11 minute read
STERNPOST
SUVRETTA
HG May’s tough but elegant 35ft West Solent One Design class has always been revered as a thoroughbred among yachts; this one belongs to the chairman of the RYA.
SAILING TODAY WITH YACHTS & YACHTING
YOUR 2021 REGATTA GUIDE INSIDE
with
JULY 2021 £4.95
BLUEWATER SPECIAL
l Kit you really need l Make your dream come true
SECRET SOUTH OF FRANCE
The Côte only the locals know
BOAT TESTS
DISCOVERY 58
Ocean thoroughbred
JEANNEAU 60
Cutting edge liveaboard
FREE 34-PAGE CHARTER GUIDE + Win a charter holiday
ROUND THE ISLAND RACE Tips for competitors SAIL FASTER Read the weather to win
JOHN GOODE 1950-2021 Tribute to our founder
100 NOT OUT
New Zealand’s mullet boats have reached 100 years of racing and neither Corona nor World War Two has stopped them missing a single year.
ST+Y&Y July Cover A and B.indd 2 17/05/2021 17:09
IN THE APRIL ISSUE
THE NEXT GENERATION
The Shipshape Network, National Historic Ship UK’s programme to train up the next generation of conservators, reaches its fi rst decade.
30 YEARS AGO
PLUS...
Meet the new boss at Riva; the forgotten story of the stormy ’57 Fastnet; a visit to classic chandlers Davey & Co; and much more
l The mindset and the kit you need to make your bluewater cruising dreams come true this year l On test: Discovery 58 – ocean thoroughbred l On test: Jeanneau 60 – cutting-edge liveaboard l Round the Island virgin?
Then read this l Secret south of France – places only locals know
AUGUST 2021 ON SALE
Friday 16 July, 2021 Available online. Or why not subscribe?
Available online or ordernow post-freefrom chelseamagazines.com/shop
July 1991, CB37
Another interesting cover from decades ago. Rather than the ‘single boat’ style we adhere to now, here is a fl eet of Rainbow Class keelboats racing in the Netherlands. The photo is by Peter Chesworth and inside there is an article by Rob Maynard on these little boats, fi rst sailed over a century ago in 1917. The big yacht in this issue is Orianda, a 74ft (22.6m) schooner built in Denmark in 1937 to a design by Carl Andersen. There is one of John Leather’s famously authoritative articles, this time on the boatbuilding Burgoine brothers, a well known name on the Upper Thames, where many of their creations, from steam launches to Thames A Raters, survive to this day. There’s an ad for Davey & Company, the chandler that was established in 1885, and which changed hands very recently – more on that in next month’s issue. Best of all is an article called ‘Fitting out in the Fifties’ in which an old-timer called John Teale reminisces about red-hot pokers used to re-melt caulking glue, a man who built a plywood pram dinghy in a morning, bituminous paint, and a boat so leaky that its berths were covered in plastic sheeting like a four-poster bed!
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In the popular 2-4hp category, the latest electric outboards – with their integral and rechargeable lithium batteries – have transformed the market, rendering petrol motors all-but obsolete. Advantages include:
› Ease of Use Switch on, twist the tiller handles, go. Almost anybody can do it; no experience, strength or mechanical knowledge is needed. › Ease of Handling The batteries
are removable, and the “pass up and down” weight (the shaft/motor assembly) is then 10kg or less. › Ease of Storage These electric motors divide into components, don’t leak oil or petrol, and don’t mind which way up they’re stored. › › Quietness & Smoothness
Electric motors are a delight to use. › Power Forget slow speed “trolling motors”, these 1kW electrics have huge torque (more like a 3hp petrol). › Range There are many variables, but most users achieve at least 9 to 10 nautical miles per charge, at 4 to 5 knots (2.5m inflatable dinghy).
Much more if you slow down a little. › Reliability Many outboard motors don’t get used very often, and small petrol motors hate this. Electric outboards have fewer parts in general, and in particular there’s no carburettor to “gum up”.
