Classic Boat NoVeMBer 2013
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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
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Monaco & Yachting on the Cote d’Azur
GL Watson World’s finest designer? Restoring a Fife Step-by-step guide PLUS
Tommy Trinder’s Dunkirker
Sam CroCker’S maSterpieCe
Mercury rising
NeW exhibitioN at GreeNWiCh
Turner and the sea
maSt maker to the StarS
Gilbert Pasqui
Yacht Brokerage
SALES, CHARTER & MANAGEMENT
102ft “MOONBEAM OF FIFE III” 1903. The story of the Moonbeams began in 1858 with Moonbeam I &II. In 1902 Charles Plumtree Johnson, an eminent London lawyer, decided to go back to William Fife for the creation of his 3rd yacht taking into account his navigation projects as he wanted to race under the new RORC tonnage which included sailing ships with fitted-out interiors. Moonbeam III was launched in 1903, hull n° 491 to leave the Fife yard. The result was a magnificent yacht which has now become one of the most successful classic yachts in the world. Her streamlined shape and large sail surface area both make for an extremely elegant and unique yacht.
100ft Classic MY “SPREZZATURA” 1971. Extensive refit in 2013. A classical, yet freshly-styled gentleman’s motor yacht, with opulent woodwork and furnishings. She has unusually spacious staterooms and attached bathrooms, a very large main saloon, a superb forward main deck dining saloon, an enormous top sun-deck and top-deck dining area and much more. She has recently benefitted from a one-year refit costing considerably more than US$1-million.
Commuter 50 “ALLEGIANCE” 2004. Inspired by Camper and Nicholson plans from 1925 and updated by builder, she is a very nice classic true gentleman’s yacht in the style of power boats from the beginning of the last century and constructed with quality materials and modern techniques – the spirit of tradition.
Montpellier l La Ciotat l Monaco l Paris Palma, Majorca l Moscow l Hong Kong l Grenada l Turkey
BERNARD GALLAY Yacht Brokerage
1 rue Barthez - 34000 Montpellier - France Tel. +33 467 66 39 93 - info@bernard-gallay.com www.bernard-gallay.com
CRAFTSMANSHIP
Contents
CLASSIC BOA T SURVEY
ELLAD Step-by-step restoration report
FEATURES
CRAFTSMANSHIP
NOVEMBER 2013 Nº305
p78
COVER STORY
6 . FRENCH FLAIR Full round-up of action from the biennial Monaco Classics
34 . A FINER FIFE On board the stylish and elegant double-ender Ellad
6 30
Classic yachts and famous faces in Monaco
22
COVER STORY
Meet Chumley – the motorboat that helped the war effort
60
COVER STORY
60 . THE MAINE EVENT Cruising down the east coast in a pint-sized Herreshoff 12½
82 NIGEL PERT
58 . NEW CLASSICS Four new designs destined for future classic boat status
LEFT: ELLEN MASSEY LEONARD
40 . LITTLE TROOPER
48 . MASTER CRAFTSMAN We chart the impact of the legendary designer GL Watson
DAN HOUSTON
RED HOT RIVIERA
NICO MARTÍNEZ
30 . BRUSHSTROKES Why you must not miss the new Turner exhibition
RIGHT: NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON
22 . MERCURY MAGIC Sailing the Sam Crocker special at the Puig Vela in Barcelona
COVER PHOTO: NIGEL PERT
15 . LOGBOOK Latest regatta action – from Maldon Town to Rhode Island
REGULARS 18 . TELL TALES 45 . SALEROOM 46 . OBJECTS OF DESIRE 58 . NEW CLASSICS 95 . LOOKING AHEAD 96 . LETTERS 98 . UNDER THE VARNISH ONBOARD 60 . GRAND VOYAGE 64 . LAZARETTE 65 . BOOKS 67 . CLASSNOTES 69 . GETTING AFLOAT CRAFTSMANSHIP 76 . YARD NEWS 78 . ELLAD RESTORATION 80 . BOATBUILDER’S NOTES 82 . GILBERT PASQUI 89 . ADRIAN MORGAN CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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R a i n B Ow 1 8 9 8
BluE BiRd 1938
100m schOOnER
s T. paT R i c k 1 9 1 9
O U T S TA N D I N G D E S I G N S & P R O J E C T S
s . y. n a h l i n 1 9 3 0 R E s TO R aT i O n
w E a c T E d a s O w n E R ’s R E p R E s E n T a T i v E s , d E s i g n a u T h O R i T y , E x T E R i O R d E s i g n E R , ya c h T m a n a g E R a n d i n T E R i O R d E s i g n E R O f c R E w a n d s E Rv i c E a R E a s .
Owne r’s r e p r e s e ntatiOn | D esign | Yach t ManageMent p rO j e c t M a nag e M ent | tech nical suppOrt | ar c hive TEl: +44 (151) 601 8080
c l a s s i c s @ g lwaT s O n . c O m
w w w. g lwaT s O n . c O m
SIMON BURCHETT
FroM daN HouStoN, Editor
classicboat.co.uk Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ Editorial Editor Dan Houston +44 (0)207 349 3755 cb@classicboat.co.uk Senior art Editor Peter Smith +44 (0)207 349 3756 peter.smith@classicboat.co.uk News/Features Editor Steffan Meyric Hughes +44 (0)207 349 3758 steffan.meyric-hughes@classicboat.co.uk Production Editor Andrew Gillingwater +44 (0)207 349 3757 andrew.gillingwater@classicboat.co.uk Contributing Editor Peter Willis peter.willis@classicboat.co.uk Consultant Editor John Perryman MRINA Publishing Consultant Martin Nott Proofing Vanessa Bird advErtiSiNg advertisement Manager Edward Mannering +44 (0)207 349 3747 edward.mannering@chelseamagazines.com Senior Sales Executive Patricia Hubbard +44 (0)207 349 3748 patricia.hubbard@chelseamagazines.com advertisement Production Allpointsmedia +44 (0)1202 472781 allpointsmedia.co.uk Published Monthly ISSN: 0950 3315 USA US$12.50 Canada C$11.95 Australia A$11.95 Subscribe now: +44 (0)1795 419840 classicboat@servicehelpline.co.uk http://classicboat.subscribeonline.co.uk Subscriptions manager William Delmont +44 (0)207 349 3710 will.delmont@chelseamagazines.com Subscriptions department YACHTS 800 Guillat Avenue, Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8GU CHELSEA CHELSEA A RZ II NN EES ARINE M M A G APaul MAGAZINES Managing director Dobson M deputy Managing director Steve Ross Commercial director Vicki Gavin Publisher Simon Temlett digital Manager Oliver Morley-Norris Events Manager Holly Thacker YACHTING
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I keep forgetting: why not? On the City of Adelaide (above) clipper’s Australian website they claim that one in five Australians can trace an ancester that migrated to Australia as a passenger on that one ship. It’s a startling figure conjuring up the work that was done by so few ships, like the City, in an early era of global travel for ordinary folk. The venerable old clipper, soon due to make her way in the hold of a cargo ship back to South Australia after 20 years in the wind and rain of a Scottish beach, spent 23 years from 1864 plying the three-month clipper route between Europe and the emergent colony – taking as many Germans, who would one day turn it into one of the world’s great wine-growing regions, as Brits. As we go to press the City of Adelaide has arrived at Chatham docks and will be taken on to stay at Greenwich next to a more famous clipper: Cutty Sark. At an as-yet-unspecified date she is going to Oz – just as long as the new coalition government ratifies the £495,000, which was agreed beforehand to pay for her passage. A recent report suggests the deal might be in limbo. So far the move has cost the British taxpayer some £700,000, which seems steep, but reflects the lack of action over the old clipper for so many years. Meanwhile, the dear old Cutty Sark has received £53m of lottery and taxpayers’ “hammered and money, to fly suspended above her own dry dock café where I believe they still haven’t had the (self loved back to deprecating) wit to offer a Cutty Butty on the menu. seaworthiness” Neither ship, of course, is ever destined to sail again… And people keep telling me why, without a shadow of a doubt, this can never, ever, be allowed to happen again. I nod when I hear this… I’ll often be in a jacket and holding one of those white catering cups of coffee on its matching saucer. You know the type of event. And for a few minutes I’ll go: “Oh no, of course, never to sea; it would be wrong, no chance, ever…” Clearly, this line of argument bypassed those involved with the James Craig, of Sydney, and the Charles W Morgan of Mystic Seaport (CB visits the latter next month) – both great examples of restoration and off to sea. Then I’ll be in a boatyard, where the most run-down old hulks and tore-outs are being hammered and loved back to seaworthiness and I swear… I just forget why we can’t restore a ship, to sail, like this. Maybe remind me again? CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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CArlo Borlenghi
LOGBOOK
Logbook
LOGBOOK
Out and about
Monaco
Classic Week Classic Boat was in the French Riviera for one of the season’s most eagerly anticipated regattas STORY DAN HOUSTON AND STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES
LOGBOOK
Monaco
CArlo Borlenghi
T Port Hercule, centre of the action, overlooked by a statue of Ulysses 8
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
he term ‘rock star’, when used to describe a sail-racing bod is a ridiculous misnomer. So when we say there’s a new rock star owner at the helm of the 1906 Fife III yacht Eva at Monaco Classic Week, we are in fact talking about the windmill, power chord-strumming guitarist of The Who, Pete Townshend, who bought Eva back in May. The reason the band is not playing a lucrative comeback gig at a venue near you anytime soon is because Pete “just wants to go sailing” instead, despite entreaties from Roger Daltrey, apparently. He wasn’t alone. The fleet of 58 classic yachts in Monaco’s Port Hercule was comically and gloriously
LOGBOOK
nigel PerT
DAn hoUSTon
Who was who?
Monaco
Argentinian yacht designer German Frers was at Monaco on his yacht Sonny, designed by his father. It was the first time the yacht had sailed out of South American waters and she crossed on her own keel
CArlo Borlenghi
nigel PerT
STeFFAn MeYriC hUgheS
Meet the new boss, Pete Townshend. Or the new owner, rather, of the Fife III 1906 yacht Eva, which he acquired and has sailed since May this year. His past yachts have included Zephyr and Pazienza
Above: winds were light but enough for the likes of (l-r) Hispania, Tuiga and The Lady Anne to race and enjoy the last rays of summer
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston was “surprised” to receive this Personality of the Year award from YCM. No one else was. It was given at Monaco’s Musée Océanographique, where guests had a chance to sip champagne and stroke sharks in an open tank before the prizegiving
excessive, even for a smart Mediterranean regatta. Lulworth, Elena, Eleonora, Mariquita, all four 15-Ms, Creole... the pantheon goes on. It seemed all the biggest new-builds and restorations of the classic-boat scene had gathered in one place to celebrate the glory of sailing for five days and to enjoy the last vestiges of summer. Pete Townshend was not the only face in town. We met Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, who was judging ‘La Belle Classe’ award. Allegra Gucci was on board Creole, which was racing again for the first time in 20 years, and German Frers was over from Argentina on his yacht Sonny. Yet for all this, the Yacht Club de Monaco has kept its keel firmly on the water, acting as a beacon of good in a
Paul Goss, skipper of the super schooner Adix and the 15-M The Lady Anne, seen here on Adix. Paul and the crew of The Lady Anne were double winners this year, with victory in the 15-M class and the Concours d’Elégance for good measure
principality that can, at times, feel like a concrete high-rise jungle for tax dodgers. For instance, the guests of honour this year were a (largely Italian) fleet of modest 12ft (3.7m) dinghies that bobbed about in the harbour every day – the International 12-Foot is 100 this year. There was also the reassuringly crusty black sailtraining Tall Ship Belem, built in 1902 and looking as salty as you like in her weathered riveted steel. Plus the club’s commitment to youth sail-training aboard Tuiga is well-known, and admirable; the 15-Ms, now in their own class, had six races over the three days, with The Lady Anne winning. And then there were the powerboats, Rivas galore... but let’s see some pictures. CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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LOGBOOK
Monaco
RIGHT: STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES; MIDDLE AND FAR RIGHT: DAN HOUSTON
Brits abroad
The best yachting photographers in the world flocked to Monaco. Philip Plisson, Carlo Borlenghi and Nigel Pert were among those present, not to mention Kos Evans, pictured here with her husband Chris Savage sailing on the S&S inboard yawl Skylark
English sailor Pelham Olive at the helm of his 1903 Mylne-designed South Coast One-Design 38 yacht Kelpie, effectively a prototype of the 12-M class. Pelham restored Kelpie over two winters, sailing her in the summers in between (CB279). He now races Kelpie at many Med regattas.
International 12-Foots For a dinghy class, the International 12-Foot has enjoyed an unbelievable centenary year with regattas at its ‘birthplace’ in West Kirby and elsewhere, crowned by an invitational appearance as guests at Monaco. Twenty nine boats, mostly Italian, raced and Cicci, sailed by Filippo Jannello, finished first overall. The dinghy, a clinker-built, lug-rigged singlehanded racer, was drawn by Briton George Cockshott, although of late they have been virtually unknown in Britain but popular in Japan, The Netherlands and Italy. That is changing, as a spurt of building activity in Britain in the lead-up to the centenary means that at least four boatbuilders now offer the boat. The International 12-Foot was the first class in the world to gain international status and these days they come in mahogany, larch or clinker-effect GRP. 10
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
CARLO BORLENGHI
Johnny Caulcutt, Isle of Wight sailor and boat collector, known for his parties at his Yarmouth house, has formed an all-British ownership for the Fife III yacht Mariquita, the only 19-M in sailing condition in the world. This season has been their first as new owners
Above: Marigold (foreground) and Partridge provided an alternative to the many 20th-century classics with their 19th-century straight stems and flush decks. After six years in the Med, Marigold will soon return home to Britain to find a new owner
LOGBOOK
Monaco
DAn hoUSTon
DAn hoUSTon
DAn hoUSTon
Runabouts splashed through the chop and swell of the Bay of Monaco
The most unusual yacht was the catboat-inspired Alcyon. Full story soon!
The Fife 15-M Mariska, which had a minor collision with Hispania
DAn hoUSTon
CArlo Borlenghi
Crew of Adix and The Lady Anne; The Lady Anne won her race and the concours
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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LOGBOOK
Monaco
above anD top: Carlo borlengHi
Monaco at speed
Dan Houston
rigHt anD far rigHt: steffan MeYriC HugHes
Monaco has a long association with racing under power, something the YCM honoured in the many vintage posters quayside, and on the water, with the inclusion of vintage runabouts, motor yachts and steamboats. What with all the Rivas (like the Ariston, above left), the Chris-Crafts and Hackers present, we felt we’d found the runabout mother lode. But the one we went for a wild ride in, the 12ft 6in (3.8m) Albatross (above right), was quicker than any of them. These British aluminium speedboats designed in 1960 can hit 50 knots thanks to their Coventry Climax engines. Their great champion John Fildes, and Iain Peace, son of the boat’s designer, were a sight skimming around the fleet airborne in two identical A-series boats. Past owners include the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Rainier of Monaco, so the boats felt right at home.
The wall where skippers, crews and owners left their mark 12
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
A fleet of three steamers, including Isle of Jura (right) with her wood-fired boiler
LOGBOOK
nigel pert
CArlo Bolenghi
Monaco
Left to right: Riva Junior, Chris-Craft Cobra and Chris-Craft Sea Skiff
The 1927 Nicholson schooner Creole raced by Allegra Gucci (see below)
Playing to the gallery outside the YCM clubhouse
CArlo Borlenghi
CArlo Borlenghi
Commodore Anna Nina of the Yacht Club Albania in her sexy heels!
Marie Tabarly, daughter of the late and great Eric, who now keeps and sails his beloved Fife Pen Duick on the Odet in Brittany, was sailing foredeck on the 15-M Mariska at Monaco. The 29-year-old was making it look easy as she brought in the vast asymmetric: “She’s doing all the work on that boat herself,” was the comment of one bystander.
DAn houston
CArlo Borlenghi, nigel pert, DAn houston
Sailors and artists
Allegra Gucci tips her hat from the schooner Creole (above). It was the first time the three-master had raced at the event in 20 years; Allegra was five months pregnant and so her usual boat, the 1896 C&N Avel is laid up.
Maritime artist Marc Berthier, known for his evocative and accurate aquarelles of classic boats and boating events, joined Laurence Diane Ramès, ex-skipper of Mariska and sailing with the majestic schooner Eva at Monaco.
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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www.robbeberking.com
LOGBOOK
Maldon
Town Regatta
Main image: Smacks, ECODs, gaffers – even modern yachts – all take part in the traditional end-of-season sailing event on the River Blackwater
Down, but not out WORDS PETER SMITH PictuReS JESSIca RobERTS-SMITH I now know a very obvious way to win races, but more on that later… The annual Maldon Town Regatta started under grey skies with light winds and, while open to both old and new boats, it is dominated by traditional boats. The big and small Essex Smack classes, looking resplendent with their long bowsprits set with light-weather foresails, are also rightly given their own start. Fiercely competitive, this year’s winners were the 1885 Aldousbuilt Alberta (Big Class) and Lizzie Annie (Small Class). The rest of the fleet, including gaff-rigged and modern yachts, got away from the start line at various speeds. I had entered Bardu, my 8-ton Gauntlet, which was built in 1951 to race offshore. As a result, she is not best suited to the quiet weather and sheltered waters of the River Blackwater – this race required fine sail adjustments and plenty of preparation, and therein lies the other ingredient for success. I don’t race regularly, spending the season cruising, and the antifoul was losing its strength to repel marine fauna. However, buoyed by my young crew, I set our original cotton spinnaker; however, it made little difference as the fleet moved further ahead. We finished, but out of time. We were even beaten by a Memory, Letty May – late starting after her engine failed! But how to win? In 20 years the best I’ve done is third, but hope is at hand. It turned out that a Twister called Susanne, raced by surveyor Lawrence Weldon, was successful. He had spent the previous weekend on the scrubbing piles and it paid massive dividends when she won the modern class. So, preparation is paramount. And that’s about the bottom of that.
Above: Classic Boat’s art editor sets the spinnaker on his Gauntlet Bardu
Above: Lizzie Annie’s Bob Fawkes receiving the winner’s trophy CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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LOGBOOK
Museum of Yachting Classic Regatta
The S&S sloop Sonny won the top award with best overall corrected time
History in the harbour SToRY AND PHoToGRAPHS CATE BROWN
Above: Bagatelle also received a Designer Award as the top-performing Herreshoff
RIGHT: C/o PANERAI
Above: Black Watch back on the water after an extensive restoration
Trevor Fetter (centre), co-owner and skipper of Black Watch, collects the trophy for winning the first ever North American Panerai Classic Yachts Challenge 16
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
Hosted annually over the Labor Day weekend, out of Newport, Rhode Island, the Museum of Yachting Classic Yacht Regatta draws competitors from far and wide in an annual showcase of classics and camaraderie. Started by a group of New England sailors in 1980 in an effort to raise awareness about the once glorious classic yachts, the first event saw 40 wooden classics on the starting line, and this year’s 34th edition welcomed 53 yachts. It was also the third and final regatta in the Panerai North American Classic Yachts Challenge. Designed to preserve the allure of endangered classics and the culture and heritage of yachting, the MoY Classic Yacht Regatta draws competitors sailing true classics as well as Spirit-of-Tradition yachts, which are modern builds but traditional designs. This year’s regatta started off with fog and swell as these graceful historic yachts departed Newport Harbour to circumnavigate the 22-mile course around Conanicut Island. A host of awards were presented, including four Classic Yacht Parade Awards and five Speciality Awards. Among some of the top finishers were Rival, winner of the Spirit-of-Tradition Non-Spinnaker class; Bagatelle finished second in the Classic Non-Spinnaker CRF Rating under 34 division (pictured left); Northern Light came second behind Gleam in the 12-Metre Vintage class; and the top finisher in the Classic Non-Spinnaker with CRF Rating of 34 and Over group, plus the Overall Classic Yacht Regatta Winner, was Sonny – a 1935 Sparkman & Stephens 53ft (16.2m) sloop. But perhaps the two who walked away with the biggest trophies were the overall winners of the Panerai North American Classic Yachts Challenge. Heroina, a 1993 German Frers 73ft 11in (22.5m) sloop, took the Overall Panerai Spirit of Tradition Division Award, and the big winner of the inaugural North American Panerai Classics Challenge Trophy was Black Watch – the 1938 S&S 68ft (20.7m) yawl, sailed under Trevor Fetter.
SPIRIT
YAC H T S
nothing comes close the ultimate modern classic
World class design, performance and build www.spirityachts.com
Tell Tales
Classic Boat’s address: Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ For phone numbers, please see page 5
SCOTLAND
The 149-year-old clipper ship City of Adelaide, stranded on a slipway in Irvine, Scotland, for the last two decades, has at last put to sea for a new life in her namesake port in Australia, reports Peter Willis. On 6 September her ownership was transferred from the Scottish Maritime Museum to the South Australian group Clipper Ship ‘City of Adelaide’ Ltd (CSCOAL) and, on a bespoke steel cradle, she was transferred across mudflats to a grounded shallow-draught barge. Three days later the barge floated free and the following day, the clipper was towed through the Irvine Bridge. At High Water on 20 September the final mooring line was cast off and City of Adelaide, under tow, left Scotland, probably forever. This was, however, not her final contact with the British Isles. Her journey will take her to Greenwich, London, where she will rest alongside Cutty Sark for an unspecified period.
PETER ROBERTS
‘Other Cutty Sark’ leaves for Australia
On 18 October she will be visited by the Duke of Edinburgh, who 12 years ago convened a conference on the future of the ship at which her name was formally changed back to City of Adelaide, from HMS Carrick, bestowed by the Royal Navy when it acquired her in 1927 to avoid confusion with an existing naval ‘Adelaide’. Following the visit to Greenwich, City of Adelaide will head for Europe and a quarantine and preparation
Above: the ship being prepared for her long voyage to Australia
procedure before transfer to a cargo ship for the voyage to the Australian seaport where, preserved though not restored, she will be put on display. Built in 1864, City of Adelaide is the older of the two surviving clipper ships, five years senior to Cutty Sark. Over the next 22 years she carried emigrants to South Australia – it’s thought that a quarter of the state can trace their ancestry to an Adelaide passenger. In 1992 she was transferred to the Scottish Maritime Museum and the slipway at Irvine. Lack of funds doomed her, and at one stage ‘deconstruction’ was proposed. Outrage and a number of campaigns ensued, including one to return her to her birthplace in Sunderland. In the end though, only the CSCOAL had the funding and patience to resolve the ownership issue and move the ship across preserved wetlands, down a silted river, and halfway around the world.
