishing trade union representation , and every night sleepless from worry with all his children serving the country in harm’s way through the war years.

As the yard expanded to meet its Admiralty orders, financial losses often accrued by the time vessels were launched. Frank travelled across the south of the country, pleading his cause and that of the other shipyard firms being driven under by lack of appropriate payment.

Skilled craftsmen were frequently called up and it was a fierce fight to retain them. Sometimes Frank lost. The diary shows how he mustered crews for Dunkirk, and followed the D Day landings blow by blow.

Most impressively, despite all the pressure and the stress-related illness Frank suffered (he relied on an amphetamine inhaler that legally gave him doses of what we might now call ‘speed’), he never let feelings undermine the massive tasks ahead of him. He writes of his heartache at not having Ivy beside him to help him carry the load. The light of his life had gone out, but at least, he says, she had been spared the worry.

After the war, eldest son Morgan emerged covered in military accolades, including the George Medal and the OBE, for deeds of extraordinary courage. No father could have been prouder than Frank, who travelled Buckingham Palace for the investitures. In 1948, the Olympic sailing came to Torbay, and Morgan Giles spearheaded a local syndicate to build a 6-Metre yacht to compete on behalf of the West Country. Although Golden Hind ultimately did not qualify to represent Britain, due to a series of events, miscalculations and bad luck, other boats built at the yard did compete.

Earlier, Susanna, Frank’s prototype for the Swallow Class, had taken on Uffa and Tom Thornycroft’s versions at Cowes, until a fearsome storm smashed her up.

Thornycroft nonetheless commissioned two of his winning designs to be built at the shipyard for the Olympics, proving a most appalling nuisance, turning up in his huge motor yacht King Duck, insisting his craft should be competed first, hauling every shipwright from his other jobs – in effect taking over the yard.

Financially, Morgan Giles was in considerable trouble. While Frank and his workforce were producing wartime motor launch workhorses, he had lost touch with the paperwork, and little money was coming in.

Eventually the bank called in the receivers who actually organised the management of invoices backdated many years. Things steadied again.

Meanwhile, second son Michael, who was working alongside his father as the shipyard, began to produce West Channel ‘Quay Punts’ in a range of sizes from 2.5

Clockwise from top left: One Ton Cup (c/o Yachting Monthly); Frank, Ivy and the crew of English Rose en route to America in 1927 (c/o MGHP); The 6-M yacht Golden Hind in 1949 (c/o Emma Kelley); Shipyard Workforce around 1950 (c/o MGHP); Frank’s daughter Hebe at the helm of Teign Corinthian OD Aubin in 1939 (c/o MGHP); Yard workforce in the early 1920s (c/o Teign Heritage)

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2022

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FRANK MORGAN GILES

to 17 tonnes. They have been described as “startling vice free sailing machines” (sic). Just recently, young Katie McCabe famously circumnavigated Great Britain in her West Channel, Falanda, single-handed.

Then, as Admiralty work dried up, Morgan Giles Ltd created a range of fast sleek motor cruisers, superbly crafted and considered top of the range for their type.

Unfortunately, as material and labour costs rose and taxes bit hard, even these were sometimes launched at a loss. The agency business, which was Frank’s domain, also ran up losses, with unwise purchases that did not sell, tying up capital, sometimes for years. Prestigious contracts such as the magnificent Admiralty training yachts, raised the shipyard’s profile in RORC races but the overdrafts mounted, month by month. Eventually the receivers were called in again. In 1963 another firm bought 51 per cent of the company.

A BROKEN HEART In the diary, Frank expressed despair, pride, exhaustion, anger, and every emotion in between. He never showed the monumental stress he was under, but his heart was failing to the point that he was offered an early pacemaker.

Blackout followed blackout, and eventually a heart attack while on the tube to the boat show he attended annually as an elder statesman. True to form, he headed straight from hospital back to the MG Stand, to everyone’s horror.

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Above left: Aerial view of Morgan Giles Shipyard, post war (c/o Teign Heritage) Above right: Frontage of Morgan Giles Shipyard in the 1950s (c/o Teign Heritage) Below left: Malden Heckstall Smith, Laurent Giles and Frank at the 1955 RYA dinner at the Royal Thames YC (c/o Yachting World) Bottom right:

His determination to carry on without flinching never faltered, but the diary tells us how his heart never mended after at the loss of his darling Ivy, and he quietly wore her wedding ring on his finger until the day he died.

The team putting out Frank’s biography, including ex-CB art editor Peter Smith, Richard Bundy, editor at the Royal Thames YC, and his grandchildren Jane and Richard, found that their admiration for this man grew as the book progressed. His sheer courage and bitter determination never faltered, whatever life, his body, his errant workforce, or the unrelenting taxman threw at him.

His must be one of the great love stories of the 20th century – a man carrying his feelings for his wild Edwardian girl way beyond the grave, hidden from view, unknown to those who interacted with him, at home, at the yard, during his lifelong service to the Teignmouth and Shaldon Clubs and regattas across the whole south west. He was known as a tough man with a very short temper, not a gentle heart. His colleagues at the YRA/RYA, his few enemies and many friends in many nations would have been amazed, along with almost everyone else who thought they knew him.

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As with the other MGHP publications, Frank Morgan Giles’s biography is being privately published, and available from autumn 2022

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FIFE REGATTA

CELEBRATION OF A DYNASTY It only happens roughly every five years, but when it does, many consider it the greatest show on earth. And this year, it was the biggest gathering of Fife yachts ever recorded WORDS AND PHOTOS BEN WOOD

T

he much anticipated Fife Regatta took place in Scotland from 10-17 June. The fifth edition of the event, first seen in 1998, saw the largest ever gathering of Fife yachts returning to their birthplace on the Clyde. A total of 280 participants, 23 yachts varying in size from 19-125ft (5.8-38.1m) and racing in three classes in the Largs Channel, Rothesay, the Kyles of Bute and Loch Fyne.The weather was unashamedly Scottish with the first day lost due to high winds with 25 knots off Great Cumbrae but from then on there was exciting racing for the next five days in everything from bright sunshine to fog and drizzle.

As ever, the participating boats are invited to the event.

The oldest on show was Ayrshire Lass (1887), designed by the second William Fife and the only one of his yachts still sailing. One of the highlights of the regatta took place on lay day in Portavadie when Ayrshire Lass

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Above: Class 2 enjoying the conditions off Rothesay

helmed by Paul Goss sailed around her mothership, the schooner Adix dressed overall. The largest Fife yacht at the regatta was the legendary 125ft (38.1m) Mariquita (1911), the only First International 19-Metre yacht still sailing and the largest pre-World War I racing cutter to survive. The smallest included Red (1886), Intombi (1934), St Patrick (1919) and the winner of Class 3, Lotus (1934). There was a lovely moment off Rothesay when Lotus under spinnaker sailed within meters of Mariquita, which was heading to the finish line in Class 1: the largest and smallest yachts at the regatta in the same frame. Notable yachts included Macaria (1922) invited as a guest in her centenary year, French boatbuilder Hubert Stagnol’s latest project the newly-built Red (designed in 1886), and Viola (1908), a fast gaff cutter and a stalwart of the Fife Regatta with her effervescent crew full of Gallic passion for racing and the après-sail.

Clockwise from top left: Built in 1887 Ayrshire Lass was the oldest boat at the event; Mariquita to windward, and Lotus, the largest and smallest boats at the regatta, play cat and mouse off Rothesay; Michael Briggs at the helm of the 1904-built Mikado; Viola, the 1908-designed gaff cutter powering upwind off Rothesay; The committee boat at rest in deceptively calm conditions in the marina

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FIFE REGATTA

Due to the sheer size and number of Fifes at the event, the larger yachts, including Kentra, Moonbeam III, Moonbeam IV and The Lady Anne were often moored outside the harbours making for a wonderful spectacle against the stunning backdrops of Great Cumbrae and the Isle of Arran.

If the pedigree of a regatta can be gauged by the quality of the photographers that turn up, this was one of the highest order with Thierry Martinez, Franco Pace, Michel Boudin, Den Philips and the irrepressible local boy Marc Turner all in attendance.

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Above: Moonbeam III off Portavadie Inset: Moonbeam III at rest, Largs Below: East Kyle of Bute cruise

The social events shoreside came thick and fast with an opening reception at Kelburn Castle followed by an evening at Mount Stuart the 19th-century mansion on the Isle of Bute with extravagant interiors and expansive gardens enjoyed by all the crews. In attendance was Richard Mille, event sponsor and owner of Moonbeam IV. The following morning saw the parade of sail up the east Kyle, through the stunning Burnt Island narrows before the start of the week off Kames for the Loch Fyne Race. Mariquita and Moonbeam IV match-raced down the Kyles of Bute. So focused were they on each other,

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

68’ Falmouth Pilot Cutter PELLEW built by Luke Powell and his working Sail yard, launched in 2020. Designed and built as a commercial sailing vessel, she is on her second successful charter season. Capable of Category 0 Worldwide commercial sailing for 8 guests plus crew. A unique opportunity to purchase the largest wooden vessel built in the UK for many years.

