Classic Boat August 2013

Classic Boat AUGUST 2013

£4.50 US$12.50

CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES

T H E W O R L D’ S M O S T B E A U T I F U L B O A T S

CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES

ORIENT EXPRESS Hong Kong schooner in full flow

EXCLUSIVE

Morbihan We visit the world’s greatest small boat festival

Fishermen’s friend The last tunnyboat CHARLIE BARR

Mr America’s Cup

GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY

Nellie sailing at 151

Teak on the Thames Dayboat with a difference 08

SAILING SAFETY

Man overboard

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CRAFTSMANSHIP

Contents

CRAFTSMANSHIP

From Vietnam to St Tropez – the extraordinary life and times of the Olin Stephens’ schooner So Fong

54

34

PETER WILLIS

28

EMILY HARRIS

6

COVER STORY

28 . GREAT OLD GAFFER At 151 years old, few boats can match Nellie’s life on the water

58

COVER STORY

34 . BICHE IS BACK! After major restoration, the last tunnyboat raises her sails 42 . CHARLIE BARR Part two looks at his unrivalled record in the America’s Cup 48 . EXPERT OPINION More from our luminaries on what makes a classic boat

COVER STORY

54 . DUTCH DAYBOAT Out on the Thames in a unique version of the Interboat 25 COVER STORY

58 . ISLANDS IN THE SEA Join us in the Golfe du Morbihan for the biennial sailing festival

LEFT: SMH; ABOVE MIDDLE: LES AMIS DU BICHE

PETER MUMFORD BEKEN OF COWES

COVER PHOTO: EMILY HARRIS

AUGUST 2013 Nº302

How to rescue a man overboard p66

REGULARS 16 . NEWS 20 . OVERSEAS NEWS 23 . LOOKING AHEAD 25 . SALEROOM 26 . OBJECTS OF DESIRE ONBOARD 66 . MAN OVERBOARD! 72 . MOB SAFETY KIT 74 . BOOKS 75 . LAZARETTE 77 . CLASSNOTES 79 . GETTING AFLOAT CRAFTSMANSHIP 86 . YARD NEWS 88 . BOATBUILDER’S NOTES 91 . ADRIAN MORGAN 96 . LETTERS 98 . UNDER THE VARNISH CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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with with Runabout Moonphase & Riva Historical Society The glamorous, powerful wood-hulled motor boats - so popular in the 20’s and 30’s - were the inspiration for the Runabout Moonphase, a timepiece designed to evoke passionate images of magnificent crafts and roaring engines, racing across the white-capped waters of pristine lakes. Frederique Constant proudly supports the Riva Historical Society. Available in two limited editions: CHF 2’550 in rose gold plated, CHF 2’150 in stainless steel.

Contact. + 41 22 860 0440 . w w w.frederique-constant.com

GUB GUB

it’s obvious to all that Mariquita is a classic

FroM daN HouStoN, Editor

www.classicboat.co.uk Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ Editorial Editor Dan Houston +44 (0)207 349 3755 cb@classicboat.co.uk Senior art Editor Peter Smith +44 (0)207 349 3756 peter.smith@classicboat.co.uk News/Features Editor Steffan Meyric Hughes +44 (0)207 349 3758 steffan.meyric-hughes@classicboat.co.uk Production Editor Andrew Gillingwater +44 (0)207 349 3757 andrew.gillingwater@classicboat.co.uk Contributing Editor Peter Willis peter.willis@classicboat.co.uk Consultant Editor John Perryman FRINA Publishing Consultant Martin Nott Proofing Vanessa Bird advErtiSiNg advertisement Manager Edward Mannering +44 (0)207 349 3747 edward.mannering@chelseamagazines.com Senior Sales Executive Patricia Hubbard +44 (0)207 349 3748 patricia.hubbard@chelseamagazines.com advertisement Production Allpointsmedia +44 (0)1202 472781 www.allpointsmedia.co.uk Published Monthly ISSN: 0950 3315 USA US$12.50 Canada C$11.95 Australia A$11.95 Subscribe now: +44 (0)1795 419840 classicboat@servicehelpline.co.uk http://classicboat.subscribeonline.co.uk Subscriptions manager William Delmont +44 (0)207 349 3710 will.delmont@chelseamagazines.com Subscriptions department YACHTS 800 Guillat Avenue, Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8GU CHELSEA CHELSEA A RZ II NN EES ARINE M M A G APaul MAGAZINES Managing director Dobson M deputy Managing director Steve Ross Commercial director Vicki Gavin Publisher Simon Temlett digital Manager Oliver Morley-Norris Events Manager Holly Thacker YACHTING

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It’s time for that word again So, to that thorny question: what is a classic? I can’t say I haven’t thought about it; the subject comes up on our forum from time to time and when we publish milestone issues, like our 300th this summer, we have tried to address it... with varying degrees of success I think.

Last month we approached some well-known experts in traditional maritime circles and we got such enthusiastic replies that we had to create a second part, which we are running this month from page 48. The first thing you’ll notice is the range of definitions as people comment on age, sheer, shape, rig, provenance, materials, design, authenticity, worth... and, simply, her overall effect on those who see her.

And I quite like the wooliness of that last point: her overall effect. I agree because while it is a very difficult thing to define – you sort of know it when you see it. I remember trying to get to a sensible definition myself, arguing the point often with colleagues at the lunch-time coffee... and almost giving up. I adopted the rather trite and simple definition that a boat must be endearing and enduring.

And while that sounds as woolly as a very woolly thing, I was trying to refer to looks, sheerlines and sweeping decks, overhangs or plumb stems maybe; the “... arguing the gloriously satisfactory appeal of a trapezium-shaped gaff rig, perhaps even painted or varnished wood...

All these attributes appeal to the senses so much point and almost that a boat which had them would always find giving up...” herself well cared for, repaired when damaged, and hence would endear herself enough to her owners to last a long time, or endure.

The definition purposely does not apply to any era, although it seems accepted that older boats are classic, and the even-older are vintage – regardless of their shape. There is less certainty with new boats, often called Spirit of Tradition; to my mind a boat built traditionally to an old design is a classic, albeit perhaps a replica or rebuild. SoT allows for some modern interpretation design-wise or with materials, and these are perhaps boats we hope will endure to become classics.

It might seem odd but I’ve never really felt that age affects whether something is classic or not. For me it’s about design. But it’s true that as things become older they also change in our view of them, becoming perhaps rare or unique; they outlast their time. And that’s always going to be classic.

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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EASTERN PROMISE A dream in teak for an adventurer to sail the world, later impounded for spying... Yet So Fong survived to be beautiful again STORY DAN HOUSTON

SO FONG

DAN HOUSTON

OlD SAlT

“Sailing So Fong today is like adding new pages to a history book”

PREVIOUS PAGE: EmIly HARRIS

B 8

efore I can start this article I have been scrabbling around under my desk to find one of my notebooks from 2003. They’re in shoe boxes and luckily in order… Ah, here we are: scrawled on the inside cover is a rough table of contents. The Fife Regatta of that year, Pierette, Mignon, Sonata, Farrow System, fairing and… So Fong.

And there’s pages and pages of shorthand, dear reader, about this wonderful teak-on-yacal schooner from 1937 – one of just 10 designed by the late great Olin Stephens and a boat that has sailed into the hearts of many, mine included, down the years. We’d been at one of the Med events, the Monaco Classics, when her then skipper Dan Wilkin had asked me if I wanted to go racing with them. “We thought you’d like to helm,” he said, and I was vain enough to agree. She’d come through an extensive restoration, run by Dan and his team in Antibes, and they were getting to know how she handled under her impressive rig, restored to gaff by Peter Martin (Spencer Rigging, IoW).

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

DAN HOUSTON

In the end the race was cancelled due to lack of wind, though I dimly remember thinking she was quite responsive, for a 50-tonne boat, and that she would get into her groove quite easily with the luff just starting to billow back and shiver, while wind pressure surged over the flat cream expanse of her modern canvas.

Later, on board, with a comfort food veggie supper of baked potatoes, there was a chance to take in her magnificent interior where the fireplace in the saloon is basically baronial, in yachting terms, with its tiles and copper fender, and much of her panelling, hanging lockers and drawer fronts, is covered in carvings from her original Chinese shipwrights. These had all been lovingly brought back into relief – to stand out against the honey-coloured camphor wood – and include junks at sea, a wonderful winding dragon and a sage on a donkey crossing a bridge – the journey over the water.

But that was 10 years ago. And although Dan had continued as her skipper for a few years, before taking a job at Fairlie Restorations, we never ran the feature.

Her owner, the Spanish financier Bruno Entrecanales

Above, clockwise from top: it’s rare we see a boat as original and yet as comfortable as this; her forehatch was reconstructed to the original plans; Bose outdoor speakers have been given wooden detailing to help them blend in

old salt

Above: the superlative joinery of the Chinese craftsmen has been restored.

Left: with her fisherman’s staysail So Fong cuts a jaunty rig tripping the blue swells off north Mallorca

EMIlY HaRRIs

campaigned the boat for a while at Spanish and other Mediterranean classic events, tuning her up enough with a professional crew so that she won the prestigious overall prize at Les Voiles de St Tropez in 2006. He still wears the winner’s Rolex.

More recently he has cruised the boat extensively with his family, before creating a charter fleet in Mallorca where she is the flagship of the fleet (see CB301).

Thus it was this May, in moderate seas and breeze off the pretty port of Soller, on Mallorca’s north coast, that CB was back aboard the schooner being helmed now by the Vendée Globe skipper Javier Sansó, who was enjoying the sensation of a massive lead keel and all this stability after his Open 60 Acciona yacht had lost her keel and capsized off Madeira in February. Javier had been part of the team that Bruno put together (led by former America’s Cup sailor Epi Unzueta) that had made the schooner so successful in 2006. Epi now leads the Old Salt sailing charters and is the captain of So Fong.

To say the boat is in pristine condition would be an understatement. Her hull is fair and solid belying her 76

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

9

SPARKMAN & STEPHENS

10

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

years navigating the seas and oceans. The bare grey teak decks feel silky underfoot while her brass instruments gleam in the spring sunshine. The Epifanes varnish gives her teak deck furniture a deep, satisfying lustre. Being an S&S (design number 143), So Fong has the characteristic dorade vents – three each side of her decks, taking air down below to keep everyone cool and to aerate the boat. These were originally taller; former sailors had described them while night sailing as looking like lurking human figures on her deck. They are apparently made from spent Howitzer shells from US ordnance. But they probably got in the way of the sheets while tacking and so were chopped down during the 1990s.

But what’s truly wonderful about her is how much original material she has and how she has been restored to mostly her original specifications, although her doghouse has been brought aft a few feet to form a lounging dayspace next to the cockpit and helm position.

Down below she is exactly as she was in 1937, with a commodious stateroom aft; its own charming bathroom – yes bath with shower, Blakes toilet and luxury fittings...

OLD sALt

OLD sALt

SO FONG

SO FONG LOA

70ft (21.3m) LWL

54ft (16.5m) beAm

16ft 2in (4.9m) DrAught

9ft 9in (3m)

Above, clockwise from main: Javier Sansó at the helm; her sumptuous bath; the saloon fireplace; dorade vents; Epi on her main halyard

sAiL AreA

2,245sqft (209m2)

DAn hOustOn

50 tonnes

DAn hOustOn

emiLy hArris

DispLAcement

Double cabins on port and starboard are forward of this with another heads to starboard in way of her companion and then a saloon with its great table, a writing desk, pilot bunks or day loungers above the buttoned-leather settees and lots of locker space.

Moving forward from here is a galley where her full-time chef holds station. Another heads forward of the foremast and a rack of four berths forms her crew space in the fo’c’s’le.

The forehatch here, incidentally, is rebuilt to plans by Dan Wilkin and his team during the 2001/2 restoration.

One of the aspects that makes her so charming is the Chinese carvings and a few little touches that remind us of her oriental origins, like the fireplace tiles. In the evening chinese lanterns are hung above decks where a table can be laid for eating outdoors.

Her deck has plenty of space for a party, as we witnessed when Bruno’s racing team were brought back together for sailing the Old Salt fleet in company out of Soller. “I’d love someone to hire all these boats together as an unforgettable experience for an extended family,”

he said. “And So Fong can be the mother ship. She is big enough for a party to be aboard and comfy enough for a grandfather and grandmother to be doing something like that with the rest of the family all sailing along in company.” With So Fong alone chartering at just over €2,000 a day it’s an expensive proposition, but she’s got that mix of exciting sailing, together with a personalised degree of comfort in a large enough but still intimate setting to certainly make it appealing to grandpas... albeit with deep enough pockets.

Sailing So Fong today is like adding new pages to a history book, which begins in 1937, in Kowloon, Hong Kong. She’s from an age when the world was struggling economically out of a great depression and yet it was still an age of glamour, where gentlemen and ladies dressed for dinner, took oval-rolled Egyptian cigarettes out of heavy silver-plated cases and smoked them through ebony-stem holders – long for ladies, shorter maybe, for the gents.

Actually, for many, sailing was a way of getting away from that. And being on a boat was a way to wear the more relaxed attire of jersey and denim, or a blazer.

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

11

“I wanted freedom, fresh air and adventure.

I found it on the sea.�

Old Salt on So Fong during the 1970s www.oldsaltsailing.com sarah@oldsaltsailing.com (+34) 696 076 700

DAN HOUSTON

SO FONG

DAN HOUSTON

Above: girls just want to have fun!

This doghouse was moved aft to make a more communal space with the cockpit.

Below: awning’s up and the icemaker’s on

So Fong was built for A Thornton Baker, a New Jersey banker who wanted a boat to sail around the world with his two sons, “before I was too old to stay on deck”. Baker was no novice yachtsman and reportedly owned 10 boats before having So Fong designed. Since boyhood he had watched the schooners of the Cape Cod fishermen racing for the shore and it was his dream to have a yacht with the famous fishing schooner influence in her design. He went to Olin Stephens of Sparkman & Stephens in New York.

Olin had already designed Brilliant in 1932 and so developed some of his ideas from her into So Fong. Thus, while she was built for cruising, she was also given enough speed to be suitable for ocean racing.

Baker met Stephens through Ted Kilkenny, a sailorbroker with a dream to build a junk in China and sail her to Paris. Kilkenny had been impressed with the work of Chinese boatwrights in Hong Kong, where famous yards like Cheoy Lee (founded 1870) were based. He chose the Ah King Slipway, founded around 1890, and he oversaw

the schooner’s building. She was planked of teak, with yacal used for the keel, stem, deadwood and frames. Decks and deckhouses are of teak while her deck beams and shelf and panelling are camphor. Her two masts and spars, made of hollow Sitka spruce, were shipped over from Abeking & Rasmussen in Germany. All her equipment, including her six-cylinder 85bhp Superior diesel engine, was shipped from the United States. She was apparently built to Lloyd’s specification but she does not appear in the British Lloyd’s Register. Her building took seven months – with some 250 local craftsman variously employed over the period. Her 30,000lb (13,608kg) lead keel was said to be the largest at that time ever to be cast in Hong Kong.

Her name is accepted as meaning ‘lovely lady’. Reports state that a yacht had to be named before launching and so this was given to her and Baker, aware of the superstition that one should not change a boat’s name, let it stick.

Baker and his sons, with Ted as first mate, second mate Alex Ozoins – a Latvian, friend Fritz Von Fustenburg, and Chinese chef called Ho Su, took off on a cruise that turned into a 13-month odyssey, through the Phillipines, New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, India and through the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. In the Indian Ocean, between Sumatra and Colombo, Sri Lanka, she broke her main boom in a squall. Residents on a small atoll nearby repaired the boom with wire in three days. Apart from this, the voyage seems to have passed without mishap.

Some letters and notes exist of this cruise and there is more than we have room for here; it could well make a book. It recreates sailing in a different era and So Fong appears to have won admirers wherever she went. She eventually arrived in the United States in April 1938 after 30,000 miles – her best day’s run had been 215 miles.

During the Second World War So Fong served in the US Coast Guard with a crew of seven. It seems it was not until after the war that the two-master was competitively CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

13

SO FONG

OLD SALT

restoring so Fong: 2001 – 2002 at antibes Dan Wilkin began work on So Fong in Antibes around Christmas time 2001. “We’d been looking in the States for a larger boat when Mike Horsley (broker) mentioned that Mark MacLean had So Fong (for sale). Ian Nicholson did the survey and we found that all the caulking under her copper sheathing had gone rotten; it stank.

“So the first job was to take off all the copper and we found some planks, including the starboard garboard, which needed replacing. She needed five new planks and we had to source teak, which was more than 20ft (6m) long. Even so, we scarphed the garboard. The teak was 1in 7/8ths (47mm) thick so it was a case of just winding it in, a bit every day.

restored and sailed to mallorca With the restoration now complete, So Fong was sailed to Mallorca in December 2002 where Bruno was waiting, and he and the crew, with Dan as skipper, went cruising for 10 days. More recently, So Fong and the other boats of Old Salt Classic Sailing Charters have been looked after by Palmabased carpenter Mateo Grimalt.

SArAH rENNISON

40,000 barbecue sticks “We cleaned Antibes out of kebab sticks, which we used to plug the holes made by the sheathing, dipping them each into red lead,” Dan continues. “Internally we replaced just one frame – the one under the galley sink and we redid some sole bearers because they had not been properly done;

her sole was sagging. We pulled her keel bolts and made some new ones, and had to recondition the interior. Part of that was in two containers nearby but it was a tricky job getting the rest out, like the bulkhead between the saloon and galley... So Fong needed new engine bearers so the Perkins engine came out through the saloon hatch; that was particularly fun! After that it was a case of fitting all her new systems: plumbing, electrics, fridge, heads, freezer, pumps... before getting on to the varnish and painting. We also made the new gaff rigging; she had been bermudan rigged on her mainmast.”

Above: the exquisite carvings made by the Chinese craftsmen

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raced, belonging then to Mrs Hank (Jean) Becton who had remembered seeing the boat at anchor as a teenager.

She was moored off the family cottage in Blue Hill, Maine.

The Bectons were keen local sailors who campaigned So Fong and there is now a Becton Cup, set up in honour of Jean who won the Maine Women’s Sailing Championship in 1936 and again in 1946.

After the Bectons’ meticulous ownership it seems So Fong was not so well cared for and went back to the Pacific from Connecticut in 1978. She ended up being used as a dive vessel out of Singapore, belonging to Bill Mathers, and in 1983 was involved in a dive on HMS Repulse – sunk off Malaya in 1941. At that time she was

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

Above, left to right: So Fong had been first restored in Vietnam, seen here on the river at Saigon; working on the metalwork from her rigging; more recent work was carried out in Antibes

sailing with Tai Mo Shan, a Hong Kong-built ketch (see CB218 and 231), reportedly used as an intelligencegathering yacht by Royal Navy officers in the early 1930s.

Somewhat ironically, So Fong herself was accused of being a spy vessel, and captured by Vietnamese authorities, in 1984. The crew of four French and one Australian were allowed home but Mathers was imprisoned and said he was subjected to 54 bouts of interrogation. He was released eight months later after a $10,000 ‘fine’ was paid by his NY lawyer father. So Fong was not so lucky.

The schooner languished in the hot sun of Haiphong harbour for years before being found in 1990 by Robert Verschoyle, who, with backing from classic boat enthusiast Rodger Sandiford (Solway Maid, Blue Leopard), restored her over 11 months before having to escape – literally by sailing out late one night; the Vietnamese would not give her official permission to leave. After two years at Phuket the vessel returned to the Med and was sailed for a few years before passing to Canadian Mark Maclean in 1999 who in 2000 began her restoration in Antibes.

In 2001, Bruno was finding his current boat, the 49ft (14.9m) Fife Madrigal, too small for his needs and swapped her as part of a deal for So Fong. That began his chapter of restoring and sailing boats, which led to starting Old Salt Sailing charters. And so So Fong is now cherished again, as well as being available to hire.

SPIRIT

YAC H T S

nothing comes close the ultimate modern classic

World class design, performance and build www.spirityachts.com

News

classic Boat’s address: Jubilee house, 2 Jubilee Place, London, sW3 3tQ For phone numbers, please see page 5

TASMAN SEA

Schooner missing presumed lost searches. As we went to press, no sign of the yacht or her crew had been found but a search was still in progress. On board were a largely American crew: Captain David Dyche (58), wife Rosemary (60), son David (17), friend Evi Nemeth (73), an unnamed man of 28, an unnamed woman of 18 and British crewman Matthew Wootton (35).

anthony morris

The search was on for an American schooner carrying seven people in the Tasman Sea, as we went to press.

Nina, a 1928 59ft (18m) William Starling Burgess-designed staysail schooner, departed Opua on New Zealand’s North Island on 29 May, with an ETA for Newcastle, Australia, her planned next port of call, of around 25 June.

The last correspondence from the boat was on 4 June, when conditions were rough, with winds of 40 knots gusting to 55 knots, and swells up to 26ft (8m). After 10 days of radio silence, rescuers were alerted by family and friends on 14 June.

At first, rescuers were unalarmed, as the vessel’s EPIRB had not been triggered; but as time went by, concern grew. On 28 June, Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand initiated aerial, shoreline and sea

UK

Spirit of Tradition sloop wins Three Peaks Race a five-man crew led by skipper tom hill won the gruelling three Peaks race in the wooden spirit of tradition spirit 46 dido. the 389-mile course and ascents of the three peaks – snowdon in Wales, scafell Pike in England and Ben nevis in scotland – took just 3d, 14h, 50m, two hours faster than the second-placed J120 nunatak. at one point, the yacht reached 18 knots in 30-knot winds and wild seas off caernarfon.

ThAMES

dan houston

NAPLES

CB at first Panerai Naples regatta as we went to press, our editor dan had just returned from Le Vele d’Epoca a napoli – an established regatta that this year became the 10th classic sailing event to come under the sponsorship umbrella of the luxury italian watchmaker Panerai. thirty four boats were present and the Fife yacht Eilean, Panerai’s own yacht, was doing well with a new suit of sails, getting a first and second in her class. this photo shows the s&s yawl manitou chasing the Fife cutter hallowe’en in front of the sant’Elmo fortress. For more overseas news, see pp 20-21.

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

to celebrate the mayor’s thames Festival in London (6-15 september) and to put more emphasis on the whole thames (as opposed to just the London river), a relay voyage from source to sea is planned. the aim is to walk from the true source, thames head in Gloucestershire, to the navigable stretch that starts at Lechlade, then voyage the rest afloat.

Participants are invited to partake in their own boats. all boats are potentially eligible, but obviously cB readers will have a better class of craft! so why not join in? the voyage will coincide roughly with the festival. to learn more, email loveriver@ thamesfestival.org.

nmmc

Source to sea relay voyage TRANSPORT TRUST

Award for Pilot Cutter conservator

malcolm mcKeand was named the transport trust’s Preservationist of the year on 10 June, for his ongoing 18-year restoration of the 1911 Bristol channel Pilot cutter Kindly Light. seven other boats received cash awards for ongoing work. the ceremony took place at the Brooklands museum in surrey, and was attended by patron Prince michael of Kent, who drove himself to the event in a vintage Bentley.

CORNWALL

Revenue cutter replica sails One of the most unusual traditional builds of recent years in Britain, grayhound (pictured left), is now sailing. she’s a three-masted lugger replica of a 1776 revenue cutter of the same name, built in Millbrook in east Cornwall by a team led by Marcus rowden and Chris rees (previously in Yard news). she is 63ft 6in (19.4m) and carries 3,500sqft (325m2) of sail. Marcus, partner Freya and two-year-old son Malachi are now ready to take charter guests chasing the sun from the West Country and Brittany (summer) to the Cape Verdes in autumn and Caribbean in winter. Full story in October CB. nigel sharp

nigel sharp

MBE for Gloriana builder

Chips 1913

Universal Class yachts are impossibly graceful and slender, with more than a touch of the skerry Cruiser to them. Chips is a p-Class from the board of William starling Burgess, the J-Class king who designed enterprise, rainbow and (with Olin stephens) ranger. “she has an incredibly cutaway forefoot and aft-placed keel that can only be described as extreme,” co-owner Bill Doyle tells us. “With today’s handicapping she is almost impossible to beat.” she has won 15 of her last 20 races. Bill also co-owns the nY30 yacht amorita.

HEYBRIDGE, EssEx

Lively conditions for ECODs The gU laws-designed east Coast One-Designs, celebrating their centenary this year, all afloat and still sailing in their home waters off essex, were out at the heybridge Basin regatta on 22 June, their sails with a ‘crab-claw’ rig appearance as they roll downwind.

