Q5ytw45w4classicboatjanuary2016 by cooleodsda

Classic Boat JANUARY 2016

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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

FIFE SAILS AGAIN Full story of

119-year-old Tern

Modern sails on wooden rigs All you need to know IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Uffa Fox The boat that changed cruising

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The year’s 30 best classic boats

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ROB PEAKE, EDITOR

MASTERS OF THEIR CRAFT

Awards IN ASSOCIATION WITH

As anyone who’s tried it knows well, building or restoring a wooden boat takes some doing. Yes, woodworking may be one of the finest hobbies known to man, but launch day can sometimes be harder to reach than first imagined. As our features on Tern and Morwenna this month show (and next month we feature another remarkable job, the refit of Cambria), it doesn’t matter whether you’re a commercial boatyard or an amateur at home, it boils down to the same graft and craft. So it’s right that those who have made it to the finish line, and done so in style, get the applause they deserve. The Classic Boat Awards recognises the outstanding professional and amateur work that has taken place over the past year in bringing old boats back to life, or launching new-build classics, either in a traditional or modern style. Our shortlist is on page 37. Who will your vote go to? Classic Boat 2016 awards logo.indd 4

classicboat.co.uk Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ EDITORIAL Editor Rob Peake +44 (0)207 349 3755 rob.peake@classicboat.co.uk Associate Editor Steffan Meyric Hughes +44 (0)207 349 3758 steffan@classicboat.co.uk Senior Art Editor Peter Smith +44 (0)207 349 3756 peter.smith@classicboat.co.uk Senior Sub Editor Henry Giles +44 (0)207 349 3708 henry.giles@classicboat.co.uk Technical Editor Theo Rye Publishing Consultant Martin Nott ADVERTISING Advertisement Manager Edward Mannering +44 (0)207 349 3747 edward.mannering@chelseamagazines.com Brand Manager Ginny MacLean +44 (0)207 349 3750 Advertisement Production Allpointsmedia +44 (0)1202 472781 allpointsmedia.co.uk Published Monthly ISSN: 0950 3315 USA US$12.50 Canada C$11.95 Australia A$11.95 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 800 Guillat Avenue, Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8GU Managing Director Paul Dobson Deputy Managing Director Steve Ross Commercial Director Vicki Gavin Publisher Simon Temlett Digital Manager James Dobson CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES

23/11/2015 11:39

CONTENTS 4 COVER STORY

4 . A FIFE SAILS AGAIN The history and recent restoration of the 1897 Belfast Lough OD, Tern COVER STORY

20 . UFFA FOX Huff of Arklow, the yacht that changed cruising, now in better shape than ever COVER STORY

32 . 12 NAUTICAL BOOKS The latest sailing literature COVER STORY

37 . THE 30 BEST CLASSIC BOATS THIS YEAR Classic Boat Awards 2016 nominations. Voting is open!

20 50

COVER STORY

50 . MODERN SAILS ON WOODEN RIGS We talk to sailmakers and owners about the diverse world of classic sails 60 . TOM CUNLIFFE Pear-shaped route to a racing success CHELSEA MARINE 62 . MAYFLY 17FT DAY LAUNCH Norfolk Broads heritage lives on 66 . TO GREENLAND BY KETCH Leo Goolden skippers a 95ft classic YACHTS . 74 WILLIAM COLLIER CHELSEA R I N E interview with the GL Watson boss M AAn 88 . MORWENNA’S NEW DECK The 1914 Linton Hope schooner’s restoration continues

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CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

A FIFE SAILS AGAIN

We join the 1897 Belfast Lough One Design Tern in her first season afloat after an extensive renovation

RICHARD TONKIN

STORY NIGEL SHARP

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NIGEL SHARP

TERN

Clockwise from top left: Leathered hook with jammer holds fenders; dovetail joint; boom end fitting; mainsheet horse and block with leather protection

n September 2013, the owner of the 131ft (40m) ketch Antares – a British businessman and an accomplished sailor – was in Port Andrax, Mallorca with Iain Cook, his captain of four years. Antares was part of his small fleet of boats which didn’t, then, include anything that could be described as “classic”, but that was about to change. “We saw this old boat called Tern in the water looking very sorry for herself,” Iain told me. “She was down in the stern and the varnish was peeling off her, but my boss showed an immediate interest when he saw that she had a ‘Se Vende’ (for sale) sign hanging from the boom.” After getting in touch with Tern’s owner, Jon Baigent, who said she was a William Fife III 1897 Belfast Lough One Design, the decision was made to buy her. She was taken to a 1,000m2 (10,764sq ft) shed in Port Adriano where, it was expected, work would be carried out to allow her to sail again the following summer. Then traditionally trained shipwright Robert Eldridge was invited along to report on Tern’s condition. He advised that all the centreline structure from stem to stern post would need replacing, showing signs of decay from contact with the heavily corroded iron strap floors, and keel bolts. It became clear this would be no small undertaking.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

THE BELFAST LOUGH ONE DESIGN In 1897 the concept of one-design racing was a decade old. It had come about as a reaction to the rating rules of the time, which typically produced extreme boats that quickly became outdated by yet more extreme designs. Fife’s first one design was an 18ft LWL class for the Bangor Corinthian SC (on Belfast Lough) in 1891, of which four were built; followed by the Cork Harbour ODs (such as Jap) in 1896. The following year he designed two new ODs for Belfast Lough; a 15ft LWL and a 25ft LWL class, which were 24ft and 37ft on deck and known as Class II and Class I respectively. HC Folkard, writing about the classes in his 1901 book The Sailing Boat, said “the utmost care and forethought” ensured “the cost of the boats should meet the purse of the majority”. The new 37-footers were built by John Hilditch of Carrickfergus; an initial batch of seven was shortly followed by two more (only one of which joined the fleet). After lots were drawn to allocate them to their new owners, number 7 went to WA, AG & TJ King – a Belfast family of coal merchants – who named her Tern. Ratsey and Lapthorn’s Gourock loft made the sails for all the new boats and were under such pressure to do so before the first race at the end of May, that when they found they didn’t have a number 7 for

JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

Top: Sails by Ratsey and Lapthorn, which had the boat’s original plans and sail stamp in its archives. Left: The Belfast Lough builder is name-checked on a tiller plate

NIGEL SHARP

Tern’s mainsail, they used an upside-down 2 instead. After that first race the yachting correspondent of the Glasgow Herald wrote: “William Fife III has vindicated his name by designing fast and handsome boats.” It was probably in 1901 that the Kings sold Tern, and she was taken to Scotland, where she had three different owners, before returning to Belfast Lough seven years later when EJ Charley bought her. In 1912 she was sold again and then had a succession of at least eight owners who kept her in Dublin, Cork and Waterford over the next 40-odd years. During that time she was converted to a yawl (c1915), by 1938 she had a 2-cyclinder Watermota petrol engine, and was described in one owner’s memoirs as “a comfortable four-berth cruiser”. In the late-1950s she was sailed to Falmouth by two young men, possibly just for the adventure but otherwise futilely, because they then had to sell her to pay for their return home. In 1959 she was found semi-abandoned in the Helford River. She then had five owners in the Falmouth area. During this time her mizzen mast was removed and her counter stern was cut off when some rot was found there. The fourth of those owners was George Enisto who took her to Penpol Boatyard in Restronguet Creek for restoration. Sadly he died in 1998 just as the work was being completed and he never got to sail her.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

NIGEL SHARP

TERN

That was when Jon Baigent bought her and for the next ten years he kept her in Falmouth. He took her to the Fife Regatta in 2003 – she went up there by truck and he sailed her back – and in 2008 he moved her to Mallorca. “We had good fun sailing her all around the Falmouth area,” he said, “but I wanted to spend more time in Mallorca. But in the event the boat needed a lot of looking after in the sunshine. If we went out there for a fortnight we might spend 7 to 10 days working on her.” Things got worse in 2013 when Jon’s eyesight was damaged in an accident and he lost the confidence to go sailing, so he put Tern on the market.

TERN’S RESTORATION With Tern shored up in the Port Adriano boatshed, work began. Robert Eldridge’s company Ocean Refit was asked to undertake the restoration. Robert brought in fellow shipwright Paul Harvey to lead the restoration team. The two had restored traditional yachts together on the Norfolk Broads 25 years ago. Skilled joiner Alan Renwick, shipwright Nicola Calderoni, carpenter/joiner Des Kolev and assistant Charles Mereles made up the team, with surveyor John Walker advising. But as the team learnt more about Tern – in terms of her historical significance and her true condition – their approach to 8

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Clockwise from top: Most of the hull planks were replaced; discreetly hidden electrics; running rigging is mostly 3-strand polyester Main picture: Chesterfield leather settees Facing page: The mainsail’s original upside-down ‘2’. A ‘7’ couldn’t be found in time for her first race in May 1897

the project would change fundamentally. This detail came to light mostly as a result of research by Patricia O’Connell – Alan Renwick’s partner – who travelled to Ireland and other places and met, among others, the original owner’s great-granddaughter who had photos and clippings from early regattas. It was also discovered that just one other Belfast Lough Class I had survived, Whimbrel, which was also undergoing a restoration, in Bordeaux. Meanwhile the boatbuilding team had removed the original 3.25 tonne ballast keel and the English elm wood keel, the painted plywood deck and some hull planks; they had carried out local repairs to the wood keel – as well as to the lower part of the stem – and refitted it; they had found that the stern post and its deadwood were in poor condition and were replacing them in oak; and built a new counter stern. Having obtained copies of Fife’s original drawings from Fairlie Yachts, it was clear the rest of the hull was out of shape. Iain and the project team talked to the owner. “We said that there are two choices here,” said Paul, “we can do what you originally wanted but then you will always have a slightly out-of-shape old boat, or we could really go for it.” The owner’s response was decisive and unequivocal: “I want a long-term success not a shortterm reward,” he said. “Let’s save a piece of history.”

NIGEL SHARP

JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

The priority now was to remove everything that was holding the hull out of shape including the 1990s laminated oak deck beams, most of the hull planks – larch above the waterline and pitch pine below – although some were kept in place to act as ribbands; and many of the frames, mostly laminated oak fitted in the 1990s refit and a few original rock elm ones. Thirteen temporary moulds – made from Fife’s lines plan but also with information gleaned during a visit to Whimbrel – were then set up inside the remaining planking. More ribbands were run around the moulds before new steamed oak frames – 1½in (38mm), tapering out to 2¼in (57mm) in the bilge, by 13/8in (35mm) – were fitted. The topsides were re-planked with 7/8in (22mm) yellow pine. None of the wrought-iron strap floors were reusable except as patterns from which to cast new bronze ones, although first they had to be faired and filled. The ballast keel was re-fitted with new forged iron bolts made by Yorkshire firm Topp & Co. Areas of the bilge where water might otherwise lie were levelled with tar, and the hull was caulked with cotton, white lead and linseed oil putty above and below the waterline. The deck structure – comprising a pitch pine beamshelf, the clamp and deck beams in larch, and elm carlins – was renewed, prior to fitting a ½in (12mm) plywood CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

TERN

sub-deck. “It was our one concession to modernity,” said Paul, “to counter deck leaks and stiffen the boat up.” Just as work was about to start on a teak deck, which would be swept parallel to the covering boards and snaped into the king plank, newly discovered photographs revealed that Tern originally had tapered planks – probably in yellow pine – snaped into the covering board with no king plank, and it was decided to replicate that in ½in (12mm) teak. The entire deck superstructure was renewed in Brazilian mahogany. “The one that was on her was afromosia, which is heavy,” said Paul, “and it had portholes which she didn’t have originally. All of the new structure, including the companionway hatch and skylight was faithfully reproduced according to Fife’s drawings.” Tern’s new internal layout is simple: inside the companionway a drinks cabinet to port and a discreet electrical panel to starboard give way to Chesterfield leather settees, while the forepeak is for sail stowage. The style consists of contrasting gloss-varnished mahogany and white-painted deck heads. By 2013 a Yanmar engine had been removed and from now on she would stay engineless. She’d also have her original sail plan, with the existing mast, gaff and bowsprit retained. All the new rigging was made by Palma-based rigger Chuck Demangeat, generally using modern materials and traditional methods. The standing rigging is 7x7 unpolished stainless steel wire – to give the

TERN LOS

49ft (14.93m) LOD

37ft 3in (11.35m) LWL

25ft (7.6m) BEAM

8ft 8in (2.64m) DRAUGHT

6ft 3in (1.9m) SAIL AREA

848sq ft (78.8m2) 10

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Above left to right: She’s been taking class victories in her first Med season; bowsprit was retained; the skylight, drawn to Fife’s drawings

appearance of traditional galvanised wire without the maintenance issues – all hand-spliced and served, leathered at the top and looped on the mast, and with solid thimbles and bronze rigging screws at the bottom. The running rigging is almost all three-strand prestretched polyester. Chuck has made two changes to the rigging: blocks and tackle instead of highfield levers for the runners; and a sheet span for the mainsheet. “When Fife designed the Dublin Bay ODs in 1898 he specified a sheet span so I’ve put Tern ahead of her time by a year.” Asking Tern’s original sailmakers to produce a new suit of sails was an easy decision, particularly as Mark Ratsey lives near Iain’s father in Mallorca and offered to do some measuring. He also discovered that the company still had the original drawings and old stamp.

SAILING TERN Tern was relaunched in Palma on 18 April 2015, but it wasn’t until 6 August – after her rig was completed and various issues had been meticulously resolved – that she first sailed. The following week she took part in Vela Clássica Mallorca, but her owner didn’t get the chance to sail her until Les Voiles de St Tropez in September, the first time he had seen her since a week before her launch. “The weather was perfect,” Iain told me, “really nice seas and 15 knots of breeze. He told me Tern was like nothing he had ever sailed before.” Then I got the chance to sail on Tern myself, in Gstaad YC’s Centenary pursuit race in which the 23 centenarian boats entered for Les Voiles were invited to compete. Our skipper was Nick Svolis who has worked for the owner on other boats for five years. We had a cracking breeze but it was probably the big seas left over from the gales which proved decisive: although Tern felt perfectly safe and comfortable in them, the bigger boats inevitably powered through them more easily. Those involved in Tern’s restoration have gained immense satisfaction from the project and are proud of what they have achieved. “Our remit was to do the job properly and not cut corners,” said Chuck. “We have all fallen in love with this boat,” Paul added, “and as to her history, we are still digging.” It was half her lifetime ago that Tern was last in Ireland but it is hoped that she will return there in 2016 to take part in the 150th anniversary celebrations of two Belfast Lough clubs which played a significant part in her origins, Carrickfergus SC and the Royal Ulster YC. One thing is for certain: she will get some welcome.

DINNER FOR TWO

You cannot buy happiness. Usually

W W W . R O B B E B E R K I N G . C O M

Tell Tales

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

GOLDEN GLOBE 2018

Left: Race founder Don McIntyre

25 sign up to start race

Below: The route Bottom left: Sole female entrant, Britain's Susie Bundegaard Goodall

Sailors from America, Australia, Britain and France head the preliminary entry list for the 2018 Golden Globe solo round the world race. The event commemorates the 50th anniversary of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston’s pioneering victory aboard Suhaili in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race of 1968/9 that led to the Briton becoming the first person to sail solo and non-stop around the world. The 24 men and one woman – Britain’s Susie Bundegaard Goodall – have each paid an initial Aus $3,000 (£1,400) entry fee, though some names remain confidential until sponsorship announcements are made later this year. Other entrants hail from Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Palestine,

exhibition in 2018 to mark the 50th

Russia and Switzerland.

anniversary of the original Sunday Times

and competitor conference on 15 December,

London's Little Ship Club will host a sponsor

In other developments concerning the

Golden Globe Race, playing host to the event.

where race founder Don McIntyre will

race, the Cornish port of Falmouth has been

Competing yachts will be based in Pendennis

introduce members of his race management

confirmed as the start and finish point for the

Marina, and the race will be started using the

team and to set out the rules. The race will

race, just as it was for Knox-Johnston. The

historic gun emplacement on Pendennis Point

start on 14 June, 2018 and is expected to take

National Maritime Museum will stage a major

overlooking Falmouth harbour.

about 300 days. See goldengloberace.com.

NAVIGATION

Sextants back on the US Navy curriculum The US Navy has reinstated compulsory celestial navigation

provides a solid backup form of navigation in the event GPS

training for all its new recruits, teaching the use of the sextant

becomes unreliable for whatever reason,“ said Captain Timothy

once again. The move is a reaction to rising concerns that

Tisch, of the United States Merchant Marine Academy – which has

computers used to chart courses could be hacked or malfunction. “We went away from celestial navigation because computers are great,” said Lt Cmdr

practice to use one navigational system to verify the accuracy of another.“ The move will be seen by some sailors as justification

Ryan Rogers, deputy chairman of the naval

of their own position that the old ways are sometimes

academy's Department of Seamanship and

the best – or at least the most reliable. It also reflects a

Navigation. He told Maryland newspaper The

growing dissatisfaction with what some

Capital Gazette: “The problem is there's no

see as an over-reliance on technology

backup. If you can use GPS, it's just so

that has been taking the skill and

much more accurate,” said Rogers. “But

enjoyment out of sailing for the past

we know there are cyber

two decades or so. Just two months

vulnerabilities.” Recruits to the academy in Annapolis, Maryland, have this autumn seen astro navigation on their curriculum for the first time since it was dropped in 2006, and reinstated in 2011, but only for navigators. “Knowledge of celestial navigation in the GPS era

never abandoned astro navigation. “It is also good professional

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

ago (CB329), David Barrie, author of Sextant, wrote a feature for us on the history of the sextant, in which his words “if you abandon the traditional craft of navigation and rely on electronic data... there will surely be a price to pay“ now seem prophetic. As we went to press, our reader competition to win a Davis Mark 25 sextant was about to end.

KEADBY, LINCOLNSHIRE

Pickle comes home HMS Pickle was the famous topsail schooner that brought the news of Nelson's death – and victory – from Trafalgar to England in 1805, writes Peter Harrold. The 1996-built replica was in need of a major overhaul when Mal Nicholson, owner and restorer of the Sheffield super sloop Spider T, saw her for sale on eBay in spring 2014. After an aborted attempt to bring her home under motor, Pickle was taken out of the water at Vilamoura and the full extent of the work needed was revealed. It included new frames, planking, deck beams and decking. Over the next 12 months the work was carried out to a very high standard, using a combination of the yard’s professional skills and Mal's enthusiastic band of volunteers. Pickle is now moored alongside Spider T at Keadby lock on the Trent, where Mal is adding the finishing touches to this unique vessel – the only replica of a ship from Trafalgar. Mal intended to use Pickle for corporate charter and sail training, focusing on youngsters that would not normally get the chance to go to sea. Sounds like a candidate for next year’s Restoration award: for this year's shortlist, see page 37 in this issue – ed

NEIL NICKLIN

PORTSMOUTH, HANTS

Rawhiti 1905

Mary Rose to be unveiled completely The Mary Rose Museum has announced a major revamp to the way that they are going to display the famous Tudor warship. The screens that surround the ship at the museum will be replaced with glass to give unrestricted views

WILL CALVER

from stem to stern and on all three viewing levels. What’s more, an airlock will allow visitors to enter the upper

Third time lucky

gallery and share the same space as the ship, which exists in a carefully controlled

What makes a yacht lucky – or unlucky – enough to be restored three times? Well, Rawhiti (pronounced

environment. The Mary Rose

'raf-it-ee'), built in 1905 in triple-diagonal kauri, not uncommon with yachts of that period in the southern

was launched in 1512 and sank in

hemisphere, is pretty special. She’s the largest, last, and probably finest of all of Arch Logan’s flush-

1545, was discovered in 1971 and

decked, gaff-rigged racing cutters at 54ft (16.5m), and arguably the benchmark for big-yacht restoration

famously raised in 1982. Today,

in New Zealand, which has such a healthy traditional sailing scene. This third restoration sounds like one to

she is the only 16th-century

go the distance: previous attempts were of variable quality. We covered the story of Rawhiti in 2012.

warship on display in the world.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

TELL TALES OBITUARY

Barry Tester of Hollowshore (1945–2015) With the death of Barry Tester in September, the East Coast lost one of its finest shipwrights, writes Julian Mannering. He was also a fine sailor, a fisherman, and a countryman, and indeed it was during his days shooting and exploring the Kentish countryside that he tracked down much of the oak that went into the boats he built. For nearly 40 years Barry was the heartbeat at Hollowshore, the unspoilt and magical boatyard on Faversham Creek in Kent, where he built, restored and, more often than not, just kept the ancient wooden boats of customers afloat and sailing. For many who brought their craft there, often short on knowledge and experience, he was quite simply the sage and savant who could answer any question and resolve every problem. Today, Hollowshore has perhaps a higher percentage of wooden boats than any other yard on the East Coast. The reason? Barry’s presence. In the beautiful, slightly dilapidated shed, once the home of Cremer’s the barge builders, he worked his magic with every job he took on. The yard, along with the adjacent and fittingly named pub The Shipwright’s Arms, had been bought by his father Lawrence Tester in the 1950s. Behind them was the experience of generations of seamen on the Thames waterway. Barry took over the day-to-day

Barry Tester and the smack Alberta racing in the Swale

running of it in the late ’70s while Lawry sailed his Thames barge Portlight and brought not a little business to the yard after scrapes with yachts. There Barry built exquisite barge boats and dinghies and started a series of rebuilds culminating in the 45ft (13.7m) smack Alberta. Barry’s sailing and restoration work began with the Dadson-built Gremlin, a 15ft (4.6m) clinker half-decker. She was but a stepping stone. He then bought the Boston smack Lily May that he took into the shed and to which he gave a new lease of life. After a couple of years he moved on to the clinker-built Gravesend bawley Marigold. Barry immediately

added sawn frames; seaworthiness and strength were as important to him as beauty. Then came the Essex smacks Ethel Alice, Primrose and Harriet Blanche, the Leigh cockler Emma and, finally, the powerful Alberta in which Barry, and by then his son Dan, showed East Coast sailors how to handle such craft. Few have given so much to the revival of traditional craft of the Thames shoreline. With his passing a great well of knowledge and skill has been lost. But the yard is now in the hands of Dan, who learned so much at his father’s side, and in the great shed by the creek the smack Yet now awaits her turn to be restored.