Of course, it’s not all perfect. The range may still not be enough for some users. And they’re undeniably More Expensive than petrol outboards, mostly because lithium batteries are expensive. But that extra upfront cost is largely offset by
Of course, it’s not all perfect. The range may still not be enough for some users. And they’re undeniably lithium batteries are expensive. But that extra upfront cost is largely offset by their Lower Lifetime Running Costs, including (almost) No Servicing.their
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Sternpost
NAT HERROSHOFF G L WATSON WILLIAM FIFE
and you want to win; you might choose to do without an engine because you enjoy the challenge – or you can afford a man in a pusher RIB instead; and you might add a guardrail if you are sailing around the world, but not if you want to flaunt your pretty boat at some smart regattas. These are all perfectly reasonable and sensible compromises and, as others have often pointed out, they are often geared towards keeping the boat racing, or even just from the bonfire or the chainsaw. When I was part of a small team that Would they use epoxy? restored a pre-war Hillyard nine-tonner, we committed many sins. We used all kinds of stuff with long names that came out of Time travel is a risky game, says Sam Hamilton squeezy-gun tubes; and lots of it. We used a relatively modern diesel engine because it was convenient – it came with the boat and it
In the long-running comedy improvisation show Whose Line is worked. We did these things, in short, because we were on a limited it Anyway, there is a bit where the comedians are challenged to budget, with limited time, in the real world, and because we simply say the least likely think you’d hear in a given situation. One weren’t that ambitious about the level of authenticity in our work. week, for instance, they were challenged to come up with the last We did, however, manage to do these things without recourse to thing a weather forecaster would ever say. One replied: “Tonight, historical fallacy: “David Hillard would’ve, if he’d had Sikaflex, for the first time, just about half past ten, it’s going to start raining etc.” Would David Hillyard have used modern materials had they men.” As far as I know, Whose Line is it Anyway never did “things been available? The question itself is almost impossible to unravel, you’d least expect a conservator to say” – so let’s have a whirl. given the hole it tears open in the space-time continuum. How do
Right, contestants: last thing you’d expect a classic Ferrari owner you even answer that? If David Hillyard had had access to Sikaflex, to say: “If Enzo had had fuel injection, he would have used it, so epoxy, fuel-injected diesel engines and chart-plotters that commune I’ve pulled the carburettor out and put a fuel injector in there.” with heavenly bodies to guide the sailor’s path, it wouldn’t be 1930;
Last thing you’d expect a spokesman from the Rijksmuseum’s it would be now. So the real question is: what would David restoration team to say: “If the colour Neon Banana Mania 3 had Hillyard, William Fife III, GL Watson or Nathaniel Herreshoff be been available to Rembrandt, he would have used it, so when we doing if they were alive today? Building twin-cabin, triple-outboard restored The Night Watch, we used it.” The last thing utterance production motorboats? Maybe – at least that’s the last stop on the you’d hear from the furniture restorer entrusted with your line once with that line of reasoning. Perhaps they wouldn’t be in the favourite family heirloom: “Here is your Sheraton dining table marine trade at all though. Herreshoff, given his track record in back. It looks a treat. Oh – and I’ve sawn it in half and put it back steam engine innovation, not to mention building the hull of the first together with a nice purple resin river down the middle.” aeroplane ever to cross the Atlantic, might be in charge of the Mars
The owner of a priceless Fife yacht, who refers to himself as Rover project today, building the first electric car or teaching ‘merely the custodian’: “We put a ply sub-deck under the original English. GL Watson could be building superyachts, designing teak swept deck. We figured if Fife had had access to high- grade America’s Cup yachts or superyachts or selling double glazing. I marine ply and modern glue, he’d no doubt have done the same.” really have no idea; I’m happier to let their legacies rest undisturbed.
Oh, hang on. You have heard that one! One thing I’m pretty sure of is that they would not
Now, before we go any further, and before every be standing about in an English boatyard in spring, boat-owner and boatbuilder gets the steely-eyed “If the colour wielding an orbital sander in one hand and a tube of look and reaches for his phone – or a caulking iron – let’s get a couple of things settled: firstly, the Banana Mania sealant in the other. Perhaps the idea is more specific than that, and it subject of restoration is a complicated and personal 3 had been implies the posting of said item through time-travel one. The choices of ply sub-deck or not; cotton or available to post – ambitious, even for Amazon. A lorry, full of Dacron sails; twin-speed self-tailers or purchases Rembrandt, top-quality marine plywood and epoxy, arrives and grunt; engine or not; guardrail or clean look… the choices and compromises are endless, and they he would have outside a boatyard in 1930. The question now, assuming the boatbuilder realises it can make depend on the ambition of the restoration, the used it. So when leak-proof sub-decks (at least until it rots out, but importance of the vessel and its intended end use. we restored The he’ll learn about that later), would he use it? Maybe
You might choose a plywood subdeck because Night Watch, he would, but surely it would be for the conservator you want the extra stiffness and you don’t like a drip in your eye while you nod off; you might we used it!” of today, rather than tear holes in the laws of physics and bring the dead back to life, just to say “I didn’t choose modern winches because it’s a racing yacht want a drip in my eye at night.”