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

shMh

Universal P-Class

Den phillips

MiChaele COOKe

Mark edwards has received an MBe for services to boatbuilding, heritage and the 2012 Jubilee. gloriana has not been so lucky, hitting Kew Bridge on 13 June and sustaining some damage.

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for tickets and information visit www.woodenboat.org

Wooden Boat Festival is an annual community cultural event of international acclaim. We support year round maritime programs for youth and adults at the Northwest Maritime Center & Wooden Boat Foundation. Poster art by Sarah Felder. Printed by Printery Communications on acid-free recycled paper with vegetable ink, www.printery.com.

Breaking a leg Fife-bound

Five years ago, Mario Pirri, owner of the 70ft (21m) 1936 William Fife III yawl Latifa (left), started the long journey from La Spezia in Italy to be in Largs for the quinquennial Fife Regatta. But after crossing the Mediterranean without a breath of wind under motor, he ran out of time and was forced to relinquish chances of being among the other proud Fife owners. This year his determination to be there saw him singlehanded off the coast of Spain, where, in frightful conditions, a freak wave threw him into the cockpit breaking his leg. A Mayday call brought help and then his sons sailed Latifa to the regatta where he joined them, in plaster, to enjoy the racing from below decks. It’s Latifa’s first time at this event. Nigel Pert

NIGEL PERT

Bounty some editing in the bounty article, again in last month’s issue, confused some of the sense of Robin Lloyd’s story. The story, as Robin wrote it, is up on our website – www. classicboat.co.uk.

Fernhurst returns

Fiona Countess of Arran 1919-2013

Fiona bryde Colquhoun, daughter of sir Iain Colquhoun, Laird of Luss, was one of those very rare female owner-drivers who raced and set powerboat records at up to 100mph. In 1937 she married arthur ‘boofy’ Gore, 8th Earl of arran, and once piloted his bentley to 100mph on London’s oxford street on a summer’s evening in the late 1930s. by the 1960s, she had set a 55mph record for Class III offshore powerboat racing, and was campaigning for the protection of the badger. In 1971, aged 53, she drove her three-point hydroplane highland Fling down Lake Windermere at a Class 1 record of 86mph. during that decade, she also introduced wallabies to the island of Inchconnachan, her Loch Lomond holiday home. In the 1980s, she became the fastest woman on water at 102mph. as late as 1998, aged 79, the Countess was racing RIbs. her final years were spent at Lord arran’s Castle hill stately home in North devon. she died on 16 May. Kevin desmond

shMh

oBItUARY

BEALE PARK BoAt Show

Small craft and sunshine The sun shone at beale Park this year from 7-9 June for the 7,500 visitors – a marked improvement on 2012 when heavy rain cancelled the first day. The 118 exhibitors showed everything from boats and swimming dogs to classic cars at this most laid-back, enjoyable institution.

Fernhurst books has been rekindled from the ashes to take over the Wiley Nautical list of 180 titles, since the sale of Wiley Nautical. Investors include Tim davison, who founded Fernhurst books in 1979, and published more than 100 titles before the business was bought by Wiley in 2006. The new company will be run by Jeremy atkins, dinghy sailor and author.

woRd oF thE MoNth

Reef-band

ThE oLd PLaNs by shMh

The advert on p13 in last month’s issue, though accurate, was perhaps unclear.

The new spirit 60 deck house was indeed first equal in points at the recent antigua Classics, but donald Tofias of W-Class yacht Company wanted to clarify that his boat, Wild horses, was winner of the spirit of Tradition class on both elapsed and corrected time.

C/o KEvIN dEsMoNd

Corrections

FALMoUth, CoRNwALL

Buchanan archive The design archive of naval architect alan buchanan, arguably the most prolific of all time, arrived recently at its new home in the National Maritime Museum. buchanan drew more than 2,400 boats from the 1940s until the 1990s. The boxes were delivered by his children.

A narrow band of canvas sewn on the reef line to support the strain of the reef points. It is pierced with eyelet holes, through which the points are passed each way with a running eye. Sailor’s word Book of 1867

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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Overseas news Some of the most renowned classic yachts in Greece competed in this year’s Classic Yacht Race

SPETSES, GREECE

Former Greek king races

SWEDEN

King opens centre for classics Stockholm has added another marine visitor attraction to the famous 17th-century warship Vasa. This June the King of Sweden opened Stockholm’s centre for classic leisure boats OllE APPElBErG and wooden boat craftsmanship at Nya Djurgårdsvarvet.

The 200 guests were in great spirits and Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf, who has followed this project from the start, gave an inspired speech and medals to some people involved with the project. These included classic yacht enthusiasts Christer Salén and Per Wermelin.

The yard has a long history. Amphion, one of the world’s first known luxury leisure craft, was built there in 1778. Today, the centre includes workshops and the Klubbarnas Klubb (’club of clubs’) – a meeting venue founded by four Stockholm yacht clubs. A special attraction is ‘the world’s longest liars’ bench’ where you can listen to 128 yachties spinning yarns. Olle Appelberg 20

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

lEfT AND ABOVE: C/O SCyr

even enough to claim third place in class at this year’s event, which saw 65 yachts competing in six classes, including traditional Greek and Aegean schooners.

Spetses, the only classic regatta in Greece, is cementing itself as a regatta of charm and importance with boats arriving from all over Greece and from further afield.

NETHERLANDS

Three Tall Ships on globe trip As we went to press, three Dutch Tall Ships – Oosterschelde (three-masted topsail schooner, 1918), Europa (barque, 1911, pictured below) and Tecla (ketch, 1915), were in the Indian Ocean, approaching Australia, halfway around a complete circumnavigation south of the three great capes.

Berths aboard are available for Australian coastal cruising later this summer/autumn. Visit www.dutchtallships.com to learn more and keep up-to-date with their progress.

NEuzA AIrES PErEIrA

The former King of Greece and Olympic gold medallist (Dragons, Rome, 1960) King Constantine and his wife, the former Queen of Greece, were sailing at this year’s Spetses Classic Yacht Race from 13-16 June, with four crew members aboard the 2006-built classic Greek schooner Afroessa. The incredible crew complement was not, however,

OVERSEAS NEWS

MEDITERRANEAN ROUND-UP

Season start The first major European event in the classic yachting racing season kicked off, as always, with Les Voiles d’Antibes in the south where, for four days, the fleet of 65 yachts sailed courses of 10 to 16 miles under sunny skies – but not much wind.

By 2 June, after four days of match racing, the winners were as follows: the 1908 First Rule 15-M yacht Mariska (Big Boats); the 1926 gaff cutter Duet (Vintage); the 1971 bermudan sloop

Sagittarius (Classic); and the 1997 bermudan sloop Savannah (SoT). Main sponsor Panerai was on hand to light up the event and to give out highly prized luxury watches to the winners.

ITALY

Six S&S yawls

MED

ROUND-UP

Above: the giant Herreshoff schooner Mariette glides past Wianno

More light winds followed at Argentario in Tuscany, where the winners were Cambria (Big Boats), Leonore (Vintage), Sagittarius again (Classic) and Wianno (SoT). The growth of interest in S&S inboard yawls

USA

C/O ATBF

Revival Herreshoff dinghy race

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

New classic regatta for Queensland Wynnum Manly Yacht Club was the host of the first Amity Traditional Boat Festival in Moreton Bay this May. The festival is named after its sponsor – Amity Boats in Brisbane, builder of traditional GRP daysailers (see p79). Fifteen boats took part, with the first perpetual Amity Trophy award going to the beautiful varnished Nordic Folkboat Filuren, owned by Ian Duncan with his crew of eight!

The Cleveland Ledge Race, contended throughout the 1950s by fleets of Herreshoff 12½s from Beverly, Buzzards and Quissett yacht clubs, will return on 21 July. No pre-registration required. See www. herreshoff12.org.

was most apparent here, with no fewer than six in a total fleet of 45: Stormy Weather (1934), Skylark (1937), Manitou (1937), Tomahawk (1938), Comet (1946) and Argyll (1948).

SPAIN

Five Js No fewer than five Js raced at the Superyacht Cup in Palma, Mallorca, from 19-22 June. Hanuman was overall winner, followed by Lionheart, then Ranger, then Velsheda, then Rainbow.

OBITUARY

Robert Cox 1918-2013 ‘Bob’ Cox, founder of the Antique Boat Museum of Clayton, New York, died at his Chaumont home on 22 June, aged 95. Bob founded the museum, christened the ‘Antique Boat Auxiliary of the Thousand Islands Museum’ in 1967. It gained its present name in 1990.

He was still leading tours around the museum until the age of 93. Among his other achievements, Bob founded

C/0 ABM

FRANCE

JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

the Fort Lauderdale Marina, one of the largest in the world, at the age of just 30. In the 60s and 70s, he was a champion offshore powerboat racer and between 1986 and 1992, he was the mayor of Fort Lauderdale. He is remembered by colleagues as a “true leader of our institution”. He survived his wife by three months.

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

21

Fashion follows function, so gear up for summer!

Now at your favorite shop.

Gaastra Flagship Store Newport, Rhode Island, USAStore 16 Bannister’s Wharf, Newport, RI 02840 Gaastra Flagship 401-846-8700 16 Bannister’s Tel: Wharf, Newport, Rhode Island, USA Email: newportgaastra@verizon.net Tel: 401-846-8700 | Email: NewportGaastra@verizon.net

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Looking ahead Things to do in the next few weeks

NEXT MONTH

VISIONS OF THE UNIVERSE Until 15 September National Maritime Museum, London Tel: +44 (0)208 312 6608, www.rmg.co.uk; 10am-4.30pm daily

NASA

Images of the heavens – from the earliest drawings to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Also, see the new Sammy Ofer Wing, which includes the library and a new permanent exhibition: Voyagers, Britain and the Sea.

Astor, Latifa, Mignon, Oblio, Tringa... these are just some of the gorgeous Fife designs racing on the Clyde as we go to press. Full story next month

ON THE WATER 20-26 July Glandore Classic Regatta County Cork, Ireland Special guests include Jolie Brise, Solway Maid, Blue Leopard, six Menai Fifes and six Bantry Bay gigs.

Tel: +353 (0)868 276237 www.glandoreyc.com

Until 27 October Estuary Museum of London Docklands Twelve artists’ representations of the Thames estuary. Free entry.

Tel: +44 (0)207 001 9844, www.museumoflondon.org.uk

ROYAL FOWEY YC CORNWALL 30 July-2 August After some uncertainty, Fowey Classics is definitely on! Special guests this year will include Gipsy Moth IV – the famous ketch that took solo sailor Francis Chichester around the world in 1966-7 – and the Troy Class keelboats. There is also a wine tasting and a talks programme, including a presentation by Marcus Lewis, builder of the Troy Class (see “The Troy Maker”, CB284).

Tel: +44 (0)1726 833573, www.foweyclassics.com

VIVIER

From the publishers of Classic Boat SAILING TODAY

IN THE LATEST ISSUE AUGUST 2013 sailingtoday.co.uk £4.20

WIN £1,500

Sailing free

How hostage couple put pirate ordeal behind them

WORTH OF SAILS

A creek-crawler’s guide to the secret West Country

AIS vs radar Which is the best collision avoidance system for you?

 Picture perfect – the most popular TV antennae on test

BOAT ON TEST

French leave Get away in the go-anywhere Allures 39.9 CORK HARBOUR

Gull’s Eye crosses the Irish Sea to Cork ST196_001FC_V10.indd Cover promo text.indd1 1

POCKET CRUISER

Sailing a gunter-rigged Norfolk Gypsy

TV ANTENNAE

Don’t miss a minute with our group test

 Hostage heroes: Paul and Rachel Chandler sail again

RACE TUNING

Turn your cruiser into a Cowes Week winner

IN THE LATEST ISSUE £4.30 Issue #1664 | AUGUST 2013 www.yachtsandyachting.co.uk 08 9 770044 000205

Record

Breakers!

Francis Joyon 5 days across the Atlantic Ben Ainslie Round the Island souvenir

 Francis Joyon: Frenchman shatters Atlantic record  Cowes Week: how to win, where to meet

ESSENTIAL GUIDE

Cowes Week how to win, where to meet

e TechnIQU

20 eS ve Ov O mO A Id Avo To

 Big in Barbados: news from the 505 Worlds

France’s foremost designer of modern classics sails with us in Brittany and talks about his life’s work and influences. Don’t miss it!

PLUS Racing under Vesuvius – Panerai Naples regatta, death of Charlie Barr and more

YACHTS YACHTING

www.yAchTSAndyAchTInG.co.Uk

POOLE TO SCILLY • LOFOTEN ISLANDS • ALLURES 39.9 • CORK • AIS VS RADAR

CRUISING

Hidden gems

 Go West – creek-cruising from Poole to the Scillies

coweS week GUIde | RoUnd The ISlAnd RePoRT | FRAncIS Joyon | TeST: nAcRA 17

AUGUST 2013 – ISSUE No 196

INTERVIEW

AUGUST 2013 | ISSUe #1664

GO FURTHER I SAIL BETTER I BE INSPIRED

There’s a bar... but opening times change with the tide. Magical Suffolk begins on the Deben with its silted history and pleasant places

CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES

505 WORLDS

Champion dinghy sailors share their secrets

bOat teSt

The new Nacra 17 Olympic class under the spotlight

tRaveL: gReece The joys of dinghy sailing and relaxing in the sun

antiguan Win How to put together a winning campaign

CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES

YACHTS YACHTING CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES

CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES

17/06/2013 19/06/2013 16:52 12:09

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

ON SALE 8 August 2013

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

TOP TO BOTTOM: MARC TURNER, PETER WILLIS, STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES

EXHIBITION

THE RIVER DEBEN

NIGEL SHARP

13-17 August Menai Straits Regattas Nr Beaumaris, Anglesey, N Wales Fifes, Mylnes, Squibs, Seabird Half Raters, Hilbres, MSODs, Operas, Conway One-Designs, Etchells, cruisers, keelboats and nobbies.

Tel: +44 (0)1248 810354 www.menaistraitregattas.org.uk

SISTERS OF FIFE

23

Saleroom CHRISTIE’S

Poster power The 1930s must have been the sunniest and driest decade on record – judging from the images at Christie’s most recent London Vintage Poster sale on 23 May. Certainly, it was the golden age of poster art as advertisers enticed commuters on suburban railway platforms to broaden their horizons.

Punting on the Thames under dappled skies (top right) was a 1931 vision conveyed by London Transport to train travellers crammed into carriages. The dream, or the poster image of it, was sold for £750.

For a little more, just £1,000, you could have broadened your horizons further with a 1931 image of a gaffer off Dover in a pea-green sea (top left). If you want crystal blue waters set against an Alpine backdrop, then that came in a little pricier, at £3,000, for an image of Thonon-lesBains on Lake Geneva (see this month’s Saleroom online gallery).

That same sum would also have bought you an image of Gatsby-style elegance in a shipboard view of Gibraltar (above middle), brought to

© CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LIMITED 2013

BY DAVE SELBY

you by The Empire Marketing Board in 1928. The whitecaps are a concession to reality, although none of the passengers looks like throwing up. That would be far too real.

While an iconic 1935 image of the French liner Normandie (above right) made £10,000 in the auction,

Clockwise from top left: from sailing, punting, cruising and sunbathing, these vintage posters paint a pretty picture

many of these very satisfying and more affordable images can be considered bargains, as only very few of these images have survived.

A genuine 1930s poster is certainly more of an “original” and generally rarer than many a more costly “limited edition” fine-art print.

RM AUCTIONS, FLORIDA

WAYNE DAVIS ©2013 COURTESY RM AUCTIONS

Horton’s Hacker fetches top dollar You probably haven’t heard of Edward Everett Horton, a jobbing American comedy actor who appeared in countless movies in the 1930s. In later years Horton reminisced with humility: “I have my own little kingdom. I do the scavenger parts no one else wants and I get well paid for it.”

Of that there’s no doubt, for in 1930 he bought this fine Hacker-Craft triple-cockpit runabout, which he enjoyed until his death in 1970. If Horton was dismissive of his own achievements, John Ludwig Hacker was not.

“Hacker-Crafts are hand-built. Skimping on materials and workmanship is never practised to achieve lower prices. Price-cutting sins against quality.”

So ran one Hacker ad… Horton’s magnificent 30-footer (9.1m) later passed

through several prominent collections, along the way being restored but retaining much of the original planking. Power is provided by a 250hp Sterling petrol engine, a $400 option when new.

When it came up at RM Auctions’ Amelia Island, Florida, classic car sale, it fetched £157,000 ($242,000). www.clas sicbo Certainly Horton would have approved, as he once salero at.co.uk/ remarked: “It’s not that I really need the money, it’s simply for more om stories that I like money – lots of it.”

See Salermooorme online

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

25

Objects of desire Time tracker Breitling has created the world’s first watch with a built-in, dual-frequency personal locator beacon (PLB). Emergency II transmits a digital signal on the 406MHz frequency, then a second analogue signal on the 121.5MHz frequency – both of which are said to broadcast for up to 24 hours and be tracked by the internationally recognised Cospas-Sarsat network of five search-and-rescue (SAR) satellites.

To activate the distress beacon, the user unscrews the caps at the bottom of the case and extends the wire-style antennae.

Other features include a rechargeable battery, huge 51mm case with military heavy looks, battery end-of-life indicator, and a titanium case that’s water-resistant to 5 bar (50m).

Undoubtedly the safest watch money can buy. Approx £11,000 www.breitling.com Tel: +41 32 654 54 54

Eagle eyes The Zeiss Marine 7x50 GA T* binoculars satisfy all requirements in terms of robustness and simple, single-handed operation, while the 7x magnification and short design with a low centre of gravity ensure extremely stable images even in a strong swell. The large 7.1mm eye relief makes for comfortable observation, and the transparent Porro prisms and the modern Carl Zeiss T* coating provide bright, high-contrast images, especially on the water, where natural contrasts tend to disappear. Fully waterproof, and image sharpness can be adjusted for the left and right eyes. £1,299 www.zeiss-scope.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1458 447120

Light speed We spotted a pair of these converted Walker Ship logs at the Beale Park Boat Show, nestling under the care of John Greenaway’s Traditional Boat Supplies –there again after a few years’ hiatus. The brass log spinners are made to take a normal house (230V) fitting but can be adapted to 24, or even 12V if wanted aboard in a salubrious saloon.

These are the big Cherub Ships’ log spinners, just over 15in (381mm) long and with Walker’s initials and anchor insignia. A unique and genuine item finding new life after years in the oceans as a speedreading device. £195 www.tradboats.com Tel: +44 (0)1502 712311

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

Model form The sight of a Thames Sailing Barge under full sail can stir some deep emotions in all of us. The design with its sprit-held mainsail and fan-like leeboards has graced the coastline and estuaries of the South and East of England, for at least 400 years.

These marine workhorses were also responsible for the reconstruction of Victorian London as we know it today, bringing Kentish bricks and cement for the burgeoning city and freshly cut hay to feed the millions of real workhorses. This model by William Mowll of Faversham has a glassfibre body but every part is handmade to a 1:32 scale. It’s based on the Nautilus of 1870 and is exquisite. £2,500 Email: williammowll@yahoo.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1795 597597

NeilThompsonBoats

The Norfolk Smuggler Dimensions

The Norfolk Smuggler 25 has been carefully designed to ensure a single-handed sailing ability when required. The cockpit is large to allow comfortable sailing for up to six adults and to provide ample stowage space in the cockpit lockers.

The cabin trunk provides standing headroom through the yacht without looking cumbersome, and ahead of this there is a safe foredeck to provide security for the foredeck hand. This vessel has been designed to be shoal draught with a centreboard increasing draught from 2’9” with plate up to 4’11” with plate down.

The centreboard is raised and lowered with an easy to operate manual winch.

Norfolk Urchin

Norfolk Oyster

Norfolk Gypsy

Length Beam Draft Sail area Weight of boat

Norfolk Smuggler 25

25’ ( 7.69m) 8’9” (2.69m) 2’9”/4’11” (0.85m/1.51m) 404 sq ft (38.3 sq m) 4.25 tonnes (inc equipment)

Norfolk Trader 45 & 65

Home of the Norfolk Range Neil Thompson Boats, Manor Farm, Glandford, Holt, Norfolk NR25 7JP +44 (0) 1263 741172 • info@neilthompsonboats.co.uk • www.neilthompsonboats.co.uk

NELLIE

AGED TO PERFECTION

Meet Nellie, the 151-year-old Itchen Ferry that’s one of the world’s oldest boats still out on the water. Here we chart her colourful history and her meticulous restoration

S

he’s one of the oldest Old Gaffers still sailing, at 151 years old. Nellie was built in 1862 by the redoubtable Dan Hatcher of Southampton.

Her fellow Itchen Ferry Wonder, also built by Hatcher, pips her by a couple of years, but Nellie can claim to have more original timber in her than most boats of her age, and, following restoration work, was the oldest boat to compete in the 2010, ’11 and ’12 Round the Island Races.

Nellie was originally built as a 19ft (5.8m) fishing boat and although her full ownership is not recorded, we do know that three families played an instrumental role in maintaining this incredible slice of maritime history.

The first was the Banks family of Hythe near Southampton. They worked her from as early as the 1880s through three generations to 1959, and it was Henry Banks who had her lengthened at Luke’s yard, Itchen Ferry.

As a result, she now measures 21ft 9in (6.7m).

Nellie was then left to Peter, the son of George Preston, a friend of the family who had often sailed with the Banks brothers, Harry and Arthur. It was Peter who, by 2003, realised he couldn’t keep maintaining

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

her for an indefinite period, and eventually persuaded Chris Waddington to take her on.

“Dad always says he got talked into it,” says Chris’s son Scott, who is Nellie’s present owner. Chris, who founded WicorMarine Yacht Haven, the boatyard near the upper reaches of Portsmouth Harbour, had already restored several boats, including another of Dan Hatcher’s Itchen Ferry designs, Nellie’s ‘older sister’ the 1858 Sorella, now in Italy. Scott adds: “I remember Dad saying that he couldn’t do up another wooden boat, but when Peter Preston said ‘well, we’ll burn her then’, Dad gave in.”

At that particular time WicorMarine had no wooden boatbuilders on its staff, but one of its customers, Vincent van Walt, owner of the Hillyard Lady Ailsa, mentioned that his son Dirk had just graduated from the boatbuilding school at Lowestoft, so Dirk and a fellow student, Sara Fentiman, were taken on to work on Nellie.

There was plenty to do, says Scott. “The keel was shot.

They had to remove a lot of architectural ironwork, set in concrete, from the bilges, and scrape off all the coatings.

Their remit was to make good below the waterline and fair the topsides. But more work revealed itself,” recalls Scott.

Above and right: past and present owners – the Banks family back in the 1970s and Scott Waddington (far right) with his crew today

TOP LEFT: C/O SCOTT WADDINGTON; RIGHT: PETER MUMFORD, BEKEN OF COWES

STORY PETER WILLIS

NELLIE

c/0 ScOTT waDDIngTOn

“He knew that the existing planks had worked and shaped themselves over 150 years”

NELLIE BUILT

1862 D Hatcher Southampton LOD

21ft 9in (6.7m) LOS

32ft (9.8m) Beam

8ft (2.4m) DraUghT

4ft (1.2m), was 3ft (0.9m) TOTaL SaIL area

382sqft (35.5m2)

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

Clockwise from top left: planing the topsides; patterning up for the hull planks; new iron keel; outside the yard, resplendent in her fresh 1920s livery

onEdition 2012

“The deck needed replacing. I think Dad felt it would be worth Dirk and Sara finishing her – he always liked to bring on the younger generation.”

Before Chris Waddington got involved, Nellie had been kept in a mudberth at Eling Creek near Southampton, and her disappearance from there caused some consternation. A letter in CB197 from Barry Marshall, who owns the Itchen Ferry Mermaid, feared she had gone to Scandinavia. In the following issue, surveyor Adrian White revealed the truth, which was that Nellie had turned out for the 2004 Bursledon Regatta, collecting a second, and would have taken part in the OGA’s Solent Regatta if a 25-knot wind had not prompted her crew’s decision to retire to the pub instead.

By this time, Chris was in the process of retiring and handing over the yard to Scott, along with Nellie – and the bills! Over the winter of 2004/5 her old Stuart Turner engine had gone. Boatbuilder Alastair Garland and Tony Dugdale, a former engineer with WicorMarine who came out of retirement to work on the engine, installed a 10hp Yanmar on the centreline – something lots of people said would never work. But, with a beefed-up sternpost, it did.

