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Classic Boat

30YEARS

OCTOBER 2017

1987-2017

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 350th/30 year logo.indd 6

19/12/2016 11:45

The Who

Pete Townshend’s ‘wind-driven locomotive’

DUNKIRK What the film got right OLD IS GOLD!

Classic wins Cowes Week DAVID BOYD

COWES CLASSICS 170 small boats go racing

MODERN CLASSIC

Herreshoff in GRP

PRACTICAL

Scribing a boot-top

BAILLI DE SUFFREN

Med’s greatest race

www.classicboat.co.uk

£4.95

His unknown influence on Fife

MEMBER OF THE ROBBE & BERKING FAMILY

VA R U N A

NJORD

( e x W H I T E H E AT H E R ) 1909 A. R I C H A R D S O N 12 M R G A F F C U T T E R LOA: 18.02m

B E A M : 3.48m

D R A F T : 2.28m

P R I C E : 375.000€

1918 J O H A N N A N K E R 8 M R LOA: 13.80m

WOLKUSE

B E A M : 1.98m

DRAFT:

1.60m

D R A F T : 1.75m

P R I C E : 150.000€

THULA

1908 I N T E R N AT I O N A L S O N D E R C L A S S LOA: 10.40m

B E A M : 2.39m

72‘ R O YA L H U I S M A N K E T C H 1985 P R I C E : 95.000€

LOA: 21.90m

BEAM:

+ 4 9 ( 0 ) 4 6 1 3 1 8 0 3 0 6 5 | B A U M + K O E N I G @ C L A S S I C - YA C H T S . D E

5.00m

DRAFT:

2.90m

P R I C E : 890.000€

| W W W. C L A S S I C - YA C H T S . C O M

ROB PEAKE, EDITOR

9,000 MILES OF BILGE PUMPING That we’ve become cosseted in our modern lives is hardly news, but sometimes we come across a story that serves as a useful reminder. If you read Simon Allan’s account last month of sailing from Vancouver to Antigua in Anne Marie, a tough but somewhat leaky 106-year-old gaff yawl, you’ll know what I am talking about. Simon ensured Anne Marie was seaworthy and he never felt in danger, but he and the crew had to nurse her carefully through the blows (at one time noticing the deck coming clear of the sheerstrake), they undertook almost constant running repairs (including using an angle-grinder in mid-Atlantic), and a quiet day saw them doing 200 pumps per hour. You can read part two of the story, the final leg to Cornwall, on p40. Simon and his crew made it home, but they had a few adventures on the way, apart from keeping the boat afloat. It’s a tale of can-do fortitude that is inspiring to read.

COVER PHOTO: TIM WRIGHT

ISSUE No 352

CONTENTS 44

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 Publishing Consultant Martin Nott

COVER STORY

4 . WIND-DRIVEN LOCOMOTIVE Pazienza includes Pete Townshend among her former owners COVER STORY

14 . CLASSIC WINS COWES WEEK Whooper’s big summer 22 . MY LITTLE SHIP Building a modern Dunkirk Little Ship

ADVERTISING John Gaylard +44 (0)207 349 3794 john.gaylard@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

COVER STORY

34 . SCRIBING THE BOOT-TOP Practical advice for owners of classics COVER STORY

Managing Director Paul Dobson Deputy Managing Director Steve Ross Commercial Director Vicki Gavin Publisher Simon Temlett Digital Manager James Dobson

Subscription and back issues

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36 . COWES CLASSICS 170 classic designs go racing 40 . ANNE MARIE PART 2 Transatlantic in a 106-year-old yawl 48 . INSURING A CLASSIC We meet insurer Simon Winter 50 . SALCOMBE YAWLS Competitive yawl racing in Salcombe

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COVER STORY

52 . DAVID BOYD The designer’s early years with Fife

52

COVER STORY

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60 . BAILLI DE SUFFREN The Med’s ‘most beautiful race’

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COVER STORY

64 . HERRESHOFF IN GRP A new version of the Marlin class COVER STORY

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Classic Boat is part of the Chelsea Marine Magazines family, along with our other monthly titles BIGGER AND BETTER Extra pages, more boats, more destinations

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CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

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‘WIND-DRIVEN LOCOMOTIVE’ That’s how The Who guitarist Pete Townshend described the Jack Laurent Giles sloop Pazienza. After a long-term refit by her current owners, has she still got the magic?

WORDS NIGEL SHARP PHOTOS TIM WRIGHT 5

PAZIENZA

Pazienza at sea and, inset, the original wheel

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CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

PAZIENZA

W

hen Benjamin Franklin suggested that he who can have patience can have what he will, he was not talking about a 60ft Jack Laurence Giles sloop built in 1956 in Italy. Franklin’s quote applies so neatly to Pazienza [‘patience’ in Italian], however, that it’s hard not to make the connection. In an age when boats are almost exclusively built for one purpose, be it short-handed cruising, or offshore racing, it is refreshing to go back 60 years and find one whose abilities span multiple disciplines with style. Soon after she was built, her designer Jack Laurent Giles described her as “a good example of a comfortable short-handed cruising boat, with a first-class performance under power, yet able to take part successfully in ocean races”.

In her six decades afloat, Pazienza has indeed been cruised doublehanded, raced inshore and offshore. She has been sailed singlehanded and she has crossed oceans. She has endured the whims of various owners and on voyages far and wide she has put up with one or two travails. History does not relate why Pazienza’s first owner named her after the greatest of virtues, but it seems he named her well.

Pazienza was built by Cantiere Navale V Beltrami in Genoa of 1¾in thick teak planking on Acacia frames, with an oak centreline. Some of the original planks are 40ft long, not easy to get hold of in post-war Italy, but her first owner, Giaccomo Bruzzo, had more clout than some, as he also owned the Beltrami yard. Several publications commented on her soon after she was launched, Yachting World describing her hull as ‘unexceptional, yet distinct and beautifully bred, with no characteristic forced’ and the proportions of her rig as ‘moderate as all the other features of this restrained, distinguished cruising yacht’. In The Proper Yacht, Arthur Beiser wrote: “No attempt has been made to crowd in as many berths as could possibly fit, and the accommodation abounds in stowage space and features that contribute to the good life afloat.”

A LUCKY LIFE Pazienza stayed in the ownership of the Bruzzo family until the late 1970s, after which less is known about her whereabouts (we do know her name was briefly changed to Nephelea and then to Lady Apollonia), before she was acquired in 1984 by a surgeon, Neil Attenborough.

Three weeks after buying the boat, Attenborough was sailing off the Needles with his wife, baby son and two elderly crew members, when he got a sudden whiff of smoke. A fuel line had electrically eroded, ignited and a fierce fire broke out that then melted a gas pipe. “Not a nice experience,” Attenborough recalled, and things were about to get worse, as he discovered that none of the four fire extinguishers worked and the liferaft “was just one solid mass of rubber, all fused together”. Pazienza was saved only by swift action with buckets and the crew of a passing boat throwing over a fire extinguisher.

A costly refit put her right, but Attenborough’s dramas at sea were not over. While sailing off Cape CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

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NIGEL SHARP

PAZIENZA

Trafalgar, Pazienza’s rudder stock suddenly bent at right angles, making it impossible to steer. She was taken in tow to Gibraltar by a Polish tanker, but the captain then arrested Attenborough, demanding the equivalent of a £55,000 salvage fee.

On a subsequent Atlantic crossing, when 1,200 miles southwest of the Canaries, the forestay broke at the masthead resulting in the twin headsails being dragged in the water and a facial injury to Attenborough. This he tried to sew up himself, before submitting himself to one of his crew members, who had worked as a nurse. “I had to grip her really hard to stop her going over the side while she was sewing me up,” he said, “and I had to pretend to be brave.” He then spent two days up the mast trying to rig a new forestay. “The mast was whipping backwards and forwards. I was black and blue with fractured ribs by the time we finished,” he said.

With a much-reduced sail plan, Pazienza reached the West Indies 28 days later and Attenborough hoped his dramas with Pazienza were over.

They were not. He almost lost her again when taking part in a Tall Ships’ Race with a crew of young trainees from the London Sailing Project. Entering harbour at the end of the race, the engine cut out (due to sea water in the fuel tanks, he later discovered) and only the swift action of the crew on a passing boat, who expertly threw a towing line, prevented her going on the rocks.

THE WHO CONNECTION A new chapter in Pazienza’s life began in 1992, when Attenborough sold her to Pete Townshend, guitarist and songwriter with The Who rock band (below, right). A keen sailor, Townshend kept her in Cornwall and raced her successfully, winning Falmouth Classics several times. He cruised extensively, to the Caribbean, Brittany, Portugal, Mallorca and numerous times to the Scillies, occasionally singlehanded. He described her, atmospherically, as “an exhilarating wind-driven locomotive”.

During his ownership, Townshend had the original teak deck replaced – all but the king planks – complete with plywood subdeck, and he had a steel girder fitted along the centreline in the forward half of the boat to stiffen her up. It was seven years of careful ownership, but the twists and turns in Pazienza’s life 8

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Left to right: The Who guitarist Pete Townshend had the original teak deck replaced; curved carpentry in a classic Giles interior

continued in 1999 when Townshend sold his ‘magic bus’ to a German, who planned to convert her into a Mediterranean houseboat. She escaped this fate to become a honeymoon suite for a pair of newlyweds. The happy couple honeymooned to the Caribbean and back – and then put Pazienza on the market again.

Richard and Judy Haycock were the proud owners of a 40ft Hillyard, which they had sailed with their three sons. “She was a lovely boat to sail and ideal when the boys were young,” said Richard. Boys being boys, however, the stalwart Hillyard soon became known as The Old Biffer. “She was very slow,” admits Richard.

Things moved on when one day youngest son Tom, then aged 14, came home from school asking: “Why don’t we sail across the Atlantic?” In his next sentence he added: “And could we get a boat other than the Biffer?”

So it was the Haycocks began searching for a boat to take the family transatlantic. Old Swans were mooted, but discounted for looking rather tired. Then they saw an advertisement for Pazienza. “She was way over the budget, but looked stunning,” said Richard, describing a moment many yacht owners will recognise. “It wouldn’t hurt to go and have a look. When we climbed on board we fell in love with her.”

“And she has been way over budget ever since,” added Judy, prompting laughs from both of them.

The day the sale went through turned out to be February 14, a wonderful Valentine’s Day present, if you like your Valentine’s Day gifts to come with water lapping around the engine due to bilge pump failure.

There followed an intensive three-month refit. “We stripped everything out,” said Richard. Much of the wiring and plumbing was renewed. After the engine exhaust outlet broke off in Richard’s hands, so were all the skin fittings. “By the time we started sailing her, we had been hanging upside down in places you really wouldn’t want to spend too much time in,” said Richard, “and that has stood us in good stead because when we have had issues, we know where to go to sort them out.”

The Haycocks spent a year getting to know Pazienza, which included participation in the British Classic Yacht Club regatta in 2004, before taking her down to Lanzarote in the summer of 2005 for their first Atlantic crossing.

Four years after he had prompted the idea, son

PAZIENZA

‘Restrained and distinguished’, Pazienza TIM WRIGHT

races in the Caribbean on one of several trips across the Atlantic.

Insets: Lewmar fittings

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

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PAZIENZA

Tom, by this time aged 18, joined his brother Simon, dad Richard and family friend Stuart Godfree as they sailed the family’s ‘New Biffer’ across to St Lucia, in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC). Was it the sail of a lifetime? “It wasn’t a typical trade wind crossing,” remarks Richard, perhaps with some restraint. “We had two tropical storms, a confused sea, and high winds on the nose, the SSB was damaged by water ingress and we lost the VHF aerial.” After so many adventures at sea, Pazienza took it all in her stride. After competing in Antigua Classics, they sailed her back to the Azores (using the emergency tiller for much of the way after the steering gear failed) where Tom took over as skipper for the final leg home.

The family had got a taste for bluewater cruising, but it was almost by chance that they signed up for their second transatlantic, when Richard met Loic Blanken and Francois Seruzier, the French organisers of the Transat Classique, during the 2007 British Classic Yacht Club regatta in Cowes. “I invited them on board for a gin and tonic,” he said. “About an hour later I noticed the gin bottle was pretty empty and apparently we had signed up for their race the following year.”

The Transat Classique is in two stages, the first stage that year running from Douarnenez to Agadir. Having known Pazienza was a first class cruising boat and inshore racer, the Haycocks were delighted to see her stretch her ocean legs and lead the 20-boat fleet by a day and a half as they neared Morocco. A damaged

Left and right: Pazienza’s interior is immaculate after having been stripped out for re-wiring and other work by current owners Judy and Richard Haycock (below)

STAINLESS STEEL UPGRADE

PAZIENZA LOA

60ft (18m) LWL

48ft (14.64m) BEAM

13ft (4m) DRAUGHTT

9ft 6in (2.9m) DISPL

32 tons SAIL AREA

2,000sq ft (185m²) 10

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

masthead fitting, preventing the headsail being dropped or rolled, then the boom braking in an accidental gybe, depleted the lead to two hours by the finish line, but Pazienza had proved her designer right once again. With a new boom, she finished third in the second leg.

The Haycocks lived in Hampshire when they first owned Pazienza and she was based on the Hamble River throughout that period. Three years ago, they moved to Kingswear on the Dart, in Devon, and the boat followed them there, racing and cruising in equal measure. Ideally 12 crew are needed for racing round the cans, but Richard and Judy will happily cruise her double-handed, typically around the West Country and across to Brittany. Their short-handed cruising is helped by two electric winches and electric furling gear for the headsail.

For extra comfort in bad weather the autopilot can be operated from inside the pilot house.

Throughout their period of ownership, the Haycocks have continuously upgraded Pazienza. The Perkins diesel which came with the boat – probably her fourth engine – had been flooded, so in 2008 Richard and Tom installed a new Perkins M135 and moved the exhaust’s swan neck to a higher position to minimise the chances of it happening again. The 15ft long T-shape headsail sheet tracks, which run along the bulwark capping rail, originally consisted of lengths of Tufnol with a thin piece of stainless steel on top. The tracks were replaced with new ones, milled out of solid stainless steel.

Almost every stainless steel deck and rig fitting has been gradually replaced, with the new ones made by Robin Sims of Sims Marine who has also rebuilt the steering system. Pazienza once had two single berths in the owners’ cabin aft, which Judy called “a bit unfriendly” and one of them has now been converted to a double by Simon Harvey, based at Universal Marina on the Hamble and who has continued to work on Pazienza since her move. In 2015 the mostly solid spruce mast was replaced by a new one in hollow Douglas fir, made by Noble Masts. This is quite a lot lighter, despite it being a heavier material, giving the boat a significant gain in performance.

Yacht Brokerage

SALES, CHARTER & MANAGEMENT

125 ft Classic Sailing Yacht

MARIQUITA is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful classic yachts sailing today.

Designed and built for industrialist Arthur Stothert by William Fife III she was launched in 1911 at Fairlie on the Clyde river in Scotland. As a gaff rigged cutter of the 19 Metre Class MARIQUITA is a direct link to the historic Big Class and a precursor to the J-Class that would follow in the 1930’s.

When launched MARIQUITA caught the imagination of everyone that followed sailing just before the First World War and, over a hundred years later, she still does since being entirely restored by Fairlie Restorations in 2003 following the highest standards in wooden construction. The same year she set sail once again and is now one of the stars of the Classic Circuit. Over the last decade she has sailed on the Clyde, Cowes, Falmouth, and countless Mediterranean regattas including Monaco Classic Week, Regates Royales de Cannes and Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez.

She represents a unique opportunity to enter into the exclusive classic sailing yachts circuit and enjoy the excitements of racing on such a legendary magnificent yacht.

She also offers great comfort and refined interior accommodation for cruising in the Mediterranean Sea or else where.

Winning the Panerai Big Boat Mediterranean Series in 2014 and the UK Series in 2015.

FRANCE: Montpellier (Head Office), Paris, La Ciotat • MONACO ITALY • SWITZERLAND • SPAIN: Palma de Mallorca • RUSSIA: Moscow TURKEY: Ismir • HONG KONG • CARIBBEAN: Grenada • USA: California

Photos credit Ben Wood

MARIQUITA

Year: 1911 Designer: William Fife III Builder: W. Fife & Son, Fairlie Type: First International Rule 19 Metre Length: 38.10 metres Beam: 5.30 metres Sail area: 6,171 sq ft upwind Keel: 36 ton of lead

BERNARD GALLAY Yacht Brokerage

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Logbook Out and about

Mystic’s 26th annual WoodenBoat Show The Connecticut sunshine was fairly bouncing off the varnish at the WoodenBoat Show in Mystic Seaport, with the list of craft on display as varied and mouth-watering as ever. Attracting visitors was the Viking longship Draken Harald Hårfagre, which sailed to the US from Norway. Launched in 2012, she is a clinker-built reconstruction of a ‘Great Ship’, her design based on historic documents and

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archaeological findings, capable of 14 knots under one sail.

A new restoration out of Gannon & Benjamin was also winning admiring glances. Mah Jong was built in 1957 by Cheoy Lee and is now racing and cruising in New England. We’ll be featuring her in Classic Boat before long.

The highly regarded independent film about boat building on Carriacou, Vanishing Sail, was showing during the event, while Carriacou sloop Summer Wind was on display on the quay.

The Judges’ Award in the Concours d’Elegance competition went to an immaculate 1924 Fay & Bowen Junior Runabout restored by Reuben Smith’s Tumblehome Boatshop in Warrensburg, NY. Meanwhile the show’s family boat-building tent was as popular as ever, with family teams producing a boat to take home in three days.

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1 Cat boat sailing off the floating quay 2 Oars and more for sale in the

Tom Clagett Boat Shed 3 Kit boats on show at the Chesapeake Light

Craft stand 4 Bill Womack and Michelle Buoniconto of the Beetle Boat Shop, Wareham MA 5 Mystic Seaport’s new Thompson Exhibition

Building is an impressive backdrop 6 Schoolchildren learn whaling history, as related from a whaleboat next to the 1841 whaler the Charles W Morgan 7 Towering over visitors, the replica Mayflower II is being restored to the tune of $12 million at Mystic Seaport; supporters can donate at

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plimoth.org/saveourship 8 Olivewood, Hemlock, Curly Pearwood and more for sale from Newport Nautical Timbers 9 Reuben Smith of the Tumblehome Boatshop, winner of the Concours d’Elegance Award

10 Mystic Seaport shipwright Christopher Sanders and wife Megan McCarthy with first-time show visitor Vann 11 Actors get into the spirit of things with performances on the quay 12 Carter Richardson of East Passage Boatwrights 13 The dragon bow of the Viking longship Draken Harald Hårfagre 14 Ladies in period costume despite sweltering heat!

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

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Tell Tales

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

COWES, ISLE OF WIGHT

Whooper’s record-breaking summer of wins The 1939 yacht Whooper has beaten one of the world’s most competitive fleets of modern yachts to win Lendy Cowes Week overall, becoming, arguably, the most successful classic racing yacht of the modern era. The result in August made a hat-trick for

“We are pushing her harder and harder”

the season that is unheard of in classic yacht racing. The 39ft (11.9m) Laurent Giles-designed bermudan sloop had already won the IRC Nationals in June (again, against a modern fleet) and Panerai British Classic Week in July. To these recent triumphs she can also add two Round the Island wins, with the Gold Roman PAUL WYETH

Bowl in 2004 and 2015.

The recent win at Cowes Week was a tremendous victory for the 78-year-old yacht and her owner, Giovanni Belgrano. Whooper scored consistent results in all conditions to

than 50 races this year, was also

Above: Whooper

with her and learning more and more

win IRC Class 6, as well as the big

tip-top, which makes all the

on her way to

every single year and it is incredible

boat class and the regatta overall.

difference at a hugely competitive

winning Lendy

how we keep making steps forward.

regatta like Lendy Cowes Week.

Cowes Week in

On the opening Saturday she took second place to Joe Simmons’ Hunter

Belgrano said: “It is something I

August

“We are pushing her harder and harder but she is certainly giving us a

Impala, Spectrum, but from there on

thought we could never achieve, to

lot of satisfaction and I hope Laurent

it was a clean sweep of first places

be honest. When I bought the boat 17

Giles up there can see what we are

including the final race. She finished

years ago, I thought she would be

doing with her.”

the week an impressive 12 points

perfect for pottering around in the

clear, ahead of Simon Cory’s Icom

Solent. She has an incredibly

within the regatta’s Black Group, as

Cool Blue, a Cory Yachts 290.

attractive hull shape and gradually we

always, with just over a point

realised her potential, so got into

separating Whooper from second-

ideal for Whooper with lots of

racing more and more. Not for one

placed IRC Class-0 winner, Bernard

reaching, which is where she really

minute did we think we could beat

Langley’s TP52 Gladiator. In third

comes into her own. Work from the

the kind of fleet here at Lendy Cowes

place was Harry Heijst’s Sparkman

seasoned crew, who have sailed more

Week. We have been enjoying sailing

and Stephens 41, Winsome.

The conditions over the week were

Racing was exceptionally close

Dutch pride Oosterschelde 1917

The steel, Dutch three-masted topsail schooner Oosterschelde built in 1917, is the last of a large Dutch schooner fleet active in the early part of the 20th century, and as such, she’s not only a historical national monument in the Netherlands, but one of that country’s most loved vessels. She’s a substantial 132ft (40.1m) on deck and coasted under sail until the 1930s, at which point she was given an aft bridge and motorised to continue in the same

C/O CLASSIC SAILING

role. These days, she’s a charter vessel operated by England’s

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CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Classic Sailing. She has been around the world twice, to both the poles, and around Cape Horn under sail, in 2013. At the time of writing, she was competing successfully in the 2017 Tall Ships Regatta in Canada. She can take 24 charter guests overnighting, or 120 day-sailing. See classic-sailing.co.uk to find out about Oosterschelde’s 2018 itinerary.

GLANDORE, IRELAND

Water Wags shine Glandore Classic Regatta celebrated 25 years in July, with a fleet of 80. One-design classes like the Dragons and Squibs rubbed shoulders with yachts and, of course, the Galway Hookers, Ireland’s most distinctive workboat. Returning to the regatta was the fleet of Water Wags, brought from Dublin by regatta veteran and yachting historian Hal Sisk (Peggy Bawn). The Water Wag is the oldest OD dinghy in existence, formalised as a class in 1887 and the fleet thrilled the crowd with a synchronised sailing performance. Attending was actor and local celebrity Jeremy Irons helming Willing Lass, and Caribbean pilot Don Street sailing his 1933 wooden Dragon, Gypsy. Don was celebrating his 87th birthday, his usual Heineken in hand. Photos by Kathleen Hayes

MONACO

All ready for a classic week The principality of Monaco is preparing for its biennial Monaco Classic Week, to be held this 13-17 September. The event began in 1994 and has been popular ever since, both with sailing yachts and, uniquely, classic motorboats: Rivas, Chris-Crafts and larger cabin motor yachts always make a really good showing here. This year’s attendees include Charles Nicholson’s two giants, firstly the 1927 three-masted schooner Creole which, at 190ft (58m) on deck is the largest wooden yacht in the world and belongs to

SOUTHAMPTON BOAT SHOW

largest vessel will also be present – the 1925 ketch

Readers’ ticket discount

Sylvia, around 60ft (c18m) shorter. The 100-strong fleet

Britain’s most visited boat show returns to Southampton’s Mayflower Park

will be split roughly 60/40 in favour of sail over

from 15-24 September. Southampton has become the go-to show over the

power. Learn more at yacht-club-monaco.mc/en.

last decade or so, particularly for those who enjoy a good range of small,

fashion heiress Allegra Gucci. Nicholson’s second

traditional craft, as the Wooden Boatbuilders’ Trade Association lay on a great display every year. The seaside location also means the large, floating marina is a strong attraction, and this year, there will be free half-hourly ‘mini cruises’ on Southampton Water, the chance to explore this year’s tall ship, the Kaskelot (also free), and more attractions including paddleboarding and children’s canoeing. Be sure to use our promo code ‘ST12’ when booking tickets online (southamptonboatshow.com) for £8

CB ARCHIVES

off the standard adult ticket price of £20.