UK £695,000

31’ David Moss Gaff Cutter launched in 2017. Traditionally built with iroko on oak frames, all copper and bronze fastened with a solid teak deck. 4 berths with good headroom. Built to a very high standard and sailed extensively in her first few years so that she is a well proven and properly set up yacht. A beautiful boat in excellent condition.

Hants £165,000

45’ Inchcape Motor Sailer built by the Eyemouth Boat Building Company in 1989. Very thorough professional refit over the last 5 years, equipped and maintained to MCA Cat1 standard. Huge interior volume with 6 berths in 2 sleeping cabins. Very well equipped and fully up to date. Ford Mermaid 135hp diesel. A capable live aboard ‘go anywhere’ cruising home.

Wales £160,000

84’ West Country Trading ketch built in 1904.

Currently run as a very successful charter vessel under UK flag. Licenced under MCA to Cat 0 for 12 passengers, Class VI passenger licence and 50 ton cargo licence. Maintained to a very high level with fully up to date systems, a very rare opportunity to obtain a top class traditional charter vessel in ready to go condition.

UK £599,000

25’ T. Harrison Butler Cyclone II built in 1931.

Cruised every summer by her experienced owners, visiting Ireland, Scotland and France. A very beautiful boat, simply fitted out and devoid of complicated systems, this is sailing from a bygone era. 3 berths with standing headroom, Volvo Penta 10hp diesel. A proper pedigree yacht.

Cornwall £11,500

35’ Sole Bay motor sailer ketch designed by Francis Jones and built by Porter and Haylett in 1968. 2021 refit

by Harbour Marine Services. BMC Commodore 66hp diesel. 5 berths with 6’3” headroom and 2 heads with a shower. Comfortable saloon and very nice wheelhouse for sailing in wet weather. Ideal cruising boat for UK sailing.

Suffolk £32,000

16’8” H.J. Mears and Son motor launch built in 2022, due for completion in the coming weeks. Brand new boat in clinker mahogany on oak frames complete with road trailer built by the well known Mears yard in east Devon. Beta Marine 14hp diesel engine, brand new. Ready for a new owner to name and launch for the summer season.

Devon £34,000

34’ John Alden Malabar sloop built by the Wing on Shing shipyard, Hong Kong in 1961. All varnished teak hull, decks and coachroof, newly varnished in spring 2022. Beta 35hp diesel. 5 berths including a double.

Very large cockpit with tent and bimini. A beautiful classic yacht, professionally maintained and upgraded in long present ownership.

Cornwall £45,000

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

FIFE REGATTA

that The Lady Anne was able to sail freely behind, and tacking early she bravely hugged the southern edge of Inchmarnock island to take a stunning win.

After the first two days of racing off Rothesay and Loch Fyne, the fleet arrived in Portavadie. While most of the fleet enjoyed a day off, Mikado (1904) challenged Viola (1908) to a private race with Michael Brigg’s Silvers-built motor yacht Kingfisher acting as committee boat. After a close start in a brisk breeze, Viola prevailed as the wind dropped. Her exuberant French crew were delighted with their victory as both yachts headed for a peaceful anchorage off Tarbert for a picnic lunch together. Mikado had her revenge later in the regatta, finishing a very respectable second overall to Falcon (1930) in Class 2.

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Above left: Viola during the Loch Fyne race Top right: Brass polishing on Kentra Above right: Richard Mille, event sponsor and owner of Moonbeam IV Below: Viola crew (left), and Team Fife celebrate in style

After the Bute Race back to Largs, racing concluded on the Friday on the famous Kings Course. In brutal and testing conditions, Class 1 got underway on a downwind start with Mariella, Mariquita, The Lady Anne and Kentra all enjoying excellent starts. With The Lady Anne keen to make up time but losing her topmast off the Isle of Bute, Mariella took the win and Class 1 for the week. Next stop was Kelburn Castle for a high-octane prizegiving hosted by Fiona and Alistair Houston, and William Collier. In the overall context and history of the Fife Regatta, the results often take a back seat but the silverware was received with great appreciation and excitement with special guest May Fife Kohn, the last descendent of the Fife family in attendance. It was a fitting end to a wonderful week.

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

49

MARTYN MACKRILL

FROM A PAINTED SHIP, A PAINTED SEA Ahead of a new exhibition, Dick Durham sails with painter Martyn Mackrill, regular illustrator of our Bosun’s Bag column, to the East Coast and Holland, aboard the artist’s yacht Nightfall WORDS DICK DURHAM ART MARTYN MACKRILL

W

e ran up the English Channel ploughing a foam path through iridescent green seas, our swelling white sails rolling past purple, mauve and brown-stained chalk cliffs, under grey and black clouds. Such attention to colour had become second nature to me having spent the past three days with marine artist Martyn Mackrill aboard his 1910-built gaff cutter Nightfall.

The Royal Yacht Squadron’s Honorary Painter was on passage to the East Coast from his pontoon berth in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, to seek out new hues in the waters and big skies of East Anglia which his boat was designed for. Martyn is also Honorary Painter for the Royal Thames Yacht Club and so felt it was high time to come round to the London River. Originally built on the Norfolk Broads by F Miller & Co to a design by

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Above: MM302, ‘Running Free’ Oil on canvas H61cm x W77cm

HH Lidstone, Nightfall was rebuilt in the Isle of Wight by former Lallows shipwright Charlie Gladys, who was with us for the passage east.

With her double-reefed mainsail and staysail bagging a west-south-west Force 5-6, she rounded Beachy Head after a night in Newhaven, and while Charlie wrestled with the tiller and I trimmed the sheets, Martyn had his sketch pad out and with a few deft pencil lines captured the heave of the swell: a remarkable construct of perspective on flat cartridge paper.

Three grey squares soon arose from the horizon as the ominous pile of Dungeness nuclear power station provided our next day mark. Soon the black and white striped lighthouse on that shingle point came into view, too, reminding Martyn of the Ladybird Book of Lighthouses he pored over as a child.

As we approached the South Foreland Martyn, who had never sailed up Channel before, said ‘I’ve read about how hundreds of ships anchored in The Downs for shelter would suddenly face a wind shift and their anchors would snarl up, they’d drag, they’d hit the beach, and no one could do anything… wouldn’t it be wonderful if we got round Dover and entered a time warp with lovely tall ships all at anchor!’

Such is the romance that enthuses this leading British marine artist, who lives and breathes the days of sail, his pungent-smelling studio, sharp with the aroma of oil and turpentine, doubling as a maritime library and model ship room.

Top: MM187, ‘Fetching Water’ Oil-on-canvas H46cm x W76cm

Above: MM303 ‘The Thames River March, 1893 – Brittania and Valkyrie II’ Oil-on-canvas, H60cm x W106cm

Once in the muddy Thames Estuary itself, appropriately enough a sailing barge, Orinoco, passed by, a spaniel scampering across her hatches. Martyn noted the sky width, the soft reflections and, of course, the colour: “The sea is blue and yellow, amazing.”

He spent that summer painting the seascapes of Suffolk, Essex and Kent, all from the cockpit or sometimes Nightfall’s skiff. I felt like Canaletto’s gondolier as I rowed Martyn from location to location.

In the Walton Backwaters, Martyn said: “I love this mud, my colours for it are pink, sienna and mauve.”

Back aboard at dusk, a cow somewhere moaned like a dying man and Martyn said: “This place is not just about CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

51

MARTYN MACKRILL

boats. The sky… to see those birds lifting, pure beauty, fogs, mists, clouds, grasses, wind blowing through trees, so much beauty. Mud, sky, sea and land all part of the scene.” After a morning on Suffolk’s River Deben, his easel set up on the shingle entrance, he said: “I’m tired – the concentration which goes into the end of that brush! I’m trying to record feeling, atmosphere, not how it looks. I’m trying to look at the past. Is it different? No – it hasn’t changed at all. Barge rudders rotting, cormorants diving, brown water, the popple on the tide, the boat just lifting. I love it. East Anglia has a soul… it’s oozing out of the mud, you can feel the history, even talking to the people….”

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Top: MM183, ‘The Big Class, c1930’ Oil-on-canvas H76cm x W127cm Above: LTD593 ‘Down Channel’ Oil-on-canvas H71cm x W107cm

Aboard Nightfall, once sailed and owned by the naval architect and magazine editor Maurice Griffiths, Martyn and his wife Bryony have cruised to Normandy, Brittany, the Channel Islands and the West Country, every passage a search for subjects to paint, from Brixham trawlers and Bristol Channel pilot cutters to sardinefishing boats and tunnymen, as well as the great yacht races past and present on his home waters of the Solent.

PAINTING THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS I joined Martyn on another of his painting adventures, on this occasion to the German Frisian Islands. We went by road as there was not enough time to spare

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MARTYN MACKRILL

before the late Maldwin Drummond’s book, The Riddle, was published to sail Nightfall there. Martyn was to provide the illustrations for the book that examined the story behind Erskine Childers’ celebrated novel The Riddle of the Sands.

We visited several of those bleak and mysterious islands with Martyn ever seeking the pigmentation that other, lazier eyes miss. While looking out towards Spiekeroog he said: “Look at that colour.” The cold wind had suddenly increased, covering the weak autumn sun with cloud. I looked, I saw only grey and said so.

