FAMILY FRIEND

FAMILY FORTUNES

Nerissa, a family boat for 28 years, and still producing respectable results

WORDS NIGEL SHARP PHOTOS NICO MARTINEZ AND NIGEL SHARP

Many readers of this magazine will be familiar with the 1974-built 72ft (22m) aluminium maxi MistressQuickly, designed by Bob Miller, built in Sydney and originally named Ballyhoo. But this is the story of a previous Mistress Quickly – now called Nerissa. She was designed as a yawl by Arthur Robb and built at Vincenzo Beltrami’s yard near Genoa in 1965 for William Whitehouse-Vaux, a shipping lawyer whose work took him all over the world.

It is said that Robb designed her to comply with, and be competitive under, three different rating rules: the RORC and CCA rules, which were in force at the time, and the International CR Rule (and as such she rated as a 10.5 Metre cruiser/racer). “Arthur Robb claims that nothing has been conceded to any of the three rules that could not be conceded willingly,” reported Yachting Monthly at the time. “In respect of both cruising comfort and potential performance, the boat incorporates all the features that the owner required and the designer intended.”

She was built with teak planking (from timber which had been stored for 80 years, so it is thought) on acacia timbers and frames (mostly steamed timbers but with four sawn frames in the main mast area), and with additional framework and floors in Monel.

William Whitehouse-Vaux’s son Bill, who was 18 when the boat was launched, recalls that the reason his family commissioned Beltrami was that they “wanted someone who really knew how to build wooden boats, and we had a couple of friends who had Beltrami boats and so we were able to see how well they were built.” After she was launched, she was kept at Porto Santo Stefano, Argentario and, by a happy coincidence, Bill was studying in Italy at the time. “I had this lovely boat virtually all to myself each summer,” he told me. He and his friends and family did a lot of local cruising and racing, and most years sailed to Vouliagmeni in Greece to take part in the Aegean rally, which consisted of three races to and from various different islands.

Three significant changes were made in the early years of Whitehouse-Vaux’s ownership. When she was launched, the topsides were dark blue but it was very quickly found that in the Mediterranean heat the cabin would be “like an oven” so she was painted white. In 1969 the mizzen mast was removed as “we realised that the only advantage of the yawl rig was to set a mizzen staysail which we hardly ever used,” said Bill, “whereas as a sloop we could use bigger genoas and get a lower rating.” Around the same time, the Penta 30hp diesel which “gave us constant problems” was replaced by a Perkins 47hp engine.

Bill also remembers that during races the brightwork suffered badly, particularly from the spinnaker being dropped through the forehatch and various bits of flying metal such as the wire spinnaker sheets and guys. “We used to feel bad looking round at all the carnage and what we had done to Beltrami’s boat,” he said. “Postrace varnishing was quite a big job.”

It was in 1979 that Whitehouse-Vaux acquired Ballyhoo and renamed her Mistress Quickly, and at the same time the Robb/Beltrami boat became Nerissa. “We liked to name our boats after Shakespearean characters,” said Bill, “and we later had 6-Metres called Thisbe and Perdita.” (Mistress Quickly was an inn keeper who appeared in several Shakespearean plays, while Nerissa was Portia’s lady-in-waiting in the Merchant of Venice).

In 1982 Nerissa was sold to Count Cinzano whose family still owned the Italian vermouth drinks company. Her boot top was then painted in the blue and red of the Cinzano company’s house colours, and a small separate cockpit – originally designed for the spinnaker guy and sheet trimmers, but which had also occasionally served as stowage for fenders and fuel cans – was removed and replaced by a lazarette locker. When the Count ordered another boat from a yard in Beaulieu sur Mer, he gave Nerissa as part payment, and she then remained at the yard for at least a year before she was purchased by an Englishman called Bob Ashworth. Ashworth had recently retired and had ambitious plans to sail Nerissa around the world, but these plans came to nothing after he got into financial difficulties as a Lloyds Name. However, he had registered Nerissa as owned by a company (with no other assets) and so he was able to keep her, at least for a while before he realised that he would have to put her on the market.

