Classic Yachts 2022 by The Chelsea Magazine Company

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Classic Yachts is a cocktail of stunning photography, engrossing stories and inspiration for your own sailing.

At our recent Classic Boat Awards, guest speaker John Lammerts van Bueren spoke of how just 40 years ago, the main reason to buy a wooden boat was not for its looks, but rather because it was cheap!

CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 3

It’s a community of people across the world who are brought together for one reason – the boats. And those boats might be pilot cutters, they might be 120 schooners, they might be tall ships, they might be wooden powerboats, they might be modern classics. It’s a diverse and thriving scene and the list of nominees and winners in the annual Classic Boat Awards re ects that. We review the awards winners in this magazine and we also reproduce John’s emotive speech in full. e classic boat world is of course rooted in the past, but it keeps pace with the times. e story of Starling Burgess, an 8-Metre yacht that we feature in this magazine, is one of the most remarkable of recent years, breaking new ground in carvel building. But at the same time it’s quite typical of the classic boat world, in that it features a generous and dedicated owner, with a team of inordinately skilled and criminally unsung cra smen. row in the work of a long-dead and talented designer and then the end product – a boat so gorgeous it stops tra c – and you have a story that will surely stir the heart of anyone. In this world, history is brought to life in the most complex and sublime way. ere is much else to enjoy in Classic Yachts. We hope you enjoy paging through and marvelling over, as we’ve done, some of the great eet of wooden boats still a oat today.

ROB PEAKE EDITOR CHELSEA MAGAZINES Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place London SW3 3TQ EDITORIAL Editor Rob Peake rob.peake@classicboat.co.uk Senior Art Editor Peter Smith ADVERTISING Head of Marine Market Jodie Green +44 (0)20 7349 jodie.green@chelseamagazines.com3722 Advertising Manager Andrew Mackenzie +44 (0)20 7349 comandrew.mackenzie@chelseamagazines.3722 Advertisement production Allpointsmedia +44 (0)1202 472781 allpointsmedia.co.uk Published by The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd Managing Director Paul Dobson Commercial Director Vicki Gavin Publisher Simon Temlett Group Sales Director Catherine Chapman © The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd 2022. All Rights Reserved. ISSN 2753-1252 No part of this magazine may be reproduced without permission in writing. Every care is taken to ensure the accuracy of information in The Yachting Year, but no responsibility can be accepted for the consequences of actions based on the advice portrayed herein. The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd makes every e ort to ensure that the advertising contained in this magazine is delivered from responsible sources. We cannot, however, accept any responsibility for transactions between readers and advertisers. For the Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd full set of terms and conditions please go chelseamagazines.com/terms-and-conditionsto www.chelseamagazines.com WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF YACHTSCLASSIC Classic Yachts is part of Chelsea Magazines’ marine portfolio, along with our monthly titles Classic Boat and Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting, plus our annual Yachting Year

Over the next 130 pages you’ll read the stories behind the most impressive restorations of recent years, you can feast your eyes on some of the most magni cent yachts ever built, and if you happen to be lucky enough to have an elderly wooden boat in your possession, our expert writers o er practical tips on how to look a er her.

Conversations about ‘authenticity’ were not part of everyday life. Since then, a global industry has grown up, driven by a customer base that is as passionate and knowlegeable at grassroots level as it is at luxury level.

elcome to the second edition of our annual publication Classic Yachts, bringing together some of the nest articles from Classic Boat magazine.

4 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 CONTENTS 26FLOWER POWER – HUNTSMAN 28 A design classic, restored and faster than ever! 44RECLUTA, FRERS KETCH Designed in 1940s, built in 2021, worth the wait 52SAECWEN Built on the River Hamble to cruise the world 116STORMVOGEL She won the 1961 Fastnet, then had another go! 76DECK AND RIG GEAR Latest ‘classic’ kit on the market60 OBJECTS OF DESIRE Beautiful things for you and your boat 82 THE BESTYEAR’SBOATS Classic Boat Awards winners 2022 92 LOVE CLASSICSFOR By John Lammerts van 96 BuerenVARNISH How Colin Henwood does it 100ORDINGJAAP The man behind the famous block maker 102VISITSYARD We visit two thriving wooden boat yards 106ANDPAINT COATINGS Adding a new 124skinBOOKS Old and new 16 YEAR IN REVIEW: BEST 2021/22OF STARLING BURGESS Is she the most perfect 8-Metre ever?8 34 THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL BOATS If you had to name just one, which would you pick?

As proud Dutch yacht builders with a passion for perfection, we realize dreams that enter history books. AWARD SUPERYACHTWINNINGBUILDER +31 (0) 85 48 66 210 www.hollandjachtbouw.nl info@hollandjachtbouw.nl

PICTURE WATERLINE MEDIA

SPIRITRED

She’s not the most recent launch from Spirit Yachts, but the Spirit 63DH yawl remains one of our favourites, for her sheer good looks, performance, as well as the nature of her build and the simple, shorthanded way she can be sailed. Spirits are certainly eye-catching on the water and down below they’re a work of art. After featuring in another James Bond movie, Spirit celebrated 2022 with its own regatta and meanwhile the factory is as busy as ever. It’s a great British design and manufacturring story that continues apace.

CARVELMARVEL The new 8-M yacht Starling Burgess, built to a 1937 design, has redeﬁned the accuracy of carvel build for the 21st century WORDS JOHN LAMMERTS VAN BUEREN PHOTOS JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

The story of the new International 8-Metre yacht Starling Burgess begins nearly a century ago, on a rainy autumn night in Maine. At least one light was on, as her eponymous designer W Starling Burgess burned the midnight oil on a new design brief for a client. Those who know anything of this great American polymath might already guess that this design, to one of history’s most ﬁercely contested rules, would be at the forefront of technology and design. Those to whom the name of Burgess rings only the most distant of bells should not be blamed: the legacies of sailing’s great designers have been alternately diluted by time, expanded by whim and disﬁgured by patriotism or enthusiasm.

THE ORIGINAL CLIENT

10 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 STARLING BURGESS

The client that evening was a walk-in named DL Braine, who wanted a yacht to win, and he knew the only man who could design an Eight to beat an S&S yacht was S&S… or Burgess. For this commission, Starling Burgess took full advantage of the third International Rule, a perfect synthesis of power elegance: a moderate sheer line… clean and beautiful lines with harmonious overhangs. Her displacement distribution clearly took on board the lessons learned from Ranger, and the exit on the water plane is clean and slick. The importance of this was best summarised in the words of the late naval architect Doug Peterson, who said: “Any fool can push water aside at the front of the boat, the trick is to put it back together at the other end.”

It would not be unreasonable to argue that the only American yacht designers who have occupied a station as high as Burgess’s are Nat Herresho , Olin Stephens, and his own father Edward Burgess, American’s foremost yacht designer before his untimely death at the age of 43 in 1891. The death of Edward’s wife Caroline just six months after left Starling orphaned aged 13 with his three-year-old brother. By 17, while still at school (the Milton Academy), he had designed and patented a sophisticated lightweight machine gun and commissioned his first yacht from family friend ‘Uncle Nat’ (Herresho ). After going on to study at Harvard University, Starling opened his own design o ce aged 23, and his first, very successful, boatbuilding yard with AA Packard by his mid-20s. By this point, Starling had also served in the Spanish American war, been married and widowed and published a book of his poetry – The Eternal Laughter. His design work in the aeronautical field from 1908 led him from building Wright designs under sole licence to forming, with Greely Curtis and Frank Russel, Burgess Company and Curtis, later just ‘Burgess Company’, with 800 employees and contracts to build Burgess-Dunne hydroplanes for the US Army and Navy. In the early 30s, Burgess helped Buckminster Fuller design the futuristic Dymaxion car. There is even a strong claim that the Times New Roman typeface was among Burgess’s life work. In terms of naval architecture, Burgess drew everything from motorboats to dayboats to large racing yachts and schooners, combining an artistic sensibility with a brave flair for the new, mathematical models to predict load, and an intimate understanding of Herresho ’s 1903 Universal Rule. These qualities culminated most famously in his design of every J-Class ever to win the America’s Cup: Enterprise, Rainbow and – with the young Olin Stephens –Ranger. The long and short of it was that during the 20s and 30s, if you wanted a winning sailing yacht, Burgess was the go-to man. The International Rule was not safe from Burgess’ brilliance either. He designed his first 8-M in 1926, then a partnership with Abeking and Rasmussen boatbuilders in Germany really opened the floodgates: in just three years, from 1927-9, the yard built no fewer than eleven 8-Ms, nine 10-M and six 12-M yachts to Burgess designs. That autumn night in Maine, 1937 was a soft darkness after a summer that had witnessed the third of Burgess’ J-Class yachts, Ranger, beat her English rival, the Nicholson-designed Endeavour II, four-nil, further down the coast o Rhode Island. It was the last time the Js would race for the ‘Auld Mug’.