DAN HOUSTON
Last Brixham Trawler to be saved
A recent rubber stamp from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has raised hopes that the last Brixham FRANCE Trawler in British waters will be restored to sailing condition in her home town of Brixham, Devon. With the other five known Brixham Trawlers also sailing there, it would create a remarkably complete Charles E Nicholson’s 1892 gaff cutter was a key restoration of the heritage fleet for the town. The boat in question, Torbay Lass, was built of larch on oak late 1980s, along with the Fife schooner Altair and the J-Class in 1923 by R Jackman and Sons, but was renamed Kenya Jacaranda in the 1940s under Endeavour. Her owner of 22 years, Glen Allan, is nearing 80 and hopes for a British buyer when the boat returns in spring 2014. private ownership. After the war, she served as a sail-trainer until a decade ago, out of She won an award for the most authentic restoration in Tilbury Docks in the Thames Estuary. Time was running out though: a sinking in 2007 and last year, the centenarians race in 2010 was followed by uncertainty about the tenure of her mooring. St Tropez. “There are 80 blocks on board and no A first-stage HLF grant, enough for basic repairs and the voyage from winches,” said Glen. “People think she must London to Devon later this year (on her own bottom), has already been If you’re not already be scary to sail, but my skipper and I once made. The total cost of rebuild – an estimated £1.27M – will, if the application a subscriber, have a took her from England to Finland with two is successful, be borne by the HLF and private fundraising: £900,000 of look at our free sample issue, complete novices as crew.” Marigold is 60ft the former to £371,000 of the latter. Her new owners, the Trinity Sailing a digest of the June 2013 issue. Ju Foundation, own three other Brixham Trawlers: Leader, Provident and (18.3m) LOA and she’s asking €550,000 st go to: classicboat.co.uk/ (£460,000) at sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk. Golden Vanity. It is likely that Bob Cann and Son will lead the rebuild. free-sample-and-p review
Marigold heads back to Britain
Free Classic Boat
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
C/O TRINITY SAILING TRUST
DEVON
abner KinGsman, c/o acea
mystic seaport, rosenFelD collection
SAN FrANCISCO
First Briton in AC win in 110 years team oracle’s america’s cup victory on 25 september has been widely hailed as one of the greatest sporting comebacks of all time. Despite decidedly unsporting behaviour at the start of the 15-day series (the longest america’s cup in history), with penalties imposed for cheating, the usa team came from 8-1 down to win 9-8 in the best-of-17 series against challengers new Zealand in the sea off san Francisco. this year’s race got the attention of the world’s media in a way that competitive sailing has not done for years. radio Four, bbc2, newsnight and even the Guardian increased coverage as the fightback gained momentum day after day. america’s victory, backed by software billionaire larry ellison, was thanks
in part to signing on british olympian sir ben ainslie as tactician halfway through. ben’s brilliant and adversarial tactics made him a worthy successor to the only other briton ever to have played a significant part on a winning ac yacht: charlie barr, the scottish skipper who successfully defended the cup for america in 1899, 1901 and 1903. (you can read our three-part mini series on him online now at our website, classicboat.co.uk.) ben ainslie, who rated his ac role as “more rewarding” than his olympic successes, has now set his sights on mounting a british cup challenge. only time will tell if his fame and the momentum generated by this recent spectacle will be enough to raise the £100 million or more needed to mount a serious challenge.
paul breach, c/o albatross marine
Above, left to right: Ben Ainslie, tactician for Oracle, tastes victory; Britain’s original AC genius, Charlie Barr, who skippered the USA to three wins in 1899, 1901 and 1903
NOrFOLK
caryn b Davies
Spartan 1913
Only surviving, sailing New York 50 as the only surviving, sailing new york 50, spartan must count as a very special yacht indeed. the class was commissioned by the new york yacht club and designed by nathanael herreshoff, whose yard went on to build nine between 1912 and 1913. the gaff cutters were fast and slippery but spartan was down on her uppers in the 70s and 80s, with a series of quick and dirty ‘improvements’ for caribbean charters. her restoration took place over 30 years by herreshoff specialists mcclave, philbrick and Giblin. she’s 72ft (21.9m) long with double planking and herreshoff’s trademark diagonal strapping. she is quite a sight at the american east coast regattas, and was shortlisted for our restoration of the year award in 2011. Full story in cb268.
an increasing number of walkers have been reporting a shipwreck at very low tides near the historic saxon village of Waxham on the norfolk coast, reports maurice Gray. some maritime historians suggest that the ‘Waxham Wreck’ is part of the alderson, a two-masted, wooden vessel collier from sunderland, wrecked in 1842. there is also the suggestion that it could be the 240-ton Frau agatha of the hamburg-london run. that ship was carrying cloth, hides, staves, boards and wine (valued at £50,000) and was wrecked near sea palling on 15 october 1768. the cargo was never recovered at the time but some pottery was also found recently less than a hundred yards from the wreck. the ‘Waxham Wreck’ has since disappeared beneath the sands and may not be seen again for many years to come. CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
maurice Gray
Low tides reveal mystery wreck
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CARLO BORLENGHI
MEDITERRANEAN RACINg
15-Ms wave goodbye to CIM rule One of the benefits of the growing number of restored (and newly built) classic yachts over the years has been the growth in small, separate classes that allow for tighter racing than can be permitted by handicapping. The exploding J-Class is the best known example, but we are also seeing significant fleets of S&S inboard yawls and the 15-M class, which has, since the launch of Hispania two years ago, formed a very tight group of four yachts, all Fife-designed First Rule 15-Ms that race boat for boat at classic yacht regattas. At the recent Monaco Classic Week (see p6) for instance, Hispania lost her topmast after a spar from Mariska became entangled with her
forestay in light airs. The next day, in the spirit of one-design racing, Tuiga’s spare topmast had been installed in its place and racing continued. Skipper Paul Goss of the 15-M The Lady Anne explained to CB how the class writes its own race programme, with four races in 2013: Mahón, Marseille, Monaco and Portofino. “It’s amazing, very close racing,” he said. Paul and The Lady Anne ran foul of the CIM rules for many years for the carbon core in her mast, which, he says, makes no difference to performance but allows for safer, easier cruising. It is something of a relief for them to be able to race again on a level playing field and Paul and crew won their
Above, left to right: The Lady Anne (15-M), Chinook (NY40), Tuiga (15-M) and Mariska (15-M)
race at Monaco – not to mention overall victory in 2012 and 2013, we recently learned. After Monaco, the last race of the year at Portofino saw some very close racing – three yachts tied on points – and more carnage; again Hispania lost another spar, this time her bowsprit, to Mariska. Things are great in the 15s but, Paul told CB: “I’m very conscious of the frailty of the class, with only four boats. We’d like two more boats ideally.” By this, he means restored originals, or authentic new boats or replicas to old designs. This is a very interesting opportunity for someone who is serious about classic yacht racing and wants to compete in this size range (c75ft/23m).
MALLORCA, SPAIN
NICO mARtíNEz, C/O tHE ORGANIsERs
Celebration of working sail
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
It wasn’t just big Fifes and the like at the 19th Regata Illes Balears Clàssics in August. the lateen-rigged workboats added a different, more local dimension. Eventual winner in the category was Regio Lupita, skippered by Rafael Carrillo Vich. there was a separate class for the local llaüt workboats. Victory went to Annika (left), skippered by miguel Rigo. the Dragons were there too, with racing as fierce as ever, gold eventually going to thalata. And it was victory at last for comedian Griff Rhys Jones, as his s&s yawl Argyll took first in class and first overall. Competition was fierce, with the cream of the world’s classic crop in attendance – as well as another s&s yawl, manitou.
TELL TALES FrANCE
Jean-Claude Montesinos 1952-2013 Jean-Claude Montesinos, president of the Yacht Club de Cannes, died suddenly on 1 September, two days before his 61st birthday. He was president of the yacht club for five years, and a tireless champion for the cause of youth sailing. His sailing accomplishments included a solo transat on a Souriceau micro cruiser. His colleagues at the club have described him as a man of great sensitivity. He leaves behind a wife, Carine, and daughter, Charlotte.
martin nott
Much of the fleet present at Monaco (p6) stayed on to compete in the 35th Régates Royales and enjoyed stiff breezes of over 20 knots. Moonbeam of Fife III won the Big Class, while Graham Walker’s Chinook, new on the scene, won in the gaffers’ class. This year though, as well as these glorious, ubiquitous sights, was a fleet of seven Broads One-Designs, designed in 1900 by Linton Hope. They had made the long journey from their home, the Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club in Lowestoft to race in sunnier climes. Argentinian yacht designer German Frers was racing in the bermudan class on his father’s design Sonny; not to mention winning in an informal match race against young Robbie Fabre of Vagabundo II, a fellow Frers yacht owner (CB284).
niGel pert
Broads yachts at Cannes
BrEST, FrANCE Clipper Race founder and legendary British yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston has had his handprints cast for a sailing “Walk of Record Breakers” in the French maritime city of Brest. During the first Clipper Race stopover of 2013, Knox-Johnston was invited to become part of Brest’s “Walk of Record Breakers”, which will open later this year and will
feature the handprints of France’s most famous circumnavigators. Knox-Johnston is a much celebrated figure in the city after he won the Trophée Jules Verne in Brest in 1994 with the late Sir Peter Blake. He has also attended Brest’s famous maritime festival several times with his yacht Suhaili, on which he sailed in his record-breaking circumnavigation in 1968/9.
C/o Clipper ventures
Hands across the ocean for RKJ
wOrD OF ThE mONTh
Javels
ellen massey leonard
Victoria Harbour classics eighty classic boats, roughly split between sail and power, gathered on 30 august for the 36th annual victoria Classic boat Festival. elmore, which won best tug, was the oldest there, built in 1890. the festival, sponsored by Canoe Cove marina, featured a sailpast and steamboat parade, as well as sailing and rowing races over its three days. the people’s Choice award went to the restored runabout Wee duggie, and the 14 judges awarded several trophies, including best sail to the lovely topsail schooner alcyone. ellen massey leonard
Jose Zalabardo
BC, CANADA
ESSEX COAST, UK
Buxey Ashes on wet wicket it was more mlWs than lbW on 8 september, as tollesbury Cruising Club and the maldon little ship Club played a low-tide game of cricket in a less famous version of the annual game on the bramble bank in the solent. this match – the buxey ashes – has been held for generations on buxey sands, five miles off the dengie peninsula, and on this occasion victory went to maldon. John rogers
“A prop or stanchion with a semicircular groove cut into its upper end for the support of a boom when at rest. it is sometimes used instead of a crutch to take the weight of the boom off the halyards.” A Dictionary of Sea Terms A Ansted, 1944
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
21
Mercury rising She’s a concours winner, deceptively quick and the apogee of her forgotten designer Sam Crocker. We sail a boat for all seasons at the Barcelona Classic Story STEFFAN MEyric hughES photographS NicO MArTíNEZ
ALL deck detAiLs BY sHMH
MERCURY
Above, left to right: the bronze work is left to take on its natural verdigris colour and the winch holders are made in green suede to match. Now that’s practical style! Left: flying her spinnaker
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
I
t had been touch and go getting aboard Mercury at the Puig Vela Classica in Barcelona this July. The first day out on the water, a number of us had been on the press boat, blasting up and down the fleet of 44 classics, racing the helicopters clattering overhead. The hard, concrete-and-glass coastline that hides the Catalan jewel’s lovely interior was glittering through a light haze half a mile away. Gaudí must have been turning in his grave. These press boats usually harbour three kinds of journalist: the Sunday supplement types who um and ah over the likes of Mariquita and Mariette (who could fail to?); professional photographers covering the event, in this case Spanish maestro Nico Martínez toting long lenses the size of a cannon; and the yachting hacks sizing up the fleet for boats they want to feature in their magazines. I don’t know what the girl from France’s Yachting Classique thought but for this correspondent it had to be Mercury – and Nico’s photos should show why. There was also the provenance (we know little about her designer), the fact that the boat has been on our radar for 10 years, and just because you know by looking at her powerful, high-shouldered bermudan rig that she’s a boat that could sail you around the cans at any smart regatta with a crew of 12; or around the world with a crew of two. It was short notice, but owners Jordi Cabau, a native Barcelonian, and his German wife Heidi, youngest daughter Tanit and a crew of friends made
Above: the cockpit is uncluttered and spacious. Note the chunky Highfields original compass binnacle and new laminated winch mounts
me feel very welcome for a day’s racing aboard Sam Crocker’s 1938 masterpiece. The first feeling when stepping on board Mercury is of a very traditional 1930s classic with some unique touches, and the beauty of this boat is as much in the details as in any of the more obvious clues like counter or sheer. The stanchion posts, for example, have a pleasing taper to their tips and are either original or recast as original; they’re a little higher than on some boats where they seem to be perfectly sited to catch the back of the knees and send you tumbling. The bronze boom crutch is a feature at the stern; the air vents are bespoke to the boat and unique – they are not Dorade vents, so popular in that first decade of Olin Stephens’ fame; and the companionway, offset to starboard, is enough to make anyone question the supremacy of symmetry. Heidi shows me around below decks, where her touches are everywhere from the monogrammed linen to the vase of flowers on the saloon table. The thing that amazes most about Mercury, though, is her condition. She was relaunched after a two-year restoration in 2002; but, despite being a family yacht (no professional crew to varnish and polish here; it’s a strictly Corinthian affair) with a heavy regatta schedule under a blistering Mediterranean sun, it could have been yesterday. It’s no surprise that Mercury won ‘best restoration’ at the Conde de Barcelona in 2003 – then four years later took the concours d’elegance at the Monaco Classic Week.
Heidi and Jordi bought Mercury in 2001. After searching high and low for some years for a wooden yacht to restore, Jordi found her in Pollença. Wooden yacht restoration was in its infancy in Spain then, and Jordi and Heidi had no previous experience of this sort of thing to fall back on, which was probably just as well, as the job turned out to be bigger than they realised. Their initial expectation of a two-month job was wildly optimistic, but thankfully, there was a Spanish hero on hand in the shape of the second-generation Mallorcan boatbuilder Mateo Grimaldi. Mateo has also masterminded the restorations of the 82ft (25m) steel schooner Dolphin, the Alden yacht Sonata and four of the Balearic charter boats featured in CB301. He was on board with us as crew in Barcelona and I have a vivid memory of the dramatic way he drank water, by raising a litre bottle high into the air, head upturned and letting it cascade into his open mouth. Tanit and a crew member tried to emulate him, got wet, and resorted to drinking it in the conventional manner.
the fast show Mercury, design number 191 from Sam Crocker’s board, is unapologetically a cruising yacht. She’s of moderate displacement with a beam slightly greater than typical for a northern European yacht (but quite normal for the USA at the time) and a moderate draught. Similarly, her sail area to displacement ratio can only be described as moderate. So it is something of a surprise that, CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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MERCURY Designer
Sam Crocker BuilDer
Simms Brothers, 1938 lOA
51ft 5in (15.7m) lWl
39ft 10in (12.1m) BeAm
12ft 8in (3.9m) DrAught
6ft 1in (1.9m) sAil AreA
1,290qft (120m2) DisplAcement
40,000lb (18 tonnes)
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
SHMH
SHMH
SHMH
MERCURY
Clockwise from top left: the rebuilt saloon; new and old in the galley; monogrammed linen; Heidi at Mercury’s wheel; Heidi (centre) with her daughter Tanit (right); Jordi ready to set sail
close-hauled, we sail past most of the boats in our class, including at least one contemporary (and compatriot) S&S yawl. Mercury is cutter-rigged, but with the staysail down and a big overlapping genoa up, we are flying. A few minutes later though, we lock horns with another yacht, fail to undertake her, and are forced to tack to get above the mark. We already knew then that second place, Mercury’s realistic maximum with her rating in class, was not going to happen that day. Francesco, formerly of Quantum Sails, Mercury’s sailmaker and sometimes tactician, entertained the company of the cockpit with what sounded like a string of robust anecdotes. His words were drowned in laughter but the tone was clear; Mercury is a happy boat. As Heidi puts it, shouting and stress are not really permitted. We are flying the big overlapping jib as well as the double-clewed spinnaker today as we are in light winds of 5 to 10 knots, which means there’s plenty of time for Mateo to tell me about the boat and the work that he, with much practical help from the Cabau family, put in to bring her back to form.
what lies beneath When Jordi and Heidi bought Mercury, she looked alright and a nasty doghouse and a non-original name – Dama Española – seemed to be all that were wrong at first. So it was farewell to Spanish Lady and back to her original name of Mercury – the one chosen by her first owner, JJ Storrow, who owned the boat for 30 years in
her birthplace near Marblehead, USA. Then away with that doghouse. But as so often happens, the deeper Mateo dug, the more problems he unearthed. The metalware was all taken off the boat to be restored and polished and then the delving began. It transpired that nearly all the frames were badly cracked and needed renewal. The sternpost and stem didn’t look much better, so it was decision time. Abandon the project or dive in deep. They chose the latter path. Mercury’s construction is of two layers of carvel planking on American oak frames. Reading upwards from the keelson, the first three planks are single-layered and a hefty 2in (5cm) thick. These were replaced in mahogany, as original, and it was a challenge to work these big recalcitrant timbers into shape, something Mateo achieved with repeated soakings and slow persuasion, day after day. Upwards of that, the planking is mahogany on the outside and cedar on the inside, with a total thickness of 1¼in (3.5cm). Then the deck, which they had initially thought to be sound, proved to be in need of replacement, plus in turn some deck beams, some carlins, the covering board, stringers, gunwale and rubbing strakes. In the end, most of the boat was renewed like-for-like with new. But there are three factors that have made Mercury more than usually authentic. Firstly, the fixtures and fittings that have, by and large, survived and rest in situ on the boat; secondly, the availability of the original drawings and the decision to stick to them, down to the CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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SHMH
MERCURY
Above, left to right: the Alden cutter Sonata was also rescued by the Cabaus; a commemorative ‘restoration’ plate
placement of internal bulkheads; and thirdly, reverting Mercury back to her beautiful original companionway configuration. The yacht had previously had the back of the cabin trunk extended all the way to starboard, cutting off the companionway from the cockpit. Now it’s back to its original state and the small deck directly aft of it makes a lovely place to sit, wedged against the heeling motion between cabin and coaming. It’s typically American and looks fabulous to eyes tired of the symmetry of most yachts. The interior, in cherry wood, is a treat: light, in period style, with delightful touches such as the huge, original gearstick from the engine, which has been mounted on the wall as a decorative feature that can also be dismounted and used to work the hand pump for the bilge. About the only bit of original kit that was removed was the Taylor’s stove in the galley which, original to the boat’s design, is near the bows. “I couldn’t stand it,” confided Heidi, showing me the burn marks on the bulkhead above it, where the stove had charred the boat with its characteristic fireball start-up procedure. The boat has a good-sized aft cabin that is accessible through a hatch in the coachroof (a fairly athletic manoeuvre just to get into bed, by the looks of it) as well as by the main, offset companionway. In here, a small jewellery box sits atop the chest of drawers. It looks as though it has been inspired by the chest but, in fact, it’s
the other way around. The jewellery box is original and steered the design theme for the rest of the cabin, as they had no drawings or photographs to go by for this level of interior detail. New sails (from Ratsey & Lapthorn) and new rigging went on. The boat was relaunched in 2002, and Mercury has since proved herself to be raceworthy and seaworthy; she’s immaculately turned out and is obviously a place of great happiness for her family – not least 17-year-old Tanit who was with us that day – which culminated in a rising thermal breeze filling in as the afternoon wore on, and a third place, despite our bad tack earlier in the day. In normal circumstances, that would be the end of the story. Except that four years after Mercury’s relaunch, in 2006, the Cabau family bought another boat of quite stunning similarity. Sonata was designed around the same time by John G Alden – the prolific naval architect who Crocker worked under. She was built within 50 miles of Mercury and is, like Mercury, a bermudan cutter of moderate size (she’s 3ft/0.9m shorter). By the early 21st century she, like Mercury, had ended up in Mallorca, in a neighbour’s back garden in fact, and clearly needed a saviour. And the Cabaus and Mateo were ready once again. Today, the two are moored side by side in Puerto Portals, near the Cabau family home. They must demand a shocking amount of varnishing. But that is another story…
C/O CrOCker FAMILY
Sam Crocker
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Born in Newton, Mass, Sam Crocker studied naval architecture at MIT and graduated in 1911. For the next four years he worked for naval architect George Owen of Newton, then, during the war, he directed crews planking 110ft (33.5m) fast ‘sub-chasers’ built at the Lawley Yard in Neponset, Mass. Afterwards, he worked with John Alden for five years, turning out many popular designs bearing the distinct Crocker character, like the Malabar Junior. In 1924 he opened his own office in Boston, designing fishing boats, yachts and powerboats, although he specialised in small sailing yachts. Mercury was one of his larger yachts. By the time of his death in 1964, he had designed 344 boats. American yacht designer Joel White writes in his introduction to the 1985 book Sam Crocker’s Boats: A Design Catalogue that Crocker’s yachts were “often unique in character, easily distinguished from the work of other designers. Crocker boats tend to have a staunch, rugged look, based on a workboat heritage. Crocker seemed to know that part of the function of the appearance of a cruising boat is to bolster the confidence of her crew.” Crocker was particularly known as a ‘boatbuilder’s designer’ and an example of this is that he generally worked in ¾in = 1 scale (1:16), so that 1/16 of an inch on the drawings equalled an inch on the boat, making it easier to scale from the drawings with a standard ruler. Boatbuilder and designer Bud McIntosh said Crocker was the best designer he ever worked with.
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The Fighting Temeraire, 1838, oil on canvas, 36in x 48in (91cm x 122cm) It is hard to talk about Turner without reference to this painting, which won the Greatest Painting in Britain contest on Radio 4 in 2005, beating Constable’s The Hay Wain into second. This depiction of sail making way for steam as the great ship is towed to her end by a modern steamer (note the sun setting on the age of sail) should not, however, be taken to mean that Turner was sentimental for the past, like many of his contemporaries. His paintings of working steam vessels have never been bettered.