BUYING TICKETS Book your tickets either online (southamptonboatshow. com/Tickets) or by calling 0844 776 7766. The ticket line is open 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

15

TELL TALES

EYEMOUTH INTERNATIONAL SAILING CRAFT ASSOCIATION AUCTION

Nearly everything has gone To many small-boat enthusiasts in Britain, the sound of the hammer falling on 27 July to end the online auction of hundreds of small, historic craft, must have sounded like a death knell. A liquidation sale is never a happy business and the online auction of three collections of historic small boats, all part of the Eyemouth International Sailing Craft Association and many of them on the Small Boat Register, has upset many people. Among the 800 lots in the ‘everything must go’ sale, 274 were boats, and the overwhelming majority of them met reserve and sold. Among them were many centuries-old ethnic river and coastal craft from every corner of the world. The collection, largely acquired by Andrew Thornhill QC over many years, was originally housed in the Exeter Maritime Museum and hit hard times when the museum was sold; a satisfactory new home was never found. Thornhill is an ardent admirer of small sailing craft – particularly the International 14 Class, many of which were lots in the sale.

Some onlookers knew the craft of old, some were simply sad that a collection that told the story of small boat development from the 1930s onwards has been dispersed. To make matters worse, after years in storage, bits of boats were not necessarily all in one place. Enthusiasts from the National Maritime Museum Cornwall did their best to match hulls with spars, but

“Some onlookers were simply sad that a collection that told the story of small boat development from the 1930s onwards has been dispersed”

there are concerns some may have been wrongly

Edward Cecil Allcard 1914-2017 The last of the band of sailors who opened up the

paired. Many people feel the liquidators did not allow enough time for

world’s oceans in the early days of small-boat

conservators to act. Some boats went for incredible prices: many rare,

voyaging has died, at the age of 102. Edward Allcard

ethnic types (a small Albanian river ferry, a Hong Kong sampan and a

started sailing aged six and owned his first dinghy by

Portuguese seaweed harvest boat for instance) were sold for a ridiculousseeming £25 each.

Syndicates were formed to save particular boats, for instance original

12. He trained as a naval architect in Glasgow and during the war worked with the RAF, designing and building air-sea rescue craft. He owned a total of 18

designs by Morgan Giles and Uffa Fox (again, some of which went for

boats in his life. His first voyage, made alone, was in

amazingly low prices), and an entire collection of 50 ethnic boats was

1939, to Norway and back. In 1947, he sailed his 34ft

bought by a maritime museum in China.

(10.4m) yawl Temptress to New York and back,

So the boats all still exist, somewhere, and many will have gone to

becoming the first to sail a double transat

good homes, but with the sale completed and almost all lots sold, the UK

singlehanded, meeting Force 12 winds on the return

has lost three significant classic boat collections. That is to be mourned.

leg, during which he stopped in the Azores and

Meanwhile if any buyers feel they have got a wrongly paired sail or

inadvertently shipped a stowaway, an incident that

spar, please get in touch and we will publicise any such concerns.

First International 14 racing dinghy saved for the nation

made him briefly famous on his return to England. In 1966, he became the fifth man to round the Horn solo, during what became an extended circumnavigation over many years. His first marriage at a young age

Hope, listed as the first International 14, built just before World War One,

ended in divorce and aged 54 he married Clare, 32

has been saved for Britain, after being withdrawn from the auction at the

years his junior. After many adventures together, at

11th hour. The dinghy was designed by Linton Hope and built by Jac M Iversen for EG Martin, in an attempt to unify dinghy racing, then very fragmented, nationally. She's now at the Classic Boat Museum in Cowes, IoW, along with an Uffa Fox Flying 10 and Flying 12 bought by the museum in the auction. Full story next month.

16

OBITUARY

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

sea and on land, they retired to the mountains of Andorra in 2005, where he died peacefully on 28 July.

He wrote several books, his last at the age of 102 – Solo Around Cape Horn and Beyond. He leaves Clare, two daughters and four grandchildren.

TELL TALES GLASGOW, SCOTLAND

Gareloch class complete again!

The Gareloch One Designs are an unusual class in many ways – after 16 were designed and built by Ewing McGruer in 1924 at the well known McGruer boatyard on the Gareloch in Scotland, they were scattered to the winds during later decades – and gathered up again, from eastern Scotland, eastern and southern England.

Each boat is now back at the Royal Northern & Clyde Yacht Club in Rhu, west of Glasgow. Only one, Dione, has been for some decades in a serious state of repair. Fortunately for the class, Bill MacLaren decided to spearhead a full restoration over three years, with the assistance of Tim Henderson, David Spy and others.

She was formally re-launched by Gordon Mucklow, President of the Class Association, on 21 July before the annual Gareloch Worlds over the weekend, and it was good to see her back on the Gareloch in some testing weather, under grey skies and rain with Force 5 winds gusting 6. The championships were won in the end by Teal, sailed by Iain MacGillivray, though not without impressively lively competition. Kathy Mansfield

OBITUARY

David Brian Barrie Cheverton OBE 1930-2017 Noted yacht designer and boatbuilder David Cheverton died on 29 July at the age of 87, following several years of failing health. He was born in Newport, Isle of Wight, and left school at 15 to apprentice himself to Uffa Fox, finishing his apprenticeship at JS White, building boats for the Navy and RNLI. He designed his first yacht in 1950 for a design competition in Yachting World to draw a small, family cruising yacht. His design, the 22ft (6.7m) sloop Quiver, an attractive pocket cruiser typical of the times, took third place. He opened his own yard with two others in 1957, and went on to design and build the popular Caravel (22ft 7in/7m pocket cruising sloop), which later led to the larger Crusader and Campaigner classes, and perhaps most famously, the Danegeld class. These shapely 35ft (10.7m) sloops, of which four were built, were designed in 1957 and Danegeld herself won 15 firsts and 21 podium finishes in her first 22 races. By the mid-60s, he had moved entirely into workboat design and was at one point employing a staff of 220. He was awarded the OBE for services to export in 1984 and became High Sheriff of the Isle of Wight in 1993. He was a Rotarian and member of the Island Sailing Club, Royal London and Squadron. His wife Joyce, whom he married after the death of his first wife Ellen in 2008, died 11 days before him.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

17

BEAULIEU, HAMPSHIRE

A chance to step aboard Gipsy Moth IV Visitors to the living history village of Buckler’s Hard this 17 September will be able to step aboard Sir Francis

Q&A

TELL TALES

Chichester’s famous ketch Gipsy Moth IV, in commemoration of half a century since he returned home from his groundbreaking voyage in May 1967. That voyage, which included one stop (Sydney, Australia) prompted the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race the year after, and engraved the bespectacled pensioner’s name in sailing history forever.

Susie Goodall, taking part in the Golden Globe Race 2018 What inspired you to enter the

Any sleepless nights thinking about

Golden Globe Race 2018?

sailing solo through the Southern

It is there to be done, it’s just a must

Ocean?

do for me!

I can't wait to get to the Southern Ocean: nerves and excitement.

How do you feel about doing a race that took such a heavy toll on its

Why a Rustler 36?

previous participants? The spirit of

Seaworthiness, hull profile and length.

the race will always be the same, and

Plus I just fell in love with her when

the sole aim, but it is a very different

we met!

race to what it was in 1968. It will be three years in the making by the time

You’re active on social media, but

I get to the start line. Even though it’s

how will you cope with the lack of

without technology, we still have the

modern nav and comms kit on

best modern safety equipment

board?

including trackers.

I’ll miss being able to chat with family and friends all the time but not being

Thus far, has the journey turned out

connected can be total bliss.

to be what you expected?

CANADA

Jammin’ around the world

There have been hiccups but

Which is your favourite book about

everything is coming together as

the original race?

planned.

A Race Too Far, by Chris Eakin, but honestly I love them all.

The square-rigger Picton Castle will start her seventh world circumnavigation in March 2018, taking in 25 ports of call on a

You’ve done a double solo transat as

30,000-mile voyage. Of the 52 people on board, 12 will be

a qualifying sail. What did you learn

Have you taken advice from any of

seasoned sailors, the rest novices.

about the boat/about yourself?

the original race’s participants?

The boat leaks a lot. And I dislike

All the lessons learnt in their books.

Skippering the voyage will be square-rig authority Daniel Moreland, who was behind the initial conversion to sail and

calms more than ever.

What is the race going to cost?

who has skippered Picton Castle on all her previous circumnavigations. This one will be his last aboard the 179ft

You’re up against some experienced

Stress, four years and it’ll empty my

(55m) three-masted barque, originally built as a motorised

sailors, not least Jean-Luc van den

wallet. I am grateful to my partner

fishing trawler in 1928.

Heede. Will you be showing the

DHL, which is bearing the major

greybeards a clean pair of heels?

logistical responsibilities of the

I'm one of the youngest but not the

challenge, leaving me free to

youngest. We are an eclectic bunch

concentrate on the sailing.

of entrants which I think will make for

Its commitment includes the

an interesting race.

round-the-world shipment of all the

WORD OF THE MONTH

Eagre or Eagor (also Acker) “An eddying ripple on the surface of flooded waters.

A tide swelling over another tide, as in the Severn bore.”

A Dictionary of Sea Terms, A Ansted (1944)

race equipment and materials, as Are you aiming to win or get round

well as providing assistance with any

safely?

contingencies that might arise

Both.

during the race.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

19

TELL TALES

NEWS

MARTHA'S VINEYARD

Vineyard Cup The Vineyard Cup took place in July and was marked with both competition and catastrophe, writes Tyler Fields. Hosted by Sail MV, a non-profit on the island of Martha's Vineyard, the annual event is a well-known regatta for yachts throughout New England. After the cancellation of the first day of racing due to hazardous weather, the conditions of day two and three still failures. More than 60 yachts entered this year's race with seven classes ranging from small one-designs like the Herreshoff 12s and Sunfish to the larger PHRF and Classic Divisions, the largest being the Classic Division with 14 entries. The top three finishers in the Classic Division were all Sparkman & Stephens-designed yachts. Taking top honours was the recently restored 55ft Santana (CB344). The 53ft sloop Sonny and the NY32 Gentian were second and third respectively.

MAINE

ANGELA PARK-SAYLES

tested the limits of boats and crews, with three vessels passing those limits and sustaining structural damage after mast

Lyman-Morse expands

RHODE ISLAND

Custom boatbuilder Lyman-Morse

Bequia, built in Maine by Brooklin Boat Yard, took the overall win during the 2017 Candy Store

has opened a new brokerage office

Cup in Newport, Rhode Island, writes Tyler Fields. The Candy Store Cup took the place of the

at Dysart's Great Harbor Marina in

Newport Bucket Regatta last year. The event is organised by Newport Shipyard and

Southwest Harbor, Maine. The

Bannister's Wharf and serves as the premier American superyacht event. The regatta featured

company already has offices in

three days of racing for the 11 competing superyachts with varied courses off the Newport

Thomaston and Camden, Maine, and

coast. Weather conditions for the big boats ranged from frustratingly light to a true Nor'easter

in Newport, Rhode Island.

punishing crews with winds gusting to nearly 30 knots. While breakdowns during the final day

Bequia wins second Candy Store Cup Fresh off her class win at the America's Cup Superyacht Regatta in Bermuda, the 91ft yawl

of competition ended racing for a few yachts, the challenging weather provided for excellent lymanmorse.com

racing and incredible views for spectators, both on the water and ashore. The class winners were: class A, Action (121ft/37m Royal Huisman/Dykstra); class B, Bequia (92ft/28m Brooklin Boat Yard/StephensWaring); and class C, Meteor (170ft/52m Royal Huisman/Dykstra).

MAINE

U.S. Watercraft In July of this year, U.S. Watercraft of Warren, Rhode Island, was placed under temporary control of the law firm Indeglia and Associates by the TYLER FIELDS

Rhode Island Superior Court and began the process of assessing and securing all assets. U.S. Watercraft is parent company to yachts sold under the Spirit of Tradition sailboat brand of Alerion (above) among others.

20

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

The 91ft yawl Bequia, built in Maine by Brooklin Boat Yard, took the overall win

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THE DUNKIRK SPIRIT Inspired by tales of the boat that rescued his grandfather from Dunkirk, a Kent businessman decided to fulfill his boyhood dream and to buy something just the same STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS NIC COMPTON

T

he mythology of the Dunkirk Little Ships still looms large, 77 years after they played their decisive role in the events of World War II. Around 700 privately owned boats took part in the Dunkirk evacuation of 26 May – 4 June 1940 and helped save over 338,000 Allied (mostly British and French) troops from being killed or captured by German forces. The operation has gone down in history as a miraculous escape in the face of seemingly certain defeat – and it played a great part in sustaining British national morale.

One of the men saved on the beaches of Dunkirk was a sergeant called Reg* who waded out up to his armpits and waited several days before he was finally picked up by the last wave of Little Ships heading back to Ramsgate. Tons of equipment was abandoned on the beach, most of it disabled so the Germans couldn’t use it. Decades later, he retold the story to his grandson and, to help the boy visualize the scene, he made a sketch of the yacht that had come to his rescue.

That story and that drawing of the boat that saved Reg’s life became seared in his grandson Andrew’s brain, and he swore that one day he would own a boat just like it. Of course, many impressionable boys have childhood fantasies that fall by the wayside in the rush and struggle of adult life, but not Andrew*. He and his brother Mel, both of Irish descent, set up a toiletries company in Kent which did rather well, and in his early 50s Andrew decided it was time to fulfil his boyhood dream.

By then, his daughters, who had been brought up sailing the family’s Pilot Cutter 30 out of Salcombe, had become teenagers and were less interested in crewing for their daddy.

So Andrew decided it was time to buy a motorboat –

BRISTOL MOTOR BOATS something that would be capable of crossing the Irish Sea to visit his relatives in West Cork. But of course this wasn’t going to be just any old motorboat.

“The boat that rescued my grandfather was a 30-35ft motoryacht that looked like an early Rampart,” says Andrew. “I was fixated on having a vertical stem, a Dreadnought type shape, but when I looked around I couldn’t find anything like it. I had a vision of an RAF recovery vessel going out to pick up downed airmen!”

SEAWORTHY APPROACH The opportunity to turn into reality the boat he had in his mind came when he met Win Cnoops of Star Yachts at the Southampton Boat Show in 2013. Win was exhibiting his new Bristol 27, a traditional-looking runabout with raised foredeck and lovely flowing lines designed by Andrew Wolstenholme. The boat was in the right style but was designed primarily for inland and inshore waters and fitted with a 52hp engine, giving it a maximum speed of 10-12 knots. Something more powerful and seaworthy would be needed to make that crossing to Ireland.

The first step to turning the relatively sedate Bristol 27 into a proper semi-displacement motorboat capable of 20 knots was to add a spray chine.

“The chine stops the wetness climbing up the topside and defines the planing surface of the hull,” says Wolstenholme. “So you get the best of both worlds: you have the comfort of a displacement hull at low speeds and at high speeds it’s closer to a planing hull. It’s not a ground-breaking concept, but it builds on ideas developed in the 1950s and 60s on boats such as the Nelson, which was powerful but very wet.”

Wolstenholme produced some preliminary drawings of the Bristol 27 with a chine and a wheelhouse – another prerequisite for long-distance cruising – but soon extended that to 29ft to improve the boat’s profile. The boat was further lengthened when Andrew’s father declared it needed to be 3ft longer to cross the Irish Sea safely, with Andrew finally settling on 32ft.

But before Win could start building the boat, there was another twist to the commission. Andrew wanted two boats: the 32-footer and a 16ft launch to act as a tender, and he wanted Win to build the smaller boat first in the same style as her bigger sister, as a kind of test.

And so the Bristol 16 was born: a dinky little workhorse that looks like she’d be just as handy towing boats around the harbour as carrying passengers to their yacht.

“The driver was the 32,” says Wolstenholme. “It was important to get her right first. Once I’d sketched her out, I had to figure out how to follow the styling clues in the 16. The spray chine was a major part of that and, even though there was no requirement for the 16 to go fast, the chine prevents her squatting and allows the boat to run at around 7-8 knots with a 10hp diesel engine.

Other styling clues were the subtle step in the sheer and the upright stem profile.”

STRIP PLANK Both boats were built in strip-plank cedar, epoxy sheathed, with varnished trim and scrubbed teak decks.

The 16 was launched in summer 2014 and named Verity after Andrew’s youngest daughter, while the 32 followed 24

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Facing page: the B32 kept a dry foredeck on a lumpy swell crossing the bar outside Salcombe Inset, clockwise from top left: nicely arranged controls; the forward bunk folds down to make a 6ft berth (shown) and the settees fold back to make wider berths (not shown); seating positions for the two Andrews and builder Win Cnoops (in red), the engines are in the boxes on either side; that (almost) dry foredeck, with Bolt Head and the Mew Stones gnashing behind

three years later in 2017 and was named Annabel after his eldest daughter.

I joined Andrew and his Uncle Andrew (known as ‘Little Andrew’ and ‘Big Andrew’ respectively) on board Annabel at the end of May – the exact week, as it turns out, that grandfather Reg was rescued at Dunkirk, 77 years earlier. With her gleaming new paintwork and great expanses of bare wood, still brown from the workshop, the boat positively glowed as she swayed in the mid-morning sun on Salcombe town quay. A steady stream of admirers ooh-ed and aah-ed and stroked her as if she was some kind of giant wooden Golden Retriever.

Stepping on board, my first impression was a comfortable feeling of space. Annabel has a large cockpit, with generous U-shaped seating aft and a central walkway that goes through the wheelhouse up to the companionway. It’s an easy arrangement only made possible due to the boat being fitted with twin engines.

You could easily get away with having a single engine and save money on installation, the extra drive and rudder, etc, but the twin engine approach transforms the boat’s ergonomics and aesthetics. It’s no exaggeration to say that, from a purely passenger point of view, it’s the making of the boat. Plus, from a practical perspective, it makes the boat more manoeuvrable and means you don’t have to bother carrying an outboard (with petrol, yuck!) for emergencies.

The engines themselves (a pair of 110hp Yanmars) are located amidships, with a pair of rattan seats (£200 each from John Lewis, made of FSC-certified eucalyptus, with the legs taken off) fitted over the engine box. A cleverly designed awning covers the entire cockpit, right up to the open-ended wheelhouse, and folds away somewhat miraculously onto the small aft deck.

BELOW DECKS

ANNABEL LOA

32ft 5ins (9.87m) LWL

31ft 9ins (9.68m) BEAM

9ft 2in (2.79m) DRAUGHT

2ft 6in (0.75m)

DISPLACEMENT

5 tonnes

Below decks, the galley and saloon have a nice airy feel, with white-painted tongue-and-groove bulkheads and seat fronts, pale oak trim and hull sides of varnished cedar. There are two set pieces: the pale oak-panelled compartments in the galley and heads – both beautifully crafted and designed to impress as well as being extremely functional.

There are some nice touches, such as the fold-up extension on the forward bunk which stretches it to a full 6ft, and the adjustable seat backs, which slide back to increase the width of the settees for sleeping. And who could resist the cool Wallas combined diesel cooker and heater, which works as a hob with the lid up and blows out hot air with the lid down?

What you don’t have is standing headroom in the saloon or the heads – unless you are 5ft 6in (1.67m) or under – but then that’s only to be expected on a boat with only 2ft 6in (0.75m) of draft. There is full headroom in the galley, if you stand in the companionway with the hatch open, but otherwise you just have to stoop or sit.

It was all very lovely but it looked a bit genteel for Andrew’s stated aim of crossing the Irish Sea – never mind circumnavigating the UK. “I’d like to go to the Scillies, or to Honfleur,” he said. “I’m not frightened.”

And indeed only two weeks earlier he had motored up from Plymouth with the boat, with a Force 5-6 on the

BRISTOL MOTOR BOATS

nose, and claimed he’d had a great trip. I felt a bit sceptical about that, but kept my thoughts to myself as we let go the lines and headed out towards the harbour entrance.

Salcombe is guarded by a shallow sandy bar at the mouth of the estuary which can become quite dangerous in certain conditions – particularly when an outgoing tide meets an incoming swell, as was the case on the day we went out. It might not sound like much, but it was here that the local lifeboat William and Emma foundered in 1916 with the loss of 13 lives. It’s also the main reason Salcombe isn’t a major fishing harbour and why yachtsmen are advised not to pull in there in rough weather.

Not that this seemed to have any effect on the Bristol 32. She ploughed through the lumpy sea with absolute relish, pushing out great clouds of spray with carefree abandon. As I watched her from the little 16-footer (which provided a steady, if wet, ride) I assumed the two Andrews must be having a spinecrunching, wet time of it. It was only when I climbed on board and we started powering through the waves at 20 knots that I fully appreciated the benefits of that semi-displacement hull: even in a confused sea, there was not the slightest hint of slamming. And, incredibly, the foredeck was practically dry.

Above l-r: snug cockpit cover; the galley, with its Wallas cooker/fan heater

achieved what seemed like a magic trick, almost a sleight of hand. He was reassuringly calm, like a doctor talking to a hysterical child. It’s all about the spray chine, he told me. Not only does the chine help the boat get on the plane, it also reduces drag and helps generate dynamic stability to reduce rolling, making the boat faster, more efficient and more stable. Clever stuff.

Combined with the upright stem, the chine also gives the boat her distinctive look which, Wolstenholme says, is “more retro than traditional”. Or, as Andrew put it: “I could have bought a Princess for the same price, but in a few years’ time the Princess will look old, whereas this boat will always look old – in a good way!”

So it turns out you don’t have to incur lifelong spinal injury motoring through waves at 20kts. Welcome to Wolstenholme’s world, where high-speed motoring and comfort are not mutually exclusive. It might not be revolutionary, but it was certainly an eye-opener for this sail-biased author. And I’m sure it would have been appreciated by grandpa Reg and all those thousands of other soldiers who couldn’t get away from Dunkirk fast enough. While Annabel might take her aesthetic inspiration from the 1930s and 40s, in functional terms she’s a 21st century gal – and all the better for it. * Surnames withheld at the owner’s request.

See also ‘Dunkirk: The Film and the Boats’, p70.

OPEN UP THE THROTTLE It’s possible I forgot I wasn’t on a sailing boat, or perhaps the boat’s motion lulled me into a false sense of security, but within a few minutes I found myself lashing my legs across the front of the foredeck and signalling to the two Andrews to power the boat up. It was only as ‘little Andrew’ opened up the throttle and we drove into the first wave that I thought: “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” But I needn’t have worried.

As we roared past Bolt Head, with the Mew Stones gnashing ominously in the foreground, the boat bounced from one wave to the next wave as if they were so many pillows laid across her path, and the spray simply scattered on either side like so many clouds of pillow feathers (to stick to the metaphor!).