A 20TH-CENTURY POLYMATH

For Design No 79, Starling Burgess decided to push the envelope further than just refinement, and specified aluminium for the hull, the first ever 8-M, possibly the first ever Metre boat of any size, designed to be built in what was then still an unknown material in boatbuilding. It was a step into a future that didn’t quite exist yet: Lloyd’s scantling rules at that time did not have any kind of provision to build in the material, so the

ABOVE LEFT TO RIGHT: Attention to detail – where art functionmeets

sparsandOregontraditionalinhardwareModernFROMCLOCKWISEABOVE:racingblendswiththepinedeckSitkaspruce

A NEW BEGINNING FOR DESIGN 79

The ﬁnal choice needed to be the headiest cocktail of beauty, performance and a captivating history. Enjoying the creative process was an unspoken mantra of the project: projects like this are not just about the boat, but about the enthusiasm of those who are part of it.

On a spring day in Radolfzell, Germany in 2019, the boatbuilder Josef Martin – Sepp to his friends – was at work in his boatyard when a friend dropped in for a co ee. By the time the friend had left the yard, the seeds would be sown for Design 79 to ﬁnally see the light of day.Sepp’s passion for Metre boats, his pursuit for excellence and the unsurpassed workmanship at his yard, have given him a rock-solid reputation that ranks him among the elite wooden boatyards in Europe. This zeal for perfection starts before the build even begins, with meticulous timber selection. He lays out an entire mahogany log, all boards, in the parking lot of the boatyard and spends days looking at which piece should go where in the hull and cabin top, juggling and shifting these 40ft (12m) long planks around for days, just to make sure the grain never runs out, that the number of butt joints is reduced to a minimum and are properly staggered, while ensuring that the colour and grain matches to perfection. I would go as far as to name him the August Plym of our time. A walk through the sheds at the yard holds true magic. It is the home of some of the most famous and beautiful yachts, all of them in pristine condition. The yard, based as it is on the north shore of Lake Constance that borders on Switzerland, Austria and Germany, is close to a clientele wealthy enough to commission and build anything that ﬂoats, but whoever you may be, you don’t just book a slot at the yard of Sepp Martin. First you need to get Sepp’s attention and you see, if your boat is not beautiful – he’s just not interested. You can imagine the scene: two old friends talking boats and planning the season ahead. They make a round of the yard, admire the boats, talk of past and present projects. At some point the friend mutters: “Sepp, would you build me another Eight? She needs to be really beautiful and fast; she needs to be a masterpiece.” Sepp thinks for a moment and mutters back, “depends on which design.” So the next call was to Juliane Hempel.

As Juliane worked her way through the available designs over the following months, ideas ﬂowed freely, designs were tabled and dismissed and slowly but gradually a shortlist emerged. In the end, that short list only had one boat on it: Design 79.

Juliane is Germany’s best known naval architect for metre boats. Her love of boats started on the lake shore here, and from the age of 12 she grew up in and around Josef Martin’s yard. Sepp taught Juliane how to build a boat and infected her with his pursuit of design excellence. It was this immersion in sailing that led Juliane to study at Kiel University, from where she graduated as a naval architect straight onto a new 8-M yacht design project. Now her mission was to go back in time and ﬁnd the design that would tick every box on the brief. Designs from Johan Anker, Vittorio Baglietto, Charles Nicholson, Olin Stephens, Bjarne Aas and Starling Burgess all made the initial list. She plotted the lines to scale and made detailed comparative studies, leaving no stone unturned. Some of the designs were of boats lost, some were still racing, some were never built.

12 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 STARLING BURGESS boat could not be rated, and that was seemingly the end of the project. Design 79 was ﬁled, only to surface 80 years later when Llewellyn Howland III published her lines in his 2014 biography of Starling – No Ordinary Being.

A NEW FUTURE FOR TRADITION

SEEKING THE PERFECT EIGHT

It was a racing rule that confounded Burgess’ original intention to build Design 79 in aluminium in 1937, and it would be the same again in 2019. The deed of gift for the Sira Cup, the top trophy for classic 8-Ms today, requires competing vessels to have been built under the same scantling rules in force from 1924 to 1949. That means, again, wood. This time, it was not a problem, as the owner was already set on a fully traditional carvel planked composite boat, built exactly as it would have been in 1937. The craftsmanship had to remain – that, to his mind, was and is part of the essence of traditional boatbuilding – but he did ask the yard to consider any possible advances to bring carvel planking in to the 21stOnlycentury.thatapproach would allow Design 79 to race and rate fairly with the current, worldwide fleet of classic 8-Ms. Of course the hull shape is the design of W Starling Burgess and no one else. Juliane redrew the lines, which were then verified by Ken McAlpine, chief measurer for the America’s Cup and member of the International Eight Metre Association (IEMA) technical committee. Ken was also given the tasks of scantling approval and the mid-term and final surveys for Lloyd’s Rule compliance.Aftersome consideration, Juliane and Josef settled upon the idea of using computer-assisted design (CAD) to set a new level in lofting and full-scale (1:1) templating, to bring an unprecedented level of precision to the project, and to save on time. The CAD work was huge but it saved about 25-30 per cent of the building time. What followed was a build of such accuracy that it would not be an exaggeration to say that the build of Design 79 has redefined carvel boatbuilding.

AdjustableABOVE: mast heel allows the rig to be raked forward when sailing downwind

The elegant and simple interior, built to but ﬁnished well beyond class rules requirements 13CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

BELOW: Deck and hull are joined, and ﬁt as if grown together

I had the privilege of serving the International Eight Metre Association for over 25 years. During that time, some 70 old Eights have been restored to racing condition and almost 20 new boats have been built. Racing regularly sees 20-30 boats on the line; all this and more to an idea and rule from 115 years ago. I often wondered how the Eights as a class has, and continues to, outlive just about all other classes: after all, these boats are not for everyone. This new 1937 Starling Burgess design is probably the perfect answer to my question. You see, for everyone in the class it started with a dream. Some find an old wreck to restore, while others find the route to resurrection by mustering the courage to build a new 8-Metre yacht to an old design. Next comes the enthusiasm, the ‘lets do it, let’s build her’ moment, followed by an amazing creative journey in which craftsmen and women put their heart and soul in building something of extraordinary beauty. Then comes the magic day when she hits the water, the sea trials, the first time the sails fill and she gently heels over and takes o . How well is she balanced? How well does she go to windward? Is she fast, as fast as we all hoped her to be? How will she perform when she’s on the line with 30 others? This boat and project is right at the core of what the Eights are all about. Individuality, courage, the best ever ride to windward – and above all the passion for racing the most graceful boats on planet Earth!

When Design 79 was launched, Starling Burgess received one more accolade – the yacht was named after him.