“No, look down at the edge: violet, see that? It’s water.”

Nightfall is now sold because Martyn, like his hero, Claud Worth, wants to sail further afield. He is planning painting cruises to the west coast of Scotland, Ireland, The Isles of Scilly, and south Brittany aboard his new boat Peregrine, a 39ft (11m) Fife cutter, built in 1936.

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Top: MM290 ‘The Barge Waterlilly, Pin Mill’ Oil-on-board H19cm x W24cm Above: MM118 ‘Ashore’ Watercolour H31cm x H56cm

Martyn and Bryony are currently restoring her under cover at Bembridge, on their native Isle of Wight.

When I visited the boat in the spring the pair had just finished the galley and heads and the result is stunning: a clean, unfussy almost spartan interior which put me in mind of the quality but minimalistic finish of a Spirit Yacht.

“What I love about this boat, apart from her classic beauty,” Martyn said, “is that there is so much storage space. Now I will be able not just to stow my easels, paints and brushes, but there’s room, too to hang drying canvasses in the fo’c’s’le.”

An exhibition of Martyn’s work will be held from 3-26 August at the David Messum Gallery, 12 Bury Street, London. See messums.com for more

Rebecca For Sale - £65,000 Fifer ketch 39 feet, built by the Miller yard, which had been launching boats since Bonnie Prince Charlie’s time. Built with the expertise of the 9th generation of the Miller family and designed for the rigors of the North Sea as a capable fishing vessel. Launched in 1971. Powered by a Cummins 155HP turbo diesel engine. Takes you where you want to go effortlessly.

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

55

INSAM 1945

A POST-WAR DREAM

ves: Jost Collection

The Insam, a 1945 prototype of a series never produced, was found 20 years later in the laboratory of a genius inventor by a schoolboy in love with its avant-garde design WORDS GERALD GUETAT PHOTOS HENRI THIBAULT

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

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INSAM 1945

M

ilan, September 12, 1946. After three editions cancelled because of the world war, the crowd gathered for the opening of the Fiera Campionaria, the city’s annual exhibition of everything new and exciting. Milan still bore the painful scars of bombs, but the time was ripe for reconstruction and a future defined by progress.

In the vast ‘Transport and Locomotion’ pavilion, the nautical area welcomed a handful of exhibitors determined to make people forget the difficult times.

Among them, however, some were at the heart of the war effort not so long ago. Cabi-Cattaneo, Alfa Romeo, Baglietto or Cranchi produced the famous MTM (Motoscafi di Turismo Modificati) single-seater speedboats loaded with 300kg of explosives launched against enemy ships. The pilot, a combat swimmer, would jump from his seat before impact. Between manned torpedoes and MTMs, Italy was at the forefront of naval submarine warfare around many strategic harbours, with its discreet weapons accounting for nearly 40 per cent of the material losses inflicted on the enemy.

Not far from the Cranchi stand, a newcomer intrigued the visitors. The Insam boatyard, represented by its founder, exhibited two refined models with very elaborate shapes, outboard and inboard powered, seating two, four or six, that bore no connection to lethal force. The name of this avant-garde builder, which relied heavily on its technicality, was a contraction of Ingegnere Saporiti Milano. Not much is known about it, except for the mention of a certain Saporiti before the war in the managing staff of the major shipbuilding group Ansaldo, better known today as Fincantieri...

IF THERE WERE ONLY ONE LEFT The then modern but very small Insam yard was established in 1945 in the village of Azzano on Lake Como. Journalists at the magazine Vela e Motore gladly accepted the invitation extended by the mysterious and friendly engineer Saporiti. In the autumn of 1946, shortages and restrictions of all kinds meant that the two reporters had to get on their bikes to ride the 60km

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Above: The premises of the Insam company, on Lake Como Below: In March 1948, the bathyscaphe Vassena C3 broke the world diving record at 412m in the depths of Lake Como, not far from Lecco

(37 miles) or so from their Milan office to the lake shore.

On the spot, they discovered a small but advanced company where nothing seemed too ambitious to ensure the quality and efficiency of its serial boat production.

However, it seemed that the order book did not fill up as quickly as they hoped for. Less than three years later, this brand new Milanese company decided to shut down its Azzano facility. No one knows for sure why its business was so short-lived and of which nothing remains today but a superbly running little two-seater motorboat with a Lancia Aprilia engine; and a wrecked racing hull in the reserves of the Museo della Barca Lariana, not far from the former Insam site. One fact may explain it: the amazing lines of the Insam-Lancia runabout made of varnished mahogany have exerted enough fascination to ensure its preservation, intact, from 1945 to the present day.

A DIVE INTO HISTORY It turns out that the very first rescuer of the Insam was a real legend. Pietro Vassena, a prolific inventor with a passion for mechanics, broke, among other things, the post-war world diving record in a deep trench in Lake Como, not far from Lecco where he had his laboratories and workshops (see box). No one knows exactly when or how Saporiti’s prototype got there, but the story of this historic piece had a further decisive

Clockwise from top left: The Insam’s shape is reminiscent of the streamlined bodywork of the special Lancia Aprilia ‘Mille Miglia’ designed by Zagato in 1938.

Thanks to the foresight of a genius inventor and the tenacity of a passionate kid, Dody Jost, who owner of the boat since 1965, and seen piloting her in these images, the Insam has retained all its authenticity

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

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INSAM 1945

Pietro Vassena (1897-1967) Forgotten national hero A tireless and unclassifiable inventor, Pietro Vassena became famous by daring to face the constraints of the great depths at the controls of the C3 bathyscaphe, which he designed and built himself. His 1948 feat in fresh water was soon superseded by the records broken at sea by the submersibles of Auguste Piccard (1884-1962), the Belgian scientist who inspired Hergé to create the character of Professor Tournesol. The laboratories and workshops of this pioneer near Lecco also gave birth to a host of innovative products, from motorcycle mechanics to wartime gas generators, from the small Elios outboard motors to the ‘Skivass’ that allowed one to ‘walk on water’ with a float for each foot.

rebound driven by the passion of a local kid who had fallen in love with it. It was 1965 and Mr Dody Jost, a future great boat collector, was only 15 years old when he spotted the Insam hull in the courtyard of Vassena’s facility, an unlikely place cluttered with a thousand technical-scientific objects that could have intrigued any prolific inventor...

A SCHOOLBOY’S DREAM “After passing by the boat on my way to school, I began to dream of being able to buy it, and I started to pester Pietro Vassena often, despite his impressive stature as a hero. I’ll never know if it was out of sympathy or to get rid of me that the man agreed to sell me the Insam for a sum I could afford. Dody Jost thus came into possession of the 1945 runabout perfectly maintained in its original condition, at a time when many old wooden boats often ended up badly. He then felt invested with a mission of preservation, borne from admiration of the know-how of this ephemeral boatyard. This meticulous conservation would then be supported

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Below: In 1945, the Lancia Aprilia was still in production. The engine is a narrow 1,486cc V4 making 50hp; The Insam has almost no transom

by two careful restorations entrusted to masters, first Timossi, in the mid-1970s, then a very recent one, by Erio Matteri. Insam’s owner has never wanted to freeze the life of his classic boats as museum pieces, preferring always to keep them in perfect running order to use them whenever possible. His attachment to this Lancia motorboat, which runs like clockwork, is all the stronger because it represents the early realisation of a childhood dream, and moreover with the only surviving runabout of a brand that has long since disappeared into the quicksands of history.

“My Insam had a close call. At Timossi, based in Azzano as was Insam, I was told about the somewhat theatrical end of the boatyard. One morning, engineer Saporiti lined up his final creations on the beach and set them on fire in a final gesture of sacrifice. Guido Abbate then ran furiously to try to recover the rare wood that was so difficult to obtain at the time”. The Lancia-powered Insam survived the ordeal as we know for sure that the fate of this unique prototype was fortunately sealed before the awful day of arson.

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2022

61

GLASSING A STELLA

DUST IN THE BILGES Owners of Kim Holman’s classic, clinker-built Stella-class yachts have found a new way to face a leak-free future WORDS STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES PHOTOS JOE MCCARTHY

F

rom Viking longships to generic dinghies, for millennia, the distinctive stepped planks of clinker boatbuilding have been an icon of seafaring. As a construction method, it is light and strong and economical of timber; but it has one great Achilles heel. A clinker boat relies on a slight swelling of the planks by immersion in water to be watertight. This is known as ‘taking up’ and typically occurs at the start of every season. It’s hardly ideal in itself, and fatally impractical for any boats that live out of water and need quick deployment, like yacht tenders and shore-based lifeboats. Over time, the constant plank movement works the fastenings loose, and the Stellas, mostly built in the 1960s, are now kept afloat on a variety of stop-gap solutions, like refastening, battening, and any other kind of reinforcement you can imagine, from the DIY to the professional. Most of them leak, some badly. It can’t continue forever: eventually, it’s time for an expensive re-plank or the chainsaw.