Turner and
Sea
If you’re a fan of the great British landscape painter, the major forthcoming exhibition at the National Maritime Museum this winter is a must. For an exclusive preview, we asked the museum’s resident Turner expert Pieter van der Merwe for an insight SEE WORDS STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
C/O NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON
the
MORE
at classicboat.c o.uk Th
e exhibition 22 November toruns from 21 10am-6.30pm,April, To buy tickets go to rmg.co.uk,
THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON
Keelmen Heaving In Coals By Moonlight, 1835, oil on canvas, 36in x 48in (91cm x 122cm) This was painted soon after Turner’s most productive visit to Venice. By the 1830s, Venice was a symbol of old empire in decline. The new powers, dirty and black, belonged to a rising industrial power: Britain. On a visit to Newcastle, Turner painted this modern variation on an Arcadian landscape. The elegaic Venetian sun has been replaced by a cold moon and the depth of field is highlighted by a pot of tar in the foreground (right), floating untended on… well, we’re not quite sure what! “It’s a bit of his dry humour, a Turnerian joke,” thinks Pieter. CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON
TURNER AND THE SEA
The breaking news is that Turner had a boat. In fact, he was what we would today describe as a ‘small boat’ man, both in his life, with a sailing and rowing skiff on the Thames at Brentford, and in his art. “Unlike his contemporaries, he was not interested in big merchant ships like East Indiamen,” Pieter reveals. “His subjects were small working sail, with the exception of the Royal Navy.” Turner often travelled the coast by sea in an era when roads were rutted and slow and would sketch on the way. He was, in fact, on this very ‘packet’ from England to France on this very storm-tossed sea. The boat nearly collided with the French boat running out to sea in this painting. Pieter describes it thus: “We see Turner’s understanding of the drama of being at sea, his understanding of those ‘will we won’t we collide’ moments that all sailors understand. All of Turner is here: tension of wind and weather, fishing folk… and the sky and low horizon is 17th-century Dutch in its influence.” This is one of the earliest paintings in the exhibition. 32
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
TATE
Calais Pier, With French Poissards Preparing For Sea: An English Packet Arriving 1802, oil on canvas, 68in x 94in (172cm x 240cm)
Snow Storm – Steam Boat Off A Harbour’s Mouth 1842, oil on canvas, 36in x 48in (91cm x 122cm) Turner claims to have weathered this storm lashed to the mast. There is no proof of this, but either way, this depiction is vividly immediate. “It’s a tour de force of the imagination,” says Pieter, “an extraordinary vortex and the only marine painting I’ve ever seen where the horizon is not level, echoing the experience of being in a storm. It’s a powerful, almost formless impression, though to conclude from such late works that Turner was a proto-Impressionist is a common error.”
& LAPT
Sailmakers
RN
RAT S
Y
HO
E
Photo Š Beken Of Cowes
The Classic Sailmakers since 1790
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french cOnnecTIOn William Fife III died in 1944 but his designs lived on and a few boats were built later at his Fairlie yard. One of them was this beautiful 1957 double-ender called Ellad, distinguished by a rare canoe stern. We jumped aboard at the Fife Regatta story Dan Houston PhotograPhs nigel pert 34
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
merging from the overnight sleeper train into the wan early morning light of Glasgow Central Station is like visiting another era, for me. I used to get the train here in my teens to visit my brother at university and the station’s 1879 architecture has a pleasant time-shifting effect. But I’m not going off to the Byres Road today; I have to get to Largs, on the mouth of the Clyde for the last couple of days of the Fife Regatta. It’s only the fourth time the regatta has been held. Once every five years, since 1998 the waters around the old Fife boatbuilding dynasty, at nearby Fairlie, have been host to some of the most beautiful yachts the world has ever seen. Fife yachts have dominated the classic boat revival, much more than the more scientifically drawn GL Watson boats (see p48) or other designers of the era. Fife is perhaps only matched by Herreshoff, in America, in terms of the numbers of boats of that era to be restored.
And most spend their time in the Mediterranean where regattas like Monaco (p6), Cannes and St Tropez show them in that Côte d’Azur light. So seeing 20 or more racing in Scotland – many having made it here on their own keel, is a rare and special treat. And I’m determined not to miss it, although as I get out of the taxi at Largs Yacht Club with only an hour or so to go before the race starts, I’m well aware that I might end up as a spectator today. But the organisers Alastair and Fiona Houston (distant relatives surely!), and their PR girl Jo Turner are positive: “Get yourself a coffee, we’ll come and find you.” Ten minutes later my offer to crew for someone has materialised into meeting a charming Frenchman, Didier Griffiths, and his crew Olivier Cyrille, who have sailed the 34ft 6in (10.6m) Ellad here from La Rochelle. Their enthusiasm for the boat and for this event is catching and in no time we’re on board and taking off the sail covers. Ellad’s design was first drawn in 1937 or 1938 as Fife Yard number 830 – Fife’s last design. That order was
Above: Ellad at the Fife Regatta on the Clyde. Her pretty canoe stern is a very rare touch from the great designer
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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ELLAD BUILT
1957 LOA
34ft 6in (10.5m) LWL
25ft 9in (7.9m) BeAm
8ft 5in (2.6m) DrAUghT
5ft 10in (1.8m) SAIL AreA
690sqft (64.1m2)
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
ELLAD
cancelled and it was not until 1951 that it was launched, as Nyatonga, a popular boat which led to six more being built to the same lines. By then, Archie MacMillan, who took over the yard when Fife died in 1944, was running it as The Fairlie Slip Company. Ellad was built, in teak on laminated-oak frames, in 1957 and taken to the London Boat Show in January 1958 named as Navada. She was bought by a Dr Lavoué, of Monaco, who changed her name to Ellad after his sister. Back then she had a little deckhouse (see left), in the vogue of such things at the time. But it was not on Fife’s older plans and so Didier has removed it, taking her back to Fife’s earlier, cleaner lines. While some people doubt Ellad and her sisters’ true Fife provenance, Hilary Watson, who used to work at the yard, remembers them using Fife’s old half model to loft the lines. Fife made two other double-enders: Latifa in 1936 and the 35ft (10.6m) Evenlode for the 1937 Fastnet. We motor out of the marina at Largs and join the other boats waiting for the 11 o’clock start. And Ellad’s larger sister, Latifa, has made it here from Italy – although her owner Mario Pirri suffered a broken hip in
the passage and has had to go back to hospital again, though he did come to race at the beginning of the week, albeit tucked into a bunk below decks while a local crew took her around the courses. A windvane of Latifa graces the church at Fairlie, but it’s one of only a couple of artefacts that would ever suggest they built any type of yachts, let alone the grand designs of Fife on that unpromising stretch of beach. Today’s race is the King’s Course, dating from the days of Edward VII, a butterfly course out across the Clyde and back. The weather is warm enough for waterproofs and there is a fair breeze to start with. Astor, a 60-ton 74ft (22.5m) 1923 schooner from America on an extended world cruise, crosses the line barely a second after the gun, with the 84ft (25.6m) Kentra (1923) and 70ft (21.3m) Latifa following. The larger boats form a majestic sight but the fleet comprises bermudans like Solway Maid and Sonata – both 52ft (15.8m); gaff cutters Viola and Truant, 41ft (12.5m), and the 24-footers (7.3m) Ayrshire Lass – built by Wm Fife II in 1887 and St Patrick (the latter was designed by GL Watson but built by Fife, and it featured on the Classic
Clockwise from top left: new fairlead, jib car and lozenge porthole are in chrome; leather on her stanchions and mast boot; her varnished grip on a Fife-style iron tiller. Above far left: her redesigned interior
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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Above: cracking along in a good breeze, with local yacht Truant in the background
Money Matters Didier paid £42,000 for Ellad and spent another £120,000 on her restoration; she has been valued at £210,000. To have her restored by a yard, he says, would have cost nearly £280,000 38
Boat stand at the London Boat Show in 2011). It’s a great day to be out and even though we are not as fast as other boats, we don’t care. Seeing Kentra and Latifa crossing the western horizon in the afternoon light was almost a magical experience – so rare, surely, in these waters now. And you get the sense that everyone hugely appreciates the chance for these boats to do this. Didier and Olivier have had a good regatta and the boat has proved seaworthy if not the fastest. She had an extensive 18-month restoration at Hubert Stagnol’s yard in Bénodet, launching in April 2012. Olivier was more or less working on the boat full time. Didier, a dentist in Bergerac, was able to make it the 410 miles (660 km) north most weekends – a long drive on a Friday night. Didier asked William Collier, of GL Watson in Liverpool, a leading authority on Fife’s plans, to oversee the work. “He wanted the pre-war look [without a coachroof] so we helped him do that and designed her new rig – she had been a yawl,” Collier comments. “When we started we measured everything and I found the deck to be asymmetric. It was 1in (2.8cm) out, so it had to be completely replaced,” Didier continues. “We took out the interior [full details on page 78] and kept it in a container. But in the end we redesigned that to have a more open and airy feel. It looks more modern but we kept some fittings like the light fittings from the old boat, the table and so on.”
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
Ellad is now open plan down below, with a V-berth in the fo’c’s’le and big saloon berths making a comfy day space. Her frames have been left open (rather than put a ceiling into her) to allow the air to circulate. Olivier remade the lockers and store cupboards with the characteristic Fife craftsmen’s ventilation holes. With everything painted white apart from her cabinsides there is an atmosphere of cleanliness about her, but it’s not just because she’s a dentist’s boat; this is more the style now. The new look also brings the galley aft, in way of the companion, opposite a navigation station making both cooking and chartwork closer to what is happening on deck. The cockpit is also a new design, with a bridge-deck and lockers giving good storage space; she’s built to cruise as much as attend a classic regatta so not having sails stored forward keeps things dry below decks. “Having her original plans was a good start. We could use them to recreate her look as Fife drew her,” Didier explains. “This helped with taking her cabin lines back so she has a flush cabin now. Didier had sailed plastic boats and says he wanted a classic and wanted a restoration project. Realising that restoring a Fife, Mylne, Herreshoff or Stephens would cost as much as restoring a boat from a lesserknown pen, he logically reasoned it would be better to have a boat from one of the celebrated masters. It’s like restoring a Ford or a Porsche – the man hours are largely the same, but at the end of a Porsche restoration you have something of value, both in terms of money and desirability. He spotted Ellad in the listings of the Breton broker Loïc Blanken in the summer of 2010. She was not in terminal decline by any means but had become tired under the paint as it were. After totting up what a full restoration would cost he made a crazy offer (of 50 per cent) and played the waiting game… It paid off and in September Ellad’s owner accepted, and the boat was rapidly transported to Stagnol’s yard. Although Didier could not afford yard prices (see panel below left), Hubert was happy to rent space in his workshop and so she went there (see our new restoration series on p78). Back on the Clyde we have fallen behind in the way that suggests you would rather just stay out on the water than sail any faster. “I don’t care about this [performance],” Didier says, “It’s just fantastic to be here.” As if overhearing him the race officers on the committee boat give us five guns when we cross the finish line. Didier is ecstatic: “Five guns! Who gets five guns to finish!? What a regatta!”
“Five guns! Who gets five guns to finish!? What a regatta!”
Left: traditional Fife dragon insignia – the hallmark of a Fife boat built at Fairlie
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WAR
horse
For a boat that looks more at home on the Norfolk Broads than the battlefields of Dunkirk, Chumley’s past is as surprising as it is heroic. Here’s her heart-warming story STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS PETER WILLIS
CHUMLEY
C
Clockwise from left: Chumley with her distinctive Chris-Craft bow; note the high-up perch-style captain’s chair; former owner, the comedian Tommy Trinder
halmondesleigh, aka Chumley, is unusual among Dunkirk Little Ships (DLS), and has a particularly interesting history. For a start, she is very small – just 25ft (7.6m) overall – and her appearance is quite distinctive with rakish lines that look a little out of place among the larger motor-cruisers that took part in the sail-past at this year’s Thames Traditional Boat Rally. And while the majority of the private craft that make up the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships were requisitioned by the Admiralty to act as ferries to evacuate British troops from Dunkirk under Operation Dynamo, Chumley was volunteered by her owner, who sailed her across himself, with a friend. The owner was none other than Tommy Trinder, then one of Britain’s most popular music hall and radio comedians. His catchphrase was “You lucky people!” and after the war he went on to great success on TV – he was the first host of ITV’s long-running Sunday Night at the London Palladium. He also starred in more than a dozen comedy films, including some wartime moraleboosters for Ealing Studios. His friend and fellow crew member was possibly even more famous before the war. He was Bud Flanagan, who, as part of the duo Flanagan and Allen, had a massive success with the song ‘Underneath the Arches’. Flanagan’s voice is still heard regularly on TV today, singing ‘Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr Hitler’ over the opening and closing credits of Dad’s Army. However, neither of these two entertainers made any kind of a song and dance about their part in Operation Dynamo. Their autobiographies suggest that it’s possible that Chumley’s part in the evacuation would have remained
unrecorded, if a nurse on one of the receiving troop ships had not recognised Tommy Trinder. One of Chumley’s subsequent owners, John Hoskins, later met the nurse at a Dunkirk reunion dinner. There is also a confirmatory letter written by Trinder to another subsequent owner, probably in the early 1960s (it is undated): Dear Mr Roades, many thanks for yours. I was so surprised to hear Chumley was still afloat. I bought the vessel from a person in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight, who worked for Dorothy Paget, who introduced speedboat trips as joyrides in this country. The name Chumley I gave it. I took the boat to Dunkirk – ferrying troops off the beach – this the late Bud Flanagan mentions in his autobiography. Afraid I cannot tell you much more, as I am just leaving for a season in Newquay. Best wishes, Tommy Trinder. Chumley’s story began in 1935, in Michigan, USA. A rather beamy small cabin cruiser, she was supplied with four berths – a double dinette to port, and a fore-and-aft bench that converted to two bunks on the other side of the small cabin. The steering position was inside the cabin, at the forward end, looking out through the split screen. She’s a Chris-Craft, though perhaps she doesn’t look it at first glance. Yet the flare of the bow has a familiar look about it, and, so her current owner Roy Hamilton assures me, she has a planing hull. It was this quality that brought her to Britain in 1935, imported, as the Trinder letter mentions, by Dorothy Paget, an eccentric racehorse owner who also sponsored Bentley car racing. Paget used her for regular speed trials off the Isle of Wight. Then known as CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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CHUMLEY
Above: Chumley in in all her vintage prime showing the bench seating that converted into bunks
Barry, her specially installed 80hp six-cylinder Chrysler petrol engine could deliver up to 20 knots. Her name had been changed to Georgia, and she had been modified to run pleasure trips off Shanklin when Trinder bought her in 1939. He changed her name again to Chalmondesleigh, after an imaginary friend in his stage act, and pronounced Chumley. The short version appeared on two nameplates at her bows, and the story goes that the plates were priced by the letter and Trinder was too mean, or, less probably, too impecunious, to pay for the full-length version. However the unabridged version adorns her transom. After the war she was kept at Shoreham and Tommy’s brother Fred lived aboard. He once, allegedly, set off for France with a crew consisting of a three-man musical comedy act from the Palladium, whose approach to navigation was to read hotel names on the seafront through binoculars, and then work out where they were by looking them up in guide books. Trinder sold Chumley in 1949 and her whereabouts for the next decade is a mystery. In 1959 she was found in Wargrave by Harry Roades. There were still shell-heads in her bilges. He passed her on to his two sons, who restored her and took part in the 1995 commemorative Return to Dunkirk parade. By 1998, though, she was on a slipway, once again looking the worse for wear. John Hoskins saw her there, and, in 2000, bought her. “I think I saved her life. If she had been left any longer someone would have just thrown a match on her,” he said later. At that stage she
still sported a raised windscreen and short canopy over the cockpit, possibly added by the Trinder brothers. This is where the present steering position is located, though it’s not now known whether there was a wheel there at that time. John undertook a two-and-a-half-year restoration that involved converting her to an opencockpit vessel, with a long foredeck concealing some cuddy accommodation, and extending to the downward kick in the sheerline. She looks extremely elegant, albeit unrecognisable as the chunky Chumley of earlier years. John took Chumley on both the 2005 and 2010 Returns, and it was on the latter, actually at Dunkirk, that he sold her to her present owners, Roy Hamilton and Sally Stone. Although they didn’t sail their new acquisition back (John delivered her to Beale Park) they sailed her for the remainder of the season, then brought her ashore for some more restoration work. Their aim was to reinstate the Chris-Craft coachroof. Roy, formerly a set builder in the film industry, obtained original lines and drawings, and enlisted the help of the Messer brothers, Colin and Stephen, to carry out the work. Curiously, they had found an identical 1935 model in Harleyford Marina, Bucks, but frustratingly were never able to contact the owners – otherwise they could have taken the lines off her. The boat later came to the Messers’ Classic Restoration Services to be painted, but by that time Roy had sourced the measurements direct from Chris-Craft. Chumley’s post-restoration debut was this summer, at the Beale Park Boat Show, where, with Sally at the
“If she had been there any longer, someone would have thrown a match on her”
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
wheel, she completed several circuits of the lake. Then she came to the Thames Traditional Boat Rally in Henley, where the contrast in size with the other much larger participants prompted speculation that she might not be much fun in any kind of a seaway. It’s true that she’s much more a river and estuary boat – so all the more credit for her part in Operation Dynamo – and it was at Abingdon on the Thames that I caught up with Roy and Sally. They showed me what they’d done with the newly reinstated cabin, which now sports spacious accommodation for a couple, dominated by a full-sized double bed. In addition there’s a cooker, sink and fridge, plus a walk-in heads and shower. Outside, the cockpit provides ample seating, and the stern bench can convert to a double bed to put up guests. The high-up steering position does feel quite exposed as there’s no longer a short roof attached to the windscreen to improve weather protection. But there’s a folding canopy that can be rigged and the steersman has a comfortable old captain’s chair in leather and wood, which is very much in keeping with the mahogany ship’s wheel and the varnished cabin bulkhead that provides display space for Dunkirk mementos. Roy and Sally are now considering trailing Chumley down to her old stamping-ground in the Solent, where conditions will no doubt prove a little more testing but it will be good preparation for the 2015 Dunkirk Return, in which they definitely intend to take part. For Chumley it will be her first journey back to Dunkirk in many years in anything like the configuration in which she and Tommy Trinder helped rescue troops from the war-torn beaches in 1940. It will be a memorable trip for everyone concerned.
Top to bottom: Chumley on the water at Beale Park; a previous owner had removed the coachroof; Sally at the helm; proof of her involvement in Operation Dynamo
CHUMLEY BUILDER
Chris-Craft 1935 LOA
25ft (7.6m) BEAm
8ft 6in (2.6m) DRAUght
3ft (0.9m) DIspLAcEmEnt
11,023lb (5 tonnes)
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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DEN PHILLIPS 2014 CALENDARS & GREETING CARDS CLASSIC YACHT CALENDAR
Mariquita boomed out.
EAST COAST CALENDAR
Martha II at Heybridge Basin
Den Phillips is producing two calendars for 2014. It’s the 26th year for her stunning East Coast Calendar featuring black & white images of Barges, Smacks, Classic Boats and Seascapes around the East Anglian coast. The Classic Yacht Calendar features breath taking images from an exclusive selection of Classic Yacht Regattas. CALENDARS: (A3 size) £17.00 each + £4.00 postage UK. Please contact Den for postage rates outside the UK. Greetings cards also available.
Classic Boat
1/10/13
09:48
Page 1
DEN PHILLIPS PHOTOGRAPHS - The Old Pump House Studio, 6 Head Street, Goldhanger, Maldon, Essex, CM9 8AY, UK. Tel: 01621 788589 • Mobile: 07957 856242 • www.DenPhillipsPhotos.com • Email: Den@DenPhillipsPhotos.com
PILOT CUTTERS UNDER SAIL TOM CUNLIFFE The pilot cutters that operated around the coasts of northern Europe until the First World War were amongst the most seaworthy and beautiful craft of their size ever built, while the small number that have survived have inspired yacht designers, sailors and traditional craft enthusiasts over the last hundred years. This new book is both a tribute to and a minutely researched history of these remarkable vessels. 260 x 220 mm • 192 pages • 160 illustrations H/back • ISBN 9781848321540 • Was £30 Now £24
INSHORE CRAFT BASIL GREENHILL & JULIAN MANNERING This now classic reference work describes more than 200 types of traditional working vessel, arranged by their geographical distribution, which once fished and traded around our coasts. Detailed descriptions of the types, along with stunning photographs and body and sails plans are supplied by a team of twelve experts. A wonderful evocation of traditional craft. 260 x 220 mm • 240 pages • 400 illustrations P/back • ISBN 9781848321670 • Was £19.99 Now £15.99 Buy your books online today at: www.seaforthpublishing.com and quote: CB2013 to receive your discount Or Telephone: 01226 734222 ALSO AVAILABLE IN WATERSTONES AND MANY OTHER HIGH STREET BOOKSHOPS Maritime book proposals are always welcome: info@seaforthpublishing.com
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
Saleroom BONHAMS/RM AUCTIONS
Can a plastic be a classic?
SWORDERS
It’s a bargain, Rodney When I spotted this wonderful weathered ship’s figurehead at a country house sale in Cambridgeshire, I thought I’d sniffed out a real bargain. Trouble is I wasn’t the only one. The gnarled 34in (88cm)-high figurehead, probably early 19th century and possibly of Admiral Rodney, was estimated at £800 to £1,000, a snip I thought. It sold (not to me) for £3,720, which at least shows I’ve got taste. Unfortunately, such items are also highly prized as “decorator’s pieces” by the interior design trade. Drat!
came up at Bonhams’ Goodwood Festival of Speed classic car auction, where it fetched £28,750. Meanwhile, in the USA a recreation of a 21ft (6.4m) 1950s Chris-Craft Cobra (above main) fuelled the debate of what is a classic. No doubt the later evocation is easier to live with and has an uprated specification with a more modern Mercruiser V8. Offered at RM Auctions’ recent classic car sale at St John’s, Michigan, USA, this authenticlooking vessel fetched a very reasonable $55,000 (£34,135).
Clockwise from top left: Riva Rudy Super; 280hp Gar Wood runabout; Chris-Craft Cobra
However, there can be no doubt of the classic credentials of an original Gar Wood offered in the same sale. US industrialist Garfield Wood, who made his fortune with a hydraulic dump-truck mechanism, created a string of true American classic boats. The 1930 triple-cockpit 28ft (8.5m) runabout (top right), one of just 121 built in 1930, and now one of only five survivors, sports a 1965 280hp Chrysler V8 for improved reliability and urge. It obviously appealed because it sold for $165,000 (£102,403).