First o was the hull lofting, which was nothing short of mindboggling in its complexity. The usual lofting process is a matter of laying out the shape of a boat full size on the loft floor, by taking measurements, or ‘o sets’ from the plans. Juliane went a step further, and lofted every individual plank and frame, down to the bevel and the hollow on the inside where it would lie against the frame. She even marked where the holes in the planks and corresponding frames should drilled for the rivets, a horrendously confusing undertaking. Amazingly, the bevel of the frames matched the planks and the holes in the planks matched the holes in the frames. When the boat emerged from Josef’s shed, she was symmetrical to a 1.5mm tolerance, with the planks fitting as if grown together. This precision also allowed the yard to build the deck and deck structure away from the hull simultaneously, a method that saved time, but also dramatically improved the ergonomics of building a boat, in terms of comfort and ease of access. The hull and deck, complete with frames, carlins, cabin and cockpit coamings, were ready at the same time, cutting the building period down to just months. Mating the two was understandably nerve-racking, but the sheer line fitted as if grown, and the deck dropped onto the hull and fitted just by gravity, and without the slightest gap.

DESIGN William Starling Burgess, 1937 BUILD Yacht 2021JosefBootswerftundMartin, ARCHITECTNAVALCONSULTING Juliane Hempel LOA (49ft15.1m7in) BEAM 2.4m (7ft 10in) DRAUGHT 2m (6ft 7in) DISPLACEMENT 8.7 tonnesHEMPELJULIANE STARLING BURGESS 14 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 STARLING BURGESS

METICULOUS

Another amazing aspect of the build was the cabin trunk. The owner made a sketch on a napkin and asked Juliane to design that shape within the class rules. It was built upside down like a small boat, but using the

methods of musical instrument construction. The curves in the veneers are so complicated and tight that the only way to bend then was by using the methods used for guitar rims. The owner was in thrall to the whole build process and came to the yard every Friday to hear the week’s updates. He wanted this boat to be a tribute to the genius of his friend Sepp Martin, and to W Starling Burgess. Throughout the project, he had encouraged everyone to abandon convention and to dare to dream of new ways to achieve what might at ﬁrst have seemed impossible. Juliane Hempel, like Burgess before her, sat in the middle, burning the midnight oil for months as she explored the limits of mathematics and connected the dots between art and science. Everyone on the team rose to the challenges this project posed, to honour not just the owner’s wishes, but the ﬂair of the boat’s designer.

A LOFTING PROCESS

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16 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 We

YEAR

J-CLASS SHOW WOWS ST BARTH’S

FOLKBOATS AT 80

The Nordic Folkboat is one of the most enduring designs ever drawn, a fact only underlined by the fanfare that accompanied the announcement that the Royal Lymington Yacht Club would host the class’ UK nationals in September 2022, in this, the Folkboat’s 80th year. The 2022 UK Folkboat Association International Regatta was to include the UK Nordic Nationals and Walcon Cup from 17-18 September and the Sessan Cup from 20-22 September. Five days of racing are planned in Christchurch Bay during the regatta week. The origins of the Nordic Folkboat date back to 1941. While most of Europe was immersed in the Second World War, Sweden was neutral. The Royal Swedish Sailing Association held a competition to design a new keelboat which attracted 58 designs. The judges could not decide on a winner, instead naming six boats as all having good attributes. A new boat was then drawn up, combining the best features of the six boats. The ﬁrst Nordic Folkboat started construction at Arendals Yard in Gothenburg in October 1941 and was launched on 23 April, 1942.

An enthusiastic owner new to racing under sail and a crew of experienced sailors at their first J-Class regatta together proved a winning combination as Ranger clinched the Saint Barth’s Bucket J-Class title in March 2022. Under America’s Cup-winning skipper Ed Baird, Ranger finished one point clear of Hanuman and Velsheda after four races at the French Caribbean island’s annual superyacht regatta. The most famous of classic classes is as vibrant as ever in 2022, with a busy racing scene and a new generation of often anonymous but passionate owners. Ranger was built of steel in Denmark from 2002-3 as the first of the ‘replica’ Js, constructed to the original Starling Burgess and Olin Stephens lines of Harold Vanderbilt’s ‘Super J’ which won the 1937 America’s Cup 4-0 against Endeavour 2. At 28.6m Ranger is the longest on the waterline of the trio racing at St Barths, compared to 27.7m for Velsheda and 26.8m for Hanuman, and even after losing six tonnes in a refit is the heaviest at 196 tonnes. look back at some of the main events of 2021 and 2022 that have made it an exciting year on the water for the classic boat world REVIEWIN

The Round Britain and Ireland Race is open to double-handed and short-handed monohulls and multihulls of between 27ft (8.23m) and 70ft (21.34m), starting and ﬁnishing in Plymouth, Devon, with 48-hour stopovers at Galway on the west coast of Ireland, Lerwick in the Shetland Islands and Blyth on England’s north east coast. Mea (meaning “beauty and grace” in Chinese) is an Ocean Vertue, built in Hong Kong by Cheoy Lee of teak planks on ipol frames.

1959 VERTUE IN ROUND BRITAIN & IRELAND RACE

Owner Matteo Richiardi (above), will be sailing double-handed with a mate, having been inspired by the o shore reputation of Vertues, as told in classic books such as Humphrey Barton’s Vertue XXXV, David Lewis’ The Ship Would Not Travel Due West, and Peter Woolas’ Stelda, George and I.

Competing in the 2022 Round Britain & Ireland Race, over the summer of 2022, against a ﬂeet of cutting-edge race boats, is this 1959 Vertue.

Matteo, 50, a Professor of Economics at the University of Essex, said: “Why? Because if not now, when? It’s time to stop dreaming about things I might not do. I want to give my sailing a purpose, test myself a little bit. I’m going because every time I went on a sailing adventure, it enriched me.” He has a team of four, among whom to select one or two mates, given that one crew change is allowed in Lerwick. He estimates the trip could take between 20 days and a month, while the ﬁrst boats will be ﬁnished in a week or less.

The 25ft Laurent Giles design is below the minimum length for the race and has been given a wildcard entry for the race, run by the Royal Western Yacht Club.

ROUND BRITAIN SOLO IN A CLASSIC YACHT AGED 14

17CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 YEAR IN REVIEW

Teenager Katie McCabe made headlines in the autumn of 2021 when she became the youngest person to sail around Britain solo, aged 14. To the deight of all wooden boat lovers, she did it in a 26ft Morgan Giles sloop, Falanda, which she refitted herself over 18 months. The 14-year-old, from Topsham, Devon, set o on 30 June and was back in time to start the school term on 6 September. The feat made her the youngest person to complete the trip, after Timothy Long did it last year aged 15. For insurance reasons, Katie’s father followed a few miles behind in his own 33ft 1937 wooden yawl. Katie spent evenings after school and weekends over the winter of 2019/20 restoring the 1950 West Channel One Design, which cost her £800. Guidance came from her father David, 53, a self-taught boatbuilder who has several serious restorations to his name, including a Herresho , a Riva and a Chris-Craft, as well as from her mother Hazel, who is a professional woodcarver. The family have lived afloat since before Katie was born, on a converted 50ft fishing trawler called Ros Ailither.

The Gstaad Yacht Club celebrated 10 years of its spectacular Centenary Trophy with a titanic battle on the water between two former America’s Cup sailors, Bruno Troublé and Peter Isler.

The two were at the helms respectively of the P-Class Olympian (William Gardner, 1913) and New York 50 Spartan (Herresho , 1915), taking part in the 10th anniversary Centenary Trophy race at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez in late September 2021.

Twenty three yachts took part in the 10th anniversary race, among them the Bar Harbor Scud (Herresho , 1903), Marga (Liljegren, 1914), the P-Class Corinthian (Herresho , 1911), Eva (Fife, 1906), the New York 30 Oriole (Herresho 1905) and Lulu (Rabot Caillebotte, 1897).

The prize-giving saw Troublé and Olympian’s crew presented with the perpetual trophy created by Wakely and Wheeler in London in 1911. A miniature Martelé silver bowl by Robbe & Berking was given to commemorate the victory, as well as an Imperial bottle of ﬁne rosé Whispering Angel. Manrico Iachia, Commodore of the Gstaad Yacht Club, said: “This anniversary edition was memorable, with a historic ﬁnale. A race that undoubtedly will remain engraved in our memory. We look forward to seeing you next year for another edition of the Gstaad Yacht Club Centenary Trophy.”