Retired osteopath Andrew Gilmour owns Timoa, built

by Tucker Brown in 1961. “Dad had her from 1968 to 1976” says Andrew, as we eat sandwiches at Suffolk Yacht Harbour, the Stella’s spiritual home. Andrew remembers sailing Timoa with his father as a teen, out of Waldringfield in Suffolk. One memorable occasion was the Ostende Race. “We won it one year, and they changed our handicap! I’ll never forget the letter my father wrote to the committee, pointing out that the only thing he’d changed since the win was the grill!”

Anrew found the boat in Looe, Cornwall, 12 or 13 years ago at the back of a boatyard and had her restored here at Suffolk Yacht Harbour, with a lot of grunt work

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Above: The next Stella follows in Timoa’s footsteps and is seen here getting the glass treatment Facing page: Andrew Gilmour and daughter Helen Porter sail Timoa on Suffolk’s River Orwell

from him, daughter Helen and sons Henry and Angus, not to mention professional help from Suffolk Yacht Harbour, and an amazing service from Phil Dean Marine, who supplied a reconditioned Yanmar 1GM10. It paid off. Andrew must have the racing gene of his father, as Timoa is one of fastest Stellas in the fleet. In 2021, she came third in the Round the Island Race, just 80 seconds off the leader. The next morning though, Andrew returned to the boat at the marina to find Timoa half-sunk: the pump had failed in the night.

The electrics and engine were ruined and the boat was technically a write-off. With a lot of DIY labour at home and the insurance money, Andrew had another future in mind for Timoa though, one that would keep her in the family for generations to come.

The process of skinning hulls in glassfibre, known as ‘glassing’ or ‘sheathing,’ has long been controversial, for its perceived lack of authenticity and its potential for rot. Done properly though, a glassed wooden hull will create a stiffer boat with a stable finish that holds paint finishes for years. The tough outer layer also enables the preservation of original timber. Best of all though, you get a dry boat, which means peace of mind and easier towing by road. Eric Tabarly famously glassed his Fife sailing yacht Pen Duick in the 1950s and it lasted until the boat’s recent rebuild in 2017.

That was carried out with inferior materials and in less-than-ideal circumstances – and Tabarly was, of course, a sailor, not a boatbuilder.

For Timoa, it was time for David Johnson of Wessex Resins, manufacturer of WEST System in Britain, to come and have a look. “Timoa is not the first Stella to be glassed,” he relates. “The first was about 15 years ago. That was a basket case that the owner bought for the engine, but he couldn’t bring himself to burn the boat. It was a great success – the first Stella that doesn’t need pumping out regularly.” Some years later, boatbuilder Nigel Waller did a similar job, this time with biaxial glass cloth, but without the WEST System G Flex glue that represents the latest thinking today.

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

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GLASSING A STELLA

TIMOA DESIGNED: CR

Holman, 1959 (Design no20) BUILT: Tucker Brown, 1961 LOA: 25ft 9in (8.2m) LWL: 20ft (6.1m) BEAM: 7ft 5in (2.3m) DRAUGHT: 3ft 10in (1.2m) SAIL AREA: 338sqft (31.4m2) DISP: 2.7 tonnes

Above: Fatherand-daughter owners Andrew Gilmour and Helen Porter Below: The interior is that of

Timoa spent the winter of 2021/22 in the shed at Suffolk Yacht Harbour, receiving probably the best glass job to date. First, she dried out upside-down, letting the lands open to around 1-3mm. G Flex 655, which has a viscosity similar to gel toothpaste, was forced into the seams. This has “massive adhesion properties and some ductility – elongation to failure is about 30 per cent”. The next step, after sanding away any excess, was to apply WEST System 105/205 (this snappy name comes from 105 resin and 205 hardener) by roller. Glass biaxial tape was then laid onto the still-wet 105/2-5. The diagonal weave opposes the longitudinal planking to give a triple-diagonal effect.

The tapes of fabric are 12.5cm wide, about the width of a Stella plank. The tape was then painted with more 105/205 (this is known as ‘wetting out’) until the cloth was transparent. At this stage, while still wet, nylon Peel Ply tape was laid on top then, once cured, torn away, leaving a perfect finish for the paint, without the need to key, which would involve sanding material away. The process is then repeated over every plank, overlapping the tapes to create a rigid, continuous sheath. Any filling can then be carried out with a two-part epoxy fairing compound named Pro Set 185/285. Finally, the hull was painted in a highperformance, two-pack paint.

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

an ‘optimised’ Stella, one fit for racing rather than cruising

The process can be done with lighter glass for a bright finish. It is also, as David points out, reversible, so a new owner in 50 years’ time could remove the finish and find the original boat underneath.

After lunch, we have a quick sail on the River Orwell, moving through the water with the high chuckle peculiar to a clinker boat. Andrew and daughter Helen work the boat with practised choreography, and it’s amazing to think that under the sole boards, the boat is so dry that spiders could weave webs down there. Timoa won the Stella Class at last week’s Suffolk Yacht Harbour and will no doubt return one year for another crack at the Gold Roman Bowl at the 2023 Round the Island Race, having finished outside the podium at the 2022 race.

More importantly, Timoa will now be around for generations, passing eventually from Andrew to daughter Helen and her brothers, then who knows?

The grandchildren are young yet, but maybe one day.

Yacht Restorers

© Emily Harris Photography 2021

Harbour Marine

Telephone +44 (0)1502 724721 Email info@harbourmarine.co.uk www.harbourmarine.co.uk HMS_DAVEY_CBNov21.indd 1

DAVEY & Co

16/09/2021 15:37

LO NDO N L I M I T E D ˚ E s t . 1 8 8 5

TRADITIONAL BOATBUILDING FITTINGS, TOOLS & MATERIALS T R AD E

M AR K

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

65

ALL PHOTOS NIC COMPTON, SALTY DOG MEDIA

Getting afloat

CUILAUN

Late McGruer minter We called our February issue cover yacht, the 1968-built Rinamara, the

“For a yacht to look so stunning – like new – after so much use

‘last McGruer’, referring to the long career of her designer, James

doesn’t just happen by accident. It takes passionate owners and an

McGruer. Luckily, the tradition of designing and building commodious,

occasionally deep pocket. Cuilaun demands it, deserves it, and pays it

fast wooden seagoing yachts passed straight to son George, who drew

back and more. She is quite simply one of the most special yachts ever

the 55ft (16.8m) bermudan ketch Cuilaun in 1970 for a repeat customer

conceived at this size. After 50 years of first ownership, it’s time for a

based in Dublin Bay. Two near-sisterships followed in the early 70s

very lucky second custodian to guide her into her second half century,”

– Ceresio (now Talisker Mhor) and Glory B IV, now known as Border

says the broker.

Legend. Cuilaun appeared on our cover in the July issue.

“Since Cuilaun was launched at Gareloch in 1970, her original Irish owners have cared for her every need, and in return she has carried them and their friends speedily, comfortably, safely and elegantly over

Build is carvel teak planking, silicone bronze fastened to laminated afromosia frames, with a lead keel, teak on ply deck, and teak superstructure and cockpit.

Her condition throughout looks to be exemplary, and the specs show

deep and blue water so often that they might be excused forgetting

a constant programme of renewal, meaning in all likelihood that

how many times they’ve crossed the Atlantic,” says the broker. She won

nothing on Cuilaun is old, worn or broken. The engine is a Yanmar

the 1979 transatlantic race from New York to Cork, was awarded the

4JH4THE rebuilt in 2020. Luxurious touches include an ice-maker and

coveted John Parkinson Trophy of the Cruising Club of America in 1988

Eberspacher heating.

(where she is affectionately known as the ‘varnished two-sticker’), won her class at Antigua Classic Week in 2004, and was overall winner at

Asking £480,000. Lying UK. Contact sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk.

the British Classic Yacht Club’s Panerai Classics Week in 2017.

Tel: +44 (0)1202 330077

KELANA OF CLYNDER

Early McGruer Launched in 1946, the first McGruer of her size (42ft/12.8m) after the war, the bermudan sloop Kelana of Clynder was described by Douglas Phillips-Birt in the September 1958 Yachting Monthly as being “the epitome of the conventional British fast cruising yacht of her day”, by which he meant pre-war. For she was a product of and designed in, the late 1930s, when beam was narrower, and draught deeper “with a beam of under 10ft on a waterline of 30ft and a deep draught of almost the maximum allowed by the RORC rule without penalty”. Later McGruers, the most obvious example being the ketch Sule Skerry, would be beamier, lighter and shallower, with a sheer that was adequate but not nearly so outrageous.

Phillips-Birt described her “gracefully drawn-out ends” and her “boldly-sprung sheerline” which harked back to “an older tradition”. All in all, he concluded: “Such then was Kelana, moderate, conventional, handsome, and a yacht that called up admiration wherever she went.”

Broker Mark Cameron writes: “Unlike her metre-rated sisterships, she was built primarily as a fast cruiser with no compromise in design to influence her RORC rating. At the time her builders noted: “In the main it is the fast boats that win rather than those with particularly low ratings. With the McGruer-designed 6-Metre racers dominating events

66

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

following the war her launch was much anticipated by the yachting press. In the seasons that followed she proved to be every bit as capable as the performance-orientated McGruer designs.”