But then, as Scott puts it, “for one reason or another” Nellie came ashore and remained laid up for a number of years. In 2011, however, with her 150th birthday looming, Scott had a conversation with Alastair. “We decided to do her proud, and deal with the topsides. For a year, Alastair worked on her – meticulously. He is very particular – he’ll do a job properly or not at all.”

Alastair is a great believer in retaining original wood wherever possible and was reluctant to take out and replace whole planks. “He knew that the existing planks had worked and shaped themselves over 150 years,” explains Scott. “New planks take time to bed in – they move and the boats need to ‘shake their shoulders’, as Alastair puts it, and take a while to stiffen up.”

So, as photos of the work reveal, a patchwork of graving pieces show where rot was found and eradicated.

And Alastair had another trick up his sleeve to fair the hull. He decided to cut all the planks along the waterline in half longitudinally. “He set up a circular saw and ripped through them,” says Scott. As a result, each wide plank became two half-width planks, and as well as making the curve of the hull that much more fair, it also put less strain on the plank ends and halved the potential for the seams to open up. “And it did work,” says Scott admiringly. Alastair longboarded the hull smooth and then repainted her in her traditional 1920s livery.

Another legendary craftsman involved in Nellie’s restoration was rigger Peter Martin, who sadly died in November 2011. Scott believes the job he completed on Nellie could have been the last, or one of the last to have engaged Peter’s professional passion. “I asked him to come and look at a job,” recalls Scott, “but I forgot to mention the name of the boat. When he was due to come round, I got out all the rigging on the floor of a shed.

Peter came in and said ‘That’s Nellie’s rigging’. It turned out she was his first job as a young apprentice.”

Above: Nellie, the oldest boat taking part in the 2012 Round the Island Race, sails with the largest, the mighty schooner Eleonora

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

31

NELLIE

C/0 SCOTT WADDINGTON

“I love her to death and I’ve spent the thick end of £30,000 on her”

Above: making the casting for Nellie’s new keel at the forge in Wadebridge

Scott recalls Peter with affection and admiration.

“He was full of tips and tricks and had a casual confidence about what he did – at the same time as he was working on Nellie, he had to go over to Germany to work on James Dyson’s GL Watson steam yacht Nahlin.”

Peter’s involvement came as a result of Nellie’s return to the water in the 2010 Round the Island Race where she took a respectable fourth in class, but also revealed her terrible weather helm. Browsing a 1904 Dixon Kemp’s Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing, Scott discovered that weather helm had been a common problem, and the solution – if you could afford it – was to fit a ballast keel.

With fresh memories of 13 hour’s hauling on the helm, Scott was determined to do something about it before the

next Round the Island. He pulled together a team including John Sharp, who had refitted Moonbeam, boatbuilder Ian Foster and sailmaker Peter Lucas to tackle the problem. “We had to put in new floors to take the increased weight,” explains Scott, “and build up the wooden keel to take the new ballast keel.” Over a ton of lead, with an MDF pattern, was taken down to Irons Brothers in Wadebridge, Cornwall, to make the casting.

The new keel was a foot deeper than the old one, and once the mainsail was recut, with a reduced foot on a shorter boom, Nellie was ready to tackle the 2011 Round the Island. “She was as light as a feather,” says Scott.

“On the passage over to Cowes Nellie handled like a dream.” Alas, poor weather forced her to retire before reaching the Needles, but last year, to celebrate her 150th birthday, Nellie made her debut at YOGAFF, and went on to complete the Round the Island in distinguished company. “We sailed with Eleonora,” says Scott bursting with pride. There is some spectacular footage of Nellie and Eleonora together in the official video of the race (see http://youtu.be/1opHNGppnT8).

This year, however, Nellie, though looking immaculate, seems reluctant to get back into the water.

Scott explains: “She’s not really the right boat for a young family when you’re trying to get your kids into sailing.

She’s more for a couple of enthusiasts with time to spend on her. It’s a difficult decision to make. I love her to death and I’ve spent the thick end of £30,000 on her, but I don’t want to see all this effort and money wasted. She’s part of a very special pedigree, built for Solent waters. She’s got to be used.” We couldn’t agree more.

“The Itchen Ferry is not a class. That’s a myth I’m trying to dispel,’ says Scott Waddington. “They ranged from about 18ft to 30ft (5.5m-9.1m), and each one would have been put together with whatever materials they had – and their innate knowledge of what would work in Solent waters.”

And they evolved, starting in clinker, but settling into carvel build around the 1850s. Other characteristics include a plumb stem, a raked wineglass transom, a soft turn to the bilges, a low sheer, plus a large external rudder. The secret of their success was described by Robin Gates in CB60.

“The point of maximum beam was drawn a little further aft with each waterline upwards from the keel, producing midship sections that raked aft. Plumb ends and a broad beam gave rise to hollow sections in the bow.”

The Itchen Ferry is pretty as well as practical and nippy.

Half-decked with a capacious well, and a little cuddy forward of the mast, they were used for fishing and carrying passengers. Inevitably, too, they would be raced in local regattas and some would have been built and kept especially for this purpose. Sorella, built by Dan Hatcher in

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

C/0 ReNATO PIRATA

Different by design

1858, and restored by Scott’s father Chris, was one such boat; she can claim to be the oldest yacht afloat.

Many were built by Dan Hatcher at his Belvidere Road yard on the Southampton side of the River Itchen. Other local builders included Summers & Payne, Lukes and Fay, as well as builders in Cowes and elsewhere. Many have survived, including Nigel Waller’s Fanny of Cowes and Mike Phillips’ Tom Tit. More details at www.itchenferry.org.

Above: Sorella sailing in Italy

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back from the brink Over the last 10 years, a dedicated group of friends has masterminded the restoration of the last surviving Dundee tunnyboat. Here is the remarkable story of Biche story nicky sullivan PHotoGrAPHs les amis du biche

T

he headquarters of Les Amis du Biche (‘Friends of the Biche’) is a shabby shed that sits rather incongruously amid the hangarsized warehouses and depots that populate the docks of Lorient, an industrial and once strategically important port-town on the south coast of Brittany. It was here that more than 100 Amis gathered on a mild March evening to celebrate the announcement that their boat, Biche, had won the 2013 Classic Boat Award in the ‘Over 40ft (12.2m) - Europe’ category.

They are a motley crew, Les Amis, from a diverse range of backgrounds and professions, though united by a love of boats and heritage. Mostly retired professionals and tradesmen, they do not look like the kind of people that would stage a heist, yet that is just how this project to restore the last sailing tuna boat of her kind started.

Biche was built in 1934 and registered to Ange ‘Biche’ Stephane on the Île de Groix – a flat, wind-and-wavebeaten island just three nautical miles from Lorient.

At the time that Ange helmed Biche, Groix was the heart and soul of France’s tuna-fishing industry, and Biche, a Dundee tunnyboat, was one of the most elegant and perfectly adapted tuna fishing boats ever built.

The Dundee was created in the 1880s by a Groisillon (native of Groix) and was soon considered the ultimate tuna boat, renowned for its steadiness, speed and unmistakable elegance. “They were unique,”

says Marc Maussion, one of the principal drivers of Les Amis du Biche. “They were the best workers of the time; there wasn’t a boat that went faster.”

With a high bow to minimise the amount of water washing aboard in the rough Atlantic seas, the double mast is positioned over a stern that extends over the water as much as 6ft 6in (2m) behind the boat.

A minimum of five sails give the boats their distinctive, beautiful aspect, while ensuring they could return to port quickly with their precious catch, even when there was hardly any wind.

The second mast not only contributed to speed, but also functioned as a stabiliser.

The elegant stern’s design lies in the more terrestrial concern of tax avoidance.

In France, during the 1800s, boats were assessed for taxes based upon the length of the boat that sat in the water.

An extended stern allowed builders to create storage and living space without adding to the tax bills.

But such concerns can be taken too far and in 1930 a fierce storm hit France, brutally exposing

Clockwise from above: Biche displaying her huge tangons; fastening the new hull planks; Biche being reframed

36

the weakness. On boats already legendary for their speed, many tunnymen thought they could outrun this storm as they had others, and set their sails for home.

But this one was faster and, catching the boats underneath their over-extended sterns, flipped them head over heel. A monument to Groisillons lost at sea is dominated by memorial plaques from that year.

Biche’s moderated design owes much to that storm.

She was the ne plus ultra of Dundees, so to speak.

At 69ft 3in (21.1m) long, Biche weighs 75 tonnes and can carry up to six tonnes of fish. She is built of French oak, with a larch deck. Her sail area is 3,229sqft (300m²) and in June 2012, when she sailed for the first time in almost 30 years, she made 11 knots on a calm day.

But for all of the Dundees’ splendours, they still had to make way for modernisation. In 1956 an order came down that the entire sailing tuna fleet was to be scuttled to make way for a new mechanised fleet. But Biche had other ideas, and somehow wound her way to Belgium and the Royal Yacht Club at Ostend, where she served as a dormitory for young cadets, many of whom are members of Les Amis du Biche today.

Modernisation was one of the final factors that killed tuna fishing on Groix, the island that is credited with introducing, and perfecting, the industry in France. At its height, almost everyone on the island was involved, from working in the canneries to the forges, sailmakers and carpenters. The boats were communally owned, with

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

many women proprietors involved. Today, traces of the importance of the industry to the island can still be found everywhere, from the tuna fish weather vane on top of the church spire in Le Bourg, the principal town, to carvings of Dundees on the fronts of many well-to-do houses. Models of the famous boats can be found in the churches, and the island’s municipal newspaper is called Le Thon Libre (The Free Tuna).

Groisillons had a reputation as fierce, fearless fishermen, willing to go further for longer in search of their catch. It is perhaps that tenacity that has ensured the success of the project to restore Biche 70 years after she first put to sea.

Biche was in a less than splendid state 10 years ago when the Port Museum at Douarnenez, which had bought her from an Englishman named Charles Booth in 1991, took the decision to consign her to the ships’ cemetery on the town’s mudflats. “She was pitiable,” says Maussion. Shorn of her masts, and her wood rotted away, she had already sunk twice in the port. “We thought the museum had a project for restoration, but they couldn’t afford it. So she was condemned.”

The decision certainly made waves.

On hearing the news, the inaugural meeting of Les Amis du Biche was convened and attended by more than 100 people. Fundraising aims were set, t-shirts printed and the media contacted. There was some reaction, but it was difficult to attract attention to such an unattractive

BICHE

“It was kind of funny, although the police were very firm with us”

BICHE LOA

69ft 3in (21.1m) beAm

21ft 9in (6.6m) DrAught

9ft 7in (3m)

45 m²

DispLAcement

75 tonnes

280 m² 117 m²

44 m²

43 m²

31 m²

BICHE Plan de voilure - Révision 3 Echelle 1/100 10 octobre 2011 François Vivier Architecte Naval

boat. Those who might have made a contribution were also reluctant thanks to the recent failure of a project to reconstruct Mimosa, another Dundee. Many had contributed, yet the project had foundered and then sunk without trace. Moreover, negotiations with the museum to remove Biche were going nowhere. Then, on 23 November 2002, Les Amis took drastic action.

In what was subsequently described as a “commando operation”, 50 people staged an attempted heist. With the flair for protest for which the French are renowned, 40 people stood on the port waving banners in the cold dawn, while 10 boarded Biche’s skeletal remains and started to prepare her for refloatation. It seemed unfortunate at the time that the mayor, who lived on the other side of the estuary, chose that moment to get up and prepare his morning cup of coffee.

“It was kind of funny, though the police were very firm with us,” says Maussion, who lived for several months afterwards with a very real threat of prosecution for theft from a museum. Thanks to the mayor’s early morning routine, the operation had failed. But the resulting publicity suddenly drew attention to their cause. Funding soon followed as did, finally, an agreement from the museum that Biche could be taken away. The real work had started.

They had to wait until the following February for the right conditions to come about. On a clear day with high tides a trench was dug through the estuary to the port,

Longueur de coque Longueur flottaison Largeur hors bordé Largeur flottaison Tirant-d'eau Creux sur rablure Déplacement (eau de mer) Coefficient prismatique CC/Flottaison Surface mouillée (avec safran)

21.10 m 16.30 m 6.62 m 6.32 m 2.92 m 3.28 m 63 t 0.535 47.5 % 122 m²

BICHE Formes en flottaison (peinture) Echelle 1/60 27 novembre 2011 François Vivier Architecte Naval

Descente de la chambre

Panneau-rouf amovible

Descente principale

Cloison oblique sous descente

3,3°

11,3°

300

88,7° 88,7° 361

428

549

Plancher coursive

261

482

644

Caisse eau douce 2 X 350 litres Caisse à gazole 2 X 750 litres

32

27

23

20

17

11

7

4

Cloison 100 mm en avant de la membrure Toilette

Bancs-coffres

Compartiment moteur

Lits clos superposés

Lit clos double

Lit clos

Cabine passagers 2 couchettes simples

140

Couchette transversale

100 1017

Toilette

700

Perkins M92B

Epontille Porte étanche clair mini 500 mm

1457

1746

Zone sous cloison oblique

1135

1252

1233 1009

Table à cartes

Siège 600

3094

Rouf amovible

Placard navigation

730

500

1105

1243

1233

Marche Porte étanche clair 500 mm

1914

750

1572 2167

1746 1936

Desserte (assiette)

1517 750

Cuisine 1991

Cloison basse

Rangement et couchette d'appoint

1989 2001

2276

Lit clos

Couchage maxi 19 personnes Toilettes : 2

Cabine passagers 1 couchette double 1 couchette simple

Cloison étanche

32

Cloison étanche

Lit clos

27

Lits clos superposés

23

20

17

Tables amovibles

11

7

4

BICHE Emménagements Vue en plan Echelle 1/20 14 mai 2012 François Vivier Architecte Naval

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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BICHE

Biche was wrapped in a massive 9,688sqft (900m²) waterproof sheet and floatation balloons were arranged beneath her by divers from the national marines.

The recovery crew’s biggest concern was the stern, the exaggerated angle of which makes it the weakest point.

To protect the fragile extension a rig was constructed halfway along the deck and both ends of the boat were stabilised. Slowly, to loud cheers from onlookers and supporters, Biche was towed away to Brest and Chantier du Guip, the shipyard that won the contract to restore Biche, and winners of the ‘Best Boatyard’ category in the 2013 Classic Boat Awards. Chantier du Guip has been involved in the project since the beginning. “It was easy to select them,” says Maussion. “They are the best boatyard in France and they also submitted a fair price.”

Biche stayed at Brest for three years, while further funding for the next stages was secured.

In 2006, Biche was finally transferred to Lorient and in a dedicated workshop just behind the shabby headquarters of Les Amis du Biche, the team from Chantier du Guip took over.

They had no designs to go on as the old boatyards never kept their paperwork, and few helpful images remained. One of Les Amis, Jean-Claude Rosso, is an engineer who used to work on France’s nuclear submarine fleet, and he set about the task of determining how Biche would have appeared in her heyday.

He scoured the archives and eventually collected more material on Dundees than any museum. Then he and the local priest, Armel de La Monneraye, waded through the mudflats at Douarnenez, among the wreckage of old

boats, digging out components common to the time so they could build an accurate scale model (see above).

To source the wood for the restoration project, the team went north of Paris to the forests of Compiègene that supplied the wood for Biche’s original construction.

Here, the oak trees naturally grow a little bit deformed, making them perfect for shipbuilding. More than 100 trees were used for the restoration of Biche.

The first job was the keel and from there 23 frames were replaced. The next task was to replank her. Each plank had to be steamed and fitted to the hull within 10 minutes before it lost its flexibility. After that the deck, mast and rigging could be added.

At the time of writing, the interior was still being worked on. Unlike the outside, it will look completely different from the original Biche. Amazingly, 15 beautifully constructed bunks have been built, with seven in the old crews’ quarters at the stern and the remainder in the central galley area, which used to be the hold.

The back section used to be home to the ‘mousse’, the benighted cabin boy who was expected to sleep (when not sleeping on deck) and cook there.

This section will be restored to appear as it did originally. Thanks to the failed project to restore Mimosa, Rosso was able to obtain interior images and is very pleased with his plans for this part of the boat.

Biche’s future is possibly more assured than it’s ever been. She will be used for commemorative events in Brittany, and elsewhere, and is available for hire.

Les Amis also propose to run a few tuna-fishing campaigns each year, and there are ideas to use her

Clockwise from left: a model of Biche hangs from the ceiling of the local church, reflecting her impact on the lives of everyone on Groix; hull restoration complete; Jean-Claude Rosso with his scale model

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

39

BICHE

Above, left: preparing to rescue Biche from the mudflats.

Right: Marc Maussion (left, white collar) and other members of Les Amis du Biche celebrate winning their 2013 Classic Boat Award

as a sustainable transport for high-value products, too.

“I hope that we can also use her to encourage people to go back to sails for ocean fishing,” says Maussion.

“It is better for the environment, and it makes for better fishing too, as they’re not frightened away by the noise.”

Last July, Biche set sail for the first time since the early 1980s. On a very emotional day for Les Amis du Biche, which now counts more than 250 members, with traditional yellow furze on her tangons (two giant fishing rods – see panel below) and flying the Breton flag, she sailed back to Groix for an extraordinary day of celebrations and remembrance.

Ange Biche’s grandson, Loic Le Maréchal, still lives on Groix and was there to see it. “I have never seen so many people in the port,” he says. “The whole island came out to see her, and more than a few cried. It was a wonderful opportunity to build a bridge with our past, and also between the generations today. Biche fascinated the young people, and the old seamen were extremely proud to be able to show them how they used to live.”

One of the most interesting aspects of this project lies not so much in the restoration of the boat, but in the renewal of life that it has given to many of those

Last of the Tunnymen In 1953 Joseph Perrin, one of France’s last tunnymen to fish under sail on one of the classic Dundees, sat back and reflected on his life. This was to be his last campaign before modernisation took over the fleet, giving them radios and engines and other things of which he didn’t really approve. For him, “sails flame the passions in a way that motors never can”.

His book, La Fin des Thoniers (The End of the Tunnymen), is a homage to the men who plied the rough Atlantic seas in search of prized tuna, which had to be brought back fresh and undamaged. As he reflected, his boat was loaded with provisions for a crew of four: seven tonnes of ice, 20 2kg loaves of bread, 50kg of potatoes, larder provisions and 250 litres of wine.

The tuna season ran from June to October so that, while the life of the fishermen was indeed hard, it did offer advantages over the normal trawlermen who fished in the depths of winter, day and night. The campaigns usually lasted about three weeks, as they

40

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

involved in Les Amis du Biche. Many of them meet almost every Friday evening, toast their friends, listen to live music, and make plans for the next phases. They have all learned new skills and found a new purpose in their lives. It has brought out the best in them as pride in achievements is shared. It was impossible to get anyone among this happy bunch to take the credit for anything.

Biche went from Groix to Belgium, and from there to Cornwall where she served as a charter boat before the Port Museum at Douarnenez acquired her. At every stage, she encountered adversity. “She should have died in the 1950s in Groix,” says Maussion. “She should have died in Belgium too and in England. And she certainly should have died at Douarnenez. But she’s still here.”

Gleaming white, with a sturdy berth in the windchopped water under the monstrous shadows of the submarine base constructed by the Germans during World War II, Biche is strikingly beautiful among the high-tech modern yachts and catamarans around her.

Those familiar with French might think her name means ‘deer’. It is, however, a Groisillon word used when calling a cat. “Biche, biche” – and this cat has many more lives in her yet.

chased the tuna along its migratory routes, using seagulls to home in on the schools.

Then the boat would let out its two tangons, reaching out like an insect’s feelers, from each of which trailed seven lines with hooks the size of small fists, and corn husks attached to lure the fish.

As each line caught its prey, the captain would call them out by their individual names. The crew would haul in the line and the ‘mousse’, or cabin boy, raced from side to side to catch the fish and plunge a blade between its eyes before it bruised itself by thrashing about.

The poor mousse would arrive back home covered in dried black blood, which conveniently served as a rather stinky sunscreen.

Last year, Biche went on a campaign of her own. Bernard Bougueon is a retired fisherman who helmed for two days while they landed 240 tuna “It’s nothing like a mechanised boat,” he said.

“There’s very little roll and we did 30 knots. It’s lovely. Very little water comes on deck, and the only problem is the keel. If you’re always on a keel, moving about can get difficult.” Pity the poor mousse.

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

41

CHARLIE BARR

The herO AT The heLm In the second part of our series profiling Britain’s most successful America’s Cup skipper, Charlie Barr, we look at why he became the darling of the USA yacht clubs WORDS BARRY PICKTHALL

F

or all Charlie Barr’s celebrated exploits as the most sought-after America’s Cup captain of his time, it was actually his older brother John who hit the headlines first as he was judged to be the better individual sailor.

Charlie, on the other hand, was the supreme starting helmsman, one of the best students of the racing rules and the better man manager, able to drill and captain his crew to tack, gybe, and set and recover spinnakers better than anyone.

In 1887, John Barr was named skipper of James Bell’s secretive Scottish challenger, Thistle. Designed by George L Watson, the shipwrights and other workers at D&W Henderson’s yard on the Clyde were sworn to secrecy about her shape and size. When she was launched, the whole yacht was swathed in a canvas modesty screen to stop prying eyes like those of the New York Sun newspaper reporting any detail back to members of the New York YC, holders of the America’s Cup. Their correspondent speculated that she was a centreboarder.

James Gordon Bennett Jr, the proprietor of the New York Herald and a keen Cup follower, took great delight in showing up this uninformed comment by interviewing Dixon Kemp, secretary of the Yacht Racing Association, who confirmed that had Thistle carried a centreboard, she would not have been allowed to compete in the Royal Thames YC’s Harwich race. Unlike the Americans, the British sailing hierarchy did not view centreboarders as seamanlike and discouraged their development.

This secrecy over Thistle’s design gathered pace when she arrived in New York. The World newspaper went to the trouble of hiring a diver one night to measure her underwater profile while John Barr and his crew slept.

The subsequent drawing was wildly inaccurate; when it came to measuring her in dry dock, the challenger’s waterline was found to be almost 1½ft (46cm) longer than stated when the challenge had been lodged.

Unfortunately, Thistle’s performance did not match the hype nor the vast amounts of money bet on her to beat the Cup defender Volunteer, skippered by Hank Haff who would become Charlie Barr’s greatest adversary. Haff sank Thistle’s hopes with two straight victories by wide margins. Little more is heard of John Barr, but you can be certain that his younger brother learned a great deal from this one-sided rout.

Charlie Barr’s first clash with Hank Haff was during the Cup trials to select a defender against Lord Dunraven’s Valkyrie III in 1895. It was an acrimonious, protest-ridden introduction. Haff had command of Defender, a new 89ft (27.1m) Herreshoff cutter, while Barr had the helm of Vigilant, the successful 1893 defender. In their first skirmish, Barr had Vigilant hard on the wind, aiming to close out Defender, when Haff simply barged his way in, forcing Barr to bear away.

The committee deferred the protest, but when the two yachts met on the line two day’s later, Haff again forced Vigilant from her course.

This second violation of the rules complicated matters, for the New York YC had a rule that barred any yacht from racing under the club’s auspices again if it had lost two or more protests. There is little doubt that Barr would have known this, and his winner’s mentality would have pressed for both protests to be heard in an effort to eliminate the faster yacht from the trials. In the end, wiser council prevailed, and Mr E A Willard, the owner’s representative aboard Vigilant who had spent $50,000 having her upgraded, withdrew from the series. Barr was furious: “I have been made a fool of. Vigilant has had the better position, and it is unfair that we have to give way all the time. If these races had been for the Cup, then Valkyrie III would have held her course each time.”

Perhaps it was just as well, for the 1895 series between Defender and Lord Dunraven’s Valkyrie III turned into one of the most acidic events in the Cup’s history. By the time Sir Thomas Lipton came on the

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MYSTIC SEAPORT, ROSEnfElD COllECTIOn

“Sycamore was so incensed by Barr’s tactics he threatened to ram him”

Above: Charlie Barr at the helm of Reliance during a test run in 1903

CHARLIE BARR

scene in 1899 with the first of his Shamrock challengers, Hank Haff had quite a reputation for bending and breaking the rules, while Barr was seen

by American eyes at least, as the white knight. This is perhaps why he, rather than Haff, was given command of Columbia, Herreshoff’s latest creation.

It took time for Barr to bring his crew up to speed and improve their sail handling, but by August, Columbia had the measure of Defender in every race and her choice as the New York YC’s Cup defender became a formality to all but Haff Hank who, relegated to an opinionated bystander, concluded that Shamrock “…is the best boat that has ever crossed the Atlantic in quest of the America’s Cup”. His refusal to endorse Barr’s chances with Columbia could not have been wider from the mark: the American crew easily had the measure of Lipton’s challenger, winning the first two races by comfortable margins. And to show their appreciation, Columbia’s owners, which included the banker J P Morgan, awarded Barr $3,965.75 for the campaign – the equivalent of around $112,000 today.