Leonardo and Cecilia Garcia de Vincentiis lived in Rome at that time, and had a half tonner. They wanted to get a bigger boat, ideally around 40ft (12.2m) so they could sail her themselves without any additional crew. In

Above and below: Nerissa with her original yawl rig and additional aft cockpit

Facing page: Nerissa heading o downwind in the light airs

Inset: An original shot of Nerissa

NERISSA

DESIGNED: Arthur Robb BUILT: Vincenzo Beltrami, 1965 LOA: 53ft 9in (16.4m) LWL: 36ft 6in (11.1m) BEAM: 12ft 9in (3.9m) DRAUGHT: 7ft 9in (2.4m) SAIL AREA: 1,320 sqft (123m2)

contacting various brokers, they made it clear that they wanted a wooden boat in good condition and ready to sail, and with various other specific stipulations, but time and again they were shown boats that didn’t meet their criteria at all. On one such occasion, Leonardo happened to notice that the broker had some details of Nerissa and, although she caught his eye, he could see that the price was way beyond their budget. So they continued their fruitless search for another year or so, before deciding, in 1994, to have a look at Nerissa, then moored in Villefranche-sur-Mer. “She was far bigger than the maximum we were planning but she was also very beautiful,” said Cecilia. “For me it was love at first sight.” They made an offer which might well have been quickly rejected, but when they met Ashworth “he could see that we were in the same spirit,” said Cecilia, “and he said we must have the boat.”

Leonardo and Cecilia still own Nerissa 28 years later. They have lived on board on and off for more than half that time, including the last four years. When they bought her they had a three-month-old son, and not long afterwards two daughters arrived. Initially the family was based in Rome (Cecilia is Italian), but in 2002 Leonardo (who is Spanish) was offered a job in Barcelona, so they took Nerissa there and have been based there ever since. They have cruised extensively along the Italian, French and Spanish coasts, as well as to Corsica and Sardinia, and they have always wanted to go to Greece “but each year something happened to prevent it,” said Leonardo. Their philosophy when cruising is to be as independent as possible, to avoid marinas and stay at anchor as much as possible. “When you are living in a city you have the city life,” explained Cecilia. “Why try to replicate that when you are cruising? We want to be fully in touch with nature.” When their children were small, they once spent a total of 15 days living onboard without going into any harbour.

At various times they have had engine problems – although perhaps not to the same extent as on their quarter tonner whose petrol engine was “always broken” – but they have never let that worry them as they would always prefer to sail, however slowly. In 2004 they fitted a new Solé Mini 60hp diesel, but that still only has about 1,200 hours on it.

Since moving to Barcelona, Leonardo and Cecilia have raced Nerissa from time to time, although they much prefer the more relaxed classic boat regattas where there are fewer professional crews, as this reflects their own racing philosophy. Twice they have been involved in unfortunate starting line incidents when other boats have “made a bad manoeuvre” and collided with Nerissa: once in Palma in 2005 as a result of which two planks had to be replaced, and again in Barcelona in 2016 when the bulwark was severely damaged. After the 2005 incident, Cecilia refused to go racing for a while until Leonardo persuaded her to try again when he was short of crew, and she now embraces the racing experience. “We know how much Nerissa can give us as a cruiser, and we need to discover how much she can give as a racer,” she said.

Although Nerissa missed the first Puig Vela Classica Barcelona in 2008, she has taken part in this annual regatta ever since. It was on the second day of the 15th event that I joined them for a race this July. The previous day, a mostly light wind had resulted in some late finishes, and things looked ominous again when there was a postponement of more than an hour and a half. But then a Force 3-4 came up and we had a wonderful sail around the five legs of the 12.5-mile course.

We weren’t the most polished crew but when I learned afterwards that it was the first time on board for two other crew members apart from me, and only the second time for another, and that it was the first time that a spinnaker had been gybed on Nerissa for 10 years, I realised that actually we gelled pretty well.