Owned for longer than he cares to remember by Glasgow lawyer Jamie Grant, she is for sale in good condition by Mark Cameron Yachts.

Asking £56,000, Lying Dunbartonshire, UK, Contact mcyachts.co.uk

dada2327 maa EC 99x129 OLAW.indd 1

27/07/2022 08:32

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

67

BOATS FOR SALE

Boats for sale Looking to sell your boat?

Reach over 50,000 readers each month

To advertise call Andrew Mackenzie +44 (0)207 349 3718 or email andrew.mackenzie@chelseamagazines.com

CANDIDE

Unique & beautiful 27ft 100yr old beavertail launch, built by renowned Thames boatbuilders Taylor & Bates during the 1920’s.

Powered by 1 x Meadows Sheerwater 1500cc petrol engine.

Seats up to 10 in comfort on leather upholstered horseshoe style seating with canopy over and removeable side screens for all weather cruising. A practical, reliable, sociable, and much loved family launch.

Price: £60,000 Email: office@peterfreebody.com Tel: 01628 824382

PLUS For more boats to buy go to

classicboat.co.uk/buy-a-classic-boat

43’ HANNA MARIA

Built in 1995. Strip planking covered with five layers of GRP. Laminated oak frames and floors. Selden white varnished aluminium mast and boom from 2008. New 45 hp Yanmar 4 cyl engine, electronic fuel injection installed 2021. Extensive equipment.

Lying Gothenburg, see www.hannamaria.se for more information and photos.

Contact: Price: £70,000. Contact email: peter@hannamaria.se

WINDCHASER

A baby Jongert Yawl designed by S Van Der Meer built in Holland in 1967. Steel hull with teak on steel deck and GRP coach roof and Dog house. Teak deck needs some TLC. Alloy main mast with steps.

Wheel steering. Easily sailed single handed with sea kindly motion. £16,000 Contact: peterwilson1938@hotmail.com, 01903 755765.

SIBYL OF CUMAE

For sale Sibyl of Cumae, a 51 ft. William Fife from 1902. She is a very beautiful and fast boat. She sleeps 5. Sibyl has always been maintained to a high standard. Recently all the electricity and navigation instruments have been renewed and updated. She is double planked mahogany and ceder under the waterline, oak frames and a lead balast keel. She will be ready to sail in the Fife Regatta in Scotland in the Spring of 2022. Laying in S.W. England.

Asking price £235.000.

For more information, please contact Cornelius van Rijckevorsel on 0044 (0)7816932312 or email at: corneliusvanrijckevorsel@ googlemail.com

SINOE /ARSINOE

A 3 berth, cold moulded 21ft Masthead Sloop to a PAUL GARTSIDE design calling for “a strong, tight, easily handled, no-nonsense boat.” Built new 2003, now with a new BETA 16hp engine and GARMIN electronics fitted in a major 2014 upgrade. Her unique history file has Paul’s plans, a full build record, magazine articles, receipts, manuals + photos from her launch to present. Excellent condition ready to go. Yard bogey inc.. Offers over £24,000.

Enquiries to: rb@blackhornet.co.uk

LE TEMPS PERDU

French gaff cutter, LOA 12,60m, length on deck 9,60m, Beam 3,30m, Draft 1,80m, engine Volvo Penta. Built in Granville, Normandy 1964. Hull iroko on oak frames, coachroof mahagony, teak deck. Successes in several Classic Boat regattas.

Well maintained with boatsmancare and in first class condition.

Owner selling now for reasons of age. Location Andratx, Majorca.

GBP £49.900.

Contact: canvey@hagengrote.de Phone: 0034 606379226

NORFOLK SMUGGLER

Cuckoo is for sale after 22yrs. 25ft + 5ft Sprit, lifting feel, well serviced Yanmar engine. All new sea cocks, boat safety certificate, comfortable, spritely, safe in a seaway. Extras include recent Webasco, cockpit Tent. Lying Norfolk Broads. So pretty, my heart breaks a little every time I leave her. Price £45,000 (a snip).

Contact Harry: 01692 678644\ 07856 801652.

Looking to sell your boat?

Reach over 50,000 readers each month plus 30k web visitors There are two styles of Boats for Sales adverts to choose from and with our special offer, if you buy two months, your third month will be FREE. Pick the style which suits your requirements and email: andrew.mackenzie@chelseamagazines.com with your text and image or call +44 (0)207 349 3718 68

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

RAFAELLE, 43’ MASTHEAD SLOOP

Robert Clark design, Berthon built in 1962. 10’1” beam. Beautiful lines and fast. Teak topsides, pitch pine below waterline, swept teak decks.

Major, keel up re-fit in 2015 so in excellent condition. Rebuilt engine with modern injection system. Immaculate internally with new cooker and modern electrics/hot water. Runner up in 2015 Classic Boats ‘Restoration of the Year’ awards. Lying: Beaulieu river. Price £87,500 Contact: stephen_bisset@yahoo.co.uk Tel: 07725 983300

GRIMA. 1972 EX SCOTTISH CAR FERRY.

Built to Lloyds A1 spec. High quality steel displacement hull with retro fitted bilge keels. Completely overhauled. Excellent condition. 12 Berth. 2 x English Electric Kelvin TA6 engines driving twin Ulstein gearboxes with VPP. £170,000.00 as seen. NO TAXES. River Severn, Gloucester.

Email: Ken.Lovegrove@outlook.com

Brokerage listing

C L A S S I C A N D V I N TAG E YAC H T S We hope that you enjoy our selection of vintage and classic sailing yachts. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require any further information on any of the yachts featured here.

59ft Starling Burgess Staysail Schooner

2004

60ft Dallimore Bermudan Ketch

1937

36ft GL Watson Gaff Cutter

1894/2005

NIÑITA is a striking, strong and well proven blue water cruiser with an amazing pedigree: a hull lines and rig replica of the Starling Burgess-designed schooner NIÑA, once described by Olin Stephens as, “the only boat he knew of that looked good from any angle”. Built of strip plank Douglas fir epoxy by one of the great schooner builders of the modern age, since launching in 2004 NIÑITA has been in almost constant commission as a very able eastern north Atlantic cruiser and exceptionally comfortable floating home, with a Baltic cruise north of the Arctic Circle and many classic rallies and regatta wins - all just two-up – also included in her impressive sailing programme.

BLUE TROUT is the largest expression of the remarkable designerbuilder relationship between Norman Dallimore and William King & Sons that majored on fast cruisers with classic good looks, attention to detail, the finest of materials and great sailing qualities. And she may be one of the best proven, in present ownership sailed singlehanded from Greece to England, with a little detour across the Atlantic via the Canaries and Antigua along the way. More recently, though sailing less miles, she has been very carefully cared for and upgraded, remaining afloat and well covered from the elements when out of commission. BLUE TROUT retains the capability of heading once again to blue waters very comfortably.

PEGGY BAWN’s authentic restoration is recognised in her CIM rating’s almost unrivalled coefficient of authenticity. Noted for perfect balance and good manners, in 20 knots under fingertip control her toe rail kisses the water; up to 17 knots a jackyard topsail flutter marks optimum groove. Easily rigged and sailed by two, this perfect Victorian cruiser/racer offers the chance to step back in time into the shoes of her illustrious designer, then at peak career. PEGGY BAWN comes with a custom road trailer

by Harbeck.

£450,000 Lying France

£375,000

€300,000

57ft Alfred Mylne Gaff Cutter

1903/2012

Lying UK

51ft Ashley Butler Mayflower 50 Gaff Yawl

2012

Lying UK

46ft Stephen Jones Spirit of Tradition Sloop

2006

KELPIE is a race and regatta winner: one of the most beautiful and fastest classic yachts of her size. Late in the intense 2018 Mediterranean classic regatta season she notched up 1st overall in the Vintage Gaff Class at both Cannes Régates Royales and Les Voiles de St-Tropez - only typical of the way this superb Golden Age survivor has been cared for and campaigned under present ownership, including restorations 2009-2012 at Fairlie Restorations - the rebuilders of TUIGA, THE LADY ANNE, KENTRA and MARIQUITA. KELPIE is ready to continue sailing, racing and thrilling. Her recent success has been achieved crewed mainly by family and friends – are you ready?!

MARTHA PRIMROSE has already proven herself with cruises to the Med and back; fast, safe and comfortable – perhaps defining the term Modern Classic with her carvel planking, long keel and effortless charm. Ashley Butler’s designs are inspired by the ergonomics, form and function of the historic working craft of the British Isles. The simplicity and seaworthiness of MARTHA PRIMROSE make her stand out – a deep water cruiser but the water doesn’t need to be blue! As for comfort, the accommodation on deck and below is spacious and well equipped - so perfect for family cruising.

Stephen Jones forged a young reputation designing some of the 1970s and 80s most extreme, successful and aesthetically pleasing-looking IOR-Rule racing yachts. More recently traditionally inspired, modern underbody production designs for the Mystery 35 and Rustler 33 really caught the eye of production yacht buyers with a more discerning eye for elegance. METEOR, which Jones designed for himself, goes one step beyond, employing modern wood construction techniques to come up with his unique take on a Spirit of Tradition racer/ cruiser. She’s a class winner at classic regattas and serves as a successful and very fleet of foot family cruiser. A 15 year insurance survey report from April 2021 is available.