CHRISTIE’S
Deco delights With slabs of colour and bold geometry, this 1931 poster for Rotterdamsche Lloyd is a fine example of Art Deco commercial art. That makes it a prized collector’s piece with expectations of £2,000 to £3,000 at Christie’s next London auction poster on 30 October. The twice-yearly South Kensington auction features shipping posters ranging in estimates from £800 to £3,000, but there are also some great nautically flavoured British and continental seaside resort posters for more www.clas sicboat.co modest pockets. .uk/ saleroom for extra stories
C/O CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD, 2013
There are few swankier boats than a varnished Riva Super Aquarama scything across a glittering Mediterranean bay, but if you can’t afford the half million – pounds or dollars, it makes no difference – you can still join the Riva fold for a fraction of that price. The glassfibre-hulled Riva Rudy Super (inset above), closely based on the wooden Junior model, was introduced in 1972 when the Sarnico company had been taken over by American firm Whittaker, which soon applied its glassfibre technology to the Italian brand. These days the 19ft (5.8m) Rudy Super offers a lowermaintenance, lower-cost alternative to its wooden counterpart. In the ownership of a titled family from new in 1979, the 210bhp GMC-powered sports boat, good for 32mph, still looked sharp when it
C/0 RM AUCTIONS
BY DAVE SELBY
See Salermooorme online
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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Objects of desire A1 vision These high-tech Minox BN 7x50 DCM are not only excellent light-gathering binoculars, but they house a multitude of useful features enabled by a digital read-out projected between the lenses in Terminator-style red LEDs. These include a digital compass (either in the centre of field or with a digital graticule) digital barometer with recording function, digital stopwatch, altimeter, thermometer and a tilt function to work out the height of an object. They are fully waterproof, fog-resistant and with grippy rubberised armouring. £389 plus p&p harrisoncameras.co.uk, Tel: +44 (0)8000 484854
A classic reinvented It’s a rare thing to covet a compact camera: big on practicality but low on polished design. Then we came across the Leica M with its riot of retro typefaces and two-tone colours. Wow! The M is the antithesis of the popular point-and-shoot brigade since it has dual-imaging rangefinder technology. Pardon? Well, with the M the viewfinder is offset from the lens so you get two images and your job is to adjust the focus to line them up and create a super-sharp image. Add on the 24MP image sensor and depth of field, colour and brightness are unsurpassed. The downside? The price: £5,100, and that’s just for the body. But then style never did come cheap. We’re saving hard… cliftoncameras.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1453 548128
Speak out “Great design, but…” How many times have you heard that said about the next new gadget? Now for something different. The Edifier Spinnaker speakers strike a chord visually but pack real punch with rich, clear tones and decent sense of power. Use as a wired system for the TV, or fire up the Bluetooth signal on your tablet or phone and stream sounds in seconds. Simple to set up, endorsed by Apple, effective and stylish, plus you get a funky domed remote to play with. £329.95 inc p&p apple.com/uk, Tel: +44 (0)800 048 0408
A cut above Using a difficult Japanese-inspired technique of single-pressed woodcuts, Eric Slater has come to our attention due to his incredible understanding of colour and shape (and, to be honest, an appearance on Antiques Roadshow.) His work evokes a graphic yet innocent style of rural and marine Britain. Rough Sea is available as a giclée print for £125. ericslater.co.uk, email: troll@fastnet.co.uk
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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GL Watson, centre, on board the schooner Gleniffer in 1899
GL Watson BrITAIn’S
GreATeST YAchT DeSIGner At the turn of the 19th century, if you wanted a world-beating yacht you came to the office of George Lennox Watson. Here is a snapshot of his groundbreaking career WORDS MARTIN BLACK
I
n the autumn of 1895, Scottish yacht designer George Lennox Watson excused himself from taking part in the final race of the 9th America’s Cup series aboard Valkyrie III, which he’d designed for Lord Dunraven, and closed the deal for the design and build supervision of four palatial steam yachts – the mega yachts of their day – to be built on the Clyde for American millionaires. Question is, how had Watson got himself into this enviable position: the consummate yacht designer of his day and perhaps all time? He was born in Glasgow in 1851, the son of an eminent doctor. His grandmother was the youngest daughter of the founder of the Paisley cotton-thread manufacturing giant J & J Coats, and that family connection proved valuable to him in his later career. Not only were a large number of the Coats family regular customers for his sailing and steam yachts, but the connection gave him an important social standing with the local great and the good. By the mid-1800s Glasgow was the powerhouse of the Scottish economy, the Second City of the Empire and one of the greatest centres for shipbuilding in the world. Yachting was then a burgeoning activity on the Clyde, due to the many wealthy industrialists increasingly devoting themselves to leisure activities. Having decided to become a marine engineer, Watson trained in the drawing offices of two of the Clyde’s most innovative yards, Napier and Inglis. All shipyards of that period faced a huge challenge when tendering for a new build – namely guaranteeing maximum speed – and high penalty payments were demanded in the event of failure. To ensure accuracy, both yards worked closely with
scientists at Glasgow University to develop the science of hydrodynamics (how objects move through water) sharing their findings with William Froude, 1810-1879, an English pioneer of hydrodynamics. So from the start of his career Watson found himself working at the cutting edge of this new approach to how ship hulls could be made to move quickly through water. Watson soon realised the benefits to yacht design, which at the time was very much in its infancy. Seizing the moment, in 1872 Watson turned his back on a promising career in the yards and set up the world’s first independent yacht design office. Hitherto, the activities of the yacht builder and designer were synonymous. The great William Fife Sr of Fairlie, for example, was the builder of his yachts. He had a long history of very successful output, both great and small. In common with other builder-designers he worked by “rule of thumb”, basing a new design on what had been successful previously, working intuitively. Although he lacked a scientific training, he at least faced a level playing field, since his rivals were in the same position. This was not a problem when designing and building for the smaller classes: the more new boats you turn out in a season, the more chance you had of producing a winner. However, as yachts increased in size, owners were less forgiving of costly failure. Also designing by “rule of thumb” left little opportunity for innovation – the yachts of the early 1870s looked not unlike their predecessors produced 20 years earlier. Watson was about to shake everything up. His first innovation came with the 5-tonner Peg Woffington (1871) – his so-called apprentice piece. Far broader in the beam, compared with her
MARTIN BLACK
“The owners of unsuccessful yachts took their problem children to Watson”
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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PEGGY BAWN PRESS
Right: measuring Thistle in Erie Basin dry dock, New York, 1887. Below: cutting-edge chromolithograph print of Madge by Henry Shields
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
contemporaries, she was the first yacht to have all her ballast completely outside in her keel. Previous yachts had carried internal ballast and had wooden keelsons, which were too narrow to serve as a point of attachment for anything more than a slab of lead or iron. In Peg the base of the keelson was much wider than usual. This created a secure attachment point for the keel bolts, while also reducing the strain on the bolts caused by the righting moment when heeled. Significantly it also enabled the lead keel to be fully integrated into the shape of the hull – another groundbreaking development. Lead keels very quickly caught on and the press quipped that Watson had introduced the “Lead Age”. His next important yacht, Clotilde, witnessed another crucial development. Until this point, the perpendicular bow was carried more or less straight down to the top of the keel. The conventional wisdom was that a yacht needed a good forefoot in order to hold the bow to windward in a blow. Watson tentatively cut away the forefoot to reduce wetted surface area and, therefore,
surface friction. Clotilde proved to be a resounding success, vanquishing Pearl, the Fife-designed 5-tonner and previous unbeaten champion on the Clyde. This result caused such a sensation that Watson’s future as a designer was secured. In his subsequent designs he progressively reduced the forefoot and thereby turned out ever faster designs. To meet Watson’s next 5-tonner Vril (1876), William Fife II designed and built Camellia. In their first encounter Vril beat her by more than 27 minutes, in strong winds and a nasty sea. Fife understood why Watson was being so successful and sent his son, William Fife III, off to the Fullerton shipyard in Paisley, so he too should benefit from a proper shipbuilding training. This was as tacit an acknowledgement that the game was changing and the old guard had to step aside as was humanly possible. We do not have space here for a detailed description of how Watson skilfully exploited gaps in the rating rules in order to gain unmeasured waterline length, etc. But what became notable was that the owners of
BeKeN
MARTiN BlAcK
FROM JSJOHNSTON.ORG cOllecTiON
NATiONAl ARcHiVe
GL WATSON
unsuccessful yachts took their problem children to Watson, after the original designers had failed to effect the necessary improvements. In 1880 Watson turned out his first Big Class cutter, Vanduara. She was built of steel and had an 81ft (24.7m) waterline. Unusually for that time her Scottish owner entered her for the English regattas, where she was up against the best designs from Ben Nicholson, Ratsey, Harvey and Alexander Richardson. She swept the board and became the darling of the British press, who hailed her as “The steel-breasted beauty”, “The Queen of the Summer Seas” and “The Scottish Wonder”. A Watson design now had an impact on yacht design in America. In 1879 Watson produced the 10-tonner Madge. The Scottish champion in her first season, the following year she made a clean sweep of the English regattas. Seeking fresh competition James Coats Jr, her owner, challenged the yachtsmen of New York to a series of races in boats of a similar size. Four American yachts were roundly defeated. In the two races against the
Clockwise from top: Big Class start in 1893, Britannia to windward; Vanduara in 1890; setting the topsail on Shamrock II
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Yves Christian
William McBryde 56 ft Gaff Ketch 1952
£280,000 Lying UK
YVES CHRISTIAN is a proper little ship drawn at a time when this was appreciated – sea kindly and comfortable she has plenty of beam, which with her firm sections and snug ketch rig make her very stiff. Originally designed for long sea trips and Mediterranean cruising she has a 5 part sail plan so shortening sail is a simply a matter of lowering sail and not reefing! Her current owners have attended with great attention and dedication to the period and detail of the boat’s structure, meaning that her systems and interior are impressive. There’s little left to do but prepare a passage plan - very confident she will look after you.
Valerie
Stow & Son 47 ft Gaff Yawl 1895
£200,000 Lying UK
VALERIE has been beautifully and sympathetically rebuilt, commensurate with her vintage, which at nigh on 120 years makes her a genuine historical artefact. Thus an object of such rarity, beauty and desirability can be experienced and enjoyed as was intended by her maker so many tides ago. The simplicity of her finish and fit-out with the re-introduction of her original yawl rig makes her a handy craft capable of being easily sailed by a small crew. Partial completion of her interior enables a new owner to specify his own accommodation arrangements, for which an outline option exists.
email: info@sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk
33 High Street, Poole BH15 1AB, England. Tel: + 44 (0)1202 330077 www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk
NMM picture Library
Herreshoff-designed Shadow, Shadow won the first race, but Madge had her revenge by beating her by 12 minutes on corrected time in the second race. Madge’s success gave a great boost to the American “cutter-cranks” who favoured the introduction of the British cutter hull form (narrow-beamed with a deep keel), as opposed to the wide-beamed, shallow draught of the American sloop. Her impact was not lost on Herreshoff and Edward Burgess, who now started to produce designs that were a hybrid version of the two different hull forms – wide-beamed but with deeper keels than those seen previously. His next major development was Doris (1885), the champion 5-tonner and one of the most radical “plankon-edgers” ever built, with a waterline length of 33ft 6in (10.2m) and a narrow beam of just 5ft 5in (1.7m). Despite her narrow beam she carried a substantial lead keel weighing 12.6 tons to balance a sail area measuring 1,680sqft (156m²). Only a much more radical design could hope to beat her. None made it to the start line.
The Thames Measurement Rule had produced yachts that were both extreme and unusable as cruisers once their all too short racing careers were over, and so the YRA introduced the Length and Sail Area Rule, which no longer penalised beam. In 1887 the Scots challenged for the America’s Cup. Watson was asked to design Thistle and he took advantage of the new rating rule to create a yacht that was, by the standards of the time, wide-beamed. Her most obvious innovation was the introduction of the clipper bow, which helped with the reduction of the forefoot. Although she proved to be the fastest Big Class cutter in Britain, she was let down by very poor preparation in New York; sails that went out of shape too quickly and by some disastrous decisions of the afterguard during the racing. The 10-rater Dora (1891), witnessed further innovation. Watson discarded the by now popular clipper bow in favour of a new bow profile, which was semi-elliptical in form. This allowed the hull lines to flow
Above: a stunning period painting of Britannia and Valkyrie II by English painter WL Wylie
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NeilThompsonBoats
The Norfolk Smuggler Dimensions
The Norfolk Smuggler 25 has been carefully designed to ensure a single-handed sailing ability when required. The cockpit is large to allow comfortable sailing for up to six adults and to provide ample stowage space in the cockpit lockers. The cabin trunk provides standing headroom through the yacht without looking cumbersome, and ahead of this there is a safe foredeck to provide security for the foredeck hand. This vessel has been designed to be shoal draught with a centreboard increasing draught from 2’9” with plate up to 4’11” with plate down. The centreboard is raised and lowered with an easy to operate manual winch.
Norfolk Urchin
Norfolk Oyster
Norfolk Gypsy
Length Beam Draft Sail area Weight of boat
Norfolk Smuggler 25
25’ ( 7.69m) 8’9” (2.69m) 2’9”/4’11” (0.85m/1.51m) 404 sq ft (38.3 sq m) 4.25 tonnes (inc equipment)
Norfolk Trader 45 & 65
Home of the Norfolk Range Neil Thompson Boats, Manor Farm, Glandford, Holt, Norfolk NR25 7JP +44 (0) 1263 741172 • info@neilthompsonboats.co.uk • www.neilthompsonboats.co.uk
BEKEN OF COWES
GL WATSON
Above: Valkyrie II sailing in the Solent, 1893. Right: Valkyrie II sinking in the Clyde, 1894
PRIVATE COLLECTION
all the way through to the stem. It also dispensed with the customary hollow bow and put far greater buoyancy in the bow, which helped to reduce hobby-horsing in a sea. This new bow rose over the waves, rather than cutting through them, and this new hull form would remain in common usage until well after the end of the Second World War. In 1893, the Watson design office reached its zenith when it produced two Big Class cutters – Britannia for the Prince of Wales and Valkyrie II, Lord Dunraven’s challenger for the America’s Cup. The two boats were half-sisters, with Britannia marginally bigger. Britannia would go on to become arguably the most successful British yacht of all time, beating the three other Big Class cutters built that season. Significantly, she beat two of Herreshoff’s Big Class yachts – Navahoe in 1893 and his successful America’s Cup winner Vigilant in 1894. With Britannia’s incredible success, all future Big Class yachts, save one, were designed by Watson until his death in 1904. If you wanted a yacht design that was
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Two
G L wATSoN yAchTS SPARTAN 1886 Design No.97 27ft. cutter Watson’s oldest extant design “GLW steered Spartan all day . . . remarked on her beautiful trim . . .” Oulton Regatta, August 4th 1886 (Extract from owner’s log)
MULDONICH 1930 Lovely 30ft gaff yawl based on the highly successful Albert Strange yawl Venture for one of her former owners.
CLASSIC CHARTERS LIMITED
Courtesy of G L Watson & Co
Merlin of Falmouth
Based in Salcobme, Merlin of Falmouth is a joy to sail comfortable, fast, safe, and easy to sail - just right for family sailing holidays, weekend trips, racing, maritime festivals, corporate charter and film work. “Merlin combines the qualities of a traditional yacht with all the conveniences of modern life...”
2014 Classic Sailing Event Calendar:
commission a restoration and secure a true classic of the highest quality and pedigree
More information and photos at:
www.JamieclayBoatbuilding.co.uk Maldon, Essex 0795 006 3642 daytime, or 01621 853804
St George’s Pilot Cutter Regatta - Yarmouth Pilot Cutter Review - Fowey and St Mawes Brest Festival of the Sea Falmouth Sea Shanty Festival For more information, please contact the Skipper, Lance Whitehead Tel: 07967 182534 Email: lance@classic-charters.co.uk Web: www.classic-charters.co.uk
BUY BRITISH BUY QUALITY
BUY J eckells SAILS FREE WINTER STORAGE WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR SAILS VALETED WITH US
T: +44(0)1603 782223 E: sails@jeckells.co.uk W: jeckells.co.uk
Jeckells of Wroxham Ltd, The Sail Loft, Station Road, Wroxham NR12 8UT
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
C/O ROYAL NORTH OF IRELAND YC
MARTIN BLACK
GL WATSON
faster than the reigning champion then you took your business to Watson. Plain and simple. His influence on Herreshoff was profound. Herreshoff recorded in his notebook that his design for Defender, the successful America’s Cup yacht of 1895, was based on “the Watson type”. In 1900 Watson took yacht design into a new age by tank-testing his alternative designs for Shamrock II and then refining the selected model as a result of a long series of further tests. From 1895 Watson focused on the design of very large and palatial steam yachts for the likes of the Rothschilds, the Vanderbilts and other American and European millionaires. So many steam yachts to his design were imported to the USA that Congress passed an act prohibiting USA subjects from having such vessels built overseas. It was ignored and Watson still continued to produce a string of successful Big Class cutters. He also did valuable work for the RNLI, leading them from their old sail- and oar-powered boats, through steam power, and on to motor lifeboats. By the time the last
one went out of service in 1991, lifeboats built to his designs had saved 18,361 lives. During his lifetime Watson was fêted as no British yacht designer has ever been. When his yachts raced on the Clyde, tens of thousands came to watch. As a household name; his designs were chronicled in the newspapers, an Ogden’s cigarette card carried his photograph, and a large peninsula in the South Orkneys was named after him. Whilst the deaths of other British designers were recorded in the yachting press, Watson was given space in every British national newspaper. He is also the only yacht designer to appear in Who’s Who. Yet today public appreciation of him has become somewhat eclipsed by the media focus on the surviving yachts of his great rivals, Fife and Herreshoff. But to those in the know, no one can approach the achievements of GL Watson. Extracted from G.L. Watson The Art and Science of Yacht Design by Martin Black, Peggy Bawn Press, £65, or €89 p&p worldwide; leather-bound edition soon; peggybawnpress.com, tel: +353 (0)86 2640 479
Clockwise from top: Shamrock II leads Shamrock I during trials in 1901; the US presidential yacht SS Mayflower in 1909; Peggy Bawn, 1907
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New Classics
c/O ALeriOn
AlErION 41
express cruiser The first new Alerion 41 hit the water this summer. The company has built its reputation through fast, modern GRP daysailing yachts with push-button sail-handling and classic looks. The 41, as a cruising yacht for six, is a departure from the tried-and-tested formula. Like her smaller sisters though, this is a “cockpit first, cabin second” boat, reflecting the way most of us enjoy our sailing. With a good sail area/ displacement ratio (23.5) pushing a modern underbody through the water, she ought to go well too. Above decks, the big news is the transom that folds down to form a swim platform. Below decks is a riot of richly detailed, tailored hardwood furniture and accommodation in three cabins. Alerion can provide a “very well equipped boat” (a definition we have no problem believing) for $569,000 (£355,000). Tel: +1 401 247 3000, alerionexp.com 58
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
SPECIFICATIONS LOA
40ft 6in (12.4m) beAm
11ft 6in (3.5m) DrAughT
5ft 11in (1.8m) DispLAcemenT
7.3 tonnes (16,093lb) sAiL AreA
942sqft (88m²)
CAROLINA 24
Designer dayboat
Tel: +39 0817 603700, carlobertorello.com
SPECIFICATIONS LOA
24ft (7.3m) BEAM
8ft 3in (2.5m) DRAugHT
4ft 8in (1.5m) SAIL AREA
484sqft (45m²) C/O BERTORELLO
The Carolina 24, drawn in 1994 by Italian naval architect Carlo Bertorello, is inspired (as are so many husky little yachts like this) by the Falmouth Working Boats. She’s 24ft (7.3m) long (LOA), as her name suggests, and comes as a gaff-rigged cutter or a gunterrigged cutter (slightly higher peak and a curved leech). The original idea was for a small blue-water yacht that could be built cheaply and quickly at home or by a yard. The first C24 fulfilled that promise: she was home-built by her owner then sailed to New Zealand. This latest one, in strip plank, shows her value when built by a professional boatbuilder (Cantiere Navale Fortunato in this case). She’s still only €60,000 (£50,600) or thereabouts. A 25ft (7.6m) version is also in build at the Ernesto Riva boatyard on the banks of Lake Como, and we look forward to seeing how that one comes out, too.
DESIgNER
Carlo Bertorello
WHITE ROSE
C/O JOHN MOOR
Super traditional 25-footer
SPECIFICATIONS LOA
25ft (7.6m)
BEAM
7ft 10in (2.4m)
DRAugHT
5ft (1.5m)
SAIL AREA
600sqft (56m2)
DESIgNER
John Moor
White Rose of Mevagissey is a rare beast: a small new yacht traditionally built to a one-off design. Ten years ago, boatbuilder John Moor made a half model inspired by the Hiscocks’ yacht Wanderer II and other small mid-century British cruising yachts. She became the yard boat and John and his son Peter (of John Moor and Son boatbuilders) spent the next decade working on White Rose in their spare time, and she was launched this summer. She’s carvel larch planks on oak frames, with copper and bronze fastenings and deck and internal joinery in teak. John Moor and Son do a lot of fine work for nearby superyacht yard Pendennis, and White Rose is no exception: “She’s superyacht standard and virtually every fitting is bespoke,” Peter told Classic Boat. He’s keeping this one, but the yard would be pleased to take a commission for another similar yacht, with a guide price of around £150,000. Tel: +44 (0)1726 842964, email: moor4@fsmail.net CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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Onboard MAINE VOYAGE
CRUISING . SEAMANSHIP . EQUIPMENT
FUN-SIZED SAILING A Herreshoff 12½ is just a daysailer for short hops, right? Not if your name is Ellen Massey Leonard, who found room for her husband and two friends for a grand tour of the Maine coastline STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS ELLEN MASSEY LEONARD
T
he smaller the boat, the bigger the fun. So says the Cruising Club of America Blue Water medallist Annie Hill, in her book Voyaging on a Small Income. And what sailor hasn’t had fun in little dinghies, trying to get that last bit of speed out of them or pulling them up on a beach for a picnic? Some people have even taken them across oceans, although this does not make the easiest or safest means of conveyance. Annie, of course, knows this and has voyaged over the horizon aboard a reasonably sized yacht; however, if long voyages aren’t your passion, what could be better than an open daysailer? My husband Seton and I enjoy small boat sailing as well as long voyages, and we recently circumnavigated the globe aboard our 1968 38ft (11.6m) copy of the legendary Sparkman & Stephens ocean racer Finisterre. Back in America after this four-year voyage, we were planning a cruise of the Maine coast with two friends, Dan and Melanie, but on the eve of their arrival, we discovered our boat was in need of some urgent repairs. We weren’t sure what to do because Dan (whom we had met sailing in Bermuda) and Melanie had driven a long day from Canada only to find our yacht up on shores. Thankfully, my parents stepped in and generously offered to loan us their open daysailer Pilgrim, an original Herreshoff 12½, but she could hardly take us so far or in such comfort. This was to be Melanie’s first introduction to sailing and we knew how much Dan wanted it to go well, not least because he had told her she could expect a cosy cabin with bunks, electric lights, a real toilet and a propane stove. Although Pilgrim is lovely to sail – the Herreshoff 12½ is widely considered one of the finest small boats ever built – she could not sleep four people; CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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ONBOARD MAINE VOYAGE
HERRESHOFF 12½ LOA
15ft 10in (4.8m) LWL
12ft 6in (3.8m) BEAM
5ft 10in (1.8m) DRAUGHT
2ft 6in (0.8m) DISPLACEMENT
1,250lb (567kg) Above, left to right: Pilgrim’s dinghy ashore on the island; sailing solo in a Herreshoff 12½ is child’s play
her heads was the stern for the boys and a bucket for the girls; and her galley was a bag full of sandwiches. However, my love of sailing the 12½ overcame my reservations, so we all planned a camping trip. Pilgrim, one of the famous design line named after its waterline length, was built in 1937 in Nathanael Herreshoff’s yard in Rhode Island. Constructed of white oak frames and cedar planking, she measures 15ft 10in (4.8m) overall. She was one of the first boats to have mahogany trim instead of oak and she still carries her original bermudan-rigged spruce spars. Paul Cabot, her first owner, ordered her as part of a fleet of 12 for his yacht club on North Haven, Maine, where she raced under sail number 1. Her history was lost from then until the 1990s when she reappeared in Massachusetts and then moved south to New York. In 2000, my parents found her back in Maine faithfully restored to mint condition with gleaming brightwork and almost all her original bronze hardware, which had been custom cast at the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company. They keep Pilgrim in Brooklin, a place alive with wooden boats and in the centre of Maine’s beautiful cruising
grounds. Although this wouldn’t turn out to be the cruise Seton and I had planned, we were at least now able to show the gems of our coast to Dan and Melanie. As the days unfolded all of us discovered the truth of Annie’s words. Pilgrim was simple to ready, simple to sail and simple to put away. Instead of fussing with a diesel engine or grinding winches to make sail, we simply hauled up main and jib, cleated the halyards, and slipped the mooring. Two minutes later Pilgrim was gliding alongside the dock to collect tents and provisions. In the dead air behind the small island that forms Brooklin’s harbour, no hammering pistons insulted the still scene: we simply unshipped the canoe paddles and propelled Pilgrim past Concordia Yawls, an original Herreshoff Fishers Island 31, and Spirit of Tradition racers. In the faint breeze beyond the harbour, she ghosted smoothly along under spinnaker, capable of progress in zephyrs that would not have budged our ocean-going yacht.