It wasn’t what I had expected and as soon as I got home I rang the designer to find out how he had 26

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

VERITY

LOA

16ft 1in (4.9m) LWL

15ft 10in (4.8m) BEAM

5ft 11in (1.7m) DRAUGHT

1ft 7in (0.4m) DISPLACEMENT

0.6 tonnes

Bristol 32

16

18

22

22.5

27

32

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DORIS, 77’, 1905

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CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

27

Saleroom ARTCURIAL

Wine matures with waves

Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin for £14,400 (€18,000).

Prompted by the discovery, French vintners have now started to experiment with undersea storage 40 metres down in the Mediterranean.

“Without light, oxygen or vibrations, the wine opens up better and frees different aromas,” said one. Another reckoned: “The movement of the sea burnishes the structure of the wine.”

And one Brittany wine maker is

This bottle of 1840s Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, identified by the wording on its cork, still intact after 170 years’ immersion, sold for £14,400 (€18,000)

offering customers the chance to create their own underwater cellars.

Similar experiments have been taking place in British waters for decades, judging by the number of supermarket trolleys found attached to anchors.

Meanwhile, sale proceeds from the wreck champagne have been put towards an Åland marine conservation and archaeology foundation.

CHARLES MILLER LTD

BONHAMS US

It’s just a Victorian brass steam whistle, but to touch it is to connect

Only the buyers of this watercolour, and another by the same

with tragedy and heroism, writes Dave Selby. For this is the whistle

artist, know for sure if they’ve bagged an outrageous bargain.

Whistle from Darling rescue ship of the SS Forfarshire, which foundered off Northumberland in 1838.

On the morning of 7 November, Grace Darling spotted the wreck

Who’s been framed?

James Milton Sessions (1882-1962), a Chicago-based realist, is hardly a household name, but appreciated by discerning

and set off in conditions that were too rough for the lifeboat in a

collectors as one of the foremost marine watercolourists of the

21ft rowing coble with her lighthouse keeper father William. They

20th century. Homeward Bound (above) was estimated at

rescued four men and a woman on that first trip, before William and

$700-$1,000; Rounding the Horn carried a guide price of

three of the rescued men returned to save four more.

$1,000-$1,500. On the day, each sold for just $62.50.

Grace Darling’s bravery led her to becoming the nation’s heroine

28

BONHAMS US

CHARLES MILLER LTD

Cans of lager stored in your bilges might stay cool, but may not improve with age. However, French vintners have discovered that wine stored at the bottom of the sea does.

In 2010 divers salvaged a cargo of champagne lying 48 metres below the surface in a ship that was wrecked in the 1840s in the Åland archipelago between Sweden and Finland.

Of 162 bottles recovered, 79 were intact, still fizzy and drinkable, said experts, who appraised each bottle and recorded tasting notes before resealing the precious bubbly. The constant pressure of 5 bar and temperature of 4-6°C, along with the darkness, resulted in “exceptional aromatic and gustatory qualities”.

In 2012, French auction house Artcurial sold eight of the bottles for £77,200 (€96,500), including a

ARTCURIAL

DAVE SELBY

However, catalogue descriptions for both carried a cautionary

and being awarded the RNLI’s Silver Medal. The whistle from the

footnote that may have stifled interest: “Not examined out of the

Forfarshire, recovered in 1978, is expected to fetch £1,500-£2,500 at

frame.”. No doubt the buyers couldn’t wait to open the frames.

Charles Miller Ltd’s next London auction on November 7.

Retail prices for Sessions range from $3,000-15,000.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

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Objects of desire

GRANDAD LOBSTER Not a surfboard, but a sturdy 7ft piece of oak bearing the glistening image of ‘grandad lobster’, created by

HERRESHOFF CANNON

Salcombe artist John Aspden. If you’re visiting the town this summer, you can find them both (grandad and John) in Gallery 5 in Island Street. Price £1,450.

RBG Cannons has been in operation

gallery5salcombe.co.uk

since 1953 and bills itself as ‘ye olde cannon maker’, but to be fair it does make proportioned replicas of ships’ cannons dating from 1750. This one is the Herreshoff Saluting Cannon, the manufacture of which was authorised by its designer L Francis Herreshoff in 1967. Price $2,299 plus tax.

rbgcannons.com

WOODEN PROPELLER The range of wooden props from Dad’s Boats is one of the highlights of the Southampton Boat Show (15-24 September). The company’s stand, A12, is in the wooden boats area as you enter the show. This prop is 300mm x 105mm (diameter x height). Price £499.

dadsboats.com

SLOCUM’S STORY A new biography of Slocum, claiming to shed light on his

DITTY BAG

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Made from heavy natural canvas, each

perspective on his navigation

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to suit all bits of kit, including a supplied

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full splicing kit if you wish. Bag from £15,

Publishers. £23.

splicing kit in a bag from £49.50.

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arthurbeale.co.uk CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

31

BEN HARRIS & CO Wooden boat building in Cornwall Newbuild, Restoration, Repair

www.benharrisboats.co.uk info@benharrisboats.co.uk tel: 07570 780 864

50 years of building and designing

Brion Rieff Boat Builders Inc. 76 Flye Point Rd. Brooklin Maine 04616 Tel. 207 359 4455 32

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

www.rieffboats.net

Adrian Morgan

CHARLOTTE WATTERS

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Drunk on the job!

The timber was just gliding through, chips flying...

H

ere’s a boat-building tale. It was a clear-grained, creamy piece of spruce destined to become an oar for a faering. A flawless, tight-grained piece of Sitka, a joy to hold and behold. But first it had to go through the planer thicknesser, actually a thin-nesser, but let’s not be pedantic.

Now the thicknesser had recently been fitted with a new blade. When a new blade is fitted, the difference vis-a-vis the old blade is, to use a cliché, like chalk vs cheese. You get familiar with the old blade and for weeks tell yourself that it’s doing a fine job. It’ll be good for another boat. Those lines caused by nicks in the blade can be sanded out, or not; adds to the hand-built character.

Finally you bite the bullet and buy a new blade. What a difference. The timber glides through; the chips fly; it is like putting on a crisp poplin shirt from Thomas Pink

“The spruce is now perhaps half its former size.

One more pass, just one”

after a grubby polo. You wonder why on earth you had not changed the blade for so long and vow that, whenever the blade gets the least bit dull, you will replace it, forthwith. And yet you don’t. The business of changing a blade is tricky, but not complicated. It is time consuming, to a point. Bottom line, you are lazy.

Another boat, then it will be changed.

So this length of flawless spruce, which needed, perhaps, a millimetre taken off the surfaces. Into the thin-nesser it goes, and out it comes the other side, creamy, smooth and even more lovely than when it went in. The new blade sings at its work, the motor happy in its task. Well, if you were a motor would not you be happy spinning a razor-sharp new blade, rather than that old chipped one?

Just another pass then, crank the handle a quarter turn to shave another 0.5mm off what is already ready to be turned into an oar on the band saw. (I won’t go into the joy of fitting a new blade in a band saw, except to say that it is much the same as fitting a new blade to a thin-nesser. You wonder why you don’t change it every week, in fact.)

Back to the length of flawless spruce which is now thin-nessed to around 2.5mm less than when you first saw it. The temptation to send it through again is too strong to resist, so in it goes, and out it comes even thinner than before, but the experience has been worth it. By now you are aware that any thinner and the flawless piece of spruce will not be much use to make that oar. Self restraint is called for. And yet …

Maybe one more pass. The blade, the flawless spruce, the happy motor. Hell, crank the handle down a full turn. If shaving 0.5mm off the flawless piece of spruce was delicious, think what twice that will feel like. And sure enough it does. Let’s do it again.

A millimetre this time, no two. The blade makes short work of it; the motor shows no sign of distress.

Like an alcoholic, you know that there is no stopping now. What’s one millimetre when you can have two. Crank another two full turns and feed in the flawless, but now useless-for-an-oar length of spruce. The motor complains, a little, but the thin-nesser nevertheless spews out the spruce much as it has, albeit thinner.

The rest of the story follows the same pattern: the flawless spruce remains flawless and continues to get thinner. The idea of making an oar from this piece of spruce has long been abandoned to the joy of watching, hearing and, to some extent, smelling the progress of timber through machine. The mound of spruce dust and crisp chippings has mounted in inverse proportion to the thickness (or rather thin-ness) of the spruce.

In for a penny. The spruce is now perhaps half its former size. One more pass, just one. And the piece of spruce, once destined to become an oar? A very fine (very expensive) straight edge.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

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FOR THE WORK OF MARTYN MACKRILL, CONTACT MESSUM’S GALLERY, CORK STREET, MAYFAIR, LONDON. MESSUMS.COM

MARTYN MACKRILL Son of a marine engineer and grandson of a trawlerman, Martyn is Honorary Painter to the Royal Thames Yacht Club and was official painter for the Royal Yacht Squadron’s bicentenary. His depictions of classic boats, from clinker rowing boats to Edwardian schooners, have made him one of the most sought-after marine artists and his work is part of major collections worldwide. He and wife Bryony sail the restored 1910 gaff cutter Nightfall (CB328).

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CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

NEW SERIES

BOSUN’S BAG PRACTICAL TIPS FOR THE TRADITIONAL BOATER WORDS TOM CUNLIFFE ORIGINAL DRAWING MARTYN MACKRILL

BOOT-TOP This is that critical line painted fore-and-aft just above the waterline. If it’s a classy job, it might be picked out in a different colour to the bottom paint and the topsides. Where budgets are tight, a boat may have no boot-top at all, merely a defined interface between antifouling and load waterline, but whichever it is, that line tells us things about an owner that his partner probably never knew. Check out the drawings of a pre-war design from the board of Dr Harrison Butler. You’ll notice that the boot-top line is plotted on his plans, and you can’t miss the fact that it is definitely not parallel sided. Its upper edge describes a shallow parabola whose arc lies part-way between the flat, lower waterline and the springing sheer of her toerail.

Harrison Butler’s boats were typically around 26ft, so the difference between his curving boot-top and one drawn with a straight edge is little more than an inch or two at most, yet it brings the yacht to life. Now take a stroll around your local yard and look carefully. Modern boot-tops are almost invariably painted parallel to the water and they kill a yacht’s looks stone dead.

If the poor vessel has no sheer to speak of, the designer does not have much choice. Neither does the painter, because a curving boot-top under a flat deck would look ludicrous. Where she has a kick to her profile as she should have, a touch of movement in the boot-top works wonders.

Scribing a proper boot-top is a tricky, specialised business. It lies well beyond my expertise, so if yours needs cheering up, find a time-served man. If they’ve all disappeared from your foreshore, dig a proper yacht painter out of retirement and slip him an old-fashioned ten-shilling note. He will probably do the job just for the joy of showing the world that people still can.

WALE STRAKES An inch makes the difference, too, when it comes to painted sheerstrakes and wale strakes tacked onto glassfibre or epoxy replicas. A plank-on-frame construction would have a board built into the hull that’s a bit beefier than its neighbours, with a nice rounded edge. Originally of practical function, these embellishments cheat the eye and make the vessel appear lowerslung and maybe a bit sexier than she actually is. The technique is honourable in replicas for aesthetic purposes, yet the original wooden boat seems always to look so much better. I was contemplating this question one day down in Cornwall when the late Martin Heard of Gaffers and Luggers put me straight. The reason is, he said, that if the ‘bolt-on’ wale or painted ‘sheerstrake’ is parallel sided, which most are, the builder hasn’t thought it through. A plank-on-frame or clinker boat normally sees her strakes tapered towards the ends. The paint line or the shape of the

wale strake was defined by this taper and, however slight it was, it lifted the eye by subtly following the sheer. The whole boat was enhanced. If we just slap on a parallel line or bolt on a handy board after knocking the corners off and rounding the ends, the effect is often the opposite.

MASTHEADS AKIMBO A ketch, a yawl or – perish the thought – a classic schooner, with masts sagging outwards at the top, is a grim sight indeed, yet every day two-masters suffer this indignity. Unless a specific reason existed to do otherwise, traditional sail plans went to some pains to keep two or more masts parallel when viewed beam-on. If a boat is designed with the masts spreading like the twin fingers of derision, the only thing to do is sell her now to someone who knows no better. Usually, though, it’s a matter of how the spars are set up and can soon be put to rights. There are, of course, honourable exceptions. Some working ketches set their mizzens with a degree of forward rake to achieve cantilever support for a mast that cannot have a standing forestay because of the main boom. If you’re building a replica of a Swansea or Virginia Capes pilot schooner, you can forget the rule too. These unique and effective rigs baffled logic in the 19th century, as they do now.

SPREADERS I once owned a pole-masted gaff cutter that had spreaders. Because they were swept aft to supply some backstaying, they seemed to droop when viewed from forward. It wasn’t just the aesthetics, they were also a physical nuisance. Off the wind they chafed at gaff, sail and halyards; on the wind they didn’t seem to do much, and with a strong breeze abeam the masthead showed a tendency to curve up to windward. Not nice. After putting up with this for several years and many thousands of miles, I lifted the mast out one spring.

When I dismounted the spreaders, I noticed that their brackets weren’t of the same high-quality wrought-iron as the original fittings in way of the hounds. My photo archive revealed that many of her sisters had operated without spreaders before World War I, so I put the mast back in without them and enjoyed ten years trouble-free sailing. The boat had a smile on her face too.

Most boats do not have the luxury of being able to ditch the spreaders, but there’s no doubt the Almighty intends their outboard ends to bisect the angle the cap shrouds make to the masthead.

This kicks them up a bit and also delivers maximum efficiency. The effect on the look of a rig that is dragged down by horizontal or sagging spreaders is dynamic. If you’re stuck with technically correct ‘cross-the-boat’ spreaders as found on many fishing craft, it can’t be helped, but if you’ve a yacht, step back and inspect her critically. An inch up at the outboard ends might just transform her.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

35

CHARLES STANLEY DIRECT

Cowes Classics PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICK TOMLINSON The Swallow class Gwaihir won Charles Stanley Direct Cowes Classics Week, beating a 12-strong fleet of highly competitive Swallows and the regatta fleet overall, which now, in the event’s 10th year, numbers 170.

The Swallow was designed for the 1948 Olympics in Torbay. Mike Wigmore put his success down to racing in the Itchenor Swallow fleet, which keeps him on his toes year round. He said: “It’s great coming to the Classics. We love the combination of windward-leeward sailing and round the cans courses. We’ve never had a better regatta.”

Gwaihir won with the lowest points score across the 15 classes.

Winds of up to 30 knots scuppered the event’s two final days and meanwhile the Solent dished up all manner of conditions, from ghost airs to drenching wind-over-tide lumpiness.

Winner of the largest class – more than 50 XODs – was 19-year-old Max Crowe, who has been sailing the boat for four years after honing his skills in Cadets and Oppies.

Another well-earned victory went to Andrew Milliband sailing Fifty Fifty in the Flying Fifteen class. Celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Uffa Fox-designed keelboat, which first appeared in 1947, the occasion attracted 16 boats including a crew from South Africa, sailing Durban Flyer, which won a special anniversary trophy.

“We sail Flying Fifteens regularly in Durban and wanted to come to England to celebrate the anniversary,” said owner Campbell Alexander, whose crew Jeremy Kriek also made the trip.

2

3

1

4

1 Winifred is a 1999 replica of 1/2 rater Wee Winn, commissioned in 1892 2 Firebrand, an S&S43 one-off 3 Darings 4 Foxglove (sail no174) and the XOD fleet

CHARLES STANLEY DIRECT COWES CLASSICS WEEK

Murdoch McKillop’s Saskia won the four-strong 8-Metre fleet, also featuring Athena, Helen and Erica, while John Corby took first place in the Daring Class, Martin Jones in Betty was first in the Solent Sunbeams and of the eight Bembridge One Designs, BOD8, sailed by James Rowe, emerged victorious.

The four mixed fleets of Classic Cruisers saw wins for the 1964 S&S43 Firebrand, Lawrence Wride’s 1967 Sunmaid V, Mike Harrison’s 1965 Contessa 26 Jiminy Cricket and Richard Hargreaves’ 1970 Twister Sea Urchin. Among the Folkboats, victory went to Claire Locke’s The Otter.

The Classic Boat Seamanship Award was presented to Dr Steph Brown, who was crewing on Flying Fifteen Fram Freyr when she witnessed a collision between a Dragon and Flying Fifteen. Giving up second place in the race, she went to the aid of a concussed crew who was subsequently taken to hospital and given 24 stitches in his head.

Throughout the week the Royal London Yacht Club’s race management was supported by the Royal Ocean Racing Club, Royal Victoria Yacht Club, Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club and Island Sailing Club.

5

5 Barry Corke’s SCOD Adélie 6 Saskia won the 8-Metre class

6

7

8

9

10

12

11

7 Concours d’Elegance winner Cynthia, a 1922 Seaview Mermaid 8 Lifetime Achievement Award for Metre boat expert and yachting historian Tim Street (left) 9 Overall winner of the Henri Lloyd Trophy, Martin Jones of Solent Sunbeam Betty 10 Peter Cyriax collecting the award for over-30ft class winner Firebrand 11 Classic Boat Seamanship Award presented by CB’s Steffan Meyric Hughes (left) to Steph Brown of Fram Freyr with Richard Drabble

12 The South African Flying Fifteen crew of Durban Flyer

THE AMAZING

VOYAGE OF ANNE MARIE

PART 2

Against the odds they had sailed a 106-year-old gaffer from Vancouver to Antigua. Now just the north Atlantic lay ahead...

WORDS AND PICTURES SIMON ALLAN

40

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

ANTIGUA MAY 2, 2017 After taking part in the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta, where Anne Marie revelled in being back in the world she was built for, racing alongside some of the great classic yachts of our time, it was time to think about the final stage of our 9,000-mile trip home.

Having come so far, with so many experiences behind us, the goal of Falmouth, Cornwall, felt almost tangible from the Carribean, but we knew we had many sea miles still to cover.

We had spotted Anne Marie by chance in Vancouver back in February 2015, left a note on board and when the owner finally decided to sell several months later, we embarked on a mission to bring her back to life.

During various trips out to Canada from Cornwall, we returned her to the original yawl rig and did so much other work that by the time our small crew cast off into the Pacific and set Anne Marie’s sails for the first time in many years, we were more ready for a holiday than several weeks at sea, but set sail we did, heading south towards Panama, the fate of a unique classic yacht in our hands.

Anne Marie was launched in 1911 by Harris Brothers of Rowhedge, Essex. Her owners over the years have included the commodore of the Royal Danish Yacht Club and she has a well documented racing career.

Incredibly, she has remained largely unchanged with many original features all in place – she was built to Lloyd’s Special Survey 18A1, using the highest quality timber, largely teak, and bronze fastenings.

SIMON ALLAN

BARBADOS MAY 20, 2017 We were sailing well out of Antigua, beam reaching, making excellent time, and keeping the boat happy. We were leaking a lot in the first couple of days, but it was a standard leak rate which increased and decreased with the sea state. At all times during the trip you could ease the leak rate by heaving to. I like my pumps and we had a great variety on board, the most heavy duty being a petrol crash pump, but also a 240v pump, an engine driven pump, two 12v pumps and three hand pumps. We were on top of it.

A few days out of Antigua, one of our crew unfortunately came to the firm conclusion that she could not go any further on the boat. The hardest thing in the world for a sailor is to pass up a favourable breeze, and the wind seemed set for a quick and light passage to the Azores, staying well south, which was my number one plan, still trying to nurse Anne Marie along and protect her as much as possible from the ocean.

I know plenty of skippers who would just have continued to the Azores, but a happy ship is paramount, otherwise there is no point in it all. We changed course for Bermuda.

It was a slow, rolly run. I would occasionally stick the boat northeast on the course for the Azores, watch the boat speed increase to seven knots plus, feel her steady down on the reach and become more comfortable, then wince as the reality sunk in again, and pointed her back downwind for Bermuda.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

41

ANNE MARIE A ship appeared from nowhere, approximately a mile away, crossing our bow from east to west. We called him on the VHF, and a very polite answer gave a detailed forecast. I asked him if he had me on his radar, to which he replied: ‘No, but I have you on AIS’. Upon being informed that we had no AIS, he appeared a bit flustered, and had obviously passed us unaware of our presence. An hour or so later, he called back, broken but just readable, and wished us the very best of luck for our passage to the UK, I think genuinely a little concerned for our safety.

By this time, the wind and seas had risen enough that he was not the only one concerned for our safety. His forecast had been 35kts for the next 24 hours, just gale force, and a 6m sea. We’d had a 2/3m northerly swell for the last few days already, so all added up together this promised to be a fair spectacle. The peak in wind strength came in the six hours around midnight, at F8, dying off to a F7 until midday. That morning of day seven was a quite magnificent day on the ocean, up to 30/40ft seas which were breaking heavily, and Anne Marie behaving herself beautifully, climbing the hills again and again, with relative comfort on board.

Although it was mainly a grey spectacle, there was an hour or so when it cleared, turning the sea a rich, deep blue, with the breaking crests white, and the tops of the waves turquoise blue where they rose the highest and the watery light passed through them.

We finally made landfall, after motoring a couple of days at the end as the wind fell light, and entered St George’s harbour, anchoring in Convicts Bay. The stop was notable for a severe blow one day, which made a mess of the anchorage, driving one yacht ashore, and causing countless others to drag. Anne Marie’s heavy chain and anchor held firm, whilst her deep draft and heavy keel kept her comfortable and stable as the more modern yachts bounced and yawed around.

We popped an ad online to see if we could round up any strong crew at short notice, but perhaps unsurprisingly, nobody fancied taking on this particular challenge! After four days at anchor, with a large repair completed by Steve at Ocean Sails on the 40-year-old mainsail, Oz, Tim Lucas and I fuelled up at Pennos Wharf, hoisted the canvas, and sailed out of the harbour, heading northeast and bound for home again.

ATLANTIC DAY 5 At day break, running under double reefed main and boomed out staysail, I noticed the staysail luff was loose.

It turned out the boom fitting had crippled itself – it was twisted, chewing into the bowsprit and had snapped the tack lashing. The lashing was easy enough, but to stop the rest of it was impossible, using the staysail boom as we were doing, as the fitting could not take the compression. We were carrying a spar made by Eric back in Canada, which we were going to use as a mizzen boom. I decided that, of all our options, converting one end of it to fit the spinnaker pole bell fitting was the way forward. We duly started the generator, got the angle grinder going, and, in a Force 6, set about it. A couple of hours later we were sailing along much happier, with the staysail out on a stout pole and rigged much more simply. The downside was that we would have to do a lot of work to tack or gybe, which is what we ended up doing later in the night.

There were still plenty of jellyfish around, but the flying fish were now few and far between.

ATLANTIC DAY 8

ATLANTIC DAY 6 In the evening we hailed a passing tanker, Apache, who gave us a detailed forecast, warning us of the wind rising in the next 48 hours. We hove to at 0300 in F6 northerlies and remained hove to until 1500 the following day, when the sea state looked sailable again.

Under double reefed main and staysail, we set off, broad reaching through a 5m sea. It was fast and exciting, with big breaking waves rearing up all around, but the sun was shining and we were making good miles Eastward.

A big wave crashed on deck, breaking the retaining catch holding down the lazarette cover. I managed to hold it down with my foot. Then two more waves did the same thing. It was time to settle down for the night. We hove to again, taking some time adjusting the sheets to make sure we were drifting in the manner I desired to withstand the upcoming blow. The good Anne Marie would nose her way up the big walls of grey Atlantic, getting to the top, clear of the white water, then topple, glide or lurch her way down the back side of the wave into the trough below.