€295,000

£250,000

£95,000

Lying UK

For further information please contact: +44 (0)1202 330077 info@sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk

Lying UK

Lying UK

Our classic and vintage yachts & motor yachts are available to view at:

22 Market Street, Poole, Dorset BH15 1NF, UK

– www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk –

MEMBER OF ABYA

Craftsmanship

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

JOHN LAMMERTS VAN BUEREN

Yard News

SECTION HEAD SUB SECTION

SWEDEN

Queen of the Baltic re-launched The extraordinary 12-M yacht Svanevit (S2) is undergoing a total rebuild

in London. He owned her from 1958 until his death in 2015. He has stated

in Sweden. She was built in 1930 at August Plym’s famous yard,

that when he saw her in Palma, Mallorca, not only did she have the

Neglingevarvet in Saltsjobaden outside the Swedish capital, Stockholm,

tallest mast, but she was the most beautiful yacht he had ever seen. She

to a design by Gustaf Estlander. She was commissioned by the Swedish

was moored in the Hamble back then, registered as Barranquilla (K22).

publicist Erik Akerlund for the Royal Swedish YC’s centennial

She broke her mast in 2003 and spent the last 12 years of Harry’s

celebrations, which Uffa Fox, among others, sailed over to attend. Her

ownership on the hard. In 2017 she was bought from Mr Hyams’s estate,

famous interior “a decidedly odd one for a racing yacht” according to

returned to Sweden and has been in restoration ever since. She was

the foundation that owns the boat today, was commissioned to

launched this June, to be rigged afloat. Her interior, which was exhibited

showcase the high standards of Swedish crafts to the world. She moved

in one of Sweden’s leading art museums, will be reinstalled this coming

to England in the 1930s where she was owned by a Swedish sailor for 20

winter, and the aim is for a 2023 spring/summer re-launch. Princess

years. After another Swedish owner – her third – she ended up in the

Svanevit (‘swan white’) is said to be the longest 12-M ever built, at 72ft

Mediterranean in 1958, where she was bought by the English property

(22m). She is owned by the Princess Svanevit Foundation. See more at

developer Harry Hyams, the man behind Centre Point and Space House

svanevit.se.

NORTH CORNWALL

Last Bucks Ledge lugger saved

70

After working for Ashley Butler for a number of years, Chris Frisby has

Foam is now in Chris’s workshop, as a possible restoration, alongside her

started out as a self-employed boatbuilder based on the north coast of

near replica. “The new build is clinker rather than carvel as requested by

Cornwall. Chris’s first commission is based on a small working boat from

the client” says Chris, who had just finished planking at the time of writing.

his native north Devon. She’s a Bucks Ledge lugger that worked off the

“She’s quite small at 11ft 6in (3.5m) but quite shapely and will have a

beach in the small village of Bucks Mills. The commission came after the

standing lug main with a mizzen. She’ll also be a lot lighter, the original

client remembered seeing a Bucks

Flying Foam has rugged 5/8in-thick oak

Ledge lugger in the long-defunct Exeter

planking on the bottom, while I’m

Maritime Museum and wanted a similar

planking in 3/8in Sitka spruce. Other

boat built. The museum boat turned out

projects in the shop include an

to be Flying Foam, back in north Devon

Aberystwyth-built clinker dinghy in

after the dissolution of the Eyemouth

need of new garboards and other work,

Museum where she was kept after

and a Percy Mitchell motor launch in for

Exeter. She’s thought to be the last

restoration and sale. See more at

Bucks Ledge lugger in existence. Flying

cfrisbyboats.co.uk.

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

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71

MARINE DIRECTORY

To advertise call Andrew Mackenzie +44 (0)207 349 3718 or email andrew.mackenzie@chelseamagazines.com

Marine Directory

BOATBUILDERS

BOATBUILDERS

DAVID MOSS BOATBUILDERS Quality boatbuilding in wood 8’-50’, clinker, carvel or strip-plank, spar-making, painting , welding, lay-up facilities

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31ft gaff cutter Polly

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Photo: Keith Allso

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visit www.classicboat.co.uk 72

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

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The Directory listings page for all your classic boat needs, this is a chance to be able to reach an audience that you can take control of really promoting who you are. You can update this as many times as you like throughout the year to stay up to date with what you’re doing and any promotions you have. For more information contact: Andrew Mackenzie +44 (0)207 349 3718 or email andrew.mackenzie@chelseamagazines.com

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73

CRAFTSMANSHIP

ABBEY MOLYNEUX

WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE She may be based on a farm in north Norfolk, but Abbey Molyneux is quickly building a name for herself in boat restoration WORDS AND PHOTOS CATHERINE LARNER

A

bbey Molyneux stepped into the boat restoration trade just 18 months ago, in March 2021. At just 30 years old, Abbey accepted a commission to renovate Queen of Light, a

dilapidated 90-year-old Broads luxury hire boat owned

by Luke Paterson – a Norfolk farmer. She rebuilt the boat and launched it in time for Henley Traditional Boat Show.

She then rented a barn from Luke and set up her own yard – Abbey Boat Builder.

There have been 12 completed projects since Abbey’s

arrival, and the yard has never had fewer than two boats in at a time. Her only promotion has been through social media posts of her work but she’s now looking at taking on help and extending her premises.

Working alone and being 5ft tall and slightly built, it is intriguing to see Abbey alongside some of the vast projects she undertakes. “The fun job for me is the big stuff,” she

Above: Abbey

says. “You take all the shapes out, all your reference points,

Molyneux

Powles motor cruiser. “A few people hounded me online

and you have to create shapes in the empty spaces. With

Below left:

and said I couldn’t have done it properly in the time. I got

restorations you’re building backwards and you have to

Queen of Light

really upset by that. With my next boat, Queen of Light, I

figure out a new way of doing it every time.”

was built by

decided with the owner to varnish everything so every

Abbey’s great

single bit of work was visible.”

She learned the skills by spending seven years at Dennetts in Chertsey, after an apprenticeship at Pioneer

uncle, who was a

Sailing Trust in Brightlingsea, Essex. She thrived at

member of the

Boatshow but she only had 102 days to complete the entire

Dennetts but ready for another challenge decided to move

team for Herbert

rebuild, so time was extremely tight. “I worked 13 hours a

to Norfolk. “I’m not a person who coasts,” she says. “I

Woods of Potter

day, seven days a week. But I won Young Boatbuilder of the

always want the next thing.”

Heigham in 1932.

Year. I got a trophy!”

To save accommodation costs, she lived on a Freeman

Facing page,

Abbey wanted to take the boat to Henley Traditional

There are smaller projects, of course. She’s just mended

26 and moved this to the Broads hoping to pick up jobs as

clockwise from

a hole in a wooden dinghy. And there’s a Broom dominating

she travelled. “I thought it would take a really long time to

top: The 1932

her yard, which needs a plank replacing on the keel. “It’s

get known,” she says. “But it took about a week.”

sailing boat

been really well maintained and it’s the first time in 10 years

Caress currently

that I’ve had a boat that needs only one plank doing.”

Though Abbey is dynamic and upbeat, full of stories of the serendipity that got her to this point, she is also

under restoration

determined and driven and has had to prove herself.

– photo David

everything to hand. “Sourcing the material was a massive

Edmund Jones;

outlay when I started but I’ve got everything I need. I don’t

preparation work

like that side of the business, so I cut it down and only do it

removing nails;

once every six months. It saves me loads of time and hassle.”

ABBEY MOLYNEUX

Olive, a Billy

74

Her first refurbishment was Noisy Goose, a 1962 Jack

These jobs will be fast turnarounds, she always has

Abbey prides herself on working quickly, and this

May-built launch

summer is no exception. She has taken on the 1932 sailing

rescued by Abbey

boat, Caress, one of two built by Percival Boats in

from a bonfire;

Horning. The boat had deteriorated then sunk on its

Rib repair on

mooring but the owner wanted to save it. Abbey set to

Caress; Navigator,

work on it, stripped it down, and will replace the hull in

the Broom with a

time for the owner to sail this season.

plank missing;

“When I steamed the ribs for their boat, the customer

Well-kept, tidy

was really interested so I walked them through the process.

boat yard store

I like them to understand the work that goes into a job so they can see what they’re paying for.”

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

CRAFTSMANSHIP

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2022

75

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Boatbuilder’s Notes

1

By Robin Gates

2

3

Pegs for boat camping Camping with a small open boat has been popular since the exploits of Victorian pioneer John ‘Rob Roy’ MacGregor who famously paddled his canoe a 1000 miles through Europe in the 1860s. Whether taking part in a sociable ‘raid’ or seeking solitude in the natural world of rivers, sea lochs and coast, boating with a tent is an irresistible lure for adventurous spirits. While some are equipped for sleeping and cooking onboard, others carry a lightweight tent or tarp to be pitched ashore.