SURPRISE AND DELIGHT Dan, who had only sailed large cruising boats, was surprised to find how Pilgrim’s tiller responded
LOCAL INFORMATION: CRUISING THE MAINE COASTLINE Maptech Chart Kit Region 2: Block Island to the Canadian Border combines general and detailed charts of the Maine area in readable and economical form. A digital version also exists. A Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast by Hank and Jan Taft and Curtis Rindlaub covers even the smallest anchorages from Maine’s southern border, north to New Brunswick and the St John River. Weather forecasts Prevailing winds are SW. Foul weather, when the wind blows from the NE, is almost always followed by a strong northwesterly. Fog can be expected over the islands farthest out to sea, especially in the morning, but is relatively infrequent close to shore. Fog lessens later in the summer:
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
EG
Penobscot Bay
MAINE
GE
MO
GG
IN
RE
Acadia National Park
AC
Brooklin
H
Deer Island
Jericho Bay
August and September are the ideal months. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) broadcasts forecasts continuously over VHF radio. Tides and other hazards Tides are about 10ft (3m) in the Penobscot Bay/Eggemoggin Reach area,
so be aware that a beautiful cove at High Water may be a mud flat at Low. Currents are not dangerous but can be frustrating. Watch out for boulders, which sometimes lie treacherously near the surface when you think you’re sailing in 40ft (12.2m) of water. They are well charted, but not all have navigation markers. Although lighthouses abound on the offshore islands, most nav buoys are unlit so night sailing is inadvisable. Moorings, boatyards, anchorages Full service Brooklin Boat Yard specialises in wooden, cold-moulded and classic yachts, as does Rockport Marine. There are more yards and several fuel docks. Most YCs and boatyards rent moorings. Use chain.
ONBOARD MAINE VOYAGE
immediately to any nudge and, after a few swerves in our wake, he discovered the joy of encouraging a small, well-designed boat to do her best in light airs. Her subtle underwater curves and perfectly balanced helm make her a treat to sail, one of the reasons that the 364 boats Herreshoff built rarely change hands. Pilgrim’s simple and intuitive rig made Melanie’s first sail much more straightforward than she had expected. She quickly learned to handle the mainsheet and self-tacking jib, and in the roomy cockpit the four of us were comfortable despite our gear. We were also lower to the water than aboard a larger boat, so we could observe all the wildlife up close: seals sunned themselves on the rocks; porpoises swam in our wake; and guillemots fluttered their wings to take flight. When we reached the island where we planned to camp, it was a simple matter to make Pilgrim shipshape. I had no need of a bow roller to let down our Danforth anchor: I could just drop it by hand. One person alone could furl her sails and another could shift the provisions to the dinghy, both of which were done in less time than it took Seton and I on our circumnavigation. To our relief, Dan and Melanie were genuinely excited by the idea of camping on one of Maine’s many deserted islands, so we rowed ashore in the dinghy that we had
towed along, set up our tents in a clearing among the spruce trees, and searched the strand for wood. Before long, a fire was blazing away, its flames eclipsed by the deeper hues of a glorious sunset, and over the embers we cooked sausages and watched the stars peek through the growing darkness. Aboard a bigger boat we would have missed all this, merely watching the sunset from the cockpit and then retreating to a lighted cabin. Morning dawned without a breath of wind. Had we been aboard our 38-footer the engine would have roared, the anchor chain would have rattled up, and we would have been under way to a new place. In this instance, though, we had to wait for the wind, so we ate a leisurely breakfast by the campsite and listened to the seals bark. We took our time rowing back out to Pilgrim and stowing our things aboard, savouring the quiet beauty, watching cormorants open their scrappy black wings to the sun, before we hoisted the limp sails and weighed anchor. Dan and Melanie are seasoned canoeists so they pulled out the paddles and we gained slow headway. But when a few catspaws grew into a breeze, Pilgrim glided faster than they could push her and at that precise moment I was reminded once again of Annie’s choice words: the smaller the boat, the bigger the fun.
Above, left to right: Melanie, Seton and Dan start the campfire; the clearing among the spruce trees made an ideal campsite
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ONBOARD
Lazarette
VISIT Sailing Equipmen t cla ssicboat
.c
o.uk For many product re more views
21st Century camp-cruiser There aren’t many cookers that will feed a family and charge a mobile phone at the same time, but this is one. Just fill it up with any renewable biomass – leaves, twigs, pinecones, wood pellets, the lot – and a clever thermoelectric generator converts the excess heat into electricity, ready to power up any digital device with a USB socket. No need to lug heavy propane cylinders and you can also turn it into a BBQ with the portable grill, or make a brew with the funky kettle. £149.99 inc p&p alloutdoor.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)208 207 7000
Grid-it storage system Shockles
Every so often a product comes along that makes you want to slap your forehead and shout “D’oh – why didn’t I think of that?” If you’re fed up with losing essential items the moment you weigh anchor, get yourself a Cocoon Grid-It carrycase. With a clever interlocking web of elastic straps, you simply slide in the items and they are stuck fast. We laughed at first: come on, get real, they will all just fall out. But somehow they don’t. There’s even a Wrap version with a neoprene cover and a pocket for a tablet. From just £10.00 inc p&p
Initially invented specifically for use on boats, these tie-down straps consist of a tough rubber lanyard covered in a concertina tube of stretchy nylon with stainless steel carabiners at either end, which makes them ideal for snubbing, tensioning, boom preventing, shock absorbing and lashing. The truth is, they are so good and so adaptable, you’ll use them for many more jobs. Available in a range of sizes and colours. From £6.95
cogg.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1653 628549
shockles.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)8700 770077
Mobile grips
If you’ve ever wished you had a vice on board (who hasn’t?) then these are just for you. These pliers-come-clamps are a simple and brilliant invention that can turn any surface into a workbench in seconds. In some ways they make more sense than a traditional fixed vice because you can move the grips apart to secure longer items, storage is easy and the grips can be removed for normal use too. £58.80 plus p&p flints.co.uk Tel: +44(0)207 703 9786
Metal polish
This non-toxic, non-flammable and nonabrasive metal polish brightens up the dullest metals in no time. It’s very effective and protects the metal afterwards. Ideal for bronze, brass, aluminium, stainless steel and chrome. £6.95 plus p&p classicmarine.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1394 380390
ONBOARD
Books Arthur Ransome on the Broads
SUNDOWNERS WITH GUY VENABLES
by Roger Wardale This is like a handbook to go with Ransome’s beloved books on the Broads, Coot Club and The Big Six. Roger Wardale, already a prolific author on Ransome, follows the author of the Swallows as he travels through the different scenes the books are set in. He describes Ransome’s own life at the time, recovering from revolutionary Russia as the Manchester Guardian’s correspondent there, his difficult first marriage and a happier life with Evgenia – Trotsky’s one-time PA. This is life in the 1930s where you “took a house” for a season and driving from Cumbria to Wroxham could take eleven-and-a-half hours. It’s full of minute details relating to Ransome’s joint passions of sailing and fishing, and records friends joining him and Evgenia on their cruises. Throughout we are introduced to Ransome’s world of the imagination in the form of his four Swallow children and their new friends Dick and Dorothea. Ransome’s books were instant bestsellers. Coot Club sold 4,000 copies so quickly that a second printing had to be hastily arranged to cater for the Christmas rush. And you can see why from Ransome’s own groundwork, told in such detail here. DH Amberley Publishing, 2013, paperback, 96pp, RRP £15
THE YACHTING YEAR From the publishers of CLASSIC BOAT the
Yachting Year NEW!
Full guide to events in 2014
A review of the year gone by – including the most noteworthy restorations and new builds, as well as the main regattas and events – brought to life in vivid detail through stunning photography and top class features. … also including a 2014 events guide and a FREE 2014 Yachting Year calendar!
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A question of taste I was once in a cocktail bar in Portland, Oregon, with a notorious thief known as Stealy Dan. He ordered a Martini and gave the young barman specific and fairly unusual instructions on how to make it. The barman, inexperienced and naive, made the Martini his own way and explained with a flourish that the way he’d make it was the correct way as he’d done a degree in mixology. He was duly grabbed by the collar and dragged along the bar like a rag doll. The point I think Stealy was rather clumsily trying to make is that there is no “right” when it comes to taste. Put 100 people in a room and show them the colour blue and they’ll be pretty much in agreement. Give them each a glass of Grappa and ask them what it tastes like you’ll get a different response. Partly because imparting information about taste is about as difficult as writing about music but also because everybody has a completely different set of preferences. As these are opinions they can never be “wrong”. Kingsley Amis, for instance, makes a Bloody Mary with, amongst other things, tomato ketchup and orange juice. And he’s not a man with whom I’d like to argue about booze. Ian Fleming invented the Vespa Martini mixed with vodka and gin, which has become trendy since the new Bond drank it, but is clearly the desperate self-mugging of a hopeless alcoholic. In St Tropez recently I was drinking Bullshots (vodka, beef consommé and trimmings) with the Gambling Commissioner of the Channel Islands. Noel Coward used to serve them to everybody when they arrived at his house on Firefly Hill in Jamaica. We concluded that he probably didn’t want people coming back. On the same trip I was told by a haughty teenager that the best cocktail in the world was The Blue Lagoon. I imagine he may have come to this conclusion because it was the only cocktail he’d ever had. Teenage girls can take years to admit they don’t like champagne because they are meant to. But just as when one gets to that certain age that you can say to people things like: “I don’t like Picasso” (braver still: “I don’t get Picasso”) or “Jack Kerouac was a bloody awful bore”, that you move into the stages of not doing anything to impress anyone and truly develop your sense of self. Alongside this comes one’s true sense of taste and the confidence to tell someone the wine you just ordered isn’t very nice. Keep it simple and remember, you are always right.
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International Boatbuilding Training College
JAMES LAWRENCE SAILMAKERS LTD BESPOKE SAILMAKERS Made with pride in Great Britain
“Rainbow” 3rd in class at the Fife Regatta 2013
Practical training from a day to a year, wide range of projects, new build & restoration
Visitors welcome 01502 569 663 info@ibtc.co.uk www.ibtc.co.uk Shipshape East Anglia Hub
22-28 Tower Street, Brightlingsea, Essex CO7 0AL Tel: 01206 302863 • Fax: 01206 305858 Email: mark@gaffguru.com or lawrencesails@btconnect.com
Stepping the main mast of Kaskelot during her restoration in our Gloucester yard. www.tnielsen.co.uk
Discover more at www.tnielsen.co.uk +44 (0)1452 301117
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ONBOARD
Classnotes The Stuart Knockabout BY VANESSA BIRD
U
nlike most classes, which are launched almost as soon as the first boat hits the water, it took 56 years for a class of these elegant daysailers to be created. In fact, the design, when it was originally drawn, was never intended to be anything other than a one-off, and it was only after the original boat caught the imagination of a keen Herreshoff 12½ sailor that its potential as a class was realised. In 1984, William G Harding discovered Ben my Chree, an L Francis Herreshoff design from 1933, in a boatyard in Maine. Harding, a longtime admirer of Herreshoff’s designs, and the man behind the original production of the Doughdish, a GRP version of the Herreshoff 12½, was immediately struck by the sloop, and discovered that she had been commissioned by her current owner’s grandfather in 1932. Little else was known about the 28-footer (8.5m), other than Herreshoff had referred to it as a “28ft Knockabout – design no53”, and her original owner, Willoughby Stuart, had kept her on Penobscot Bay, where he and his family had enjoyed her for more than 40 years. According to Harding, seeing Ben my Chree was “like love at first sight”, and after acquiring her from Stuart’s grandson, he spent the next four years sailing her at every opportunity. In 1988, his thoughts turned to reproducing her in GRP, and thus the Stuart Knockabout class was launched. Since then, 81 boats have been built to the class spec, and there are now Stuart Knockabouts dotted around the east coast of America, Canada and even the Caribbean. What first strikes you about the design – besides the long, low, elegant lines – is its size. For an open-cockpit daysailer with no accommodation, the Stuart Knockabout is huge. It’s comparable in size with the
© STUART KNOCKABOUT LLC
Herreshoff S-Class, yet this design, produced by Nathanael Herreshoff in 1919, has two, albeit rudimentary, 8ft (2.4m) bunks on board, as well as a heads and decent storage. At 28ft (8.5m) LOA, the Stuart Knockabout is bigger than many family cruising yachts, yet it offers none of the comforts, instead having a large, deep cockpit with just a simple bench seat either side. But it is this simplicity that has made the class so popular – and particularly with sailors upgrading from their Herreshoff 12½s. They handle like a big dinghy, and to see them under way, often with just a single crew on board, they look perfectly natural, cruising gently along in even the smallest of breezes. L Francis Herreshoff was a great advocate of shallow-draught boats, and the Stuart Knockabout is just that, drawing only 2ft 6in (0.9m) with the centreboard raised. Although wet to sail in choppy conditions, the long waterline length and easily driven hull give it a good turn of speed, despite its modest sail plan. Harding sub-contracted the building of the first 76 GRP Stuart Knockabouts to Edey & Duff at Mattapoisett in Massachusetts, but since 2012, when the yard closed and Harding retired, production has been taken over by Ballentine’s Boat Shop in nearby Cataumet, who originally completed all the finishing work. The yard is now building its fifth boat, and the class is going strong, and showing great promise for an exciting future alongside its smaller Doughdish sibling.
Above: the elegant Herreshoffdesigned Stuart Knockabout is now a popular class on America’s east coast
THE CLASS NAME The class was named the Stuart Knockabout in recognition of Willoughby Stuart, the owner of the first boat, Ben my Chree. Knockabout is a term used to describe a boat with a simple sloop rig and no bowsprit.
BEN MY CHREE The only wooden boat in the class, Ben my Chree, has just undergone a two-year restoration, and was returned to the water in time for the 2013 Stuart Knockabout Regatta in Megansett Harbour, Massachusetts, in July. Ben my Chree is Gaelic for “darling of my heart”. SPECIFICATIONS
ELECTRIC POWER
LOA
Many of the Stuart Knockabouts have been fitted with a 3-4hp Torqeedo electric motor, which is mounted on the port side deck.
28ft (8.5m) LWL
22ft 10in (7m) BEAM
6ft 11in (2.1m) DRAUGHT
2ft 9in/5ft 6in (0.9m/1.7m) SAIL AREA
265sqft (24.6m²) DISPLACEMENT
4,000lb (1,814kg)
THE PRICE New Stuart Knockabouts, built at Ballentine’s Boat Shop, start from $68,500 (£42,700). As all the boats in the class are relatively new, and mostly well looked after, secondhand boats hold their value well, selling for between $63,000-$70,000 (£39,300-£43,600).
CONTACT stuartknockaboutllc.com Tel: +1 508 563 2800 Vanessa’s book, Classic Classes, is a must-buy. For more details, go to www.classicboat.co.uk CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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ritish Class B i
sponsored by
eek ic W
Paner a
Panerai British Classic Week British Classic Y acht C lub Cowes
Cowes, 12th-19th July 2014 Entries open April l l l l l l
Super Zero Class 75ft and over IRC Classic yachts 25ft and over Modern Classic Division Full Social Programme Solent racing and long inshore race Panerai Classic Around the Island Race on Sunday 13th July
l
Racing Monday 14th July to Friday 18th July
l
Parade of Classics Saturday 19th July
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRis BOYnTOn.
Further information and entries, please contact, Mary Scott-Jackson, info@msjevents.co.uk, Tel:+44 (0)1983 245100 www.britishclassicyachtclub.org/regatta
ONBOARD
Getting afloat GREYLAG
Built in 1962 by Alexander Robertson & Sons on the Clyde, Greylag has a distinguished history, having been designed for Colonel W H Whitbread, original sponsor of the Whitbread Round the World Race and owner of the 55ft (16.8m) ketch Lone Fox (CB297). Whitbread wanted a yacht that he could sail short-handed and commissioned David Boyd, chief naval architect at Alexander Robertson & Sons and the name behind America’s Cup challengers Sceptre (1958) and Sovereign (1964), to design a second yacht for him. The result was the 37ft
C/O THE OWnER
Colonel Whitbread’s other yacht
9in (11.5m) Greylag, a bermudan sloop and, like Lone Fox, her topsides were painted “Whitbread green”. Greylag is built of mahogany on oak frames with a cockpit, deck and cabinsides in teak. Whitbread is not her only notable past helmsman – he lent her to Sir Francis Chichester
Above: Greylag showing her eye-catching teak cabinsides
during the build of Gipsy Moth IV. Crinan Boatyard has extensively refastened her copper-clenched planking, but she also now needs a new galley. Asking £70,000, lying Crinan. Tel: +44 (0)1546 830232
WAIF
Rare Hillyard
C/O MikE MCCARTHY
Hillyard yachts, though workmanlike in their construction, are solid, dependable boats that were, before the war at least, generally built with good quality raw ingredients, and have withstood the test of time well. Waif is no exception – she’s planked full-length in pitch pine on oak frames. Other than that she’s an unusual example of the Hillyard name, with her raised topsides and 14 portholes, features that give her unprecedented internal volume and light for a classic yacht, according to her shipwright owner who has carried out a steady programme of improvements over the last 20 years. A Davey’s cast-iron wood stove also makes her cosy for winter nights. Waif is cutter rigged with classic-cut cream sails and a BMC 40hp diesel. Waif is in ready-to-sail condition and must sell before Christmas. Asking £15,000, lying St Tropez. Contact info@woodenwidget.com
ELFREDA
C/O ADRiAn MORgAn
YW 5-Tonner
Elfreda is a 1949 Robert Clark Yachting World 5-Tonner, as well known on the East Coast as her long-time owner Mike McCarthy, who has cruised her extensively in local waters and the near continent. Built by Cardnell Brothers in Maylandsea, Essex, with teak planking on oak, ply decks and a Douglas fir mast, she is fastidiously maintained and has seakindly qualities thanks to her 25ft (7.6m) LOA and 4ft 6in (1.4m) draught. She is fully equipped with a new mainsail and sprayhood, and power is provided by a 16hp Dolphin petrol engine. Asking £12,000, lying ashore Tollesbury, Essex. Contact Mike McCarthy on +44 (0)1277 623833; 07711 970728
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BOATS FOR SALE
Boats for sale
10 ft McNulty loNgstoNe lugger
Constructed in mahogany on oak - Built early 1980’s. Regularly varnished and garage stored so she is in good condition. Comprehensive Inventory includes cover and combination trailer £3,000.00 ono Rob Brown 07776 176103 r.brown246@BTinternet.com
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RELUCTANTLY FOR SALE THE UNIQUE STILETTO Generally acknowledged as the “prettiest boat on the river”.
SEABIRD
Design by WILLIAM FIFE III in 1889. Built in 2003 by STAGNOL in France. Hull Strip Planking 8,22m, AOL 10,85m. Beam 2,08m. 5 sails + Spi + Covers. Motor YANMAR 9 H.P. Sailing in Costa Brava, Gerona, SPAIN. €65,000. Contact: Louis +34 609 28 08 38 l.mulliez@verdecora.es
35FT CLYDE CRUISER-RACER
One of a small class designed to race on the Clyde. Built in Berlin in 1965, mahogany on oak with layed teak deck, has tiller steering, cockpit control and Volvo Penta engine, new in 2010. Maintained in excellent condition, mainly by one owner for 25 years. £32,000 Tel. 02891454725 Email. ken@hawtins.co.uk
ClassiC Mayfly OysterCatCher 16 lOng-keeled trailer sailOr “rOxanne”
Number 7 of 10 built in 1993 – Currently Lying Neyland Marina Pembs. The build quality is exceptional Gaff rigged 199 sq ft sails, drawing just 2ft draft and sails comfortably with two or three adults. She comes well Equipped and includes: Lowrance Bluewater Depth Sound and Fish Finder, Raymarine Tacktick Wireless Wind System, Fire Extinguisher, Night Sailing Tri Light, Compass, Anchor, Bag, Chain, and Mooring Ropes, Fenders, Bilge Pump, Auxiliary Engine Mount, Storage and Cockpit Navigation Bags. Sail Bags, Lazy Jacks Mainsail Cover. Recent Maintenance. £16,995 inclusive. Please contact Martin on 07974590729
Chris Petrie has decided to part with his beloved Stiletto due to encroaching ill health. She in in very good order, immediately available and is lying on a Prior mooring off the RBYC pontoon in Burnham on Crouch, Essex. For Full details please apply to Chris Petrie on 01621 782076.