FILM

Moby Dick return is a cinematic epic A big-budget historical thriller is set to hit British cinema screens this month when In the Heart of the Sea is released in Britain and around the world. It’s the most advertised

WEST CORK, IRELAND

(£3.3m). Based on the eponymous non-

Ilen film wins $10,000 international award

fiction book published in 2000 by Nathaniel

A film showing the restoration of the

Philbrick, recent winner of an America and

1926 trading ketch Ilen at Hegarty’s

the Sea award (last month’s Tell Tales), it tells

Boatyard (CB passim), has won a

the story of the whaling ship Essex that in

$10,000 (£6,600) award from World

1820 was sunk when rammed by an enraged

Wood Day 2015, through its Wood &

bull sperm whale, leaving the crew

Humanity film competition. The film,

shipwrecked at sea for 90 days. If that

just seven minutes long, is an ode to

sounds familiar it is, of course, because of

the joys of working with wood, and

Herman Melville’s famous 1851 novel based

documents the words and skills of

on those events, Moby Dick.

Ireland’s few remaining traditional

Next month we go behind the scenes with

shipwrights. Directed by Mia Mullarkey

exclusive access to the film’s marine team,

of Ishka Films, the story is delightfully

who rigged the boats and stood in for the

serene and thoughtful. If you like rich

lead actors in sailing scenes.

Irish accents and ship restoration, see it

movie release in America with a weekly television ad budget of more than $5m

now by typing ‘Ilen’ into vimeo.com.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

The private bank for sailing Proud sponsors of: EFG Sailing Team, Switzerland EFG Mandrake in Division A regattas, Asia EFG Nations’ Cup, Hong Kong 2015 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup BACARDI Sailing Weeks, Miami & Newport The EFG Pan-American Viper 640 Championships The EFG Star Winter Series, Florida Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta Panerai British Classic Week EFG Sailing Arabia – The Tour EFG Sailing Academy, Monaco Yacht Club Optimist Sailing School, Société Nautique de Genève www.efgsailing.com

facebook.com/EFGInternational

Photo: Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta by Cory Silken

Practitioners of the craft of private banking

EFG is the marketing name for EFG International and its subsidiaries. EFG International’s global private banking network includes offices in Zurich, Geneva, London, Channel Islands, Luxembourg, Monaco, Madrid, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei, Miami, Nassau, Grand Cayman, Bogotá and Montevideo. www.efginternational.com

TELL TALES

ARCTIC CIRCLE

Mission to Lofoten North of the Arctic Circle at Skrova, one of Alfred Mylne’s finest cruising yachts, the 92ft (28m) Eileen II, is overwintering on a special mission, writes Clare McComb. In the summer of 2015, after a 1,100nM passage, she arrived at the Lofoten Islands, where owner Erling Storm visited the grave of his great-grandfather, Jens Lauritz Hemsen, once minister for the whole region. He found the grave comfort to a parishioner dying of typhoid whom no one else dared approach, but his kindness cost him his life, at the age of just 36. Spring 2016 will find Eileen ll in the clear waters around the islands, taking guests skrei (cod) fishing and on whale safaris. On midsummer’s day Erling hopes a recast bell will be installed in a new belltower in the Bjarkøy graveyard near his great-grandfather’s church, to ring out at burials for another 120 years. Afterwards Eileen will sail back home, mission accomplished.

BLACKWATER RIVER, ESSEX

WORD OF THE MONTH

Marconi Sailing Club acquires gig

Pledget A string of oakum

Marconi Sailing Club recently took delivery of its new 24ft (7.3m) East Coast Rowing Gig, christened Elettra. Purchase

rolled and ready

of the gig was aided by a Sport England grant. The club is

for use in the

now looking for members to crew it for recreational

caulking of a

outings, training and racing against other clubs.

deck or side

She has been built by Harker’s Yard, a boatbuilding facility developed and run by the Pioneer Sailing Trust that provides apprenticeships and work experience for young

WARTIME

Guglielmo Marconi, who based his works – the world's first

Little-known story of the war tugs

wireless factory – in Chelmsford and set up the Marconi

Maritime historian Ian Dear’s new book The Tattie

Sailing Club for the enjoyment of his employees.

Lads, due for publication next summer, tells the

people wanting to enter the marine industry. The name Elettra is after the daughter of radio pioneer

The members bought the club in the liquidation that followed the company's demise and it continues as an active sailing club to this day.

story of the Deep Sea Rescue Tug Service in both world wars, writes Clare McComb. The development and deployment of the Naval

after it had been opened with a reeming iron, rammed hard home, and then payed with pitch

back to port nearly three million tons of torpedoed shipping, saving cargoes and crews, the Rescue

C/O MARCONI SAILING CLUB

into the seam

most important and closely guarded secrets of World existed, while very few know what it did. By bringing

Tugs made a crucial contribution to the the Allied victory, including playing an important part in the Battle of the Atlantic and towing the Mulberry harbours for D Day. Their service in World War I was also vital but the full story has yet to be told.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

It was inserted

Rescue Tug Service, known as T12T, was one of the War II. Many are still unaware that such a service

seam of a wooden vessel.

to make a watertight joint between the planks. Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea

C/O ERLING STORM

well-tended and the story of this man’s kindness and courage unforgotten after more than 120 years. Jens had brought food and

BEFORE

8JAN TICKETS FROM

£10

15YRS & UNDER GO FREE†

WHERE ADVENTURE STARTS, PIONEERS MEET & INNOVATION SHINES PLUS The Telegraph Travel Show The Telegraph Cruise Show FIRST THREE DAYS ONLY – See website for details

Follow/like us at LoveBoatShows

londonboatshow.com

Tickets full price from 08 January 2016. Offer ends midnight 07 January 2016 and excludes public preview day. A fee of £1.95 applies per transaction, not per ticket. † Terms and conditions apply. See londonboatshow.com for details. All information correct at time of going to press. E&OE.

TELL TALES

C/O CAMERON SHIPYARD

NORTH AMERICAN NEWS

NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA

Keeping it in the family Katie Belle Cameron’s family ran the Cameron Shipyard in Nova Scotia for a generation writes Chris Museler. At 100, she held her great grandson Evan in her arms and more than 20 years later, an 80ft (24.4m) schooner was launched last year in her name to carry on the family’s shipbuilding legacy. “This is a dream that turned into a full-time job,” said Evan Densmore who built Katie Belle with his cousin Nick Densmore over three years in their hometown of Stewiacke, Nova

Scotia. “I built a model with my grandfather when I was 13. We did some informal apprenticeships and now we are stepping the masts.” Densmore said his father and grandfather conceived of the idea to finally build the boat and re-start the Cameron Shipyard tradition. Densmore and his cousin learned Auto CAD over the three-year build and adopted his father’s “glue-lam” homebuilding techniques to make a cold-moulded hull and structural members from local spruce.

Above: Katie Belle’s launch was timed to coincide with a 20ft tide

Launched on 28 October on a 20ft (6.1m) spring tide, the boat’s curved bow resembles Canada’s famous Bluenose schooner. She also has traits from Bay of Fundy designs with a narrow, plank-on-edge look. The masts were being stepped as CB went to press and the boat will be sea trialled in 2016, for use in Nova Scotia’s sail tourism trade. Densmore is looking forward to the trials: “Shipbuilding is special. Most people who build boats don’t sail them. We’ll see how it goes.”

NORTH CAROLINA

Win this classic in a writing contest

C/O THE OWNER

Sailors and even non-sailors inspired by the classic lines of the Cheoy Lee Offshore 40 Siskiwit have their pens held ready in the hopes of winning, yes winning, the 46-year-old sloop, one of 156 built from 1964 to 1976 to a Philip Rhodes design. Henry Young has owned the boat since 1989 and when he decided to sell her, he wanted to assure a more meaningful transaction and make the fine yacht more accessible to people. He saw how some bed-and-breakfast inns were sold in Maine with entry fees and a writing contest, and decided to go for it. “It’s a classic problem of people who own a classic yacht and fighting the valuation of $1,000 per foot,” says Young, who opened the competition online through a website and Facebook on 21 September. “And there’s the complication in American society of income inequality. I want to make this affordable for the next generation of classic yacht owners.” His solution for finding a proper home for his full-keeled, GRP cruiser is a contest where

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

entrants answer “Why I would love to own and maintain Siskiwit”. Entries close on 21 December, so hurry if you want to be in with a chance of winning. As we went to press there were 15 completed entries. The entry cost is $150 (c£100). The winner will be chosen by 29 January 2016 at the latest. With several hundred hits per day online and a steady flow of creative essays rolling in, Young says that any fees received after the first 450 will be given to the winner as maintenance or transport money. The limit is 900 entries. Since he is a private individual, according to the Internal Revenue Service, Young, and two other judges unrelated to him, must be judging a legitimate skill. He said the reason why he wanted to own Siskiwit was to go cruising on his first “gentleman’s boat”. The next owner may have an even more compelling answer. He will let us know who that creative, and lucky, writer is later in the winter. The boat is lying in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Awards NOMINATED

Classic Boat awards nominated logo.indd 1

100 YEARS STRICTLY HANDCRAFTED IN SWITZERLAND

C. PEDRAZZINI, YACHT- UND BOOTSWERFT Seestrasse 59-61, CH-8806 B채ch am Z체richsee, Switzerland, Telefon 0041 (0)44 786 90 90, info@pedrazziniboat.com www.pedrazziniboat.com

05/10/2015 15:06

TAKING A FLYER The only Flying 30 ever built and a milestone in yacht design, Uffa Foxâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Huff of Arklow is in better shape than ever STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS NIGEL SHARP

Awards IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Classic Boat 2016 awards logo.indd 4

23/11/2015 11:39

lthough Dublin Bay yachtsmen were not generally impressed by the appearance of Huff,” wrote an Irish Times correspondent in September 1951, “they are bound to admit that she moves, on occasion, faster than anything else in the bay.” The boat in question, which had been launched just three months earlier, was Huff of Arklow, a Flying Thirty designed by Uffa Fox and built by John Tyrrell & Sons of Arklow for Douglas Heard who was a member, and future commodore, of Dublin Bay’s Royal St George Yacht Club. And it is certainly true that her appearance was (and still is) somewhat unusual, and that she was (and still is) fast. Huff was by no means the first boat Uffa designed for Heard. Between the wars he had produced four International 14 designs for him, at least one of which he also built. Uffa’s most famous International 14 was, of course, the 1928 Avenger which is generally acknowledged as the world’s first planing dinghy, and in 1947, Uffa was encouraged by the commodore of the Island SC to design something bigger than a 14 which “will not capsize....a sensible, safe boat, that was fun to sail as well”. The result was the first planing keelboat, the Flying Fifteen, but Uffa also produced designs for “Flying” boats of various other sizes, all with a

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

HUFF OF ARKLOW

distinctive low sheerline. However, when Heard discussed Uffa’s Thirty design with John Tyrrell, they didn’t think it would be suitable for the offshore sailing that Heard was planning and they decided to raise the sheerline over most of the length of the boat to improve her seaworthiness and accommodation, while retaining the low sheerline aft to make it easier for Heard – who continued to suffer from injuries sustained when serving as an RAF pilot during the war – to get aboard. And so, it is said, the name Huff was derived from the letters of her creators’ names as the design was considered to be a quarter Heard’s and three quarters Uffa’s. Huff’s hull was built upside down from two layers of Honduras mahogany planking – the inner (3/8in) layer is diagonal, the outer (5/8in) is fore and aft – with white lead and calico between. Her 2in x 2in American elm frames are at 6in spacings. Her design was ahead of its time in a number of ways. A masthead sloop rig was particularly innovative and, although fin and skeg boats had been around for a long time, it was to be another 15 years or so before they began to be adopted for offshore racing, and even longer for cruising. Huff initially had a well which was intended for an outboard engine, but clearly this didn’t work out and within a couple of years a small – probably about 10hp – inboard petrol engine was installed. Furthermore,

Clockwise from top: Huff’s more spacious interior, retaining the original table. Note the engine box on the port side to correct her trim; Dominic Bridgman (right) and Barbara (second left) with training crew; new stands for the Andersen winches; detailed craftsmanship in the lazarette hatch lock

the wheel steering with which she was initially fitted was soon replaced by a tiller. Heard owned Huff for 13 years and during that time he cruised her extensively, visiting the Azores and Iceland amongst other places, and winning the Irish Cruising Club’s coveted Faulkner Cup twice in the process. In 1964 he sold her to Rory O’Hanlon – another future Royal St George commodore – who kept her for four years. After that she was based in Liverpool’s Glasson Dock and seems to have suffered from some neglect, but that paled into insignificance when, one day in 1978, her owner set fire to her. Reports vary as to whether this was a result of mental illness or so that he could make an insurance claim, but he was given an eight month prison sentence and all that was left of Huff was an empty, severely damaged hull. She would have been scrapped if it wasn’t for Chris Allen, a carpenter and pub singer, who bought her for £500 from the insurance company, took her back to his home in Southampton and set about restoring her. He was by no means wealthy and nor was he particularly skilled in boatbuilding terms, and the fact that he managed to complete Huff’s rebuild says much for his determination. It took him a long time though, but in 1983 she was re-launched and Allen then used her for chartering and for sail training with disadvantaged people from inner cities. CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

HOL L A NDI A

GER D V I

1927 DE VRIES LENTSCH 8MR-YACHT

1927 HARRY BECKER SK 30-SQUARE-METRE YACHT

Loa: 14.50 m

C H A DR A K

T IO G A OF H A M BU RG

1949 ARVID LAURIN SK 22-SQUARE-METRE YACHT

60' KETCH – YACHTWERFT MARTIN 2013

Loa: 11.38 m

Loa: 15.85 m

JOU R DE FE T E

SONIC

1930 FRANK PAINE Q-BOAT Q16

60' PHILIP RHODES YAWL

Member of t he Robbe & B erk i ng f a m i ly

YA C H T S

+49 (0)461 31 80 30 65 · BAUM+KOENIG@CLASSIC-YACHTS.DE · W W W.CLASSIC-YACHTS.DE

HUFF OF ARKLOW

When he died in 1999, Huff lay abandoned on a mooring in Cowes for a year, while the harbourmaster and other locals kept an eye on her. In 2000 she was saved again, this time by Andrew Thornhill, an Uffa Fox enthusiast and chairman of the Eyemouth International Sailing Craft Association (EISCA), a charity that owns about 400 historic boats and which bought her from Allen’s widow. The boat was used in the Hebrides, then taken to Clifton and run for the EISCA by husband and wife team Dominic and Barbara Bridgman for RYA courses and sail training. When Thornhill bought Mashfords boatyard in Cremyll, opposite Plymouth’s Mayflower Marina, in 2004, Huff moved again, and she has been based there ever since. As the years of sail training took their toll, it became clear that Huff needed some work. The chance to start it arose in 2010, with the birth of the Bridgmans’ son Leonardo. “When he arrived I couldn’t carry on with sail training and be away all the time,” said Dominic. Huff was laid up in the Mashfords shed “to have a look”, whereupon it became apparent that a great deal more work was needed than first anticipated, a situation with which countless boat restorers will be familiar. To gain access to the inside of the hull, it was decided to strip the interior joinery out completely, which would also provide the opportunity to replace the varnished mahogany and buttoned fake leather interior with something along the lines of the original, minimalist style of joinery. But more hands were needed. Through a government scheme called the Future Jobs Fund, four trainees and boatbuilding teacher John Habgood were taken on for six months, and work got underway. As luck would have it, Habgood’s involvement continued when he went to work for Falmouth Marine School, which provided two apprentices to carry out further work, and this relationship has developed further, and beyond the Huff project, as Mashfords is now a subsidiary of the school. Although the hull planking was mostly in good condition, it needed complete refastening with copper nails and roves. “Two per plank per frame, a total of 8,000,” Bridgman recalled with some angst. Meanwhile the iron floors were replaced with

Above left: A platform for RYA courses and classic regatta charters. Right: The five-berth interior was refitted largely as it was originally Below: The engine was re-sited to correct a list

galvanised steel strap floors. Huff was stern heavy, partly because Chris Allen had used wood from a disused Welsh chapel to build a much less Spartan interior, but largely because of the inboard engine – now a Beta 28hp diesel – for which she had never been designed. An ingenious solution was at hand. It so happened that Huff had a list to starboard which, Bridgman thinks, was a legacy of a repair carried out following an earlier grounding, which somehow resulted in more weight and less buoyancy on that side. So Bridgman took the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, by moving the engine forward and re-fitting it on the port side of the saloon, and installing a hydraulic unit to drive the new Bruntons Varifold prop. Meanwhile the yacht’s wheel was replaced with a tiller, for the second time in Huff’s life. Barbara managed to secure Heritage Lottery Funding, as well as grants from National Historic Ships and the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, specifically to pay for the hydraulic drive, the hull restoration and new rigging, and in the late summer of 2014 HLF Trustees were among a number of guests who attended an emotional re-launch party. At that time her interior was still virtually empty, but she sailed for a month or so before she was laid up again. “This helped us to work out what we wanted to do with the interior,” said Bridgman. “In the end, putting it back to how it was originally became the obvious thing to do.” Over last winter her new five-berth interior was completed. Huff’s first significant post-restoration voyage, in July 2015, was to the Tall Ships’ Race start in Belfast and then to Arklow and Dublin Bay. She arrived there just in time to compete in the Dun Laoghaire Volvo Racing week, where once again she impressed by winning her class. The crew met a number of people with close connections to Huff including Douglas Heard’s widow Ruth, John Tyrrell’s son Jimmy, and Bill Murray, who had been an apprentice at Tyrrell’s when Huff was built. CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

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CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

HUFF OF ARKLOW Bridgman’s best memory is of a visit to the Royal St George YC. “I knew that the club had a half model of Huff and a full size portrait of Douglas Heard, and for five years I dreamt of having a pint of Guinness while sitting under the model and looking at Huff on a mooring outside. And that’s what I did – several times!” Soon after the Irish trip, I joined Huff for a sail from Cremyll. As I watched the crew hoist the sails, I was struck by Huff’s disproportionately small sail plan, but as soon as she got underway I could see from her impressive turn of speed – and, in particular, her acceleration in the gusts – that she had all the sail she needed. She is, after all, a light boat. The wind was blowing between 13 and 20 knots, and in the lulls she was well balanced and surprisingly un-twitchy for a boat with such a keel configuration. In the gusts she developed some noticeable weatherhelm but Bridgman assured me a reef would restore the balance. She still has her original roller reefing gear – her spars, too, are probably original – but Bridgman has now fitted slab reefing because he thinks it better suits her new mainsail. On the wind, the leeward rail aft was permanently submerged – if the rail on the raised section gets wet, it’s definitely time to reef. Other changes to the rig include moving the inner forestay aft, to allow its chainplate to be fitted to a bulkhead and the headsail to tack more easily; the runners have been moved aft and now share the headsail sheet winches, to make them more effective and hopefully reduce the load that the masthead backstay puts on the counter; and the boom has been extended so that the mainsheet can be taken to a track aft of the cockpit, which is now clearer for crew. Huff is now ready, and in a better position than ever, to resume her role as a platform for RYA training and to race with charter guests in classic regattas. “Particularly for sailors who will appreciate her performance and her history,” said Barbara. What is certain is that wherever Huff goes, she will be noticed, for her unusual looks and for her turn of speed, just as she was in Dublin Bay in 1951, and that will give her custodians welcome opportunities to share her story with others.

Uffa Fox’s Flying boats Uffa Fox produced designs for a whole range of Flying boats from the Flying Ten to the Flying Fifty, in every case their names corresponding to their waterline lengths. It is not known how many Tens and Twelves were produced – Andrew Thornhill thinks no more than a hundred of either – but there is an example of both at the Racing and River Boat Museum at Pangbourne, and it is highly likely that a new Ten will be built by Tim Loftus this winter. Not surprisingly, the Fifteens have been much the most popular of the Flying boats, with 4,042 now built. It is thought that four Twenties were built, one of which was last seen in south east England a few years ago. There have been several Twenty Fives, including a cruising version that was last heard of in North America, and a GRP boat called Flying Fox built in Australia seven years ago. There is just one Thirty Five, another Flying Fox, built in the same year as Huff, which is thought to have been recently sold in Croatia. There have been no Forties or Forty Fives, and the only Fifty was broken up after foundering in Florida about eight years ago. And the only Flying Thirty ever built is Huff of Arklow.

HUFF OF ARKLOW LOA

45ft (13.7m) LWL

30ft (9.1m) BEAM

9ft (2.7m) DRAUGHT

SAIL AREA

45.2m2 (487sq ft) DISPLACEMENT

8.5 tons

BEKEN OF COWES

7ft (2.1m)

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Style and class of a bygone era, Built today 16

www.staryachts.co.uk • +44 (0)7866-705181

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Saleroom

BONHAMS

Passion for propulsion

BY DAVE SELBY Engineer, conservationist and one-time marine archaeologist Jonathan Minns spent a lifetime immersed in restoring and collecting mechanical artefacts, from Victorian water pumping stations and water mills, to traction engines, steam river launches, boat engines and models. Minns, who died in 2013 at the age of 75, left part of his personal collection to his children, and when these mechanical wonders and collectibles came under the hammer recently at Bonhams it revealed the range of Minns’ passion, knowledge and interest in nautical propulsion and watercraft. Collectors were equally enthused on auction day as a rare model of a c1840 paddle steamer engine, estimated at £15,000-20,000, made £36,250. Maudslay built the first patented oscillating steam engine,

with pivoting cylinders to reduce size and weight and allow installation lower down in the hull of ships. One full-size example is the engine fitted to Brunel’s 1837 trans-Atlantic paddle leviathan, the SS Great Western. The 80-lot sale, which grossed over £100,000, also featured pond yachts and extraordinary working models, including a complex clockwork Victorian experimental propulsion model with a pair of shafts, each fitted with two propellers. This reflected developments of the day as multi-propeller units were used on the later higher speed engines to counteract the loss of thrust and overcome cavitation. One famous example is Charles Parsons’ 1894 Turbinia. The experimental model, possibly built as early as the 1860s, fetched £2,125. Another more recreational clockwork paddle steamer made £750.