If yours is a traditional wooden vessel then you might consider camping in similar style, for which hand-made wooden pegs are far preferable to the jagged plastic or bent metal types which often lie abandoned in the grass, waiting to snag bare feet. Not only are wooden pegs Earth-friendly and buoyant, the very sound of knocking them in is an authentic echo of the

5

Victorian boat-camping experience.

Wooden pegs are cleft, not sawn, with long grain running from top to toe so they’ll stand up to a pounding from the mallet. Using the Laplander folding saw (see Classic Boat 398 August 2021) I cut a 10 x 5in log of hard shock-absorbent ash (2), subsequently cleaving lengthways along planes of medullary ray with the axe (3) to yield eight blanks (4). These blanks approximate to sectors of a circle, a shape preserved in the cross section of the peg where the surface nearest the bark becomes the peg’s thick rear edge, resisting the pull of the guy rope.

The peg’s classic profile, tapering to a point and rounding upwards from the beak to a blunt striking surface, echoes that favoured by the Romans on their travels 2000 years ago. This shape ensures the striking surface stands squarely above long grain extending the length of the peg, eliminating the risk of a miss-hit splitting off the beak. Having sketched in the profile I sawed a stop cut locating a notch for the guy rope (5).

Working cautiously towards the line, I trimmed the waste (6), being careful not to risk cleaving off the beak while working inside the notch. Rough surfaces were smoothed with the

6

draw knife (7) before using a short blade (8) to chamfer corners and ease the edges of the notch to reduce wear on guy ropes. Three-stranded line, beech wood tensioners (see Classic Boat 390 December 2020) and a mallet complete the set (1).

Builders of traditional dinghies, canoes and kayaks might offer wooden pegs among accessories for cruising, while for exhibitors at traditional boat events, a set of wooden pegs would seem appropriate for the show tent.

1 Cleft ash peg, beech tensioner and three-stranded line 2 Harvesting the log with Laplander folding saw 3 Cleaving a quarter log into eighths 4 Eight blanks from the 5in diameter log 5 Sawing a stop cut below the beak 6 Hewing to shape with the axe 7 Smoothing rough surfaces with the draw knife 8 Chamfering the notch with a short blade

76

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

8

7

4

SECTION HEAD SUB SECTION

Traditional Tool

By Robin Gates

1

SHEET METAL SAW When the need to cut metal arises it

replaceable cutting edge – a

1 Eclipse 55

construction. If the metal plate is

helps to be using the right tool.

standard 12in hacksaw blade.

resting atop an

straight, the handle tight, and the

Nipping ends from copper boat nails

Working through a wide sea of

Eclipse 20T

two lugs (one pivoting and

is a case in point, where you may get

metal, the broad supporting plate

hacksaw

adjustable) are complete with screws

by with carpenters’ pincers if their

acts like a rudder keeping the cutting

2 Sawing at a

there’s little else of concern – given a

jaws are sharp but how much easier

edge on a steady bearing, leaving a

shallow angle

fresh hacksaw blade, the cutting

the job is with purpose-designed

wake of sparkling swarf. Since the

engages more

edge will be good as new. Effective

end-cutters. For larger diameters

saw plate matches the thickness of

teeth

sawing requires that the edge of the

and harder metals a hacksaw is the

the blade, it offers no obstruction to

3 The blade is

work be well supported to prevent it

tool of choice. Its tiny wave-set teeth

progress, and there’s no limit to the

attached to the

flexing, also working at a shallow

and narrow blade tensioned in a

depth of cut. It’ll also make a tidy job

plate by lugs

angle with the finest blade so as to

frame gnaw neatly – albeit slowly –

of cutting large diameter pipes.

through brass, aluminium or steel

engage the maximum number of

The Eclipse 55 was made by James

teeth with the metal. The blade I’m

bar. Sawing sheet metal, however,

Neill & Company of Sheffield in the

using, in Bahco’s distinctive orange,

poses its own problems. Even over

1960s and didn’t survive into the age

has 32 teeth per inch.

short distances the narrow hacksaw

of plastic, so extant examples are

blade is prone to wander, meanwhile

invariably of sturdy all-metal

NEXT MONTH: Dean tape measure

the frame severely limits the depth of cutting. For thin and malleable sheet metal, tin snips may be effective, although they’re more suited to trimming over relatively short distances because their hefty jaws soon prove an obstacle to progress.

The Eclipse 55 is a saw designed specifically for sheet metal. It looks ROBIN GATES

similar to a handsaw designed for wood, and may be so used with good results, but its advantage for sawing metal lies in the separate and

2

3

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

77

Letters LETTER OF THE MONTH SUPPORTED BY OLD PULTENEY WHISKY

The world famous Isle of Purbeck Yacht Club In the latter half of the 19th century, yacht clubs

the time dressed in the colours of the particular

proliferated along Britain’s coasts. The most famous

yacht club, accompanied by a colour illustration of

was, and still is, the Royal Yacht Squadron. Less well

the club’s burgee. Amazingly, among some of the

known was the Isle of Purbeck Yacht Club in

very famous clubs of the time was the Isle of

England’s south coast, founded in 1875 and defunct

Purbeck. The card, number 91 in the series, had an

by the early 1890s, after a smattering of regattas and

illustration of one Estelle Clayton, a Broadway star.

races during its 15 years’ existence. Unknown to the

The club’s red-and-black burgee is shown and Estelle

club, thousands of miles away in the USA, James

is wearing a red-and-black hat to match. The burgee

Buchanan Duke had established the Dukes Tobacco

clearly shows a swan: is this because of the Swanage

Company which rapidly expanded to become

connection?

American Tobacco in 1890. James Duke ran a series

I am mystified as to why this local Dorset club in

of cigarette cards called ‘Yacht Colors of the World’.

England was chosen for an American cigarette card

It included the Royal Bermuda, Royal Canadian, and

series. The cigarettes would have been distributed

the St Petersburg Imperial among others, and the

worldwide no doubt and the name of the Isle of

Royal Yacht Squadron, incorrectly titled ‘The Royal Squadron

Purbeck Yacht Club would have been a complete mystery to

Yacht Club’.

most when the packet was opened!

Michael Scott, Poole, Dorset

Each card had a colour illustration of a well-known actress of

Peter Poland’s well researched and

locals would have watched the

Clinker launch identification

informative recent article describing

cumbersome loads trundling to the

I wonder if you could help finding out the origin of

the work of J Francis Jones made brief

launch site. Manufacture started in

my mahogany day cruiser? I bought her in

reference to the Fleur De Lys motor

1959 and ended in 1979 when it

Amsterdam three years ago. The owner had restored

yachts. The location chosen for the

became apparent that costs could

it for a decade but was not sure about her origin. He

production of these excellent craft my

compete with building in glassfibre.

guessed she might be built in the 1940s or early

Fleur de Lys motorboats

appear strange, 12 miles inland from

The three-year sandwich course in Yacht and Boatyard Management

cruising in Dutch grachts and canals. The boat is

requirement to provide a large

(later HND Yacht Manufacturing and

now based near Berlin on the Havel River.

building to

Management)

increase

was based at

production

what is now

should the

Solent

necessity

University. It

arise. In the

required

event, a man

students to

of drive and

spend two

vision, Jim E

six-month

Dagless, took

industrial

over

78

1950s when such boats were typically used for

the Wash. This was dictated by the

experience

premises of 25,000sqft near Wisbech

placements interspersed with their

in Cambridgeshire, eventually

studies.

employing 100 craftsmen there. Motor

As lecturer in charge, I had the

yachts ranged from 50 to 78ft (23.8m)

pleasure of meeting Jim Dagless

by the end of production. The

while following up a student

production facility was not only far

placement in 1968. I was most

from the sea; it was a mile from the

impressed by the organisation of the

nearest slipway on the River Nene. Jim

production run and the cheerful

Dagless and team met the challenge

disposition of the work force, of

enthusiastically, building custom

which he was rightly proud.

trailers. I’m sure a large crowd of

Jim Hazel, Fareham, Hampshire

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

Winfried Meissner, Jena, Germany

Working Sail Ltd.

Traditional Shipwrights Newbuilds, Restoration & Repairs

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25/07/2022 16:47

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

79

Next month SAILING TODAY WITH YACHTS & YACHTING

WEE BRITANNIA The 1904-built Elrhuna, the oldest surviving

LATEST SAFETY KIT: FOR BOAT AND CREW

Robertson-built boat and designed by Alexander

with

Robertson himself, is

SEPTEMBER 2022 £4.95

NEW BOATS SPECIAL

CHANNEL CROSSING

thought to be a scaleddown version of GL

25 yachts you MUST see!

BOAT TEST

Eco cat that sold 150 off-plan!

Dee and Shirley

Round Britain & Ireland together

Short-handed lessons learned

Watson’s famous masterpiece.

HOW TO

ROUND THE ISLAND RACE

SHARED OWNERSHIP

Cost-effective sailing

FRENCH RIVER DREAM

Breton cruising at its best

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How class winners did it

09

 Navigate like a pro  Avoid drying-out mishaps  Win from the committee boat end

Cover final.indd 3

12/07/2022 13:29

IN THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE  Crossing the Channel short-handed  Syndicate sailing: sharing the cost of boat ownership  Sailing the rivers of Brittany

A CENTURY OF RIVA

SMALL BOAT BUYER’S GUIDE

The late Carlo Riva was behind what

As part of our irregular series, we’re looking

many would say are the most

at sailing yachts up to 32ft, a size that will

beautiful motorboats of all time.

take a family of four anywhere.