43’ X 13’6” X 3’6” EX RAF RANGE SAFETY LAUNCH Construction: hull double skin teak with aluminium superstructure. Service speed 18 knots, powered by twin Rolls Royce diesels, 225 bhp each. Electric anchor windlass, Petter diesel charging set, radar, ESD. Immaculate condition. £95,000 (or will exchange for vintage car, smaller boat – cash adjustment either way). Tel: Mob: 07785 347915 or 029 20 344150 Email: Doveyestates@doveygroup.co.uk
Boesch speed/ski Boat
510 special, Chevolet 5.7L 210, engine as new. Gearbox rebuilt. Boat fully restored. All paper work, original invoice. On old twin axle trailer rebuilt new steel. Price: £20,000 ONO Tel: 01636 822775 Mobile: 07843981303 Email: eunicefletch@hotmail.com
Golant 6 mtr Ketch GK1
ClassiC Wooden Clinker dayboat.
For sale, prototype of Roger Dongray’s latest design. Launched October 2012 and now completing first year of sailing trials. Epoxy ply lap-strake construction, full internal fit out plus electronics, Mercury 3.5hp o/board, launcher/ loader trailer. Plans now available from designer, next project commencing soon. £12,500 ono. For full details – Contact: m.j.peart@btinternet.com Telephone - 01326372485
16’ 6’’, 1994 by V.J.Pratt of Kings Lynn. A beautiful boat in very good sound condition. Well maintained and used on the West Coast of Scotland in the last four years. A safe comfortable family dayboat. Tan sails. Gunter rig. Snipe break-back trailer, fenders, boat hook and quality oars all included. 6hp almost new engine available by separate negotiation. Currently lying in Derbyshire. Delivery possible at cost. £5750.00 Any questions please call 07711 058643.
UniqUe “R6” ModeRn & ClassiC
Sphinx of Lymington
37FT 12TON HILLYARD 1971
6-berth centre cockpit sloop, extensively refitted woodwork including laid decks, Mermaid diesel, Avon tender, outboard, colour radar, Eberspacher. In excellent seaworthy condition. £29,000 Tel: 07741050210 - Stonehaven
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
A Bermudian 3/4 rig sloop with a long keel, built by W.A. Souter in Cowes in 1958/59. Accomodation for 4. She is a fast sailer with a large main and points well into the wind. She appeared in Classic Boat magazine 56 in Feb 1993. Recently undergone a complete professional refit and is kitted out with modern electronics Chartplotter, GMDSS, AIS, Echomax etc. Afloat Falmouth Estuary, Cornwall. Further images available http://boat.backus.org.uk £7,990. Contact: 07747006544 / 01865 513427 or jake. backus@ntlworld.com
The boat was originally built 1989 for the R6 World Championship in Sweden. Designed by Peter Norlin with the famous businessman Mr Jan Stenbeck as principal and first owner. Rebuilt to a very beautiful classic look moreover made to be easy to handle with a smaller crew or single-handed. A selftacking furling jib, a brand new mainsail on “Harken-mastcars” and an inboard diesel engine combined with the modern R6 under waterline hull. Only two owners. Lying in Stockholm, Sweden. Shipment as well as “get under sail” could be supported. EUR 48,000 Contact Johan Setterberg for more details T: +46708 202281 E: johan.setterberg@uni-it.se
BOATS FOR SALE
FROLIC THAMES LAUNCH “BEyONd MEASURE”
Professional build Holland 1996. Little used. Mahogany with teak & maple inlays. Davey gunmetal fittings. Volvo 10 hp diesel. Beautiful much admired launch. £25,950 Contact: 01932 852334 / 07860 321000 mike.bushnell@btinternet.com
40ft Gentleman’s motor yacht
Beautiful classic vintage 40ft Gentleman’s motor yacht built 1903. Listed on National Historic Ships Register. Double-skinned carvel teak hull, pitch pine decks. 60BHP Lister. Radar/GPS. 7 berths. New heads & holding tank. £45,000. Tel: 0778 6515 100 • Email: richardjhaynes@me.com
Pinus Motor Launch
Cornish Crabber mark 1
GRP hull, Wooden spars, Gaff rigged, Stuart Turner 8hp diesel engine. 4 nwheel trailer. Current owner since 1995. Currently Lake Windermere. £15,000. Email martyn.lucking@fsmail.net or call 01253 725921.
This fast motor launch last saw action with the forces on Strangford Loch. Built early last century of pitch pine on oak, this beautiful boat, the “John B”, comes complete with Perkins diesel engine and 4 wheeled trailer. The hull is complete but the superstructure needs re-building to suit your needs. Length approx. 8m and beam approx. 3m. The boat is in storage under cover, laying N. Brittany, France. Offers invited. Contact +447768596967 +33661 83 48 89
Anderson FerdinAndsen GAFF Ketch
Built 1931 at the ‘RollsRoyce’ yard in Gilleleje, Denmark: Josefine 66’ OA, 50’ OD, a first class small ship one of only 20 her size built, perfect for trans-world private use or commercial charter, currently MCA Code 2 registered. New paint, anti-foul 25.8.13. Extremely sea-worthy, well maintained, massive oak on oak construction, beautiful lines, can be sailed by 2 persons. Bare hull rebuild 2002, all original papers since 1931. Ford 140HP, low hours, mooring available. Ready for work, or ultimate pleasure. Plymouth, UK. £129,000 ono T: 07971 376 172 or sailjosefine@gmail.com
FOR SALE RAthO PRincESS
NICHOLSON 26
Owner has installed new Yanmar diesel engine, twin burner and grill stove, speed and depth instruments. Avon inflatable/Honda O/B. Sprayhood. Sails maintained by CAWS. Lying Isle of Wight. Recent Survey & detailed maintenance records available. £10,500. Contact: 01983 882542 or email: keithdebelder@btinternet.com
Oysterman 22 (Pelagia ex-Curlew) 1988 For sale, Ardrossan. Fine example (http://www.apolloduck.com/feature.phtml?id=256643). £22,000. Phone 01751 417338, 0788 4435971
The Ratho Princess started life as a Norfolk Broads passenger boat seating 52 passengers. In 2005 the interior was remodelled to make her suitable for living on board and has been in dry dock every year. She has a valid BSS certificate until 2017. Eberspacher heating system, Dual Power ie 12v & 240v hook up, Inverter, Gas Water Heater, Dual Gas Bottles. Stainless Steel Fresh Water & Waste Tanks, Flushing Toilet, Large Double Bedroom VHF Radio, Radio/CD Player, 3 Bilge Pumps, 1 Manual Pump, Fire Equipment, 4 Life Belts, Gang Plank, Boat Hook. £45,000 Email: ronnie_rusack@yahoo.co.uk Mob: 07801430981
Looking to sell your boat? Reach over 50,000 readers each month
There are two styles of Boats for Sales ad to choose from and with our special Spring offer, if you buy two months, your third month will be free. Pick the style which suits your requirements and email: Edward.Mannering@ chelseamagazines.com with your text and image or call +44 (0) 20 7349 3747. The deadline for the next issue is 25/10/2013
SAMPLE STYLE A GoLAnT GAffEr
No. 8. Excellent 2 berth coastal cruiser, built 1999. Length 18’ 9” Beam 7’ Draft 2’ 9” long keel, designed by Roger Dongray. Yanmar GM 10 regularly serviced. Very attractive boat lovingly maintained, Lying Fowey. £12,000 ono. Email: name@classicboat.co.uk 0000 11111111
STYLE A. 5cm x 2 columns. Either 160 words or 80 words plus colour photograph. £275 inc VAT and Internet
SAMPLE STYLE B
STYLE B. 5cm x 1 colums. Either 55 words or 30 words plus colour photograph. £155 inc VAT and Internet
cuTTEr
Built 1991, mahogany & epoxy hull similar to GRP, 1930’s spars & fittings, beautifully maintained. Visit www.idclark.force9.co.uk for photos and specification. £25,750 Contact 00000 111111
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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BROKERAGE
Brokerage
To advertise Call Patricia Hubbard +44 (0) 207 349 3748 Patricia.hubbard@chelseamagazines.com Copy Deadline for next issue is 25/10/2013
33 High Street, Poole BH15 1AB, England. Tel: + 44 (0)1202 330077
52 ft Laurent Giles Marconi Cutter 1967 ILARIA, designed by Jack Laurent Giles was built in 1967 by the Beconcini yard in La Spezia. Following the experience of NINA, MIRANDA IV and MIRANDA V, she is a boat absolutely designed for the Mediterranean, not only by virtue of her performance but especially in her style - that of superb yet understated good taste. In 2001 the boat was restored by the same shipyard that built her, also taking the opportunity to update, enhance and add to the facilities, optimising her comfort and safety for the present day. €350,000 Lying Italy
58 ft Laurent Giles TSDY 1964 MELITA was designed both for ocean crossings and passage through the French canals to the Med. With her gracious hull and strongly curved sheer line, Laurent Giles endowed her with a distinctive lift aft, meeting the yet more curved tumblehome stern profile - a tribute to his sailing heritage. Sea kindly and resilient in heavy weather she is very manoeuvrable and easy to moor alongside - able indeed to ply canals and shallow waters. Near 50 she is well found, mature and in the prime of life. £250,000 VAT unpaid Lying Norway
47 ft Laurent Giles Yawl 1951 As with Jack Laurent Giles’ Vertue design ISMANA displays that purposeful charm blending style with function as only he knew how - a style that has the onlooker captivated; more subtle than the very long overhangs that seduce so easily and far more seaworthy as a result - her current owner has fully restored her with the help of Hubert Stagnol and he seems to have known exactly what he wanted to achieve. Her structure is impressive enough but it’s in the simple detailing and original fittings on deck and below that make this boat very special. €235,000 Lying France
45 ft William Fife III International 8 Metre 1929 Notable not only for her royal commissioning, OSBORNE is practically the same design as Fife’s SIRENA built at Cannes in the same year for General Sir Arthur Paget. That yacht was claimed to have been the most successful Second International Rule 8 M in the Mediterranean, especially in light and moderate winds. OSBORNE is in good condition structurally and cosmetically - stored ashore and inside for the last 2 years, it would take very little to have her ready for the season. €230,000 Lying Spain
52 ft William Fife III Cutter 1902 In her current ownership since the mid eighties, when SIBYL OF CUMAE was lovingly restored to her current fine condition and rig configuration, she has enjoyed many seasons of cruising and classic regattas; always sailing with just a husband and wife crew and proving not only her pedigree but that in her current guise she is a well mannered and easily sailed vessel. SIBYL’s lines are quite breathtaking – She could only be a Fife.
44 ft Christian Jensen Cruiser Racer 1946 A breathtakingly beautiful yacht from a wonderful builder, KRABAT is virtually original thanks to the best possible materials, short seasons and only a few careful ownerships. KRABAT is a direct result of her first owner’s passion for the designs of Johan Anker and Christian Jensen. It is no surprise therefore that this yacht has such purity of lines, exhibiting her International Rule racing provenance yet with the cruising capabilities that these Scandinavian designers seemed to achieve so effortlessly. Why don’t all cruiser racers look like this? £220,000 Lying UK
42 ft Sparkman & Stephens Yawl 1957 FAIRWYN was built by McGruer & Co with no expense spared under the close supervision of Rod Stephens himself. She is a larger version of FINISTERRE; three times winner of the Newport Bermuda Race. FAIRWYN’s half century plus could be considered a game of two halves; as a successful racer, fondly remembered by many former crews and then as a comfortable, safe and versatile cruiser;ever displaying the style and qualities for which her designer and builder are so highly regarded.
43 ft J N Miller & Son Ketch “Fifer” Motor Sailer 1979 The Miller Fifer owes not a little to the inspiration of John Bain, doyen of this genre of displacement motor yachts whose designs had been used by Millers over the years. This boat has proved herself as capable in this ownership as she did in her first – latterly as the ultimate family cruising boat in British waters offering superb protection from the elements, in her high volume interior and layout - privacy for 2 families in comfort.
£125,000
£75,000
54 ft Sparkman & Stephens Sloop 1969 It is very easy to love a bright finished boat. TARANTELLA was built originally for RORC racing by Cantieri Carlini of Rimini. She has only ever had two caring ownerships, spending winters inside ashore at Yacht Club Italiano. From a period when racing yachts were more versatile, her interior is extremely comfortable and moreover in very chic style. It is perhaps no wonder the YCI Genoa refer to this boat as a Stradivarius. €425,000
Lying Italy
email: info@sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk 72
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
Lying Spain
£225,000
Lying UK
Lying UK
www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk
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BROKERAGE
Elysian - One of several slipper stern launches currently for sale with HSC, this one being a Brooke with a lovely interior and still bearing its builders plaque.
Golden Butterfly - a 40ft gentleman’s launch built by Mike Dennett and inspired by the Edwardian Andrews launches with their counter sterns. Golden Butterfly was electrified for the current owners who also updated the galley and loo £59,500.
Viola - an early Taylor Bates built as an open electric launch and restored in the mid nineties since when it has always been well maintained. Seats 8 to 10 people in comfort.
Georgiana - an interesting lake launch, now electrified, from East Berlin, probaby built as a ski boat and with a lovely shape. Comes complete with trailer £14,950
Deenar - an Admiralty launch and one of the exclusive Dunkirk Little Ships which cross the channel to Dunkirk every five years to commemorate the rescue of so many soldiers, Deenar has sleeping accommodation, a galley, shower and head as well as seating for 8 in the sheltered cockpit. Viewing afloat mid Thames, £27,500
Fantasy II - 1958, Toughs of Teddington, great motor yacht for river or sea, currently lying Thames, large aft saloon with galley, flying bridge, good wheelhouse.
Peerless Admiral - stunning 25ft Andrews Day Launch with galley and loo, one of three currently for sale with HSC
Amoreena - simply the loveliest Bates Starcraft with 45ft of internal space, large flying bridge, acres of varnish, suitable for river and sea, maybe for charter too as she would be amazing at Cowes for spectating.
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For more information about any of these boats call 01491 578870 mobile 07813 917730 email sales@hscboats.co.uk www.hscboats.co.uk
For model boats, dockside clothing and boaty curios visit www.boatique.co.uk
M.J.LEWIS & SON (Boat Sales) LTD DOWNS ROAD BOATYARD, MALDON, ESSEX. CM9 5HG
E-Mail: info@mjlewisboatsales.com • Tel: 01621 859373 • Mob: 07736 553487 Specialists in the brokerage of Classic Vessels, Traditional Yachts and Working Boats
21m ex Trinity House Pilot Cutter, 1960 Twin Rolls Royce engs, wooden motor vessel. Historic Ship. Pilots accom. Restoration ongoing. Kent £115,000
27.6m Thames Sailing Barge, 1923 Complete rig and Ford 6cly. Coded for charter, Accommodation for crew. In fine fettle. London (Working) £175,000
12.8m Sailing Lugger, 1904 1990’s refit, re-commission. 7 berths, twin engs. 55hp. Charters. Cornwall £85,000
30ft McGruer’s Lorne Class 8T, 1963 Bermudan Sloop. Teak hull and decks, immaculate condition. 21hp Nanni. Reluctant sale. Suffolk £39,950
Inchcape 38 Motorsailer, 1965 Petty much original. Twin Kelvin F4’s. Requires commissioning. OOW survey May’13. Yorkshire. £34,950
8m Stirling 28,1968 Classic Holman Sloop by Uphams. Shipwright maintained. A prime example. Kent £26,000
Heard 29, Gaff Cutter, 1983 GRP taken from Falmouth Oyster boat. Hard wood finish, Noble spars, 40hp Perkins. Cornwall £42,000
38ft Gaff Yawl, 1905 French built Bordeaux. Pitch Pine on Oak. Much restored. New sails, Headr’m 5 berths. New engine. N. Essex £47,500
34ft Essex Sailing Smack CK 375, 1890 Aldous of Brightlingsea. Totally rebuilt. Oak on Oak, Accoya decks. New dinghy & outboard incl. Essex £49,000
7.92m Wooden Motor Launch, 1960 Perkins 65hp Enclosed wheelhouse. Forward accom. Large deep open cockpit. Essex £12,950
10.6m Arnside Prawner, 1900 Completely restored, inboard diesel, new spars, sails. Crew accom. Essex £19,950
20ft One Design BB11, 1958 Varnished keel boat, outboard & road trailer. Much restored. Open Racer Essex £7,950
11m ex Admiralty Pinnace,1880 Wooden hull, 70hp Ford. Accom fore &aft. An historic ship. Completely restored & working. Kent £29,000 or Interesting OFFER
28ft 6ins Sussex One Design, 1950 Fractional wooden Bermudian sloop. Undergone major refurbishment. Volvo MDIIc. Long keel. 5ft 8ins hdrm. Kent £16,000
19ft Memory, 1980 GRP simulated carvel hull, open boat Gaff Cutter with outboard & trailer. An accolade winner. Re furbished. Essex £6,950
www.heritage-marine.com 74
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
2 Southford Road, Dartmouth, South Devon TQ6 9QS Tel/Fax: (01803) 833899 – info@woodenships.co.uk – www.woodenships.co.uk
50’ Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter, built in 1899 and restored over the last 8 years in present ownership. Sound hull, new interior, systems and rig. Rare opportunity to own an original Pilot Cutter, one of the best designed sea boats you will ever find. Canada £190,000+VAT
49’ Laurent Giles Dorus Mohr Class ketch. 26TM Built 1961. One of 4 built, a fine big comfortable cruising boat regularly sailed by 2. Cumins diesel. Two twin berth sleeping cabins + pilot berth + saloon. 2 heads, shower. Executor sale hence a very reasonable £75,000 Devon
Scottish fishing boat gaff ketch 1963. 40’x 14’x 6’6”. Traditional massive larch/oak construction. Gardner 6LXB. 6 berths. 2 heads, shower. CH. H&C. 650sq’ sail on Collars masts, T Nielsen rigging. 2KW diesel generator. A proper little ship. Cost a fortune to rebuild like this so a very cheap boat at £49,750 Scotland.
43’ Robert Clark sloop one of four built by Berthon in 1962. Honduras mahogany hull, lead keel, solid teak deck and coach roof, new alloy mast, 5 berths. A very elegant and fast yacht with real pedigree, ne rig, very tidy. Scotland £59,950
38’ Alden Challenger yawl. The last design worked on personally by Alden, very similar to the great S&S Finnisterre. 1961 Halmatic GRP hull. Interior completed by Le Comte of Holland. Major refit in 2002. Superb eye catching yacht from the early years of GRP construction, a ‘classic’ in every sense of the word. A must see boat. Cornwall £39,500
31’ Dee 25 sloop. The famous Peter Brett design following on the success of his Fair Rover. Varnished pitch-pine hull, teak deck. Fractional rig on aluminium mast. Recent sails and rig. ST winches. Volvo diesel. 6 berths. Standing head-room. A perfect little fast cruising yacht, very smart indeed. Chichester £22,500
Dalzell 43 built by AP Farrow in 1987. Immensely strong epoxy wood construction with long fin keel and skeg rudder. Immaculately maintained with huge inventory, long history of blue water voyaging including the Arctic. Comfortable fast offshore yacht. Scotland £75,000
42’ John Alden Ketch built in 2000 and fitted out to a very high standard. Moulded GRP hull. Easily managed ketch rig, Yanmar 75hp, 7 berths with 2 double cabins. Very comfortable yacht with top class systems and finish, what better way to see the world! Dorset £129,000
25’ Deben Cherub gaff cutter built in 2005. Conventional construction of larch on oak frames, self draining cockpit. Vetus 16hp diesel. Rig and sails all immaculate. Superb quality little boat in as new condition at a fraction of new price, the first to see will surely buy her. Wales £12,500
32’ centre cockpit yawl built by the Cardnell Bros in 1932. Laminated mahogany copper fastened to oak timbers. 6 berths including separate aft cabin. Vetus 22hp diesel. Comfortable and safe coastal yacht, must sell this season so reduced to £16,500. Kent
46’ Bermudan ketch built in Sweden in 1948. Pitch pine planking to sawn oak frames. Powerful ketch rig on wooden spars. New Bukh 38hp diesel. Basic interior with 6 berths and large saloon, races regularly in classic regattas. Big boat for the money. IOW £35,000
Laurent Giles Peter Duck ketch built in 1970 by Porter and Haylet. The last one in a long line of these sturdy little cruising boats. Iroko on oak with Perkins 4107 diesel. 4 berths and good rig. Recent survey. Must sell so a bargain at £10,000. Ireland
Breton Mizainnier. Francois Vivier design built by Devon boat builder John Moody in 1993. Very fine construction as originally built in heavy sawn oak frames, larch planking. Powerful 3-reef lugsail in red duradon cloth. Sabb 10hp inboard diesel. Road trailer. Scilly Isles £10,000
29’ Scarborough One design from John Ley, one of over 20 boats built. Larch copper fastened to oak timbers. Yanmar 3YGM diesel. 3 berths. Deep sheltered cockpit with handy Bermudan cutter rig. Cheap fun. Cornwall £7,500
Craftsmanship Yard News
Edited by Steffan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk
CORNWALL
Some proponents of the 8-M class believe it to be the biggest yacht that you can practically trail to regattas. And, if you have an artic as tender, that’s true. That is how the 1965 McGruerdesigned-and-built cruiser 8-M, Altricia arrived earlier this summer on her own lorry at Mylor Yacht Harbour. She is the new boat of Peter Methven OBE, ex-president of the British Marine Federation. Peter showed his last yacht Dilkusha on our stand at the London Boat Show in 2004. Altricia is mahogany on oak and needs a total refit, including conversion to wheel steering. “Everything we have removed so far has been doublefastened, glued and generally built belt-and-braces wherever possible,” says project manager Henry Goldsmith. We are now hoping that Peter will repaint the lorry in Altricia’s livery: varnished brown ‘topsides’ and blue underbody!
