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DECEMBER 2026

£6.75 US$14.30

L E G AC Y · C O M M U N I T Y · P R E S E RVAT I O N · S T Y L E

ROUND UP Moments that made a year GET WINTER READY with our pack-up checklist

Tally Ho Returns

Winter Retreats

Racer-Cruiser Deluxe

Leo Goolden on his Atlantic crossing and Fastnet plans

Great books to feed mind and soul

The story of the West Solent One Design

www.classicboat.co.uk

GO WEST

Born as a cruiser-racer in the 1920s, the West Solent One Design class slowly declined after the war, but with the help of a keen Essex boatbuilder and the W Boat Association, the WSOD has made an impressive return WORDS NIGEL SHARP PHOTOS NIGEL SHARP, JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

CLASSIC BOAT DECEMBER 2026

EGGEMOGGIN REACH RACE 2026

The Maine Event WORDS AND PHOTOS KATHY MANSFIELD There was champagne sailing this year on 1st August at Eggemoggin – the sun shone and the wind reached 6-12 knots after a slow start. No Maine fog, no rain, just great wind and sun for the 94 wooden boats sailing to the Halibut Rocks and back along the Eggemoggin Reach. This 15-mile race, a highlight of the Maine summer calendar, is sponsored by Brooklin Boatyard, Rockport Marine and WoodenBoat Publications is the culmination of feeder races from Castine and Camden. Unusually, there are no financial sponsors. The organisers keep control. The granite-ringed, wooded islands and the mountains of Desert Island on the horizon to the north make for an unforgettable setting – and it is probably the biggest all-wooden boat race in the world. We sailed on a 39ft Concordia yawl, Sisyphus, whose owner was participating for the first time. No concerns about his navigation skills – his day job is Master of a $1 billion US civilian ship which can transport a whole naval battalion around the world. His spinnaker skills were a bit rusty,

but that’s part of the fun of the Eggemoggin – you

can sail very seriously, or you can bring your family and friends, and you can just have fun while bringing your skills up to date. We had a great time and, as founder Steve White says, ‘This regatta is for everyone. It’s affordable to enter, fun to sail in and stunning to watch. One of the best parts is how people line the shores to watch the boats race.’ Afterwards there’s a laid-back and cheerful shoreline barbecue and a band to finish off a spectacular day. A highlight this year was the 1908 Fife designed Viola owned by Kostia Belkin who, with the Herreshoff Spartan, had shipped over from Europe for the US 250th anniversary and a summer of New England racing. There were 9 divisions in the race, with boats ranging from 24ft to 75ft in length. The 72ft Spartan, the fastest boat, finished in just 2 hours, 9 minutes and 56 seconds – demonstrating that Herreshoff’s genius still counts for a lot. Classic A was won by Kristin, Classic B by Thora, Classic C by Thunderhead. Mischief won Vintage A and Spartan Vintage B. The Alden yacht Spirit won the Gaff and Schooners division, The Hawk won the Modern Classic race, and Pleione and Flacon won the two Spirit of Tradition classes.

1 The yawl Mah Jong was designed by Sparkman & Stephens and built in Hong Kong in 1957. Easterly is another S&S boat, built 1961 2 The Herreshoff NY50 Spartan tacks close inshore 3 Owner Matt Twohey and crew on his Concordia 39, Sisyphus 4 The cutter Mimi Rose was designed by Joel White, Steve White’s father, in 1991 5 Crew of Vortex, owned by Steve White, founder of the Eggemoggin 6 The schooner Brilliant from Mystic Seaport rounds Halibut Rocks 7 The schooner Hesper was built by Luke Powell in 2001 8 Viola had a great season, doing well and making friends up and down the coast 9 The regatta barbecue after the race is a highlight of the event CLASSIC BOAT DECEMBER 2026

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Tom Cunliffe The summer of ’26 is chock-full of memories for me, but two stand out, both from Baltic Sweden. The first was a day on Blidösund, the 35-metre coal-fired steamship built to service the archipelago island of Blidö in 1911, now operating with a team of volunteers showing how it used to be done. My hosts were the chief engineer and his lady, the lead stoker. They cooked my steak on a shovel in the boiler’s fire and served it up in the chintzy dining saloon as I watched the Stockholm islands sliding by to the quiet pulse of the steam engine. The second was to go to sea on the 325-ton brig Tre Kronor, as ‘correct’

THE 2026 REVIEW

Recalling the regattas, reunions and relics that made this a year to remember (but mainly the regattas)

a square rigger as you’ll see in many a long summer’s traverse. The food was good on here too, but the high point was tacking her like a yacht. If square-rigger tacking through the

Jan Heine

wind, her foreyards aback and all

When I think of 2026 my mind

hands hauling on the braces, then

heads to early March and a time

sailed through the sky on a high yard

of pure inspiration as I watched

as you pummel a topgallant into its

one after another of the 15

gaskets with your shipmates, grab

sailors in the Mini Globe race

the chance if you can. It puts

wrap up their circumnavigation

you’ve never been aboard a full

in Antigua. In home-built plywood boats, they made their way around the world, as did legend, John Guzzwell.