Alongside the Centenary Trophy, the Gstaad Yacht Club is also behind the Centanarian of the Year trophy, presented at our Classic Boat Awards every April. The 2022 trophy was won by Fireﬂy, an Albert Strange design owned by the Clay family, on the east coast of England, since the 1930s. gyccentenarytrophy.com

10 YEARS OF THE CENTENARY TROPHY WINNERS OF THE GSTAAD YACHT CLUB CENTENARY TROPHY: 2011: Bonaﬁde (1899) 2012: Marigold (1892) 2014: Olympian (1913) 2015: Oriole (1905) 2016: Spartan (1913) 2017: Tilly XV (1912) 2018: Tilly XV (1912) 2019: Olympian (1913) 2021: Olympian (1913) Saint-TropezABOVE: last Troublé,LEFT:September;Brunowith cup, skipper of winner Olympian, with club members and Robertson,presentersailingShirleyright KAUFMANN/GYCJUERGBYIMAGES 18 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 YEAR IN REVIEW

The two boats were locked together until the final moments of the race, with Olympian just taking the win. Troublé was helmsman on the French America’s Cup entry in 1980 and 1983, while Isler was winning navigator with Stars & Stripes in 1987 and 1988. It was the second victory in a row for Olympian, whose restoration Troublé oversaw. Third on the podium was another Troublé find, the fellow P-Class, Chips “An unforgettable regatta!” exclaimed Troublé afterwards. “We had a lot of fun. It reminded me of the America’s Cup.” It was a fitting way to mark the anniversary of the Gstaad Yacht Club event, which has become one of the centrepieces of the spectacular Saint-Tropez regatta.

The Centenary Trophy is raced as a pursuit, the competitors crossing the start line according to their handicap, meaning the ﬁrst boat to cross the ﬁnish line is the winner.

19CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 YEAR IN REVIEW

A lovely sight and a world away from the glamour of the J-Class or big schooners found elsewhere in the wooden boat world, but these cherished steam launches are very much part of the same scene. They’re pictured on the River Wey in Surrey, near Guildford, at an event for steamboat enthusiasts called Pu ng a-Wey in the summer of 2022. Often the boats and engines have been constructed by their owners.

As we go to press, we are greatly looking forward to what will surely be a wooden boat regatta that will go down in history.

UFFA FOX REGATTA

FIRST EVER REGATTA FOR SPIRIT YACHTS

The announcement in May 2022 of the first ever regatta solely for Spirit Yachts marked another milestone in the modern classic story. Starting around 35 years ago, the modern classic scene quickly grew to be a global industry. Spirit Yachts in Ipswich has been a leader in the field since the start and has enjoyed its own class at various regattas over the years, including at Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta and at British Classic Week. The event in Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, from 25 June to 2 July 2022, was set to be the first Spirit-only regatta, a mark of the company’s sustained success since it was founded in 1993 and a reminder of how popular the concept remains. Sean McMillan, Spirit Yachts CEO (below), said: “The idea for the Spirit Regatta was driven by our owners expressing interest in the opportunity to race and socialise exclusively with other Spirits. There is a fantastic community spirit and friendship amongst the Spirit owners and crews, so whilst the racing will no doubt be competitive, the socialising will also be a lot of fun.”

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Dragon, Bluebottle, was the toast of Cowes Week 2021 as the newly restored boat won her class with a day to spare. Restored to immaculate condition by David Heritage Racing Yachts in Cowes, she finished the regatta with three wins, two second places and a fourth – her first time racing in decades. The boat was acquired several years ago by the Royal Yacht Britannia Trust, in Edinburgh, which was behind the restoration. She is now part of the Trust’s fleet of royal boats, comprising the last royal yacht Britannia, as well as Prince Philip’s former yacht, Bloodhound, and his Flying Fifteen, Coweslip. Built in 1947, Bluebottle was a wedding present from the Island Sailing Club. The Trust sought the Duke’s consent for the 18-month restoration and kept him appraised of progress, before he died in April 2021. Bluebottle was raced at Cowes Week by David Heritage with Graham and Julia Bailey.

U a Fox 50 is being organised by 12 organisations in Cowes and East Cowes to celebrate the designer and sailor’s life. Fox lived from 1898 to 1972 and is revered as a naval architect and a great character in sailing. The focal point will be Cowes Parade where there will be a display of around 50 dinghies designed by Fox, a number of which go back to the 1920s, with some out racing for the sailing regatta on the Friday and Saturday.TheRoyal London Yacht Club will be running a sailing regatta on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 August for U a Fox designed dinghies, keelboats and yachts. So far over 100 boat owners have expressed interest in the event including Fireﬂy, National 12, International 14, Redwing, Albacore, National 18, Jollyboat, Flying Fifteen, Fox 18 and 24 and Atalanta

DUKE’S DRAGON WINS AT COWES WEEK

Bolstering an already successful period for Spirit Yachts, the opening scenes of the latest James Bond ﬁlm, No Time to Die, released in 2021, featured Bond sailing a Spirit 46 o Jamaica.

STEAM LAUNCHES

“His chosen life was never easy, he would always fight convention and conventional thinking head on. His passionate and multi-faceted personality was very attractive to strong, independent women who helped him in his pursuits, starting with the steadfast Ruth, without whom he would never have reached his goals. Young Jutta joined them on their pioneering ocean voyages and was the mother of his first son. Sadly she died very young from mental illness as a result of her traumatic WWII childhood experiences. James lived his entire life openly with more than one woman at the same time, as many as five in his prime in the 1970s, with whom he built and sailed his boats.

Tributes poured in after multihull pioneer James Wharram died, aged 93, in late 2021, after a lifetime of voyaging, designing boats and enabling countless people to get aﬂoat. His lifelong partner Hanneke Boon said he was “a trailblazer, a ﬁghter with great determination and vision”. Wharram became known as a young man, when in 1955/56, after studying ancient Polynesian multihull design and sailing, he designed and built the 23ft 6in catamaran Tangaroa and crossed the Atlantic. He wrote about the project in the book, Two Girls, Two Catamarans, which became known as much for its liberal portrayal of Wharram and his two partners Jutta Schultze-Rohnhof and Ruth Merseburger (above right). It was the start of a lifetime of such projects and it gave rise to the vast number of Wharram followers worldwide who still gather reguarly to celebrate and sail his designs. More than 10,000 Wharram designs have been bought by home-builders. He was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Classic Boat Awards 2018 (above centre). After his death, Hanneke Boon (pictured on right, above centre) said: “From a young age he followed his passions – to roam the hills – for fair politics – for intelligent women – to sail the seas – to prove the Polynesian double canoe an ocean worthy craft – to

Boatbuilder Rebecca MacAskill and colleague Ronnie Mckechnie are pictured alongside the Dunkirk Little Ship Skylark IX, which they are helping maintain at the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine, Ayrshire. The exhibition shows how the Dumbarton-based Skylark IX is maintained and how the boat’s story “of hope and resilience” is used to help people recovering from addictions, through engaging them in boatbuilding training.

become a Man of the Sea. These passions made him into a pioneer of catamaran sailing and a world-renowned designer of unique double-canoe catamarans that now sail the oceans. He designed for people who wanted to break out of mundane lives, gave them boats they could build at an a ordable cost and gave them the opportunity to become People of the Sea like himself.

The Italians take their classic boating seriously. This photo shows the very sober-looking conference held by AIVE, the Italian Vintage Boat Association, to present its 2022 regatta calendar, in Rome. The o cials announced more than 15 regattas in the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas from April to October, “dedicated to the boats that have made yachting history”. We approve! aive-yachts.it

A SMILE FOR SKYLARK

“James achieved everything he set out to do in this lifetime, but only received public recognition from the establishment in more recent years. The ﬁnal project was his autobiography, published a year ago as ‘People of the Sea’ on which he worked for many years, as he was very critical of his own writing.”