Above: replanking on Altricia. She also has just six strands of caulking cotton between each plank, something the yard has never seen before
CORNWALL
c/O PEnDEnniS SHiPYARD
Giant projects
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Pendennis Shipyard has been busy with some gargantuan projects, not least the first big refit of the 138ft (42m) German Frers ketch Rebecca (pictured left). She was built by Pendennis in 1999 and this winter refit will give her a larger library, an interior and engine overhaul, upgrades to all systems, and the addition of a sewage plant. As we went to press, workers at the yard were bemoaning her sad state with the deck off; but all should be well when she is launched next year with a new teak deck. Other projects include the restoration of an unnamed classic motor yacht and, largest of all, an overhaul and extension of the world’s largest sloop, Mirabella V. Her sugar scoop stern will be inverted to give a more traditional counter stern and 25ft (7.6m) more deck space. Old ideas sometimes work best!
c/O MYLOR YAcHT HARBOuR
New life for a McGruer 8-M
CRAFTSMANSHIP
SOUTHAMPTON BOAT SHOW
wooden boatbuilders have been having a tough time in the last few years, with demand slashed by the economic climate. But exhibitors at Southampton have come up with a number of strategies for riding out the storm. jeremy Freeland of Collars knows just how flat the market has been – he supplies spars to most builders. He estimates the market is trickling along at about a sixth of the volume of a few years ago. collars itself was showing a newly finished 16ft 5in (5m) GrP rowing skiff for £3,250 including oars and VaT. Good Wood Boat Company of cumbria has also been diversifying into skiff-building. a Lakeland hire company asked if it could replicate a century-old windermere Skiff and provide a template for the hire firm to build further boats of its own. Good wood has also joined the British international 12-Foot revival – in this case for a customer who wanted a 12ft (3.7m) lugsail dinghy for cruising (pictured above). Anglia Yachts and Cockwells were also showing new 12s. Adrian Donovan of Suffolk, noted for beautiful skiffs (an example of which is shown above right), has gone the other way: he is currently building a Swallow Boats Baycruiser 23 cabin yacht in wood for a client.
FAveRSHAM, KeNT
Dick Phillips of Willow Bay Boats in Dorset, famous for its coinageinspired boat names, reports that kits for home-built Shillings are in demand. and at Character Boats in Lancashire, where martin Dooley has taken over from the now-retired adrian Denye and relocated to a new workshop near Southport, is developing a launch version of the 17ft 6in (5.4m) whammel. it will have a centralised engine and horseshoe seating but, says martin, “we’re paying for it out of cashflow,” so progress will be steady rather than swift. Peter willis
FLORIDA
Eel is relaunched
when he’s not creating the software behind the recent launch of the Lunar atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, rocket scientist chris mccormick’s attention belongs to the 1948 Trumpy motor yacht Leannan, seven years into a full rebuild by jimmy wray of Key west woodworks. She’s the first Trumpy built after the firm relocated to annapolis, maryland. Trumpy has famously built boats for america’s elite, like the presidential yacht USS Sequoia. Leannan is cold-moulded and 62ft (19m) long. So far, work has included the interior (with cuban mahogany felled by Hurricane wilma and vintage fittings that took two years to track down), a high-tech diesel-electric drive train and “space age” solar panels and batteries. wray has been bringing mccormick back from the final frontier with the earthbound questions that matter: like how much ice you need for mojitos from Florida to cuba! cara cannella
c/o jimmy wray
His other boat’s a lunar spacecraft
aLaN STaLEy
one of the most important yachts of the corinthian era was relaunched in late September after more than two decades on land. Eel, launched in 1896/7 and thought to be her designer George Holmes’s first cabin yacht, was brought to alan Staley’s yard in 1990, but 10 years into a piecemeal restoration (and around the time of the attack on New york’s Twin Towers), her owner vanished. Three years ago a new owner was found and work resumed. She’s of the type known as a Humber yawl, built for upsizing canoeists in Victorian Britain. She’s a 21ft (6.4m) larch-on-oak centreboarder with a two-berth cabin and weighs about 1.75 tonnes. over the last 23 years, alan has replaced the keelson, garboards, frames, deck and masts, although most of the hull planks are “very probably” original. The owner, who will keep Eel on the Broads, has foregone any ‘systems’ or skin fittings, preferring a bucket and an electric outboard motor. The headsail is on a wooden roller reefing spar, as original. Du Boulay invented this system long before wykeham martin’s device (which was only a furling system) in the early 20th century.
PETEr wiLLiS
Dinghy diversification at Southampton
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I
CRAFTSMANSHIP
ellad’s restoration Part 1
removing the interior In the first of a new series on a yacht restoration, we visit Hubert Stagnol’s yard in Brittany where owner Didier Griffiths restored Ellad. The first job was to find out the condition of her hull… story dan houston PhotograPhs didier griffiths
D ellad Built in 1957 to a William Fife III design, she’s a stylish 34ft 6in (10.5m) doubleender. Full story on page 34.
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idier formed his own company and employed the highly recommended local boatbuilder Olivier Cyrille to do the work. There was some trepidation on both sides of this arrangement; Didier had no experience of employing someone on this sort of project and Olivier was asking himself how it would be working for a dentist with limited boatbuilding knowledge, but fixed ideas. Indeed there were occasionally times of intense discussion as work progressed. Hubert Stagnol had worked on Ellad for the seller, so assured Didier she was a sound investment. He would also be available for advice as work progressed. Work started a week after purchase, in November 2011. The reputed Breton boatbuilder Jacques Pichavant surveyed Ellad and Olivier assessed her general condition.
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
It was decided to thoroughly check everything, dismantling all – with a view to possibly reusing all. Each item was carefully taken apart, labelled, measured, catalogued and stored. Olivier worked full time in Bénodet and each weekend Didier drove there after treating his last patient in Bergerac, to help with the disassembly work. He also took many fixtures and fittings home with him to thoroughly restore and rechrome. With the hull empty they could verify that it was sound. All the planking is in teak, and it was not necessary to replace a single plank. Of the basic structure the only replacement was the deck king plank, which was made in mahogany, for one in teak. It was clear that the first job was to inspect the floors and keel bolts... See how in part two next month.
I
SECTION HEAD SUB SECTION
1
Ch oose your boatyard
Ellad arrives at Chantier Naval Stagnol at BĂŠnodet in Brittany ready for the work to begin. Stagnol has a very good reputation for restoration and Didier was happy to be there
3
Keeping original fittings
Certain interior fittings, like this old bulkhead lamp, were tired but could be re-chromed and reused. As always there are lots of decisions about keeping as much original gear as possible
2
Recording interior layout
The interior was recorded in photos and also measured meticulously by boatbuilder Olivier Cyrille. Everything had to be labelled ready for dismantling, cleaning and storing
4
Getting down to th e hull
These huge fuel and water tanks had been in the boat since new and they obscured the condition of her bilges. There was more than 50 years of filth under these when they came out
TOP TIP
HULL SURVEY Know the condition of the hull: planks, fra mes, timbers and floors . All else depends on th is
5
Removing cabin furniture
It took nearly a month of the year-long restoration to carefully and totally dismantle the interior. Once it was done, work on the hull, keel bolts and floors could be started
6
Totally dismantled
With the cabin sole and interior out a proper inspection of the frames and galvanised iron floors could be made. This shows the bilges from aft of her engine mounts. A hammer shows scale
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CRAFTSMANSHIP
Boatbuilder’s Notes
EXPERT ADVICE
Drilling to a set depth story anD photographs ROBIN GATES When a number of small holes must be bored to the same depth, one option is to wind a piece of tape around the drill bit as a marker, but this offers no physical barrier to drilling too deeply. For the hand-tool worker using a wheel brace,
accuracy is improved by using a simple home-made depth stop. the stop shown above is a 3/8in (10mm) slice of 5/8in (16mm) diameter dowel, with a central hole that’s been bored by the drill it is fitted to, thus ensuring a snug fit. the stop is slid along the drill to the set depth, and secured in position by a no 2 gauge 3/8in brass screw with its point filed flat.
Above, left to right: the depth stop prevents holes being drilled too deeply; note the flat point of the screw
Far left: cross-cut the waste several times and chip out with a bevel-down chisel. Left: pare down to the line holding the chisel flat with bevel up
Cutting a half joint story anD photographs ROBIN GATES In a ‘halved’ or ‘halving’ joint, the thickness of each piece of timber is reduced so that when they are joined their faces lie flush. It’s a simple and adaptable joint often used in frameworks supporting a cabin sole or a boat tent, for example, and may be used to join at right angles, in a cross, in a t, or to butt two short pieces together lengthwise. the critical part of the operation is removing the waste. to do this in a controlled way, first saw the shoulder of the joint, then saw a number of cross-cuts parallel to the shoulder and to the required depth. Using a broad chisel with bevel down, the waste can now be removed quickly and cleanly without risking splitting the wood. next, pare down to the line using the chisel with bevel up.
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CRAFTSMANSHIP
Traditional Tool Saw sharpening The skill of sharpening a saw has all but disappeared from boatbuilding, since power saws and disposable hardpoint blades have rendered it almost redundant. Back when high-carbon Sheffield steel was the norm, the boatbuilder took particular care in maintaining the set and sharpness of his saw. A meticulous craftsman might even recut the tooth profile of a brand-new saw to his liking – or be forced to do so if a careless colleague borrowed it and ploughed into a forest of unseen fastenings. The first step is topping, also known as jointing, in which a flat file is worked along the cutting edge from heel to toe bringing teeth to a uniform height. The file is maintained level and perpendicular by a topping clamp, steadied against the blade by a vertical fence. Depending on the degree of bluntness and the unevenness of previous sharpenings, the topping can vary from a couple of light passes with the file to removing the teeth entirely. The topping clamp shown here was made in the 19th century and still does its job.
Circumstances dictate what happens next. If much metal has been removed in topping, the teeth must be recut to their characteristic triangular shape with intervening triangular spaces or gullets. Rip teeth are filed with steep faces while cross-cut teeth are given more negative rake, leaning back by around 15°. Otherwise it is usual to adjust the set. This is the extent to which teeth are bent left and right, typically by half a tooth’s thickness, so that the saw cuts a kerf slightly wider than the blade and does
Clockwise from above: topping clamp, wrest and file; the saw wrest with its adjustable guard; tapered triangular saw file
not bind. Setting is achieved using the saw wrest, which has slots for different blade thicknesses. The wrest is fitted over a tooth, to about half its depth, then levered downwards. A sliding brass guard prevents the tooth from bending too far. Next, each tooth is sharpened using a tapered triangular file. For a rip tooth the file is pushed square to the saw blade to produce a chisel-like cutting edge, while for a cross-cut tooth the file is angled to produce a knife-like bevel known as fleam.
ADVICE
Bolt alignment jig While replacing the mizzenmast step recently on the ketch Lady Isabella, I needed some unusually long bolts. As none were available locally I asked one of my workmates if he could make them for me by welding short lengths of threaded bar onto some machine screws. To make the jig he simply chose a piece of angle bar approximately 6in (152mm) long and cut a small hole in it about 2½in (64mm) from one end. The hole was cut into the apex of the angle and was roughly ¾in (18mm) square. The jig was then put in a vice with the apex down so that it formed a V-shaped channel. The screw and the threaded bar were placed in it with their ends meeting in the centre of the hole. Resting in the angle bar like this they were perfectly aligned, while the hole ensured that they only got welded to each other and not to the jig. RG
magali bellenger
Story and photographS ROBIN GATES
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CRAFTSMANSHIP
thE CB IntErVIEW
gilbert pasqui In the world of classic boat restoration, few people come more highly rated than this passionate craftsman. Here’s the story of the man with boats in his blood story and photographs NIGEL PERT
B
efore the races started at a recent Nice Regatta I drove out of the old port towards the east along the Moyenne Corniche. You soon have a splendid view over the beautiful bay of Villefranche where the yard of Chantier Pasqui is to be found on the edge of the small harbour in the Port de la Darse. His workshop is situated in a cavern hollowed into the hillside that used to be the gunpowder stores, part of the 18th-century arsenal installed at Villefranche. Pasqui has dedicated his life to the preservation of maritime heritage and is the man behind much of the beauty we enjoy at classic yacht regattas around the world. When he was born in 1948 his father, Mario, was foreman in a boatyard in Nice. As a young boy, Pasqui took his father his packed lunch and watched the boats being built. At school, Pasqui wasn’t interested in studies; instead he spent his time designing boats. Fortunately his last teacher was strict and made him work enough to pass his basic qualifications, at which point he said to his father: “I want to leave school and build boats.” Although initially reticent, Mario finally allowed 13-year-old Gilbert to start an apprenticeship in the yard, which had been awarded the title of best yard in France. He worked at his father’s side for five years. It was during his next employment that Pasqui had the opportunity to learn to sail. The yard – Chantier Naval Charpentier – built Finn-class dinghies and Pasqui raced them every weekend. Next he worked for a while with boatbuilder Felix Silvestro, at his yard in Nice, before working for a luxury motorboat importer where he “experienced luxury, close hand!”. After his national service, he nearly became a sailor aboard Itala IV. He did a delivery trip for the Rothschilds to Germany, but finally in 1976 at the age of 28 he established his first yard, in Beaulieu-sur-Mer. “When I started working on my own, there were only wooden boats. Then polyester arrived and there was not much work to be found – we thought it was the end of wooden boats. Then there was aluminium. I fitted out
aluminium boats, teak decks… We did that for years. I often say this: ‘Les bateaux, si tu ne les aimes pas, il ne faut pas y toucher!” Loosely translated, it means: ‘Boats, if you don’t love them, you shouldn’t touch them!’ “Then La Nioulargue [the original title for Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez] took place and the British and Americans started to return with their wooden boats. They bought wooden boats in need of restoration and that’s why the yard took off straight away.” He was in Beaulieu-sur-Mer until 1979, when he needed more space and moved to the industrial zone of Carros where he won the contract to make the 102ft (31m) masts for Zaca a te Moana. In 1994 he had outgrown this workshop and established himself in his current location. From then on boats didn’t stop coming in. He began working on the Rivas and even won the Carlo Riva prize in 2000 for the best restoration at Portofino. On realising it was a Frenchman who had restored the boat the Italians said: “Pasqui; he’s Italian!” Classic Boat You have earned a reputation for your spars and masts. Was it your choice to go in this direction? Gilbert Pasqui “It was because of Ed Kastelein and Zaca a te Moana, but I was already a specialist in dinghy masts [mainly the Finns], all of them very light and flexible. Then, other boats followed: Hallowe’en, Havsörnen…” CB Have you developed your own technique, or is the method adapted from another yard? GP “Here it is not the same! We had already developed a special technique that was later improved in conjunction with the naval architect Jacques Fauroux. He did many precise calculations and we managed to lighten the masts while still keeping the required stiffness. For example, with Tuiga and Mariska we managed to lose 661lb (300kg) by having just the thickness necessary and no more.” CB Glued with epoxy? GP “The technique doesn’t depend on the glue, there is only a micron. We use resorcinol, but you can use what you wish, it’s nothing to do with epoxy. Our other speciality is carvel-planked boats. They don’t flex so you CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
CRAFTSMANSHIP GILBERT PASQUI
Clockwise from above: the dry dock at Pasqui’s boatyard in Villefranche; planing a mast into shape; the entrance to Pasqui’s yard; Saint Vallier takes shape inside the polytunnel
can leave them on dry land two or three years and they don’t leak when you put them back in the water. Wood has extraordinary natural qualities. They say wood has to breathe – well if you want wood to breathe don’t fell the tree! Once a tree is cut it mustn’t be wet, otherwise it loses its natural qualities. With the passage of time it becomes like a sponge and worthless as it loses its mechanical properties. So, it has to be isolated to prevent it from swelling and shrinking. I use the Stephens [of Sparkman & Stephens fame] method: each plank is glued on its edge, which increases the stiffness of the hull and you make a faster boat too. The only thing is that you have to be extremely precise while planing or all is lost.” CB Did you know Stephens? GP “When my father was building Arcadia with Silvestro, Stephens came to see my father. After measuring the boat he shook my father’s hand and said, “If I have a boat to build I’ll come and see you!” The relationship between Silvestro and my father was magical. Silvestro knew everything and my father worked like a digital machine. He was quick even though he was in his early 70s at the time and Silvestro was a total perfectionist. But my father had something extra – it was inborn.” CB Talking of personalities, did you know the great British spar maker Harry Spencer? GP “Of course, we worked together on the masts and spars for Merrymaid. He drew all the plans for the rig, but I didn’t copy them to the letter and saved 1,100lb (500kg) on the weight of the boom. For the masts and spars of Elena and Eleonora, for example, we could do 10 times better – lighter and stiffer. They are made with methods that Spencer used in his time.” CB Where do you source your wood stock? GP “In France, Holland or Italy. It’s Oregon pine from Canada, but it’s a question of value for money. The mahogany comes from France and we go to the UK for teak. Now the Burmese sell direct, but only pre-machined, so the local workforce benefits from the trade.
When I did Tuiga’s deck I found 23ft (7m)-lengths of teak in Holland, but that’s finished now. Three or four years ago I went to Burma to buy some teak and was given an elephant (wooden, I hasten to add).” Chantier Pasqui’s recent work includes the new spars for the gaff-rigged 8-Ms IR Nin and Marga, both of which are being restored in Italy. He is working on the Marconi 8-M Fontano. He is also doing a total refit on Vision of Sebago: “We have changed her hull, which was completely dead!” He did a repair to the keel of Bona Fide just days before Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez and he restored Cerida for the same owner last year. He has the Cornu-designed Mahonee to finish and Argyll III waiting to be restored. There is also a Spirit yacht that needs its keel strengthening, plus many more jobs in the pipeline.” CB What about the Dublin Bay 24 one-designs? GP “Initially I was supposed to do the masts, but I was too expensive and Hubert Stagnol got the job. But now work has stopped because he was forced into liquidation. But I have too much work. I had to suspend work on a sloop called Vision, which has been three years in a polytunnel. I hope to get her finished this year!” CB You are now officially retired, is that right? GP “I was obliged to retire. I contributed for 47 years and now I am a non-paid manager. I’m not going to sell my business; I am giving it to my employees, with the proviso that they keep it going at least to the end of my days. I rent my name to them to supplement my pension.”
“They say wood has to breathe – well if you want wood to breathe don’t fell the tree!”
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CRAFTSMANSHIP GILBERT PASQUI
MIGHTY MAST by Andy Cully A regular on the Mediterranean regatta circuit and one of the most successful classic charter yachts, The blue Peter, and her passionate owner Mat barker, embarked on a dream trip to the 2013 Antigua Classics – the big one of the Caribbean season. The crew were up for the challenge, despite the forecast for big swells. However, out at sea disaster struck when the chainplates gave way and the mast came crashing down. luckily nobody was hurt but the damage was substantial, so the boat was shipped to Pasqui and he started work immediately and made a completely new mast out of Sitka spruce in just six weeks. At 88ft 6in (27m) long it’s 8ft 2in (2.5m) longer (and 772lb/350kg lighter) than the previous one – a job that required Pasqui’s team to scarf together 40ft (12m) sections to get the required length. They also replaced the chainplates, plus all the frames and timbers in way of the mast area. Hopefully, this means Mat is now one step closer to winning a big Panerai regatta and the glitzy watch that goes with it! thebluepeter.com
CB Do you intend to build another boat? GP “I am restoring one for myself. It’s a 33ft (10m) cutter called Saint Vallier and it was designed by Maurice Amiet and built by my father, and I can still remember cleaning it with a chamois leather when I was a kid.” The story of how it came into Pasqui’s yard is fascinating. One day Pasqui had an email from a man saying he was the owner of a boat built by Silvestro. He said it was abandoned and rotting away, so he asked Pasqui to make him an offer so it could be saved. As 86
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
Pasqui knew the true history he told the story and the man immediately invited Pasqui to collect it. It was in a sorry state, but the hull was perfect, carvel-built in mahogany, with no caulking, like Arcadia and Fantasque. Pasqui, obviously delighted to have his hands on this boat again, says: “I’m going to win the ‘Belle Classe’ [from the Yacht Club de Monaco] with this one. She’s going to have an interior like Louis XV’s boudoir!” Judging by past performances, there’s no doubt this particular Pasqui creation will be a work of art.
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CRAFTSMANSHIP
Charlotte watters
Adrian Morgan More often I fear I am feeding the fantasies of impecunious dreamers, in gloomy offices, on company computer time… all at my expense. I always do my best to reply in length to every request. After all, we are all guilty of contacting large companies with queries that never become orders. With a craftsman, working alone, scratching a living, it is different. I feel like asking: “Are you half serious, in which case I will spend all the time I can getting to know what you want, or will this be a three-week email train leading to silence when the price is mentioned?” There has been one exception. An exception so exceptional that it gave me hope that decency still prevails in this mad, mass-produced world. David, an architect, approached me for a double-ended 20-footer with a cabin. It sounded interesting. The budget was limited, but feasible. The emails began, varied and detailed until it became clear a meeting was needed. David came up and stayed with us so we could talk face to face about the boat. He left me with sketch plans and headed for Dundee to sail the boat that had inspired him to get in touch in the first place. He liked the boat, if only it were a little longer and beamier. It would need a cabin and the centreboard system would have to be modified to allow for more room below deck. Straight keel or rocker? The boat had been a little slow in stays. What about a fixed keel? And water ballast. The thoughts flashed between our computers and, having met David, I knew his intent was serious. I did not worry if it did not result in a commission; it was enjoyable. One of my boats with a cabin? Why not. Deck or keel-stepped mast, gunter or bermudan; we had our own ideas. Cost was a big factor. A 20-footer from a production boatbuilder would cost as much as a third again, albeit not made out of wood or pointed at both ends. A certain amount of designing was fine by me; tweaking, yes, the lining out of the planks. This, however, was too complex a boat to be allowed to evolve. What about stability? The emails suddenly became a trickle. It was up to David to decide. “Give me the design and let us build your boat” was about the gist of it. Nothing for a week or so, then an email to say he had injured his foot badly in a mower accident. It would at least give him time to think about the boat. Would I bear with him? Of course I would. And could he perhaps send me a little something for the time spent so far? Well, that would be unnecessary, but welcome. That “little something” arrived with a note of thanks for my time and thought. It was enough to buy a lovely, bespoke, secondhand fishing rod from David Norwich. Would that all dreamers sent us even a tenner for our time, we could stop building boats and go fishing, or start building rods and go sailing.
Less chat, more action Adrian is happy to talk business, if there’s some business
Y
ou know who you are: Mike Turner, Jerry Smith, Ted Potter and Kevin and Mary Osborne. The names may be fictional, but the list is long. They and many more are the ones who have kept me at my desk recently answering interminable emails about wooden boats they had no intention of buying. Dreaming on my time, in other words. Nothing wrong with that, naturally. A reasonable amount of time spent discussing the details of a commission is vital; it is also great fun. The thrill of the initial enquiry. A palpable sense of enthusiasm. The cautious commitment and, finally, formal acceptance of a quote and work begins. An exchange with a stranger becomes an informal conversation with a friend, and invariably ends in a face-to-face meeting, usually for the first time, when the boat is finished and ready to head down the road.