1 This display model of a Victorian racing cutter made £3,750 2 Three cased Walker ships’ logs were well bought at £312 3 Rare model of a twin-cylinder paddle steamer engine by

Maudslay & Son, circa 1840 4 Experimental Victorian propulsion model 5 Clockwork pond model of a paddle steamer

BRIGHTWELLS

BONHAMS

Nice and GRP-easy For wipe-and-go simplicity, classic looks with that 50s-style tumblehome and a nifty turn of speed, Ray Wright Ford-engined GRP sports boats have plenty going

BONHAMS

Wright was an early adopter of the new more robust and

Trafalgar in New York

corrosion-resistant material. This 1968 Delta GT, 13ft 6in

This impressive near 2m (6ft 6in)-long dockyard presentation model of the

(4.2m) long is fitted with a Ford Cortina 1600GT engine,

120-gun, 1841 HMS Trafalgar, estimated at $70,000-100,000 (£46,000-

hence its name Deltina – geddit! Recently recommissioned

66,000), is one of the star lots at Bonhams’ next New York auction of

and trialled, it seemed well bought at £1,870 at

Important Maritime Paintings and Decorative Arts on 27 January. Artists

Brightwells’ latest Herefordshire classic car auction.

featured in the sale include Montague Dawson and James Edward Buttersworth.

for them. As other builders persisted with aluminium, Ray

Take a closer look at more Saleroom lots at classicboat.co.uk/saleroom CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Objects of desire

RIVA MODEL This fine scale model of a Riva Super Ariston is one of many models available from Boatique in Henley-on-Thames.

MAST LIGHT

The Riva models are crafted from solid mahogany, they are given lashings of varnish and boast impressive attention

These new bronze mast lights from Davey & Co are

to detail. Also available are the

designed for boat use but are so aesthetically pleasing

Aquarama and Super Aquarama in

that customers have been fitting them around their

either 1:10 or 1:15.

homes. Apart from their looks, their major appeal is that

This 1:10 model of the Super Ariston

they are good for wiring direct to 110v/220v AC, as well

comes with a certificate in a Riva

as for 12v/24v DC. You can choose from a range of LED

branded box. £899

lamps, for different-sized boats. £110-150

Tel: 01491 410840. boatique.co.uk

Tel: 01206 500945. davey.co.uk

ZANNETTI WATCH LUTINE PRINT

PURE MERINO WOOL SHIRT This exclusive skiware, for those too cool

Zannetti’s nautically themed,

to go wrapped in plastic, has been

hand-painted watch combines Swiss

proving popular with sailors, for the same

Anderson Wallrock is offering this

mechanics with Roman flair. The

reason. It’s merino wool – soft,

atmospheric silver gelatin print, shot

Magnificum Compass Rose is limited

comfortable and warm without being

by Beken in 1968, of the Lloyd’s YC

edition only. €4,000 (c£2,800)

sweaty. The price is not insignificant at £375, but the quality is evident.

yacht, Lutine. £240

Tel: 01590 677558. andersonwallrock.com

Tel: +39 06 6876651 shop.zannetti.it

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

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

mcnairshirts.com Tel: 01484 846666

LIVE YOUR

PASSION

RUNABOUT MOONPHASE Tribute to gentlemen’s wooden sports boats of the roaring 20s. Frederique Constant proudly supports the Riva Historical Society. Argento Fine Products 020 7722 24 38 info@agfineproducts.com • www.frederique-constant.com

ULTIMATE CLASSIC YACHTS

Former CB editor Nic Compton has the stories behind 20 great classics, big and small, with stunning photos. £26.99 Tel: 01256 302699. bloomsbury.com

SEAMANSHIP IN THE AGE OF SAIL

With diagrams and detailed text, John Harland follows 17th to 19th century naval rigging and boat handling. £45 Tel: 01256 302699. bloomsbury.com

IAN NICOLSON DOUBLE BILL

12 Who better to advise on building a dinghy or upgrading your boat than prolific author and designer Ian Nicolson? £14.99 each Tel: 01453 847823. amberley-books.com

TROUBLED WATERS

CB writer and maritime historian Nigel Sharp on the fascinating story of leisure boating during and after WWII. £15.99 Tel: 01453 847823. amberley-books.com

LEE SHORE BLUES

A hilarious and self-deprecating account of rebuilding and sailing the Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter Carlotta. Amazon.co.uk £10.95, Kindle £6.99

BOOKS

FOR CHRISTMAS VOYAGE OF THE HARRIER

HMS PICKLE

Journalist Peter Hore tells the story of the topsail schooner too small to fight but which played a key role in Trafalgar. £14.99

Julian Mustoe circumnavigated between 2001 and 2012, following the 1830s track of Darwin’s Beagle. £8.33

Tel: 01453 883300. thehistorypress.co.uk

julian-mustoe.com or amazon.co.uk

HMS VICTORY MANUAL

A diverting collection of Victory trivia compiled by her former keeper and curator Peter Goodwin. £8.99 Tel: 01256 302699. bloomsbury.com

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

HW TILMAN COLLECTION

Lodestar Books and Vertebrate are releasing new editions of Bill Tilman’s 15 titles, two every 12 weeks. £12 Tel: 0114 267 9277. v-publishing.co.uk

SAILING AROUND NANTUCKET Pilotage and useful anecdotes from cruising sailor Alfie Sanford. $34.95 (c£22) Tel: (001) 5082282505 nantucketshipwreck.org

T/T Malahne - Cockwells 25ft motor launch Elegant lines - Exquisite craftsmanship - Luxury interiors - Modern technology

M O T O R L A U N C H E S - S U P E R YA C H T T E N D E R S - D U C H Y 2 7 - S A I L I N G YA C H T S info@cockwells.co.uk | +44 (0)1326 377 366 | www.cockwells.co.uk | www.duchymotorlaunches.co.uk

Yacht refit and restoration in the heart of the Mediterranean Photo by Martínez Studio

Recently completed restoration of Wm Fife / J. Hilditch yacht TERN of 1897

oceanrefit.com

info@oceanrefit.com | Tel/Fax: +34 971 730 042 Mobile: +34 646 002 561 Carrer Can Roselló 6a, Pol. Son Oms, 07199 Palma de Mallorca, Spain

Experience a revolutionary design, sail the Flying 30’ Huff of Arklow

Sail Training - Racing - Cruising - RYA Courses - Corporate Events 2016 season includes • Cruises to Ireland and the Isles of Scillies • La Rochelle Revival Race • Cruise Brittany • Cremyll & Falmouth Classic Regatta • Fowey & Dartmouth Royal Regatta • Brest Festival of the Sea Check out the full programme on www.cremyll-keelboats.org.uk 34

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Huff of Arklow is operated by Cremyll Keelboats, a charity for the advancement of boat building and seamanship skills

Cremyll Keelboats, Mashfords Boatyard, Cremyll, Torpoint, Cornwall PL10 1HX T +44(0)1752 823927 info@cremyll-keelboats.org.uk

Adrian Morgan

CHARLOTTE WATTERS

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Not to be foiled

at Cambridge and worked under Charles Nicholson, Endeavour’s designer. In those days the world of aircraft and yacht design were inextricably linked, in a way that is mirrored today in the world of foiling cats and wing sails. For a sail, they tell you, is just a wing on its ear. Personally I have never seen Sally’s mainsail as anything other than that. I hope I never see it lying parallel to the horizon. The forces acting on it may involve high and low pressure sides, lift coefficients, and so on, but to me it is simply a miracle that squeezes Sally’s four tons more or less into the eye of the wind. And I like to leave all that science behind when I sail. How a boat sails is, like the old saying, a mystery, one of four as the Bible tells us: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. How Sally, with an overall length of just over 25 feet managed to get within 0.3 of a knot of 9 knots is, indeed, a mystery. The best I have ever had, before Sally had her 75th birthday chartplotter, was around 7 knots and that seemed the limit. No so; with secretary Paul Copestake of the (Royal) Loch Broom Sailing Club at the tiller, under full main and working jib (i.e. too much), Sally flew past Rudh Reidh lighthouse last September with astonishing bursts of speed accompanied by the glorious rushing noise and commotion of mightily disturbed water. And, the bottom line is, that 8.7 knots in a Vertue, for me is probably just as exciting as 37 knots flying six feet above the water, which brings us back to the America’s Cup and foiling cats. I wonder when speed alone will lose its appeal? Intriguingly at the same time that Ben Ainslie and his rivals will be fighting for the right to challenge for the America’s Cup in Bermuda in 2017, a J-Class fleet, in fact all the extant Js, including Sopwith’s first Endeavour, will be in town to provide a backdrop to their flimsy little dragonfly counterparts. Js can barely manage 15 knots – but oh the sight and sound of those boats! I am betting that the sight of those huge racing machines, updated for the 21st century, with carbon spars and black laminate sails, will blow the spectacle of foiling cats clean out of the water. Oh, and 2017 will also be 80 years from the date Sally II was built.

Why 8.7kts in a Vertue beats 37 in an AC foiling cat

oiling catamarans flying silently above the blue waters of Bermuda. America’s Cup. Pah! Sally touched 8.7 knots on passage back from Gareloch last year, under leaden skies, over grey seas. Now that’s what I call an adrenaline rush. She’s 79, a prototype Vertue, having been built in 1937, the year the Hurricane came into service, the RAF’s first monoplane fighter, and a year after they rolled out the Spitfire. There was something about those late 1930s that suggests the essence of genius was on the loose. Frank Whittle fired up the first jet engine while one Chester F Carlson invented the photocopier. A year or so previously, for these things all have gestation periods, Robert Watson Watt patented radar (coincidentally with the first canned beer and Du Pont’s nylon). Sally also shares her birth date with the J-Class boats Endeavour II and Ranger, which fought the last America’s Cup battle while, as newsreels love to say, “the dark clouds of war threatened”. Ranger was just too fast for the Nicholson-designed Endeavour, winning in straight races. Endeavour’s predecessor, the 1934 challenger, very nearly pulled it off against the slower Rainbow, thanks to some innovative ideas from Frank Murdoch, a Hawker engineer and aircraft magnate Tom Sopwith’s right-hand man. It was Murdoch who, after a trip to Germany, recommended his boss start rolling out 1,000 Hurricanes, in a hurry, and at his own expense. With nearly 80 per cent of the recorded kills, the Hurricane, arguably, saved Britain. Can you spot the connections? And there are many more: Laurent Giles, Sally’s designer, studied engineering

“I wonder when speed alone will lose its appeal?”

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Awards

CLASSIC DESIGNS

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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23/11/2015 11:39

Awards IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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THE NOMINATIONS

23/11/2015 11:39

Our shortlist of the year’s best restorations, new launches and more – which gets your vote?

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

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Awards IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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RESTORATION OF THE YEAR NOMINATIONS

]

23/11/2015 11:39

CAMBRIA Design and build 1928, Wm Fife III, LOD 111ft (33.8m) She’s one of the most famous yachts in the world, built to the ‘Big-Class’ in which she was moderately successful. These days she is one of the best loved classics out there. In the early 2000s, the big bermudan cutter was naturalised into the J-Class. Her recent stint at Southampton Yacht Services will be featured next month.

MARGA Design Liljegren. Built Hästholm, Sweden, 1910. LOD approximately 54ft (16.5m) When found in Denmark she could hardly be recognised as a 10-M. With a big deckhouse and two masts it was hard to think she’d participated in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Enrico Zacagni, with the Technomar Boatyard in Fiumicino, has now restored her hull and interior and given her back her original gaff rig.

JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

HUFF OF ARKLOW Design Uffa Fox. Built 1951 John Tyrrell & Sons of Arklow, 45ft (13.7m) Eight thousand copper nails and plenty more means this important design sails again. See p20.

MANFRED RUTHNER

ANGELA PARK - SAYLES

Design and build 1920, NG Herreshoff, LOS 64ft 10in (19.7m) A lovely composite bermudan staysail schooner from the greatest hand of all. Her restoration has been a stop-andstart affair over the last few years, by LMI in Rhode Island and Crabbs Marina in Antigua. Much plank work, interior, bilges and a ton of de-rusting have brought her back to life.

NIGEL SHARP

MARY ROSE

HATHOR Design and build Halls of Reedham, 1905, 56ft (17m) A pleasure wherry built for Ethel and Helen Colman, daughters of the mustard maker, now owned by the Wherry Yacht Charter VOTE Charitable Trust. Her Lottery-funded ONLINE restoration over two years was part of classicboat.co.uk/ awards2016 a £1.4m project to build a base and EMAIL cb@ slip for five wherries, and to restore classicboat. co.uk wherry yachts Hathor, Nada and Olive. 38

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

CARA MIA

JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

TERN Design Wm Fife III. Built 1897, John Hilditch. LOD 37ft 3in (11.4m) It’s not been a year of many restorations, but it’s been a great year for boats by the big names (two Herreshoffs and two Fifes on this page). This Belfast Lough OD gaff cutter, rebuilt by Ocean Refit (see p4) is no exception. If only yachts like this still met its design brief: “It should meet the purse of the majority”!

Design and build Herreshoff, 1905, 43ft (13.1m) The NY30-Class gaff sloops drawn for the New York Yacht Club have attained a semi-mythical status, for their heritage of course, but also their speed and simplicity of rig, the gaff sloop type known Stateside as a ‘knockabout’ rig. They are competitive in the Med, but are also good for short-handed cruising. Gannon & Benjamin’s restoration included a new (canvas-covered!) deck, coachroof and a lot more besides. It even rebuilt the deck and roof beams to reinstate her original sleek appearance, so synonymous with Herreshoff ’s creations.

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TRADITIONAL NEW BUILD UNDER 40FT (12.2M) NOMINATIONS

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WINDERMERE SKIFFS

C/O GOOD WOOD BOAT CO

Built 2015, Good Wood Boat Co, 19ft 6in (5.9m) Buses and traditional skiffs – you wait for one, then three come along at once. These double-handed rowing skiffs are irresistible, with riggers for a bit more oomph and plenty of seating. The far one is built in solid carvel. The two near ones are GRP.

J10

ANGELA PARK - SAYLES

Designed 1941, built 2015 by Jari Vanhatalo, LOD 16ft 5in (5m) This adaptation of a J10 (defunct Swedish OD class) was student-built at Finland’s Ekami boatbuilding school. She has fewer planks (for easier trailing) and an unusual sprit rig. The laid-pine deck and pine clinker planking make it an ambitious project. The builder, Jari Vanhatalo, plans to trail her to some of Finland’s 200,000 lakes and parts of her coastline.

C/O JARI VANHATALO

SHELDRAKE

C/O BEETLE INC

BEETLE CAT Designed 1921 by John Beetle. Built 2015 Beetle Inc, 12ft (3.7m) This example was built this year, but really this nomination is for all the 4,000-odd Beetles, series-built to this day in solid wood (cedar on oak). The 95-year production run is one of the most amazing stories in boatbuilding.

C/O CLASSIC BOAT

Designed and built 2015, Gannon & Benjamin, 19ft (5.8m) Gannon & Benjamin follow the American tradition of in-house design with this, Design No 85, a gaff-rigged sloop daysailer (another American ‘knockabout’ like Cara Mia, facing page). She has a full keel 1.1-tonne displacement and 216sq ft (20m2) of canvas. Build is carvel.

EVENTIDE 25 Design Maurice Griffiths 1959. Built 2015 Star Yachts, LOD 25ft (7.6m) A surprising new-build, given the healthy used market. But the owner loves Eventides and wanted a perfect one at 25ft (24ft and 26ft are standard). With 1,000 built, this bermudan sloop is an emblem of post-war Everyman yachting in Britain. Although ply, she’s in this category as the build’s true to the design.

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CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

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Awards IN ASSOCIATION WITH

NOMINATIONS

23/11/2015 11:39

C/O ROBBE AND BERKING

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TRADITIONAL NEW BUILD OVER 40FT (12.2M)

ANKER 434 Design Johan Anker 1939. Built Robbe and Berking, 2015, LOD 71ft 10in (21.9m) It’s not every day a new Metre boat is launched, but the abiding love for the 12s – the ‘America’s Cup class’ – has made itself felt in the form of newly built boats twice in recent years – once in 2006, when the late Philip Walwyn launched Kate to a 1908 Mylne design, and now this stunner. She was the last 12-M drawn by leading yacht designer Anker and never built at the time. Her varnished mahogany planking on alternating steel-and-wood frames are a treat for the eye.

PETER BRAUNE

INVADER

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CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Designed Wm Fife III, 1931. Built Wooden Boatworks 2015, LOD 48ft (14.6m) It’s interesting, if only coincidental, that the two boats in this category are Metre yachts. This one’s a replica of Invader II, a yacht that raced for the Canada’s Cup match race. The build took place in a Long Island potato barn under Donn Constanzo. Boatbuilders are making increasing efforts to track down the right woods, and this is no exception, with a 25ft by 2ft white oak keelson. A sistership is in the works to reprise the match-racing heritage.

Yacht Brokerage

SALES, CHARTER & MANAGEMENT

82ft “ATAO” 2006. Built by JFA Yachts, France. She is a beautiful modern classic centreboard sloop, with a stunning classic look and modern requirements. Her finely crafted woodwork hides many powerful innovations and reveals astonishing sailing performances. The view from the deckhouse is unparalleled and uninterrupted; this is clearly the central point of this beautiful yacht.

137ft Sparkman & Stephens “QUEEN NEFERTITI”

68ft Classic Schooner “ARMIDE”

1986. Refit 2005. Very nice schooner rigged sailing yacht with large deck space, a tremendous deck house and very comfortable accommodations for up to 8 guests and 7 crew. She boasts a tremendous spacious interior. Thanks to her design from Sparkman & Stephens, she sails extremely well from medium to strong winds. She easily reaches 11/12 knots under sail and has little healing angle. She has travelled the world extensively, the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic.

1938. ARMIDE (ex LA BOUFFONNE) was built in France in 1938 at the Chantier du Bas Fort in Marseille. In 1990, she was bought by her current owner who undertakes a complete refurbishment. ARMIDE is now part of the South of France maritime patrimony. She is a nice classic cruising schooner. She regularly takes part in events such as Les Voiles de St-Tropez.

Morgan 70 “MATHIGO”

Commuter 50 “ALLEGIANCE”

2007. Kevlar composite built from a Tom Fexas design, she is a true gentleman’s yacht with a special classic touch inspired from the lobster boats in Maine. She is fast, seaworthy, extremely comfortable and luxurious. She is in pristine condition having seen very little use and having undergone a complete refit in 2014/2015.

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.

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Awards IN ASSOCIATION WITH

NOMINATIONS

ELIZABETHAN 23

KITE

Design W&D Thomas, 1969, B 2015 Alchemy Marine, 22ft 3in (6.8m) You’ve never seen a Liz 23 like this! But Bill Trafford (Alchemy Marine) specialises in finding nice-looking donor hulls and creating beauties. We nearly put it in restorations, but materially and conceptually, she’s a new boat.

C/O RUSTLER YACHTS

Design by A Wolstenholme 2002. Built Demon Yachts 2015, 21ft (6.4m) Razor sharp lines, light displacement (750kg/1,650lb), low wetted surface area and carbon spars make this trailer-sailer fly. The first plywood Kite was launched in 2010, but this is the first high-spec GRP one. ‘Kite is the boat most of us need in the real world’ was our verdict after a test sail.

C/O ALCHEMY MARINE

23/11/2015 11:39

EMILY HARRIS

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SPIRIT OF TRADITION UNDER 40FT (12.2M)

RUSTLER 37 Design Stephen Jones. Built Rustler Yachts 2015, LOD 37ft (11.3m) Like many Stephen Jones designs, the 37 is neither pastiche nor replica: just elegant, timeless design. Like the classic 36, there is a proper sheer and transom stern, but with more beam, she’s nearly double the volume and will take you around the world in comfort.

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CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

C/O CHESAPEAKE LIGHT CRAFT

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ONLINE

RICHARD JOHNSTONE-BRYDEN

SOUTHWEST DORY Designed and built John C Harris, 2015. LOD 18ft 10in (5.7m) This new lug-rigged ketch from Chesapeake Light Craft is a development of its hugely popular Northeaster Dory, which had nowhere to mount an outboard and was not RCD-compliant for the European market. Now we can all have one.

REBEL ONE DESIGN Design Alan Buchanan. Built 2015 Belaugh Boatyard, LOD 22ft (6.7m) Rebel Reiver is the first glass Rebel One Design built since 2008, and its deep-blue hull is complemented by the ivory cove and boot lines and grey antifoul, creating a surprisingly contemporary feel. The upperworks are in oak, Douglas fir and African mahogany. Rig is gunter.

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EAGLE 54 D Hoek, B Leonardo Yachts 2015, 54ft (16.5m) We thought this was a CAD mock-up when we first saw it, so clean are the decks. She’s a daysailer built in foam-core epoxy with a T-shaped bulb keel and low wetted surface area. According to our tester, she slices through the water like a knife through silk, powered by push-button winches. She’s bermudan sloop-rigged, unsurprisingly.

FAIRLIE 53 Design and build, Fairlie Yachts 2015, LOD 53ft (16.2m) This strip-planked bermudan cutter was bespoke-built for a yachtsman who plans long, solo passages. Her modern but moderate underwater profile suits the role and is a departure from the bulb-keeled Fairlie 55 ‘flying machine’. Note the low-profile cabin trunk and deckhouse: nicely judged.

C/O ROCKPORT MARINE

RICK TOMLINSON/C/O CLAASEN

ATALANTE NASHUA Designed Bob Stephens. Built Rockport Marine 2015, 46ft 9in (14m) Nashua is the fourth W46-Class yacht built by Rockport, making the W46 a rare thing: a modern class of traditional, racing cabin yachts. The cabin trunk might look like Herreshoff with the rectangular portlights, and she might be wood (cold-moulded), but this is a modern racing yacht.

NICOLE JACQUES,C/O ROCKPORT MARINE

Designed Hoek, built Claasen 2015, LOD 127ft (37.1m) This aluminium sloop is the largest of the Truly Classic range so far and the biggest boat we’ve ever shortlisted. We do so without hesitation, for build quality, detailing, her outstanding fit-out below and sheer sailing ability.

SPIRIT 46

ANTHONY MORRIS

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ARABESQUE Design Ted Fontaine. Built Rockport Marine, 2015, LOD 50ft (15m) Arabesque is instantly recognisable as the work of Ted Fontaine, with those sloping cabin trunk sides straight out of his Friendship Yacht designs, but in fact she’s a one-off. She’s a double-headsail sloop cold-moulded in wood, and intended for cruising New England and daysailing in Long Island Sound.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

C/O LEONARDO YACHTS

23/11/2015 11:39

WATERLINE MEDIA, C/O FAIRLIE

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SPIRIT OF TRADITION OVER 40FT (12.2M)

Design and build Spirit Yachts, 2015, 46ft 3in Very, very fast (18 knots is not uncommon) and very, very light in cold-moulded wood: 4.5 tonnes. The Mk II S46 Classic is the fastest (for length) and the most popular Spirit yacht there is. Below decks things are smart yet seamanlike.