PLUS…

OCTOBER 2022

We test the popular water-ballasted BayCruiser 23; action

On sale Friday 9

from the Vela Puig in Barcelona; the latest books; Morgan Giles

September 2022. Or

Part Two; Jonathan Greenwood in the Mediterranean

why not subscribe?

30 YEARS AGO September 1992, CB51

“It’s fair to say that even those who had whooped it up in Douarnenez in 1988 and returned with fishermen’s tales of the scale of the event were totally unprepared for the breath-taking size, the variety and the pace of the festivities that made Brest ’92,” wrote editor Peter Milne. The event, now quadrennial, is by some margin the world’s biggest maritime festival. Half a million visitors attended that first event to see more than 2,200 boats from around the world. These days, it’s thought that up to a million people go to Brest, which makes it the size of about five Glastonbury Festivals. Gaff rig is, it seems, bigger than rock ‘n’ roll. Who would have guessed?

Elsewhere in that issue, we ran the story of the long-lived International 14s, the epitome of the extreme two-handed racing dinghy from its inception in the early 1900s to today’s carbon fibre examples. In terms of power, we had the American fairy tale of Chris-Craft, a company that has almost certainly made more boats, of any description, but primarily the mahogany runabout, than anyone else in the world; about 250,000 was our estimate back then. They are still going strong today, 138 years after the company was founded as “Decoy Duck Manufacturer – Also Builder of Duck Boats, Paddles, Etc.” Chris Craft is much snappier.

80

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

 Round the Island analysis: how the class winners did it  New boats specaial: 25 of the best  How to: navigate like a pro; dry out; race tips and more Available online or order now post-free from chelseamagazines.com/shop

Considering an Electric Outboard?

“Using a well-engineered electric outboard has been a revelation.’’

TOM CUNLIFFE Classic Boat

Quiet, Convenient, Reliable and Easy-to-Use In the popular 2-4hp category, the latest electric outboards – with their integral and rechargeable lithium batteries – have transformed the market, rendering petrol motors all-but obsolete. Advantages include: From £1650 Epropulsion Spirit PLUS 1276Wh battery Faster to charge Battery floats if dropped Foldable tiller means only one cable to connect › Three shaft length options › Direct drive (no gearbox) › › › ›

› Ease of Use Switch on, twist the tiller handles, go. Almost anybody can do it; no experience, strength or mechanical knowledge is needed. › Ease of Handling The batteries are removable, and the “pass up and down” weight (the shaft/motor assembly) is then 10kg or less. › Ease of Storage These electric motors divide into components, don’t leak oil or petrol, and don’t mind which way up they’re stored. › Quietness & Smoothness Electric motors are a delight to use.

From £1750 Torqeedo 1103 › 916Wh battery › GPS data on tiller gives speed & range indication › Removable tiller (more compact for storage) › Near‐silent direct drive › Much more robust than the previous model (Torqeedo 1003)

› Power Forget slow speed “trolling motors”, these 1kW electrics have huge torque (more like a 3hp petrol). › Range There are many variables, but most users achieve at least 9 to 10 nautical miles per charge, at 4 to 5 knots (2.5m inflatable dinghy).

Much more if you slow down a little. › Reliability Many outboard motors don’t get used very often, and small petrol motors hate this. Electric outboards have fewer parts in general, and in particular there’s no carburettor to “gum up”.

Of course, it’s not all perfect. The range may still not be enough for some users.

And they’re undeniably More Expensive than petrol outboards, mostly because lithium batteries are expensive. But that extra upfront cost is largely offset by their Lower Lifetime Running Costs, including (almost) No Servicing.

NESTAWAY BOATS is the UK’s number one retailer for both Torqeedo AND Epropulsion. You can find out more on our website, and we are always happy to discuss further – and offer advice – by email or phone. If you’d like to see them before making a purchase, we are based in Christchurch, Dorset (UK).

www.nestawayboats.com mail@nestawayboats.com Tel 0800 999 2535

Sternpost The antidote to spiritual malaise Martin van der Wal ponders on his illusion of solified energy - his yacht, in other words

S

parrowfart!” On 19 May, 1924, Physicists tells us that matter is an Charles Hayes walked into his illusion of solidified energy. So my boatshed hearing the clatter of timber humble vessel is a manifestation of all on timber from the lean-to on one side. the energies gathered in her ancient “Morning Mr Peel!” “Aye Mr Hayes” the structure. Solar, atmospheric, magnetic, other Charlie replied, as he examined a sub-atomic, heat from the Earth’s core, stack of rough-sawn kauri. Planking stock and finally human energy that ended was required. A city stockbroker with a form in one life, only to resurrect and use sailing reputation wanted a new yacht. The it in another. “Enough, enough!” I hear sweet scent of the kauri filled their nostrils. you cry. “Clap a stopper on this Were they aware that all smells are Blavatskian babble!” I’m sorry! I agree particulate? Volatile molecules released from with that wise old sailor Albert Einstein, the fine honey-coloured sap lodged in who famously said the world is divided olfactory receptors just millimetres away into two types of people: those who from the cerebral cortex. That sap had think everything is miraculous, and those begun its journey skywards at about the who think nothing is miraculous. What time Saladin rode triumphantly into does a person of my temperament Jerusalem. That sap had held its breath as require in a world whose heartwood is the forest shivered from Krakatoa’s shockwave. The tree had being hollowed out by a teredo worm of ecological distress? Just reached for the sun for over 1,000 years. Now particles of this one example will see the Amazon reach a likely tipping point, history wafted on the autumnal breeze and congealed in the transforming a large part of this major lung of our planet into dry seasoning timber. Hayes eyed each flitch expertly, no shakes or savannah. Such a person requires an antidote. run-out grain here. Plenty to pick from for the full-length What a paradox! My antidote is owning, restoring, and sailing planks the well-heeled owner had commissioned for a hull 30ft a collection of timbers with a millennium of collective growth years (9.1m) between the perpendiculars. Over 20 million years of in the grain; ripped from trees constituting now-destroyed ancient evolution on Planet Earth had provided one of the best forests. The Danish physicist philosopher Niels Bohr once said: boatbuilding timbers money could buy. Critical eyes and sharp “How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have judgements will accompany her first races. some hope of making progress.” My romantic soul somehow Cruiser Class rules stipulated that a comfortable interior believes vessels fashioned from living organisms are on some must be supplied. “What have we got for the bunks, Peel?” quantum level continuously absorbing the characters of their “Expecting redwood from California any day now!” came the fellow travellers, all the while carrying forward the seeds of their reply: very wide boards cut longitudinally from the vast girth genesis. of Jurassic giants. Queensland coachwood for the cabin, a Hoana, like most old wooden boats, has a tenuous monetary species stranded after the break-up of Gondwana. ‘Red Gold,’ value. Humanity’s notions of progress place little value on the for the interior from the now-extinct cedar ecosystem that thousand-year-old particles in her veins, even less on her vanished had graced the entire east coast of Australia for millennia. forest ancestry. However this priceless artefact responding to wind Tough, resilient spotted gum for her steam-bent frames and and wave beneath my feet has already seen off a few human structural timbers. The shapely basket of copper-fastened generations. For 36 years her tiller has been in my hand as I too sticks which a year later slipped into its element journey towards inevitable decay under time’s represented an organic core sample of at least a relentless gaze. When that hand becomes too feeble to “The shapely millennium of history. Her first start line in 1925 take her forward I can rest content knowing she will basket of was set by volunteers of the same club flag she go ahead rejuvenated by the countless careful races under today. But what a varied history she interdictions, major and minor, undertaken under my copperhas had. Cruised across the Tasman to New fastened sticks stewardship. Let’s hope coming generations will also Zealand in the 1960s. On her return she set off prize the miraculous antidote to spiritual malaise represented on a two-handed circumnavigation of the world. resulting from the sensual pleasure of her paradoxical an organic Homeward bound three years later, she survived timbers giving a spritely toss of the head at the first a Pacific cyclone. She was wrecked, written off, hint of a zephyr then leaning into it with a warm core sample and rebuilt twice by owners, one of them myself, chuckle as her resonating bow wave leads the music. of at least a who refused to let her die. Raced and cruised by A defiant chant of wood, wind, and water, as she millennium boatbuilders, yacht designers, sailmakers, carries her way towards the hazy horizon. of history” dreamers and doers; not one has let her slip away without a feeling of regret.

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CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2022

BRASKER M

A

S

T

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info@braskermasten.nl +31 228 312 542 Vlakwater 7, 1601 EV Enkhuizen, The Netherlands

DESIGN

CONSTRUCTION

FITTINGS

Crafting the finest wooden spars for over 50 years

VENTIS

NeilThompsonBoats Built in North Norfolk Sailed the World Over

Norfolk Oyster Matilda sailing on Lake Geneva

Builders of the Norfolk Range Luxury Day Boats and Yachts

01263 741172 www.neilthompsonboats.co.uk