Barr’s rivalry with Hank Haff was renewed during the defence trials for the 1901 Cup series against Sir Thomas Lipton’s second challenger, Shamrock II. Initially, Haff had the helm of Thomas Lawson’s new scow-shaped challenger Independence. This was a radical design in many respects, with a latticework of struts replacing traditional frames and such a mix of metals that the resulting electrolytic action made her fizz like an Alka-Seltzer. Despite Haff’s best efforts, problems caused by flexing within the hull were so severe that her rudder had a habit of binding up at inappropriate

moments and there were constant problems with her rig.

Defender proved to be an expensive experiment, costing Lawson $205,000 (the equivalent of $5,780,000 today) and was scrapped just three months after her first race.

Haff then took command of Herreshoff’s latest design Constitution, in the hope that he would turn around her fortunes against Barr in the final defence trials. Charlie was working on the same financial incentives as before: $3,000 for the season plus $1,000 bonus if he retained the Cup against Shamrock II. Constitution should have been the faster boat but a series of rig failures and poor sails hampered her development. Haff made a difference but he did not have enough time to work up his crew as Barr had done. In their 22 matches, of which 18 were concluded within the time limits, Constitution won nine, but all in light conditions. Columbia proved to be the better boat across the board, and in the end, the New York Cup Committee decided to go with Barr’s proven credentials.

Shamrock II was a new G L Watson design and Lipton spared no expense on her construction, plating her in Immadium, a superlight aluminium alloy. During trials against her Fife-designed predecessor, Shamrock II was clearly faster and Lipton and his crew believed they had a winner. They may well have been right, for during the Cup races later that year, she had the speed to match Columbia, but not the crew to beat Barr’s well-honed team.

In their first encounter, Shamrock II’s skipper, Edward Sycamore, came off second-best during the pre-start manoeuvres. The race was later abandoned through lack of wind, but Sycamore was so incensed by Barr’s tactics, that he threatened to ram the American defender if it happened again. That brought the crowds out in force to watch the rerun. This time, Sycamore claimed the windward berth, crossed the line two seconds ahead and

“Columbia had the measure of Defender in every race”

Below, left to right: Reliance (left) breaks her topmast during a practice run in New York Bay with Columbia (foreground) and what is thought to be Constitution (far right) in 1903; captain Charlie Barr at the wheel of Reliance

far left: Mystic seaport, rosenfeld collection; left: ppl

Mystic seaport, rosenfeld collection

pulled out a 39-second lead by the weather mark.

Sailing back downwind, it soon became clear that the smaller Columbia was better sailed. Barr soon drew level and went on to win by 10 lengths – the closest margin of victory since these Cup races had begun.

When the yachts met next for a 30-mile race, Shamrock II edged ahead and led by 3mins 20secs at the windward mark, and extended this to a half-mile lead when the race was abandoned. That simply whetted the appetite for more among the spectator fleet, and Lipton too was buoyed by their performance.

Two days later, the two yachts faced a strengthening offshore breeze. Sycamore again outmanoeuvred Barr at the start to cross the line 1min 34 secs ahead and maintained this advantage to the weather mark.

Columbia clawed back some ground on the reach, and as the wind strengthened, continued to gain on the final beat. Within 20 minutes of being hard on the wind, Columbia crossed astern of Shamrock II, and after the Irish yacht tacked to cover, the two drove towards the New Jersey shore. Barr soon had the measure of his rival and held windward advantage to the finish. Columbia eventually finished 3min 25secs ahead on corrected time, much to the relief of the New Yorkers.

It was now 2-0 to Barr in this best-of-five match, but no one was being complacent, least of all Charlie who had been beaten to the start on both occasions. Edward

Sycamore forced Columbia to start to leeward of Shamrock II during their third encounter too, though this time, the two yachts crossed the line abreast. The Irish yacht’s greater sail area gave her the edge, and by the first mark, Shamrock II led by 49 seconds. To those in the spectator fleet, it looked very much as if Lipton’s yacht might become the first challenger to win a race since these Cup races began 31 years before.

Columbia regained some ground on the reach inshore after Shamrock II failed to cover, but Lipton’s yacht recovered lost ground during the initial beat back to the finish. But then the wind began to falter and Barr instigated a tacking duel. The crew on the smaller Columbia proved themselves quicker through each tack, and slowly but surely, the gap narrowed. Sycamore defended his starboard advantage to the end, but it was not enough. Shamrock II crossed the line first followed

by Columbia just two seconds behind to win the race and retain the Cup by 41 seconds on corrected time.

The New Yorkers may have seen off Lipton’s second Cup challenge, but the narrowness of Barr’s victory sent shockwaves through American ranks. Club members rallied round to contribute $300,000 towards a new Herreshoff design that would have a bigger sail area than any previous 90ft (27.4m) waterline yacht. Back in the UK, Lipton too was planning a third Shamrock, reverting to William Fife for her design.

Above: Shamrock and Columbia (foreground) racing neck-andneck at the start of the second race of the 1899 America’s Cup

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

45

CHArLIE BArr ArCHIvE/PPL

MYSTIC SEAPOrT, rOSENfELd COLLECTION

CHARLIE BARR

Barr was retained to skipper the defence yacht a year ahead of the 1903 Cup races and told to secure the best sailors even before Herreshoff had agreed to design his Reliance. Shamrock III was the first to be launched and immediately made a favourable impression, beating her Fife-designed predecessor on every point of sail. Disaster struck during a second round of racing off Weymouth a few weeks later when Shamrock III’s rigging screws failed and her mast came crashing down, knocking Lipton’s steward overboard. He disappeared in seconds and it was the worst possible start to a Cup Challenge.

Across the Atlantic, Reliance with Barr at the wheel was the boat to beat during the defence trials against Constitution and Columbia, winning 16 of her 19 races.

Her scow-shaped bows were seen as a major advance, and so too were her two-speed winches sited below deck.

Her 4in (10.2cm)-thick mainsheet was 800ft (244m) long and controlled by a giant drum winch below, and the crewmen who handled this rough rope, bound their fingers with spun yarn to stop their skin splitting.

This was the era when big was beautiful. Reliance carried 4,833sqft (449m²) more sail than Shamrock III, needed eight more crew to handle it all, and had to give the challenger 1min 45secs over the 30-mile course.

The start to the first race was even. Barr secured the windward berth, but Bob Wringe, the skipper of Shamrock III, crossed the line four seconds ahead.

It remained this way for much of the first beat, the

Shamrock III Reliance LOA

LOA

104ft 8in (31.9m)

108ft 4in (33m)

LWL

LWL

89ft 8in (27.4m)

89ft 7in (27.3m)

MAST HEIGHT

MAST HEIGHT

144ft 8in (44.1m)

149ft 7in (45.6m) SAIL ArEA

SAIL ArEA

14,337sqft (1,332m ) 19,170sqft (1,781m2) 2

46

CrEW

CrEW

56

64

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

British challenger making most of the lumpy seas, while Reliance pointed higher. It was only when the two reached the calmer waters along the New Jersey shore that Barr and his crew gained any real advantage, and once Reliance crossed ahead of Shamrock III, it was game over. At the weather mark, the halfway stage, Reliance led by 3mins 17secs, and stretched this to seven minutes on the run back to the finish.

The second race was closer, but had the same outcome. Barr had the measure of Wringe from the start, leading Shamrock III away from the line by 19 seconds – almost a half-mile advantage with these enormous yachts. Reliance gained a further 49 seconds on the beat, 1min 23 secs more on the spinnaker reach, and an additional 45 seconds on the close reach home. To the home crowd, the Cup looked to be safe for another year or two. Race three would have been a walk over had the winds allowed it. Barr blocked Shamrock III at the start and by the windward mark was more than 12 minutes ahead. The time limit expired when Reliance was less than a mile from the finish, but it simply delayed the inevitable. When the two yachts lined up for the final encounter on 3 September, Wringe, now totally demoralised by Barr’s pre-start tactics, avoided any close-quarters conflict and was probably just as surprised as the Scot when Reliance was judged to have crossed the line early. In those days, there was no call to restart so the time difference between the two yachts was simply deducted from the transgressor’s handicap allowance.

But it made no difference. Reliance rounded the weather mark 11 minutes ahead and finished to a chorus of horns and whistles with Shamrock III’s crew in the dim distance. In addition to his basic pay and rewards, Barr was given a further $2,000 annuity for life, which he used to purchase Shamrock II for $7,000.

It was another 84 years before Dennis Conner drew level with Barr’s America’s Cup record, and 100 before New Zealander Russell Coutts could claim the same.

That was the measure of Charlie Barr’s success, acknowledged only last year when the Scotsman was inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame.

Next month, Part 3: We chart Barr’s record-breaking transatlantic voyage, a memorable defeat over the Kaiser’s yacht, and his untimely death at the height of his power

Above, left to right: Reliance crossing the finishing line in the 1903 Cup races; Reliance hauled out to dry between races

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47

So

what is a

classic anyway?

maRK hoRToN ARCHAEoLoGIsT

In the final part of our exclusive feature, we give our second group of celebrated critics the opportunity to settle this argument once and for all

pRofEssoR of aRchaEology aT ThE UNivERsiTy of BRisTol, maRK is pERhaps BETTER KNowN foR his pREsENTiNg RolE oN BBc’s coasT. hE is also a KEEN sailoR aND owNER of ThE maURicE gRiffiThs yachT migNoNETTE

“At least two of the following:

1 older than her owner 2 Regarded by all who see her as pretty 3 Not made of Tupperware or similar modern materials!”

alBERT oBRisT REsToRATIoN pIoNEER

ED BURNETT NAVAL ARCHITECT

swiss iNDUsTRialisT REsToRER of alTaiR, TUiga aND maRiqUiTa. hE sET Up faiRliE REsToRaTioNs iN 1989 aND oNcE owNED a fiNE collEcTioN of fERRaRis. aN aEsThETic pURisT

c/o alBERT oBRisT

“i tend not to use the word myself, but for me a classic boat is one that has proven herself to be a good example of her type (rather than being of any particular type) and i would normally expect this to take some time, although age alone is not a qualifying characteristic. There are quite a few old dogs out there… “i have designed boats that some people might refer to as being classics, but i don’t call them that myself yet, although i do live in hope!”

c/o ED BURNETT

“my career as a boat restorer is now behind me – i think we did 16 full restorations. But i would say it’s the age of the boat that makes her a classic, more than whether or not she is beautiful. and i think we can take pre-world war ii as a good compromise date.

New boats aren’t classic.”

ED sTaNDs aT ThE hEaD of his gamE iN BRiTish Naval aRchiTEcTURE, EiThER wiTh a TRaDiTioNal oR classic BENT

“There are quite a few old dogs out there”

LUMINARIES

THEO RYE naval architect

LUKE POWELL BOatBUilDer THESE dAYS, WE COnSIdER nEW, TRAdITIOnAL PILOT CUTTERS In WOOd TO bE THE nORM. MEET THE MAn WHO STARTEd IT ALL “A classic must represent a type of vessel from a particular period in time. For example, one immediately has an image of a victorian cutter or an Edwardian motor yacht. We all have preferences for different eras and social groups, and the boats we like must personify this. The people I admire most are the 19th-century captains of West Country trading ketches and schooners, and for me Garlandstone sums up these brave little ships so well. Sadly neglected at the moment she needs help, long may she live.”

“A ‘classic’ in my terms is a boat that by accomplishment raises itself above the commonplace of its type. The accomplishment can be mere longevity, or something like making a remarkable sea voyage, or combine elements of both the ordinary and the exceptional. Craftsmanship, beauty, provenance and ability are all usually present in some combination, but are not prerequisites by any means.

My favourite classic is Ayrshire Lass, the 24ft (7.3m) 1887 William Fife II gaff cutter.

She’s a typical Clyde dayboat from the era, which gave Liz Todrick the freedom of the Western Isles for more than 50 years. Paul

C/O THEO RYE

OPPOSITE: C/O MARK HORTOn; PETER WILLIS

THEO IS A SPECIALIST In CLASSIC YACHT RESTORATIOnS And HAS An EnvIAbLE Cv OF WORLd-CLASS PROjECTS

Goss had Ayrshire Lass restored by Michael Kennedy in dunmore East, back as close to original as could be determined. She was never notable in design terms, has very limited pretensions as a racer, and is almost entirely unglamorous; but she has an honesty, which has helped ensure her exceptional survival. And she’s fun to sail.”

“a ‘classic’ in my terms is a boat that by accomplishment raises itself above the commonplace of its type”

nIGEL PERT PhOtOGraPher

jOnATHAn GRIFFIn cUratOr

“I think of a classic as a wooden boat, but then steel is also a classic material.

Long overhangs and a bowsprit might be part of the definition but it’s all about the look. Photographing RùM for the March issue (CB297) I didn’t think she was especially a classic… but I think she will be a classic in the future, so in that sense the design of Spirit of Tradition boats is a good thing. But you can’t do better than an Essex Smack for a definition of a classic boat – they have just beautiful lines and they always look great on the water.”

C/0 nIGEL PERT

nIGEL HAS bEEn A MARInE PHOTOGRAPHER SInCE THE 1980S And CAn STILL bE FOUnd SAILInG And SnAPPInG, PARTICULARLY AT EvEnTS In HIS AdOPTEd HOME, FRAnCE

THE nMMC HAS WOn COUnTLESS AWARdS FOR ITS ROSTER OF ExHIbITS, FOCUSInG On FOLK HISTORY And SMALL bOATS. jOnATHAn HAS bEEn AT THE HELM SInCE THE START

C/O jOnATHAn GRIFFIn

“Instantly recognisable, a classic has elegance, style, beauty, craftsmanship, quality of finish, and timelessness. She sits on, and moves through, the water with grace. She can be a small design, like a Firefly, or individual with the ability to stand out in the crowd like a Fife. not all superyachts are classics but modern yachts like Rebecca are classics, as they can stand comparison with Mariquita, which is currently sitting serenely outside my office window.”

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

49

Jamie Clay Boatbuilding

Restoration Specialist • 30 years experience Courtesy of G L Watson & Co

MULDONICH 30ft gaff yawl designed by G L Watson & Co, 1930 A lovely yawl, based on the highly successful Albert Strange yawl Venture, for one of her former owners.

SPARTAN 27ft. 4-ton cutter G L Watson design No.97, 1886 A unique opportunity to commission the restoration of G L Watson’s oldest extant design. “...Spartan now planked up to the top strake...

She looked uncommonly well, both as to work and form...nice entrance, clean handsome stern and a powerful look about her mid section... she is being turned out strictly to Watson’s plan.”

Wivenhoe, Dec. 28th 1885 “GLW steered Spartan all day...remarked on her beautiful trim...” Oulton Regatta, August 4th 1886. (Extracts from owner’s log)

To commission a restoration of either yacht will secure you a true classic of the highest quality, authenticity and pedigree

Further information at:

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Maldon, Essex 0795 006 3642 daytime, or 01621 853804

50

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

C/O BARNEY SANDEMAN

ANDREW WOLSTENHOLME NAVAL ARCHITECT ONE OF A SELECT BAND OF YACHT DESIGNERS IN BRITAIN WHO ARE LEADING THE GAME IN MODERN TRADITIONAL DESIGN FOR BOTH SAIL AND POWERBOATS

BARNEY SANDEMAN BROKER BARNEY HAS BEEN A SAILOR FOR AS LONG AS HE CAN REMEMBER AND IS A WELL OF SEAMANLY ADVICE TO US AND MANY OTHERS

“Classic should not be confused with traditional. I consider a classic boat to be one that has achieved the goal of combining beauty with functionality and one which transcends the whims of fashion.

You wouldn’t expect to find Nigel Irens’ Apricot or Dick Newick’s Gulf Streamer in Classic Boat, but in my mind they meet the definition, as do the best examples of tugs and barges, powerboats like Sonny Levi’s Surfury, some of the WWII coastal forces boats like the Thornycroft prototype MTB102, etc. It’s a fascinating subject!

“All this reminds me of a boat that could be classed as my favourite, and that is the 1912 Saunders Sweet Myrrh.”

“In my view a classic yacht must have a magic and a personality. The classic regattas date yachts up to 1950 as ‘vintage’ and then to 1975 as ‘classic’, thereby assembling and indeed saving some of the most spectacular yachts ever to have sailed. Maybe these are the boats we fell in love with as children and have always wanted to own, or those that simply cast their spell and touch us as we walk along the dock with or without any knowledge of yachts or the sea.

“My favourite boat is Stormy Weather – an obvious choice maybe but you asked the question and I love her!”

C/O ANDREW WOLSTENHOLME

FRANÇOIS VIVIER NAVAL ARCHITECT

STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES

FRANÇOIS HAS DESIGNED EVERYTHING FROM OIL TANKERS TO ROWING BOATS AND HE ACTS AS THE UNOFFICIAL ELDER STATESMAN TO THE BRETON CLASSIC SAILING SCENE “A cruising, racing or daysailing yacht built, designed or rooted before the beginning of mass-produced plywood or GRP, and including acknowledged timeless aesthetics and character. New materials like GRP or woodepoxy and some modern equipment may be used discreetly, but some traditional characteristics must be observed, such as sail-panel layout, keel profile, and use of wood. New designs of classics should be promoted to keep alive the classic fleet, but each classic must embody the heritage of yachts or traditional workboats.”

“New designs of classics should be promoted to keep alive the classic fleet, but each classic must embody the heritage of yachts or traditional workboats” CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

51

MARTYN HEIGHTON GOVERNMENT ADVISER

STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES

MARTYN FELL IN LOVE WITH SHIPS AGED SIX ON A VISIT TO HMS VICTORY. IN 2005, HE BECAME DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL HISTORIC SHIPS, WHICH ADVISES THE GOVERNMENT ON ISSUES OF MARITIME HERITAGE “For me it can take several forms. It can be a vessel of outstanding beauty. Or one that is as ugly as sin but which represents a particular function – the bucket dredger SND 4 at the National Waterways Museum in Gloucester is a case in point. It can represent in some special way the spirit of an age and here the steam launches of Lake Windermere spring to mind, evoking the elegance and luxury of Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

Or it can be a vessel that incorporates design elements that define a particular class, for example J-Class yachts.

And my favourite classic? As guardian of the National Historic Ships Registers, I couldn’t possibly comment!”

“It can be a vessel of outstanding beauty or as ugly as sin” BENJAMIN MENDLOWITZ PHOTOGRAPHER

DEBORAH BREWSTER

“For me a classic boat is one that possesses the essence of the design aesthetic that evolved over many centuries of wooden boat construction and peaked in the first half of the 20th century. When boats were constructed from wood, without the aid of modern adhesives, the traditional plank-on-frame construction dictated a classic form and function that the best designers and builders of those days captured in beautiful lines and craftsmanship – from a sweet sheer down to the smallest details. The structure of older sails, narrow panels, natural colours and hand-finishing further added to the aesthetic in boats powered by the wind.

“Certainly there are exceptions to the above plank-on-frame theme, namely vintage boats built from iron and steel, as are faithful replicas utilising modern construction

RAY LITTLE

WELL-RESPECTED AMERICAN MARINE PHOTOGRAPHER AND BOOK PUBLISHER

PAUL GOSS CLASSIC YACHT CAPTAIN CAPTAIN OF ADIX AND THE LADY ANNE, RESTORER OF ALTAIR AND AYRSHIRE LASS materials. Even some newly designed modern boats are able to capture this classic aesthetic, especially in the Spirit of Tradition class. Although often the details are not quite right and the temptation to utilise more efficient underwater forms (made possible by glassfibre and cold moulding) lead to higher profiles for adequate interior space, compromising the low-sided lines and look of a true classic boat – they have just beautiful lines and they always look great on the water.”

“For me a classic boat is one that possesses the essence of the design aesthetic that evolved over many centuries of wooden boat construction and peaked in the first half of the 20th century” 52

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

“Today’s common perception of a classic boat seems to be polished bronze, gleaming varnish and cream-coloured sails – a view I find somewhat myopic. My scope for a classic allows for less known designers, but she must have integrity. She will need to have history and stories to tell, and a succession of owners and crew who have grown to love her for what she represents. Needless to say, these attributes can only come with a certain amount of age. For me, therefore, the spectrum is broad, whether she is a plywood flyer or a burnished thoroughbred.”

Agree or disagree?

Voice your opinion on our website at www.classicboat.co.uk or write to the editor at cb@classicboat.co.uk

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SLeek SLOOp Combining exquisite detailing with standout styling, this unique teak version of the Interboat 25 is one of the most elegant dayboats around story and photographs PETER WILLIS

F

irst question: how come these boats are called sloops? There’s no sign of any mast or sail, and they are, simply, what we would normally call motor launches.

The answer lies in the Dutch meaning of the word, as does so much of the language of yachts (jachts), where the word sloep covers such applications as a ship’s boat, shallop and longboat. And these boats – traditionally styled open-cockpit launches, from 17ft to 25ft (5.2m-7.6m) – are produced by a Dutch company.

Guy Girling of Val Wyatt Marine, the UK importer, reckons it’s got something to do with the aft steering position, but I’ve not found anything to support this.

The manufacturer is Interboat, a family firm started around 20 years ago to produce this now-popular range of river and lake runabouts. They’re normally based on modern GRP hulls, with clinker styling and finished with an array of optional teak trim, but the boat I tried out on the Thames was all teak.

It’s unique, and in a way historic. Its original purpose, nearly 20 years ago, was as the plug mould for the Interboat 25, but as Jerry Schuiten, Interboat’s present MD and son of its founder, explained to me: “We don’t normally make our moulds in teak – we use simple wood like anyone else. But we decided to build this one of teak,

54

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

and then turn it into a retirement present for my father, who founded the company.”

That was in 1994, and it seems the idea of the retirement present faded away. The boatyard was always busy and finishing off the teak boat was not a priority and it was put on hold, until 2011.

Then last summer Val Wyatt brought it over to the UK with a view to entering it into the Thames Traditional Boat Rally at Henley. It was a cunning plan by sales director Guy Girling to gain admittance to an event that was right on his doorstep, but which has strict rules about the materials of which participating boats are built. Wood, obviously, is good. GRP, however, is not permitted. But then the rally was cancelled, due to the river being in spate. Hopefully the event, and Val Wyatt, will have better luck this year (20-21 July).

Val Wyatt Marine was established in Wargrave, just upriver from Henley, in 1845, originally adjacent to the St George & Dragon waterside pub; now a few hundred yards away on an extensive island site, with plenty of berthing and a ‘one-stop-shop’ range of services and facilities. It took on the import agency for Interboat about four years ago.

The yard is quite a pleasing place in its own right, and certainly doesn’t disgrace one of the most attractive parts

Above: this one-off all-teak version is a sight to behold on the water. Left: the compass rose pattern inlaid on the engine box is one of her many fine details

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

55

INTERBOAT 25

Above, left to right: the transom-hung rudder supports the oversized jackstaff and ensign; seating provides space for up to 10 people – perfect for a day out on the water with friends and family

of the Thames. It likes to boast that it is only two days on top; the other, to starboard, housing a stainless-steel by river from Teddington Lock, two hours by road from sink with cold water. Up for’ard is a heads compartment the Solent, and just one lock away from Henley. There’s (sitting headroom) with a pump toilet. Cushioned seating also a railway station within walking distance. around the cockpit provides space for up to 10 people, So on a quiet, sunny Tuesday on the Thames between and there are infills to create a double berth. Shelter from Wargrave and Shiplake, Guy and I put the only Interboat the weather, or privacy, is provided by an all-over, 25 Classic through its paces. The first thing to note is two-part cover with windscreen. how well-mannered it is. Quiet, adequately powerful for Helming is by wheel, on a pedestal with an instrument a life on the river (max speed 8 knots), comfortable and panel mounted immediately abaft the engine box, which, well-equipped for a day’s picnicking, or even an incidentally, is beautifully inlaid on the top with a overnight away, and very elegant. compass rose pattern (also an option on the GRP 25).