Panerai British Classic Week sponsored by

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PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS BOYNTON

ENTRIES OPEN APRIL 2016 | Super Zero Class 75ft and over | Modern Classic Division | Solent Racing and Long Inshore Race | Racing Sunday 17th July to Friday 22nd July | IRC Classic Yachts 24ft and over | Full Social Programme | EFG Around the Island Race | Parade of Classics Further information and entries, please contact, Mary Scott-Jackson, info@msjevents.co.uk, Tel:+44 (0)1983 245100 www.britishclassicyachtclub.org/regatta

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Awards IN ASSOCIATION WITH

NOMINATIONS

C/O RESCUE WOODEN BOATS

23/11/2015 11:39

SIMON BURT STUDIOS

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POWERED VESSELS UNDER 40FT (12.2M)

MALAHNE TENDER Designed GL Watson. Built Cockwells 2015, 25ft (7.6m) The owner of the restored, 165ft (50m) 1937 motor yacht Malahne commissioned GL Watson to come up with a 30-knot tender and Jack Gifford drew this, built in yellow cedar strip plank with mahogany outer layer and solid mahogany laid deck. Superyacht tenders are a lucrative niche these days, and the usual host of half-baked follies are emerging. This one, though, hits its mark, with a design ancestry that harks back not to Riva, but to the original American runabouts from the likes of Chris Craft and Hacker.

LUCY LAVERS D&B Groves and Gutteridge, 1940, Restored 2013-15 by David and George Hewitt, LOD 36ft 6in (11.1m) There’s a magic to old lifeboats. This Liverpool Class double-diagonal mahogany boat has, with a £100,000 HLF grant, been restored to her original service specification, which is minimal by modern comparison. Just a hammering single diesel under the canopy and ‘plein air’ seating for the saved. Still, you wouldn’t say no. C/O STAR YACHTS

C/O PEDRAZZINI

PEDRAZZINI SPECIALE

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Designed and built Pedrazzini 2015, LOD 33ft 10in (10.3m) There is something universally appealing about a solid mahogany runabout, more so when it comes from the third generation of a family that has been building wooden boats for more than 100 years, and runabouts like this for 50 of them. ‘Pedrazzini does not do novelties or fads,’ we reported in CB325. ‘Just the best traditional solid-mahogany runabouts.’ This one, the twin-engine, 40-knot Speciale, is cock of the roost.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

BRISTOL 16 Design A Wolstenholme. Built Star Yachts 2015, 16ft (4.9m) Builder Win Cnoops added another one to his steadily growing list of these new, traditionally styled, semidisplacement launches this summer, with the launch of the smallest yet – the Bristol 16. It’s for a customer who has also ordered the biggest yet – a 32. Like all of them, she’s coldmoulded in wood and combines a stepped sheerline with some nice, subtle tumblehome towards the stern.

C/O ISLE OF EWE BOATS

ISLE OF EWE FISHING BOAT Designed and built Alasdair Grant, 2015, LOD 21ft (6.4m) This traditionally built gentleman’s wheelhouse fishing launch with single inboard diesel is Alasdair Grant’s working of an almost timeless concept, for a customer who now keeps her on England’s south coast. She’s of larch planks on oak frames, and was built at Alasdair’s yard on the Isle of Ewe – population seven!

Seven Star Marine Engineering Specializing in Custom Yacht Hardware and Restoration Metalwork Since 2006

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[

] Awards [

NOMINATIONS

]

YACHTSMAN OF THE YEAR

POWERED VESSELS OVER 40FT (12.2M)

NOMINATIONS

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

23/11/2015 11:39

INGID ABERY

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CHRISTOPHER SHARPLES

NICK BURNHAM

LADY HERTHA

JAMES WHARRAM This autumn, James Wharram held a party to celebrate 60 years since his famous groundbreaking voyage, when he set out across the Atlantic on a self-designed, self-built 23ft 6in (7.2m) ‘double canoe’ Tangaroa. He is, today, the maestro of traditional multihull design.

C/O LEO GOOLDEN

C/O SPIRIT YACHTS

NIGEL SHARP

Design GL Watson, built Yarrow and Co 1935, LOD 86ft 7in (26.4m) The recent explosion – and it’s really not too strong a word – in 1930s motor yacht restorations has been a surprise to everyone, but when you see a boat like this one in all her glorious detail, it’s easy to understand. Our cover boat last month, she underwent a significant refit and is full of fascinating, period-correct fittings.

By the time Christopher Sharples was elected as the Royal Yacht Squadron’s commodore in 2013, in time to front the club’s bicentenary celebrations this summer, much of the ground work had been done. But Sharples ensured long-term plans coalesced into a spectacular and historic series of events and he proved the perfect ambassador.

SPIRIT P40 Designed and built (2015) Spirit Yachts, 40ft 6in (12,3m) We jumped aboard at the glamorous Cannes Yachting Festival in September and found Spirit’s smart launch to be very sprightly with her low displacement (just 4.5 tonnes) and twin 260hp diesels. Comfortable cruising at 26 knots and flat-out nearer 40 is not to be sniffed at – particularly if you can do it in style, smoothly, and stay dry at the same time. She sleeps two in her cuddy. 48

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

LEO GOOLDEN VOTE

ONLINE

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To anyone who claims they don’t make them like they used to (people, that is), we offer Leo Goolden, hard-up boatbuilder who restored a Folkboat and sailed it to the Caribbean, aided not by engine and satnav but by scull and sextant. He won every race at Antigua Classic, then skippered a 95ft ketch to the frozen north (see p66).

photo by James Taylor

SAILMAKING SINCE 1790

Congratulations to Tern on her success at Les Voiles de St Tropez with her new suit of Ratsey sails

Please call 01983 294051 or 07798942159 and speak to Andy Cassell or email ratseysails@ratsey.com www.ratseysails.co.uk

Discover more at www.tnielsen.co.uk +44 (0)1452 301117 Finishing rigging blocks at our Gloucester workshops. www.tnielsen.co.uk

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Sails MATERIAL WORLD Classic boat sails range from the traditional to the cutting-edge. We talk to owners and sailmakers for a valuable insight into an essential area of expertise

hat is a classic sail? There are classic yacht owners who fly tanned sails, there are a few using cotton, there are those who use synthetic materials that barely lose their shape over a season of racing. The world of classic sailmaking encompasses a vast range of skills and materials, with hand-stitched leather cringles at one end and 3-D computer-modelling at the other. Is a classic still a classic when fitted with the most modern sails? Ask the question to Manuel Lastra of North Sails and he doesn’t hesitate: “Absolutely! The hull and rigging are what determine whether a boat is classic or not. Sails just provide the driven force.” The purists might disagree but the existence of dedicated classic sail lofts at North and other big sailmakers is testament the number of those owners, even those most concerned with authenticity, who welcome the convenience and performance of a modern sailcloth. Lastra, of North’s classic division, makes reference to the preface of the book Art and Science of Sailmaking, by Samuel B Sadler, probably the first book about yacht sailmaking, in 1892. Lastra says: “There is a passage about the author that says, ‘In his belief many vessels, more specially fishing smacks, are lost, and a

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

number of lives sacrificed annually, in consequence of baggy sails, which during a gale hold the wind and press the vessels down, there being no freedom for the wind’s exit via the after-leech’.” Things have moved on since those days, when cotton sails were the norm, and safety is far from the only benefit modern sailcloth can offer. Jeremy White, loft manager of Elvstrøm Sails UK, says: “Especially in a classic boat that lacks waterline length, all too often people assume it will heel a lot and not necessarily point that well. Reducing the heeling moment, just like any boat, means the keel and hull work better, its easier for crew to move around on deck during manoeuvres, and leeway is significantly reduced. In addition it is far easier work for the helm.”

PERFORMANCE CRUISING Andy Cassell, Paralympic sailing gold medallist and director of Ratsey & Lapthorn, remembers using cotton sails on his Albacore dinghy in the 1950s. “You could wash them and reshape them by weighing down different sections with books. The shape lasted about two days,” says Cassell, who has steered a host of classic and modern boats to podium finishes, including two

Hand-stitched and leathered hanks retain a classic look CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

SAILS

The classic sail cuts MAIN SAIL (gaff shown but bermudan is similar) Vertical or leech cut The oldest sail cut is the vertical or leech cut, where the cloth runs parallel to the leech direction. The cloth was woven with a stronger, larger warp to prevent leech stretch. Its disadvantage is that shape and tightening of the leech is limited.

Vertical or leech cut

Cross cut (parallel to foot) Cross cut In 1845, the yacht Maria had success experimenting with Cross-cut sails, orienting the cloth parallel to the sail’s foot. In 1890 pictures begin to show cross-cut gaff and boomed sails, the Cross cut (square to leech)

cloth oriented perpendicular to the leech.

HEADSAILS (topsails are similar) Scottish cut In 1825 Greenock sailmaker Matthew Orr patented the Scottish cut, with cloth running in two main directions, parallel to the leech and parallel to the foot, intersecting in a seam that bisects the clew angle. Also known as the Mitre vertical cut, this cut is tear-resistant and suitable for head and topsails. Scotch cut (rare)

Vertical or leech cut

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Mitre cut

Cross cut

overall wins at Panerai British Classic Week in David Sherriff’s 1897 Fife Jap. When Ratsey & Lapthorn made new sails for Jap three years ago, the sails were given hand-sewn luff rope, brass cringles and other classic fittings for a period look. But there the desire for authenticity ended. “There was nothing about the shape of the sails that we were trying to replicate from 1897,” says Cassell. “We made them as we would modern sails, giving them as much performance as we could.” Jap’s main and headsails, like those of many classics today, are made of Dacron (originally known as Terylene in the UK), the brand name for polyethylene terephthalate, a polyester patented in 1941 and now used to make any number of modern plastic products. Cassell says: “Dacron is more stable than the Egyptian cotton Jap’s sails would have been originally. If it started raining, as it would have done occasionally in Ireland [Jap is a Cork Harbour One Design], the sails would have shrunk out of all proportion.” Ratsey & Lapthorn also offers cruising sails for classic boats and Cassell says: “Cruising sailors often choose a softer Dacron that is easier on the hands and fingers, easy to flake over the boom, and is more durable. But because it’s softer, it doesn’t hold its shape as well as a more tightly woven Dacron sail, which will have stabilisers and fillers that lock all the yarns together so that the shape is retained, and is consequently more expensive. Gradually, however, even with a Dacron sail, the shape moves to the back of the sail and goes out of the sail altogether.”

Things to look for on your sails By Richard Dugdale of Jeckells Rope shrinkage If you have a sail with rope in the luff or foot, over time that rope can shrink, altering the shape and aerodynamic properties of the sail, and not fitting the spars correctly. Look for wrinkles coming from the luff or foot that cannot be removed by tensioning the halyard or outhaul. Leech wear The genoa leech is often the first thing to go on any sail, if it is left exposed on a furler. If the leech starts ‘motoring’ on a modern yacht, you can move the genoa car forward, but on most classic yachts with fixed fairleads you can’t adjust the sheeting angle. A flapping leech will decrease the sail's life and you’ll end up with disturbed air on the main. Fullness of the sail moving aft Over time you’ll notice the boat heeling more, you’ll have more leeway, more weatherhelm. Take a photograph from deck level, looking up, and draw a straight line across the photo from luff to leech. If the sail does not hold a fair elliptical curve then it needs attention. Stitching UV degradation and chafe are always an issue, although braided UVand abrasion-resistant threads are available that cost more but do increase the sail's life. Consider having the sails valeted before the season. Remember the old adage – a stitch in time saves nine...

NEW MATERIALS ON OLD RIGS Some classic boats in the Med race under the rating rules of the Comité International de la Méditerranée (CIM), which penalises the use of the most modern materials. Many more yachts race under the IRC rating rules. This does not recognise sail materials in its assessment of a boat’s handicap, so in theory wooden boats can be fitted with the most hi-tech, performance-oriented sails. Flying sails so stretch-resistant, on modern halyards offering little give, can place an unnatural load on an old wooden rig. Big sailmakers now have their own software applications that allow them to calculate rig loads in advance, but Lastra says: “Obviously the results are accurate for modern materials, however when we work with old materials, there is a degree of estimation involved in our calculations, since it is difficult to have reliable values when working with wood 50 years old. Contact with the captain, crew and owner becomes crucial for success as these people have much information that is not contained on the sail plan.” Jeremy White of Elvstrøm concurs: “Wooden spars have a mind of their own. Bend characteristics can depend on how well the wood has been looked after. If the rig has been left badly set up for a number of years, then strange shapes can be set into the spars which can take further years to change back. You cannot tension a wooden rig as highly as aluminum spars. If a boom or mast is soft and bendy, this has to be calculated into the cut of the sail, or the sail shape will look ugly.”

Left: Cringle hand-work at James Lawrence; Ketch Analía with sails by North; finishing on Eilean by North; Spirit Yachts use laminates by OneSails

One classic yacht flying modern sail on wooden spars is Cetewayo, the 1955 Laurent Giles sloop owned by British Classic Yacht Club Commodore David Murrin. Disappointed by the lack of wooden yachts to race against regularly, Murrin set about upgrading Cetewayo over the 1990s so that she could race competitively under the CHS (Channel Handicap System), the forerunner to IRC. As part of this, in 1995 Murrin replaced the Dacron sails, initially with white Mylar sails built by Doyle and then with Kevlar sails from Rellings. This was probably the first time a classic wooden yacht had fitted the new high modulus [stretch-resistant] sails available and many observers expected the boat to be pulled apart by the resultant shock loads. However, Murrin argued that such sails would undergo less deformation and stretch, thus maintaining the power generated as a forward-driving force rather than a heeling moment. “As Cetewayo is a long, narrow boat, it would be easier for her to absorb a driving-forward force than a heeling moment that constantly puts stresses on the narrow lateral rigging and down into the garboards. Also, the high shock loads developed by high modulus sails would be partly absorbed by the more flexible wooden spar, and the use of traditional sheets.” This thesis proved to be correct and Cetewayo was raced extensively without incident for 20 years. In 2015, however, she had fitted a taller and stiffer Douglas fir mast, and since its addition, there have been some signs of minor additional stress to Cetewayo’s hull. This suggests the shock loads induced CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

SAILS

boat to be almost unmanageable. If the rig isn’t the right size, the gaff angles are off, if the sheeting points are wrong, how much the sails overlap, how full they are… it’s easy for the owner to be perplexed!”

SPIRIT OF TRADITION Most Spirit of Tradition boats use high-tech materials in the rig and sails. Spirit Yachts has used sails made by John Parker at OneSails since 1998 and today its boats are fitted with OneSails’ low-stretch 4T Forte sails, which is a new generation of laminate sail. These use proprietory materials and processes to guard against delamination from water ingress between the sail’s layers, traditionally the enemy of all laminate sails. Other manufacturers have their own processes, as does Elvstrøm, which laminates its EPEX sails under such high pressures that it offers a ‘no-delamination’ warranty. by an inflexible sail material were being cushioned by the movement of the old, less stiff, spruce mast. Murrin advises that when using high modulus sails with heavy wooden boats that are close to hull speed and will not accelerate further in gusts, it is vital that at least the sheets are from a material that has some give – and that the skipper and crew understand when loads are becoming high and act accordingly.

NEW SAILS The process of having new sails built for your yacht has changed radically and not at all. The big sailmakers will input a yacht’s rig measurements into a 3-D modelling application, allowing them to play around with a virtual rig, assessing loads and wind flow. Neil ‘Jaffa’ Harrison, of Doyle Sails Europe, says: “We utilise the same modern sail design and technology we do with all our sails. The analytical tools that gives us with regards to loads, allows us to design and engineer sails with a classic aesthetic but modern performance and shape holding.” Mark Butler, of James Lawrence Sailmakers, which kitted out Mariette with new sails prior to her win in June’s Transatlantic Race, says: “For any boat, first you need a sail plan. A customer may have, say, a 1932 sail plan and with careful study it can tell them what the implications of that rig would be. Sometimes we need to draw one up from scratch. It always pays to sail on the boat yourself. Classic yachts can be quite sensitive and things only have to be about five per cent out for the 54

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Clockwise from top left: Bolt rope can shrink, pulling the sail out of shape; Cetewayo flies laminate sails on a wooden rig; Sperry sails on schooner Charlotte

BETTER THAN EVER? With modern sail materials, are classic boats performing better than ever before? Owain Peters, of Hood Sailmakers UK, offers a qualified yes: “There is a certain amount of movement in wooden hulls that tends to be further stressed by the inflexibility of low tenacity yarns and cloths. Use with caution is advised, though the performance improvement (especially over the medium term, when woven materials tend to ‘drift’ in shape terms) is unambiguous.”

The origins of tanned sails The red colour of the sails on old working boats comes from red ocre, which was often part of an anti-rot preservative originally made up using oak tree bark, but increasingly in the latter half of the 19th century, using cutch (from the catechu tree). What made up the rest of the mixture depended on what port you were in, but linseed or fish oil and tallow were commonly used. On a yacht, to preserve the sails but keep their whiteness, often the mixture wouldn’t contain cutch but instead sugar of lead, borax, cuprinol and parafin might be used. While a leisure yacht could take its cotton or flax sails off to dry, a working barge or bawley, sailed daily, didn’t have that luxury and often the sails would remain on all season, certain to rot without protection. Tancoloured sails today, when the sail material is commonly a synthetic canvas dyed in the factory, have mainly an aesthetic function.

SAILS

CASE STUDY

The cruising yacht What did a new suit of sails do for cruising yacht Ragdoll, a 1965 Honeybee 28, owned by Mark and Liz Rushall? Jeremy White of ElvstrØm

Mark Rushall, world-class

Sails UK: “As with any

coach, British Sailing

project, the first thing was

Team, and co-owner of

for our team to understand

Ragdoll: “Considering

the boat and how she’s

racing is my business I

used, the problems the

suppose I should not have

owners had experienced

been surprised with the

and their future plans. It

speed and handling

transpired one of the main

benefits of our new sails

challenges with Ragdoll

for Ragdoll. However, I

has been upwind ability,

guess we have always been

especially against the tide,

more interested in her

which created limitations

wood and varnish. Our

to passage planning.

cruises normally go

“We started with

whichever way the wind

detailed measurement of

blows and tide goes, and if

the boat, looking at the

all fails we use the iron

existing sail combinations,

topsail. The most dramatic

her hull shape, and

improvement has been in

understanding her

the balance. The blade

strengths and weaknesses

foresail, with maximised

and deciding on what

low-down area, gives more

could be changed,

punch upwind in the waves

increased or decreased to

and less weather helm,

improve performance.

with no perceptible

“One of the main

increase in heeling moment. That feeling of

introducing a ‘blade’ jib,

nodding up and down,

which is a much more

going nowhere in the INGRID AVERY

developments was

effective sail than the original working jib. We brought the tack down to the foredeck and the clew

waves, has disappeared and we worry less about the wind direction when planning our passages. The

lower towards the deck,

old mainsail was built with

filling in the lower section of the sail, giving a much more effective

maximum roach: that contributed to the weatherhelm, and as it

No 2 for punching through chop. It also meant the sail has a much

stretched and deepened with age, things had got steadily worse.

wider wind range, whereas before there was too much reliance on the larger genoa, which caused it to be overloaded too often. “Other important considerations were what was available on board, such as jib tracks and strong points for sheeting. “These tend to be limited on a classic boat and we have to bear in mind that we might be restricted on sheeting angles, that we cannot pull everything as hard as on a modern boat. “Also important is the rig, as a wooden mast and boom can often not be straight, and it’s less likely we can get as much headsail tension, so we have to allow for a certain amount of natural luff sag and the implications that will have when designing the shape of the sail.”

“The new main has a more traditional profile, combined with a luff curve to suit the wooden mast which sets up very straight upwind. The cloth seems stable so the fullness stays where it should be: this all helps the balance, keeps the power up and the heeling moment down. “The genoa has given us heaps more drive and height upwind, and the cloth stability means we can hold on to it significantly

“One of the main developments was introducing a ‘blade’ jib”

further up the wind range than before: the mast has an internal track so the main has a bolt rope, no slides, the slab reefing is not led back, and the jibs are hanked on. So a set-up that works through a larger wind range makes sailing two-up a much more relaxing business.”

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Wh e r eDr e a msBe c o meRe a l i t y

C us t o m Bui l tBo a t s

“Beautiful sails for beautiful boats”

Pr Ma id de e Br in wit ita Gr h in ea t

“MYFANWY” 1897 – owner Rob Mason

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

SAILS

Bojar, far right, seen here at Cowes, is able to out-point her rivals

CASE STUDY

The racing yacht How new sails saw 1937 Anker-designed 10-M Bojar take on the big guns of the classic regatta fleet Neil ‘Jaffa’ Harrison, sales manager, Doyle Sails Europe: “Bojar is

Andrew Pearson, owner of Bojar: “Bojar had previously been

quite unusual in her rig, having a fractional 3/4 headstay, but

fitted out in Norway, based on 10-year-old sail designs and using

full-width masthead shrouds and a topmast forestay, on a very

materials that were relatively heavy. It took two people to hoist the

tapered mast. This limits the size of her foresail. It was obvious

mainsail. Meanwhile the headsails were quite small. So overall we

the current headsail was under-sized and lacked the punch

had issues with design, weight and shape. Doyle came on board,

needed. We produced a new No 1, as big as could fit in, the mould

sailed the boat and produced an analysis showing how they could

shape developed from a World Champion Etchell jib! We replaced

improve the performance, make sail handling easier and improve

the mainsail with a lighter-weight option, flatter than the previous

her IRC rating. Over 2013 we began to change the sails, as Jaffa

sail so it could be sheeted on harder without stalling. The

describes here. We had gone to Panerai British Classic Week in

inventory was completed with two more headsails covering the

2012 and were 12th out of about 30 boats. In 2014 we were in the

racing wind range of 0-35 knots. All the upwind sails were

top five. This year, in the Royal Yacht Squadron Bicentennial

manufactured utilising our Stratis membranes, which boast

Regatta, we got a 1st and a 2nd.

reduced weight, greater longevity and greater shape-holding.