WAY TO GO

JAMES WHARRAM 1928-2021 20 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 YEAR IN REVIEW

21CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

‘PIRATES’ SHIP TO MEET BLUE HEALTH DEMAND

MED OLDSERIESREGATTAFORYACHTS

Two new Fife owners are putting considerable resources into creating a classic boat hub in Brest, Brittany. The owner of Mariquita (1911) and Moonbeam IV (1920), Benoit Couturier and Richard Mille (inset), with the owner of Moonbeam III (1903), have moved the three boats to the port, with famous French sailor Jack Caraës as team manager.

The Vintage Classic Yacht Club (VCYC) has already attracted more than 20 of the regular Med competitors, including Jour de Fete, Viola, Marga, Olympian, Outlaw, Rowdy, Argyll and Spartan, and is encouraging more owners to sign up. The club is also looking for sponsors and partners.

The newly created Team Fife also comprises William Collier, managing director of GL Watson & Co, who has been instrumental in the boats changing hands and who is consulting on authentic reﬁt and restoration issues, as well as putting together a detailed history of each yacht. Initially the three boats attended the Fife regatta in June 2022 and the Fife at the Squadron event in July 2021. Longer term, the owners intend to restart the old Cowes-Le Havre Race for classics and organise classic yacht racing from Brest and in the Channel, including a Richard Mille Cup with the possibility of a signiﬁcant new trophy up for grabs.

Watch manufacturer Panerai sponsored a series of regattas in the Mediterranean (and in the Solent and US) until it pulled out of the classic scene four years ago. VCYC president and co-founder Jonathan Greenwood (left) says: “The trigger [for the formation of the club] was the loss of an international series or championship, which in my opinion promotes the good health classic yachting generally. Almost all sports have this kind of championship in their annual calendar and we felt that we needed to try to get it back.”

The growth in popularity of the concept of ‘blue health’ – how sailing or being outdoors can benefit your mental well-being – was reflected in the announcement in May 2022 that the Cornish charity Sea Sanctuary has taken ownership of Irene, the tall ship featured in the film Pirates of the Caribbean. The 100ft tall ship, built in 1907, arrived in Falmouth in April to help support the charity’s work in the area of blue health.Irene replaces a smaller boat, a move which “reflects the increase in the demand of these critical services and the evolution of the charity who expertise and services are growing year on year from private clients, as well as corporate charters”. Charity CEO Joseph Sabien said: “Our sailing days and therapeuticresidentialvoyages are perfect for organisations looking to improve the mental health and wellbeing of their employees.“Thosewho participate in our programs are not the only ones to benefit as any profits from the operation will subsidise the cost of people in the local community who need our support but cannot a ord it. We are looking forward to a busy summer.” seasanctuary.org.uk

TEAM FIFE SETS UP HOME IN BREST

A newly formed Vintage Classic Yacht Club is aiming to ﬁll the gap left by the Panerai circuit by grouping the big Mediterranean regattas into a series. The Mediterranean Champions Cup Series was to comprise ﬁve of the main French, Italian and Spanish classic regattas over 2022 and beyond, with silverware up for grabs.

The 101st Lipton Cup was raced in near perfect conditions in March 2022 by the L Class Mullet Boats, the class featured in Nigel Sharp’s August 2021 issue of Classic Boat magazine, writes Janet Watkins. The trophy is rare because it has been raced for in every year since the competition was started, 1922. The Mullet boats were a ﬁshing ﬂeet in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf in the 1800s, before the mullet stocks became depleted and the boats became private vessels.

UNESCO CLINKERRECOGNISESBOATS

Classic boat lovers have no shortage of online viewing and as we look towards 2023 things are only growing. The Sampson Boat Co channel on YouTube, run by English boatbuilder Leo Goolden, now has more than 400,000 subscribers and some of his videos have more than 1 million views. A project to rebuild an elderly barge, Growler, by Ash FaireRing, can boast less impressive ﬁgures thus far but is the equal in ambition.Thelatest to join the fun is Eros, the US-ﬂagged schooner that was built in Lowestoft in 1939, which now has its own YouTube channel, with regular videos documenting life aboard for the crew when not on charter. Search for ‘Sailing Eros’. What is your favourite online classic boat channel? Let us know!

CLASSICS ON YOUTUBE

The 2022 event was regular crews depleted because of Covid, so crew numbers were limited to a minimum of ﬁve and maximum of six. It was an 11th win for Orion II and Martin Robertson and the 12th win for the Ponsonby Cruising Club. Martin’s crew were Orsa Levent, Grant Ewing, Reg Sparrey, Graham Andrew and Chris Ward. were minimum

UNESCO did the right thing in late 2021 by recognising the significance of the Nordic clinker boat tradition, including it on its list entitled ‘the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’. Johanne Engelund Tjøsvold, of Nordic Clinker Boats, said: “This is a confirmation that the international community clearly states that this cultural heritage must be preserved for posterity. It also means that it is lifted into a larger context and becomes part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage.” All the Nordic countries grouped together to nominate the clinker boat tradition for the UNESCO listing, as well as 200 groups involved in building or using clinker boats in the region. Johanne said: “This is a status boost for our field. The clinker-built boat is a special Nordic boat type, which for around 2,000 years has been of great importance for northerners’ use of the sea. The variation is large, but the construction is almost the same throughout the Nordic region.”

In February 2022 headlines worldwide announced the incredible news that Captain James Cook’s HM Bark Endeavour (replica shown above left) had been found, lying just 500 metres o the coast of Rhode Island in the USA, buried under nearly 250 years of silt and 14 metres below the surface.That was extrarodinary enough, but just a month later came the equally headline-grabbing news that the Endurance (right), the lost vessel of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, had been found at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. The exact location of both ships has been a mystery to researchers and historians for decades. Some controversy remains over the Endeavour, however. The Australian National Maritime Museum’s announcement provoked a dispute between those involved, with one side casting doubt on the find. Cook undertook his first voyage of discovery between 1768 -1771, as a scientific mission, while secretly under orders to search for ‘the Great South Land’ – Australia.

FAMOUS SHIPS FOUND

22 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 YEAR IN REVIEW

101ST LIPTON CUP CONTINUES UNBROKEN RECORD

Luxury experts since 1782 cni@camperandnicholsons.comwww.camperandnicholsons.com The original Yachting Company Escape the ordinary. Conquer the elements. Find your true freedom.

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We take a ride on a motorboat legend – the Huntsman 28, star of the Cowes-Torquay races and the Bond movie From Russia with Love WORDS STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES TOLICENCETHRILL LEFT: The chase scene from the Bond movie From Russia with Love set aboard a Fairy Huntsman