42

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Opposite clockwise from top left: having many small water bottles prevents large scale contamination at sea; Bermuda sailmaker Steve and his parrot; heaving to in big seas; nets for the vegetables and fruit; mid-Atlantic selfie; alot of time was spent running; “Land ho!” comes the call from Oz

When coming down from Canada, we were pumping by hand, which is the most accurate way of counting the water ingress, but you need a strong crew who can cope with the work. For the Atlantic crossing with just three, we would have had to have been a crew of supermen to sail the boat and also pump the ocean back out, so it was really important that our 12v bilge pump system worked well.

Today was not one of those days. I was awakened from my bunk to the loud sloshing of water. Upon opening the bilge I was disappointed to see the water only 6in off the alternator. I had rigged a system so a red light went on by the helm if the water level reached a certain height. If the system failed, it might not be noticed by the helm for some time. Now we were quite close to a critical situation. Was the leak rate still standard, or had something changed in the gale the previous day?

“Oz, we’ve got a bilge full of water here mate,” I called to my crew mate and right hand man on this mission.

“Urggh,” is Oz’s standard grunt when arising from slumber and this was soon followed by a loud nautical curse as he peered down into the deep, dark noisy bilge.

He darted for the hand pump, but the water had not yet reached the electrics on the engine, and I had fortuitously just fixed and remounted the engine pump, so I suggested we start the engine. I said: “I’ll take the peanut butter out [stuffed in the disconnected exhaust to stop water coming in] and you go up top.”

So we fired up the engine, threw the lever on the pump and watched the level go down. Panic over.

SIMON ALLAN

“I was awakened by the loud sloshing of water. Upon opening the bilge I was disappointed to see the water only 6in off the alternator.

Now we were quite close to a critical situation. Was the leak rate still standard, or had something changed in the gale the previous day?”

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

43

ANNE MARIE But this motivated me to get to the bottom of the bilge pump issue, which I duly did a few days later. The finished product, I say it myself, wouldn’t have looked out of place on a superyacht! However, making it happen, with everyone losing a watch of sleep while we did the fix, was to take its toll. Our body clocks were messed up and the next few days were difficult.

ATLANTIC DAY 11 It was a breakfast of chapatis, eggs and beans, which included me covering myself and the galley in halfcooked egg, as a big roller left over from the previous night’s confused sea turned up my pan! The boys were doing well, although it was noticeable that a lot less domestic work was happening, due to everyone being dog tired. We could really have done with some more clement weather for us all to recharge our batteries.

Exceedingly high marks must be given to Tim, who the previous day, in a still pretty unsettled sea, spent nearly all afternoon in the galley thumping and kneading a dough to make a brioche, a feat he completed in the early evening, and a great sweet chilli sauce to boot!

Breakfast the following morning was a treat, thick slices of the best brioche I have ever eaten in mid-atlantic (to be fair, it would not have been out of place in the best French boulangerie), with jam or Nutella, depending on your taste. We cooked either cake or bread in the pressure cooker nearly every day – I wouldn’t go to sea without one!

Dipping the tanks showed us that we had consumed 210 litres of diesel. Not bad. One fifth of our capacity, for covering approaching half the distance back to Falmouth.

C/O SIMON ALLAN

ATLANTIC DAY 14

From top: Tim,

“My hackles rose at the sound of a wave behind me and before I knew it I was engulfed. I put my head down and hung on, as I was submerged completely while it broke around us” 44

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Simon and Oz in St Mary’s; Anne Marie passing Pendennis Point after a 9,000 mile voyage from Vancouver

Thick fog descended but the wind picked up again.

When the fog cleared we got a new forecast of winds up to 30 kts in a few days. This was a bit of a blow, as we were all getting deeply fatigued and another gale was all we and the boat needed. Tim got into the galley and produced an excellent chocolate cake, which took our minds off it for a while. The warm nights of the Caribbean were now a long way behind.

At 0330, we were hit by a large random wave. I was at the helm, and the sea was not at all exceptional, yet my hackles rose at the sound of a wave behind me, and before I knew it, I was engulfed by the sea. I was sitting on the steering box, put my head down to the wheel and hung on, as I was submerged completely whilst the wave broke over us. As soon as it had passed, I surveyed the scene and saw that the poles lashed to a starboard stanchion had broken free. In fact the stanchion itself had ripped out of the deck. These poles were now being dragged along beside us, still attached at the shrouds. I tooted the foghorn continuously and before long the guys arrived on deck to help.

ATLANTIC DAY 18 Midday saw us having to drop the main. This is an operation which is very difficult at sea, unless the

Tel: +44 (0)1206 302863 Tel: +44 (0)1206 302863 Email: lawrencesails@btconnect.com Email: lawrencesails@btconnect.com Rob Masons “Myfanwy” 1897 “what a beauty”

“Proud to have been chosen as the sailmaker for “Mink”

www.hscboats.co.uk

“Mink”, Herreshoff Buzzards Bay 25, 1914, sailing off Mystic, USA

Fox's M&B Classic Boat half page.qxp_Layout 1 21/08/2017 14:35 Page 1

Pr Ma id de e PBrr Min G with iidta ad re ei e B ni wat

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The complete refit service for all classic yachts At Fox’s Marina & Boatyard, our team is a great mix of experienced, cruising/racing sailors and time served engineers and craftsmen. We have multiple, inhouse departments including a sprayshop, workshops for both modern composite and traditional shipwrighting, rigging, stainless fabrication, marine engineering and electronics.

If you own a classic motor or sailing yacht, we have the experience, technical expertise and facilities to offer you a complete refit and repair solution.

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Fox’s Marina Ipswich, Suffolk, IP2 8SA +44 (0) 1473 689111 foxs@foxsmarina.com

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CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

45

ANNE MARIE enough to reach, so I grabbed him by the jacket and popped him back on the boat. All over in a very short time, but it felt like an age. Down below to get warm, a full change of clothes, a cut to the head dressed with superglue, and Oz was right as rain again.

ATLANTIC DAY 22

conditions are good, and one which always makes me worry. My preferred technique is to run dead downwind, then let the throat halyard go until the gaff is almost vertical, then haul the peak down by either the topsail sheet or the gaff vang (if you have one rigged, which offshore I invariably do). We performed this operation three times during the crossing, and it works. It’s much better, in my opinion, than heading up into the wind (under motor), making the boat bang and crash around, or heaving to and dropping the sail into the water, whereupon the boat pays off and makes it all a real struggle.

We had to drop the main this time as it had chafed on the spreader, and needed a patch. I was ill-inclined to take any chances now.

Whilst still working on the sail, standing back aft near the wheel, with the mainsail stowed and Tim steering downwind in an easy sea under poled-out staysail and tickover engine, I heard a rather urgent call of ‘Simon!’.

Oz had been working at the mast tidying away ropes – I looked forward but he was nowhere to be seen. I scanned the deck, turning my gaze aft again before I heard an even more urgent ‘Simon!’ I looked forward again, and again nothing, until suddenly Oz emerged out of the sea, about 10ft to leeward, being towed along by the boat. He had been sweating a line on the spiderband at the mast, and the rope had slipped from its pin as he put his weight behind it, sending him flying backwards, over the side. Being the tenacious and strong fellow that he is, he had not loosened his grip, despite being submerged completely twice, his oilies filling with water and creating an enormous drag. He had managed to turn himself now so he was skidding across the top of the water, we were probably only doing about 4 kts, but he was too far away from the boat to reach. I was going to crack a joke about his precarious predicament, but his grim expression alerted me to his potential sense of humour failure.

It was obvious that his grip would not last too much longer so I had to do something fast; I was just about to go forward to find the line he was on to pull him in to the boat that way, when a wave brought him close 46

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Above: Simon back on land with his family Florence, aged three, Hugo and Noah, both 12, and wife Katie with Nancy, aged one

Less than 300 miles to Falmouth and the little shortwave radio started picking up the BBC. It was fantastic to be able to listen to some test match special, and also hear the shipping forecast, which had storm force 10 hitting Thames, and gales in every UK area, due to the low which had just passed us. Unfortunately just as we were enjoying this, a cheeky little wave slopped directly onto the radio. Ah well...

At this point we were all dead beat, and I was getting concerned about closing land, as fatigue is a creeper, and although one can keep going indefinitely at sea, when closing land, with the traffic issues and navigational hazards, mistakes are all too easy to make. I have sailed around the coast of Cornwall since a nipper, and know all too well the hazards it presents.

By the late afternoon rain showers were cutting visibility down to a couple of boat lengths. We were still in a large sea and approaching the shipping lanes of Land’s End, with dark soon upon us. “I am thinking of going to Scilly for the night, Oz, what do you think?” I asked. We had shortly before been surprised by a ship looming out of the murk no less than 500m from us on a collision course.

“I don’t know,” was the response, firmly leaving it in my hands! A quick calculation, and I reckoned that we could be tied up to a buoy in St Mary’s by dusk, or headed for the Lizard on a grotty night. I chose the former.

At the end of this epic passage, the three of us peered anxiously into the foggy gloom trying to make landfall.

“Land ho!” was the cry, and what a landfall it was! The Western Rocks, barely two miles away, cold, sombre, as heartless a bit of land as one could wish to see, but to me it was heaven!

St Agnes reared from the gloom, and before we knew it we were past Spanish Ledge and into St Mary’s sound, dropping the trysail, coming around the newly built harbour wall, and making fast to a friendly green buoy.

For the first time in more than 60 years, Anne Marie was back in home waters.

We could have slept for days, and enjoyed the pleasures of St Mary’s, but the voyage was not over yet.

After a rather humorous visit from the Scilly Constabulary (lovely people!), who cleared us in, we set sail in a good north westerly for our final destination, Falmouth, where my family was eagerly awaiting our homecoming. It was emotional to sail past Pendennis Point in Anne Marie, with my family and friends waving banners and tooting horns, then being reunited, after such a long absence, on the pontoon of Pendennis Marina. It will take a couple of years of hard work now to fix Anne Marie up, and I am sure that there will be many more difficult times to come, but stage one of the plan is complete. She is back home after an amazing adventure.

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47

11/08/2017 16:09

SIMON WINTER

Insuring the past What is an old yacht worth? Deciding such matters is Simon Winterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bread and butter STORY ROB PEAKE

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CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

S

imon Winter tells a good story about hanging head first over the windward side of a fishing smack, banging along in a head sea, trying to squirt ‘gunk’ into a tiny seam in the hull that was threatening to sink the boat on the other tack. “We made it home, let’s put it that way,” he recalls with a laugh.

Tales of derring-do on working boats don’t quite fit with the stereotypical image of an insurance broker, but Winter was toddling around on smacks before he can remember and his family have owned working boats all his life – the smacks Rosa & Ada (1908), Unity of Lynn (1906 and on the National Register of Historic Vessels) and Maria (1886) and Bristol Channel pilot cutters Cornubia (1911) and Mascotte (1904 and also on the National Register of Historic Vessels).

His father left school to work on the Thames sailing barges in the last days of trading under sail, and ended up becoming chairman of Medway Ports. Winter Jnr went to the highly academic Canterbury school, before university and a stint in the City as an investment banker. He was running the yacht account for an insurance broker, thinking he’d found the best way of combining a passion with work (‘and to date I haven’t tired of it – that’s the danger!’), when family reasons persuaded him to move south west in 2006. He set up as Simon Winter Marine, specialising in classic boats (75% of his business is classic), and today insures most of the working boat fleet along with many classic yachts around the world, from 21ft canoe yawls to 100ft Fifes.

His office in Seaton, Devon, is perhaps more working boat than Edwardian yacht, and Winter himself is agreeably unshowy, exuding the energy and quick-thinking of the City broker, coupled with a sleevesrolled-up approach to things that is typical of many sailors. The company’s insurance policies, while standard in many respects, sometimes reflect his no-nonsense approach.

“I don’t believe in discounts for qualifications,” he says. “You find people with a certificate in their hands who are calculating whether or not to anchor in exactly 3.62m of water. A lead line and some common sense will tell you where you can anchor, not a one-week course.”

A large part of his job involves putting a value on yachts that are often irreplaceable objects. “The adage is that the boat is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it,” he says.

“As far as insurances are concerned, we would always prefer to insure on the market value, not replacement or new build value.

Market value can be difficult. We work closely with surveyors and owners and yacht brokers on this. We’ve never had one where we haven’t been able to reach some accommodation between parties.

“Obviously you can’t replace a lot of these boats. They’re unique. But they still do have a value.”

Can you ever add on the restoration cost to a boat’s value?

“Possibly,” he says, “but it’s unusual. The rebuild would have had to have been done recently.”

Winter is happy enough to talk insurance, but really he wants to talk boats, and sitting in front of a massive photo of the 2012 St Mawes Pilot Cutter Review on his office wall, he launches into ‘what is a classic boat’.

“If it looks right, it probably is right,” he says, before adding: “I think that’s actually a Tommi Nielsen quote! There’s a long development of what most people would call a classic, boats like Mariquita or Kelpie, and then there is where we are today. A Twister, for example, or a Vertue and all those pocket cruisers – are they classics? I would describe them as design classics, but not classic yachts.

“If you row away from your boat and think ‘that’s beautiful’, then you have a classic. On a smack, the look of them, at anchor particularly, they’re just amazing.”

Refreshingly, Winter is not short of an opinion and in a lively conversation about yachts old and new – amid which he laughs at himself as a ‘ruddy-faced insurance broker’ – he shares thoughts garnered through first-hand experience of the classic scene big and small.

“It’s day in, day out what we do, but you can always learn,” he says. “We have built up a huge network of experts around the world to help assess claims and support customers.

“We describe ourselves as specialist, which by definition means that we do understand the market. We understand how the boats are constructed, how they should be maintained and run, the type of sailing they are doing and from a practical background, the areas where they are sailing and mooring.

“Generally all yacht policies will cover and exclude the same things, but as far as the classic yacht policy is concerned, it’s as much to do with the broker you’re dealing with, plus the support that we have from underwriters in settling claims.

“At the information-gathering stage, pre-inception of the policy, we’re asking all the relevant questions, which if you’re not immersed in this work you may not consider. That means there’s less chance of a claim potentially being declined.”

He says there is no common claim among wooden boat owners, although the nature of the material means ‘gradual deterioration’ is seen by insurers as a higher risk than on plastic or steel boats.

“If a claim is made, a specialist broker will understand the nature of the issue and can assist with managing repairs, locating suitable surveyors, yards, shipwrights and can have a sensible discussion on the type of repair, or how the repair is carried out. These are all three or four way discussions between the owner, surveyor, insurance broker and shipyard.”

As a sailor himself, he is more than aware that having to make a call to the insurance broker is precisely what every client wants to avoid. “A five-yearly survey means problems can be picked up early,” he says, “and meanwhile, even though in the majority of cases it is like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, we continue to remind clients of the importance of checking boats regularly, ensuring moorings are adequate and in good condition, lines doubled if necessary. The basic rules of seamanship never change.”

Winter is a family man with children at home aged from five to 16. He relishes the Devon life and his eight-minute commute to work by bicycle, but he’s less than complimentary about Lyme Bay as his home waters. “I used to sail in the Bristol Channel, which could be called ‘interesting’, but at least there you can sail a pilot cutter!”

“If you row away from your boat and think ‘that is beautiful’, then you have a classic”

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

49

SALCOMBE YACHT CLUB REGATTA

Yawls in the sun A baby cries as she rubs sand into her eye while nearby two boys are

competitive. Races are won and lost by seconds and local knowledge

digging a moat around their castle. Prone on a sunlounger, mum

counts as the fleet navigates from the bay up into the estuary.

glances from behind the pages of a magazine as a handful of

1988 of Y141, drawn by Rowsell and Morrison of Exmouth with flatter

breeze, yards off the beach. Salcombe on a hot Sunday afternoon is

aft sections, and built in Salcombe by Dave Gibbens, caused

as classic an English seaside scene as there is – and the town’s native

concerns for the class’ future after almost a clean sweep in her first

yawls, weaving their way through the family-boat melée on the first

season. Class rules were tightened to ensure racing remained close.

day of their annual regatta – add a glorious twist.

The yawls can trace their history back to the early 1800s, when

America’s Cup designer Ian Howlett is one who has designed yawls. He drew Storm (Y168) in 2001 and then Black Tern (Y183) in

they were lobster or long-line fishing boats, the straight stem

2006, raced by yawl builder Jim Stone and Will Henderson. The

bolstering progress out through the estuary tide, before the man and

association rules dictate that all must be timber construction

boy on board dropped the main to operate under mizzen and jib

including spars, a clinker hull with steamed ribs and frames, fastened

alone, up to 10 miles off the coast.

with copper nails and roves. A bronze centreplate, and a bronze shoe

Tim Street’s history of the yawls reports the first instance of the

running the length of its case, balance the sail area of around

‘Licensed Watermen’s Boats’ racing together in Salcombe town

174.8sq ft (16.24m²). The oldest boats still racing are both from 1939,

regatta in 1853. Today, as with other former working boat fleets,

Blackbird (Y14) and Choice (Y7, built by Morgan Giles). The last boat

racing has become the raison d’etre and a newly built yawl goes for

was built by Mike Atfield in 2010.

several tens of thousands of pounds. More than 180 exist – owners

50

Design steps have been made over the years, but the arrival in

seemingly identical wooden sailing boats glide past on the afternoon

This year victory went to Black Tern, after two firsts over six races.

range from local farmers to city barristers – and between 40 and 50

There were four other race winners over the week, including John

take part in the annual Salcombe Yacht Club regatta, this year

Tremlett of Haines Boatyard, who arrived fresh from winning the

sponsored by Salcombe Gin, where the racing is famously

Captain’s Cup, top of the XOD fleet at Lendy Cowes Week.

CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2017

Clockwise from top: gig rowers find themselves in the midst of the fleet tacking up to the first mark in the mouth of Salcombe estuary; Y172 Chicken Run cutting in close to the beach to avoid the worst of the ebb; from left Y189 leads Y166, Y158 and Y177 back into the estuary; Graham and Molly Pike on Y154 Olive Branch tacking up towards the finish off Salcombe; Oliver Alsop helms Y160 with crew Tristan Stone, of Stones Boatyard, which looks after many of the yawls.

DAVID BOYD

THE FAIRLIE YEARS Known for designing British 12-Metres for the America's Cup, David Boyd also made a significant contribution to the legend of William Fife III WORDS EUAN ROSS

T

Facing page: David Boyd at his drawing board

52

hrough the 1950s and 1960s, David Boyd was as famous as any naval architect might become in Britain. Boyd’s racing yachts had won some of the most prestigious competitions of his era.

His 6-Metres won the Seawanhaka Cup three times, the equally high-profile One Ton Cup, more than half-adozen Solent Silver Medals and top-scoring individual yacht honours in the British America’s Cup. Boyd could also claim the season’s champion in 5.5-Metres and Windermere 17s. These winners are, of course, in addition to David Boyd’s best-known work from the post-war era – the three sublime, yet polemic, 12-Metre yachts designed for the America’s Cup. Even so, as a professional yacht designer attached to a successful boatyard, there is a common misperception that success eluded David Boyd. While his 50-odd designs comprise a portfolio of uniformly high quality, by 1965 the capricious nature of the fourth estate had left Boyd’s hard-won reputation in tatters. Through two America’s Cup campaigns, unrealistic expectations and negative press also raised doubt in the minds of potential clients during Boyd’s intellectual peak and constrained the magnitude of his life’s work.

The first matter to address is David Boyd’s largely unrecognised contribution to the famous industry of William Fife III. For a variety of reasons, Fife’s boats were particularly well regarded during Boyd’s tenure in the Fairlie drawing office. Perhaps coincidentally, demand dropped off significantly after Boyd crossed the Clyde to join Alexander Robertson. More certainly, Boyd evolved his characteristic style and matured as a designer while working with Fife during an era when classic yachts of enduring beauty were conceived.

But perhaps we should begin at the beginning. David Boyd was born in Fairlie on 15 September 1902, eldest

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

son of David and Janet Boyd, née Allan. Clyde View, the Boyd’s family home, was directly opposite Fife’s famous boatyard, close enough to be redolent with the spicy tang of wood-shavings and hot-run pitch. Then, as now, William Fife III was admired throughout the world for his sweetness of line and his celebrated yard was renowned for excellent build quality. Boyd’s father worked across the road, as had generations of Boyds. In the fullness of time, the genealogy of these two proud Fairlie families linked up when Susan Curry, a classmate and a member of the Fife clan, married David’s brother Andy; Fife III’s grandfather being the common ancestor.

Young David was immersed in the magical world of his father’s place of work as soon as he could walk. As a precocious 10-year-old, he watched 15-Metre yacht The Lady Anne progress. Inevitably, a childhood enthusiasm for the ‘theatre’ of boatbuilding became a lifetime passion for handsome yachts and fine craftsmanship.

David’s father was a ship’s joiner and model-maker.

Going back another generation, Grandpa Boyd model yachts were renowned for their quality nationwide. The Yachtsman Magazine of 1891 carried a feature on the family business: “….the wee boat-making business of Mr David Boyd at Fairlie is in its way as interesting as the greater industry of the Messrs Fife… they one and all have a look of class and finish about them in every way worthy of Fairlie.” Much later, when David was working on the Sovereign tank tests at the Stevens Institute, he gained the respect of the team at the Davidson Laboratory by crafting his own model variations in the manner learned at his father’s knee.

Young David was boat daft. He liked nothing better than to yarn with the ‘summer professionals’ who ran the local yachts – laconic fisherfolk who knew the tides,

DAVID BOYD COLLECTION

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

53

DAVID BOYD

DAVID BOYD COLLECTION

“You could say I grew up in boatbuilding, I never wanted to do anything else. When I was old enough I joined a shipyard and trained as a draftsman”

Above: Fife craftsmen; David Boyd's father is second row, third from the left

54

winds and waters of the west coast inside out. They could wring the last tenth of a knot out of a deep-lying skiff before they ever shipped aboard a 6-Metre yacht.

At the turn of the century, 97 per cent of the Scottish fishing fleet was sailing craft.

Speaking to journalist Peter O’Loughlin at the launch of Kurrewa V in 1964, Boyd reminisced: “You could say I grew up in boatbuilding, I never wanted to do anything else. When I was old enough I joined a shipyard and trained as a draftsman. I worked on cargo ships, and freighters, but I was always keener on small boats.”

David also confided in George Findlay of the Glasgow Herald, telling him that: “Since his boyhood, he had dreamt of designing an America’s Cup yacht.”

Fortunately, David’s academic aptitude matched his ambitions and he was accepted for an apprenticeship with the Ardrossan Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company in December 1916. For a family of skilled artisans, this white-collar career-path would have been both a financial burden and a source of pride. Boyd served out his five-year shipbuilding apprenticeship at Ardrossan, with two evenings a week at the Royal Technical College – now Strathclyde University. He graduated in 1922 and shortly thereafter followed the family tradition and joined the team at Fife’s. It was the perfect opportunity to pursue his boyhood dream and receive, in effect, a design master-class.

A little more than a year later, however, Boyd was attracted to a more senior position with the British Marine Motor and Launch Co Ltd at Bowling. The sojourn at Bowling was lucrative and provided invaluable experience for the aspiring naval architect.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Though noted for his racing yachts, over the course of his professional life, Boyd managed as many power boat commissions as sailing boat contracts. However, the shrinking British Marine order-book sent Boyd back to Fairlie in 1924.