“It has completely transformed the boat. She is stunning to sail,

With a natural technora as a base fibre and ultra-light taffetas as

perfectly balanced and with the sail trim right you need no

the finish, the combination provided a pastel yellow overall

pressure on the helm upwind. It’s easier to maximise our sail

appearance, which for most traditionalists is more sympathetic to

angle into the wind and easier to helm between 160° and 170°.

the eye than perhaps a bright yellow or black sail. We developed

The mainsail is just under 58 per cent of the weight of the

a number of sails to assist in the downwind performance ranging

previous one and is stronger and a better shape. Crew handling is

from a CIM-compliant Code Zero hanked on to the out forestay,

easier and we can sail with three fewer people on deck. At Cowes

to a masthead A2, which this season we even started flying from

we were racing with Dorade, Stormy Weather, Argyll and

the pole, as well as a couple in between. This winter’s jobs list

Tomahawk, three of which are bigger than us, and we were half a

includes a new pole to save the need for a muscleman on the

boat-length ahead of them on the line. New materials have to be

foredeck and removing the furling system to enable deck-sweeping jibs to be fitted. I’m still working on the idea of replacing the lever-style runner system with a winchoperated version but Andrew is resisting that for traditional values.”

“We were half a boat-length ahead of them on the line”

integrated carefully with wooden boats. We are using Bojar’s original mast, a single piece of spruce that has no through-mast fittings, only wire strops and eyes. You have to be careful putting a big new kite on there, as originally it would have been light cotton.”

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

CLASSIC DESIGNS

NORTHUMBERLAND YC ONE DESIGN A little known fleet that could have become a northern rival to the Solent’s X One Design THEO RYE, ADDITIONAL RESEARCH BY IAIN MCALLISTER

fter a thorough grounding from the master, GL Watson, Alfred Mylne set up independently in 1896. The design list shows he rapidly acquired commissions for numerous small sailing boats such as his many contributions to the Clyde 19/24ft Restricted Class, and he would therefore have been a good choice for the members of the Northumberland Yacht Club who commissioned a new one design from him in 1901. They were to race from their headquarters at Blyth, from where the (now Royal) Northumberland YC still operates. The resulting design, which features in the newly published book on Mylne by Ian Nicolson, is a wee delight. With typical economy, Mylne got a lot of information into the drawings (his lines plan is also the general arrangement) and his lovely draughtsmanship is evident. The addition of a little colour and the careful calligraphy has lifted the drawings so they communicate beautifully. Four were delivered by rail to Blyth in July 1901 by R McAlister & Son of Dumbarton, who enjoyed a reputation for high quality work and built many of Mylne’s designs. As Nicolson noted, it is a design that would be economical to build (as many one designs were) but it is none the worse for that, and McAlisters would undoubtedly have made sound boats. Sheldrake, Golden Eye, Scoter and Gadwall (all types of duck) evidently enjoyed some close sport between themselves and also in the mixed handicap fleet, for which (curiously) the club retained the old Length & Sail Area Rule of measurement (under which they were in the 1-rater class). The boats seem to have been up to McAlister’s (and Mylne’s) usual standards; Sheldrake was still racing at the club as late as 1937; but Scoter had been sold down south, gaining a cabin roof at some point, and was based in Lymington from 1926. The fate of the other two is a mystery. At least one of the boats may have been re-rigged, probably after World War I, because the Mylne archive contains a bermudan rig sail

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Alfred Mylne was commissioned by Northumberland YC in 1901

plan as well as the original gaff sloop plan. There is nothing but moderation in the lines; but note the interesting addition of extra flare in the forward sections, and the corrected outline in the plan view. Underwater blends easy sections to a flat-sided keel; but the very simplicity belies a very nicely resolved shape, with easy buttocks, and there is every reason to expect these were fine little boats with a very respectable turn of speed and good manners. Certainly Mylne had every advantage with his training under Watson, whose analytical methods he adopted, and whose reputation had in turn been founded with success in the smaller racing classes. A quick check of the hydrostatics indicates that Mylne was almost certainly controlling the same parameters that Watson used, and they were seemingly well ahead of their contemporaries. This was a thoroughly modern design. The original gaff sloop sail plan is interesting as it sports a modest club-footed jib, which looks as if it could be self-tacking. Whether the original owners had any notion of single-handing, or merely wished to keep crewing requirements to a minimum, is unknown, but the set-up would allow junior crews to learn the ropes. The waterplane and general form looks tolerant of crew weight, which is generally a very positive attribute in a one design. The mainsail, at 203 square foot, is sensibly sized to be the main driver without excess effort. If Blyth had ever become a fashionable centre of yachting, in the manner of Cowes, this design could have rivalled Westmacott’s X Class of 1904, to which, barring the short bowsprit, it bears more than a passing resemblance. As it is, these boats must have provided grand sailing, before subsiding into obscurity. A replica would be a relatively simple and economic build today; as North America revels in the rediscovery of numerous, similar, dayboats that are now being rebuilt, perhaps it is time for a similar revival on the other side of the Atlantic? If so, this is a fine candidate, and Mylne & Co would be happy to help.

NORTHUMBERLAND OD LOD 20ft (6.1m) LWL 17ft (5.2m) BEAM 6ft (1.8m) DRAUGHT 3ft 2in (0.9m) SAIL AREA 250sq ft (23.2m2) DISPLACEMENT (APPROX) 1.3 tons

TOM CUNLIFFE

‘IS THE BITTER END SECURE?’ Tom recalls offering up an inadvertent nautical sacrifice during a gaffers’ race ILLUSTRATION CLAUDIA MYATT

y the time I handed over the baton of President of the Solent Old Gaffers six or seven years ago, some of my newer responsibilities verged on the comic. The one that tickled me most was being obliged to file a so-called risk assessment for the annual race. The OGA committee had been running this event since its inauguration in the 1960s and, so far as I knew, it had operated like the Ramsbottom family’s famous day out in Blackpool – ‘no wrecks and nobody drownded.’ I suppose the assessment serves some purpose beyond my understanding, but the joke is that the boats are so much safer now than ever they were back in 1972 when I hit the start line for my first OGA race. Restorations were rare then, and most of the fleet crawled out of their mud berths ‘as they were’ for a jolly day out. While we knew the boats and appreciated them, for most of us, gaffers were a cheap option to get on the water. Fleets were extensive in those days and the Solent race was often swelled by larger vessels that came from far and wide to take part – and 1972 was no exception. The weather was typical too. The light northerly breeze that had wafted us to the start line off Cowes fizzled out completely at the ten-minute gun, leaving

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

the shrewder skippers motoring up-tide to a position from where they could drift over the line in good order. The first mark was East Lepe buoy a couple of miles down the West Solent, and the committee had sensibly sent us away with a beezer of a west-going tide. For a while it looked as though my boat was going to miss the outer distance mark until my mate Norman had a brainwave. Using buckets, he dragged the 32ft (9.75m) Colin Archer around so she was beam-on to the stream which was making a good three knots the way we wanted to go. Next, we scrambled up our huge, featherweight ghoster and eased a foot off the topsail sheet. The tide was shoving us through the dead air, making three knots of instant apparent wind. Beam-on it was just enough to fill the ghoster. The super-cambered topsail showed some interest too and soon, while our heavy flax main drooped lifeless from its spars, we were creeping ahead across the stream on the tide-wind. This only worked on the beam reach, so our progress wasn’t bringing us any closer to the next mark, but it did see us safely over the start line.

As we swirled down past Egypt Point in company with 70 or so others, the mark was in clear view a mile ahead over the glassy waters (no big Sunseekers to cut it up in those halcyon days). It was becoming obvious that unless we fancied a trip to the Needles, we’d better rouse out our kedges. Somehow, a lot of the experienced skippers were working their boats into Gurnard Bay whose shoal waters offered a realistic chance of finding the bottom with an anchor. The more naïve, or those with no choice, which included us on both counts, continued to barrel westwards with eighty feet under us. “No use mucking about with the kedge, Norman,” I said. “Why don’t we give her the big CQR and the chain cable?” Norman and Jack, also on the foredeck, expressed doubts, but I was having none of it. As we discussed this pressing matter we were interrupted by a shocking clang that sounded for all the world like someone hitting a traditional galvanised dustbin with a sledge hammer. Glancing behind we realised we were witnessing a battle of the Titans. Fifty yards inshore of us, a 70-foot (21m) steel Dutch sailing barge had successfully kedged. She had been minding her own business winding up her leeboards when a full-sized Brixham Trawler which was, I think, Vigilance but may have been Terminus, came down on her out of control. It’s too long ago for me to recall the details of this memorable incident but I’ll never forget the richness and seamanlike creativity of the string of oaths issuing from the Dutchman. For a while, the two mighty craft drifted together, locked in a grisly embrace, until the trawlermen produced a massive booming-out pole and shoved off. The barge’s kedge took a fresh grab on the seabed and the trawler anchored astern of her. By now the buoy was only a few hundred yards off and our time had come to put up or shut up. “Leggo,” I bawled. Jack

slung the hook over and Norman slipped the brake on the windlass. We had 35 fathoms of three-eighth cable in that locker and I swear the first 25 ran out in half as many seconds. “Snub it off when you see the big red mark!” I hollered to Norman over the roar of the cable. He did. That added up to 150 feet over the side and it made no difference whatever to our inexorable progress. Indeed, you could hear the anchor singing as it bumped along the rocky bottom. “Give her the last ten fathoms then.” I ordered. “Is the bitter end secure?” asked Jack sensibly. “It’s on a socking great bolt through a frame,” I replied. I knew, because I’d put it there myself. So Norman let off the brake. The chain now continued its mad dash for freedom and we watched, fascinated, as the bitter end came whipping over the windlass followed by a length of finest polyester pre-stretched. All well so far, but then the end of the rope shot into view, bent neatly to a large galvanised bolt complete with nut and washer. Having wrenched itself out of a hefty pitch-pine futtock this had no further interest in staying on board and over the side it plunged with the rest of my ground tackle. Everything went very quiet. I looked at Norman. He looked at me, while Jack, ever ready with the right remark, quipped, “Didn’t you want it, then?” We slid on in grim silence. As the buoy disappeared to the east and Yarmouth approached, diplomatic relations were reestablished with the foredeck and we lunched on spam sandwiches and brown ale. We were just clearing up off Hurst when, in a failing tide, we spotted the dark water of a sea breeze coming up from the Needles. “Buckets out again, lads,” said Norman and we fell to heaving the heavy cutter round so she’d be stern to the southwest breeze when it arrived. By the time the first cool air twitched the topsail we had the main squared away on a preventer and the ghoster boomed out on the other side. As the wind filled in, it brought the east-going tide with it and soon we were foaming along with a bone in our teeth making a good eight knots over the ground. A water-sail gave us nothing much extra but did wonders for morale and in no time flat we were bringing the wind up with us off Gurnard Bay where the rest of the fleet still lay becalmed. The committee boat signalled a shortened course and we took the gun for our class. This was the only time I won a gaffer’s race until 35 years later in another life, and we’d sailed four times as far as the next boat to finish. I don’t remember which cup we were awarded but I have perfect recall of the large case of beer that came with it from a proud sponsor, or the first half of it, anyway…

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

MAYFLY OF THE BROADS If you’ve ever cruised the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, you’ll recognise this day launch. Now she flies again STORY AND PHOTOS RICHARD JOHNSTONE-BRYDEN

he beautiful flowing lines of the new Mayfly 17 day launch underline a pedigree that stretches back to the early post-war years when the late Billy May was asked to build a 14ft (4.26m) motor launch with a twin cylinder air-cooled Norman engine. Named Miss Potter, she triggered the founding of Maycraft in Potter Heigham and became the basis for nearly 50 mahogany-on-oak, clinker-built day launches in lengths from 12ft to 18ft (3.65m to 5.5m). The first of Miss Potter’s derivatives was commissioned a couple of years later by a customer who wanted a 16ft (14.87m) version complete with a windscreen and seats. Billy could see the commercial potential of hiring out one of the new boats on a self-drive basis to holidaymakers from Maycraft, so he built a pair side-by-side. He kept the first one, named in honour of his wife Olive, and delivered the second boat to the instigator of the project. Three more Olives were produced for Maycraft’s hire fleet with the last one being built in 1952 alongside the first Kathleen which proved to be the yard’s most popular design. She had been ordered by a Mr Hayden

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

who worked in Great Yarmouth as an optician and owned one of the riverside bungalows near the boatyard. Named after Mr Hayden’s wife, the 17ft day launch had an open-backed cabin, a spacious cockpit and was powered by a Ford E93A petrol engine. By the early 1970s approximately 25 of these launches had been built, of which 12 were operated at some point by Maycraft either from new, or after they had been bought back from private owners. Miss Potter’s other derivatives included a 12ft runabout powered by a 4hp Stuart Turner engine, an open launch fitted with a 40hp Seagull engine that was rigged up to a steering wheel up forward and an 18ft version of Olive built for the Gorleston-based amateur fisherman Claude Peacock. When Billy retired he handed over Maycraft to his son Harry who continues to run the business together with his grandsons Alan and James. The trio specialise in refurbishing and maintaining wooden boats in addition to operating the hire fleet. Maycraft’s original wooden launches have been steadily replaced over the years by more modern GRP craft to leave just two Kathleens

Below left to right: Mayfly 17’s mahogany laid decks; the retro steering wheel; fender detail; smart Timage chrome fittings

MAYFLY17

(numbers 6 and 9) still available on either a daily or weekly basis, while Kathleen 1 and Miss Potter are laid up at the yard awaiting their turn to be restored. The development of Miss Potter’s latest descendent occurred entirely by chance when Alan May and Chris Edmondson’s former business partner struck up a conversation about their trucks, which moved on to the subject of classic river launches. When Alan learned that the two boatbuilders were trying to find the right design for their new business, he suggested that they should come across to his family’s boatyard where he might have something suitable. “The moment I saw Kathleen 10’s hull suspended from the boatshed’s roof I knew this was the boat for us,” Chris said. They later struck a deal with the May family to take a GRP mould from the hull of Kathleen 10 for use with a new deck moulding. As these plans took shape Chris took on sole responsibility for the project when his business partner decided to pursue alternative interests. Although Mayfly 17 is the first boat to be developed and built by Chris Edmondson in his own right, he has clocked up several years of boatbuilding experience working for boatyards across the Broads on a range of projects from GRP Essex Smacks to luxury motor cruisers, wooden motor launches, and classic Broads yachts, as well as specialist plug and mould work. Originally from Lancashire, his passion for boat building was sparked by childhood boating holidays on the Broads and the sight of traditionally styled motor cruisers being built in Wroxham for the Ernest Collins hire fleet in the late 1970s. On leaving school Chris secured a five-year apprenticeship at Douglas Boatyard in Hesketh Bank near Preston which specialised in wooden trawlers. In the absence of a

Kathleen, above, was the basis for the modern boat’s lines (main picture)

boatbuilding college, he enrolled in a cabinet-making course at the Central Liverpool College of Further Education to secure a City & Guilds qualification which added depth to his training. In 1988, Hardy Marine offered Chris the chance to realise his dream of building boats in Norfolk and embark on a journey that led, 26 years later, to the establishment of his own business a stone’s-throw from Potter Heigham. Rather than follow the easy route of simply replicating Kathleen’s proven design, Chris was determined to create a new launch with a distinct identity. But the production of the hull moulding offered little scope to achieve this. Apart from the switch to GRP, the only significant changes to be made to the hull were the addition of a rope fender and the replacement of the stern-hung rudder with one below the waterline to enable stern-on mooring. In contrast, the development of the top moulding, cockpit layout and wooden screens provided Chris with the opportunity to firmly stamp his own mark on the new CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Main picture:

boat. The final result was influenced by the styling of the classic speed boats built for the American lakes and a decision to create the largest possible open cockpit within Mayfly’s beamy hull. To achieve the right sweeping profile for the mahogany plywood screens, Chris used sheets of cardboard to create full-scale mock-ups which he tuned until happy with the result. To cater for changeable weather, a practical two-piece canopy fits over the top of these screens. It can be used in five configurations from fully enclosing the cockpit to its complete removal, so allowing the amount of protection it offers from the elements to be increased or reduced. The white GRP deck moulding has been enriched by the inclusion of mahogany laid decks and the elegant chromed fittings supplied by Timage. The integrated African mahogany steps between the aft and side bench seats provide a safe route to step down from the quayside into Mayfly’s cockpit. The combination of this seating together with a pair of swivel seats up forward, enable up to nine people to be accommodated in comfort. Propulsion currently consists of a 14hp Nanni diesel engine or a Vetus 2.2kW water-cooled electric motor. The latter has been fitted to the featured boat along with a pair of 170Ah batteries under the side seats amidships to give Mayfly a range of 6 to 8 hours which could be doubled by fitting two more batteries in the locker below the aft bench seat. Either power plant can be mounted below the foredeck, freeing up the centre of the cockpit to take a mahogany plywood picnic table. After use, the table top is detached from its pedestal and stowed in a locker via a slot in the forward bulkhead. The table’s pedestal is stowed in the storage locker under the aft bench seat. The helm position’s equipment has been kept to a minimum with a battery monitor, a lever to control the 64

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Mayfly 17’s cockpit, with Vetus seats, compared with helmsman’s seats in Kathleen (inset)

MAYFLY LOA 17ft (5.18m) BEAM 6ft (1.83m) DRAUGHT 1ft 4ins (0.41m) PROPULSION 14hp Nanni diesel or 2.2kW Vetus electric motor

electric motor and a discreet central consul of just three switches. The retro steering wheel adds a nice touch which is very slightly undermined by the inclusion of the two Vetus helmsman’s seats. They were originally chosen for practical reasons to enable the occupants to turn and face the picnic table. But Chris is considering offering the option of mahogany slatted seats for future boats along the lines of the ones fitted to the Kathleens. Having seen Mayfly at this year’s Horning Boat Show exhibited ashore on a road trailer, I was intrigued to see how she performed on the water. Launching her from the trailer into the River Thurne was straightforward and before long we were heading downstream through Potter Heigham where she drew plenty of admiring glances. Mayfly proved responsive with the electric motor giving her a good turn of speed while the hull created very little wash. Future Mayflys can be tailored to a customer’s exact requirements which will inevitably determine the final price. At the time of going to press, the basic diesel powered model costs £19,500 while the equivalent electric version can be purchased for £21,500 – which rises to £23,680 for a Mayfly built to the same specification as the featured boat. Chris Edmondson Ltd Tel: +44 (0) 1493 748988; Mobile 07500 946531; Maycraft Boat Services Tel: +44 (0) 1692 670241 maycraft.co.uk

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ONBOARD

GREENLAND BOUND Leo Goolden won plaudits for sailing his Folkboat solo from the UK to Antigua last year. Now he has gone north, as skipper of an 86-year-old ketch STORY LEO GOOLDEN

t had been a long voyage from Antigua, with just a couple of short stops, but as we saw the first outlines of the Greenlandic coast appearing in the early morning light, we all felt something special, and no, it was not just the cold. I am still not sure how it happened, but I found myself working as skipper of the 95ft (29m) Baglietto ketch Sincerity (1929). It was a small step up in size and responsibility from my own boat, the 25ft Folkboat Lorema, which I sailed from the UK to Antigua last year (CB325). To say I felt out of my depth was an understatement. However, our motley crew (from Antigua, France, Australia, Germany, Canada, the UK and Norway) had managed to sail Sincerity 3,000 miles north from the West Indies, via Bermuda and Nova Scotia, through

lightning storms, icebergs and thick fog, and I was beginning to feel just a little bit less clueless than before. None of us had ever been so far north, but as a bloated yellow moon rose over the snow-capped mountains to welcome us, and a pod of whales added their watery trumpets to the calm of the Labrador Sea, we all felt excited and honoured to be visiting this far-flung land. After such a dramatic approach, our landfall in the tiny capital city Nuuk was anticlimactic. Charming in parts, with multicoloured houses and wooden churches, it was peppered with apartment blocks put up during a period of modernisation in the 1950s and suffers for it. We had a couple of days before Sincerityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s charter guests arrived, so decks were scrubbed, lines whipped, sails stitched and crystal glasses and crockery were dug out from dark corners and placed nervously on the

The 95ft ketch Sincerity on charter in Greenland

GREENLAND VOYAGE

varnished saloon table. We were screwing together a new bed in the lazarette as our four guests got out of their taxi, but having shown them around, we were relieved to find that they were relaxed and made very few demands other than to be supplied with an intravenous flow of Earl Grey tea. Having been teased about my English tea-drinking habits by the crew thus far, I was delighted to have some compatriots. Crates of biscuits were heaved aboard and we motored out of Nuuk, heading north. A high pressure system sits over Greenland for most of the summer, forcing depressions south and resulting in fair weather, but light wind, which means heavy use of the Iron Topsail. Meanwhile katabatic wind and the funnelling effect of the fjords combine to make for interesting sailing. Thick fog is also common and can make navigating through icebergs a worrying experience. We entered Evighedsfjord, (‘everlasting fjord’), nervously making our way towards our first glacier, until the growlers became too thick in the water, at which point we broadsided it with binoculars and cameras, and picked up a few chunks for drinks. Making cocktails with iceberg lumps is a not-to-be-missed activity in Greenland and we spent an inordinate amount of time hanging various crew over the side with hammers and buckets. Having ticked ‘glacier’ off our list, we dropped the anchor for the night in a protected bay at the mouth of the fjord, and in the morning went ashore. From the top of a nearby hill, the view was impressive, but not as impressive as the sheer quantity and size of the mosquitoes that plagued us on the way up. There

are few land mammals in Greenland, so what these brutes normally eat is a mystery, but they were thriving. Onwards we sailed – or motored – into calm seas and blue skies, tracing a pencil line up the west coast. We took inshore routes where possible, winding between beautiful islands and through fjord systems, watching breathtaking snow-capped mountains glide by on either side, and avoiding an increasing number of icebergs. We scratched our heads over our charts, on which there were many unsurveyed areas, and sometimes just one narrow line of soundings to follow. Humpback whales often kept us company, waving their enormous fluked tails before diving into the murky depths of the fjords. As we continued north the nights got shorter, until we crossed the Arctic circle with the midnight sun shining, a shot of local liquor in hand and a toast to the Inuit spirits of the sea. From here on, the sun would not set at all. We stopped in various tiny harbours, often mooring against shaky fuel docks, with barely enough depth and little space to manoeuvre. We were regarded with suspicion and surprise at first, and then always with kindness and hospitality. We encountered huskies, seals, polar bear skins, and hundreds of fish hanging on washing lines to dry. And everywhere we went, our Antiguan shipwright Gino had to put up with the awe of kids and adults who had

‘Making cocktails

with iceberg lumps is a not-to-bemissed activity’

Clockwise from top left: Growlers made navigation tricky at times; a lonely coastline; another iceberg meets the paparazzi; humpback whales were a common sight

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

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GREENLAND VOYAGE

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never seen a black guy before, and who could not resist trying to have their photos taken with him, with or without his compliance. The villages we visited varied in size from 100 people or less, up to a few thousand, but they were all equally isolated. The longest road in Greenland is only 14 miles, so the only way to get from place to place is by boat, or occasionally by air. Few people have vessels capable of the distances involved, so the lifeline to the outside world is the ferry that plies the coast twice a week. Wherever it arrives, the whole town comes to see who is coming and going, and kids come to watch the show and play football on the dock. Tourists are rare, and although we saw a couple of other yachts, the only other wooden boats we came across were old fishing vessels, with a layer of sheet metal covering the hull below the waterline and a harpoon on the bow. The fishermen were intrigued by our varnish and bowsprit, and often shared with us some of their catch. Once we were given a crate of live snow crabs. The effort-to-reward ratio could have been better, but they tasted pretty good. We found that some of the narrow passages in the fjords have considerable tidal current. It was manageable enough until the fog dropped and the wind picked up, and then the threat of stray icebergs became quite worrying. Whilst dealing with these navigational challenges and looking after our guests, we were also well occupied fixing the various things that broke along the way. The forward heads, for instance, blocked so many times that we dread to use it to this day. 70

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Above: Collecting ice for evening drinks Inset: Leo Goolden exploring by RIB, with Sincerity behind Below: Taking soundings in part-surveyed waters

23/11/2015 11:39

At last we arrived in Disko Bay, which not only has a brilliant name, but is also home to the most productive glacier in the northern hemisphere. The whole area is full of bergs of every conceivable shape and size. We came across enormous tower blocks, stationary spaceships, bizarre statues, forests of spikes, and a wide variety of real and fictional animals, and we slowly wound our way between them all. In Illulisat, right next to the actual glacier, we played football with the local kids, broke another inadequately built fuel pontoon, and swapped an old dinghy for several enormous red fish. Then we visited Disko island itself, navigating around numerous rocks and bergs to squeeze into the mouth of the harbour at Qeqertarsuaq (previously known as GĂ¸dhavn, for those who are not accustomed to the beautiful but incomprehensible Greenlandic language). Here we learned a little more about Greenlandic tradition and folklore, including the best way to kill a polar bear, which involves pretending to be dead until it puts your head in its mouth, and then jumping up and killing it with a tiny little knife. We climbed a mountain to reach the ice cap and hired dog sled drivers to take us further up. The huskies, the sleds, the snow, the ice, the view of the icebergs out to sea â&#x20AC;&#x201C; we were a little bit awestruck. Jake and I got our frisbee out and flung it around on the ice-cap, perhaps to have something normal to relate to. In the evening we unpacked a disco ball (on Disko Island!) that we had shipped specially all the way from Antigua, only to realise it never gets dark enough to use it so far north.