Her lines look simple enough at first sight, but the The engine is a 4-cylinder 33hp Vetus diesel. purposeful bow and the dipping sheerline, which rises As a river launch its style certainly lives up to the slightly aft and more strongly forward, incorporating quality of its materials, and to its price, €112,000 (about the cockpit coaming and leading into a neat transverse £95,000 at current rates) inc VAT. If you like the lines curve across the line of the foredeck, all improve on and the general functionality of the design but prefer acquaintance. The transom stern supports a large rudder, something cheaper, then a good many options open up. which is extended well above the aft deck level to The equivalent GRP model, the Interboat 25, with teak become a style detail in its own right. The rudder also decks and trim, is available for approximately €80,000 supports the jackstaff for the good-sized ensign. (about £68,000). There are four other sizes, from 17ft to A stout rope fender, with additional 22ft (5.2m-6.7m), more simply specified puddening at the bow, helps protect (though the Interboat 22 Xplorer has the varnished teak. room for a fridge, basin and toilet).

Below the waterline, the straight If you prefer what the Dutch makers stem carries down into a deep choose to call a ‘round backside’ – ie, LOA forefoot, which with a long keel a canoe stern – the Interboat 650, 680 25ft 8in (7.9m) ensures good directional stability. and 750 (21ft 3in/6.5m, 22ft 3in/6.8m, It finishes with a protected cut-out for 25ft 3in/7.7m) are available.

BeAM the propeller and the substantial Meanwhile, the teak 25 Classic – 8ft 5in (2.6m) rudder blade. The rudder is equipped unique, unless you or someone else DrAughT with two horizontal plates to improve chooses to order a replica – can, weather steerage, as well as providing steps out permitting, be admired at this year’s 2ft 1in (0.6m) of the water if needed – though this Thames Traditional Boat Rally. engine model comes with a bathing ladder.

4cyl 33hp Vetus Inboard, the cockpit area includes Val Wyatt Marine, Willow Marina, Wargrave, two amidships pillars, one, to port, Berkshire. Tel: +44 (0)118 9403211 COST enclosing the fridge, with space for a €112,000 (£95,000) www.valwyattmarine.co.uk small free-standing gas cylinder cooker www.interboat.com

INTERBOAT 25 CLASSIC

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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Yalton / East Portlemouth Salcombe / Devon TQ8 8PA / England Tel: 44(0)1548844122

info@stonesmarinetimber.com www.stonesmarinetimber.com 13-06-02 10:29 AM

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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Onboard MORBIHAN WEEK

CRUISING . SEAMANSHIP . EQUIPMENT

GOING WITH THE FLOW At this year’s Morbihan regatta, more than 1,000 small boats island-hopped their way around the gulf, tackling strong winds and raging tidal currents STORY STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES PHOTOGRAPHS NIGEL PERT

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f all the Earth’s places, it is France that has the greatest power to stir a particular unbiblical feeling in the breast of the British sailor; namely envy. Oh... and anger too. But then anger is just envy dressed for battle. We envy the Mediterranean and Atlantic seaboards and that her people have a love of sailing that can elevate men like Eric Tabarly to the status we reserve strictly for our footballers.

We envy the weather, the mountains, the food and wine, the terre, the mer, the double-entendre and the crêpes au sucre. And not least, the size, variety and cordiality of her sailing regattas. Then we get angry because we can’t conceive of how a people who drive so abysmally and who defecate into holes in the ground have managed to beat us so roundly in so many vital areas.

These were my thoughts as the whisper-quiet, state-run TGV shot silently across the rapeseed-yellow, zero-gradient landscape of Brittany from Paris to the Gulf of Morbihan at 200mph. Brittany is the real and spiritual home of French sailing and her regattas are big. Brest, which attracts 2,000 vessels and a million people every four years, is the biggest in the world, but Morbihan Week, with an attendance of around 1,200 vessels, is close. The French took control of their country in 1789, and they’ve never really let go since. Marinas are publicly owned and that means a town can offer free moorings for an event like this if it brings enough money into the area. The entry fee for Morbihan is zero and includes five weeks’ free mooring.

Two old friends were waiting aboard our boat for the week in Crouesty Marina: Ian Welsh, owner/skipper of the Classic Sailing Club, the classic yacht charter company CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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“Compared to a normal regatta, Morbihan is a travelling circus” based in Suffolk, and his lieutenant Brian Gascoigne, who had brought Marcita here from the East Coast. It was also a reunion with Marcita herself, the yacht I spent a cold March week on in 2007 doing the RYA Day Skipper course. She is an Alan Buchanan design realised by Kings of Pin Mill in 1957. She’s narrow, with a deep, long keel with a slight cutaway, no doubt a serious racing yacht in her day, not overly commodious but handy and fast with a bermudan sloop rig and roller-reefing jib. She looked as sleek and distinctive as I remembered with her slim lines and hard-stepped coachroof. At 33ft (10m) she was the perfect size for three men, all skilled enthusiasts in the pursuits of drinking and snoring. Her name was spot on too because ‘Marcita’ means ‘little sea’, as does ‘Morbihan’ in Breton. A little sea on a little sea. Brian produced a round of ‘stiffeners’ for us in the form of Lambig, a local Calvados variant made with cider, and we sat in the cockpit late into the night.

THE WORLD’S MOST cOMpLIcATED REGATTA The next day, at skippers’ briefing, it rapidly became clear that La Semaine du Golfe du Morbihan (to name it fully), is the most complicated regatta in the world. Various crews walked into the briefing room looking chipper and full of bonhomie, only to shamble out moments later looking as though they’d stood a round with Mike Tyson. Brian, who leaves an imaginery thread behind him wherever he goes,

complicated matters by walking around the building in circles, fearful of breaking it, though surely aware, as a Morbihan veteran, that we’d be snapping thread over the next five days. The reason Morbihan is complicated is due to the format of the regatta, as well as its sheer size.

Compared to a normal regatta, Morbihan is a travelling circus; a raid writ large and for all sizes of boat – the fleet of actual raid, or ‘sail and oar’ boats, in itself numbered well over 200 boats. In total, more than 1,000 boats in eight classes stop at a different port every night. There were also persistent rumours of daily races, but as we never met anyone who raced, and as we saw no results posted, we never knew for sure. At the various venues, live bands, food and music were also laid on. Organising Morbihan must be like trying to organise a postal service.

SAILING INTO THE GULF The next day, we sailed from the Crouesty Marina out into the bay of Quiberon in a good breeze and some sun. In the bay, La Cancalaise, poster girl of the Breton working fleet with her wildly raked lug schooner rig making her one of the most distinctive sailing craft afloat anywhere, was sailing alongside the equally unusual Dorothy, a centuryold Thames rater designed by Linton Hope to race on the Upper Thames, now with a small cabin. Her owners, Lance and Charlotte, would stay with us for most of the week. The fleet strengthened in number and variety as we

SHMH

Clockwise from far left: the classic French post-war ‘tabloid’ yacht, a Beluga in Vannes; the Dutch 1910 ex-hydrographic steam vessel Hydrograaf, at 132ft 10in (40.5m) long, a big vessel to come up the little channel into Vannes and a grand sight lit up at night; boats moored up on the beach at Île d’Arz; a Guépards-class dinghy looking for all the world like a gaff-rigged Wayfarer

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ONBOARD MORBIHAN WEEK

turned right through the gap into the Golfe du Morbihan: Tall Ships, Breton fishers, yachts, rowing boats and dinghies drew silently closer, sails glowing in the sun, as we passed the island of Gavrinis – home to an important 5,000-year-old burial site. Our destination, Île d’Arz, in the centre of the gulf, was alive with boats and activity when we arrived. Paella was served from huge pans, and crew members from the boats wandered around under the trees.

The yachts rode to buoys a few hundred yards off, and on the beach there must have been 200 or more boats pulled onto the sand or anchored up in the still, clear water, in a scene that any small-boat lover would take to his own grave: various Swallow Boats, including a pretty double-ended Storm 15; some beautiful clinker rowing gigs; a Viking-inspired GRP NorseBoat 17.5; countless sail-and-oar or ‘raid’ boats; and some Guépards, a local class of boats that resemble gaff-rigged Wayfarers. They have been having a big revival of late, with 100 or so now on the Golfe du Morbihan, both restored and new: they are back in build, this time at Chantier du Guip, our 2013 ‘yard of the year’ that was behind the recent restoration of the French tunnyman Biche (see p34).

Through this happy mêlée, a colourful and eccentric Dutchman weaved his little 10ft (3m) ‘Muziek Boot’ (music boat), one hand on the handle of a miniature barrel organ, the other holding a trumpet to his mouth. After each song, he went fishing for tips with a basket on the end of a long fishing pole.

RIVER SAILING An hour later, Ian, Brian and I, back on Marcita, were in complete solitude running slowly up the River Noyalo on a genoa and a rising tide, our only companions the cries of unseen birds. This is not an uncommon treat according to Brian, a veteran of the Morbihan – wind often seems to blow straight up and down the rivers.

RAINY NIGHTS AND TIDAL RACES That night we picked up a buoy off Conleau and after a long shellfish dinner ashore, fell asleep on the boat to the sound of stereophonic snoring set to the white noise of a steady drizzle on the cabin roof. All night, Marcita snatched at her swinging buoy, riding up to it and falling off, a habit that is peculiar to her, and as inexplicable to us as the movement of the planets. The next morning we motored into a breeze stiff with drizzle, a dull journey out of the magical gulf and back to Crouesty Marina on the bay. The day was livened by the excitement of our first tidal race of the trip – the gulf was pouring out to sea in a river of saltwater fast enough to raise cataracts, whirlpools, oily mushrooms and standing waves.

We flew past the many islands at double-figure speeds on our 6.5-knot magic carpet, the currents snatching at the keel and rudder, making steering wild and unpredictable.

The rain didn’t let up that day as we sailed back into the Gulf in the afternoon and made our way to Île-auxMoines, but the shellfish that night was as good as ever.

Top to bottom: traditional Breton dress, music and dance were all laid on at Île d’Arz – as well as paella served from huge pans; the amusing ‘music man’

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Anderson Ferdinandsen Gaff Ketch

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   A FAST GAFF RIGGED DAY SAILER     WITH FAMILY CAMPING CAPABILITIY                       DATA                 LENGTH O.A 5.46M    LENGTH W.L 5.11M   BEAM 2.06M   DRAFT - PLATE UP 0.32M   DRAFT - PLATE DOWN 1.03M     SAIL AREA 17.9SqM       ASSYMMETRIC 12.7SqM      TRAILING WEIGHT 400KG                   BALLAST (Included) 130KG                                                                                                                                                                      With elegant good looks that you would expect from North Quay Marine the  new Spitfi re 18 is a true new tradition in boat building. 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Built 1931 at the ‘Rolls-Royce’ yard in Gilleleje, Denmark: Josefine 66’ OA, 50’ OD, a first class small ship one of only 20 her size built, perfect for trans-world private use or commercial charter, currently MCA Code 2 registered.

Extremely sea-worthy, well maintained, massive oak on oak construction, beautiful lines, can be sailed by 2 persons. Bare hull rebuild 2002, all original papers since 1931. Ford 140HP, low hours, mooring available. Ready for work, or ultimate pleasure.

Plymouth, UK. £129,000 T: 07971 376 172 or sailjosefine@gmail.com

Latitude 46 Classic sail and power yachts, distributed in the UK

by Charles Watson Marine, Lymington, Hampshire Tel: 01590 647422 www.charles-watson.com email: info@charles-watson.com 62

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

Introducing the new Spiftire 18

incredibly light at only 400kg she is easy to trail and will quickly get up on the plane.  Her innovative main sail makes her easy to rig and stow.     See her being built on our Facebook page and see her    for  yourself at the Southampton Boat Show.  

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ONBOARD MORBIHAN WEEK

Morbihan by Kerry Canoe It all went extremely well until, almost at the last post, some clottish dinghy sailor rammed us and my treasured hemp hat flew overboard.

We chased after it, rowing madly, and I was just about to reach out an oar and retrieve it when a Dutch barge sailed over it and consigned it to the deeps of the Morbihan.

Well, in truth, it’s not that deep.

However, the ‘little sea’, with its array of tiny islands and rocky coastline, does have notorious tide rips. The main channel that leads from its opening into the Bay of Biscay and follows the west side of the large Île-aux-Moines, northwards to the tip of Île d’Arz and up the narrows to Vannes has several rips, strong enough to surprise the hardiest of ocean sailors. In a 16ft (4.9m) Irish naomhóg (a Kerry canoe, a bit like an Irish currach with a slightly different shape) these can be spectacularly entertaining. These skin-covered (or canvas in our case) craft are universally light, which means fighting with any headwind or having to go with the flow in these rips with names like la jument (which means ‘the kicking mare’) and ‘the washing machine’.

Personally it felt more like being kicked into a tumble dryer, especially with the sun beating down hard and the wind buffeting us.

But, pulling hard at the oars, a slight

“It felt more like being kicked into a tumble dryer, especially with the wind buffeting us” Above: Mike Smylie on board at Morbihan.

Below: the French and Breton flags

sense of panic, and with skipper Bart shouting “use your back, not your arms, man”, we came through without harm. Only then did he suggest that “that was bloody good fun”.

We – the small sail-and-oar flotilla – were marshalled through these rips with the safety RIBs buzzing around like bees. They were brilliant and saved the odd capsized sailor but, at the same time, they gave us the impression of being shepherded about. Indeed, at times I think we had our very own bodyguard – the two lifeguards keeping their eye on us. Thankfully when a beam wind was pushing us towards a rocky shore, they pounced and towed us back. Any feeling of restraint was entirely my own fault.

But row we did, with vim. Starting at Vannes we picnicked on Île d’Arz the first day, rowed to Locmariaquer the second (against the wind for the last few miles), then almost back to Vannes

C/O MIKE SMYLIE

BY MIKE SMYLIE, AKA KIPPERMAN

(Port Anna) the next, then back past Locmariaquer, up the river to Auray, turn right and away up to Plougoumelen. Finally, on the last day, back down to Port Navalo to join the procession of 1,000 craft back to Vannes.

And what memories are left once the boat is on the roof and we’ve arrived home? The wonderful row up the river to Plougoumelen, the sunset that evening, or beating downriver the next morning and seeing a bride, all in white, crossing the old railway bridge at Bono on her way to church, and stopping to wave to the fleet? But the lasting image is of the colourful crowds lining the rocks and beaches, out in force to support their festival, unlike here, in supposedly maritime-proud Britain, where we’d rather go shopping. The oysters were plentiful, wine good and I have a spare hat at home.

Moitessier’s grave

Left to right: the gig Morbihan was an amazing sight; Moitessier’s grave – note the Opinel knife (top right)

A thrash across the tidal flow known as ‘the washing machine’ the next day, saw the fleet all around us being snatched this way and that by the unseen hands from below, then it was a drifty sail up the wooded River Auray for lunch as the sun returned. The bad weather that kept some boats from attending this year (1,050 still made it) sank at least one dinghy here and snapped masts and tore sails that day. For much of the week, in fact, we were beating into a Force 5 gusting 6, often sailing at nearly 7 knots under genoa alone. That night, moored off Bono, Ian and I walked to the grave of one of Brittany’s famous sons – the circumnavigator Bernard Moitessier. Unlike the unremarkable dead that lay all around, with their ranks of CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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ONBOARD MORBIHAN WEEK

expensively solemn marble headstones, Moitessier has simply been buried under a small palm tree in a manner more befitting the family cat than one of Brittany’s great yachtsmen. As a reminder of his rigorous asceticism, someone had left as tribute an Opinel, the cheap, woodenhandled French folding picnic knife that Moitessier kept by his side when he sailed around the world solo in the late 1960s, rusted into an eternal open position.

The next day it’s time to abandon Marcita and spend the day sailing with François Vivier, a naval architect whose work I have admired for years. Vivier is the French king of sail-and-oar boats. He has designed many small, traditional Breton-inspired dinghies, dayboats and yachts, and it seems most of them are out on the water today, sailing around us, waving when they recognise François.

In his 24ft 7in (7.5m) gaff sloop Pen Hir, we sail past everything we see, before heaving-to for a lunch of ham sandwiches. After lunch, we stemmed the flow of one of the tidal races, our little boat stationary in what looked like a rapid from The African Queen. The amazing shape of Biche loomed close behind us. Supremely unflustered, François, smiling and relaxed in his trademark hat, gave me the order to steer away at the last moment. At least

Above, left to right: a key part of the festival is the pop-up boatbuilding school where a dozen private boats are constructed, all with professional guidance; a contingent of Dutch boats came this year

one photographer aboard Biche had his lens trained on us, expecting a disastrous collision. Biche’s helm was nervous, perhaps because he hadn’t realised François was the naval architect to the boat’s restoration. Or, perhaps because he had. A moment later, 66ft (20m) of sleek, wooden metre yacht flew past us – it was France, the French 12-M America’s Cup contender built in 1970, classed as a national monument and feeling water under the keel for the first time since restoration.

That afternoon, it was time for groundings and minor collisions as a fleet of hundreds made its way up the very narrow channel through the swing bridge into the pretty, historic town of Vannes, cheered on by spectators in their thousands. In the night, the great sails of workboats hung limp, drying under the light of the moon, the boats quiet and large on the water while a live folk band – a “rave up”, Brian called it – shook the sky above.

And already, just a month after, I’m feeling envious of Brian who will surely return in 2015 to pick up all the thread he left wrapped around the islands and rivers of this dramatic waterscape, where wooded islands merge and separate endlessly against the horizon as you sail by, and where white rivers of saltwater rage and boil every day.

LOCAL INFORMATION Saint-Goustan

Plougoumelen

Tidal races If it’s your first visit, avoid Springs, which flow through bottlenecks (esp the entrance and between Île de Berder and Île de la Jument) at 9kts+. Night sailing is not sensible.

Vannes

Bono

Port Anna Port Blanc Île-auxMoines

Île d’Arz Saint-Armel

Locmariaquer Port du Crouesty

BAIE DE QUIBERON

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Other hazards Oyster beds (marked by withies), bird sanctuaries in the south-east and fast passenger ferries.

Le Logéo

Sarzeau

Pilot books/guides North Biscay from Imray covers from Brest in the north to Bordeaux in the south. The best chart is

Admiralty 2371 at 1:20,000. There is also Imray’s C39 (Lorient–Le Croisic at 1:80,000), French charts from SHOM and Navionics 549 for digital.

Marinas, moorings, anchorages Crouesty Marina in the Bay of Quiberon is the perfect staging post. Vannes is the only marina in the gulf, but there are many moorings and anchorages. Use plenty of chain tidal areas.

Weather Shipping Forecast, Biscay sea area. Radio 4, 198LW at 0048, 0520, 1201 and 1754 UK time.

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ONBOARD MAN OVERBOARD

MAN oVErBoArD

Now what!?

It’s a nightmare scenario but also one we should be ready to face. Here, an RYAqualified instructor discusses the options when a crew member falls in the water story Trevor ClifTon PHotoGrAPHs Crew

E

ach year, I join up with a group of guys from the Portsmouth-based training school Team Sailing, and attend an instructors’ event where we look at what we do, criticise each other and try out new ideas.

This time, we were going to look at a specific set of actions related to a scenario we all hope and pray will never happen – a man overboard recovery.

Everyone agreed that in order for the crew to consider an effective recovery, they should split the procedure into two distinct phases: ‘Return to the Casualty’ and ‘Recovery Aboard’.

So, to put this to the test, two boats, Emma and Maggie, headed out from Portsmouth Harbour on a cold March day to see if we could write a script for a simple,

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easy-to-teach manoeuvre that could be achieved by the widest range of crews and skills levels.

First we did a little exercise just for fun and to confirm we could all still do it ourselves. A stopwatch started as the dummy hit the water and, from a sailing start with compulsory tack-gybe-tack manoeuvres, the boat had to be sailed back alongside the casualty close enough for the helmsman to leave the wheel and recover the dummy. Thankfully, almost everyone did it in less than three minutes.

Of course, the first rule for any sailor on any boat is: don’t fall in! The next one is stick to the RYA policy of wearing your lifejacket unless the skipper says it is safe to take it off, then if you do fall in you’ll be afloat for long enough to stand a chance of being rescued.

ONBOARD

The ISAF recommended recovery manoeuvre

Reach-Tack-Reach manoeuvre

Recommended manoeuvre under sail

Recommended recovery manoeuvre with engine

1 Bring the boat head-to-wind and beyond 2 Allow headsail to back and further slow boat 3 Continue turning with headsail backed until wind is abaft the beam 4 Head on a beam to broad reach for 2 to 3 lengths then turn nearly downwind 5 Drop the headsail while keeping the mainsail centred (or nearly so) 6 Hold the downwind course until victim is abaft the beam 7 Gybe 8 Approach the victim on a course of 45 to 60 degrees off the wind

1 Stop the boat (bring her head-to-wind) immediately 2 Tack. Drop or furl the headsail (or let it fly if short-handed) 3 Bear away on a broad reach at about 120 degrees to the wind 4 Tack 5 Sail to casualty at 60 to 70 degrees off the wind. Slow down by spilling mainsail 6 Approach casualty to leeward; let main fly when close to casualty and recover

RETURNiNg TO THE CASUALTY If it happens, stop the boat and shout “man overboard!”

The quickest way to stop a sailing boat is to point her at the wind. Some argued for ‘Quickstop’ where the boat is tacked, the foresail left aback and the helm put down to adopt a ‘hove-to’ position. Both methods achieve the aim of stopping, at least for a short while, close to the casualty. With the boat somewhere near head-to-wind and more or less stopped, sheet the mainsail in, hard.

Then go back and pick up the casualty.

In its Offshore Special Regulations, the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) suggests that the quickest way to get back is to tack, leave the foresail backed, sail past the casualty, get rid of the foresail, gybe and sail back to him under mainsail, using the engine for fine-tuning the

1 Turn onto nearest beam reach. Note course and start count 2 Tack back onto reciprocal course 3 Set sails to beam reach back and restart count 4 Stay on beam reach for the same count to arrive back at casualty 5 Drop or furl headsail on approach 6 Prepare to recover casualty

1 Turn into wind 2 Sheet mainsail in hard; start engine 3 Drop or furl headsail. Start turn downwind 4 Steer downwind under engine; shout encouragement. Throw anything that floats 5 Continue downwind two or three boat lengths 6 Turn upwind towards casualty 7 Approach and recover casualty

approach if required. We tried it and it does work, but it takes a well-organised and experienced crew to judge the courses involved, stow the foresail, gybe and steer back on a good wind angle. It’s not easy for a short-handed crew and, with relatively inexperienced crew members in mind, none of our instructors wanted to recommend a practice that involved a gybe.

Then we have something called ‘Reach-Tack-Reach’ (see above, top right). Many dinghy sailors and some offshore skippers practice this; on a dinghy it all happens very quickly and the boat stays close to the casualty.

On an offshore yacht it takes a little longer: when someone falls in, the boat is immediately turned onto the nearest beam reach; the compass course is noted and a count started. The cry of “man overboard” should have CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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ONBOARD MAN OVERBOARD

alerted the crew and once things have ‘settled’ the boat is tacked onto a reciprocal course and the count restarted.

When the recount reaches the same number the casualty should be pretty close. It works if everything goes to plan. I tried it once on a 56ft (17.1m) yacht making six knots to windward: over went the bucket and fender and up went the “man overboard” cry; I asked one of the crew to start counting, guided the helmsman onto the beam reach and told him to note the course.

“Ready about!” I shouted and the helmsman followed through. We settled on the new tack and I glanced down at the compass and then at the helmsman: “What course were you steering?” “Er… I can’t remember,” he said. “What number did you get to?” I asked the counter. “I’m really sorry, I’ve forgotten,” came an apologetic response. We lost the fender and bucket but it was a good lesson – for me too.

CLASSIC BOAT ADVICE

Now get him back on board

THIS IS WHAT WE RECOMMEND

ANY WAY THAT WORKS This is the most popular suggestion but that’s a little too imprecise. We wanted a manoeuvre that will work for a crew of two, so this is what we advise.

USING THE ENGINE Stop the boat immediately, sheet in the mainsail, start the engine and furl or lower the foresail if you can.

If not, let the sheets fly (making sure the tails are not trailing in the water near the propeller), turn downwind, motor slowly past the casualty, throwing in anything that floats and shouting words of encouragement as you pass. Then turn back upwind to bring the boat a metre or so to windward of the person in the water.

UNDER SAIL If, in classic Yachtmaster exam style, the engine won’t start, get rid of the foresail if you can, ease the mainsheet right out and bear away at about 120 degrees from the wind, somewhere near a broad reach, for five or six boat lengths. Then tack, sheet the mainsail in and head back upwind to the casualty, pointing the boat high enough to see the person in the water through the lee shrouds, or at least on the leeward side of the mast.

Now adjust the course so that you pass, slowly, one or two metres upwind of the casualty, and let the mainsheet fly. At this point you will need to have a rope ready to secure the casualty.