During Boyd’s second stint at Fairlie, the Fife office designed what many consider to be the finest yachts ever to emerge from the famous yard. For example, the 81ft cutter Hallowe’en of 1925, which still holds the oldcourse record for the Fastnet Race, and was perhaps even more successful during her sojourn in the United States as Cotton Blossom IV, and the 92ft ketch Eileen (now Belle Aventure) of 1928.

Fife welcomed Boyd back into the fold, and it was not long before the young man was making a substantial contribution. With regard to Dodo IV of 1926, for example, David, at just 23 years of age, was entrusted to deliver a particularly demanding brief. It was a rare opportunity for the young designer to show what he could do, and break the bounds of tradition with a generous budget to boot. Adam Bergius, son of the client, later wrote: “Here was something on a grander scale where practical considerations were not the only factor and there was room left for the Fife artistry and power to be expressed in the design. The young draftsman entrusted to this work was none other than David Boyd who later designed Circe and Sceptre... He (Boyd) conceived a handsome, powerful hull.”

Most of Fife’s and indeed Boyd’s work is imbued with a very definite and characteristic aesthetic. Dodo IV was very different; she was an auxiliary bermudan ketch with a centre-cockpit, 60ft on the waterline and not much

FROM THE BOOK: WILLIAM MANERA BERGIUS AND HIS DODOS

DAVID BOYD

Top: Dodo IV’s 1926 accommodation plan drawn by Boyd during his employment with Fife.

Above: Fife’s yard at Fairlie. The Boyd family house, Clyde DAVID BOYD COLLECTION

View, is one of the terrace opposite.

Right: William Fife III. Far right: Dodo IV (1926) under sail

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

55

DAVID BOYD

BEKEN OF COWES

“Since his boyhood, he had dreamt of designing an America’s Cup yacht”

Above: Cambria.

Boyd assisted Fife with her drawings.

Below: half model of the 6-Metre Circe, winner of the Seawanhaka Cup 1938, carved by Boyd

56

more on deck. Intriguingly, Dodo had a fin keel and skeg-hung rudder – the only boat to go down the ways at Fairlie with that underwater configuration. Her firm, dinghy-like sections and tight turn at the garboards to the keel-fin suggest relatively light displacement, while the buttocks and diagonals are those of an easily-driven and simply quite beautiful modern yacht.

So when the Fife order book began to fill up for the unexpectedly buoyant seasons of 1928 and 1929, Boyd was 25 years old and already a trusted member of the design team. Now, both qualified and experienced, Boyd brought a head-full of ideas and a new level of numeracy to the drawing office. He assisted William Fife with design inputs, detailed drawings, building specifications and construction supervision on, among others the new-generation 8-Metres Claryl, Cluaran and Finola, the 12-Metre Zinita, the 23-Metre Cambria, and auxiliary ketch Eileen.

Some of these designs have been credited to another Fairlie ‘draftsman’ – Fife’s nephew, Robert Balderston,

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

as during the period in question (1922-1930), Lloyd’s lists the yard’s output as the product of ‘W & RB Fife’.

But by the mid to late 1920s, when Boyd was emerging as a significant design talent, the Fairlie boatyard was extremely busy. Balderston was responsible for the day-to-day management of the entire build operation. It would seem unlikely that he was also intimately involved in the design side of the business, at least to an extent which would justify sharing credits with his uncle, especially while Boyd was employed solely to assist Fife in that role. David himself described these designs as having been produced ‘under William Fife’s guidance and supervision’. As far as we have been able to establish from Boyd’s reminiscences, and following a thorough review of the Fife drawings of the period in Boyd’s distinctive hand, there was no substantive technical input from Balderston.

The Fairlie yard was a successful commercial enterprise and success on the racecourse was essential. In the case of the 6-Metre class, for example, intense competition on the water resulted in an extraordinary level of design sophistication, especially through the mid to late 1920s. At that time, the best designers around the world were producing lines which converged on identified ‘sweet spots’; all were quick, if not always equally versatile. Year-on-year changes were often vanishingly small; yet the increasingly sophisticated lines of Reg, Sunshine, Fintra, Coral, Priscilla II and their sister-ships tell a story of marginal gains.

The difference between success and failure might lie within the thickness of a carpenter’s pencil line. Metre boat design had become a highly specialised business and

DAVID BOYD

Above: Priscilla II (Alana), a Fife 6-M from the 1929 season, drawn by Boyd during his time with Fife and later owned by him.

Left: Fife 6-M design from the 1927 season, drawn by Boyd.

Far left: Fintra sailing in the 2013 Fife regatta.

Left: Robert

JIM MCNAIR

Balderston

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

57

COURTESY OF THE ROBERTSON FAMILY

COURTESY OF THE ROBERTSON FAMILY

DAVID BOYD

Balderston, lacking a formal technical education in the design sciences, was not a specialist at this rarefied level.

His contribution to the Fife legacy may have been limited, but he did indeed dabble in yacht design.

Boyd’s son recounts: “Father never thought much of Balderston as a designer and Allan (David Allan Boyd – also a naval architect) thought the same.”

So while Robert Balderston may not have completed his training, nor spent much time at the drawing board, both Boyds confirm the nature of his trade.

As for where Fife ends and Boyd begins during these productive years, neither patriarch nor protégé would have been cognisant, or even considered the question relevant. Boyd relates that he was “given a fair degree of independence”, so he certainly did not feel stifled. Fife, in a 1924 letter to his friend WP Stephens wrote: “I get a lot of work but my nephew (Robert) takes all the drudgery and I am left free to my designing, which is a joy to me rather than work.” It appears that, as the decade passed, Fife’s success allowed substantial delegation of the design development process through collaboration and gentle oversight.

In October 1929 Boyd saw a position advertised in the Glasgow Herald for an in-house designer with the Sandbank boatyard of Alexander Robertson. Replying to Boyd, Alexander stressed that Robertson’s valued their “particularly friendly” business relations with Fife; at the same time, he left the door open for our man to cross the Firth. As events transpired, Fife ‘released’ Boyd fairly amicably. In this respect, Fife was a gentleman. In years past, he collaborated with GL Watson in circumstances that others might have found difficult, he bore no grudges in his dealings with Charles Nicholson, and he was philosophical when Alex ‘stole’ his best designer, just as he had supported 58

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Peter Dickie when he set up business on his own account. Forty years later in 1965, when Boyd retired from Robertson’s and hung out his shingle as a ‘Yacht and Boat Designer and Consultant’, he referred to these formative years thus: “In the course of his career, after a shipyard training, Mr Boyd was closely associated with the late William Fife of Fairlie in the design of a large variety of sailing yachts.” Uffa Fox and John Illingworth certainly gave him a substantial measure of credit for his work in Fife’s design office. Boyd’s friend Hugh Somerville observed that “every yacht he has designed shows that this tall, silvery haired Scot is following in the great tradition of these masters of yacht architecture”.

Boyd’s contribution to the legend of Fife through the second half of the twenties was crucial. William Fife III relied on three generations of boatbuilding experience to meet his marks. But the tried and tested precepts of traditional Darwinian boatbuilding, as practiced in Fairlie would, at least for the period of Boyd’s tenure, be complemented by a new emphasis on the latest design sciences. The Fife/Boyd rapport combined the yard’s incalculable heritage with a fresh analytical perspective to reach levels of elegance and design sophistication that mark this period out as something special. The result was an upturn in the fortunes of the Fairlie yard, with a healthy order-book and renewed success afloat.

So when we look at Boyd’s portfolio, for the purposes of understanding his career as opposed to rewriting history, it may be reasonable to recognise his increasing contribution to Fife’s output during the period 1925-29, in addition to the work produced at British Marine and Robertson’s, and eventually under his own name.

Self-deprecating to a fault, at least in public, David Boyd was always very careful to acknowledge his debt to Fife’s genius and where the buck stopped at Fairlie.

Above: Robertson's Yard, Holy Loch, showing the transverse railway.

Inset: Alexander Robertson

NEXT MONTH The Seawanhaka Cup and America’s Cup years

©Mary Pudney

®

QUALITY CR AFTSMANSHIP EXPERIENCE

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21/08/2017 13:28

Hardware for traditional ships and classic yachts Webshop: www.toplicht.de Free catalogue: „The little Brownie“

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Phone: +49 (0)40 88 90 100 Fax: +49 (0)40 88 90 1011 toplicht@toplicht.de CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

59

The Med’s ‘most beautiful race’ is an honourable affair, even if the crews do compete for the Sword of Admiral Satan PHOTORAPHS BY ANNE BEAUGÉ From Saint-Tropez the fleet races 680 miles, stopping in Sardinia and Sicily, to a finish in Malta’s Grand Harbour.

Judging it by the destinations alone, it’s not hard to understand why even in a sea where spectacular regattas abound, the Trophée Bailli de Suffren is known as the Med’s ‘most beautiful’ race.

The winner claims the Sword of Honour of Admiral Satan. The trophy is named after Pierre André de Suffren de Saint-Tropez, an 18th century French admiral known as Admiral Satan by his enemies. More popular at home, he was given the title of the ‘Bailli de Suffren’ (bailiff) by the Maltese Knights of St John.

After the boats were blessed by Saint-Tropez’s parish priest Monsieur l’Abbé Jean-Paul Gouardin, the 2017 fleet set sail on 24 June and arrived in Malta nine glorious days later. The 16th edition of this ‘gentleman’s race’ included classics old and new. We asked photographer Anne Beaugé to capture the glory of Le Trophée as she sailed aboard the 1939 Henry Gruber yawl Nordwind.

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CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Main picture: Nordwind crew, a few miles before arrival in Gozo, Malta.

Left: Downwind on Nordwind with mizzen staysail set.

Right: A modern build Taos departing from Trapani, Sicily

TROPHÉE BAILLI DE SUFFREN

Clockwise from top left: Gail Atkinson, on the Nordwind’s winch; cliffs on the west side of Gozo; Isis (1935) departing from Trapani; before the start of the last leg in Malta, Gozo to Valletta; Nordwind sailing with mizzen staysail – Antoine Odier is tightening the boom preventer; crew dressed in white for a party in the yacht club of Porto Rotondo, Sardinia; 15-Metre Mariska departing from Trapani; Georges Korhel, race director, and Alex Veccia, Nordwind’s captain (right)

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CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

From top: silhouettes on night watch; tools of the trade; dancing on deck in Saint-Tropez

I

t was in 1914 that the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co built the first Buzzards Bay 12 ½. It was, of course, designed

by Nat Herreshoff who initially called the class the Buzzards Bay Boys Boat, but which subsequently acquired other names such as Doughdish, Bullseye and the Herreshoff 12 but generally became known as the H12½.

It is a reflection of the extraordinary versatility of both Herreshoff the designer and his boatbuilding company that the prototype, Robyn, was built more-or-less alongside the 162ft rivetted steel schooner Katoura, the biggest boat Herreshoff ever produced, and the gaff cutter Resolute (bronze plating on steel frames) which would successfully defend the America’s Cup in 1920.

Robyn was 15ft 8½in long (the class name referred to the waterline length) and had a long keel with just 2ft 5in draft.

She had a large open cockpit, a gaff mainsail and a jib with its own boom to allow self-tacking. HMC built a batch of twenty boats in the winter of 1914/15, selling them for $420 each, and by 1943 had built about 360. They were, according to Maynard Bray in the book Herreshoff of Bristol, “the best loved of all NGH’s designs”.

BACK TO THE FUTURE The Marlin Heritage 23 may be a new model, but it is a boat steeped in maritime history WORDS NIGEL SHARP

Herreshoff’s design technique always began with a half model which he sculpted himself and from which he would then take the lines. Two years after Robyn was built he decided to use her half model and change its scale to “develop the offsets and construction drawings”, according to Bray, to produce a larger boat. The result was the Fish class which was 20ft 9in long with a waterline of 16ft. Other than the increase in size and the addition of a small cuddy, she was essentially the same as the H 12 ½. The first 22 boats – which were built for the Seawanhaka Corinthian YC on Long Island Sound at a cost of $875 each – were gaff rigged, but many of the later ones were Bermudan.

Herreshoff subsequently developed the Fish design to produce a cruising version, the Marlin. This had a proper cabin, containing two berths and a toilet, and an inboard engine. However, whereas HMC produced 40-something Fish, the Marlin failed to attract buyers and it is probable that only three were ever built.

Nat Herreshoff died in 1938, and in 1945 HMC finally closed its doors. Two years later, EL Goodwin, who had taken over the nearby Cape Cod Shipbuilding immediately

before the war, purchased many of Nat Herreshoff’s designs smaller than 50ft, along with the building moulds, patterns and jigs that went with them.

Cape Cod Shipbuilding was at the very forefront of GRP technology, building its first boat in this then-revolutionary material in 1948. A few years later, Goodwin decided to build GRP versions of Herreshoff’s Marlin, and this process began by using a number of items from HMC’s original tooling to produce the plug from which the GRP mould was then taken. The hull shape of the new boat was exactly the same as Herreshoff had designed but with one difference: Goodwin increased the length by adding a counter stern. The main reason he did this was to allow a permanent backstay.

“Grandpa knew folks didn’t want the stress of adjusting the running backstays while underway,” said EL’s granddaughter Wendy, who is now president of the company. It has to be said, the result was a prettier boat, without the somewhat abrupt transom stern of the original.

The first GRP Marlin was launched in 1955 and had a masthead bermudan rig, similar to that of the later boats in the Fish class. Cape Cod soon began to produce them with

MARLIN HERITAGE 23

“More and more we are finding that people have less time to overnight and are doing more daysailing” two different internal layouts: a Cruiser with more emphasis on interior accommodation but a smaller cockpit, and a Daysailer with a bigger cockpit. Buyers of both models were able to choose between a self-tacking jib or an overlapping genoa.

After more than half a century of production, the last of these Marlins – the 83rd – was built in 2008. By that time Cape Cod had decided to give the Marlin a new lease of life, and so the Marlin Heritage 23 was introduced. The hull is exactly the same as the 1950s Marlin – and, with the exception of the counter stern, exactly to Herreshoff’s design – but further modifications were made to the layout. “We always felt the Marlin Cruiser had too small a cockpit and the Daysailer’s was too large,” Wendy told me. “With the Marlin Heritage 23 we feel the ratio is just right. It’s perfect for four or six people to go sailing for the afternoon and ideal for a

couple to overnight. More and more we are finding that people have less time to overnight and are doing more daysailing.”

The Marlin Heritage’s hull and deck are built of hand-laid fibreglass. There is an externally bolted 636kg lead keel, at the aft end of which the bronze rudder heel fitting is fixed. Gloss-varnished mahogany toerails and coamings prevent any danger of the boat having a plastic look. “The older Marlins had a stripe of clear gelcoat on the cuddy cabin to allow sunlight in,” Wendy said, “but it really just gave them a dated look. When re-designing the Marlin Heritage we knew the boat was begging for a beautiful coaming.”

The outer part of the coaming is in a single 19ft 6in length, 14in thick and adhered to the GRP coachroof coaming forward and laminated to another 5/8in thick piece of mahogany in way of the cockpit.

The stainless steel rudder stock emerges at the aft end of the cockpit, and the position of the forward end of the varnished ash tiller ensures that, with six people in the cockpit, some will be forward of the helmsperson and others aft.

There is a pair of hinged companionway doors – Perspex within a varnished mahogany frame – which can be removed and stowed away. Down below there is a

A brief history of the Cape Cod Power Dory Company Brothers Myron and Charles Gurney first set up in

Left to right:

of military tug boats and launches – three tugs every

business together in Wareham MA in 1885, to build

Name change

fortnight in 1943, for instance – and the company’s

wagons and carriages, but it wasn’t long before they

and new

labour force expanded to more than a hundred to cope

became concerned that the invention of the rubber tyre

premises in 1919;

with the work.

would put an end to it. Having built small skiffs for

EL Goodwin,

themselves, in 1899 they began to do so for other people,

whose grand

Dinghy designed by the US Navy – in 1948, and its first

and the Cape Cod Power Dory Co came into being.

daughter Wendy

aluminium spars in 1952 (through its subsidiary company

runs the

Zephyr Spars).

Twenty years later they moved premises, forced to do so by the building of a new bridge, the Narrows Bridge,

In 1979 EL Goodwin handed over the reins of the

which would cut off access to Buzzards Bay and the

company to his son Gordon, and in 1993 Gordon’s

open sea, and at the same time changed the name of the

daughter Wendy began working there. For about a year,

company to the Cape Cod Shipbuilding Corp.

the three generations worked together until EL died in

In 1935 GS Williams took over the company when

July 1994 at the age of 95. As part of Cape Cod’s

Charles Gurney died. Four years later, EL Goodwin, who

centenary celebrations in 1999, each of the 37 boats built

was a dealer for Cape Cod boats, met with Williams to

that year received a special ribbon-shaped plaque.

express concerns about declining quality. About six months later, Goodwin bought the company.

During the Second World War, Goodwin travelled to Washington to secure contracts to build large numbers

66

company now

Cape Cod produced its first GRP boat – an MK

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Cape Cod is still very much a family company with Wendy at the helm since 2011. Her sister Andrea also worked for the company for about five years. The company currently employs eleven people.

MARLIN HERITAGE 23 LOA

23ft (7m) LWL

16ft 11in (5.1m) BEAM

7ft 7in (2.3m) DRAUGHT

3ft 8in (1.1m) SAIL AREA

270sq ft (25m2)

MARLIN HERITAGE 23

GRP liner on which there are various pieces of teak trim and, in the sole, a teak and holly panel. The layout provides a 7ft settee/berth each side, the feet of which are partially under the cockpit seats, and a triangular stowage area forward (which can also be used as a children’s berth) under which there is a Porta Potti chemical toilet and above which there is a deck hatch.

There is a 34-litre insulated cool box below the companionway step and a removable table, which stows in a cockpit locker, can be deployed in the cabin or the cockpit. The headliner is fiberglass, but has been textured to look like leather.

The Yanmar 2YM15 diesel engine is installed under the cockpit sole (with access from behind the cool box) and it drives a Gori 2-Blade feathering propeller. A 41-litre stainless steel fuel tank is installed outboard to starboard, and is balanced by the battery to port.

In terms of mast height and sail area, the bermudan rig is essentially the same as the later boats in the Fish class, but some of its details have been updated. Whereas the previous Marlins had two pairs of lower shrouds, the Heritage has just one and the spreaders are swept back.

“This gives the rig a more modern look and performance,” said Wendy, “and it also cleans the deck up a bit as there is one less set of chainplates to dance around.” The silver anodised aluminium spars are made

by Cape Cod’s subsidiary company Zephyr Spars. The jib is set on roller furling gear and is self-tacking, without a boom but sheeted to an athwartships track just forward of the mast. There is an optional extra – the Light Air Package – which includes a 130% genoa with tracks on the side decks and Lewmar winches on mahogany bases fixed to the coaming.

Each side of the companionway there is a Lewmar self-tailing winch and a double Spinlock jammer which allows the jib sheet, the jib halyard, the main halyard, the reefing lines and the main foot outhaul to be controlled from the cockpit.

The first Marlin Heritage 23 was launched in August 2014 and then shipped to her owner, a resident of the Grand Cayman Islands. He had been experiencing some frustration trying to buy a different boat from another company, but when he saw a Cape Cod Bull’s Eye in a local boatyard and heard that a bigger version was being produced, he soon switched allegiance.

Wendy has taken the opportunity to enjoy sailing the new boat herself. “The Marlin Heritage 23 has more power and excitement than our 15ft Herreshoff models,” she said, “but she is as easily controlled as the smaller 68

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Left to right: A view through the companionway to the two berths; Yanmar diesel engine under the cockpit; tiller steered and permanent backstay

models with just two finger tips on the tiller. I can happily sail singlehanded across Buzzards Bay in a stiff south-west wind but also motor home if I get becalmed.

The combination of traditional design with modern convenience isn’t a new concept, but this particular design has sparked in me a new type of sailing, one with pleasant confidence.”

Wendy is also clearly delighted with the Classic Boat Award that came the company's way after readers voted for the Marlin Heritage 23 earlier this year. “It was a beautiful surprise when it arrived,” she said. “It is a very special recognition from Classic Boat's readers.”

Cape Cod Shipbuilding’s current range of boats Apart from the Marlin Heritage 23, Cape Cod still produces four of Nat Herreshoff’s other designs: the H12½ and the Bull’s Eye, which have the same hull but with different rigs and deck layouts (a total of about 1,500 of these have been built to date); the bermudan-rigged Mercury 15, which is available with a centreboard or a keel (about 1,400 built, in wood before 1952 and then in GRP); and the Goldeneye 18, which is essentially an enlarged Bull’s Eye with a small cabin. But the company’s current range also includes boats from the boards of other famous designers: Uffa Fox’s DaySailer 17 (shown above), first produced in 1995 and currently the company’s best seller; the Philip Rhodes 18, another boat available with either a centreboard or a keel; the 24ft 3in Roger McAleer-designed Raven, which is essentially a big planing dinghy; the S&S 30ft 2in Shields One Design (260 built since 1962); and W Starling Burgess’s 30ft 7in Atlantic One Design.

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gardner-quarter-page.indd 1

15/12/2016 08:09

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Established 1885

British Made

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

69

THE FILM AND THE BOATS The film is the big release of the summer, but has it got the historical details right?

STORY NIGEL SHARP

James D’Arcy as Colonel Winnant (left) and Kenneth Branagh as Commander Bolton in the Warner

WARNER BROS IMAGES: MELINDA SUE GORDON

Bros. film Dunkirk

A

t the end of May and beginning of June 1940, 338,226 Allied troops – mostly British and French – were rescued from Dunkirk, having been forced to retreat there by rapidly advancing German forces. The initial expectation was that just 45,000 might be saved, but the assembly of a huge armada of disparate vessels facilitated the evacuation of far greater numbers. Due to the very nature of the operation, nobody really knows how many boats took part, but it is generally thought to be in the region of 900, of which about 700 were privately owned.

On 21 July this year, Christopher Nolan’s new film Dunkirk, which tells the story of the evacuation – officially known as Operation Dynamo – from the three different perspectives of land, sea and air, went on general release in the UK and USA and received (mostly) critical acclaim.

Eleven of the vessels used in the film took part in Operation Dynamo itself. Ten of these were the archetypal small cabin cruisers of the time, which many people associate with the term ‘Dunkirk Little Ship’.

DUNKIRK the reactions of the waiting troops just as an enemy plane is heard to be approaching.

It is alongside Nolan’s Mole that the eleventh original Dunkirk Little Ship makes her appearance. This is the Princess Elizabeth, one of 23 paddle steamers that took part in Operation Dynamo and one of just two which survive today, the other being the Medway Queen.

Kenneth Branagh’s character – the naval commander who is supervising the evacuation from the Mole – strides past her and asks a nurse on board where they had come from. “Dartmouth,” she answers.

STARRING ROLE

Below top: actors including singer Harry Styles as Alex (left) in Dunkirk.

Below bottom: Moonstone, as featured in the film

WARNER BROS PICTURES AND MELINDA SUE GORDON

(However, membership of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships, which was formed soon after Operation Dynamo’s 25th anniversary, is open to any type of non-service craft which has survived, and to any service craft which is now in private ownership.) In the film, these 10 boats, along with a number of other period vessels, all suddenly arrive on the French coast together.

