Send your letters (and any replies please) to: Classic Boat, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ email: cb@classicboat.co.uk
Local legend Come on CB, you are much too grown up to be perpetuating this myth about gansey patterns being made different in every port in order to allow identification of drowned Victorian fishermen. This is cart before horse territory. A gansey pattern might identify where it was knitted. That’s because patterns were not written down but learned from mothers and grandmothers and friends, so people in the same village tended to share the same pattern. As a result, if you did find a drowned body in a gansey, you could identify the village from which it probably came, and if that village was missing someone, you could put two and two together. But the idea that women would knit a special pattern for their men to wear, like a shroud, ‘in case you die’, sounds more like a touch of Victorian melodrama. Who would leave port in
a gansey designed to identify you, like a dog tag, in case you never come back alive? I think not. The world over, villages and districts produce their own distinctive patterns in knitting and embroidery, just because that’s how it happens. We ought to recognise this one for what it is: a rare, genuine survivor from our old coastal communities. Kersti Wagstaff, by email
Ed – Thanks Kersti. It’s obvious that a gansey was knitted to keep a fisherman warm, and there were family variations on the theme. But this territorial aspect of the pattern (as well as their close-fitting design) was, ipso facto, something that could be used to help identify someone washed ashore in the unfortunate event of a drowning. It’s a bit grisly though – we’ll try not to do it again.
A state of Nirvana
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APrIl 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
APrIL 2013 . ISSUe no 298 MArThA . MALLArd . MASerTI . MAST MendIng
Ed – What a fabulous story. I will forward your details to Derek and Jann Dawes and do keep in touch and let us know if you track down any more information.
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Your published letter from Derek and Jann Dawes (CB295, p113) seems to refer to the yacht which belonged to my grandfather, John H Andrew, Nirvana (ex Traveller), registered in Lloyd’s Register of Yachts 1923. But it was 62ft 1in (18.9m), not 72ft (22m) as stated, perhaps before the counter was added. Built by W White in 1892 as a yawl, Nirvana was later re-rigged as a schooner. I was aware that she was sold and then I thought she had been lost in the Bristol Channel. We have no photographs, although I am aware that somewhere there is an album. I would love to know more about her time in Falmouth and be put in touch with Derek and Jann Dawes. Patrick Andrew, by email
Get out on the water! guide to 300 events
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All your winners in our 2013 awards
James Cagney’s schooner restored
Owning a Peter Duck ketch
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Gunning for glory crOssing tO the channeL isLes
Ransome was wrong In a 14ft dinghy
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eLectrOnic wiZarDrY
Mid-Atlantic proposal
CB 298 Cover 2b.indd 1
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Keeping it clean Congratulations on the April issue. Refreshingly light on superyacht porn and rich in tales of beautiful boats for real people. Hold this course. Professor John Webster, Yeovil
As a follow-up to your Letter of the Month in February’s edition (CB296, p96), my boat is one of the three Gunning yachts in this country. Avalon in the photo in February is an Alcyone class. My boat, Hooge Springer (pictured above), is an Alcyone 2 Pavilion yacht. Alcyone 2s are longer than Alcyones. There is an owners association of which I am a member. In my possession I have several articles from old yachting magazines about Gunning yachts. These have been collected by previous owners and passed on to me. Alcyone 2s came about when Gunning redesigned the Alcyone for his later years. He put the saloon aft with big windows to watch the world go by. Alcyone 2: LOA 36ft (11m); Beam 10ft 2in (3.1m); Draught 2ft 8in (0.8m) – draught figures are with centreboard up. Clive Brummage, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2013
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