“Give me the design and let us build the boat”
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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MARINE DIRECTORY
Marine Directory
To advertise Call Patricia Hubbard +44 (0) 207 349 3748 Patricia.hubbard@chelseamagazines.com Copy Deadline for next issue is 25/10/2013
BOATBUILDERS
BOATBUILDERS
MCGRUER & Co Ltd
Peter Freebody & Co
YACHT AND BOAT SURVEYORS Survey Design Consultancy - Refit and Repair Supervision
Boatbuilders, Designers & Restorers of Traditional River Launches A fine selection of classic launches for sale Moorings available Est 300 years Mill Lane, Hurley, Berks, SL6 5ND
Scotland – South Coast – Med. Contact Fraser Noble MRINA YDSA MIIMS Tel: 01436 831313 Mob: 07768 217054 mail@mcgruer-boats.co.uk www.mcgruer-boats.co.uk
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ibtc2@btconnect.com www.ibtcheritage.co.uk Tel: 01502 569 663
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See us at Southampton Boat show
Builders of Oban Skiff. Traditional clinker specialists. Hugely experienced restorer. Boats designed, built & restored to your exact requirements. See our work online at
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photo: Stephen Wolfenden
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SPECIALISTS IN RESTORATION AND REPAIR OF TRADITIONAL CRAFT Tel: 01502 724721 info@harbourmarine.co.uk www.harbourmarine.co.uk Blackshore Southwold Harbour Southwold Suffolk IP18 6TA
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A range of simple small craft plans for very easy home building in plywood
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visit www.classicboat.co.uk
www.alanstaleyboatbuilders.co.uk Ryan Kearley 3x1.indd 1
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Marine Directory 19254 Classic Boat_99x60mm_General.pdf
BOATBUILDERS
1
27/08/2013
12:04
BOATBUILDERS
For tickets & info visit londonboatshow.com BOAT MODELS
PETER WARD
31 ST MARYS ROAD • POOLE • DORSET • UK • BH15 2LH
HA MODLEFL
S
CLASSIC TRADITIONAL DESIGNS, SPECIAL COMMISSIONS AND RESTORATIONS
Tel & Fax: +44 (0)1202 672823 • Email: peterward31@msn.com
BOAT RESINS Skippool Creek, Wyre Road, Thornton, Cleveleys, Lancs FY5 5LF
Telephone: 01253 893830 www.davidmossboatbuilders.co.uk
Boats plans to make the sea more beautiful
www.vivierboats.com
High Quality Epoxy Resins at affordable prices Online or
visit www.classicboat.co.uk
DESIGN
Mail Order
Phone/Fax 01704 892364 Email: rob@epoxy-resins.co.uk www.epoxy-resins.co.uk
UK Epoxy Resins, 3 Square Lane, Burscough, Lancashire L40 7RG
The Marine Directory is the place to advertise, call now on +44 (0)207 349 3748
New catalogue with 350 designs for the home boat builder, ranging from canoes to yachts and launches, now on CD as PDF files with many colour photographs—£7 + £1 p&p MANUALS by Paul Fisher Stitch & Tape Boat Construction Strip Plank Boat Construction Clinker Ply Boat Construction Sails for the Home Boat Builder Plywood Boat Construction for Larger Craft Fit-Out for Yachts & Launches - all manuals £18 + £3 P&P each
Tel. 01225 705074 SELWAY FISHER DESIGN 15 King St, Melksham, SN12 6HB Web Site : www.selway-fisher.com
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
JOHN MOOR & SON Yacht and Boatbuilders
builders of fine wooden boats since 1970
Sailing Master Expressions of Interest sought for unique and exciting appointment of Sailing Master for restored Historic Junk Yacht “Boleh” coded for sail training and due to be commissioned in September 2014. Full time salaried position from July 2014 and based in Portsmouth. Overall direction and delivery of extensive annual programme of sailing and onshore activities for young people. The BoatYard East Quay Mevagissey Cornwall PL26 6QQ Tel. 01726 842964 Mob. 07776317475 Email. moor4@fsmail.net
Full details of appointment and application procedure on website: www.bolehproject.com
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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Mar
MARINE DIRECTORY &"+ , & ') )% ') ! *+ ) '& ! % * /'& $
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EQUIPMENT Fastening & Fitting
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MATTRESSES
Traditionally carved decorative work for all craft Interior decoration - Sculptures - Gilding - Restoration Trailboards - Sternboards - Billetheads Tafferels to Figureheads tel. +44 (0)7836 32 34 31
FooTWEAR
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Traditional handsewn boat shoes
The finest mattresses afloat
www.classicboat.co.uk
Naturalmat Marine have been making the most comfortable custom mattresses for yachts and motorboats since 1999. Every mattress is tailor made to any size, shape and tension using renewable materials that guarantee 89 CLASSIC BOAT DECEMBER 2010 perfect support and optimum breathability. Naturalmat Marine also make a full range of made to measure bed linen, bedspreads and bed base systems.
Classified Marine directory DEC 10.indd 71
For more information contact us on 01392 877 247, email mark@naturalmat.co.uk or visit www.naturalmatmarine.co.uk. 2/11/10
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17:26:34
marine
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Marine Directory RIGGINGS
MASTS Supply •
Manufacture • Install
Noble Masts Hollow Wooden Spars
Harbour Way, Bristol, BS1 5UH, UK T: (0117) 929 7450 • E: gofasterwez@aol.com UK Patent No. 2112706 NobleMasts 8th cb apr 2.indd 1
4/1/11 11:46:35 AM
Empire Buildings St. Mary’s Road Cowes, Isle of Wight PO31 7SX
+44 (0)1983 292022
WWW.SPENCERRIGGING.CO.UK MOORINGS
SURVEYORS
TIMBER
H TIMBER H
TONY TUCKER
Experienced surveyor of traditional and modern, timber, GRP, & steel craft Pre-Purchase, Insurance, Valuation, Damage, MCA Code of Practice Compliance; BSS Expert Witness Trained. Fellow YDSA
Tel/fax +44 (0)1442 253775 www.tucker-designs.com
FULL RANGE OF TIMBER SUPPLIED AND MACHINED TO YOUR SPECIFICATION
H LONG LENGTHS DOUGLAS FIR/SPRUCE H OAK BENDS H MAHOGANY H TEAK H STRIP PLANKING AND CONSTRUCTIONAL VENEERS
JOHN MOODY
T: 01548 831075 F: 01548 831440 john_moody@btconnect.com
LITTLE SHEEPHAM, MODBURY IVYBRIDGE, DEVON PL21 0TS
TIMBER gosportboatyard@tiscali.co.uk
www.gosportboatyard.co.uk Deepwater moorings and storage Masters in all marine trades
WEI R QUAY BOATYARD
Traditional boatyard in Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, South Devon
RobbinsTimber,Brookgate,AshtonVale Trading Estate, Bristol, BS3 2UN, UK l Tel: 0117 963 3136 l Fax: 0117 963 7927 l Email: timber@robbins.co.uk l www.robbins.co.uk Free Comprehensive Catalogue • Elite Marine Plywood We make Mail Order Easy! All major cards accepted • Cedar Strip Worldwide Mail Order UK’s Widest Range! • Hardwoods & Softwoods • West System Epoxy • Collano Semparoc and other Adhesives • Copper, Silicon Bronze and Stainless Fastenings s
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The Marine Directory is the place to advertise, call now on +44 (0)207 349 3748 CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
93
CLASSIC YACHT BROKERAGE ALDEN CLIPPER 42 KETCH (12.80m)
John Alden design, built Gweek Quay, Cornwall 2003. GRP moulded hull, mahogany superstructure, epoxied cedar decks. Quality mahogany fitted interior for seven with well fitted galley and two heads. Webasto heating. Extensive navigation inventory. 75hp Yanmar Diesel, bow thruster. Well maintained, traditional style ‘classic’ proven passage maker. £129,000 Vat Paid Dorset
38ft. GOOD HOPE BERMUDIAN KETCH (11.70m)
Maurice Griffiths design, Whisstocks of Woodbridge 1971. Iroko hull, swept teak decks, iroko superstructure. Five berths in three cabins. Galley, heads and shower. Centre cockpit, sheltered helm. 47hp Yanmar diesel (2003) Five year refit prior to Med cruise from 2003. Marina berth available to June 2014. £59,000 UK Flag Turkey Also 41ft Good Hope Ketch available
42ft. CORNU BERMUDIAN KETCH (12.80m)
Eugéne Cornu design, built by Pichavant Boatyard, Brittany 1968. Mahogany hull, teak laid decks, mahogany brightwork. Traditionally fitted interior with berths for six. Re-fitted galley and heads. Aft cockpit. Sitka Spruce spars, recent sails. 28hp Volvo Diesel. Extensive refit 2012/13. A well equipped ocean racer/cruiser. £126,000 French Flag
Brittany
26ft. YONNE BERMUDIAN CUTTER (7.90m)
Dr. T Harrison Butler design, Clemens of Portsmouth 1935. Larch hull, swept teak decks and teak brightwork. Two berths, galley and heads. Keelup restoration and subsequent winner of CB Restoration of the Year. Voted Top 100 Classics 2013. An outstanding vessel in everyway. Viewing recommended. £60,000 Four further Harrison Butler yachts available
Devon
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Classic_129x202.qxd:Layout 1 7/3/13 10:27 Page 1 Tel: +44 (0)1905-356482 / 07949-095075
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
Looking ahead Things to do in the next few weeks
NEXT MONTH
NELSON, NAVY, NATION – 1688-1815 Opens 21 October National Maritime Museum, London Tel: +44 (0)20 8858 4422, rmg.co.uk
NMM
Major new permanent gallery on Nelson and the 19th-century Royal Navy. It opens, fittingly, on Trafalgar Day.
NY32s, early S&S 1935 design Sailing the W37 Spirit of Tradition Mystic Seaport – a living museum
FROM THE LOFT FLOOR
Until 16 DECEMBER CONVOY HQS Wellington, London Tel: +44 (0)207 836 8179, thewellingtontrust.com HQS Wellington, a convoy escort in the Second World War, is an appropriate venue for staging this exhibition about the Battle of the Atlantic – what Churchill referred to as “the dominating factor all through the war”. Using photos, films, artefacts and ship models, Convoy relives those years. Open 11am-5pm on Sundays and Mondays. Admission is free. Full event schedule online.
Until 13 January 2014 National Maritime Museum Cornwall, Falmouth Tel: +44 (0)1326 313388, nmmc.co.uk A couple of years ago, artist Anna Cattermole documented the build of Luke Powell’s pilot cutter Freja. This exhibition of her work is supported by tools, boat models and a film.
BROOM BROOM
TURKEY
USA
21-26 OCTOBER Bodrum Cup Bodrum, Turkey Tel: +90 252 316 2310, bodrumcup.com Well-attended race for Turkey’s famous sailing gulets
8 DECEMBER Half-Pint-of-Rum Regatta San Diego, California, USA sdyc.org Get drunk, swim to your boat, race, sail back, drink more. Something like that…
REPLACING FLOORS
From the publishers of Classic Boat SAILING TODAY
IN THE LATEST ISSUE NOVEMBER 2013 sailingtoday.co.uk £4.20
WIN! RAYMA
RINE A75 PLOTTER KIT WORTH
Solo round the world at 70
Ring of fire
£1,100+
Totally tropical – cruising the north coast of Indonesia
BOAT ON TEST
What really works in an emergency
Bavaria’s 37C feels like a 40-footer
IRISH SEA SECRETS
Guide to the forgotten harbours of the NW ST199_001 V6.indd 1
ELEGANT DAYSAILER
Rustler’s 24 takes you back to a gentler era
Rig cutters – what really works in an emergency
Rig cutters
Little big boat
MINI SCUBA
We test a new one-day sailor’s dive course
RIVER SAILING
Wily tricks and tips to get ahead upstream
IN THE LATEST ISSUE America’s Cup – how Ben Ainslie helped USA win
£4.30 Issue #1667 | November 2013 www.yachtsandyachting.co.uk 11 9 770044 000205
AMERICA'S CUP SoUVENIR SPECIAL
USA come from behind how Ben ainslie made the difference
Winter kit – stay warm and dry this winter TECHNIQUE
Winning teamwork
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
www.yachtsaNdyachtINg.cO.uk
INDONESIA • IRISH SEA SECRETS • BAVARIA 37C • FALMOUTH • RIG CUTTERS
Rod Heikell cruises volcanic Indonesia
Little big boat – on the water in Bavaria’s new 37C
stuNNINg aMERIca's cuP FINaLE | FastNEt VIctORy | ExtREME actION | J/88 ON tEst
NOVEMBER 2013 – ISSUE No 199
INTERVIEW
NOVEMBER 2013 | IssuE #1667
GO FURTHER I SAIL BETTER I BE INSPIRED
Jeanne Socrates
Brundall-based Broom celebrated 115 years of building boats this summer and some 40 different designs motored up to mark the moment
Iain Percy
CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
What next for the Cup?
J/88 on tEst We sail J-boats' all-new 29ft speedster
WintEr saiLing Get kitted out, plus our winter events calendar
Lessons from the Extreme 40s
FamiLy hoLiday
The ultimate guide to family sailing holidays
hadron dinghy 14ft home-build singlehander put to the test
YACHTS YACHTING
On test – new 14ft Hadron home-build dinghy
CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
YACHTS YACHTING CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
24/09/2013 10:53
1667 Cover (1)6.indd 1
26/09/2013 11:30
Available at all good newsagents or order now post-free from chelseamagazines.com/shop
Carrying on with our restoration of the Fife Ellad (p78) we get into the nitty-gritty of replacing broken frames and the galvanised floors
PLUS
Griff Rhys Jones on yawls at Elba; National Historic Ships Photo Competition winners, and much more
ON SALE 14 November 2013 (or subscribe!)
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
TOP TO BOTTOM: KATHY MANSFIELD, RICHARD JOHNSTONE-BRYDEN AND D GRIFFITHS
UK
AMERICAN FOCUS
95
Letters Letter of the month supported by oLd puLteney Whisky
Why, oh, why, as a maritime nation are we unable or unwilling to celebrate our nautical heritage? The October edition of Classic Boat features centenarians and Sir Robin Knox-Johnston laments the lack of media coverage of sailing. In recent years I have attended the French festivals in Brest, Douarnenez, Roscoff/Morlaix and Paimpol. I receive free mooring and am showered with gifts on arrival. People pay good money to look at my 1958 9-ton Hillyard, which may, or may not, be a classic, and the many other historic vessels on the pontoons. Is there no British port that can be fenced off and visitors
niGeL pert
Time to celebrate
Above: Britain should be able to put on a Breststyle event
charged for the privilege of ogling fine vessels? The French treat their sailors as heroes and heroines and even adopt British ones, shouting,
“Ellen, Ellen!” from the quayside. Sailing is on the school curriculum and we see strings of Oppies out whatever the weather. The French also realise that having hundreds of boats out on the water brings hundreds of hungry and thirsty crews ashore at the end of the day, who spend good money in the local restaurants and markets. I have it on good authority that there may never be another Festival of the Sea in the UK. Why not? Is there no port nor any individual or organisation brave enough to organise something in the style of the French to celebrate an island nation’s maritime heritage? Dave Stickland by email Ed – What can we say? It’s a subject close to our heart. And CB would support it. Meanwhile please drown all sorrows…
Converted to classics You’ve helped brainwash me; I’m ditching plastic and following my heart. And here she is: Josephine of Hamble (1964 35ft/10.7m S&S by Moodys), bought yesterday here in Mallorca. Previously covered with a four-page spread in CB113 (I think) when she left the UK 17 years ago. She’s pretty ragged and needs significant restoration. Not sure if this next phase is interesting to CB. Would love to buy you a pint and chat options. Martin Brooks by email 96
CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
It was good to read that, again, So Fong is owned and loved by a family evidently very caring of her condition. Yet it slightly depresses one to think of her tethered and squeezed between luxuriously sock-covered fenders, in a tideless boat park, seemingly indentured to an existence of short-term chartering and daysailing to pay the bills and keep her polished. Most likely, she can never again be the perfect long-legged world voyager and adventurous “lets look over there” explorer she was created to be. Gone is her copper that ensured her practicality and global freedom, as well as her reliability of speed. Why? Another “expert” one supposes. Gone are her famous tall ventilators, making her so wonderfully comfortable below while on passage, or when swinging free to her own ground tackle in a deserted tropical bay. Gone too are her shipwright’s tools and her fragrant shavings-strewn workshop and, no doubt, the magical spirit of equality and true camaraderie of seasoned voyaging, owner inclusive, dan houston
c/o martin brooks
So Fong: not what she used to be with crew, all equally dependent on each other for their very lives. Sterling Hayden put it perfectly. “Voyaging belongs to seamen and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. I’ve always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I cannot afford it. What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of ‘security’ and in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone.” I just pray that she may enchant someone again to steal her away to the voyaging existence for which she was so perfectly built. In the late 1980s her designer Olin Stephens said that, although he didn’t particularly “hanker after” designing schooners, he still considered So Fong the most perfect voyaging yacht he had ever drawn. Robert Verschoyle by email
LETTERS Send your letters (and also any replies please) to: Classic Boat, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ email: cb@classicboat.co.uk
Ed – Hi Pia. We ran it in December 2012, Issue 294. It’s the issue with JFK on the cover; it ran out pretty quick. But you’ve reminded us that we should have put this up online, so hopefully we’ll have done that by the time this issue hits the news stands. The competition was won by Edward Seibert, with his excellent small cruiser. It’s also a good reminder to start another competition and I will consult the muse as to what to run with next… Sailing maybe another workboat. Or a with th JFK grand 60-footer that can double Cape Horn without spilling the skipper’s soup. Ahem, all suggestions are always very welcome… there is, as always, some excellent whisky available!
CLASSIC BOAT
i
Classic Boat DECEMBER 2012
www.classicboat.co.uk
£4.50 US$12.50
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
DECEMBER 2012 . ISSUE No 294
Hemingway’s marlin boat and Yacht design winners
MANITOU . LOCH LONGS . DESIGN COMPETITION . SKYLIGHT
Inside the Royal Yacht Squadron
MARITIME ART IN LONDON
Paintings for sailors
CB 294 Cover3 US.indd 1
TRANSAT CLASSIQUE START
The hardest race
WINTER PRACTICAL PROJECT
Build a new skylight
23/10/2012 17:29
Living in a material world i
Classic Boat 100
As much as I enjoyed the article about the Centenarians, I am surprised that you used a glassfibre-hulled yacht as your Club Celebrating sailing’s reference. I know that centenarians restorations are always a touchy subject and open to Transpac How Dorade won Mighty Boesch much interpretation. What is Mahogany motorboats Highlands and islands To Scotland with the Gaffers a rebuild and what is a restoration? However, whatever one feels about this I think we are all agreed that a true centenarian should be made of wood and not plastic. For starters there were no GRP boats 100 years ago, so it is because of this that I wish to draw your attention to the little known fact that Pen Duick has a GRP hull! The line has to be drawn somewhere. If a boat is over 100 years old, of course we do not expect it all to be original. Perhaps in some extreme cases only a few token pieces of the original boat remain but it was replaced like with like; from wood to wood. This is the beauty of the material and one of the reasons why people have such an affinity with wooden boats. Wood is a natural and beautiful material. GRP is not. So, in future when you refer to Pen Duick please mention that her hull is made of glass-reinforced plastic and let people decide for themselves if she is a true centenarian. Benjy@woodenwidget.com OCTOBER 2013
£4.50 US$12.50
CLASSIC BOAT
CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
T H E W O R L D’ S M O S T B E A U T I F U L B O A T S
CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
OCTOBER 2013 . ISSUE No 304
BONITA . CENTENARIANS . GRAYHOUND . VIVIER
BUILDING BIG TO OLD PLANS
New 1700s lugger
CB304 Cover Oct standard.indd 1
NEW SECTION: TODAY’S CLASSICS
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FRANCOIS VIVIER’S SMALL CRAFT
Trailable Herreshoff Design genius
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03/09/2013 12:01
YACHTS YACHTING
CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
YACHTS YACHTING CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES
Hello from the German harbour of Rostock in the eastern Baltic, where the topsail schooner Santa Barbara Anna, formerly Vanessa Ann, is in danger of being sunk by German bureaucracy. The maritime trade association has rated our ship as a trawler not a proper sailing vessel because she was a trawler before 1984. Thus, to be operational the vessel would need to hire a full crew and this is just not an affordable solution. We have run the ship with volunteers for more than 11 years but this has to end, and she will no longer be maintained. Many old and young sailors, volunteers and enthusiasts will be without a hobby. The skylines of many ports in the Baltic Sea will be robbed of a wonderful sight. I am hoping that if you can publish this we can get some help to fight this German bureaucracy. We need help.
(See santa-barbara-anna.de for more information). Andreas Grylla, Rostock, Germany
Ed – sorry to hear about that Andreas. Who can stop these lily livered pen-pushers? Countless young people have had the adventure of their lives aboard this beautiful three-master, me included!
Classics stand the test of time All of your experts are far more qualified than I to define the essence of a classic boat, yet I feel that none of them quite got it. Actually, you came the closest with your comment that a classic is a craft that is endearing and enduring. I suggest that the answer to your question is quite simple: a classic craft is one that stands the test of time. So, while we may love shapely sheers and long overhangs, I suspect that all of us would recognise that Thames barges, Itchen Ferry cutters and Broads yachts – with little to modest sheerlines and short ends – are all classics. And I suggest that the term classic applies to workboats as well as yachts. Aesthetics are important, but they are only part of the equation. I’ve toured the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, a WWII Liberty Ship that is tied up in San Francisco. Beautiful she is not, but as an example of one of the workhorses that served to save the world, she is surely a classic. Jonathan J Margolis, MA, by email
C/O RORIE ASH
For many years I have been a reader of Classic Boat and have a special interest In design competitions. I have been eager to read about the results of your latest competition (published in February 2012) but so far not a single article. Can you tell me what has happened? Pia Hallonsten by email
C/O ANDREAS GRYLLA
End in sight for Vanessa Ann
Design competition – watch this space…
More Dragonfly details please Here is a photograph of my little boat Dragonfly; she was built by Richard Dadson in Faversham and I am aware he built other similar boats. She is mahogany on oak timbers and 16ft (4.9m) long and inside there is a plaque reading “Susan May alias Dragonfly”, so I suspect her original name was Susan May, although she is known to me as Dragonfly. I would be very grateful if you were able to find out anything more about her; at the moment I don’t even know the year she was built. Rorie Ash by email CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
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Under the varnish No 6: “Boatbuilder” Guy Venables casts his comical eye over another sailing stereotype
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CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2013
Boat Planking / Credit: Mike Atfield
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