This was certainly not how it happened in 1940, but it is presumably portrayed this way for dramatic effect as the convoy’s arrival prompts enthusiastic cheering from countless Allied troops, not only those waiting on the beaches and the East Mole, but also those already aboard other vessels and about to set off for home.

In 1940 about 30 per cent of the evacuees were picked up by small boats from the beaches to the east of Dunkirk harbour and most of those were then transferred to larger off-lying vessels. It was from the East Mole – almost the only usable part of Dunkirk harbour following vigorous enemy action – that almost a quarter of a million troops boarded ships, but in the film there seem to be long periods with barely any vessels alongside. In reality there would have been several there at all times, with others queuing up. Furthermore, while most of the original Mole was only wide enough for three people to stand alongside each other, Nolan has created one which is probably four times wider, but this certainly allows him to heighten the drama when we see

72

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

The vessel that plays the starring role in the film – Moonstone – isn’t a Dunkirk Little Ship, although she could have been, as she was built in 1939 and was later requisitioned by the Royal Navy. She was designed by John Bain, built by his own company John A Silver at Rosneath with pitch pine planking on oak frames and American elm timbers, and named Revlis (which is Silver backwards). Yachting World described her at the time as “a thoroughly sound type of craft” which “should be an exceptionally able sea boat”, and also stated, with some foresight, that “it is not very often that a yacht built specifically for one purpose would serve another quite so well as would Revlis”. The main role for which she was intended was as a tender to her first owner’s racing yacht but whether or not she was so used is unknown, and war broke out soon after she was built. She was renamed HMS Revlis when she was requisitioned and she then served on the Clyde as a degaussing vessel (degaussing being the process that reduces a ship’s vulnerability to magnetic mines) and was also used by two admirals: the Flag Officer Western Approaches and Rear Admiral Combined Operations. It is believed that she then spent most, if not all, of her life in Scotland until the film company bought her from her most recent private owner whose generosity, it is thought, is allowing a sailing charity to benefit from the proceeds of the sale.

In the film, Moonstone is owned by Mark Rylance’s character Mr Dawson who takes her from her home port of Weymouth across to Dunkirk himself, with his son Peter and a 17-year-old boy who jumped on board just as they were casting off. One of the myths of Operation Dynamo is that most small vessels were skippered by their owners, but the reality is that few were.

On the way across the Channel, Moonstone rescues a British sailor from the upturned hull of a torpedoed ship and an RAF pilot called Collins, who has ditched into the sea. Before she completes her channel crossing, Moonstone encounters a larger vessel laden with troops, which has been attacked by a German aircraft and is sinking. Dawson and his crew pluck as many of the survivors out of the water as they dare, and then head back to England.

Soon afterwards, Moonstone is attacked by a Messerschmitt ME109 and Dawson uses very effective evasive tactics to avoid being hit. “My son’s one of your lot,” he explains when Collins asks him how he knew what to do. Collins wonders if he means Peter, but Peter says that it was from another son, a Hurricane pilot who was killed in the first three weeks of the war, that Dawson learnt the evasive tactics.

In 1940, Princess Elizabeth (built 1927) was sent over to Dunkirk to

Hilfranor (built 1935) was abandoned at Dunkirk after sustaining

clear mines off the beaches, but she brought back 1,673 soldiers in

damage in a German dive bomber attack. It is said she was later

four trips, all of them from the beaches. She had been moored in

found by some desperate French soldiers just as they were about

Dunkirk for many years, as a tourism and conference centre, before

to be over-run by German troops, and they brought her back across

her participation in the film, but she’s now been transformed into a

the Channel. The crew of a minesweeper subsequently saw her

restaurant with a menu offering ‘local cuisine with a British touch’.

sinking near the Goodwin Sands and towed her into Ramsgate.

The New Britannic (built 1930) spent two days at Dunkirk and is

Elvin (built 1937) went alongside Dunkirk’s East Mole at dawn on

credited with ferrying around 3,000 men out to waiting ships and

2 June and embarked 25 French and eight British troops, intending

bringing 83 more back to Ramsgate. Her skipper was Walter Read

to transfer them to a larger vessel to bring them home. However, all

whose 15-year-old son Joe, thought to be the youngest person to

attempts to find such a vessel failed, so despite being considerably

take part in the evacuation, was also on board.

overloaded, Elvin brought them safely back to Ramsgate.

Riis I (formerly White Heather, built 1920) had petrol/paraffin

Endeavour (built 1926) was one of six Leigh-on-Sea Cockle Bawley

engines in 1940 and they let her down twice during Operation

boats at Dunkirk. They were attacked by about 40 German planes,

Dynamo, firstly while leading a convoy of eight boats from

but escaped by steering erratic courses. They transferred about

Sheerness to Ramsgate. Following repairs, she crossed the Channel

1,000 men from the outside of the East Mole and the inside of the

but was later found deserted and at anchor after her engines had

harbour to waiting ships and then brought 180 more back to

failed again. She was eventually towed home.

Ramsgate. One of the cockle boats was blown up by a mine.

ADLS ARCHIVE; NIGEL SHARP; DEREK MAY; PETER DOLBY

The Little Ships that appear in the film

DUNKIRK

More Little Ships that appear in the film Unsurprisingly, considering the manner and speed in which such a vast number of vessels were commandeered and sent into action in 1940, there are some boats about which little or nothing is known of their Dunkirk experiences. These include the other five Little Ships which appear in the film: Mimosa (1935), which is thought to have made three voyages to the beaches in 1940 and in the film can clearly be seen ferrying troops out to off-lying larger vessels; Caronia (1927) is known to have been in Le Havre when war broke out in September 1939 and had to flee home from there; and Papillon (1930), Nyula (1933) and Mary Jane (1926).

Mimosa passing the remains of the East Mole in 2015

Papillon

Nyula

Mary Jane

n May 1940, following the rapid advance of German troops through Holland, Belgium and France, the British Expeditionary Force and French army retreated to

Dunkirk. Operation Dynamo was instigated in an attempt to rescue as many of them as possible. With the harbour at Dunkirk severely damaged, much of the evacuation would have to take place from the beaches; only small, shallow-draught boats could do this.

74

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

out-smart it. It is thought that it was his youngest son Herbert, an RAF pilot who had been killed the day after war was declared, who had taught him how to do so.

Towards the end of the film, Moonstone is shown disembarking her evacuated troops in her home port of Weymouth but it is extremely improbable that any were taken that far in 1940.

It is much more likely that they were taken to nearer ports such as Ramsgate (to which Sundowner, for instance, returned), Dover or Margate.

200 military vessels, were able to rescue an astonishing 338,226 troops over nine days.

In 1965, forty-three vessels which had taken part in the evacuation commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary by crossing from Ramsgate to Dunkirk, and the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships was formed soon afterwards. A further fifty years on, over 120 Little Ships are still in commission and it is thought that hundreds of others may still survive.

This is their story.

DUNKIRK

LITTLE SHIPS NIGEL SHARP

NIGEL SHARP

Moonstone’s story is clearly based on the Operation Dynamo experiences of an actual Little Ship called Sundowner. In 1940 Sundowner was owned by CH Lightoller who was the senior surviving officer of the Titanic and was subsequently the captain of a First World War destroyer that sank after a collision in fog.

He took Sundowner over to Dunkirk himself with his son Roger and an 18-year-old Sea Scout. On the way back, with 130 men on board, Sundowner was attacked by an enemy aircraft but Lightoller managed to

After appealing to boatyards, yacht clubs and yachtsmen throughout the south east of England, the Admiralty managed to round up around 700 small craft which, along with

DUNK IR K LITTLE SHIPS

I

JOHN HOSKINGS; RAY LITTLE; NIGEL SHARP; ADLS ARCHIVE

Caronia

£14.99

ISBN 978-1-4456-4750-0

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AMBERLEY PUBLISHING The Hill, Stroud, Gloucestershire GL5 4EP

Nigel Sharp is the author of Dunkirk Little Ships (£13, Amberley Books)

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CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

75

TOM CUNLIFFE

DAYS OF YORE Oil lamps and paper charts contribute much to the atmosphere on board a traditional boat ILLUSTRATION CLAUDIA MYATT

W

hat’s the connection between paper charts and oil lamps? It’s not an association with which many readers will be familiar, but the answer is revealed at the end of this column. If you sail a traditional boat and navigate as a mariner ought to, sooner or later you will need to know, so you’d be well advised to read on.

I am writing this in my saloon with a gale of wind roaring in the rig and the anchor chain clicking as it snubs on the end of all the scope in the locker. The boat’s on the west coast of Sweden somewhere around Latitude 58º North. One hundred yards to windward is a large, rocky bluff. A safe distance astern lies a nondescript, scrubby island rejoicing in the name of Grotto; to starboard, a sandy beach is backed by forest, and away to seaward a maze of rocks and islets is keeping the waves down. Out there it’s wall-to-wall shoals with tortuous channels leading to tiny natural harbours. In any weather other than the rubbish being served right now, these represent paradise to the sort of sailor who’s had enough of palm trees swaying in the trade wind and dusky maidens blowing between his toes. Sterner beauties of all categories await up north, but the endless skerries of the coastline challenge the ship’s pilot to a point beyond the normal call of duty.

On this trip in 2017 I’ve been blessed with every navigational assistance known to modern man. There’s a full set of paper charts at the best available scale, backed up with pilotage information from the excellent Swedish Cruising Club in hard and soft copy that is without parallel in the civilised world.

Navionics vector charts shine from my Raymarine plotter and, for a mere 17 quid, I have downloaded a perfect, up-to-date set of Swedish government raster charts for the whole coast onto my iPad. If, like me, you’d like to know why we can’t do that here in Blighty, you’d better ask the UKHO. With this lot in the chart table, some excellent binoculars and a lifetime of experience, I look to the immediate future with careful confidence.

So what’s the connection with oil lamps? Where the electronics are concerned, there isn’t any, but when it comes to those vital paper charts that tie everything together, and once were all we had, it’s still surprisingly close. Each of my boats from the

beginnings in 1970 to the present day have had oil lamps. As the years have passed, these have become more mood-setters than the primary source of light, but it wasn’t always like that. Their relationship with charts became firmly established aboard a gaff cutter of around 35 tons displacement on which I did much of my mid-life cruising. She dated from before World War I and when I took her on she had no 12-volt lighting beyond a few neon strips here and there. The boat did, however, have an abundance of brass oil lamps. Most of these were of the simple, gimballed variety with shortish glass chimneys that can still be bought from any decent chandler. Some were larger, more elaborate affairs with reflective plates rather like undersized TV satellite dishes that polished up and sent the glim of the tiny wicks flooding into the surrounding gloom. One did good service in the galley and, even after we went upmarket and installed some carefully selected battery-driven fittings, we kept it in place for use on passage. On that vessel, amp hours were hoarded like a miser’s gold. So was our night vision. We needed this with a vernacular rig and no spreader floods to make life easy on a midnight foredeck where we groped around the belaying pins like black cats in a coal cellar. Far out at sea, beyond any demand for regular visits to the chart table, that galley lamp was all we used below decks except at change of watch. With the wick turned right down it was barely visible from the cockpit and when we popped below to brew up at half-time, we’d only to wind it up half a notch for a grand view of the kettle coming to the boil. The noble, two-burner table light with its pair of one-inch wicks that brightened the saloon with golden glow was only cranked up in port. It formed the centrepiece of an ambience no electricity can ever equal.

Back then, all navigation was by paper chart, compass, sextant and, of course, the four ‘L’s promoted by that great Victorian, Captain Lecky – ‘Lead, Log, Latitude and Lookout’. In most cases, including our own, this was augmented discreetly by the fifth ‘L’, ‘trust in The Lord’. Paper charts were, and still are, a hammer of the funds, particularly for the sailor planning to cruise the Northlands where no prisoners are taken and only a full set will do. One time, I voyaged up the Baltic to Soviet Leningrad through islands that still run from the bottom corner of Sweden, on past

Stockholm and the Finnish archipelago, all the way to the Karelia on the Russian border. The chart pack I put together stood a foot high. If I’d had to pay for it, I’d have spent that summer languishing in the workhouse rather than sailing the sunlit seas, but all those who recall pre-electronic times know well that stumping up for a big folio of charts was rarely, if ever, actually necessary.

Everyone understood the problem. If a pal happened to be in possession of the charts you needed, you only had to pitch up at his dockside bearing a bottle of the right stuff and he’d hand them over. This was on the strict understanding that they’d be returned in due course with only minimum coffee stains to tell your tale.

Most of us had charts that somebody else was short of, and these became currency in kind. My own pride and joy was a full folio of black and white Admiralty ‘Atlantic Spain and Portugal’ (soundings in fathoms) I’d dredged out of the skip at Beaulieu, along with a working echo sounder and half a bottle of gin. I still have the charts in their original canvas folder and the rocks, as always, remain. The gin is long gone…

Probably the best-ever chart scoop arrived on the west coast of Norway when I was bound for the Arctic Circle and the legendary Lofoten Islands. The locker was empty and many were required.

Buying from an agent was not even considered. The mortgage on my humble cottage seemed unlikely to be able to raise the equity to pay for them. The plan was therefore to borrow them from my friend Steinar who lives by the water’s edge at the entrance to the

mighty Sognefjord. When we showed up, it turned out that Steinar’s rather patchy folio had suffered a recent misunderstanding with a diesel spill which had compromised quality. Using the best of these, we set sail for the next port up the coast where another ocean sailor, then masquerading as a dentist, joined in the hunt.

After searching the fjords and skerries we three discovered a man colourfully named Odd who had obtained a comprehensive stack of west-coast charts, then changed his plans. They were unused and he was prepared to do his duty by the Great Ocean Chart Pool and loan them for the summer.

The deal was done and Odd agreed to cart them down to the boat. Steinar, the dentist and I opened the best whisky bottle and put a match to the double-wick oil lamp. Odd arrived. Soon we were studying the pristine charts and, as one does, spinning many a merry yarn. It has to be said that even a double-wick burner doesn’t illuminate the detail like a modern LED. All went swimmingly until Steinar, having consumed his fair share of Scotland’s finest, held a chart over the lamp chimney for a better view. ‘Approaches to Trondheim’ rapidly turned brown, smoked a bit, then burst into flames.

It couldn’t happen with raster charts aboard a yacht with electric lighting, but the idea of staring at a PC under a naked bulb doesn’t hold a candle to drinking Scotch with a group of husky Northmen in a lamplit saloon, telling ever-taller stories over a set of beautiful paper charts.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

77

New Classics

BREEDENDAM

Fast Dutch metal This ‘MTB fourzero wheelhouse’ is the first fourzero boat from Dutch company Breedendam, and builds on its previous experience of manufacturing similar boats at 30ft (9.1m), the so-called threezeros. The fourzero (40ft/12.1m) is now the company’s flagship. The MTB name comes from the British motor torpedo boats of the Second World War, very fast, graceful, wooden-hulled motor boats of around 70ft that made quick torpedo raids on enemy shipping and disappeared at 50 knots before any possible retaliatory fire. The link is tenuous, but something of that speed and grace remain, with the boat’s two Volvo IPS600 engines (independently rotatable pod drives) propelling the aluminium hull at up to 35 knots. This boat was specified by the customer for diving, with associated equipment and a hydraulic swim platform for heavily encumbered SCUBA divers. The interior is very comfortable for four, with air-conditioning for cruising Caribbean waters and central heating for forays into northern Europe. Her draught of 3ft 6in (1.05m) will enable cruising in shallow waters. Future boats will also be offered on this semi-bespoke basis.

Breedendam Yachts, tel +31 (0) 582 889 254, breedendam.com

DAD’S BOATS

Sit back and pedal

propeller, has been designed by the company and the result is said to be easy propulsion for long periods at brisk walking pace. The person facing the bow steers using a vertical tiller (forward for

Now for something seriously different – a pedal boat that has been

port, backwards for starboard). The 17ft 8in GRP hull is flat-

gradually developed since the early 1950s, when David Williams

bottomed, giving good stability. The wood trim gives an attractive

built his first pedal boat. Dad’s Boats, a family business established

finish. It would be interesting to see Bradley Wiggins have a go!

in 2012 to build and sell David’s boats on a commercial basis, has now

The company also makes attractive wooden propellers, see p31.

developed the pedal boat into its latest incarnation, which you see

Visit Dad’s Boats at the Southampton Boat Show on stand A12.

here. The magic is that the two pedaling occupants face each other while making passage. The sophisticated gearing, driving a single

Dad’s Boats, tel: +44 (0)7768 940399, dadsboats.com

See boats for sale at classicboat.co.uk/type/buy-a-classic-boat 78

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Getting afloat

WAYWARD

Victorian gentleman’s yawl If you are after the drawn-out elegance of a VIctorian yacht, there aren’t many options out there, as boats of this size are rare. They usually don’t come fully restored and ready for the 21st century either, so Wayward

Lying Bristol, UK Asking £395,000 Tel: +44 (0)1905 356482 classicyachtbrokerage.co.uk

should be on a very short list. She was built in 1898 by Summers and Payne of Southampton to an Arthur Payne design, and has undergone a thorough restoration by the experienced shipwright John RaymondBarker at Bristol’s Underfall Yard. The yacht was called Samphire for much of her life, and, like so many boats her age, has been re-rigged a number of times. These days, she sports her original gaff yawl rig and has been given her original name back. She has a 60hp Yannar diesel (2007) and she looks just as delightful below decks, much of which is new but very traditional, with lots of lovely original gems like the Victorian basins.

CHERETE

Race-winning Buchanan Cherete is a 28ft (8.5m) Mark 1 East Anglian class sloop designed by Alan Buchanan and built by Kings to Lloyds A100 in 1957. She has a mahogany hull and teak upperworks.

Owner Brian Haugh rescued Cherete from abandonment and dereliction by carrying out a total restoration, including replacing the iron floors and bolts with bronze. She has a lovely four-berth interior and a full suit of sails. Since then, she’s performed extraordinarily well in racing with good results in the Round the Island Race and Panerai British Classic Week. She’s now up for sale to fund a new project – a Laurent Giles 1939 Channel Class, which is in need of restoring. Cherete would suit cruising as well as racing, with her 8ft (2.4m) beam, broad by Buchanan standards, providing a decent interior, and a 50 per cent ballast ratio.

Lying Solent, asking £21,500, contact Alison Haugh ahhaugh@googlemail.com

See boats for sale at classicboat.co.uk/type/buy-a-boat CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

79

BOATS FOR SALE

Boats for sale

PURBROOK HERON 23’ 1964 ROSSITERS.

Surveyed 2017. Yanmar 10HP. Sleeps 2, New Heads. - Anchor Winch, Depth Sounder, Garmin Plotter, VHF - ashore Lymington.

Was £6950.00 reduced to £6295.00. ONO.

Looking to sell your boat?

Reach over 50,000 readers each month

T: 01590 681357/622993.

M: 07802511170.

To advertise call +44 (0) 20 7349 3794

Copy Deadline for next issue is 20/09/2017 CLINKER WOODEN BOAT

HARRISON BUTLER Z4 1938 22’, Bermudan sloop , W-M furling, diesel engine, 2 berths, auto-helm, vhf, power winch, depth sounder, log, galley, heads, covers, etc. Survey 2013. Lying N. Essex.

Was £7.5k Now reduced - £5,950.

T: 0203 638 2330 for details & viewing.

Built by John Kerr (1985). Gunter rigged open sailing boat, Larch clinker planking on steam bent oak timbers. Yanmar 1GM, 6.5 hp, single cylinder diesel engine to conventional stern gear. Spruce main mast, mizen and mizzen boom. Stainless steel standard rigging in 4mm x 1 x 19 construction and Taltruit swages Running rigging. Gunter main, two jibs and mizzen stay-sails. Trailer. LOA 6.4m; Beam 2.0m; Draft 0.6m. There are two covers.

One lightweight summer cover and a full winter cover both made by Stephen Ratsey. £5,000. Contact: Shan Williams 01646 641295

ELEGANT 42FT GENTLEMAN YACHT

12.5 M GAFF CUTTER HANNE MUNK

A traditional boat, beginning its journey as a fishing vessel in 1920. Built in Denmark mainly from larch on oak.

From 2010 to 2013 complete structural restoration of the hull with renewal of entire on-board appliances.

Price €55,000. For further details, impressions and video visit www.hanne-munk.de in English and German.

NEPENTHE

Designed and built in 1903 by C.J Kidby of Brightlingsea. She was built from pine on oak and elm. At 38ft with 9ft 6” beam and 5ft 9” draft. Modernised above and below decks. Currently rigged as a mast head sloop. Beta 43hp diesel engine, fitted in 2012. £18,000. Contact Bryan on 023 8086 2748

Elegant 42ft gentleman yacht of 1940, by Devries Amsterdam, impeccably maintained and equipped. Very comfortable, ideal for coastal cruises and moorings, and for the river. New engines.

Photos, details and contacts on www.fitzy.be €198,000

40 FT. 1962 CURTIS & PAPE T.S. CRUISER

Burma Teak hull & deck. Grown oak frames, copper fastened. Twin BMC Commodore diesels, refurbished and very economical. Extensive inventory, much new electronics, Typical Curtis & Pape “Built by the best - with the best” In commission Clyde, owner retiring, being sold with everything. Any inspection.

Full details and contact. www.arranroseforsale.co.uk Very keen seller so OIRO £79,500

DUNKIRK LITTLE SHIP 1939 - 41’x12’x3’ - Carvel Built, Pitch Pine on Oak. Single Perkins Sabre M92 Diesel engine . Extensive inventory for both offshore and inshore cruising. Currently completed extensive 3year 75k+ re-fit and ready to entertain up to 12 guests in her midships open saloon and aft deck. Two berth crew cabin and galley forward.

Reasonable offers considered.

Contact David Fox on 077895 34945 (Mob) or 01967 402236 E-mail : kilcambfoxs@yahoo.co.uk

80

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

HUSTLER 35

Classic 1975 Holman cruiser-racer, in very good condition. Five berths in excellent teak interior.

High-tech bi-radial genoa on Harken furler, f/b main, cruising chute. Meissner S/T winches. Thornycroft 30hp FWC diesel, J-prop.

Liferaft, EPIRB etc. £26,000.

01243 511170 or xod129@btinternet.com

BROKERAGE

Brokerage listing

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

62 ft Feadship Motor Yacht

1961

Some boats have that extra something; a magic that will stop you in your tracks and TIKY has it ! This is of course no accident as she is a Feadship and as “Boat International” wrote; a classic Feadship is a “piece of superyacht history”. TIKY’s re launch in 2014 followed a restoration that inspired three yachting magazines to publish articles in which testament is made to her restoring owner’s experience, stamina, eye for detail and good taste. TIKY is possibly in better shape than she ever was.

€1.3M

Lying Italy

50 ft Ashley Butler Mayflower Class Gaff Yawl

2012

54 ft Alfred Mylne Cutter built by William Fife and Son

1935

This beautiful Alfred Mylne designed Fife yard built cutter is pedigree indeed. At 54 ft with a Marconi rig to the original plans, she also has enough accommodation to cruise in comfort. IRINA VII seems to hit a sweet spot among vintage yachts; striking - indeed memorable whether seen under sail or alongside showing her characteristic Mylne forward sloping doghouse set in wide uncluttered decks. Both cruising and racing she is a yacht for the connoisseur most certainly.