All the time, the mood on board was easy going, with Leonardo calm and cheerful on the helm. As soon as we finished – amid cheers and high-fives – he insisted that I steer the boat back to the harbour entrance, a role which I relished on this beautifully balanced boat. “She is always really manageable, even downwind with a spinnaker in a lot of wind,” said Leonardo. “In all our years of ownership I have never

Above: Leonardo at the helm with Cecilia just in front of him Below: Leonardo with the author, Cecilia and the Barcelona crew Facing page, clockwise from top left: Racing along the Barcelona coast; Leonardo at the helm; The first leg of the course; Leonardo again; The saloon and galley; The chart table; Dorade vent; The original mizzen sheet track still in place

lost control of her.” As far as results went, we later learned that on corrected time we had come a reasonably respectable fourth out of eight in our class.

Apart from the few modifications already mentioned and the repairs following the two racing collisions, Nerissa has never had any major work done to her. Bill told me that they “never had any problems structurally”, while Leonardo and Cecilia have strived to keep her as original as possible. “If you are in love with your boat, you don’t want to change her too much,” said Cecilia. For instance, the Blakes Victory loo, the Monel fuel and water tanks, the Baron primary winches, and the Lewmar captive reel winches for the wire main and headsail halyards, are all original.

When the headsail furling gear started causing problems in the late 1990s, it was removed and not replaced, and hanked headsails have been used ever since; and two of the sails we used during our race are more than 40 years old.

For sentimental reasons, the redundant chainplates and sheet track for the mizzen are still in place. The swept teak deck – laid on to the deck beams with no subdeck – is also original and is showing remarkably little sign of wear. It was recaulked about 20 years ago and some minor leaks have recently been repaired to allow a programme of interior painting and varnishing to now begin.

Above: Nerissa showing o her beautiful lines

What particularly upset Cecilia about the two racing collisions was that the resulting repairs “destroyed the originality of the boat.” However, they are sure that all the hull planking caulking is original and they have never had any leaks, apart from very briefly when she has been relaunched after a long time ashore. “Mr Beltrami used to inspect every seam with a magnifying glass and insist that a seam was redone if he found any imperfections,” said Leonardo.

Leonardo’s involvement with classic boats extends far beyond Nerissa. Learning from his unsatisfactory experiences with some brokers at the time of Nerissa’s purchase, he set up his own brokerage company, Barcos Singulares, in 2004; he is the current president and a founder member of the Asociación Española de Barcos de Época y Clásicos (the Spanish Classic Boat Association); and he has recently been elected as a member of the Communication, History and Innovation commission of the Comité International de la Méditerranée (CIM).

It is always a pleasure, when given the opportunity, to be able to reintroduce, as it were, previous owners to their old boats, and that is certainly the case with Nerissa. “We had so much fun with that boat back in the day,” Bill Whitehouse-Vaux told me. “I am so glad to hear that she is still going strong.”

ARTHUR ROBB

Born in New Zealand in 1908, Arthur Robb came to work in Britain in 1936. He served in the RNVR during the Second World War when he also worked with U a Fox on the design of airborne lifeboats. He produced a “wide range of wholesome, moderately proportioned cruising sailboats” according to the Encyclopaedia of Yacht Designers, as well as powerboats, motor sailors and ocean racers. He was also the manager of Morris and Lorimer boat builders on the Clyde. Perhaps his best-known design was the Lion class, one of which, Siandra, won the Sydney Hobart race twice in succession.

VINCENZO BELTRAMI

Vincenzo Beltrami was an engineer who founded his own shipyard in Sturla, close to Genoa in 1917. By the time of his death 50 years later, he had established a superb reputation for building high quality yachts. “While the prices of the leading Italian yards are much higher than the average British yards, the workmanship and finish is of an order we used to associate with Fife of Fairlie,” reported Yachting World in 1954. “Beltrami was a lovely man, a real craftsman,” said Bill Whitehouse-Vaux. ”All his chaps were real craftsmen, their standard of workmanship was just astonishing.