28 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 FLOWER POWER

The 28 is, according to Charles Lawrence, author of the Fairey bible Fairey – Boats, Raceboats, Rivals and Revivals, “the perfect archetype of the British o shore powerboat… a family cruiser, which also happened to do very well competing against purpose-built racing boats in the Golden Age of British powerboating from 1960 to 1974”. A total of around 600 motorboats were built across the Fairey range, from the little 23ft (7m) Huntress up to the 33ft (10m) Super Swordsman, but the story started long before that, with the founding of the Fairey Aviation Company in 1915, well known for its cutting-edge aeroplanes that included the Swordfish biplane, the Firefly, Gannet and even the Fairey Delta 2, which set a world airspeed record of 1,132mph in 1956. It would be Fairey’s last aircraft, and by this time, the company had another interest that had come to fruition, and that was dinghies – lots of them. Fairey Marine, as it was known, was set up in 1946 to soak up the facilities and workforce that the company had accrued during the war e ort, and utilise the company’s amazing hot-moulding process, which e ectively formed moulded shapes – like hulls – in single pieces of plywood, by gluing layer after layer of wooden strips (first birch veneer and later, agba mahogany) over a mould, then cooking it in an ‘autoclave’ – a huge steam oven. From the factory at Hamble Point, up to 1,000 dinghies a year were built, most famously U a Fox’s Olympic-Class Firefly, but also the Swordfish, Albacore, Jollyboat, Five-o-Five and many others. During those post-war years, Fairey was producing more boats than anyone outside of the USA. After the success of their first powerboat – the single-engined Huntress – the twin-engined 28 followed in 1961. It proved to be the not only the defining model but the most popular of all the Fairey motorboats; more than 100 were built in total. The 23 had been a Ray Hunt hull with modifications by Alan Burnard, but this one, although a stretched version of the Hunt hull, is generally credited solely to Burnard. The build is in seven layers of 2.5mm-thick agba, layered multi-directionally and hot-moulded with glue in the auto clave. The engines were most commonly twin Perkins 6-354 diesels driving the props through straight drives and Borg Warner gearboxes. The very usable accommodation had unusually high headroom (6ft 2in/1.9m) and in standard configuration you got two decent berths, a galley and a heads. But these are only some of the reasons people flocked to buy them. They bought them because of the shape, with the coaming and cabin trunk forming one sinuous line, with the tumblehome at the stern. They bought them for the speed (22-35 knots depending on engine choice) and the string of high-profile successes in the Cowes Torquay races of the 1960s. And they probably bought them because if the Fairey name was good enough for 007, it’s good enough for anyone.

ABOVE LEFT TO RIGHT: Owner Josh Major and the author in the huge cockpit, over a half of the boat’s length; the Huntsman model badge, seen here on the side of the cockpit coaming

FIRST LADY In 1967, the model Penny Carter was lucky enough to be bought a Huntsman 28 for her 21st birthday present by her father Kenneth, an auctioneer and racing driver. Penny named her Flower Power in the spirit of the times and kept her at a string of exotic locations from London’s Chelsea to Palma in Mallorca. “We had boats all my life,” says Penny (now Leander) today from her London home. “Daddy and I used Flower Power a lot – we loved going to Yarmouth and Cowes on the Isle of Wight.” Back in those heady days, they would cross from Ramsgate to Calais for lunch. “I remember motoring back to England in the dark,” says Penny. Another of Penny’s memories from the time was speeding along in the calm water left in the eye of big ferries’ wakes, so she could waterski. Penny and her father did more than lunch and

Can you swim? This way please... mind the step.” Sean Connery is perfectly gentlemanly to his unwanted passenger, right up to the moment he stands him on the gunwale of the Fairey Huntress he has commandeered and pushes him into the sea. “Just isn’t your day, is it?” he mutters as he pushes the man overboard. With extra fuel tanks on board, he and Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) decide to push on from Istria for Venice. However, the evil organisation SPECTRE has lined up a ﬂeet of larger Fairey motorboats with bazooka-bearing baddies to intercept him, among them a number of Huntsman 28s, the deﬁning model of the Fairey powerboat range.

THE FAIREY TALE

FLOWER POWER 29CLASSIC YACHT 2021

LAWRENCECHARLESC/OMARINE,FAIREY 30 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 FLOWER POWER

“I started by taking the engines out, then the tanks followed, then the electrics… then I thought: let’s just do this once and do it properly,” says Josh. The boat and engines were in good condition at this point, with just two small sections of rot on the hull – testament to the quality of British boatbuilding and engineering in the 1960s. But Josh wanted perfection... and speed. Boatyard supervisor Robert Clarke carried out the hull repairs to the rotten sections. If you are wondering how you repair a hull of such complexity, the answer is surprisingly simple. You cut away a large rectangle in the outermost layer, then ever smaller rectangles as you work your way through the seven layers inwards, ending up with a staggered hole with plenty of shoulders and surface area into which to glue replacement layers of agba. It is a time-consuming process.Acommon area of failure on Fairey motorboats is the hull-to-deck join, sometimes remedied by running a coaming along the inside angle, something Josh wanted to avoid, as he was after originality as far as possible. He ﬁbreglassed the join instead. Other big jobs included ‘torture boarding’ the whole boat for fairness, a complete repaint inside and out in Awlgrip, and all-new systems.

Josh is a lifelong sailor, but has a concurrent love of fast motorboats, along with a lifelong desire to own a Huntsman 28, not least because his uncle had one – Whitewash – when Josh was a child. He found the boat he wanted on the Isle of Wight, still in usable condition and with her original Perkins diesels. Josh got one summer’s use out of the boat before she wound up in the shed at Su olk Yacht Harbour.

“My father was a racing driver, and I was modelling – life was really fun,” is how Penny sums it up today.

Josh has re-engined Flower Power, whose two original engines were still operational – if a little smokey. This is partly for the value of the boat, partly for increased speed and partly because the originals are

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN Fast forward to 2015, and Josh Major, shipyard services director at Su olk Yacht Harbour, had just become a father and needed a family boat in a hurry.

ABOVE: This original inFaireydrawingcutawayfromwasusedtheirmarketing

waterski though. Penny, with her father and brother Chris as crew, raced Flower Power in the 1967, ‘68 and ‘69 Cowes-Torquay races. “The first year was flat, and we didn’t have much of a chance of winning – it was a pleasant race and I waterskied some of the way!” recalls Penny. The next year, 1968, would prove to be a sti er challenge, when the weather was so bad the race was nearly called o . Despite a harrowing trip, Penny was the first lady home, winning a £100 cheque from race sponsor The Daily Express, presented by Sir Max and Lady Aitken. “Unfortunately, this did not cover the cost of repairing the damage done to Flower Power due to the bashing she got in the rough sea.” Penny’s last race, in 1969, was another calm one, with waterskiing.

ABOVE AND BELOW: Flower Power (203) racing in the CowesTorquay race 31CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

The modern replacements, Perkins 215C diesels, use the same block and have the same footprint as the original 6.354s, meaning they could be installed without need to change the engine beds or any other infrastructure. The main di erence is the power output, at 215hp each, as opposed to the 145hp of the old engines. This means Flower Power now tops out at 37.8 knots. Keeping the original engines in good condition raises the interesting prospect that Josh, or a future owner, could swap them back in. It’s apparently just two days’ work. Power from the new engines goes through the original Borg Warner 1:1 Velvet drives to the propellers. Keeping the steering original was one of the ﬁddliest tasks. “It’s track-rod steering” explains Josh, “and involves three gearboxes and six ball joints.” It was all rebuilt by hand, at some expense, by a Land Rover specialist and while rougher than a new hydraulic system, it’s part of the originality mantra. The throttles, running gear and lights are all still original, and anything modern, like the heating system and navigation technology, are kept hidden.After four years of intermittent work, Flower Power was re-launched on the evening of 25 June, the day before the start of the Su olk Yacht Harbour regatta. Josh has used it a lot this summer with his partner Summer and son Otto, now six, on river trips, a few longer journeys, and some evenings and overnighters. I joined Josh for a quick blast in Cowes this summer. Sadly, the port engine was down, but even on one engine, the boat rose to the plane easily. “They are beautifully balanced to drive,” says Josh. One of the peculiarities of the H28 is that the propellers rotate in the same direction, meaning it’s much easier to moor one side than the other because of the prop walk. “She turns in a circle easily one way, and not the other! And because you are sat right over the engine, you get a terriﬁc sense of raw power. The ride is completely smooth.” Apparently the Huntsman lives up to its reputation as a very good sea boat. “The ride is completely smooth” says Josh, “although they are veryThewet”.general appeal, thinks Josh, is that the Huntsman 28 “oozes class”. It would have to of course, for James Bond, and it’s hardly a surprise that ever since the huge success of From Russia With Love, the Huntsman and Huntress boats have been known as the ‘Bond boats’.

With a recent surge of interest in restoring old Faireys, and the success of Bond’s long-awaited latest outing, it seems it’s no time to die for either.

The author would like to thank Charles Lawrence for his knowledge, images and research, Penny Leander for the memories and clippings, Summer Jo for research, particularly in ﬁnding Penny Leander, and Josh Major for the ride.