€625,000

Lying France

45 ft Philip L Rhodes Bermudan Sloop

1953

45 ft Cockwells Cutter

2007

POLLY AGATHA could define the term “Modern Classic” Her long keel, carvel construction and well proportioned gaff rig give the charm and presence of a fast Edwardian cutter. Her owner was adamant not only for a thing of beauty but also a yacht capable of sailing anywhere - all the time keeping his family safe and comfortable. Her interior has all the detail and finish befitting a vintage yacht; an owner’s cabin with a large double and en suite and a forward cabin also en suite - unheard of on a classic yacht of this size! POLLY AGATHA has totally succeeded as if from the turn of the last century yet she has looked after her owners impeccably cruising British waters in all conditions.

£450,000

Lying UK

37 ft Sparkman & Stephens

1966

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

UNDINA is a superb example of a centre board hull with a 5½ ft draft increasing to 8½ ft lowered. All owners have declared her to be very fast, comfortable and seaworthy - more recently also achieving TV fame in Griff Rhys Jones’s ownership. With elegant sheer and well proportioned trunk cabin; her large cockpit is typical of American fifties yachts. The rig and sail plan is well proportioned and simple for both single handed cruising and efficient racing - she is CIM specified for the Med classic regatta circuit and since 2014 an extensive refit has made her totally ready for the 2018 season.

An iconic race winner by any standards, her light weight - for that period nevertheless belies the strength of CLARIONET’s construction by Lallows. Her reputation and capabilities are an undoubted inspiration to those with racing in mind and it is notable that CLARIONET along with her sister ROUNDABOUT figure - as the “Terrible Twins” in Olin Steven’s “LINES a half century of yacht designs” - with particular reference to the pioneering - and successful use of separated rudder and keel.

£295,000

£220,000

£115,000

Lying UK

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

Sandeman Brokerage 202x270.indd 1

Lying UK

Lying UK

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

33 High Street, Poole, Dorset BH15 1AB United Kingdom

– www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk –

MEMBER OF THE ABYA

22/08/2017 14:25

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

81

BROKERAGE

Brokerage

To advertise call +44 (0) 20 7349 3794 Copy Deadline for next issue is 20/09/2017

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

Payne Clark Bermudan ketch, built by W.M. King and Sons in 1925. All Teak hull with solid Iroko deck, Perkins M35 diesel. 7 berths in total. A very fine pedigree yacht, well cared for in present 28 year ownership. Extensively cruised, much of it single handed. Notoriously fast and comfortable at sea, a very fine and elegant yacht.

Devon £39,500

24 ton Gauntlet built by Berthon Boat Co. in 1936 for the then chairman of Coutts bank, the only Gauntlet of this size built. All Teak hull, varnished from new with solid teak deck.

Major 16 year refit in present ownership, launched in 2007. Complete new bermudan ketch rig. Interior largely original with plenty of fine panelled joinery. 3 sleeping cabins plus saloon. A very impressive high quality yacht in superb condition Scotland £79,000

Morecambe Bay Prawner built sometime around 1900, probably in Fleetwood. Converted to a yacht in previous ownership, in recent years she has cruised extensively around northern Europe and Spain. 4 berths including large double forward, new standing rigging this year. Nice solid yacht which always attracts many admiring glances Hants £19,500

Holman Rummer Yawl built by Whisstocks in 1959.

Exceptionally well cared for in present ownership. 4 berths in usual Rummer layout. Yanmar 27hp diesel. Recent sails in great condition. Deceptively fast yachts and very easy on the eye, the Rummer is another superb design from Kim Holman who rarely got it wrong Scotland £33,000

Windermere 19 built on the lake in 1928. The only remaining example of this 19’ waterline class. Major rebuild in present ownership including structural alterations to the hull, new deck and complete new rig. Very pretty and easy to sail single handed with her modern rig. Outboard engine on a side bracket, comes with a road trailer. Chance to acquire what is now a unique piece of yachting history Devon £25,000

35’ William Atkin Vilisar ketch built in California in 1960.

Larger sister ship to Suhali, a very seaworthy and capable boat which has completed at least two circumnavigations. Major rebuild in 1999, fully documented. 5 berths, Yanmar diesel, very good rig and sails. A real head turning yacht, easy to sail and surprisingly fast Cornwall £36,000

60’ Danish Gaff Ketch built in 1929 as a fishing boat. Rebuilt in present ownership, currently chartering in Croatia. Mercedes Diesel with manageable gaff ketch rig and flush decks. 10 berths in total. Commercial licence under Croatian flag, recently reduced in price Croatia €120,000

44’ Camper and Nicholson built by C&N in 1960 to Lloyds 100A1 for offshore racing. Honduras mahogany hull on rock elm frames. Volvo 50hp diesel, 8 berths in very smart yet original interior. Much work in recent years including new deck and bottom end. Fast, capable and powerful yacht, a true pedigree of her era Devon £65,000

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.

82

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

BROKERAGE

www.TallShipsforSale.com

42m (on deck) Classic Brig, two-masted square rigged sailing ship built steel 1958.

Rebuilt to current form, 2005. Can seat 60 for Dinner!

World-wide classification. €3,900,000 - Based - Germany

22m, (on deck) Baltic Trader

Oak on Oak, 14 berths, 6 en-suite cabins, air-conditioning, MCA coded, currently chartering, Survey available. £400,000. Must be sold - Offers Invited Location - Greece

www.ClassicYachtsforSale.co.uk

25m (on deck) Steel Schooner.

Currently chartering British Virgin Islands. Worldwide classification, 12 passengers and 4 crew; 36 day passengers. Very well equipped with Air conditioning, Water maker etc.. etc.. €1,350,000 - Location - BVI

17m (56ft) Long Range Motor Yacht.

Ex Trinity House Pilot vessel. 2 inch thick teak planking.

7 berths. Fully converted. Lovely, economical Gardner Diesel. Survey available - Please ask! £79,000 - Offers Invited Location - Portugal

38m (124ft) Steel Barkentine Tall Ship.

Air conditioned accommodation for up to 36 in 17 cabins plus 12 crew berths in six cabins; Bar and lounge. Well-equipped, comfortable. €850,000 EUR – REDUCED! Location - Valencia, Spain.

11.23m Steel Ebbtide 36, Long keel sloop, launched 2003.

6 Berths in three cabins, Yanmar 56hp diesel.

Hydrovane. Comfortable, live-aboard blue-water cruiser. 2009 survey available, please ask. €55,000 Location - Galway

34m (on deck) Steel, Barkentine rigged Tall Ship.

Active Charter / Sail Training program. Regular participant in Tall Ship Regattas. Very well equipped.

475hp Mercedes Diesel. €780,000 - Offers invited Based - Netherlands

5.5m (18ft) Brightlingsea One Design, Classic Dinghy.

Built D. Stone & Sons, Brightlingsea, 1935. Original rig.

Road Trailer. Restored with guidance from Malcolm Goodwin, £2,000 - Location - Brightlingsea

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

CLASSIC YACHT BROKERAGE CELEBRATING 25 YEARS AS LEADING INTERNATIONAL YACHT BROKERS

115ft. CLASSIC MOTOR-YACHT Designed & built by Dickies of Bangor in 1930 for Walter Hetherington. 2004 restoration. Commercially classed for charter.

Burma teak hull & superstructure. Eight guests, four ensuites, five crew. Pair 230hp Gardner Diesel Engines (rebuilt 2015) stabilisers, bow-thruster. Exceptional motor-yacht. UK Flag. €3,800,000 South of France

40ft. KETCH MOTOR-SAILER Designed & built by Curtis & Pape, Cornwall in 1962 for Charles Delmar-Morgan. Burma teak hull & decks. Six berths in traditional interior. Eberspacher heating. Aft cockpit. Pair 62hp BMC Diesel Engines (rebuilt) In full commission. Fully equipped.

Ideal long distance 50/50. Well maintained. £79,500 Clyde

52ft. DUNKIRK LITTLE SHIP for restoration Designed & built by Brooke Marine, Lowestoft in 1931 for George Smart. Pitch-pine hull, teak laid decks. Six berths. Pair 135hp Ford Sabre Diesel Engines. Dunkirk return in 1990 & Queens Jubilee Pageant fleet 2012. Fully authenticated and documented history. Worthwhile investment. £12,000 River Thames

100ft (30m) CLASSIC GULET SCHOONER Designed & built by East Yachting, Bodrum in 2005. Charter classification. Cold-moulded teak hull. Teak laid decks and superstructure. 10 guests, 8 ensuites, 6 crew. Air-conditioning.

Pair 365hp CAT Diesel Engines. Powerful rig sets 500 sq.m.

High-end, luxurious yacht, exemplary condition. €2,415,000 Turkey

52ft. FLEUR DE LYS MOTOR-YACHT Designed by J Francis Jones and built in 1964 by Dagless Ltd for Stephen Singleton. Iroko hull and decks, mahogany superstructure. Eight berths in four cabins. Pair 115hp Perkins Diesel Engines. Cruising inventory. Re-fit 2015/16. Good example. Previously sold by Classic Yacht Brokerage. £50,000 Corfu

27ft. SALCOMBE TRADER GAFF CUTTER Designed by Barry Pritchard & built by Buccaneer Boats, Plymouth. Moulded GRP hull, lead keel. Quality fit-out by Jonathan March. Five berths. Collar spars. Cutter rig sets 630 sq.ft. 28hp Beta Diesel Engine. Extensive inventory. Capable passage-maker. As new condition. £68,500 West Country

45ft. SUPER VAN CRAFT MOTOR-YACHT Designed & built by Klaassen Shipyard, Holland in 1972.

Steel hull, teak laid decks and superstructure. Teak interior for eight guests. Eberspacher heating. Spacious bridge / leisure deck. Pair 120hp DAF 575 Diesel Engines. Well maintained, ideal liveaboard or French Canals. Seriously for sale. £79,500 Norfolk Broads

31ft. SILVERETTE MOTOR-YACHT Designed by John Bain & built by Silvers of Rosneath for Charles Wimble. Teak hull and superstructure. Ballast keel.

Fine mahogany period interior, four berths. Pair 33hp Vetus Diesel Engines. Very original example, ideal inland or coastal.

Useable classic. £35,000 River Ouse

www.classicyachtbrokerage.co.uk

SALES OFFICE: 01905 356482 • 07949 095075 • info@classicyachtbrokerage.co.uk CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

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Our comprehensive review of 139 dinghies

Our guide to the most powerful turbines l Has electric

propulsion come of age?

8-WEEK CRUISE

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Island idling from Grenada to the Rock

the best from your windvane steering

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1906 Falmouth gaff yawl Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez Deben 4-Tonner: pretty and affordable

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The magazine for hands-on cruising Launched in 1947, Yachts & Yachting sailors whose love of sailing takes is recognised the world over as them around the British Isles, across essential reading for anyone with the Channel and further, to the blue a passion for competitive sailing. waters of the wider world. Offering a Boasting a unique heritage that both wealth of practical advice, inspiring inspires and informs its readers, cruising stories and a dynamic mix Yachts & Yachting reports directly of in-depth boat and gear reviews, from the cutting edge of the sport.

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

POOLE, DORSET

Good to go for a round-Britain sail The 1937 bermudan yawl Sheenan has reached C/O THE OWNER

the end of a restoration by a number of craftsmen in a shed at Cobb’s Quay. She was designed by McPherson Campbell, built by Dickies of Bangor in Wales and measures c43ft (13m). The idea is now for the yacht to perform a collaborative circumnavigation of

WINDERMERE, LAKE DISTRICT

Earliest racing motorboat re-launched

Britain with a changing cast of writers, artists and others who can engage in a dialogue about the nation and its culture.

Scolopendra, possibly the world’s oldest surviving racing motorboat, has reached the end of a three-year restoration in Maine, USA, by boatbuilder Richard Woodman. She was drawn in 1902 by John Thornycroft for the first rule in motorboating – the Marine Motoring Association’s 30ft (9.1m) class. She was launched in 1903 from the yard of Frank Maynard at Strand-on-the-Green, on the Thames in London. This was the infancy of speed under power, C/O THE OWNER

before the era of hydroplane hulls. Nevertheless, she achieved a measured 18mph with her single 20hp Thornycroft A4 petrol engine, the first engine they produced. Although she has a beaver stern, she also presages the first-ever slipper launch, Merk (of 1912). She was re-launched in July on Windermere and trialled by her English owner. She is powered by a 35hp Stirling petrol engine, but half an A4 has now been sourced for re-build to original.

MYLOR, CORNWALL

Work to Mussolini’s 8-M Pinuccia, the 8-M owned by Olga Polizzi of the Tresanton Hotel, has undergone minor repairs at Mylor Yacht Harbour, Sue Kittow writes.

“We keep Pinuccia in peak condition to give our guests the most amazing experience of sailing an historic, classic yacht around Falmouth Bay and the Carrick Roads,” says skipper Tommy Whiles.

C/O BOBBY CYRUS

Pinuccia, reportedly once owned by Mussolini, was designed by Vincenzo Vittorio Baglietto for Italy in the 1939 World Cup, though the outbreak of war prevented her racing. Her recent repairs have been cosmetic, but this year she has had some planking repairs on her port side below the waterline and she has had her topsides repainted by master craftsmen Chris ‘Ollie’ Oliver and Reed Downing.

HAMBLE, SOLENT

“We love working with classics,” says Henry Goldsmith at Mylor

Harry Hyams’ 12-M goes to Sweden

enormous pleasure and

After nine years of pursuing the 1930 Swedish 12-M Barranquilla, a

pride to look around the

dream was set to come true for Stockholm boatbuilder Bobby Cyrus

Falmouth Classics and

in August as he visited England to prepare and load the yacht onto a

Falmouth Regatta Week

trailer for the journey to Sweden. The 1930 yacht, designed by G

fleets to see just how

Eslander, belonged to the British property developer Harry Hyams

many boats are kept

(best known for his Centrepoint building in London) from 1958 until

at their fighting best by our team here at Mylor.”

SUE KITTOW

Yacht Harbour. “It gives us

his death in 2015. Bobby (yellow jacket, above) and colleague Andreas Millde intends to take the yacht back to the yard they work at – Stockholmbatsnickeri AB – and return her to tip-top condition.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

85

CRAFTSMANSHIP

ABERNETHY AND GAUDIN BOATBUILDERS LTD

A SHED LOAD OF WORK The characterful yard that will restore anything – so long as it is a woodie with soul WORDS AND PICTURES JAN HEIN

N

estled on Vancouver Island’s Brentwood Bay is a narrow,

total rebuild of the 50ft (15m) Bristol Channel pilot cutter Carlotta, built in

worn structure perched over the sea. It’s a quirky little

1899. That undertaking consumed the entire crew for a glorious year.

boatyard, with giant doors, a set of old rails reaching seaward and a dock full of floating characters. Each vessel

Currently, Muranto, a 1960s home-built ketch, is inside for maintenance and a new mast. Two former rebuilds, Teak Bird (a 50ft/15m 1963 Bill

there came for rehab and repair by the talented crew of Abernethy

Garden ketch) and Sulhamar (a 21ft/6.4m Blanchard pocket cruiser built in

and Gaudin Boatbuilders Ltd.

1911) are back for summer maintenance. A 1959 H-28 has a new deck, toe

Rob Abernethy and Jean Gaudin teamed up in 1999. Their first shop was housed inland in North Sannich on an old pig farm. With extreme

rail, house and sheer plank. The standby work list is even more impressive.

The partners came to Brentwood Bay via different paths. Abernethy’s

effort, they morphed an odorous barn into a bustling shop building

journey began in Ontario where he learned clock making from his father at

components for offsite projects. In their first year of business, they built

Abernethy and Sons. From there, studies in furniture design at Sheridan

a 40ft (12.1m) Bill Garden trawler and landed the contract for the interior

College, then a few years at Port Townsend NorthWest School of Wooden

of a Pacific pilot boat. Rent at the farm had some escalating issues. “We

Boatbuilding.

paid the owner a bottle of gin a week,” Abernethy joked, “but when she wanted more gin...then more gin, it was time to move on.”

The waterside shop isn’t perfect; land access is limited and getting to the rails can be a squeeze but it doesn’t impede a steady flow of work

While building boats, he bought one and sailed to British Columbia where he met traditional small-boat designer Paul Gartside. For three years the two worked together in what Abernethy calls “an informal, formal apprenticeship”.

that keeps the nine-strong crew hopping.

Inside the building, everything wears a patina of age. An old logging winch runs the rails. “It’s a three-phase motor,” Abernethy explained with pride. “Four gears and reverse!” The work room walls are lined with necessary collections of sharp implements along with altars of trophies, toys and kitsch, decoupaged masterpieces. Cabinets hold an arsenal of power tools; a tiny office accommodates a few desks and a photographic resumé of finished work; hefty hunks of wood wait outside every door until called to duty.

The place has hauled an impressive parade of history. The 18ft (5.5m) 1960s double cockpit runabout Caprice was transformed from a plywood home-build into a hull planked with Honduras mahogany.

Llanoria, a 1948 Sparkman & Stephens 6-M, was totally restored by A&G before placing third at the 2011 6-M Worlds. They worked their magic on Cutter Rock, a decommissioned fisheries boat, helping her win Best Conversion and Best Restored Classic at the Victoria Classic Boat Show.

The most recent lifesaving mission, and perhaps most significant, was a

86

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Rob Abernethy (left) and Jean Gaudin

CRAFTSMANSHIP Left: the shop interior Below, clockwise from top left: maintenance on Teak Bird; 1911 pocket cruiser Sulhamar lies dockside; mast-

C/O HUISFIT

making area; marine railway

NETHERLANDS

New life for Vagrant One of the most famous schooners in the world is going in for a pretty serious two-year refit at Huisfit, the restoration arm of the well-known Dutch yard of Royal Huisman. That schooner is Vagrant, designed by Nathanael Herreshoff and built in 1913 for Harold S Vanderbilt. She’s a two-masted, steel gaff schooner of 109ft (33m), and was in fact the second schooner for Vanderbilt named Vagrant. The first, a composite (wood on steel), was launched in 1910 as his 21st birthday present from his father and promptly won the Newport Bermuda Race. This ‘big Vagrant’ also had considerable racing success in the 1920s.

The task is a complete restoration, starting with sandblasting and preservation of the original steel hull. After this will follow deck renewal, new rig to the original design, and a mixture of refurbishment and new build below decks. Delivery for her owner is expected in 2019.

Most projects involved building Gartside’s designs but offsite work on larger vessels fell to Abernethy and it was during one of those jobs that he met Jean Gaudin. Following his father's footsteps, Gaudin was working for master builder Bent Jesperson in Sydney BC. Alongside some of the industry’s finest builders, he honed skills in joinery, cold-

JAPAN

Building a cormorant fishing boat

moulding and laminating, earning a strong reputation. Abernethy, who didn’t enjoy working alone, suggested they join forces. “I thought if I could set up a shop and have Jean with me...” Abernethy recalled. “I was surprised he went for it!”

“I’m the business and communication guy,” he explains. “Jean handles DOUGLAS BROOKS

the technical, aesthetic, structural work. If we have two big jobs, we separate and float back and forth. If there’s something we’re both scratching our heads over, we figure it out and proceed. We’ve never had a situation where we couldn’t do it. This set-up also means we have variety. I like joinery, but I wouldn’t want to be stuck doing just that."

Early on the partners were tested when asked to repair a 100ft (30.5m)

Douglas Brooks (CB350) has returned from a nine-week visit to

centenarian tug. The stern end had been ripped off with an excavator and

Japan. He writes: “I built a traditional cormorant fishing boat alongside

the deck was suspended in air. A good chunk of hull was missing so no

85-year-old Seichi Nasu, one of the last boatbuilders of the region.

shape; no reference. After a challenging six months, the boat was launched and floated, much to their relief.

“I think we feel responsible for keeping the talent going,” said

“Cormorant fishing in Japan goes back 1,300 years, and today Gifu City is the centre of it, with over 300,000 tourists a year watching from spectator boats. The six fishermen come from hereditary lines up to 18

Abernethy. He figures 90 per cent of what they do is conventional, yet

generations long. Everything about it is steeped in tradition, from the

they don’t deny high-tech materials. “I love tradition. The way those

unique type of bamboo bird baskets to the clothing. The boats have

boats look, we can do that. But it doesn’t make sense sometimes; we use

changed very little. Nasu uses an ancient form of Chinese drill to pilot

epoxy and modern products where needed.”

the 900 nails in the boat. The hull is frameless, with just a single beam

Their own boats are functional beauties. Abernethy's is a 28ft (8.5m)

amidships. All koyamaki (mountain pine) planks are edge-fastened.

lobster boat and Gaudin’s is a 16ft (4.9m) rowing boat that he whips

Nasu uses no plans but relies on a series of patterns and memorised

across the straits. When the shop is closed, they’re out exploring

dimensions. My goal was to document the build and I will be writing a

Vancouver Island’s inside passage and the wilder side on the Pacific.

book about building these boats to be published in cooperation with

A&G’s reputation allows them to hand-pick projects. “A boat has to have something; we have to like the customer,” said Abernethy, before

the Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.”

Douglas is a boatbuilder, writer and researcher who has served

adding with a wry smile: “We won’t touch glassfibre and we won’t work

seven apprenticeships in Japan since 1996. His latest book, Japanese

with people who don’t have money.”

Wooden Boatbuilding, is available at douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

87

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89

CRAFTSMANSHIP NIELSEN BOATYARD

YARD VISIT: FOX’S

FANTASTIC MR FOX

A visit to a comprehensive facility on the Suffolk coast that is hard at work on Churchill’s funeral barge

T

he top of the Orwell, under the huge road bridge 140ft

deck beams, carlins and deck renewed. That’s serious heavy timber

overhead, and in the shadows of powerlines that moan in

engineering on a boat this size – and great efforts are being made to

the wind, is not a place that ever featured in the works of

preserve originality, not least in the deck beams. Rather than being

Maurice Griffiths; but if you were a yachtsman with a

replaced entirely, they are having new ends scarphed on, with the

problem to fix, Fox’s Marina and Boatyard would look like an oasis,

middle sections remaining as Bob Tough’s men intended. Originality

for this is a true one-stop-shop haven for a sailor.

is a particularly sensitive issue on Havengore, a boat that was

The yard is celebrating its 90th birthday this year and in that

the body of Winston Churchill up the Thames for his funeral in 1965

a well-stocked chandlers, a marina, as the name implies, and a

(“Not even the Golden Hind had borne so great a man,” said the

repairs and restoration boatyard in which almost everything can be

BBC’s Richard Dimbleby at the time).

done in-house. That, and the range of work that can be undertaken

Havengore still plies the Thames, now as a charter vessel, so the

here, is the appeal of the yard, thinks Will Taylor-Jones, a classic

challenge, as always, is to balance originality with practicality: for

yacht owner who took over management of the yard four years ago.

the latter, steel packing has been introduced between the deck

The scale of the place is quite impressive: around 60 staff are

beams to give the bollards a better footing for her daily work.

organised into teams, including four in marine engineering, four in

Below decks, we peer at the twin Gardner 8L3 diesels

stainless steel fabrication and six in rigging. There are separate

with Michael Harrison, director of Gardner, which is overseeing the

shops for standing and running rigging, both Aladdin’s caves of wire,

engines’ refurbishment.

rod, rope and marlin twine. There is even a corner of the running

Outside, Will shows me the exquisite shape of the Fife yacht

rigging workshop where two electronics engineers can service all the

Kismet and the Stella Scorpio, both of which belong to Richard

bits on your boat that no one else understands.