CLASSIC BOAT DECEMBER 2026

Sue Pennison When Barb Trailer, Festival and Events director at the Northwest Maritime Centre and Wooden Boat Foundation contacted me to ask me if I would like to demonstrate rope making and knot tying at the largest wooden boat festival in the US in Port Townsend, I couldn’t have been more surprised. Port Townsend contains a community of skilled maritime trades. It is a place where craftsmanship is still recognised, taught and appreciated. I overlooked the marina which filled with classic yachts and motorboats of real quality and diversity. Unlike many shows where the onus is commercial, this event is inspirational in its approach to sharing knowledge and skills, the eight stages had presentations covering practical demonstrations, stories of adventures to be had, marine science and talks looking to the future. I hosted a steady stream of interested folk who were keen to join in making rope and tying knots.I managed a few minutes to visit Brion Toss Rigging, responsible for Tally Ho’s fibre rigging and I came away entrusted with completing the sea chest handles for a chest Brion never got to complete. What an honour and what a joyous Festival.

Magnus Wheatley The World Sailing Inclusion Championships in Portimao was enlightening. One starts seeing disability, but by the end all one notices is ability. 40 nations, 222 athletes, it was remarkable. The campaign for reinclusion in the Paralympic Games for Brisbane 2032 gathered pace all year and I was delighted to highlight, promote and push. It is a campaign that must succeed. Meanwhile, the second Preliminary Regatta of this America’s Cup cycle in Naples was sensational. Luna Rossa delighted the home fans and won with new superstar Marco Gradoni and the legend that is Peter Burling sailing supremely. Naples sparkled. The ultimate coliseum. A new crucible for our sport’s pinnacle event, and now the AC75s are in town. On a personal front, winning the annual Forts Race of the Cowes Corinthian YC – a race I have tried to win for 20 years – was special. Just 5 seconds was the winning margin after 17 miles of racing in my classic Flying 15.

SERAN

KING FISHER

e quietly readied to slip our moorings at Teddington Harbour on the River Thames – the boys still asleep in their berths and, with steaming coﬀee in hand, we headed down stream. As we passed Hammerton’s Ferry, the sun rose bright orange above the horizon, the waters around us still and calm, reﬂecting the morning sky. By 7am we had passed through Richmond Lock, heading to the 17th Classic Boat Festival at St Katharine’s Dock in Central London to mark Seran’s centenary. Punching against the tide and making good progress, we passed under Kew railway bridge and approached Frank Maynard’s yard at Stand-on-the-Green in Chiswick where, 100 years ago, she was launched.

LUXURY IN CRUISER DESIGN

Seran was reviewed by The Motor Boat magazine on 10th September 1926, and clearly made an impression on the author. ‘It is an objectionable habit to indulge in superlatives, but it is our opinion that the 35ft cruiser, which Mr Frank Maynard has just completed for Mr C Hunter Regnart, is one of the 46

CLASSIC BOAT DECEMBER 2026

Celebrating a century of ﬁne British boatbuilding and enduring maritime passion, 40ft motor yacht, Seran, returns to the Thames for active family holidays and a little time spent throwing over a rod and line, too, for old times’ sake WORDS BY COLIN DAVIS

most attractive craft of her size that has been built this year.’ She was commissioned by Charles Regnart, who was elected President of furnishers Maple & Co Ltd., of Tottenham Court Road, in March 1926. Regnart, a member of the British Motor Boat Club, was a keen sea angler and member of the Tope Fisher’s Club, which was formed in London in 1925 with around 50 members – all wealthy businessmen, military ﬁgures or politicians.

MOTOR BOATING PEDIGREE

The same month he was elected President, Regnart approached the well-respected Chiswick-based naval architect Higley Halliday to design a motor yacht suitable for estuary and coastal sea angling, specifically with tope fishing in mind. While Zane Grey was capturing imaginations with tales of tarpon in Florida, wealthy British sea anglers were in pursuit of the British equivalent – the hard fighting tope, which were found in increasing numbers in the Thames Estuary and around the south coast during the 1920s and early 1930s. By the 1920s Higley Halliday was an established naval architect and marine engineer. A pioneer of motor boat development in the early 1900s, Halliday designed

Main image: Seran moored at Cookham, July 2026 Insets: Review of Seran in a 1926 edition of The Motor Boat; Seran on her trial run on the River Thames at Chiswick in 1926; Frank Maynard builder’s plaque, recreated from an original found in the river bed by mudlarkers’, near Maynards yard at Strand-on-theGreen, Chiswick

a number of Thornycroft’s entrants in the ﬁrst Harmsworth Trophy races and Reliability Trials of 1903 and 1904, including Scolopendra. In 1911 he entered into partnership with Frank Maynard, the highly regarded yacht and launch builder of Strand-on-theGreen, Chiswick, in 1911. Both were involved in the pioneering design and development of motor boats and were early members of the British Motor Boat Club. Halliday was at the peak of his career in the 1920s and many of his motor yacht designs were reproduced in the yachting press of the day. Maynard constructed the majority of Halliday’s designs of motor yachts, launches and commercial vessels during this period, before they parted company in the late 1920s.

BIG TOPE IN THE SOLENT

A review of Seran in The Motor Boat noted: ‘The owner has very definitely stated his requirements.’ Built to 35ft in length, a beam of 8ft 6in, with a maximum draught of 2ft 5in, ‘this latter figure has been kept low by reason of the specific requirements of the owner.’ Seran’s hull was constructed of 1in teak planks on closely spaced oak frames. She had an open, spacious cockpit with transom stern and twin six-cylinder Ailsa Craig engines. CLASSIC BOAT DECEMBER 2026

Stern Gear on Cayman Islands Schooner Fair Weather

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