DON’T FORGET… If you can, from the moment you spin the wheel or put the helm down: keep an eye on the casualty, throw in the dan buoy and lifebelt, hit the ‘MOB’ button on the plotter, send a distress message, furl or drop the foresail, and get out the recovery equipment.

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Above: getting back aboard on your own can be difficult. If you don’t have a ladder, improvise with a fender or a loop of rope

W

hen someone has fallen overboard is not the time to figure out how to get them back on the boat. To help, here are a few steps so you can be as well prepared as possible.

BOARDING LADDER If you have a boarding ladder use it. But might not have one, or it may be too rough to use one, or if the casualty is incapacitated a transom-mounted ladder might not be an option. So we looked at other ways of doing the job.

‘STICKY’S SLING’ One of my colleagues, ‘Sticky’ Stapylton, takes this with him whenever he steps onto a boat. It’s a ‘handy-billy’ system made up of two three-pulley blocks, with a jam-cleat, a length of rope and two nylon strops with carbine hooks attached to the lower block.

For our training purposes, another fellow instructor, Bob, was told to act like a man floundering in the water. For him, that meant lying down with his hands behind his head on the

ONBOARD MAN OVERBOARD

1 2

3

5

4 pontoon. One end of the handy-billy was attached to the spinnaker halyard and the nylon strops passed under his arms and knees. Michelle, the only girl in the crew, was volunteered to heave on the tail of the handy-billy. Even with the six-to-one advantage it wasn’t at all easy.

Bob ascended steadily until he came to a sudden stop halfway up the side of the boat: the blocks were chocker!

The topping lift was rapidly recruited and used to suspend his Bobness, whilst the handy-billy was lengthened and redeployed. A few more heaves and there was a rousing cheer as Bob tumbled in over the side.

However, as successful as the method is, to use it requires preparation, item-specific training, presence of mind and the ability to tie a rolling hitch in a hurry. We were looking for something simpler and easier.

Using A HAlyArd For this exercise, our man was laid out on the pontoon.

We fastened the end of the spinnaker halyard to the metal ring on his safety harness, wound the tail of the halyard

around a winch and winched; slowly but surely he was dragged up the side of the boat and over the guardrails.

“But he’s not horizontal!,” someone shouted. ‘Sticky’ took charge: “Put him back down again,” he ordered. Then Bob got up (with surprising agility for someone who’d just fallen overboard!) and grabbed the safety line (tether) he should have been wearing and, with one end hooked to the ring on his harness, passed the other end behind his knees and clipped it back on to the ring. “OK, up!” he shouted and once more he rose into the air, this time at about 45° to the horizontal, which we thought was near enough. Of course, this procedure would be much more difficult in a rough sea.

THe MAinsHeeT A few years ago I overheard a Yachtmaster Instructor advising a couple who were about to set off on an ocean voyage. He recommended that in the event of one of them falling overboard, the mainsheet should be used to lift the casualty back on board! I butted in as diplomatically as I could and suggested a simpler alternative. Just think it

1

securing alongside.

Get a rope around the casualty so he cannot drift away

2&3

preparing your two loops – for a casualty who needs to be lifted out of the water.

Tie a bowline for these

4

here the casualty can get himself in the loops; he might need some help

5

using the halyard winch on the mast

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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ONBOARD

1 1

using a deck winch with a halyard through a block

2

using a double sling to prevent blood flowing away from the core of the body, into the legs

3

using the handy-billy reduces the weight but this system takes time to set up and use

3

2

through and ask yourself: could everyone in my crew lower and stow the mainsail and, if so, how long would it take them? Could everyone in my crew disconnect the lower shackle(s) of the mainsheet, position the boom over the side of the boat and redeploy the lower shackle(s) to use it as a lifting tool? And if they could, would the mainsheet be long enough to reach down to sea level? All this in a rough sea…

Special equipment The Jonbuoy, heaving lines – if long enough – and the life sling are all likely to be somewhere on deck ready for instant use. But all rely on a casualty being able to help himself.

There are a number of test-trial videos on the internet but each one I looked at was undertaken in reasonably calm conditions and the ‘victims’ were properly togged up, robust-looking males who had jumped in deliberately, and all of them struggled to get into the recovery equipment.

parbuckling A properly rigged storm jib or one of the items designed to parbuckle someone up the side of the boat and over the guardrail does work, but it has major drawbacks.

The storm jib – if there is one – is usually buried under the bunks in the forepeak. If the fixing points haven’t been identified and it hasn’t been practised, even experienced sailors will need time to think about how it should be rigged.

It is also difficult for one person to set up, especially in a strong wind and, it is not easy for a casualty to get into.

a Fender Step One means of providing a step for a conscious and reasonably agile person is to hang a fender over the side, either a purpose-made fender step, available in the chandler’s, or a (not too fat) standard fender with a line from each end tied to whatever deck-level fixtures are convenient

– a stanchion, a midships cleat, or the guardrail – so that the fender is floating against the side of the boat horizontally with the suspension lines just slack. Then a swimmer can grab the suspension lines and get a knee onto the fender, the rest is relatively easy.

Simple iS beSt The equipment that got everyone’s vote is a piece of rope. Take a mooring line out of the cockpit locker, tie a large bowline loop in each end, find the middle and tie a figure-of-eight or a simple ‘thumb knot’. The main halyard led to a winch is the best mechanical lifting device readily available, plus no training is required. If the main halyard isn’t available, use the topping lift or a spinnaker halyard, provided it can be led to a winch. Take the business end of the halyard, pass it through the loop of the knot and tie another bowline.

Lower the two bowline loops over the side to the casualty in the water, who can then sit in them or pass one loop under the armpits and the other behind the knees to be lifted out.

practice makeS perFect You can have the best equipment but if you don’t know how to use it it’s borderline dangerous. And besides, it can be a lot of fun competing with friends and family members to see who can rescue the dummy in the water first; children will love it. Does everyone on board know who’s in charge if someone falls over the side? Let them all have a go and don’t butt in! If you’re over the side you won’t be in charge, and if they can’t do it, you won’t be back!

horSeS For courSeS We recognise that all of the above applies particularly to sloops and that there are other rigs out there. But the same principles apply and a few practice sessions in gentle conditions will quickly determine what works for your boat.

advice for not falling overboard The best way to handle a man overboard is not to fall in in the first place. Establish rules, especially for children, where you have to be clipped on wearing a harness and a lifeline attached to a jackstay. Also have heavy duty D-rings in the cockpit for crew to clip onto during heavy weather. Sensible rules would be to always use harnesses at night and during bad weather.

Fog also presents difficulties where you don’t want to be clipped on in case of collision, so invest in good lifejackets and insist they are worn if conditions warrant it. Invest in a VHF radio – mobile phones are nearly useless at sea and take flares, liferings and a dan buoy. Above all, practice MOB drills in calm water before you set sail.

Useful contacts: www.rnli.org; www.rya.org.uk; www.rorc.org

turn over For the lateS SaFety t kit CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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ONBOARD

MOB safety kit Don’t wait until someone falls overboard to realise you haven’t got even the most basic survival equipment on board. Here are six items to pack for your next voyage 1 LIFE RING

4 MINI FLaREs

Life rings need to be sited within easy reach of the helmsman so they can be thrown after a casualty immediately. There is no point tying it on securely if this will take time to undo. Tie it to a dan buoy with a 6ft (2m)-high pennant so you can locate a man in heavy seas. White life rings are, of course, preferable to the yellow or orange type seen on many boats now. We found this 25½in (65cm) model at 1 Sheridan Marine, albeit with red bands. With a hole diameter of 15in (39cm) it’s just shy of the SOLAS (Safety of Life At Sea) recommended 15¾in (40cm), so practice using it before you need it. £46.95 www.sheridanmarine.com Tel: +44 (0)1491 652085

2 PERsoNaL aIs uNIt 2

Kannad’s R10 personal AIS unit works with a selfinflating lifejacket emitting a VHF emergency signal, which uses a ship’s AIS system to pinpoint a MOB. With yacht AIS systems falling below the £300 mark this is well worth considering as an alternative to a personal locator beacon or flares, but the Shackleton expedition (CB299) found the signal too weak to be of much help. So it could need a bit more testing and developing. £199.95 inc p&p www.marinesuperstore.com Tel: +44 (0)23 9221 9433

3 buoyaNcy GILEt Buoyancy aids are only any use when you’re actually wearing them and, as Baltic has noticed, most people don’t. So they’ve got creative and designed a smart gilet with its own built-in 50N buoyancy aid. It has double-stitched panels, a fleece-lined collar, detachable crutch strap, and two outside pockets. £98.95 plus p&p www.marinestore.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1621 854280

72

If a crew member goes over the side in bad conditions or at night, then it might not be that easy to pinpoint the exact position. In such circumstances, these little pocket flares could prove invaluable. The pack contains nine red aerial flare cartridges, the ‘penjector’ firing mechanism can launch the flares to a height of 148ft (45m) and they are visible for at least five miles in daylight and up to 10 miles at night. www.painswessex.com Tel: +44 (0)23 9241 5700

5 FastFIND 220 Whether you’re a trawlerman or a transatlantic sailor, this new, smaller and more powerful PLB from McMurdo is an essential bit of kit. As well as sending out a SAR distress signal, the 220 also transmits a 121.5MHz homing signal. It’ll transmit for a minimum of 24 hours, has an LED flashlight and is waterproof to 10m. The important thing is that nowadays these are small enough to have on you all the time. £219 plus p&p (including free buoyancy pouch and neck lanyard)

5

www.safety-marine.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)23 8022 6300

6 JacKstay aND tEtHER We are fans of elasticated safety leashes as they don’t get snagged while you trail them along the deck.

Wichard has just launched the new ProLine Tether available with a karabiner-style hook. Then you need to attach them to something, so rig jackstays from strongpoints aft to anchor points forward. Most favour the flat webbing jackstay, which is kind to the feet on deck, but a good modern line will also do the job. Above all, make sure your crew are tethered on and you will minimise the chances of a man overboard. From £52.50 plus p&p www.proboat.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1621 785455

3 CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

4

6

SHERIDAN MARINE

By River, By Road, By Mail...

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idan Marine

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Tel: 0203 137 3870 www.ospreymarine.co.uk

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

73

ONBOARD

Books The Jottings of a Thames Estuary Ditch-Crawler

SUNDOWNERS WITH GUY VENABLES

by Nick Ardley Never judge a book by its cover, they say.

Or, in this case, by its title. I was expecting a collection of tales from a sailing man in the literary wake of East Coast writers like Maurice Griffiths, Jack Cootes, Charles Stock et al. But, although it’s written from the cockpit, this is primarily a history of the minutiae of the East Coast, written by a man who is part local historian, part sailor (his boat Whimbrel is a clinker-built Finesse 24, a friendly bath-toy yacht built on the East Coast) and part writer.

Unlike many of his ilk, Ardley has a way with words that brings his stories of barge wrecks, the East Coast’s Corinthian sailing past (anyone remember the lifeboat conversions after the war?), lost industry and choked-up creeks to life. What’s more, he grew up on the East Coast and has lived on a Thames Barge. The book’s black-andwhite illustrations comprise old photos and maps, as well as drawings by his wife, ‘first mate’, who sails with him. These are the stories of a man in love with East Coast history, sailing, his boat – and even his wife! Charming bunkside reading for East Coast sailors. SMH Amberley, 2011, 172x248mm paperback, 224pp, RRP £17.99

Black Fish

by Sam Llewellyn Black fish are fish that are landed and sold out of quota. Of course, in our overfed, politically governed world they should be thrown back into the sea, but on a black market they can be worth lots of money.

And so the crazy world of our modern fishing industry is the backdrop for this thrilling page-turner by our best current marine author, who sets an unlikely hero, police detective-turned-yachtbroker Gavin Chance, on the trail of criminals whose creed is vice and violence.

The action moves at breakneck pace – much of it taking place in and around a trawler. But on the way Chance does some sailing in the Hebridean and Irish seas, as well as on a classic yacht in the Solent. At the end of the book he finds himself racing a one-design in a do-or-die gamble, which is worth the cover price alone.

Llewellyn brings his characters to life in such a way that you cannot put the book down, for wanting to find out what happens to them.

The shoreline and sea scenery are so realistically vivid that you feel as if you’ve experienced the Corryvreckan, and the trawler of the piece is so filthy and lifelike that you feel like you need a shower after making, or rather reading, one of her passages. It’s gripping stuff. DH New Hat, 2010, 147mmx224mm paperback, 295 pages, RRP £10.00 74

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

Sundowner bars It struck me recently in Cascais, Portugal, that all the yachties that had descended on the town drank at the same bar. There were hundreds of bars in the town and two bars either side of the bar in question that were just as good; the beer and food seemed to be the same price and the staff and owners, who looked either sullen or baffled at their busily engorged neighbour, were equally as pleasant. Then I remembered. We tend to do this everywhere. We are a group of people of strict habits. Just look at our dress sense.

We tend to flock towards the very middle of fashion. There are few sailing Goths for instance, possibly due to practicality. The long flowing leather coat, handy on night watch, could be a serious health risk next to a running winch. Keeping your face a pasty white in the Mediterranean sunshine could prove tricky and God knows what those boots would do to a teak deck. But, practicalities aside, in certain sailing circles, anyone even sporting a Hawaiian shirt is looked upon as some kind of dangerous lunatic.

Anyway, back to these bars. I can see the first yacht arriving at a foreign port, a deckhand being given the orders: “Go and find a bar, not far from the marina that serves beer in pints and chips when we need them,” or something along those lines. A random decision is made and some lucky owner of the chosen bar is inundated with customers for a year. For when I see the flash of a Musto jacket, the shapeless blob of a fleece, or a large sewn number on the back of a polo shirt, I know that there I can meet people with whom I can share well-leafed novels and ‘pass the salt’ in the ease of like-minded company. And I say a year because, although there are exceptions, like any Irish pub (The Quay’s Irish pub in Cannes springs to mind) or (until it closed) The Eclipse in Palma, the choosing of the bar is a random annual process. The bars that were one year packed to the gunwales, with the owner having optimistically put down a large deposit on a speedboat in order to mistakenly fit in better with his new-found and heavy-drinking customers, can just as quickly seem bewilderingly empty – the first deckhand having found a different bar and the annual migration having moved on without explanation.

ONBOARD

Lazarette

Compiled by Guy Venables

Nickel-plated needles

Marine twine

We’ve got some older versions of these needles in our ditty bag, so we know how great they are. The nickel-plating protects the steel and prevents rust, which so often destroys sail needles. So we were delighted when we discovered a company called Chichester Inc, a NY craft store that sells them online. At present they come in packs of 25, from US$32.50 for 2¼in (5.7cm) to $104.00 for huge 4in (10.2cm) versions. Minimum order $75, prices exclude p&p

Our three-ply whipping twine measures 230 yards (210m) in length with a 40lb (18kg) breaking weight, making it ideal for leather and ropework. £12.50 a spool www.tradboats.com Tel: +44 (0)1502 712311

www.chichesterinc.com Tel: +1 416 232 0376

Mahout moleskin jerkin There’s something particularly smart and timeless about these traditional Indian-style jerkins. Once on, you stand to attention a little more and the generous but straight cut tends to smooth out even the most robust midriff. Ideal for a cool evening when a jacket is too much, or under one in winter. Features coconut-shell buttons and a Nehru collar. Available in a range of lovely colours. £110 plus p&p www.mahoutlifestyle.com Tel: +44 (0)845 1166333

Breton top It’s time to dig out the summer clothing that’s loose enough to keep you cool when it’s hot, but thick enough to protect you from a cool breeze across the water. This ‘La Marinière’ ladies Breton top does just that as it’s made from heavyweight interlock cotton and has been cut so it hangs off the body, rather than hugging it in a skintight fashion, and lets the air in.

It’s also long in body and sleeve, so doubles up as the perfect evening attire. £49.50 plus p&p www.thenauticalcompany.com Tel: (0)1256 351283

Musto polka dot shirt As a smart shirt, this can be worn with a tie under a jacket and a pair of chinos, but it would also suit a jolly good salting so why not leave it open to the navel, lean up against a piece of sun-bleached driftwood and jam a couple of cigars in the breast pocket. An excellent lightweight creation, this long-sleeved shirt makes you feel like Hemingway and seems destined to become a favourite old friend. £65 plus p&p www.musto.com Tel: +44(0)1268 495824 CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

75

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76

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

ONBOARD

Classnotes East Cornish luggers

BY VANESSA BIRD

© VANESSA BIRD

I

t is the shape of the stern that distinguishes East Cornish luggers from their West Cornish counterparts. East Cornish luggers are identifiable by their transom sterns, whereas the West Cornish boats are double-ended, or ‘doublebowed’. The East Cornish luggers, which were all built and fished out of ports east of the Lizard Peninsula, were also more lightly built, with finer lines, more tuck in the bilge, and a long bowsprit.

The design differences were dictated principally by the geography of the boats’ home ports. The main harbours of Looe, Polperro and Mevagissey offered excellent shelter from the prevailing winds, in which the luggers could either stay afloat or dry out on legs, whereas the harbours to the west were smaller and more exposed, requiring boats to raft up in tighter spaces or dry out unsupported.

The building of a rail bridge over the River Tamar in 1859 helped shape the luggers’ development, too.

Demand for fish was high, and whereas in the early 19th century the majority of the pilchard fishing was done inshore, now boats had to go further afield to seek their catches of herring and mackerel. Until the early 1800s, the open boats had been rigged with squaresails, but as they were peaked higher to sail faster and closer to the wind, so the lugsail developed. By 1875, the distinctive and now well-known two-masted, decked lugger had been developed, and with it a burgeoning industry that in 1889 saw an East Cornish fleet of 218 boats, employing 823 men.

As with most working boats, no two were the same; they were built by eye and incorporated details specific to the fishermen’s requirements, or those of its builder.

However, most were between 38ft-42ft (11.6m-12.8m) LOA, 12ft (3.7m) on the beam and 15 tons displacement. Looe and Mevagissey

luggers could be distinguished by their transoms, the former having plumb transoms and the latter raked.

Mevagissey was home to around 80 boats during the late 1800s, including the Toshers – 19ft 11in (6.1m) open gaff-rigged boats.

However, the big luggers remained popular for their speed and handiness.

Rigged with a dipping forelug and mizzen, the sail plan was very versatile. When fishing, the foremast was often lowered to deck, and the mizzen, set on a long boom steeved at a jaunty angle, allowed them to lie head-to-wind. On passage, a jib and mizzen staysail could also be set.

Inevitably the heyday of the East Cornish lugger was soon to pass with the advent of engines in the early 1900s. Although many were retrofitted, a number of motor luggers were built to replace their sailing siblings. Under motor, a single lugger could land the equivalent catch of two sailing boats, and consequently many were laid up for good.

A number were, however, converted to yachts and in recent years the luggers have seen something of a revival thanks in part to the reformation of the Looe Lugger Regatta, an event that originally ran from 1897-1911. Now a biennial showpiece, it has spurred on many restorations and new builds.

Interestingly, too, the boat that won the Kelpie Cup in 1911 – the Ferris-built Looe lugger Guide Me – is still the fastest lugger around.

Now engineless, she has proved unbeatable for the last three regattas.

Above: the 1911 Ferris-built Guide Me – the fastest lugger in the West Country

OVERSEAS In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was not unusual for East Cornish luggers to sail hundreds of miles to the North Sea to fish during winter.

More recently, both Guide Me and Guiding Star have crossed the Atlantic, and Guide Me even sailed to Brazil, returning via Cape Town and America.

DEVIL ON THE PORT Fishermen are superstitious souls, and on many luggers it was believed that you would bring the Devil aboard if you hauled your nets over the port side.

BLACK TARRED Until around 1910 all Cornish luggers had black tarred hulls.

BUILDERS

SPECIFICATIONS

LOA

38ft-42ft (11.6m12.8m) BEAM

12ft (3.7m) DRAUGHT

5ft 10in (1.8m)

Builders of the luggers included Peter Ferris, Dick Pearce, Hugh Stephens & Sons, Jas Angear and RH Shapcott at Looe, the Frazier Brothers, Henry Roberts & Co and William D Lelean at Mevagissey, Dick Pill at Gorran Haven, and Percy Mitchell at Porthleven.

SAIL STOWAGE East Cornish lugger fishermen stowed their sails on deck, on the port side, whereas those on West Cornish luggers stowed them in raft irons – giant rowlocks attached to the bulwarks.

DISPLACEMENT

33,069lbs (15 tonnes)

Vanessa’s book, Classic Classes, is out now.

For more details, go to www.classicboat.co.uk CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

77

Val Wyatt Marine Ltd Val Wyatt Marine Ltd Val Wyatt Marine Ltd VISIT WWW.VALWYATTMARINE.CO.UK FOR FULL LISTINGS OF BOATS FOR SALE

STEWART MARINE Classic Boats for sale 1932 Andrews Slipper

VISITVISIT WWW.VALWYATTMARINE.CO.UK WWW.VALWYATTMARINE.CO.UKFOR FORFULL FULLLISTINGS LISTINGSOFOFBOATS BOATSFOR FORSALE SALE

Selection of Boats Available Now: SelectionofofBoats BoatsAvailable AvailableNow: Now: Selection

1950s Andrews Day Boat

Interboat 25 2012.

The only wooden Interboat ever built, see full test review in this magazine, pages 54-56, view her at our marina or at the Thames Traditional Boat Rally in Henley, 20-21 July €112,000

Original Baby Greyhound Fully restored 2005 Original Austin engine Very rare original craft In excellent condition

£25,500

Ford Watermota engine Lovely interior New Winter cover Re-furbished by Freebody In A1 condition

£35,950

Bolton & Paul Launch 1919, 20hp. 25ft open launch with seating for 6-8 people, completely renovated by Peter Freebody in the late 1980s. £29,950

Andrews 30’ Slipper Stern Launch 1958.

One family owner from new, purchased at the London Boat Show in 1958. Now reluctantly for sale. £34,500

Hacker 28 1992, 270hp. A modern classic fitted out in the style of the Hacker utility launches, presented in excellent order. £89,500

Dartmouth Launch 2005. Open 15ft clinker with 10hp Beta Ten, seating for 6, and trailer.

Perfect for rivers or estuaries. £POA

Wanted all types of classic launches Classic Boats for Charter 1897 Day Launch “EM”

1974 Fairey Spearfish

Come and see it at the Thames Traditional Boat Rally

Based in Kingston Upon Thames this boat is ideal for special events for up to 12 people with skipper.

Catering available on request.

www.hartsboats.com

Based in the Solent this boat is ideal for film and TV due to its stability and speed.

Available for Cowes and other Solent regattas

Built Oak on Oak in 1957.

Up to 20 berths, Excellent galley - bar.

Scania diesel, Survey available. £375,000 - Location Edinburgh

10m (33ft) Fairey Marine Swordsman, fast cruiser.

Up to six berths, two heads, excellent galley, Twin Volvo Penta TAMPD41P-A 200bhp diesels installed 2000. Superbly maintained.

2010 Survey. Please ask! £59,500 Offers Invited!

Location River Colne, Essex

NEW BOATS, USED CRAFT, MOORINGS,WORKSHOPS, WORKSHOPS,ENGINEERS, ENGINEERS, NEW BOATS, USED CRAFT, MOORINGS, CHANDLERY, SLIPWAY, TRAILER BOATPARK, PARK,WINTER WINTERENGINEERS, STORAGE CHANDLERY, SLIPWAY, TRAILER BOAT STORAGE NEW BOATS, USED CRAFT, MOORINGS, WORKSHOPS, Contact us via: Tel +44(0)1189 403211 info@valwyattmarine.co.uk CHANDLERY, SLIPWAY, TRAILER BOAT PARK, WINTER STORAGE Contact us via: Tel +44(0)1189 403211 info@valwyattmarine.co.uk Willow Willow Lane, Wargrave, Berkshire,RG10 RG108LH 8LH Willow Willow Lane, Wargrave, Berkshire, Contact us Marina, via:Marina, Tel +44(0)1189 403211 info@valwyattmarine.co.uk Willow Marina, Willow Lane, Wargrave, Berkshire, RG10 8LH

0208 399 0297

www.TallShipsforSale.co.uk

24.7m (81ft) (on deck) Brigantine Sail Training Ship.

Norfolk Authority Launch 1962. 27ft craft built of teak on oak frames with high spec.

Interboat 22 Classic, a perfect day boat with Used for the Authority until 1983, then traditional looks & fully varnished decks on a modernised & re-varnished in 2012. £29,950 GRP hull for a low maintenance option. €43,200

www.ClassicYachtsforSale.com

25m (82ft) Steel Twin Screw Gentleman’s Schooner part-finished restoration project.