32 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 FLOWER POWER harder to ﬁnd spares for these days. He has re-painted the original engines and now keeps them in storage.

thewasCowesdocksideandtheforwardfeature;aintakeengine;inspectcockpitMajorOwnerFROMCLOCKWISETOPLEFT:Joshliftsthesoletotheporttheairscoopsaredeﬁningthepartofcabin;headsgalleyareaft;in–thedeckrecaulkedinrestoration

Perfect propulsion for every classic boat THE propeller for electric and hybrid powered craft

WORDS STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES

Another one prevaricated for a fortnight, then said: “I’m sorry – it’s too hard. I can’t do this.” Our art editor anticipated the winner correctly. There actually is a winner, in the sense that there was one boat that was voted for over all others, by quite a margin (eight votes). She’s unsurprisingly from the hand of Wm Fife III, the naval architect who has dominated this list. Her win is as

If John Ruskin was right, that boats are the most beautiful things created by man’s hand, then the question I casually posed to 100 photographers, writers, yacht designers, boatbuilders and friends of Classic Yachts carried a weight of agony I hadn’t thought through. Beauty can’t be separate from purpose after all, so what I’d really asked was: what is the best thing ever made? “Don’t do this to me again!” wrote back one correspondent, overﬂowing with the pain of selection and agony for those he could not list (“six votes max, still alive, and not your own” were the only rules).

THEBOATSBEAUTIFULMOSTWORLD’S

If you had to name just one, which would it be? We asked 17 experts for their choice

much a result of her regular appearances in the Med, her string of recent, enthusiastic, high-profile owners, and the fact that this yacht attracts photographers like flies to wet varnish. But, of course, she’s amazing too. The sail number is C1. Her name means ladybird in Spanish. It’s the 19-M yacht Mariquita. The S&S yawls, as a class, garnered 10 votes, but in second place for individual vessels, it was a tie between the stupendous motor yacht Nahlin and Fife’s 23-M yacht Cambria. Riva runabouts also got five votes, but split between three models. Olin Stephen’s Stormy Weather came in with four, and the rest of the boats on this list received either two or three votes. Personally, I was disappointed to see nothing from the hand of Albert Strange – his little canoe yawls are poetry. And nothing from John Gale Alden, whose Malabar schooners had such a way of marrying the sobre good looks of a yacht to the schooner rig. You’ll have your favourites – but can you really just choose just one?

CLASSIC YACHTS 202234

As Classic Yachts’ art editor, I get to feast my eyes on many photographs of boats, one of the most enjoyable parts of the job! The best aspects of boats sailing are generally photographs showing the stern or bow quarter with the deck leaning towards the camera. But the one yacht that I always return to, to represent the best of classic boats, is the 95ft (29m) ga cutter Mariquita, designed and built by William Fife III and launched in 1911. Famously, for many years she was a houseboat, before being restored to her former glory in the 1990s. Peter Smith, art editor, Classic Yachts

The Nordic Folkboat, just 25ft 2in (7.7m) long and with a form designed purely for sailing, had to sacrifice a lot of accommodation to look this good, with its clinker planking runs and low cabin trunk. The many variants it spawned increased the accommodation, but they never looked as good as this again. This little bermudan sloop was first built in 1942 to a collaborative design under Tord Sunden. Four thousand more followed, making it the most popular cabin yacht of all time. “If design and beauty follow function, such a seaworthy, record-holding, inexpensive little creature could figure well as a ‘most beautiful boat’; plus she reminds me of a Viking longboat!” James Robinson Taylor, photographer

MARIQUITA

WRIGHTTIM 35CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

WOODBEN

NORDIC FOLKBOAT

PACEFRANCOTAYLORROBINSONJAMES© CLASSIC YACHTS 202236

LATIFA She could just be the best sailing yacht ever built – that was the opinion of the respected late naval architect Theo Rye. And William Fife III, the designer of this 70ft (21.3m) bermudan yawl, so the story goes, thought the same. The canoe stern is unusual from his hand, and a treat to any lover of that form. She was designed and built at the height of Fife’s powers, in 1936. At the quayside, she’s quite exquisite, always immaculately harbour-rigged with the deckware worn to the perfect verdigris. Today, a weather vane in her likeness, commissioned by the Fife family, flies above the church at Fairlie. “Lovely in every way!” Joe Loughborough, boatbuilder, pictured CAMBRIA Cambria, Fife III’s 1928 Big Class yacht, represented the end of an era that was swept away in 1930 by the J-Class. The 114ft (34.6m) ga cutter has been loved and sailed for decades now. “Cambria is the undisputed number one for me,” says Dutch yachting authority John Lammerts van Bueren. “We first met at the Bonaire Regatta in 1982 and from that moment on she has been the floating love of my life. That boat is just drop-dead gorgeous. It’s nothing short of a dream come true to sail the prettiest boat afloat with a crew to match. To me, the combination of the boat and her crew is what makes the beauty; it’s what makes Cambria my number one.”

THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL BOATS 37CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

BORLENGHICARLO©

MARIA

MILLERSANDY

J-CLASS Perhaps surprisingly, the Js almost didn’t make it in. They were hanging onto one vote until the 11th hour when a vote came in late from Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. “If the most beautiful boat ever was not a J-Class then it was the Arab Dhow,” he said. This photo shows Svea, designed by Tore Holm in 1937, but only built in 2017, as one of the new breed of aluminium-bodied Js from the Netherlands. We took a ride on Svea that year in 25 knots. She’s the longest J at 143ft (43.6m) with a mast higher than the Coliseum. The beauty comes from the slenderness of form and the simplicity of the bermudan sloop rig, which gives a clean look. The Js remain, to their followers, the most evocative yachts of all.

Tom Cunli e, author, Hand, Reef and Steer

We’re glad at least one workboat made it on. The Thames barges almost did, but with two votes for a particular vessel, it’s the 48ft (14.6m) English fishing smack Maria that takes it. She was built in 1866 at the Harris Yard in Rowhedge, Essex and after a chequered life that included a spell as a houseboat, was restored over four years at Osyth Boatyard, emerging in 2007. She belongs to Paul Winter, who has won countless races and also takes her stowboating (traditional fishing method). “Maria sums up the way a thoroughbred working boat has a beauty that can equal the most sophisticated yacht designs, with her perfect sheer and a rig that defines the ga cutter.”

TAYLORROBINSONJAMES©

You can spend years thinking that the prettiest classics come from the interwar period, but when Marigold or Partridge sail past you, it resets your perception. This 59ft (18m) ga cutter was the ﬁrst of the large yacht designs by Charles Nicholson and launched in 1892. She was restored in reverential fashion by Englishman Greg Powlesland, who went on to restore another Nicholson yacht, Patna, to a similarly high standard, including cotton sails. The sight of Marigold’s deck plan or that low, black sheerline moving through the water is intoxicating and hard to put into words. Three readers voted for her, including the young yacht restorer Ash Faire-Ring, pictured, who was similarly nonplussed: “Words fail me when describing Marigold , she is just everything a classic yacht should be.”

MARIGOLD

A slight consensus emerged that the 8-Ms are the prettiest of the Interntional Rule classes – more speciﬁcally the later 8s, or “virtually all the third rule 8-M ﬂeet from the 1930s,” as much-mourned yachting historian Euan Ross (pictured) put it. “The 8-Ms hit the sweet spot for proportions in the International Rule, so surviving examples are arguably more consistently beautiful than the many beautiful restorations in the 6-M class (too much displacement squeezed into the waterline length) or the 12s (as for the 6s, plus draft limitations that compromise their aesthetic). Like Momma Bear’s porridge, the 8s are just right.” Athena (ex-Ilderim) was built in 1939 to a Tore Holm design and measures 46ft 10in (14.3m). Rig is bermudan sloop.