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SINCERITY One of the oldest boats built by Baglietto of Varazze, Italy, and one of the first bermudan cruising yachts ever built, Sincerity has led an eventful and colourful life. She was originally christened Janua, but has been through several different names and owners since then. Her interior is decorated with veneered panels that were taken from the Orient Express, depicting astrological symbols and constellations. She boasts a mysterious bullet hole in the woodwork of the saloon, and there are rumours of a vintage Playboy photoshoot in the very same place. In the 1980s she ran aground on a reef in the Bahamas, but was subsequently rescued and restored – although surprisingly, she retains much of her original interior. Recently she has been cruised extensively between northern Europe, the USA and the Caribbean. This summer she covered more than 7,000 miles, arriving in the Mediterranean just in time for Panerai’s Régates Royales in Cannes, and is due some tlc in Italy this winter. She is planked with three inches of teak over a mixture of steamed and sawn oak frames.

Above: High latitude cruising at its best Left: The land where the sun never sets

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

LOA 95ft (28.9m) LWL 66ft (20.1m) ALL PHOTOS C/O SAMPSON BOAT

Our first charter was nearly over and the weather had turned a bit dreary, so we started out on our return journey south. On and on we motored, through an indeterminate day and night – fog and icebergs, whales and seals, tea and biscuits, and the endless chugging of our reliable Volvo to lull us to sleep after a long watch. We reached Nuuk again, and having switched charter guests, went for another short trip closer to the capital. Having sailed up the beautiful Nuuk fjord and into more thick ice, we struggled to find a protected anchorage, but when we did, were rewarded with a view to die for and evening light that seemed to vibrate with electricity. The next day, and a little further south, we came across an abandoned fishing village, and we wandered around the eerie settlement with Sincerity anchored in the little bay. August came upon us before we knew it, and it was time for us to prepare for our Atlantic crossing. The owner and the guests dispersed, but we found a couple of enthusiastic locals to make up the numbers. After a few days of hard work, we departed for Gibraltar, a mere 2,500 miles away. Exciting as it was to head back to warmer climates, we were sad to leave. We had covered many miles but had seen only a fraction of what this land has to offer. The culture and the nature that we had encountered was so powerful, and yet its power seemed somehow reserved, and quiet.

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WILLIAM COLLIER

RESTORATION MAN William Collier wanted the line drawings of a boat he was restoring so much, he bought the company that owned them STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH RICHARD DONKIN

moment under canvas. Later, signature designs included the f you want to know about old boats, classic boats, boats of clipper-bowed steam yacht with counter stern. Among Watson’s revolutionary conception that made Britain the builder of firsts were his 1882 yacht, Wendur, when he introduced the first full choice in the earliest generation of superyachts, there’s only clipper bow on a cutter or yawl. Three years later on Dora he one place to go, one man to meet. The place is the office of pioneered the spoon bow and on Shamrock II, the pole mast. GL Watson on a floor of the former headquarters of Sitting at his desk, Collier opens the firm’s sales ledger, a store of Martins Bank, Liverpool and the man is the company’s 19th century wealth creators and royal households. managing director, William Collier, probably unique in possessing The list runs from Watson’s first yacht, Peg Woffington, via the a PhD in the history of yacht design and yacht building. five-tonners, Clotilde, Vril, Freak and Shona that established his GL Watson is an anachronism in boat building. Like so many racing credentials, to racing giants Thistle, Valkyrie II and III, of the once-great Clyde shipyards, it might have closed decades Britannia and Shamrock II. Then there are the steam yachts and ago. But, unlike William Fife, its revered Clydeside contemporary, their owners, Edmond de Rothschild, Frederick William Vanderbilt the GL Watson design studio evolved after World War II to and James Gordon Bennett. When Watson died, the design office concentrate on commercial vessels, lifeboats and fast motor boats. was led by draughtsman James Barnett, responsible for many of its By the 1990s, while no longer a force in contemporary yacht motor yachts between the wars. The ledger includes lines on the design, it remained the repository of one of the finest archives in design and purchase of the yacht Nahlin, ordered by Lady Yule. late 19th century and early 20th century boat design. When Collier The salvage and restoration of Nahlin, more than any other needed the line drawings for one of his most ambitious projects, his project, established GL Watson. Collier was still working with search led ultimately to buying the firm, now based in Liverpool Camper’s when he started looking for Nahlin, one of the UK’s and repositioned as a restorer of historic yachts. most historic motor yachts. Lady Yule sailed Nahlin His journey started in East Anglia, touring mud berths around the world in the 1930s, chartering it to the with his grandfather. “I came from a sailing family and future Edward VIII in 1936 when he used it for a it was wandering around those mud berths as a child Mediterranean holiday with Wallace Simpson. But that really sparked my interest in small boats,” he before World War II the yacht was sold to the king of says. Among the old hulks converted into houseboats Romania and after the Communist Party took at Pin Mill on the Orwell, was the 19-M class over, its whereabouts became obscure. Mariquita, a shadow of the boat it had been in its “I had a news item from 1967 saying it was pre-World War I heyday. “I grew up with that “It was a floating restaurant on the Danube,” he says. boat. I’d known her all my life.” “I sent a Telex to the Communist shipping In the late-1980s, as a broker in the Cannes surprising just authority, making an offer, and they replied, office of Camper & Nicholsons International, how many saying the boat was not for sale. But this was Collier established the firm’s classic yachts the confirmation that I had been seeking – that division that oversaw the sales and refloating of important yachts it still existed, 20 years on.” boats like the 12-M Cintra, Flica II, Miquette, had survived The next year Collier went to Romania to see Vim and Trivia, the 8-M Fulmar, the Big Class Nahlin and put together a deal to buy it, but cutter Lulworth, Avel and Mariquita, restored by in those mud with the overthrow of the Communist regime in Fairlie Restorations. Collier was perfectly placed berths” 1989 it took another 10 years of haggling and to marry the skills required in managing yacht red tape until the yacht could be brought back to projects with an accumulating knowledge in a dry dock on the Mersey. The only company early yacht design, a passion he invested in his that possessed drawings of Nahlin, so crucial to its restoration, was doctorate he embarked on at the University of Liverpool. GL Watson. “I had lunch with the managing director and found He left Camper’s in 1993 to pursue his studies while working as that he wanted to sell the company, so I bought it,” says Collier. a consultant, often with Fairlie, a connection that developed to a The GL Watson archive has enabled Collier and his team to build stage in the late-1990s when he became involved in the yard’s up the business as a leading restorer of classic yachts. It also offers restructuring, helping to underpin its resurgence initiating projects management of new builds to original designs; and replicas of two such as the 15-M The Lady Anne and Hispania and cataloguing Watson-designed sailing yachts are due to be launched next spring. the Fife Design Archive. In the mid-1990s he co-founded the Clients stand to get a yacht with character, design élan and history. Yachting Archive Project, with Hampshire Archives Trust. GL Watson focuses on big, lengthy projects. Beyond its work on “It was surprising just how many important yachts had survived Nahlin, it has managed the restoration of another of its designs, in those mud berths,” he says. “In those years I was tracing and Blue Bird, built originally for Sir Malcolm Campbell. The yacht repatriating lost Fifes as well as undertaking research to support was acquired from a Dutch canal from where it was moved for a the restorations. It was detective work, tracking down the designs full restoration. Today, with Talitha, it belongs to Tara Getty. and right documents to get these boats properly registered.” A third restoration, undertaken at the Falmouth-based shipyard, His Liverpool base is both office and maritime museum. The Pendennis, has been that of the 50m (165ft) yacht Malahne. walls bear pictures and half models, including many of the GL Watson’s re-emergence in classic yacht restoration which, he lifeboats that came from the GL Watson studio. (The company was argues, is central to the UK’s strengthening reputation for such work, naval architect to the RNLI for nearly 100 years from the 1880s.) will next focus on the 1920s-built yacht, Caritas that, just now, is While Fife concentrated on wooden yachts, George Lennox sitting in a California trailer park. Beyond these projects is a Watson pioneered designs in both wood and steel. In sailing yacht proposal to rebuild Istria, the greatest 15-M pre-World War I. The design, the business was rivalled only by Nathanael Herreshoff in yacht was broken up, but the company has drawings and plans… the USA and William Fife and Son in the UK. In powered leisure “All we need is a willing customer,” he says. “It’s a big step to take yacht design, Watson was unrivalled. First designing and racing on the running and ownership of a big classic yacht. Seeing the wooden sailing yachts in the Clyde, he focused on waterline experiences of our clients we know it’s a step worth taking.” length and lead keels, fitted externally to improve righting CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

New Classics

ONBOARD

VAN DE STADT 41

Classic-look newbie Here’s a great-looking gaff cutter that no one’s ever heard of. That’s quite surprising given that she’s from the Van de Stadt design house in the Netherlands. She’s design No641, and the first (and so far only) one, built in wood/epoxy a few years ago for superyacht project manager Jos Scholten (Athos, Windrose of Amsterdam, Mirabella V et al). The idea was for a light, fast, shallow-draught yacht that would be sufficiently seaworthy for North Sea crossings, and with the look of the old world above decks. Influences here were Harrison Butler, William Atkins and the Falmouth Quay Punts. Below the waterline, she’s of moderately modern shape, dishy with a lead-bulb keel, with a more traditional transom-hung rudder. The rig is simple, but again aided by modern thinking: the gaff is made of carbon and weighs just 20lb (9kg). With only one built, this hardly counts as a new ‘production’ classic. But the boat has general appeal and was conceived for a very discerning owner! Van de Stadt has the design, so it’s ready for its second incarnation. Next month, Theo Rye looks at an older Van de Stadt. £POA, stadtdesign.com

C/O VAN DE STADT

SOUTHWESTER DORY

John C Harris nails issues with new Dory It’s always exciting when a new John C Harris design appears on his website, and the Southwester Dory is no exception. After 500 orders for the Northeaster Dory, and feedback about the impossibility of mounting an outboard or passing the RCD test for European markets, John came up with this. It’s a foot longer at 18ft 10in (5.7m), with side-bench seating, more buoyancy and stowage, and an internal outboard well. Harris describes her as an expedition boat, equally suited to sailing, with her lug yawl rig, power or rowing. At just 250lb (113kg) and with the narrow shape, it will be seriously slippery. Dinghy cruisers could rig a boom tent between the two C/O FYNEBOATKITS.CO.UK

masts and add slats to create a sleeping platform. She has a kick-up rudder and centreboard for easy beaching. It’s build-it-yourself, but we know from experience that CLC kits are well-designed and easy to build. She can be built as a rowing boat, with the rig and outboard well added as extras. The price below is for all three.

Awards

US$ 4,438 (c£3,000), contact fyneboatkits.co.uk or clcboats.com

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Classic Boat 2016 awards logo.indd 4

23/11/2015 11:39

More at classicboat.co.uk/new-classics 76

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

www.chantierduguip.com

Guip Shipyard – Brest – Ile aux Moines Quai du Commandant Malbert 29200 Brest, France Tel: +33 (0)2 98 43 27 07 Fax: +33 (0)2 98 44 81 29 E-mail: guip29@chantierduguip.com

Monaco Classic Week Trophy

2015 Winners * La Belle Clas se Restoration * prize for all classes

Where do winners (of CB awards) go for gear?

Mowenna – Gaff schooner designed by Linton Hope and built by Stow & Son in 1914 – Complete restoration by Guip Shipyard (Brest), launched in 2013 Trades: Shipwrights, joiners, electrical engineers, project managers. Skills: Building, restoring, repairing and maintaining wooden historic vessels, classic yachts and workboats. Traditional shipwrighting and modern wooden boat-building techniques. Deck and interior joinery. Wooden mast and spar making. Workshop (1,250 m²) on the quay. Overhead travelling Passionate about the sea, maritime crane. Accommodates vessels up to 100 tons heritage and wood!

www.ClassicMarine.co.uk7/3/13 +44(0)1394 380390 10:27 Page 1

Classic_129x202.qxd:Layout 1

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

We offer you the best, compact, reliable engines at very competitive prices!

Easy engine replacement, we can supply special engine feet designed to fit your boat

Engineered in the UK, at Beta Marine in Gloucestershire, we welcome your visit

Installation, buy through our dealer network for an installation package - see our website for dealer listings, or contact us 5 Year ‘Self Service’ Warranty

e c i o h C ’s n a m t h c The Y a

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

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Classnotes The C-Scow

THE D-SCOW The D-Scow is a sloop-rigged version of the C-Scow, which was introduced in 1945. It shared the same hull design as the C-Scow, but had twin rudders and carried 225sq ft (20.9m2) of sail. But the design never achieved the popularity of the C-Scow, and production soon ceased.

BY VANESSA BIRD

‘S

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

CREW WEIGHT

MOLLY PORTER

ailing surfboards’ is how one magazine described the C-Scow in the 1970s, and it’s hard not to agree when you see a picture of one of these 20ft (6.1m) boats, with scow bow, skimming dish hull and generous cat rig that towers over the water. It’s a design that originates from 1905, and is one of a series of scows that took the lakes of the Midwest USA by storm during this and the last century, providing exhilarating sailing at top speeds, and combining manoeuvrability with epic acceleration. It was introduced as a smaller version of the A-Scow, a 38-footer (11.6m) that designer John O Johnson had developed around 1900 when he built Minnezitka, a revolutionary new scow for inland racing. Minnezitka’s success on the race course kick-started Johnson’s career as a boatbuilder and Johnson Boat Works, which the Norwegian émigré had set up in 1896, became one of two leading scow builders at White Bear Lake, Minnesota. The C-Scow was designed for a crew of two or three, depending on weather conditions, and featured twin bilgeboards – asymmetric foils either side of the centreline that can be raised and lowered according to the point of sail – a single aluminium rudder and 216sq ft (20m2) of bermudan mainsail. Originally construction of the C-Scow was of double-planked white cedar, with a ¼in (6mm)-thick layer laid lengthwise on top of an 1 /8in (3mm)-thick diagonal layer, glued and screwed on to white oak timbers. A canvas-covered ¼in (18mm) cedar deck and mahogany trims completed the hull. Wooden boats continued to be built by the yard until the late 1970s, although by this time GRP hulls were also popular, built initially by Forester Boats in Wyoming, but later taken back in-house. In recent years,

The flat-bottomed C-Scow, designed by John O Johnson, celebrated its 110th anniversary in 2015

the C-Scow has been built by Melges Performance Sailboats, which has also had a long association with the class, after Harry C Melges Snr built his first one in 1945. It was one of the fastest boats built, and today the firm builds the design in GRP. According to enthusiasts, sailing a C-Scow is pure exhilaration, and they are fast both up and downwind. They are best sailed at a heel angle of 20-25°, at which point the waterline length of the hull increases, while the wetted surface area, and friction, decreases, and the boat is able to slice through any waves. It’s not a boat for the fainthearted, though, as these 20-footers are relatively light, and can be very tough boats to handle and keep upright. One report of a regatta on White Bear Lake records 40 C-Scows capsizing, including the winning boat, which capsized three times during the course of the race. With minimal freeboard, they are very wet boats, and suit the flat water of lakes, where they plane easily. Today’s C-Scow is a one design, but although the principle hull shape remains the same, it has seen considerable development over time in the quest for speed. Consequently, many owners changed their boats every year to remain competitive, thus swelling numbers and keeping the class alive, and there are now fleets in Canada and 15 US states.

The ideal crew weight for a C-Scow in heavy weather conditions is 500lb (227kg). But in lighter conditions, less crew weight is preferred. Until 1981, however, crew weight was restricted to just 475lb (215kg) for all conditions.

JOHNSON BOAT WORKS

SPECIFICATIONS LOA 20ft (6.1m) BEAM 6ft 9in (2.1m) DRAUGHT 3ft 3in/20in (1m/51cm) SAIL AREA 216sq ft (20m2)

John O Johnson established Johnson Boat Works in 1896 and the yard continued to build boats until 1998. From 1900 onwards it became renowned for its scow building, building a range of classes including the 38ft (11.6m) A-Scow, 32ft (9.7m) B-Scow, 20ft (6.1m) C and D-Scows, 28ft (8.5m) E-Scow and the 16ft (4.9m) M-Scow. The yard also built iceboats and the 16ft Class X for youngsters. According to a former employee the yard rarely advertised its services, reasoning that “if they made good boats, they’d sell themselves”.

THE PRICE In 1972 a C-Scow cost $2,400 (c£1,600). Today, secondhand C-Scows cost from $1,200 (c£800), depending on age and condition.

DISPLACEMENT 650lb (295kg) DESIGNER John O Johnson BUILDER Johnson Boat works

Vanessa’s book, Classic Classes, is a must-buy. Please bear in mind that this book provides

Next Month ZULU

only a snapshot of the myriad classes in existence.

Getting afloat SECTION HEAD SUB SECTION

C/O AREY’S POND

LYNX 16

Catboats and more Arey’s Pond Boatyard, which recently celebrated its 60th year, has an active sales division selling its own boats and some boats by other builders. We found a 1999, GRP-hulled 16ft 6in (5m), Lynx 16 catboat, one of Arey’s Pond’s own. Looking pretty tidy, she had a cuddy cabin to sleep two and a beamy cockpit for four, with a ton of extras and including an outboard motor, for just US$16,000 (c£10,500). Also on the books was a 1976 (wooden, of course) Beetle Cat for $3,900 (c£2,500) C/O AREY’S POND

and a lovely 12ft (3.7m) Herreshoff Columbia dinghy, newly built in wood in 2009 for $3,995 (£2,600). We also spotted Marshall catboats and a Wianno Senior. A nice collection of small, affordable, classic American yachts, dayboats and dinghies.

Tel: +1 508 255 0994, areyspondboatyard.com

‘DESIGN NO 8’

Laurent Giles L-Class Mention the name Jack Laurent Giles and many will think of the legendary ocean-cruising Vertue-Class sloops or his later, more radical designs, many drawn to conquer under RORC rules – which they duly did. Design No8, the L-Class, is of a more traditional mien and all the more attractive for it. This example, Mermerus, was one of the last of the 17 built, by Elkins in 1939 and she’s belonged to her current owner for more than 20 years. She’s 23ft 3in (7.1m) long and built of pitch pine planks on oak frames. She has a decent inventory and offers three berths. Her owner, who wrote an article on the class C/O THE OWNER

for us in 1996 (CB102) describes her as “well maintained”.

Lying: Cornwall. Asking £10,000 Contact Joe Brumwell, tel: +44 (0)7814 729759

See boats for sale at classicboat.co.uk/type/buy-a-boat CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

BOATS FOR SALE

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

To advertise call Edward Mannering +44 (0) 20 7349 3747 Edward.Mannering@chelseamagazines.com Copy Deadline for next issue is 18/12/2015

SPRINGFIELD

EAST ANGLIAN SLOOP ‘ONE BAMBOO’

Designed by Alan Buchanan, built at W. Kings Burham-on-Crouch in 1959. 28ft X 8ft X 4ft 6” mahogany on oak,in fair condition, Yammar GM20F diesel engine, Sailor A1 VHF-DSC, Garman GPS 182C, Raytheon Auto Pilot ST 4000+, Solar panel and many extras including a 4 wheel laying up trailer. £14,500. Contact: 01255 431988, Mobile 07901770233 or Wellsdalia@aol.com

HOLMAN NORTH SEA 24 SLOOP

31ft loa. Carvel splined mahogany hull, teak topsides, 5 berth layout teak cabin interior. Lowrance chartplotter autohelm 3000. Sprayhood, dodgers, mainsail stacking system. Yanmar 2gm 15 diesel. Liferaft, cruising chute. Registered british ship. £25000. Tel 0151 608 2209

CLASSIC HOLMAN 35 CARIACOU

NORFOLK PUNT DECOY, NO 40.