Hull and decks restored, Twin Gardner diesels. Drop Dead Gorgeous! 2010 Survey please ask for a copy. £195,000 - Offers invited Location - Dorset UK

8m Kattegat 26, 1997, designed by John Leather/Jim Spencer.

Colin Archer style Gaff Cutter. 4 berths, Yanmar 18hp Diesel, Windpilot Pacific Self Steering. £23,750 Location Faro, Portugal

11.5m (38ft) Modern Classic Yawl, hull by Spirit Yachts,

2000, 6 berths in three cabins, Lister 30hp diesel, absolutely beautiful! Survey available Please ask for a copy £145,000 - Location - Chichester Harbour UK

9.14m (30ft) Double Ended Lifting Keel Classic Yacht built Souter’s 1950.

Carvel Mahogany on Oak. New Beta engine fitted 1999 very few hours. Four berths, Largely restored.

Very Pretty! £15,750 Location- Ipswich, Suffolk

14m (46ft) Modern Classic Sloop built Astilleros Mediterraneo, Spain 2003.

Construction is cold moulded, double diagonal over strip plank Cedar, all epoxy / glass sheathed. 6 berths. Yanmar 40hp diesel. A real stunner!

Euro 139,000 - Lying Costa del Sol, Spain

9.1m (30ft) Classic Long keel Morgan Giles Sloop

Built Honduras Mahogany on CRE frames, Teak decks, 1955. Substantially restored, shower, heating, radar etc. A real classy lady!

2011 Survey - please ask. £14,950 Location - Nr Inverness, Scotland

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.

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

ONBOARD

Getting afloat Capella

Capella is a none-too-common example of the pre-war Hillyard 9-Tonner. Unlike the better-known post-war version that features a centre cockpit and two cabins, this is the traditional type, with the usual layout. These are solid, heavy, seaworthy yachts with a distinctive canoe stern that takes away cockpit space but looks great and breaks up a following sea. The cabin is good for a classic this size (30ft/9.1m), with four berths, separate heads, full-sized chart table, decent galley, and standing headroom of about 5ft 10in (1.8m). These pre-war Hillyards

IAN KIPPAX

Just add water and an owner

surprise many with their speed – the news editor’s old Hillyard 9-Tonner once came second (over the line) in a race against a modern fleet in heavy conditions! Capella is a bermudan cutter with furling headsails and a 30hp Yanmar diesel. She has undergone significant restoration

Above: Capella at low water in Castletown, IoM

work over the last 25 years and her owner reports her to be in good condition. She is seen here at low water in Castletown, IoM. Asking: £18,500, lying ashore in Falmouth. Contact Chris on +44 (0)7581 428 621

FlOReNCe OlIVeR

Norwegian Sjekte Our own columnist Adrian Morgan built this beauty in 2005 to a 1930s design by Norwegian Karsten Ausland – and he considers it one of his best. Florence Oliver is 18ft (5.5m) long with a clinker hull of Scottish larch on oak – as is Adrian’s wont. She has a gunter rig for easy trailing, a trailer, a full set of sails including an asymmetric jib for light airs, a pair of “beautiful spoon oars”, and an outboard bracket for no airs.

The ballast is in water bags that can be emptied for trailing. She was voted the prettiest boat in the fleet at the third English Raid last year.

C/O IYRS

Asking: £6,500, lying ashore in Colchester, Tel: +44 (0)1206 272305, email: alisonted@yahoo.co.uk

BeeTle CaT

C/O AdRIAN MORgAN

american classic Most years we feature a photo of restored Beetle Cats being launched into the waters outside the campus of the International Yacht Restoration School in Rhode Island. In fact, these classic American dinghies have been in build for more than 90 years and they are still produced today, in wood, at the Beetle Shop in Wareham, Massachusetts. As a result, secondhand Beetle Cats are plentiful and cheap and, as a boat, they offer quite a bit to many people – enormous space, simple rig, great stability, very shallow draught and (in Britain at least) distinctive Yankee looks. Could there be a better boat for camper cruising the East Coast?!

Cost: new Beetle Cats start at $16,995, excluding sail; used boats from $3,000. Tel: +1 508 295 8585, www.beetlecat.com

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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BOATS FOR SALE

Boats for sale Looking to sell your boat?

Reach over 50,000 readers each month

To advertise call Edward Mannering +44 (0) 20 7349 3747 Edward.Mannering@chelseamagazines.com Copy Deadline for next issue is 22/07/2013

ClassiC 1950 26’ Wm OsbOrne mOtOr Cruiser

Twin diesels, Morse controls, 2 berths, galley & heads. Large cockpit with full cover adds second cabin. Full survey 2011. £22,500. Tel. +44 (0) 7712 048290

15 foot dayboat

Built Cowes, 2000 for present owner. 15 foot dayboat in 3/8” clinker mahogany. Gunter rig, tan sails, gun metal fittings.

Galvanised trailer, 3HP Tohatsu outboard. £4,000. Tel. Alan Matthews, 01794 514943 email: alan.wmatthews@btinternet.com

Buzzards Bay 14

Built by David Walkey of Gweek Boat Yard, in Cornwall approximately 18 years ago. Cold moulded. Stored under cover.

Excellent condition. 4 wheel trailer with launching dolly £12,000 Contact: june@wristbands.co.uk or Tel: 07977989741

ClassiC style 8ft Clinker sailing dinghy by Wootton industries

35FT IOR 7MTR ClassIC slOOp

A rare opportunity to acquire an elegant and much admired yacht.

Built in Germany in 1967. Beautifully fair hull. Strip planked in excellent mahogany on oak. Extensive refit 2002. Solid teak decks.

Alloy mast. Wheel Steering. New Hood Vektram sails 2008. Easily sailed single handed. Fast, easily driven, sea kindly motion. Kept in outstanding condition. Must be seen to be appreciated. An enthusiasts yacht. Lying Solent. £45,000.

Tel: Chris 07774 928418 • Email: christopher.cavanagh@btinternet.com

Maurice Griffiths tidewater

Built 1959 by Seacraft, Essex. 32’6” x 9’6” x 3’5” Long keel / bilge plates.

Beautiful condition.

Extensively re-fitted 2008. New covers, forestay, pro-furl reefing and instruments 2012.

Ashore Emsworth.

GBP 26,500 ono Further details http://tinyurl.com/ bsem3h7 Tel. 07525 100 824

Mahogany on oak.

Stored about 15 years, used only once. Never rigged, all sails, mast etc as new.Launching trailer. Some tlc needed. Contact 01929 552925 £2,250

INTERNATIONAL ONE DESIGN

A great example of this classic racing class, Sanchia (built 1958) has raced regularly with the IOD fleet in St Mawes and in Falmouth Week.

She has been based in the Carrick Roads, Falmouth for many years and has been well looked after. She has been upgraded for racing since 2007. Length 33ft 5”, draft 5ft 6” £18,750. Call 01872 580184 or E-mail: ncoppin@gmail.com for more information.

21 foot Gaff Sloop SaRa

by John Leather built as a private commission in 1965 by Colne Marine. Carvel of Iroko, sound but needs finishing. Kubota Diesel, on cradle. £4750 07746969799 South Notts

STEAM LAUNCH ARTEMIS

Yacht’s tender built Summers and Payne 1899 for yawl Artemis.

21ft carvel cedar on rock elm. Simpson Strickland ¼ A engine.

Boiler new 2008. £24,000. Tel: 01223 245616.

12 FOOT INBOARD CLINKER LAUNCH

Built in 1950 by W N May of Potter Higham, Norfolk. Stuart Turner 4 HP electric start engine. Clinker mahogany with copper fastenings. In fine condition with full period ancilliary equipment and comes with road trailer. Kept under cover and available for viewing near Canterbury.

Price £4,500. Tel 01304 812458. david@ralls.plus.com

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

ClassiC Day Cruiser

Woodnutt & Sons, St Helens, Isle of White 1938. Designed by Alfred Westmacott. Extensively renovated, excellent condition.

Lying Suffolk, UK. £11,000 Contact: 01394 385600 or email mylesfromhere@doctors.org.uk

Capella

Pre-war Hillyard 30ft 9-tonner. Centre cockpit and two cabins.

Has undergone significant restoration work over the past 25 years, she is in good condition.

Please call Chris on 07851 428 621 for more information

BOATS FOR SALE

NOMAD for sale

South CoaSt one DeSign “Marbella” iS for Sale

In her current ownership for 17 years. She is a serial prize winner.

This class of Yacht is the entry level for the growing number of Classic regattas. She has been and still is lovingly maintained.

For details of her restoration and her racing history go to www.marbella.coastaloccasions.co.uk E mail marbellasc28@gmail.com Offers invited on £15000.00

For further details email:

binkhorst@medischaspect.nl

Looking to sell your boat?

Reach over 50,000 readers each month There are two styles of Boats for Sales ad to choose from and with our special Spring offer, if you buy two months, your third month will be free. Pick the style which suits your requirements and email: Edward.Mannering@ chelseamagazines.com with your text and image or call +44 (0) 20 7901 8016.

The deadline for the next issue is 22/07/2013

SAMPLE STYLE A GoLAnT GAffEr

No. 8. Excellent 2 berth coastal cruiser, built 1999. Length 18’ 9” Beam 7’ Draft 2’ 9” long keel, designed by Roger Dongray. Yanmar GM 10 regularly serviced. Very attractive boat lovingly maintained, Lying Fowey. £12,000 ono.

Email: name@classicboat.co.uk 0000 11111111

STYLE A. 5cm x 2 columns. Either 160 words or 80 words plus colour photograph. £275 inc VAT and Internet

SAMPLE STYLE B

STYLE B. 5cm x 1 colums. Either 55 words or 30 words plus colour photograph. £155 inc VAT and Internet

cuTTEr

Built 1991, mahogany & epoxy hull similar to GRP, 1930’s spars & fittings, beautifully maintained. Visit www.idclark.force9.co.uk for photos and specification. £25,750 Contact 00000 111111

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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BROKERAGE

Brokerage

To advertise Call Patricia Hubbard +44 (0) 207 349 3748 Patricia.hubbard@chelseamagazines.com Copy Deadline for next issue is 22/07/2013

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

80 ft Thornycroft Bermudan Ketch 1929 An extensive refit at T Nielsen & Co in 2006, giving full consideration to her origin and her usefulness, has kept HALCYON and her teak on oak structure in near perfect condition but with the systems and conveniences of a modern yacht without detriment to her character. She can operate as a luxury charter yacht, accommodating up to 8 guests for overnight – or 11 guests for a day sail.

She is also an exciting option as a dramatic and unique private yacht – easier to sail and less delicate than comparable classics of her size, there is a toughness about HALCYON that could earn her the label of classic explorer yacht. £1.4M VAT unpaid Lying UK

63 ft Abeking & Rasmussen Ketch 1919 Ahead of her time with a steel hull, TALISMAN has had a long and varied history with successive owners, rig, name changes and refits. Re-rigged as a Bermuda ketch in 1955 and major restoration in 2006, she is approved by CIM as true to her origins - with her original name. Well laid out, combining the best of her inspired designer Henry Rasmussen and now with modern systems, she is the ideal medium sized family vintage yacht – or for charter, for which she is Cat 2 certified for up to 12 passengers and 2 crew.

72 ft Albert Luke Yawl 1928 Designed by AR Luke as GLADORIS II she was built at the Luke Brothers yard on the Hamble. A very beautiful vintage yacht MOON FLEET still has many of her original fittings and some of the interior mahogany joinery.

Nevertheless she has enough modern updates to make her extremely easy to manage as a large family classic yacht or with a minimal crew. Keenly priced she is an interesting option.

£770,000 VAT unpaid

€600,000

59 ft Charles E Nicholson Gaff Cutter 1892 The beauty of MARIGOLD’s Victorian straight stem and long counter stern doubtless inspired her rescue by Greg Powlesland. That he in turn persuaded her present owner to resource completing the project is testament to her worth as one of the premier classic yachts afloat today.

Attention to period detail and the skilful application of traditional materials has regenerated this magnificent yacht providing enormous pleasure both to him and his guests over the 25 years of his ownership. €550,000 Lying France

70 ft Laurent Giles Motor Yacht 1948 Designed by Jack Laurent Giles for a knowledgeable yachtsman in 1947; this stunning 70 ft motor yacht with her nimble semi displacement hull form can be used easily by just 2 people. WOODPECKER underwent a full restoration ten years ago and remains in impressive condition - considerable attention has been paid to ensure her original character was retained with modifications made in some areas to enhance her practicality as a family cruising yacht. WOODPECKER is remarkably economical and capable of cruising well over 1,000 miles on one refuel. £395,000 Lying Malta

56 ft William McBryde Gaff Ketch 1952

45 ft William Fife III International 8 Metre 1929 Notable not only for her royal commissioning, OSBORNE is practically the same design as Fife’s SIRENA built at Cannes in the same year for General Sir Arthur Paget. That yacht was claimed to have been the most successful Second International Rule 8 M in the Mediterranean, especially in light and moderate winds. OSBORNE is in good condition structurally and cosmetically - stored ashore and inside for the last 2 years, it would take very little to have her ready for the season. €230,000 Lying Spain

33 ft Linton Hope Thames Rater 1894 Lovingly restored and maintained DOROTHY is about as dainty as a sailing boat can be - but do not be fooled as she has a formidable race record (including BCYC Round the Island Race 2008) and numerous Concours d’Elegance wins. It would be hard to find an easier way to participate in classic regattas or avoid expensive marina berths – she has her own trailer and extensive inventory – she is absolutely charming.

28 ft Fairey Huntsman 1965 Some 35 years following her launch TOM PEPPER III was substantially refitted by a former owner. This included having the hull epoxied, rebuilding the interior, re-plumbing, new engine boxes and decks. Then for a time owned by an extremely experienced yachtsman she has benefitted from more recent refits including a pair of Perkins Sabre M 225 TI diesel engines as well as many sympathetic updates – with complete rewiring and new batteries in 2011 to make a very well equipped and usable classic. £35,000 Lying UK

£47,000

email: info@sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk 82

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

Lying Sweden

Lying UK

Lying Spain

Designed by W.G McBryde, YVES CHRISTIAN is a proper little ship drawn at a time when this was appreciated – sea kindly and comfortable she has plenty of beam, which with her firm sections and snug ketch rig make her very stiff - and she was originally designed for long sea trips and Mediterranean cruising. Her current owners have attended with great attention and dedication to the period and detail of the boat’s structure, meaning that her systems and interior are impressive. This is a vessel with little left to do but perhaps prepare a passage plan for somewhere you have always wanted to go to, very confident she will look after you.

£280,000

Lying UK

www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk

BROKERAGE

M.J.LEWIS & SON (Boat Sales) LTD DOWNS ROAD BOATYARD, MALDON, ESSEX. CM9 5HG

E-Mail: info@mjlewisboatsales.com Tel: 01621 859373 • Mob: 07736 553487

Specialists in the brokerage of Classic Vessels, Traditional Yachts and Working Boats

11m West Country Launch, 1960 Pine on oak, enclosed wheelhouse fitted awning.

Accom forward. Perkins engine.

Essex £12,950

12m Beechams Motor vessel, 1963 Twin Ford engs. Mahogany on Oak. Under restoration. The Prototype.

Essex OIRO £50,000

27m Thames Sailing Barge, 1926 Large wooden hull used as a private home, ongoing conversion. Kelvin eng. All sails, rigging etc. Essex Offers IRO £85,000

45ft Gills, Rochester Sailing Barge, 1887 Half sized, wooden hull, totally rebuilt‘07, extra headroom, sleeps 6. 12ft beam.

Holiday let. Suffolk £50,000

12m No:1 Mystery Class, 1936 Robert Clark Bermudan Cutter, teak decks Totally restored. Accom for 4. An accolade winner.

Suffolk £45,000

32ft Cardinell’s Yawl, 1932 Mahogany double planked, long keel, centre cockpit, Aft cabin. Many original features. Kent £22,000

34ft 10ton Hillyard Cutter, 1971 Wooden Bermudan main, centre cockpit.

Sails 2004. 55hp Perkins engine.

Afloat Hampshire £26,750

Inchcape 38, 1965 All original. Twin Kelvin F4’s. Requires commissioning. OOW survey May’13.

Yorkshire POA

7m Laurent Giles Peter Duck, 1963 Professionally maintained, Refitted 2013 Bermudan ketch. Volvo eng.

Hampshire £19,500

10.6m Prawner Gaff Cutter 1900 Crossfields of Arnside. Pitch pine on oak, all restored. Accom for 4. Raced as an ex working boat. Essex £25,000

23ft Gaff Cutter, 1930 Built by E.Woods of Cantley. Beautiful fitout.

Pitch pine on oak. Outboard. Longterm ownership.

Suffolk £19,950

30ft Sailing Smack, 1820 Much loved. ex CK82. Totally rebuilt, inboard engine, new rig, spars & sails.

Kent £37,500

29ft Tyrell & Young Smack Yacht, 1990 No2 out of the mould, GRP, Traditional Fit out & rig, inboard. Accom 3. Stove.

Kent £24,500

25ft Maurice Griffiths Cutter, 1936 Pitch pine on Oak, Vetus inboard.

Furling gear. Well maintained 17yrs ownership.

Brittany £13,750

37ft Belmore Sloop, 1960 Commissioned by the Navy. Large sums spent in present ownership. 6ft 6ins h’drm.

Comprehensive inventory. Cornwall £28,000

8m Stirling 28,1968 A Holman design built by Uphams. Shipwright maintained. A prime example.

Recommissioned June 2013. Kent £26,000

26ft Maurice Griffiths Thames Bawley, 1965. Johnson & Jago.

Bermudan Cutter. Saab 10hp Complete inventory Essex £9,500

21ft Hillyard 4 tonner, 1937 Teak on oak gaff cutter Yanmar GM10.

Totally refurbished Kent £9,750

30ft Easton Yawl, 1930 Built Cook’s of Maldon. Beta eng, Externally refitted, needs a new interior. Afloat. Essex £7,500

24ft Spitzgatter , 1950’s Now a Bermudan cutter with sq sail.

Volvo eng, all new rig, sails, systems’ installations. Accom for 2. Suffolk £12,500

27ft ex RN Whaler, 1954 GRP hull Gunter rig, centreboard.

Inboard Beta 28hp.

Hants £6,950.

18ft 2.5t Blackwater Sloop, 1955 Dan Webb & Feesey of Maldon.

Mahogany on oak.Yanmar GM10.

Basic comforts. Essex £3,250

12ft Smack Boats, 2013 New builds GRP sailing dinghies.

Professionally fitted out, each to owner’s specifications. From £5,950

Complete with piggy back trailer, 2 outboards, rig, spars, sails & forward dry cuddy. Iain Oughtred Tammee Norrie design Wiltshire £3,350

13ft 6ins Ply Sailing Dinghy 2012.

16ft Oysterman, 1978 GRP Gaff cutter with trailer.

Internal refit 2013. Inboard eng.

Kent £8,950

18ft Johnson and Jago 2.5t, 1937 Bermudan cutter. Long keel.

Yanmar 10hp Essex £2,950

www.heritage-marine.com CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

83

Carician - The last of the 40’ Bates Starcraft. Well travelled throughout Europe, sleeping 4 in two cabins with separate heads, generator, a freezer and fridge, she is suited to long distance cruising as well as pottering on the river. Her electrics were modified in 2007, she was repainted and varnished last year. Having previously been owned by a member of the Bates family, she was built to satisfy the demands of a discerning ‘Batesophile’ including a flying bridge accessible from the saloon as well as from the decks. She is sold with full winter cover, current BSS and EA licence and is in good order for a prospective new owner - Offers invited.

Collie - 36’ Thorneycroft tug with an economical 70hp Ford diesel, 4 berths and loads of history. Full MOD and Admiralty records are available, and having served in two world wars and for over a century, they make fascinating reading. She has had a recent refit and a thorough survey and upgrades - See her at the TTBR

Graciela - Contemporary 23’ slipper built of marine ply with varnished mahogany deck and fittings. Sold with trailer, winter cover and Lloyd Loom chairs, she is currently seeking her first owner - £18,500

Debonair - Built by Harry Gibbs in the roaring twenties, she predates the slipper launch and is a sought after launch by many enthusiasts. She has been much improved over recent years, including new stem, transom and shaftlog, a rebuilt Gaines Universal petrol engine, as well as extensive replanking and a total repaint in 2011.

Sold with trailer - £24,750

Total Harmony - A spacious 30’ Broads Cruiser with traditional sliding canopy. Antifouled and varnished this year, she is ready for sale in excellent condition.

Comfortably sleeping 4, and with a heater for chillier nights, she is cosy, elegant and practical and is powered by a BMC Diesel engine - £20,000

Lorita - 1923 Thornycroft launch - 35’ of elegance.

Featuring an aft cockpit that seats 8, a beautifully light saloon with buttoned leather seating, rich mahogany panelling and striped holly and teak floor and, most importantly, a ship’s bar, she is a trly beautiful vessel.

With a foredeck of 23’ (fully restored) and a 2009 Thorneycroft diesel that is quiet and reliable, Lorita is magnificent - POA

Gay Lady - 25’ Gentleman’s Estuary Launch from 1936.

Pitch pine on oak and beutifully restored, she has been cared for by her current owners for many years. Sleeping 2 forward with space for children at the back, she also will pass under Osney bridge with the mast down. Full of character and charm, and with a well documented history, she is powered by a single BMC diesel - £18,500

MB 278 - Newly refurbished Dunkirk Little Ship from 1914.

30’ and with a new Perkins diesel, she has fought in 2 world wars, served in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic and has a detailed history. Recently completely restored by Michael Dennett, she sleeps 2 in the saloon and features a galley, loo and a large cockpit ideal for river cruising with friends £57,000

Bullfinch - Classic Brooke Marine Gentleman’s Launch from 1930, built by the great grandfather of the current owner and a working example of British marine history. Of mahogany on oak, she is in perfect condition and powered by a 4 cylinder Brooke ‘Empire’ with 150 recorded hours since a refit in the ‘90’s.

Revarnished this year, she is sold in excellent condition and with her trailer - £22,500

Bunny - Contemporary clinker built open boat built in 2010 to a 1925 design. Built of varnished mahogany on oak with mahogany fittings and seating and with an 11hp Vetus diesel, her decks are laid in half inch Douglas fir, on English oak deck beams. Sold with new BSS, a year’s guarantee still on the engine, full length cover and a trailer - £15,950

Regina - 21’ Brooke marine Slipper from 1932 and one of the oldest slippers on the Thames. In recent years she has benefitted from many refurbishments and upgrades, including stripped and varnished decks and hull, folding hood, new battery and new cushions. Sold with a BSS to 2015 and a reconditioned Morris Vedette 4 cylinder engine - £22,500

Leopold - 1964 Italian Piantoni Derby. Rare and interesting and with a definite ‘Riva-esq’ feel having also been built on Lake Iseo. She is a recent addition to British waters, having spent most her life in France and Italy. Easy to trail on her own trailer (included) she could make an ideal boat for participating in motorboat events, a fun tender to a superyacht or a picnic and ski boat for a family - £24,950

For more information about any of these boats call 01491 578870 mobile 07813 917730 email sales@hscboats.co.uk www.hscboats.co.uk For model boats, dockside clothing and lifejackets visit www.boatique.co.uk

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

43’ Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter, built in Wales 1895. Pitch-pine hull, iroko deck. 9 berths. Perkins diesel. 2006 sails. Regular upgrading to keep her in amazing condition.

Sailed between Spain and Greenland in present 20 year ownership. Maritime history afloat and sailing. £160,000 but come and talk to us. UK

44’ Luke Powell Isles of Scilly pilot cutter, 2006. Robust build, larch planking, oak frames, bronze screws, lead keel, solid hardwood deck. Beta 62hp engine. 9 berths.

Current Code Certificate. One owner, fine condition with a 5 year charter history.

Devon £265,000 VAT paid.

43’ All teak Bermudian cutter. Built in France 1936. In superb condition after UK refits now with new mast, rig, sails, floors, engine, deck, system and much more. Yanmar diesel. 6 berths in original panelled interior. Radar, plotter, auto-pilot etc. An absolute show-stopper. UK £98,000

43’ Robert Clark sloop one of four built by Berthon in 1962. Honduras mahogany hull, lead keel, solid teak deck and coachroof, new alloy mast, 5 berths. A very elegant and fast yacht with real pedigree, ne rig, very tidy.