Matthews (Oyster Yachts and Gunfleet), who owns the land Fox’s

The yard is not particularly known as a hotbed of classic yacht

stands on. In fact, steel fabrication, rig and more for both these

restoration, but we already knew about Havengore – the 1954 PLA

companies, as well as Swan and Oyster refurbishments, are a big

hydrographic survey launch built by Toughs – an amazing 80ft (24m)

part of Fox’s bread and butter these days.

of double-diagonal teak motor launch. Owner Chris Ryland has joined us to show us around the boat, which is having its beamshelf,

90

watched by about 350 million people around the world as she bore

time, a lot has changed. It’s a huge, sprawling site that encompasses

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

We check in on lead shipwright Oliver Patten, who is hard at work on his own project under a tent: a 1932 Barnet Class lifeboat,

CRAFTSMANSHIP Main picture: Havengore, Churchill’s funeral barge in 1965.

Inset: sales manager Richard Hamer, MD Will Taylor-Jones and yard manager David Russell

Top to bottom: Lion Class sloop, the hull is being splined above the waterline; the 80ft (24m) teak launch Havengore; Oliver Patten works on his lifeboat project

designed by James Barnet and built by J Samuels (Isle of Wight). She is an extraordinary sight – 51ft (15.5m) of double diagonal wood (like Havengore, but mahogany rather than teak), with a heroic, almost comical sheer. The hull is reasonable, but Oliver has a huge amount of work to do to on nearly everything else, including turning the enormous space into a vintage, wheelhouse yacht to an outboard profile drawn by naval architect John Stock. He plans to keep the survivors’ pod in the bows.

We also look at Will’s own yacht – one of the lovely 35ft (10.6m) Arthur Robb-designed Lion Class sloops built in 1951. Will is busy splining the hull above the waterline. “The trouble is that these old yachts were built without bulkheads – they relied on the timbers and the planking, which is why they go out of shape sometimes,” explains Will. The idea of the splining is not only to build in some longitudinal stiffness, but to provide a surface to which paint will adhere smoothly for a long time.

Until now, Fox’s has mainly tended to “pick up specific tasks” as Will puts it. The yard is clearly in a state of gentle evolution, to the point where it would now consider a complete rebuild of a goodsized classic yacht, something that it is effectively carrying out on Havengore, albeit on a winters-only basis, leaving the boat to earn her keep in London during the warmer months.

Havengore is a tough challenge in many ways, and if every yard needs what Will calls a “reference boat”, then she ought to act as a

Clockwise from top left: swaging wire strand in the standing rigging workshop; routing seams; the metal shop; the running rigging shop

pretty good calling card.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

91

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Boatbuilder’s Notes

4

1

1 2 3

Scribe an arc using dividers Saw off the bulk of the waste Thread the blade between forefinger and knuckles, and bear down on the chisel with upper

ROBIN GATES

bodyweight

4 2

A well-rounded result

3

ADVICE

Hand pared corners with a chisel

BY ROBIN GATES

clamp the board to a flat surface. Support the

in one hand, lowering your shoulder to meet

corner on a piece of scrap timber if working

the top of the handle and using upper

Right-angled corners of interior joinery are

on a cockpit seat or the saloon table. Saw off

bodyweight to gently drive it downwards,

more comfortable in a seaway if radiused. Of

the bulk of the waste in a triangle just

meanwhile threading the blade of the chisel

the several ways to round a corner the

touching on the apex of the curve.

between the forefinger and knuckles of your

simplest – and perhaps also the quickest – is

To remove the rest of the waste, take

to pare it with a chisel. First, scribe the corner

small bites paring vertically with a sharp

to the desired radius using dividers, then

chisel. The technique is to grasp the handle

other hand to hold it in position on the work.

The resulting curve will require barely a skim of the sanding block to smooth it.

Full marks

Lolly sticks in the kerf

When preparing timber it's usual to plane one side flat, then plane one edge straight and perpendicular to it, with all subsequent measurements and marks then being made with reference to these true surfaces of a 'face side' and a 'face edge'. The convention is to

Clearing the mouth of a smoother

ROBIN GATES

mark the face side with a loop and the face edge with an inverted V which meet at the arris, helping to ensure that the several parts of a jointed structure are assembled squarely. It's also important to mark the waste of any piece to

Handy uses for lolly sticks

crosses, squiggles or whatever takes your

wooden stick. Used without modification, it works as a spacer in the kerf

fancy. This clarifies the

when clamping a board during the long rip cut of resawing. Or, having

waste side of the line

thinned one end, it makes a convenient tool for clearing the clogged

where it is safe to cut,

mouth is very narrow, and if you attempt to pick out the shavings with fingers you risk a cut.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

ROBIN GATES

For boatbuilders there's the bonus of a free tool in every lolly – the

mouth of a plane. A smoothing plane is especially prone to clogging if the

92

be cut away, using

and guards against consigning the work itself to the bin.

Boatbuilderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes

Traditional Tool SURFORM STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS

(25cm) alloy-bodied example with

Clockwise from

strip canoe. However, Stanley's early

ROBIN GATES

beech handles pictured here. This type

above: The

recommendation of using a Surform

has a similar configuration to a No 4

Surform

'for trimming asbestos' has been

The shipwright's essential kit of saws,

bench plane but, at 275g, weighs only

produces fine

dropped.

planes, drills and chisels has stayed

as much as a 10in (25cm) file so you

shavings;

remarkably constant for centuries,

can use it for long periods without

Surform 111A

requires no setting up, and it resists

with instances of a new hand tool

fatigue. Stanley acquired the Surform

rounding an

clogging despite taking an aggressive

outliving its initial fanfare proving

in the late 1950s and introduced new

edge; the blade

cut, quickly achieving a smooth and

rare. The spiral ratchet screwdriver is

variants such as the handy 111A block

has 50 sharp

well-rounded result. On wood it leaves

one exception, and the Surform is

plane seen here in typically livid 1970s

edges per inch

a surface textured like corduroy which

another. This abrading and cutting

livery.

Unlike a bench plane the Surform

can be finished with sandpaper or a

tool has been around the boatyard

The Surform is a user-friendly tool

since the 1950s, having lived up to

for shaping a rudder or daggerboard,

you simply unscrew a clip at one end

Stanley's early claim for a 'SURface

working equally with timber and

and fit a new one. Today's range, made

FORMing tool of 1001 uses'.

composite materials. Its popularity in

in China, includes plane- and file-like

the boatyard grew in parallel with that

tools, and a small shave which cuts on

the hardened steel blade pierced by

of moulded plywood, fibreglass and

the pull stroke.

hundreds of D-shaped holes set in

strip planking - it's particularly

corrugated rows at 35 degrees to the

effective at fairing the hull of a cedar

The novel feature of a Surform is

scraper. When the blade is worn out

NEXT MONTH: Junior hacksaw

tool's long axis. The straight edge of each D is sharpened like a chisel.

Although it may look like a file with handles (the Surform blade has appeared in several shapes and sizes) it is effectively a multitude of tiny planes producing heaps of fine shavings - like a cheese grater.

Invented by Christopher Booth of Firth-Brown Tools in Sheffield, the Surform was subsequently produced in Pontypridd, Wales, by Simmonds Aerocessories, who made the 10in CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

93

Letters C/O SEB COULTHARD

LETTER OF THE MONTH SUPPORTED BY OLD PULTENEY WHISKY

Sound advice Congratulations on your restoration number. It kicked off a few discussions here aboard Whirlaway (1963 42ft Holman) cruising in the Lofotens. Across the saloon table was the past owner of Tar Baby, the 1939 John Nicholson over about 100 years’ joint experience that may balance the high aspirations

Going to windward

of some of your yard folk.

I read with interest your piece on the new James Caird and

1. If you don’t have to ‘restore’ her, don’t. Keep her going, improve her year

the question as to how she could make to weather having

on year, and enjoy her all the time. Both the above yachts, and their

no keel. Most of the coastal working boats of that period

predecessors in our families, have not been ‘classics’ to us: they’ve just been

had no dedicated lifting surface/centreboard to reduce

our boats, improving year on year with love and use.

leeway as per today’s sailing yachts/dinghies. It is true to

2. Lots was better then. You just can’t source the quality anymore; not just

say that many experienced significant leeway, such that

timber, but also galvanising and wrought fastenings and so on for workboats.

progress to windward was poor, although trimmed close

So like for like is not realistic.

hauled and sailing hard on the wind.

sloop. We thought you may be interested in some customer perspectives

3. Lots is better now. Why find and restore an ancient and explosive petrol

Tacking angles greater than 100° were the norm, so a favourable tide was critical.

death trap, not a modern diesel? Whirlaway, when about seven years old, raced hard in the RORC. Famously, her crew at one point fitted plastic gutter

However as in many things, necessity is the mother of

and downpipes along the carlin to take the leaks away. Modern sealants solve

invention and seafarers find the best of solutions by dint of

this and make us happy to get out there and use the boat – that’s the best

need and experiment!

you can do for her. We plough the savings on divorce costs back into the

Worthy of consideration are the Beach Yawls of the

boat – a virtuous circle.

Norfolk and Suffolk coast (1778–1930s) and how sailors got

4. Most workboats, and many race boats, were built for a short life. Unless

the best from these boats. These yawls were, typically, 50ft

you’re making a museum piece (in which case what matter – look at the

x 9ft 6in x 3ft 6in (15.2m x 2.9m x 1.1m) open boats, of light

short ends all over Cutty Sark) maybe you can improve things here. Replace

clinker construction of 15 strakes per side by 5/8in (16mm).

galvanised floors and bolts with bronze? You can’t get good galvanising

They were ‘dry sailed’, launched from the beach, rigged

done anyway, and you’ll simplify the often chaotic galvanic boat profile.

with two masts, dipping lug fore and standing lug mizzen,

5. Boats that are used don’t need restoration. Keep usability top of the list.

trimmed with movable ballast and when the wind died, 16

Whirlaway was built for a hunky race crew of seven, now she’s sailed mostly

oars were pressed into service.

A 50-footer double-ended, flat-bottomed and no keel?

by an ageing duo. Roller jibs convert her to a cutter, why not – she’s still here

How did they make upwind? But they did.

and still looked after.

6. Old boats were very often dogs too. It may be a good idea to consider

The simple trick when beating to windward was to

why she fell out of use. And why was your boat changed from that original

move the ballast aft. The resulting stern down trim, moved

purity – maybe they were improvements from experience?

the centre of lateral resistance aft, balanced the helm and

7. Get a surveyor or qualified yacht architect on the team. Longevity means

the fine sections aft created enough lift to reduce the

that some structural aspects will be tired – for example the mast step area on

leeway such that they made tolerable progress upwind and

any mid 50s onwards race boat built to Lloyd’s can be iffy. The rules didn’t

home. The centre of effort of the sail plan being unusually

keep up with big genoas, winches and Terylene. You’ll need some

far aft supports this theory also. There are very few

engineering, and it’s not really a chippy thing to design that stuff (and how

photographs of this naturally but the photo below shows a

we miss Ed Burnett who helped us so much).

yawl trimmed for windward work and offers some insight

8. If a ‘restoration’ it must be, find a project that you can afford. Now forget

to the technique. By modern standards they would be

that and find a smaller one with less work. Then do it again. Maybe, just

considered to be poor performers, but like all racing one

maybe, you’ll now be able to afford to do it proudly, and to enjoy the

only has to be five per cent or so better than your

process. Leave yourself something to keep improving –

opponent to win, and winning was the game.

i

what pleasure in getting her so perfect that from now on

Classic Boat 30SOAUNVNEIVNIRERISSASUREY 28GAETIOL PAORCIA

N

ST PE RE S

she goes downhill?

Now go sailing, and make the most of her; you do

AUGUST 2017

Damian Byrne, Byrne Longshore & Co, Beaulieu

THE WO R L D’ S M OST BEA UTIFUL BOATS

th

neither of yourselves justice while starting the cycle of neglect again as you move on to the next project. If you

NEW SERIES Tom Cunliffe’s practical tips

did it just for the cachet of a classic boat, perhaps go

UNIVERSAL RULE All the classes

for a classic redhead instead; possibly cheaper and with luck, for you, more fulfilling!

Salcombe, Devon

10

Restorat s that changedion our world

FORM MEETS

FUNCTION

Albert Strange yawl

94

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

CB350 Cover

August Standard.ind

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ON BOARD

Moitessier’s Joshua

What does ‘authentic’ me an?

HISTORIC REGAT TA

Eight Js toge ther!

www.classicboat.co.uk

£4.95

Jonno Barrett,

CB ARCHIVES

Many thanks for a great issue.

28/06/2017

10:36

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

Boat name change C/O NHS

A list too far?

Your recent article on Nin-dar-Anna (CB 347) raised an issue of interest to all boat owners – the importance of names. I agree with Gerald Minney (CB 349) on keeping to original names, but sometimes events force your hand. The boat was

Thank you for the opportunity to respond and clarify what is needed in

originally called Kallipygos (Beautiful Bottom). And this she

terms of protection for historic vessels in the UK. In the 10 years I have

has! When I bought her 33 years ago she had been

worked for NHS-UK, I have watched a number of significant vessels, some

re-named Aries, both names given by previous American

unique survivors of their type, be lost to the scrapyard. Meanwhile NHS-UK

owners. As the first Brit to own her I wanted her on the

– the body appointed by government to protect our maritime heritage –

British Register of Shipping, Part 1, which requires a unique

has been powerless to prevent their destruction.

name, but both Kallipygos and Aries were taken.

A good example of potentially avoidable loss is the cargo vessel MV

As a child I was fascinated by the planet Venus, and as

Wincham (above), a National Historic Fleet vessel which was cut up over

luck would have it this linked to its original name – look up

an Easter Bank Holiday weekend for want of repairs totalling no more than

Venus Kallipygos online! The most common names for

£40,000. While I have no wish to seek legislation which would impose

Venus in Latin and Greek etc were all taken. The earlier,

undue strictures on vessel custodians or make the working life of

ancient Babylonian name for Venus, Nin-dar-Anna or

operational craft untenable, we do need a system whereby NHS-UK can

Mistress of the Heavens, looked promising and the

step in and ensure that our heritage is not being eroded through lack of

Registrar accepted it. Search over.

knowledge, understanding, or because it falls a poor second to the needs of developers on whose land these vessels often sit.

Significant vessels should only be broken up if all other avenues for

Then Jim McIlraith, (CB 350) added useful information on Arthur Robb and his boats in Scotland. I bought Nin-dar-Anna on the Isle of Mull and was interested to hear

survival have been explored or if there is another better example in

that Jim had surveyed the boat some time prior to that,

existence and then they should be fully documented and taken apart by

adding “she was very pretty and a well built boat”. Praise

controlled deconstruction wherever possible with a record kept on the

indeed! There are now more photos and details for those

National Archive of Historic Vessels in perpetuity. To facilitate this, we

interested on sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk as sadly, like

propose a form of protection which would apply to vessels in the National

Jim, I’m also feeling my age and putting her on the market.

Historic Fleet only – some 200 craft identified as being the best

However, even after the boat has found a new owner

representatives of their type and meriting the highest priority in terms of

and I’ve become a landlubber, I plan to keep my

conservation. We favour a method of ‘spot-listing’ which, where a vessel

subscription to Classic Boat!

comes into the ‘at-risk category’, would enable us to prevent any further

Peter J Thomas

action being taken against that craft for a set period of time (eg six months) thus allowing every alternative option to be considered first.

As for the issue of making changes to a historic vessel’s original features or configuration, as National Historic Fleet vessel owners are already aware, this may affect their status on the register depending on their level of originality, and it is our policy to urge all custodians, across the board, to refer to our guidance manual ‘Conserving Historic Vessels’ before considering any major alterations to their vessel.

While the final decision rests with the owner, we are always pleased to give further advice on individual cases and find the best way to help preserve the integrity of the vessel while still

Which ensign?

ensuring that she can be appreciated and enjoyed

The artist Steven Dew’s schooner Wolfhound was shown

by all those who come into contact with her.

flying a blue ensign. Can you tell me what it represents?

Hannah Cunliffe

Robert Kirkby, Ware, Herts

Director, NHS-UK

Ed replies: a blue ensign with a ring of 15 white stars is that of the Cook Islands.

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

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Things to do in the next few weeks

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Looking ahead

Classic Boat APRIL 2017

30YEARS 1987-2017

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Cruising a modern gaffer

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New build, old ways

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Classic ssic iic B Boat oat a at

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MUTINY Behind Still in the familyOLDEST YACHT SAILING? the TV series HISTORIC CUTTER after 92 years 157 YEARS ON

Top 10 classic classes

HISTORY BOOKS

a bang – now it returns

woodenboat.org

royal-southern.co.uk

9 SEPTEMBER Great River Race Docklands to Ham, Thames,

23-30 SEPTEMBER Regates Royales Cannes,

London

Favourite for many and

300-boat, 21-mile rowing

part of Panerai series

race, the marathon on water

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30 SEPT – 8 OCT Les Voiles de SaintTropez

Biennial for classic sail

For classics and others, the

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Deep draft on the Thames Estuary Gull's Eye guide to Fambridge Yacht Haven

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ON TEST

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Black Pepper Elegance, speed and practicality

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Rafting up

l Sean Langdon on the resurgent Southerly Yachts

Stay tangle free with our essential guide

INTERVIEW

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Navigation apps

Sean Langdon on the resurgence of an iconic brand NORWAY

We find the right one for you

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How you can help chart the oceans

Beating the odds to make it back to the pub

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All the new kit at the boat show reviewed

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IN THE LATEST ISSUE

The performance sailing magazine

70

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Ainslie’s lessons learned PLUS Annabel Vose on her America’s Cup ambitions

INSIGHT

IRC latest New director steps on board

ANNIVERSARY

Flying Fifteens

YACHTS YACHTING

Celebrating 70 years

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DINGHY TO TP52

FOILING WEEK

We look at the latest generation action cams

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The boats, people and kit at the cutting edge of the sport

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Inside deserted forts

24/01/2017 17:59

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Stunning traditional boats, showcased through beautiful photography and expert editorial coverage

The best of the nautical books, with a classic bent, that have been published in 2017

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VARNISH Which is best for your boat?

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OCTOBER 2017 | sailingtoday.co.uk | £4.50

1987-2017

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Fred Shepherd’s last yacht turns 70

Other sailing magazines from the publishers of Classic Boat BIGGER AND BETTER Extra pages, more boats, more destinations

30YEARS

Design swansong

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East coast special

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READING A LINES PLAN What all those lines on a naval architect’s drawing actually mean.

Britannia is our model

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In-depth examination at a practical level with credible advice above deck and below: hulls, paint and varnish, rigging, sails, and traditional tools

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Sternpost Maria – my dream come true Olle Neckman on a lifetime love of classic boats

W

hen I was a boy, back in the early 50s, it was such a different world – plastic was an unusual and expensive material, Germany made the cheap toys and Japanese products were considered pure rubbish. We were all looking forward to the future with confidence in the post-war sunshine.

Then, when I was 10, I found an old oak boat just lying around on the shore, not being used, and went with my gang to ask if we could take her out. I’d been sailing since I could toddle, so that bit was fine, but now I had to get her 4hp hot-bulb engine going, a huge learning curve for me, and one which was to influence my whole life. We had great fun out on the water that summer.

Working life started in 1964, with an apprenticeship as a wood and metal worker; I also did what was thought of as the worst job – rivet catcher – but how many can say that today? Meanwhile I was sailing with my uncle in Marina, his Iversen double-ender, until he bought a large wooden motorsailer called Bellona in which we cruised the entire coast of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, mostly under power because my aunt insisted we left the sails behind when she came aboard!

Later on I found that girls liked young men who owned boats, so I bought a whole series, in partnership with friends – one was Songbird (named after a pirate ship in Donald Duck), a 30sqM skerrycruiser, which I now believe was unique in Sweden for having a fin keel and a small separate rudder under the stern. If I’d known then what I do now, I could have saved her, but we sold her and she is long gone.

There were others – an old coastal cruiser called Joker, an SK55 Trio built in mahogany in 1912, then an unfinished double ender which I re-decked in my garden, to the horror of my neighbours. Through everything, Bellona and the happy times afloat with my uncle had left an indelible impression on me; my brother bought a

98

CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017

Main photo: Olle on board Maria.

Inset: Olle as a boy with the 4hp hot-bulb engine that started it all

“‘Daddy, we will buy this boat or I will not go home’. So that settled that! Maria became ours”

plastic yacht and headed off round the world (he’s still out there) while I was waiting and waiting for my perfect boat. She came in 1998 – her name is Maria.

She was a Jac M Iversen. The spec said she was in perfect condition – ‘rot free’. On our first visit, I realised you could push a finger through the wheelhouse roof.

Then my seven year-old daughter chimed in: ‘Daddy, we will buy this boat or I will not go home’. So that settled that! Maria became ours.

It took 15 years to fix her, with the usual problems of sourcing the correct mahogany to replace the rot which was, as always, far more extensive. All the planking was renewed below the waterline, and I became an expert in manhandling long, heavy hull planks. Mahogany is a difficult wood to heat and bend, especially when you need to both bend and twist! Get it wrong and the plank will crack without warning. You mustn’t be afraid to use your instincts because sometimes the-eye-plus-wedges is more useful than any mathematical calculation.

Once, I wasn’t sure whether to replace Maria’s wheelhouse. Nature decided for me, sending a huge blizzard of snow which caved her shed roof in, crushing the superstructure, so then it had to be done. Helpers came and went; years passed. Working across the range of mechanical and hand tools, I learned how to balance confidence with patience. My favourite tool is a power planer with a single-bearing head that enables you to work flush with the wood, handy when finishing the lapstrake after the planks have been fitted.

How is Maria now? The boat of my lifetime of dreams, better than I could have imagined. I’m out in her every spare moment, living that dream, rather than keeping her immaculate. When I’ve passed on, some other owner will, no doubt, return her to the perfection of her first launch, or my gleaming re-launch in 2013.

Meanwhile she is my pride and joy.

“Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made.”

— robert n. rose, poet — Offered for sale

“A DV E N T U R ES S” 82 F T W I L L I A M FI FE I I I S C H O O N E R 1924 Even for William Fife III’s genius, ADVENTURESS would have to rate as one of his best of the best. Her lines and the proportions of her rig are exquisite, she is a wonderful size; large enough to cruise in comfort but at 82 ft on deck she can still be considered an intimate family yacht.

This boat has a magic that will leave you smiling and an effect that may never leave you.

—— Lying Spain | POA

∙ S A N DE M A N Y AC H T C O M PA N Y ∙ ∙ B r o ke r a g e O f C l a s s i c & V i n t a g e Ya c h t s ∙

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

Our classic and vintage yachts & motor yachts are available to view at: – www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk –

33 High Street, Poole, Dorset BH15 1AB United Kingdom MEMBER OF THE ABYA

Bar Harbor 31 Indian, Willard Jackson, Courtesy MIT Museum

HMCo #595

JOKER

Artisan Boatworks is offering this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own and restore the 1903 Herreshoff Bar Harbor 31 JOKER. Once restored JOKER will be the only Bar Harbor 31 sailing with a gaff rig, which would make her a fierce competitor in the classic yacht racing scene.

OW N AND R ESTOR E A PI E C E OF H I S TORY

ARTISAN BOATWORKS WWW.ARTISANBOATWORKS.COM