Fully restored traditional Norfolk punt Decoy No 40 for sale, to include cover, spars, sails and a road trailer. £2,500. Please contact Harry Scott at harry.scott@mills-reeve.com

1969 Kim Holman design built by Jack Holman at Uphams 1969 for John Holman. A modern classic racer/cruiser with GRP hull, teak decks, wheel and cockpit. 35.2 ft. LOA Beam 9.50ft. draft 6.0ft. Beta Marine 28 BHP, 6 berths. Since major restoration in 1999 maintained in pristine condition with Raymarine plotter, AIS, VHF, self-steering. Has extensively cruised UK, Brittany and NW Spain. Participant in many classic regattas. Lying Hamble. Price £87,500. Andy Jennings 07710138262 mg@andyjennings.co.uk

Morgan Giles teak launch originally built as a gentleman’s launch, she has an interesting history. She is reputed to have been used as a port supply vessel in Falmouth during World War 2, and was then bought by the Thompson family in the Scilly Isles and used as an inter-island passenger ferry for 50 odd years until 2005. She now needs a replacement engine and gearbox and a complete cosmetic refit. £3,000. Contact barnettgw@hotmail.com. Tel: 0777 951 0117

DRAGON INTERNATIONAL KEEL BOAT GBR570 PENDRAGON

Built 1990 by St. Georges Dragons Ltd in all GRP with extensive inventory including three sail ward-drobes and good West Mersea 4 wheel road trailer, ashore in our paddock at Northrepps, North Norfolk, un-stringed but fully anti-fouled ready to go, cruise or race; excellent condition. For sale only due ill-health. Price £9,500. Contact 01263 578140 or e-mail keithp@k-konsult.com

HEARD MEVAGISSEY TOSHER

Modelled on the 1893 Gaff rigged fishing boat “Jo Jo”, this Heard Mevagissey Tosher formally named Tessa was built 1984 by Martin Heard of Mylor Bridge in GRP with wood internals and powered by an inboard Volvo 2001 diesel engine and shaft drive, now named “Antigoni”, she has been completely restored, repainted and rebuilt with overhauled engine, new controls and electric’s. Lying under cover at Cox’s Boatyard, Barton Turf , Norfolk she has an excellent four wheel road trailer and an extensive inventory of sails and gear. £6,250. Contact 01263 578140 or e-mail keithp@k-konsult.com

CLASSIC 40 FOOT MOTOR SAILOR

SANDERLING” 1990 NORFOLK GYPSY

20ft 2 berth c/b cruiser with 10HP inboard Yanmar diesel and road trailer. A new project prompts urgent sale of much loved family boat. £17,000. Tel 01865 343336 laurence.attewill@gmail.com

Perkins 4 cylinder engine, lying Anglesey. Single birth, & chain locker in forward cabin. A midships double birth, wood burning bogey stove, toilet cooker and sink, hot water system. Double birth in wheel house. Aft Cabin double birth, single birth, separate, toilet and shower. Built by Parkinson and Williams Deganwy 1937. £29,000. Telephone day time 01942 260580. Evening 0162523463. www.classicboatforsale.co.uk.

HATHAWAY 31

STELLA

A fine example of this popular classic. Subject to a complete ‘keel-up’ restoration 1998-2002, & professionally maintained since then, including new mast, standing-rigging, Raymarine instruments and new Yanmar inboard just fitted (zero hrs). Extensive sail wardrobe. Surprisingly comfortable mahogany-panelled interior, with four full-sized berths. Eberspacher heater & chart-plotter. Excellent racing pedigree, including Overall Winner of Cowes Classics (including RTIOW race). A beautiful & affordable cruiser or racer. Road trailer available. £11,900 Offers Invited. Contact; 07740 677113 or ttaylorjones@gmail.com

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

32.5FT BUCHANAN SLOOP 1970

Long lead keel, bronze floors. Full length planking, copper fastened. Teak superstructure. Sabb diesel. New sails. Well maintained and equipped. Fast, sound and beautiful £29,500. Full details 07783356875.

Arabella Rose is a one off strip plank & epoxy hulled gaff rigged yawl. Built by Victoria Yachts in 1995. She has 3 berths in one cabin. All sails are in good condition, the upholstery is in excellent condition but she does need work doing i.e all external varnish work and needs the cockpit well to be replaced. This boat was the subject of an extensive article in Classic Boat magazine shortly after her completion! Tel: 07577490256 or royetherden@hotmail.com

BOATS FOR SALE

Buehler/Colin Archer – 3-Masted Motor Schooner

20m, double-ended, schooner, completed in 2003. Powered by a 180hp Cummins Diesel, cruises at 8.5 knots, and has a range under power of 2000nm. Extensive re-fit, 2013. She is currently hauled, lying under shrinkwrap at Port Saunders, Newfoundland, Canada.

Available for $695,000 Tel: +1 804 815 2835 •Email: walteradey@aol.com

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

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

There are two styles of Boats for Sales ad to choose from and with our special offer, if you buy two STYLE A. 5cm x 2 columns. Either 160 words or 80 words plus colour photograph. £275 inc VAT and Internet months, your third month will be free. Pick the style which suits your STYLE B. 5cm x 1 colums. Either 55 SAMPLE STYLE B words or 30 words plus colour requirements and photograph. email: Edward.Mannering@ £155 inc VAT and Internet chelseamagazines.com with your text and image or call +44 (0) 20 7349 3747. CUTTER Built 1991, mahogany & epoxy hull similar to GRP, 1930’s spars & The deadline for the next issue is fittings, beautifully maintained. Visit www.idclark.force9.co.uk for photos and specification. 18/12/2015 £25,750 Contact 00000 111111 CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

BROKERAGE

Brokerage

To advertise call Edward Mannering +44 (0) 20 7349 3747 Edward.Mannering@chelseamagazines.com Copy Deadline for next issue is 18/12/2015

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

59’ Danish sailing fishing vessel converted to a gaff ketch. Built in 1925, major refit in recent years with new systems, rig and smart interior. Yanmar 190hp, 12 berths with 2 double cabins. Large wheelhouse gives great flexibility in all weathers. A very smart example of this type of ship in great condition. New Zealand $300,000 NZ Dollar.

44’ Luke Powell Isles of Scilly Pilot Cutter built in 2004 and possibly one of the best yachts Luke has built. All bronze fastened throughout. Recent thorough interior and exterior cosmetic refit, all new sails 2015. Very well equipped,easily handled and extensively cruised by present owners. Magnificent in every way. Cornwall £295,000

Laurent Giles Brittany Class built by Moody’s in 1948. One of the prettiest Giles designs in many people’s opinion, fast and easily handled, she had a major refit in present ownership. Perkins 30hp diesel, 3 berths and good inventory.

40’ Colin Archer Gaff Ketch built Germany in 1979 to an original Colin archer design from 1898. Iroko planked on sawn oak frames, teak on ply deck, Ford 80hp engine. Built for the present owner and cruised extensively around northern Europe and the Baltic, professionally maintained to a very smart yacht Hants £35,000 finish. Germany €125,000.

16’ Varnished launch designed and built by Nick Smith of Christchurch in 2010. Still virtually as new, this immaculate launch is a complete package in perfect order. Vetus 11hp diesel, custom made road trailer and all over cover. Serviced, antifouled and ready to go. Chichester £19,500

18 Ton Hillyard built in 1964 . Mahogany on oak hull, major refit in previous ownership followed by 12 years of world cruising. Bermudan sloop rig, 60hp Ford Parsons diesel. 6 berths in 2 sleeping cabins plus the saloon. A very solid, stable and comfortable yacht with plenty of space for her length. Plymouth £29,950

19’ Nordic double ender built in Norway in 1962. Clinker planked in larch on oak timbers, a very pretty open boat with typical Nordic lines. Gaff sloop rig all easily handled. Outboard engine on a bracket. A very eye catching yacht not often seen in UK waters, ideal for river exploration. Sussex £4,500

45’ Gaff cutter built on Pilot Cutter inspired lines and first launched in 2012. A very clever adaptation of the traditional design making her ideal for modern sailing. Spacious interior with 10 berths plus a lovely dog house for shelter. All bronze fastened larch on oak frames. Immaculate build and a stunning yacht. Sussex £310,000

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

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

BROKERAGE

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

80 ft Thornycroft Bermudan Ketch 1929 An extensive reﬁt at T Nielsen & Co in 2006 has kept HALCYON and her teak structure in near perfect condition but with the systems and conveniences of a modern yacht without detriment to her character. She can operate as a luxury charter yacht, accommodating up to 8 guests for overnight – or 11 for a day sail. She is also an exciting option as a dramatic and unique private yacht – easier to sail and less delicate than comparable classics of her size. There is a toughness about HALCYON that could earn her the label of classic explorer yacht.

59 ft William Fife III Gaﬀ Cutter 1897/2001 SAYONARA was almost unbeatable in the early years of Australian yachting and was to become the founding yacht of the Sayonara Cup, having won the ﬁrst three challenges. A million dollar restoration in 2000 brought her back to life again; leaving her not only in impressive condition but demonstrably able to prove herself fast in both light airs and heavy weather - a very exciting opportunity to compete in the prestigious vintage gaff class in an early William Fife III design, that if sailed well is surely destined to win silverware again.

52 ft Bristol Pilot Cutter 1911/2009 CORNUBIA has proven herself as a blue water cruiser, as a training vessel for sea cadets or much loved family sailing pilot cutter. Rebuilt by T Nielsen & Co under the supervision of pilot cutter aﬁcionado Tony Winter she has received remarkable treatment for a remarkable vessel. On deck she remains so true to the original yet below she achieves the character of vintage yacht without offending her work boat roots. MCA coded for commercial work, this has included ﬁlming and charters specialising in sailing for disabled children.

£1.4M VAT unpaid

€590,000 VAT Unpaid

£450,000 VAT unpaid

Lying UK

Lying Australia

50 ft Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter 1889/2002 Built by Hambly; known for producing famously elegant working cutters, MARIAN is the 2nd oldest of the remaining Bristol Channel pilot cutters. In 1999 master shipwright David Walkey, notable surveyor David Cox and designer Ed Burnett were all involved in the rebuild that has left MARIAN immensely strong - the qualities that served her during her working life contribute now as an incredibly seaworthy, comfortable vessel with long legs and she is one of the fastest cutters aﬂoat. The beauty, simplicity and almost humble presence of this boat will take your breath away.

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

£385,000

€300,000

Lying UK

38 ft Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter Replica 2011 EDITH GRAY was built by John Raymond-Barker of RB Boatbuilding Ltd, Bristol in 2011 and was designed along the lines of the smaller transom stern pilot cutters – inspiration was taken from 1887 BREEZE as well as DIARCHY of 1901. EDITH GRAY has already proven herself to be extremely fast when raced in the pilot cutter ﬂeet often taking ﬁrst in class and she has that magic blend of function and simple beauty. She seems to hit a “sweet spot” - at 38 ft she can be sailed short-handed yet she can accommodate 7 persons - her build quality is impressive both in structure and detail. £220,000 Lying UK

Lying Northern Ireland

56 ft William McBryde Gaff Ketch 1952 Designed by W.G McBryde, 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 - and she was originally designed for long sea trips and Mediterranean cruising. 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 - little left to do but perhaps prepare a passage plan for somewhere you have always wanted to go to, very confident she will look after you. £280,000 Lying UK

44 ft Couture Gaﬀ Rigged Yawl 1995 First prizes for the best vintage replica on the fussy Mediterranean circuit tell you a little about this vessel’s beauty and detail - but do not be fooled into thinking YOUNG LARRY is a delicate regatta showboat. In her second and current ownership she has cruised extensively in the Arctic, the Paciﬁc and Atlantic seaboards as well as European waters. YOUNG LARRY is a genuine blue water cruising boat. Strong, beautiful and wonderfully thought out and was built with very few compromises.

34 ft Alfred Mylne Glen-Coats Gaﬀ sloop 1926 Anyone who has recently taken part in the Vintage Class at the Mediterranean classic regattas knows that to ignore DUET is to do so at your peril. She is extremely competitive in this prestigious class; already with many class wins to her credit. Easy both to sail and maintain; DUET has to be an exciting option for anyone wanting to classic race, frankly with less effort and less crew but with more than a chance when sailed well, of taking silverware.

£195,000

£79,000

email: info@sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk

Lying UK

Lying France

www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

BROKERAGE David Jones Yacht Brokerage David Jones Yacht Brokerage

David Yacht Brokerage Classic Wooden Boats Classic Jones Wooden Boats Classic Wooden Boats

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

898, Rockport, ME 04856 P.O. Box 898, Rockport,P.O. MEBox 04856 T: 207-236-7048 F: 207-230-0177 E: classics@midcoast.com T: 207-236-7048 F: 207-230-0177 E: classics@midcoast.com

P.O. Box www.davidjonesclassics.com 898, Rockport, ME 04856 www.davidjonesclassics.com T: 207-236-7048 F: 207-230-0177 E: classics@midcoast.com

www.davidjonesclassics.com

INTEGRITY

INTEGRITY LYRA

LYRA

Nerissa - a rare thirties 55ft Taylor Bates recently Fedalma II - a 47ft Fox of Ipswich motoryacht with emerged from a 2 year refurbishment programme flying bridge, original thirties interior. An historic and ready for extensive cruising. Fantastic history Dunkirk Little Ship. Asking price ÂŁ55,000 and charming interior.

1903 Wilbur Friendship 27'. 1985 1903 Wilbur Morse Friendship 27'. Morse 1985 Joel White designed sloopJoel 34'.White designed sloop 34'. Professionally keptplanked & original as Seaworthy Strip planked in cedar. Seaworthy Professionally kept & original as Strip in cedar. $50,000 they come. $50,000 they come. & Comfortable. $42,000& Comfortable. $42,000

DJAKARTA

DJAKARTA VENTURE

Aquarius - a 1984 40ft steel Super Van Craft 1150 with a lovely airy interior and wooden superstructure.

Fantasy II - John Toughâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s favourite boat from the eponymous Teddington yard. Built for a writer in the fifties, stunning open aft saloon and galley, lying Cumbria

Derson - An interesting and roomy motor cruiser by Hornby of Wallasey, well maintained, single engine, ideal for coast or inland

Ti-ger-lu III - previously Ember, built in 1958 for the Port of London and then used by the NRA (now EA) and now in private hands. Brilliant for entertaining year round and ideal for lakes or lochs.

VENTURE

PASSAGE.1966 AAGE NIELSEN SLOOP 41â&#x20AC;&#x2122;9â&#x20AC;?

Restored by Rockport 1910 &gaff rebuilt in 1982 Lawley gaff Concordia 39'. Restored byConcordia Rockport39'.1910 & rebuilt in 1982 Lawley Marine No to excellent condition. No recommended rigged sloop 36'. Highly recommended Marine to excellent condition. rigged sloop 36'. Highly $160,000 punch list left. $160,000punch list left. & rare classic. $50,000 & rare classic. $50,000

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CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Craftsmanship Yard News

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

IAN ROMAN, C/O NORTH SAILS

BEKEN OF COWES

SAVE

EAST COAST, ENGLAND

Save one of the first 8-M yachts GOSPORT, SOLENT

Biggest sail floor in the world? North Sails has cut the ribbon on a new loft, with what the company believes to be the largest, raised sailmaking floor in the world, at 1,950m2 (21,000sq ft) reports Toby Heppell. The new loft is located in Gosport, Hampshire, and will be used to make sails for a range of boats from dinghies to super yachts, and in a variety of materials. The loft will cut its own Dacron and other cloths alongside more modern laminates. The facility includes a specially designed, moving sewing machine pod. There is also a separate section of the facility given over to maintenance and repair.

Dr William Collier of GL Watson contacted us with a plea for someone to buy the 8-M yacht Bryony which is languishing ashore on the East Coast. She was designed and owned by RE Froude, one of two Britons present at the conference that brought in the International or ‘Metre’ Rule. Built by Camper & Nicholsons in 1909, she is also the last of his boats surviving. “There could scarcely be a more historically important 8-M. She needs and deserves a total restoration,” says William. Email him if you are interested at william@glwatson.com

PORTSOY, ABERDEENSHIRE

CLARE MCCOMB

The Duke of Kent visits a coble HRH the Duke of Kent visited the Aberdeenshire coast on 26 October to open the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival’s new boatshed, reports Clare McComb. A new salmon-fishing coble had arrived just in time for the royal visitor, although getting the 26ft (7.9m) boat through the workshop door had required the demolishing of a wall. She was pulled out on rollers, before being moved down to the harbour by specialist hauliers. ‘Nothing daunted’ would be an appropriate motto for the STBF volunteers who, backed by an HLF grant, have combined existing local skills with careful trial-and-improvement techniques to bring this project to life. Almost all had to learn traditional techniques from scratch: lofting, steaming timber, scarfing and riveting were vital in creating the end product. Stephen MacMillan of New Moon Films has spent several months in Portsoy, recording the progress of the project – a record for the future. This coble as yet has no name, or if it does, it is a very closely guarded secret: even HRH was kept in ignorance. She will be revealed in all her glory at the STBF in June 2016.

More like this at classicboat.co.uk/category/yard-news 86

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Martin (background) and Mathias fitting a plank.

From right: a toast; alignment; the elusive stem timber. C/O SAG & BATBYGGERI BOATYARD

SWEDEN

A walk in the woods Mathias and Martin Ravanis, the two brothers who make up the Nyhamns Såg & Båtbyggeri boatyard, have sent us these photos of their latest project. She’s a 1909-built, 25ft (7.6m) clinker fishing boat, MO347 (Bessie), built by the well-renowned Per Persson Limhamn near Malmo. They have been repairing and building traditional wooden boats professionally since 2004, and before that by taking over their parents’ garage! In 2009, they gave a lecture on traditional Swedish boatbuilding at the Traditional Boat Festival in Portsoy, Scotland. They are completely selftaught and have already repaired or rebuilt more than 100 traditional Swedish boats. They source and mill all wood from a nearby forest. MO347 has fished for 106 years... “and the years have taken their toll,” says Matthias. “We are now replacing the bow, keel, sternpost, 180m (591ft) of planking, all frames and floors and the whole deck. This is so far our biggest restoration project. Finding a piece of wood for the heavy crooked stem took nearly two months walking around in the forests of south Sweden and Denmark with a mould of the bow in search for the perfect tree.

RHODE ISLAND, USA

BODRUM, TURKEY

Bogie’s S&S schooner coming along nicely

Pilot Cutter style, carbon clothes

C/O HOEK DESIGN

CB ARCHIVES

Joe Loughborough of Loughborough Marine Interests tells us that things are going swimmingly with the ongoing rebuild of Santana, the 55ft (16.8m) bermudan schooner once owned by Humphrey Bogart. She was designed by Sparkman & Stephens and built in 1935, and starred on the cover of our December 2005 issue (CB210). The rebuild has been considerable: 90 per cent reframing and complete replanking.

A new Pilot Cutter Classic from Dutch SoT designer Andre Hoek is in build at Metur Yachts for a repeat Hoek client. The 55-footer (16.8m), has a carbonreinforced, glass-epoxy foam-core hull, and will weigh 16 tonnes. Like most Hoek boats (Metur has built five), this is an exercise in new meets old. The counter stern and plumb bow are traditional to a point, but if Essence 33 is anything to go by, she’ll sail like smoke with her modern underbody. She’s designed to be “easily sailed by a couple” according to Hoek; again, experience shows this will be no false claim. Above deck, she flies a 1,765sq ft (164m2) bermudan rig.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

MORWENNA 1914 LINTON HOPE SCHOONER

THE RESTORATION PART TWO

ne of the controversies when restoring or building wooden boats is whether or not to fit a ply subdeck. Many boatbuilders are against them because when rain penetrates the deck – and it usually does – it gets between the planks and the ply, and spreads, causing havoc. It’s also hard to track down the offending leak. Many owners want them because they are watertight – until they fail. Boatyard Chantier du Guip’s position is simple: they don’t recommend them. There was no conflict on this one, as the owner of Morwenna, Stéphane Monnier, was after historical accuracy, so ply was out. The original deck was shot to bits, and had to be replaced. Everything was carefully measured and the new deck, in thick, quarter-sawn teak for dimensional stability, is as true as possible to the old one, from the semi-swept pattern joggled into the covering boards that entailed the tapering of every plank, to the secret-nailing (or toenailing) system of fixing them, again very traditional. It was Guip’s first secret-nailed deck, but they have started doing it on other boats, as it leaves no metal proud when the wood wears down. The seams were caulked in cotton and payed in polyurethane seam compound, as traditional tars soften in the sun and mark clothes.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Cyrille working on the

dovetails for the mast partners 2 2

Quarter knees notched into the frames

PHOTOS: LAETITIA JUPPIN C/O CHANTIER GUIP. INSET: JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

THE DECK

CRAFTSMANSHIP 3

The aft deck king plank and covering board fitted 4

Marie and Francis fairing the top of the deckhouse in the joinery workshop 4

3 5

Secret-nailing the deck. The holes for the long nails were made with a drill jig for uniformity 6

The deck was laid from the outside in to the king plank. Francis offers up a hatch plank to see 5

if it will fit

Toerails, 15 coats of varnish and deck gear go on 8

Cleats, ventilator and mainsheet horse 9

A massive piece of teak sculpted by Cyril to accept the toe rail and cap rail 10

L to R: Owner Stéphane with 9

Bernard and Stéphane from Guip

NEXT MONTH RESTORING INTERIOR CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

- To advertise call Edward Mannering +44 (0) 20 7349 3747 Edward.Mannering@chelseamagazines.com

MARINE DIRECTORY

BOATBUILDERS

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CRAFTSMANSHIP

Boatbuilder’s Notes Dreaming of a bronze Christmas TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS ROBIN GATES

For devotees of old British tools, Sheffield is the holy city and the bible is a

Buck & Hickman’s 1964 catalogue

Buck & Hickman catalogue of around 50 years ago. The 1,200-plus pages of

of tools and supplies

this old boatyard copy list everything from brass screws to band saws, all made in the UK, underlining the massive migration in manufacturing which has occurred within just two generations. The experience of buying tools has also changed. Online we can admire the air-brushed pixels of every tool for sale, scroll through reviews, then have our purchase couriered to the door. But it remains a pleasure, of a winter’s evening, to pore over the pages of a good tool catalogue, comparing spec and prices, making a list of the perfect kit. Of course, so many of today’s knock-off tools emerge from their packaging poorly finished and with an edge that won’t cut cheese. This is why many a professional greets the arrival of the purportedly ‘new and better’ tool with a curling lip. A shipwright in the village where I grew up never squandered a penny on unnecessary tools. What broke, he mended, and for what he didn’t have he used his wits to circumvent the need. He retired with the same tool chest he had on completing his apprenticeship, his planes fixed with brass plates, his chisel handles riveted, his saw hammered straight so many times it lay on the bench like beaten silver.