Scotland £59,950

30’ +bowsprit Macmillan Yachts (now Spirit Yachts) 1991 Gaff cutter Immensely strong cold moulded hull, teak deck. Wonderful deep cock-pit, huge cabin volume with 5 berths. 2nd only ownership, regularly updated, almost as new condition. Scotland £34,000

30’ Maurice Griffiths Tidewater cutter built by Whistocks of Woodbridge in 1976. Popular Griffiths design, well balanced shoal draft yacht able to take the ground. Iroko hull, Perkins diesel. 4 berths with standing headroom. Tidy sound yacht. Devon £16,750

34’ 10 ton Hillyard. 1971. A late example of the famous Hillyard centre-cock-pit, aft cabin yacht. Cutter rigged.

Recent Perkins diesel. 6 berths. 40 years ownership, transAtlantic. All the kit. Nice condition, ready to sail. They don’t come much better. Dorset 26,750

26’6” Morgan Giles West Channel One. Built by Morgan Giles at his Teignmouth yard in 1950. Mahogany hull, recent teak deck. Fractional sloop on recent alloy mast, 2007 sails. 10hp Volvo. Self tailing winches, roller headsail.

3 berths. Pretty little yacht. Cornwall. Realistic at £14,950

19’ Breton Mizainnier. Francois Vivier design built

by Devon boat builder John Moody in 1993. Very fine construction as originally built in heavy sawn oak frames, larch planking. Powerful 3-reef lugsail in red duradon cloth.

Sabb 10hp inboard diesel. Road trailer. Scilly Isles £10,000

60’ FSMB Admiralty launch. One of few survivors of the 350 built during the War. Commissioned Sept 1942 for the Fleet Air Arm. Decommissioned 1954 and converted to a motor yacht. Refitted 2006. 3 c Perkins 6354 gives her 14knts.

6 berths. Fascinating, smart, ready to go. Cornwall £75,000

22’6” Cornish Tosher. Built as a sailing fishing boat in 1905. Professonal rebuild 2005 Pine hull, iroko deck and coamings, 2005 rig with Clipper Canvas sails. Yanmar 1GM. 2 berths forward. A proper little ship, yet again you could hardly buy the materials for this money. Devon £16,950

25’ Gary Mitchell designed gaff cutter typical of the little Cornish fishing boats of long ago, built in Mevagissey, Cornwall in 1984. Full length iroko planking. Yanmar diesel, nice gaff rig, 4 berths. Refitted and upgraded to better than new in 2002. Full history, all bills. Very nice. Essex£16,000

15’ Wootton Bridge Boat Builders, Cowes Dartmouth Launch. The last built by the yard, demonstrated at the 2007 London Boat Show then sold by Wooden Ships to present Scilly Isles owners. Brazilian mahogany. Teak decks. Betamarine 10hp diesel. Road trailer. Immaculate condition. Scilly £15,950

28’ Miller Fifer, 1964. A nice example of this popular little ship. Usual Miller canoe stern with deep aft cockpit. Mahogany and larch hull, teak deck, mahogany superstructure. Useful little ketch rig. Lister 4ST l 40hp diesel gives 6 knts cruising. 3 berths. Separate heads forward. Full head-room. Devon £16,500 ono

Craftsmanship C/O IYRS

PAuL KNIGHT

Yard News

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

pEmbrokEshirE, waLEs

rhodE isLaNd, Usa

One of the last RNSA 24s, Ben’s Choice, has been moved to Paul Knight’s boatyard in the Preseli Hills for restoration. This historically important class – a collaboration between Jack Giles and John Illingworth – was made famous by the racing exploits of the RNSA 24 Samuel Pepys, some of which was summed up in Adlard Coles’ book North Atlantic. The restoration will also involve members of Mitec, the Milford Haven boatbuilding school.

Students of the International Yacht Restoration School launched their restored boats at the annual Launch Day on 1 June. This year’s crop included a twin-cockpit, double-planked 25ft (7.6m) Herreshoff launch (see above); a 20ft (6.1m) Fish Class sloop (stretched Herreshoff 12½); an 11ft (3.4m) Class B Herreshoff Frostbite dinghy; and, as always, a fleet of 12ft (3.7m) Beetle Cats. Most graduates already had boatbuilding jobs to go to afterwards.

Launching boats and careers

GRANVILLE DAVIES

RICHARD JOHNSTONE-BRYDEN

restoration for rNsa 24

ANDREW ROSTHORN

KENT

LaNcashirE

iBTc, LowEsTofT

After a decade of neglect on the hard at Iron Wharf Boatyard, Salote, a 30ft (9.1m) Scarborough Sloop once owned by CB’s editor, is finally being restored. Owner Alan Reeves has commissioned Abingdon & Skabardis Marine Carpentry to do the work on site. So far it has involved replacing three planks, 24 steam-bent timbers, three new deck beams, five new knees, new beamshelves, a “handfull” of carlins and refastening below the waterline. The photo shows Maris Skabardis at work. He and Kyle Abingdon met working on the Cutty Sark.

seventy years after she was launched for war service in west africa at ‘sammy’ white’s yard in East cowes, the double-diagonal teak, 48ft (14.6m) high speed Target Tower Lemberg has been hauled from the river Thames to the river ribble. here, at Douglas Boatyard, she will be given a new lease of life for owner conway Prescott, an oil and gas drilling supervisor working in Egypt. conway would like to hear from anyone who knew the boat. she was one of 21 built, all named after Epsom Derby winners. andrew rosthorn

As predicted in the June issue (CB300), one of the longest restoration projects by Oulton Broad’s International Boatbuilding Training College entered its final phase on 28 May when the 42ft (12.8m) Victorian Camper & Nicholsons gaff yawl Germaine was gently lowered into the waters of Lake Lothing. Germaine’s 16-year stay in Suffolk will conclude this summer once the final fitting-out work and rigging has been done.

She will then head south to the French port of Douarnenez where she will be kept by her owner Patrick Bigand. Richard Johnstone-Bryden

Editor’s boat restored

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

New life for Lemberg

16-year restoration ends

CRAFTSMANSHIP

New Boats

SOUTHWOLD

Suffolk yard restores Silver motoryachts Harbour Marine Services (HMS) in Southwold has had its palms crossed with Silver three times in recent months, with three boats connected with the Scottish builder J A Silver of Rosneath and its designer, manager and eventual owner John Bain.

First came Meridies (pictured above), a 40ft (12.2m) Silver Leaf TSDY built in 1937 in teak on oak. She came in for a major refit, and is now just about ready to head off cruising. HMS owner John Buckley says he has some film footage of her keel-laying and original launching.

Then Mero, a 1935 36ft (11m) Silverette owned by Jonathan and Annabel Hoseason, came in for a major rebuild. Her hull is now completed and work is progressing on the interior. The Classic Boat Index reveals that in 1997 Mero was being restored, also for Hoseasons Holidays, who had just bought her at Jonathan Greenway’s yard on the Norfolk Broads. Finally, just arrived, is the 46ft (14m) Silver Leaf, built in 1947 but this time by Anderson, Rigden and Perkins in Whitstable, Kent. She needs work on her planks, frames, deck and shaft. Peter Willis

New Amity classic This 23ft (7m) do-it-all GRP gaffer comes from the land Down Under and was the idea of Euan MacDonald of Australiawide Boat Sales.

Rather than go for the ‘half cabin, half cockpit’ approach, designer Barry Colson has given the Amity a wide beam (8ft 2in/2.5m) for a huge cockpit able to sleep two either side of the centreboard case. A tent is also available, as is, unusually, a cuddy cabin that can be installed or removed at will. She weighs 1,609lb (730kg) and costs from AUS$35,000-$45,000 (£21,000-£27,000), depending on options.

C/o AUSTRALIAWIDE BoAT SALES

PETER WILLIS

AUSTRALIA

www.amityboats.com.au

KEITH BUCHANAN

KENT

ISLES OF SCILLY

Special delivery This May, the 1907 West Country trading ketch Irene arrived at St Mary’s Quay, carrying two wooden Redwing racing dinghies.

Lately, islanders have started a revival led by Keith Buchanan; 10 have already been restored. The new arrivals, Cherokee and Red Breast, will add to the growing fleet. Keith bought Cherokee to save her from decorating a roundabout! Red Breast was donated to the islands’ Redwing Club by supporters of the Scilly Redwing revival in Cornwall.

New racing gaffer North Quay Marine has always steered clear of GRP, sticking to its tried-and-tested Western red cedar strip-planking. The company has been at it 17 years now, but its new 18ft (5.5m) racing gaffer (pictured above), already half built, is a departure from its other boats like the 17 and 19 (stout little yachts essentially), with a light build, planing hull and curved gaff.

North Quay’s Ted Spears said the boat has one eye on the increasingly serious business of OGA racing. Her dayboat qualities include a boomless main, camping tent (probably as standard – Ted hates ‘extras’), good stowage, including a lazarette big enough for a 2.3hp Honda or similar, and sleep-aboard ability. At a weight of 882lb (400kg), she will be easy to launch and tow. Price will be around £20,000. www.northquaymarine.co.uk

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

87

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Boatbuilder’s Notes 1

2

Stepby-step guide 1 The nail set has slipped and punched a hole in the wood

3

2 Gather sawdust from the same wood and a small quantity of glue

4

3 Mix well using a spatula 4 Force the filler into the hole 5 Leave the filler very slightly proud

EXPERT ADVICE

Hole repairs

5

6 Chisel flush with the surface when dry 7 The filled hole is now almost undetectable in the original piece of timber (with nail)

BY ROBIN GATES

88

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

6

7 ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBIN GATES

One way to avoid leaving the ‘half crown’ imprint of the hammer head on the timber when nailing is to use a punch or nail set, which accurately locates the hammer blow on the head of the nail. But mistakes are still possible. Here, for example, I was joining two pieces using small copper boat nails when my attention wandered and the steel nail set followed suit, slipping from the nail to punch a clean round hole in the wood.

Wooden boats may be riddled with redundant holes.

Sometimes they add character through quietly documenting a history of interesting modifications but other times, as here, they are best lost from view.

A simple remedy is to mix a colour-matched filler of sawdust and a suitable adhesive. Use sawdust created specially for the job by handsawing a piece of the same timber. Hand-cut sawdust – actually of very fine shavings – is coarser than dust from machinery or sanding, and helps to recreate the wood’s original fibrous structure.

Here the wood was a pinkish-grey elm with flecks of white, so I used elm sawdust and the minimum of white glue.

It takes a little experimentation to get the mix just right before packing the filler into the hole using a spatula split for the purpose using a chisel. Leave the filler standing very slightly proud of the hole so it can be pared level with the surface once dry.

Before attempting the repair, I replicated the damage on a piece of scrap wood to test out the technique.

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Traditional Tool ROBIN GATES

The holdfast The sturdy iron holdfast is among the oldest of work-holding tools. At its simplest it is forged in the shape of a shepherd’s crook with the shank passing through a hole in the bench and the end of the crook – the beak – bearing down on the work. It is tightened by giving the crook a sharp tap with a hammer and released by tapping the shank.

Joseph Moxon’s description of its operation in Mechanick Exercises written some 300 years ago – here with original spelling (f for s) and punctuation – has not been bettered: “the point of the Beak throws the Shank a-flope in the hole in the Bench, and preffes its back-fide hard againft the edge of the hole on the upper Superficies of the Bench, and its fore-fide hard againft the opperfite fide of the under Superficies of the Bench, and fo by the point of the Beak, the Shank of the Hold-faft is wedged between the upper edge, and its opperfite edge of the round hole in the Bench.”

This 19th-century example has a pivoting arm working as a lever with

a screw to adjust the downward force, a mechanism enabling finer adjustment than a hammer blow.

Weighing 5lb (2.3kg) and with a generous 10in (25.4cm) reach it would have been fashioned for the boatyard by a local smithy. The blacksmith has invested it with some nice finishing touches – copper bosses for the pivot and a 14-sided screw head (a tetradecahedron no less) for the tommy bar.

The hole for the shank should be at least 2in (5cm) deep for it to lock as it cants under pressure from the

Above: the holdfast clamping a board for smoothing.

Below, left to right: the copper-bossed pivot; an offcut under the beak protects the work

beak, but a thin bench can be beefed up with a mounting block underneath or – as here – in the tool well.

With strategically placed holes for the shank the holdfast provides scope for clamping work exactly where needed – over a leg to absorb the pounding while chiselling a mortice, for example, or along the front of the bench while planing a rebate. Using wooden blocks, the work can be lifted to a more convenient height for sawing or carving. The holdfast is so adaptable and easy to use it almost makes the bench vice redundant.

ROBIN GATES

BY ROBIN GATES

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

89

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CRAFTSMANSHIP

Charlotte watters

Adrian Morgan design work. Why is it that an hour of hands-on boatbuilding is worth, say, £20, whereas the hour spent drawing up the details of a centreboard is supposed to be free of charge? Mind you, how do you cost the time spent recovering from the mental anguish of those little disasters that beset us daily. Take that mast, for example: hollow, in places, solid at the crosstrees, and with a wiring channel cut right through the middle, all 60ft (18.3m) of it. OK, did I manage with great difficulty to tie a messenger, what they call a mouse, to the stub of wire protruding from the bottom? Yes. And when I pulled the other end, sticking out of the top, did the mouse disappear? Yes. Most satisfyingly. And did the knot I tied in the messenger come apart a few feet before it was about to emerge, triumphant, from the top?

Yes it bl**dy well did. And did I curse, swear and tear my hair? No. It was too awful for histrionics; I simply put my head slowly in my hands and wept.

Meanwhile. the North West’s summer season has finally kicked in, about a month late. All the boats are in, including all 10 Flying Fifteens, a fleet which has been called the largest per head of population in the British Isles, or one boat for every 100 or so inhabitants of this little Highland village.

Tucked away across the loch, Sally II swings at her mooring in Loggie Bay, awaiting the next spring tide and a coat of antifouling. She was 75 last year, something of a tribute to her designer Laurent Giles, who I am fairly certain never made a penny from his work. But then as heir to a chocolate fortune you could call him a trustfund designer, so I suppose we should all be grateful for the fact that he had the financial space to draw lovely lines, without having to count the pennies. Every time I bite into a bar of Fry’s Turkish Delight I think of Jack Giles. Mind you, I wonder how much of his confectionary riches remained at the end of his life? How to make a small fortune designing yachts: start with a large fortune, is the classic answer.

How long I can keep up this business of making boats is difficult to say. Sourcing good timber is getting increasingly harder and the Chinese seem to have hoovered up all the copper, so nails are getting dearer by the minute.

Besides, this builder is getting on a bit; he may think he’s still in his late 30s, when in truth from 28 August 2013 the next significant birthday will make him three score years and ten. How many fingers will be left by then; how hard will his hearing be? It does not bear thinking about.

And for what? To keep the old ways alive, maybe.

The old ways being draughty sheds and cold winters, nailing together strips of larch for what probably amounts to no more than £5 an hour. Yes, it could be time to think about retiring again, a thought that is in danger of becoming a monthly recurrence.

For love, not money

Adrian explains why his retirement plan is on ice, for now

L

ast month I retired, again; well, it didn’t last.

There is one thing worse than building boats and that is not building them. It is a hopeless addiction. Also, despite being described as a ‘gentleman boatbuilder’ in another wooden boat magazine recently, implying a relaxed attitude to my chosen profession, I really do need the money.

Gentleman boatbuilder indeed, that’s almost as insulting as being called a trust-fund boatbuilder. I wish.

So it is back to the grindstone, repairing this month the topmast of a 43ft (13.1m) wooden yacht that snapped off Lowestoft last year in the initial stages of a circumnavigation of Britain. And as I write there is the chance of a 20ft (6.1m) double-ender commission with a cabin, for which I know I have massively underquoted, especially as the client expects me to do much of the

“And did I curse, swear and tear my hair?”

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

91

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Letters Letter of the month supported by oLd puLteney Whisky

There is, as yet, no clear definition of what defines a classic dinghy.

Different classes have different thresholds, with some setting the “striking point” in stone, others running a simple “anything over 25 or 30 years is a classic”.

There are pros and cons to both.

However, as the Merlins are finding, running with the rolling 25-year criteria means that next year the early FRP (fibre reinforced plastic) Canterbury Tales designs will be eligible, which could make a mockery of their classic wing that’s now full of the old Holt/Morrison boats.

There are as many approaches to the maintaining of PYs (Portsmouth Yardstick) as there are ‘engaged’ classes. Some allow the modernisation of boats to include the latest carbon go-faster fittings, others place a far greater

emiLy harris

Defining moment

Above: boats of differing ages racing in the Solent.

Could a lack of rigour in rating lead to a cheats’ charter?

importance on maintaining the ‘spirit’ of the older classics.

Most of the boats that turn up to sail at classic events either do not have a valid certificate, or if they had one, it now bears little resemblance to the boat in its current state.

The issues highlighted above create a minefield for event organisers. With sailors almost allowed to define their own PY, it is possible for an entry to be made with a unrealistic PY. The trouble is, nobody knows!

As I said before, the classic dinghy scene is at a watershed. The lack of transparency in what boats can sail

96

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

Ed – good point David. Many events now have several epochs or types of classic, largely based on age, and authenticity to avoid such clashes but this needs some rigour.

Job for a club perhaps?

Yachts to match your pocket niGeL pert

Band of brothers Your recent article on Charlie Barr (CB301, ‘All Barr One’) showed a photograph of Jubilee, hauled out on the slip alongside Colonia. That year Jubilee was under the command of Charlie’s older brother, John Barr, who had previously commanded the Royal Clyde’s America’s Cup challenger Thistle in 1887. Charlie had been mate on Thistle for the America’s Cup races and now on Jubilee he served as First Mate.

The two brothers regularly clashed against each other when racing in the same class. In 1892 Charlie had charge of the Herreshoff-designed Gloriana, whilst John captained Herreshoff’s Wasp, both of them 46-footers. Ashore, however, they were inseparable. Not bad going for a couple of wee West Coast boys!

Martin Black by email

and how they are rated could see the whole genre become something of a ‘cheats charter’ with a further fracturing of classic events.

Classic Boat is just about the only publication that could really exert any real influence over the way the sport will develop. How about putting an application form in an issue of CB, where people ‘register’ their classic dinghy and for that they get a PY that event organisers will honour.

With the 505s celebrating their 60th next year, the Merlins their 70th in 2016 and now the Phantoms and Enterprises amongst other classes looking to create classic wings, the problems might be big but the opportunities are even bigger.

David Henshall by email

Blighty blunder your publication has said nothing on the recent launch of the french man-of-war hermione, so i write to implore you, gentlemen, that immediate action must be taken! may i ask, what shall oppose her at sea? i propose that we open our misused purses and commission a grand sailing frigate, to serve as a noble british counterweight. so i say, let our ship be built and once again may the drum beat to Quarters and may the roar of her Great Guns reignite zeal in the hearts of our countrymen! Shane Curry by email ed – feature story on her due in october.

I enjoyed the article on pocket yachts in the July issue (p77) and would encourage you to do more on smaller craft. If you want more than a dinghy with a lid, however, there are some “proper little yachts” that do not need expensive cars to haul them around. One is the Shilling campercruiser, built in wood epoxy by Willow Bay Boats. It’s only 17ft (5.2m) over decks, but has a snug and practical cabin for two, a decent cockpit and sails like a dream.

Weighing around 1,653kg (750kg), I tow my Shilling Margherita with ease behind a Golf diesel and with a draught of 14in (35cm), she is easy to launch and recover, and the pleasure of seeing one’s own boat emerge from a pile of wood is unforgettable.

Jeremy Retford by email

OGA oversight might i be allowed, ahead of hordes of enraged old Gaffers, to point out that contrary to what was printed in the article ‘driving force’ in the last issue, mike richardson did not own the Jolly sailor pub in bursledon, but did own the nearby elephant boatyard (which is still in the richardson family).

Peter Willis via email

Send your letters (and also any replies please) to: Classic Boat, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ email: cb@classicboat.co.uk

Solving the mystery The attached is a picture that I picked up in a country store in the State of Victoria, Australia. The title of it is “Budleigh Salterton” and at the bottom left are the words “Drawn by J D Harding from a sketch by Jendle”, at bottom centre there is the number “23”, and at the bottom right it says “Engraved by W Finden”. The most interesting thing is what sort of fishing vessels are they (there are both nets and pots) and what is their history; are there any still in existence; what era would this picture represent; and what industry is represented by the smoke cloud on the right – a foundry perhaps?

Budleigh Salterton appears to be just to the east of Exmouth. How would I uncover its fishing history? I am sorry to trouble you with this query but look forward to any information that you are able to pass on.

Robin English, Rostrevor, South Australia

When is a classic not a classic?

The older I get, the more confused I become! I read CB300 with interest, especially the Hall of Fame feature, and I see that Greenfly, a Nic 36, is listed as one of 300 best boats in the world. Happily I own a Nic 36, Lynnessa, and, as this article is in Classic Boat magazine, one would assume that this class of vessel would be described as a ‘classic’. Then the July issue arrived and inside was an article on definitions of a ‘classic’.

What do we read? The overwhelming opinion is that a ‘classic’ is built of wood. In fact, one correspondent was of the opinion that a ‘classic’ could be built of any material except GRP. This opinion also prevails in the British Classic Yacht Club.

How can it be that in 1962 Mr Nicholson would draw a shape that would be built in wood and, in the

next year, he draws a very similar shape that is produced in GRP, that one is a ‘classic’ and one is not?

In the world of cars, a ‘classic’ is something of quality, both in build, lines and material. I am thinking Alvis, Bentley, Delage et al. There is no differentiation because the body is built of aluminium, steel or even wood and fabric. Why is there this huge amount of prejudice over GRP boats? Is the counter on my vessel any less graceful than any other because it is formed in GRP? Does she sail any less well than a wooden vessel? Owen Aisher didn’t think so.

That the BCYC has no wish to have my vessel within its folds is something I can live with. Let us hope that Classic Boat magazine does not become so narrow-minded.

Gordon J Bushell by email

C/O LEE ADAMS

Back in the early 1980s when I was about 30, during a moment of madness, I produced the first and only known model of the wreck of the Mary Rose, prior even to the one on display in its own museum.

On 13 May 1986 I decided to offer my model to the Mary Rose Trust. I had originally based the scale and general decking on an article published by the Mary Rose Trust.

At this period in time the Trust was undergoing major reconstruction and public relations officer Sarah Gregg wrote back to me explaining that it couldn’t accept my offer due to lack of space and uncertainty as to its care. For the next five years the model spent most of its time at home, but it did go on display for six months above the bar in the Mary Rose pub in Portsea.

Around 1990 I walked into the Royal Navy Museum with the model tucked under my arm. My offer of donation was instantly taken up by the curator, along with the rejection letter from the Trust.

On the 4 July 1991 I received a letter from the RN Museum

explaining that my model was to be included in the display hall, along with artefacts from the Mary Rose, and it has now been an archive item for the past 18 or so years and could remain a local man’s treasure for hundreds of years to come.

To this end I decided to compile a portfolio showing how I turned it into my own 3D model and to also include letters of authenticity, archaeological drawings and the all important artist’s impression of the Mary Rose, published in what I believe was a Sunday tabloid magazine? I failed to keep tabs on all my project material and lost this print. Maybe one of your readers can help me track it down?

Lee Adams via email

Lay off the lists please

i

C/O ROBIN ENGLISH

Mary Rose model and missing print

Classic boat JUNe 2013

I was very happy when I found your magazine in October last year 300 ISSu E because it completely covered my ˜ SPEcIA l Sou vEn IR EdI TIo n nautical interests: good articles and hAll Of fAme photos of (not too big) classic boats; international yacht clubs; seamen; best bO s and handtools. in the wOAt rld So after buying a few loose Griff Rhys Jon es sinks at Goolwa copies, I subscribed in March.

However, since January you have EXTR PAGESA run three features with long lists that nearly consume all the pages in the magazine. For me, this is too many lists.

I hope that you turn back to your quality articles! I prefer one good, long story on one boat, much more than 300 tweet-like mentionings. Ronald de Jongh by email

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Ed – golly gosh Ronald that’s the first time we’ve been dissed as Twitter; we’re sitting upright now! You’re right of course – our 300th edition in June was too close to our big events special in April. Sorry. We’re back to normal now.

CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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Under the varnish No 3: “Yachting journalist” Guy Venables takes another sideways glance at a traditional sailing stereotype

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CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2013

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• 1924 60ft C E Nicholson documented restoration • Discretely modernized for ease of use and sail • 3 double cabins, coach house for 8 berths, 2 heads • Manageable size, large cockpit, See CB April 2013 • Any broker with a potential buyer is welcome steve.gunns1@gmail.com 61 (0) 408 237 430 www.hurrica-v.com

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