FETTLING A PLANE Common trade-offs in producing a hand plane cheaply are a rough finish and wide tolerances for machined parts. At over £50 new this Stanley block plane should have been of better quality. The blade, made in Sheffield, was good, but for the rest of the tool, made in South America, quality control was poor. The lever cap was black-painted, which made for poor contact with the blade that it was supposed to clamp firmly against the bed. The blade would flex when it met difficult grain, resulting in ugly tear-out. You can improve this situation considerably by fettling. Scraping the paint from the lever cap revealed a rough cast steel surface. Filing was needed before adequate flatness was achieved. That done, it was much improved – taking full-width shavings without a flutter.

A square test One of the more devastating discoveries you can make too late is that the try square you have depended on for marking out work is not a true right angle. This problem is not confined to vintage tools, which perhaps have been dropped. Quality control is so inconsistent with some makers it occurs in new try squares too. A simple test is to place the stock against a square-cut board and mark a line, then turn it over and with the stock against the same edge mark a second line close to the first. If the two lines are not parallel the try square is at fault. Although the blade of this old Marples try square is pitted by corrosion it remains riveted and true in

Clockwise from top left: Filing the underside of the lever cap; the blade and the flattened lever cap;

the brass-plated rosewood stock, only

looking for tell-tale light between cap and blade; taking a full-width shaving

requiring a glide across the whetstone to smooth its time-worn edge.

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Traditional Tool Boatbuilder’s Notes

SPIERS INFILL SMOOTHER STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS

highly figured timbers used in fitting

Clockwise from

quality cost 21 shillings. By contrast a

ROBIN GATES

out. Infills were fastened by through-

above: An

good quality all-wooden smoother

pins hammered over and filed to lie

apprentice’s

could be had for four shillings. Then

When this centenarian smoothing

perfectly flush. The heavy cast steel

dream circa 1914;

as now it was a craftsman’s rule of

plane left Stewart Spiers’ small

blade, a meaty three-sixteenths of an

the brass plate

thumb to buy the best tools he could

premises in River Terrace, Ayr, it was

inch thick, was clamped hard against

repair to the

afford. With that in mind, imagine the

the embodiment of excellence – and

the bed by a massive gunmetal lever

graceful handle;

owner’s feelings when – as seems

it remains so today. Notwithstanding

with shapely Saracen’s head screw

rosewood

likely – this plane fell to the floor and

the many developments in metallurgy,

eliminating all vibration. The blade

infills are fitted

its most alluring feature, that graceful

design and manufacturing of the

was simply set by light blows of a

flush with the

rear handle with extravagant

intervening years, when a vintage

hammer, eye and feel.

steel body

rearward-pointing spur, snapped off.

infill smoother is well fettled it’ll

Every apprentice passionate about

But our hero wasn’t to be

out-perform the best of today’s

their craft aspired to own an infill

defeated. By ingenious use of inlaid

mass-produced tools. Spiers was a

smoother but few would do so before

brass plates, applied with screws like

time-served cabinet maker before he

the seven year apprenticeship was up.

graving pieces on each side of the

started making planes; evidently he

In 1914 when a ship joiner favourably

handle, he executed a repair that was

well knew what craftsmen required.

employed as a time-worker was paid

both elegant and solid, returning his

40 shillings a week, a plane of this

valued plane to service.

By today’s standards an inordinate amount of hand work went into making this type of plane. The body was formed of three steel plates joined by dovetails which skilled finishing with ball pein hammer and file made almost invisible to the naked eye. Exotic hardwood infills were ‘overstuffed’, that is fitted to lie flush with the metal sides. This example has Brazilian rosewood while others used ebony or mahogany, dense woods adding to the mass and momentum needed for working the

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Things to do in the next few weeks

NEXT MONTH

Family fun this Christmas It’s hard to find things to do with children when it’s cold outside, but Royal Museums Greenwich stages all sorts of workshops on the Cutty Sark (for full details check rmg.co.uk). Meanwhile the National Maritime Museum Cornwall has a Viking Christmas season running from 12-3.30pm daily from 19 December to 3 C/O NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM

January. Here, children (ideal for under-10s says the museum) and adults can learn more about Nordic Christmas customs and make a Viking yule goat. It’s free with a ticket to the museum. National Maritime Museum, Cornwall,

CAMBRIA

The Big-Class cutter has undergone a huge refit. Our experts assess the work done

Tel: +44 (0)1326 313388, nmmc.co.uk

One-day sailing seminars with the Cruising Association

13 FEBRUARY Baltic seminar CA House, London, £35 including a buffet lunch email Baltic@theca.org.uk or Tel: +44

6 FEBRUARY Long-distance sailing master class with Jimmy Cornell

TOUFINOU 8

The perfect cruiser/racer? We go sailing with the owners

(0)20 8948 4008 for Mike Leach All about cruising in the Baltic, including the best anchorages and marinas.

A man with 200,000 miles under the keel over 40 years of

13 MARCH Mediterranean seminar

sailing, including 30 transats, six round-the-world rallies

No further details at present, but the

and adventures in Antarctica and the Northwest Passage,

same sort of format as the above two

must know a thing or two. You can benefit from Jimmy

events. Check the CA website nearer the

Cornell’s experience at this day-long seminar.

time for updates: theca.org.uk

email suffolk@theca.org.uk

Other sailing magazines from the publishers of Classic Boat IN THE LATEST ISSUE

IN THE LATEST ISSUE GO FURTHER I SAIL BETTER I BE INSPIRED January 2016 | sailingtoday.co.uk | £4.20

GET AWAY

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GO OUR T GU SWHEN IDE ED BU TO EN RG

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THE BEST OF THE BEST: Y&Y AWARDS SHORTLIST REVEALED RACING CLASSES REVIEW

Dinghy A-Z Which classes make our top 130 list?

AMERICA’S CUP WORLD SERIES

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l Best of the best: Y&Y

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l Dinghy A-Z: Our annual classes review

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Available at all good newsagents or order now post-free from chelseamagazines.com/shop

Wednesday 6 January, 2016 (or why not subscribe!)

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

BOTTOM TO TOP: FAIRLIE; NICK BURNHAM; JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

Royal Harwich Yacht Club, Suffolk, £55

Classic Boat

Letters

DECEMBER 2015

£4.75 US$13.75

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

WHITE LADY

TOM CUNLIFFE New series starts this month

‘How we sailed our 18ft lugger round Ireland’

Power dressing in Thirties style

Andrew Wolstenholme His key designs

Robert Clark’s Mystery The ideal family cruiser ROYAL SOCIETY EXHIBITION

ASH, OAK OR SPRUCE?

The perfect oar

www.classicboat.co.uk

IN THE YARD

Gaff schooner refit

9 770950 331141

CB330 Cover_December.indd 1

26/10/2015 18:28

Power to the lady

Women of the America’s Cup

Classic Boat has been

We wanted to thank you for past

one of the only

articles on our Reliance and to tell

magazines to regularly

you we complete our 37ft tall

feature yachts and

model this winter. Now we are

motorboats within its

turning our focus towards building

pages, something I

accompanying exhibits and ask

have always

your readers for their insights and

appreciated. How

participation. One exhibit that has

fantastic, though, to

captured our visitors’ imagination

see a glorious craft

and gained support from nearby

such as Lady Hertha

Roger Williams University is the

on your cover. A

story of women participating in

magnificent sight she

the earliest America’s Cup races –

is and worthy of the

Mrs Susan Henn, Mrs Phyllis

leading article you

Sopwith, and we understand two

gave her. I welcome,

daughters of Lord Dunraven on

too, the news that the

the British side and Mrs Hope

British Classic Yacht

Goddard Iselin and Mrs Gertrude

One for posterity

Club will have a power

Vanderbilt on the American boats.

regatta. We are all

women and others we may not

It was with great pleasure and interest that I read the article in the

part of the same scene

know about. The museum will also

after all, it’s just that

begin restoration of Wee Winn (a

our gin & tonics don’t

fin-keel “½-rater” which sailed in

spill in a F5. Cheers!

Cowes from 1892 onward) and

Peter Hughes, Dorset

would like to learn more about its

LETTER OF THE MONTH SUPPORTED BY OLD PULTENEY WHISKY

STORY DAVID BARRIE

ATI

, LO

fell in love with the art of celestial navigation in August 1973 as I sailed across the North Atlantic from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Falmouth, England, in Saecwen, a 35ft wooden sloop whose name means ‘sea queen’ in Anglo-Saxon. That love still burns hotly after more than 40 years. I was 19 and my teacher was a retired Royal Navy Captain called Colin McMullen. Over the course of our 24-day voyage Colin taught me how to take a meridian altitude to find our latitude and then how to fix our position with timed sights of the sun and stars. To plot our position on the face of the ocean by the light of those unimaginably distant thermonuclear fires was both humbling and strangely uplifting. By the time we made landfall, I could fix our position on my own and had become a devotee of the sextant. I felt as if I were joining a long, ghostly line of navigators who had used these techniques before me – in a kind of apostolic succession. Taking a sextant sight took on for me the character of a sacrament.

seth

Classic marine art

The great American writer Jack London felt much the same way. In 1908 he embarked from San Francisco on a trans-Pacific cruise in his yacht Snark. He taught himself how to use a sextant under way: “The mystery was mystery no longer, yet such was the miracle of it, I was conscious of new power in me, I was not as other men, most other men: I knew what they did not know, the mystery of the heavens, that pointed out the way across the deep...I forgot that all the work (and a tremendous work, too) had been done by the masterminds before me, who had discovered and elaborated the whole science of navigation.” I, too, was pretty full of myself, but eventually I did take the trouble to find out about the astronomers, mathematicians and instrument-makers whose extraordinary efforts had made it possible to navigate accurately by the light of the stars. I learned about the the sextant and the role this beautiful device played in the solution of the age-old ‘longitude problem’.

Sextant (circa 1835) by William Parnell

CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2015

November issue The Sextant: Long live celestial navigation. Well written and full of interesting historical facts, accompanied by relevant illustrations and boxed comments, it typifies exactly what to my mind should be the content of an intelligent classic boat magazine.

section in its next

David Barrie’s conclusions could easily have been my own – like alone night, but is occasionally brought out of its (beautiful wooden) box as part of a conversation with a younger would-be navigator. Although not necessarily relevant in a day to day navigation sense, surely it is as important for future generations of seamen to know the background and history of these remarkable tools, as say, how to read

owner Miss Winifred Sutton.

most modern sailors my sextant hardly ever sees the light of day, let

We seek information on these

Classic Boat NOVEMBER 2015

£4.75 US$13.75

MODERN CLASSIC New cutter,

W IN a sextant!

Austin Healey carburettors

traditional build

Whooper: she can’t stop beating new yachts! Fabian Bush The small boat guru speaks

a chart plotter? I shall be buying David’s book! Mike Horsley, Antibes

On board the 15-M class Stunning photos PLYWOOD NEW BUILD

Glory of the 12-Ms

BIRTH OF A LEGEND

The first ever Nelson

www.classicboat.co.uk

9 770950 331141

COURTESY OF LEO GOOLDEN

CB329 Cover.indd 1

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

seth

Golant ketch

BALTIC CLASSICS

Arthur ‘Sandy’ Lee, Herreshoff Marine Museum

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

22/09/2015 17:00

In future, when Adrian Morgan strays from writing about boats, please reel him in. Austin Healeys

Sextant passage race

Welcome relief I’ve just had major

famous and desirable 3000, yes.

There’s no greater pleasure – or

surgery and the

A 2000, no. As a matter of

occasionally frustration – than using a

November CB arrived

coincidence when, aged five, I had

sextant on an open water voyage and

as I recovered in

a tooth knocked out by an errant

I whole-heartedly agreed with David

hospital. I read it from

tennis racket, the dentist turned

Barrie on the future of these

cover to cover and do

up to fix me in his metallic blue

fascinating devices, whose

believe it has helped

and cream 3000. Fifty-five years

development changed the world. I

my recovery. Superb

later I can still picture it.

wonder if someone might propose a

– a great balance of

Nicholas Dixey

regular passage race, or rally, with

articles to fill me with

only sextants to navigate by. It would

lovely thoughts.

Adrian writes: My apologies. Not

be an exciting way to maintain the

Hopefully I’ll be out

quite as bad as the time I wrote

skills of the past and show a new

before the next issue

about the Titanic being built on the

generation that sextants shouldn’t just

– the operation has

Clyde... but close, certainly for

exist in museums.

been successful.

lovers of Austin Healeys. Better

Robin Sender, Bristol

Peter Harrold, Suffolk

stick to boats.

came with SU carburettors, not Webers, and there never was an Austin Healey 2000. A very

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

Where is Landfall? We hope that CB readers will be able to enlighten us as to the current whereabouts of an L Frances Herreshoffdesigned, 71ft (21.6m) ketch named Landfall, completed in 1931 for Paul Hammond of Boston by Abeking & Rasmussen in time for the Transatlantic Race of that year, and subsequently owned at different times by members of our respective families. This vessel has a long and illustrious history, including being captained in the late 1930s by a little-known but extraordinary British World War II SOE operative and war hero, CMB “Mike” Cumberlege. She was salvaged from Marseille harbour after the war, entered the Med charter trade, and appeared in the Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart film The Barefoot Contessa. We have managed to trace her as far as an advertised sale in Florida in 1987, but there the trail goes cold. Any information regarding her current location would be greatly appreciated, as time is short for several elderly persons who, for sentimental reasons, would like to go aboard her one last time. Derek Michalski, executive editor, classicsailboats.org

ONBOARD

A leap in design It may not be strictly true for Theo Rye (Classic Boat, October 2015) to assert that William Fife and his assistant Robert Balderston took “little or no account” of any rule when designing Hallowe’en in the autumn of 1925. The newly published measurement rule of the recently formed Offshore Racing Club made scant input to the overall concept, but its stipulation that yachts for the club’s races could not be more than 50ft (15.2m) LWL or 70ft (21.3m) LOA was what decided Hallowe’en’s basic dimensions. Thus her designed waterline length of 47ft (14.3m) allowed for three feet of ‘insurance’, as she would probably be a little longer in seagoing trim when measured afloat before the Fastnet Race of 1926. But how she seems to have acquired an extra foot of overall length since 1925 is a matter for speculation – would she originally have been measured on

The Laurent Giles sloop is the boat to beat in the Solent. We joined owner Giovanni Belgrano and crew during Cowes Week STORY MARINA JOHNSON RICK TOMLINSON

GUIDO CANTINI / SEASEE.COM

SAILING WITH WHOOPER

will always remember the first time I sat up and really noticed Whooper. I was cruising along the Jurassic coast off Dorset on a 38ft yacht last summer on quite a lively reach but not in any particular hurry, when another yacht came over the horizon and slowly caught us up. A similar size, she gradually slipped past us, so we had plenty of time to get a good look at the gleaming varnish work, and the distinctive hull shape and transom. She seemed to use every wave for a bit of extra performance, and was cutting effortlessly through the sea without any movement other than forwards. I remarked at the time that she looked like she was racing, because of the way that she was so expertly sailed. But there was no racing

fleet about in the area at that time. It turned out that Whooper did have a race crew on board – she had retired from the RORC Myth of Malham race due to the heavy seas, and was making her way back to her home port of Cowes from Weymouth. It also turned out that she was on the angle of sail that suits her most and at which she excels, a beam reach. From that point on I was a committed admirer of Whooper, and that admiration turned to awe this year when for the second time in her life, the first being in 2004, she won the JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race on corrected time. To underline the victory, she won the EFG Round the Island Race during Panerai British Classic Week in July. Last year,

she won Panerai British Classic Week overall, winning every race. If it hadn’t been for her owner’s prolonged stint working abroad, there would no doubt have been even more victories. So when the invitation came to sail on board during Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week for a day, it was a no brainer, a chance to experience the yacht up close. Ignoring the pouring rain which persisted through that morning at Cowes, dubbed Wet Thursday, the first thing that struck me about Whooper was the combination of all things traditional and modern on the boat. The decks are of teak, as you would expect, while the mast is of spruce. Yet the boom is pure black carbon, and so are the state-of-the-art North racing sails.

Whooper with wooden boom and Dacron mainsail, the set-up she uses for classic events

I’m introduced to owner Giovanni Belgrano, an Italian who has spent most of his career in the UK, with a nine-year spell abroad supporting America’s Cup campaigns. He explains the set up. “When we are racing the modern yachts, our goal has to be to beat them. So to be competitive we use our modern boom and sails. When we race against the classics we use our wooden boom and Dacron mainsail. It doesn’t change our rating either way, and we might be marginally slower against the classics, but it is important to sail in the spirit of tradition when we are amongst them. I am as strongly committed to racing with the British Classic Yacht Club as I am going head to head with the modern IRC fleet.” Whooper was designed by Laurent Giles and was

CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2015

Whooper’s history I have just opened the November issue of Classic Boat to find an article on the Laurent Giles-designed Whooper. Coincidentally, I recently purchased from a secondhand bookshop here in Hobart a copy of The Yachtsman’s Annual and Who’s Who 1938-1939, inside of which I discovered a brokerage listing that appears to be for the same yacht. The LOA and draft are different but everything else seems to point to this being the same yacht and I wonder whether the “serving officer who has been posted to East Africa” and is said to have “sailed her to the Baltic and to the eastern Mediterranean and back” and to have “lavished money on” the yacht, was Cdr Arthur Johnson RNVR, referred to in the article. If so, he must have owned the yacht for at least 24 years. The listing shows the engine as having been overhauled in 1963, so must have been made some time after that. Philip Jackson SC, Barrister, Hobart, Tasmania

deck within the bulwarks? Certainly she was a startling leap in offshore racing design, so much so that many ORC members thought it unsporting to have a boat of maximum size, let alone one designed for speed by William Fife. With her clearly defined keel profile, Hallowe’en was even an advance on the ‘Britannia ideal’ which may have first appeared in 1893, but still was thought of as much too modern for seagoing by many in 1925. W M Nixon, Cork CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

Sternpost

‘Is something wrong?’ Sam Llewellyn takes a wry look at maritime superstitions

“S

tone me,” said Dave the Deckie last Friday. “Look at him.” A man was walking down the quay towards the boat. He was wearing a green coat, and paused to say good morning to Cathy Squint. “His name is Cuthbert,” I said. “He found us on handfinder.com.” The man in green stepped aboard, left foot first. He swung a bag off his back and opened it. It was full of food. “Killed a pig last week,” he said. “So sausages. Fox got the chickens, so I brought a rabbit or two instead. And there’s some salmon in there somewhere. Bananas for afters. Weird thing, you know,” he said, “but I saw quite a lot of nuns on the way here. One of them had a cat on a lead. Is something wrong?” He was looking at Dave the Deckie, who had sat down suddenly and buried his face in his hands, so all you could see was the gold earring he wears in case he falls overboard and needs a ferry fare across the Styx. “Yes,” I said. “Green is not a lucky colour at sea. Passing a cross-eyed person is a sure sign of doom in store. One boards a boat right foot foremost. Grunty animals and clucking animals and animals with red bushy tails and silver animals that jump up waterfalls and animals with big long ears are also not to be mentioned. Nor are long yellow fruits with slapstick skins, and female members of religious orders, and pet animals of the feline persuasion.” “Why not?” said Cuthbert. “Because it brings bad luck?” Dave lifted his face from his hands. “This is another word we do not use,” he said. “There is only one way of undoing what you have done.” “Which is?” said Cuthbert, sceptical. “Sheddin’ blood,” said Dave, and came up from the hatch cover like a Trident. “Whoa,” I said, stepping between them. And off we went to the pub, where we made peace and watched

CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2016

“He stepped aboard, left foot first, and he was wearing a green coat”

Sam Llewellyn is editor of The Marine Quarterly

the sunset, red sky at night, sailor’s delight, and I gave him a short lecture on nautical superstitions. “Ah,” he said with a superior air. “So we sail tonight?” “Never on a Friday,” said Dave. “Huh,” said Cuthbert. Back on board we went, and slept uneasily. Breakfast was boiled eggs. Cuthbert asked me to pass the salt. When I told him this was a sure bringer of ill fortune, and that he should reach for it himself, he looked distinctly sulky. After breakfast Dave and I crushed our eggshells, but Cuthbert kept his nearly intact, until Dave explained to him that witches would use them as boats, and would paddle after us to distribute hexes with an unstinting hand. Later that day we were at sea, sailing along on a broad reach, everything up and drawing nicely. Cuthbert’s sulks had abated, and he was looking positively cheerful. He pursed his lips, and before I could stop him he had started whistling a merry tune. “Nooooooo!” roared Dave. Too late. A dark shadow was already snaking across the water towards us. The squall hit with a bang, and over we went on our beam ends, then came up again, everything flogging and roaring. When we had it all reefed and drawing and were counting the broken fingernails, I said to Cuthbert: “Whistling is not a good idea either.” “I have never heard anything so stupid in my life,” said Cuthbert, and turned to stomp below. His foot caught on the cockpit coaming and down he went face first, fetching his nose a terrible smack on the deck. “Gnngn,” he observed, blood pouring from both nostrils. Later that afternoon, the wind dropped to a mild force three. “See?” said Dave. “Blood.” “By dose hurts,” said Cuthbert. “Jonah,” said Dave. We dropped him off on the Minquiers. For all I know he is still there, singing with the mermaids.

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