38 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 ATHENA

“Despite or perhaps because of her bumpkin and undoubtedly because of her low, sleek topside arrangements, Stormy Weather is the prettiest of the S&S yawls,” said comedian, presenter and owner of the S&S yawl Argyll, Gri Rhys-Jones.

PEGGY BAWN Theo Rye wrote the following of GL Watson’s 36ft (11m) ﬁddlebowed ga cutter of 1894, Peggy Bawn: “As a (now very rare) late GL Watson sailing yacht, she is an object lesson in design. Again and again, Peggy proves that Watson was the doyen of yacht designers; he was head and shoulders above his contemporaries, and even many of his successors, in terms of understanding what makes a hull work. Mr Watson, we salute you.” Martin Black, pictured, author of GL Watson, The Art and Science of Yacht Design, says: “She is a remarkable survivor from the golden age of yachting and still in original condition. Her restoration, for Irish sailing authority Hal Sisk, set the bar for small yacht restorations.”

SAN MARCO HYDROPLANE800KG

One of only three powered vessels that made it onto the list, this 140mph three-point hydroplane is nothing short of awe-inspiring. Power comes courtesy of the V12 that propelled Ferraris onto the world stage in 1953 and the hull is by the San Marco shipyard, designer and builder of some of the most successful racers of that era. The varnished wooden hull and red-painted body are redolent of days when speed was king and safety was a mere afterthought. She’s dangerous and terrifying, but also beautiful and she caught the eye of naval architect Paul Spooner, better known for his sailing yacht design work: “In contrast to the many beautiful sailing boats, this deserves a mention: designed and built purely for speed and power but with uncompromised styling...”

STORMY WEATHER

TAYLORROBINSONJAMES© SUGDENJAKE THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL BOATS 39CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

Just as in the 2015 Fastnet, it was a race between Stormy Weather (1934) and Dorade (1930) to be crowned the loveliest of the Sparkman and Stephens yawls, a ‘class’ that received 10 votes in all – a record. The larger (54ft/16m) Stormy Weather won, with four votes to Dorade’s three. As well as designing yachts that were race winners and world changers, Olin Stephens really had an eye for beauty. His signature sheerlines (perkier than the average) are clearly loved by many.

Theo Rye, pictured, said: “Alfred Westmacott did more than his fair share, with the Bembridge ODs, the Victory class, the Seaview Mermaid ODs; not to mention the most popular of all, the X-ODs. For many though, his 1922 design for the Sunbeam is his prettiest.”

TAYLORROBINSONJAMES© WESTGATECHRISSIE JEFFREYSTIM 40 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

With new boats in GRP, these 26ft 5in (8.1m) sloops are still thriving.

TUMLARE

SUNBEAM Strictly speaking, the Solent Sunbeam and the Falmouth Sunbeam received a vote each, so we’re uniting them on this occasion.

One of just a handful of double-enders on this list, the Knud Reimers-designed bermudan sloop Tumlare class is even more purist than the other small, Norwegian yacht on this list –the Nordic Folkboat. It’s amazing, given how spartan the accommodation in a Tumlare is, that an estimated 600 were built since the design’s inception in 1934, but they really do sail like a dream. Reimers was primarily a designer in the absurdly elegant skerry cruiser square metre classes, and that has rubbed o in this very slim 27-footer. “The lofty rig, the delightful canoe stern and the perfect sheerline combine to give this Knud Reimers design its exceptional beauty.” Nigel Sharp, author and historian HALLOWE’EN I’m loath to vote for a Fife – it seems so obvious, but I had to put this and Latifa down. A few years ago, I was aboard this 71ft, 1926-built bermudan cutter for a day’s racing o Barcelona, when a crewman, leaning gently on the cradle formed by the mainsheet purchase, fell in. A moment later, the wind hardened and the mainsheet picked him out of the sea and deposited him back on deck, cap and glasses still on. After the race, the skipper handed me the wheel to steer back to the Catalonian capital on a run: nerve-wracking but spine-tingling. As for her beauty, it’s of an orthodox sort. Everything is perfect. You’d happily tell a Martian on a fact-ﬁnding mission: this is a classic yacht. Ste an Meyric Hughes, editor, Classic Boat

Regular CB correspondent Nigel Sharp (who lives in Falmouth!) says: “Alfred Westmacott’s greatest design looks simply magniﬁcent when sailing upwind, while the Falmouth ﬂeet has the added feature of the ‘kitty gear’ to allow the jib to be set e ciently and alluringly downwind.”

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JOHNSTONE-BRYDENRICHARD

Launched from the John Brown Shipyard on the Clyde in 1930, Nahlin was one of the last great steam yachts ever built, and at 296ft (90.2m), among the larger yachts of her era. Her design, by James Rennie Barnett of GL Watson and Co, was the stu of dreams, with a clipper bow with ﬁgurehead, counter stern and two masts and funnel, all raked back. After years of dereliction, she was rebuilt at Nobiskrug and Blohm + Voss shipyards in Germany and re-launched in 2010. Boatbuilder Will Stirling, whose own yacht Integrity was nominated, said: “Nahlin is a vessel that adorns any location. There is so much to look at yet the view is not too busy and in sum or detail all is pleasing. Nahlin is supremely elegant.”

THIBAULTHENRI

Two votes for the Ariston and two for the Tritone (Tom Cunli e and photographer Henri Thibault, tied the mahogany runabouts, so we gave Henri, pictured, the choice. “The Riva Tritone is the first twin-engine runabout designed by Carlo Riva in 1954. It was designed to the same lines as the single-engine Ariston, with the fully varnished deck that gives it a particular finesse. Falling between the Ariston and the first Riva of great production, the Aquarama, the Tritone is a beautiful parable of Carlo Riva’s career.” This one, the 27ft 3in (8.3m) Ribot III of 1960, is arguably the best Riva of all, with twin Cadillac Crusader V8s giving a total of 650hp, 50 knots, and a soundtrack from petrol heaven.

Yachts of the Norfolk and Su olk Broads, with their low freeboard and lofty rigs, are often as graceful as dragonﬂies, and the Broads One Design is no exception. Broads yachting correspondent Richard Johnstone-Bryden: “The Broads One Design is the most elegant of the Broadland One Designs. The 24ft (7.3m) ga sloop BOD was designed for the Royal Norfolk & Su olk Yacht Club by Linton Hope in 1900. Thirty wooden BODs were built from 1900 to 1939. Another 58 have been built in GRP since the 1980s, most of them from a mould developed by Kingsley Farington and Nick Truman in 1990.”

RIVA TRITONE

BROADS ONE DESIGN

42 CLASSIC YACHTS NAHLIN2022

This ketch was designed by German Frers Sr in the 1940s, but never built. Now the design has been created as the new Frers family yacht WORDS AND IMAGES RON VALENT FAMILYITKEEPINGINTHE

MAIN PICTURE: At hull speed ﬁrstsadABOVErecreationlinesadmiringGermanABOVESaint-Tropez;oLEFT:FrerstheﬁneofhisRGHT:ThewreckoftheRecluta

Lately, the passion for sailing has gone full circle and nowadays, the chances are you will bump into Germán Frers wearing a white polo shirt and a big smile as he collects another prize at the classic events in Spain, France or Italy. “I cannot sail any more in the Grand Prix circuit. I am too old and can’t compete with the young professionals there. But I have found a niche where I can sail with friends and family... and win. I am still a good helm. I also had the chance to sail my childhood love Fjord III at a classic regatta thanks to

RECLUTA 47CLASSIC YACHT 2021

Eventually Frers Sr designed more than 600 racing and cruising designs in the following six decades before his death in 1986. He was an innovative designer who became a pioneer in lightweight, racing and cruising yachts. In 1941 Germán Frers Junior was born, and he too has had an amazing career spanning over 60 years. “Being brought up by a naval architect I of course started sailing at a very early age. I spent a lot of time in my father’s o ce watching him working but also making models to test my ideas.” In 1965 Germán got an invitation to work for S&S in New York. The 24-year-old jumped at this chance to broaden his horizons and work with what at the time was the most famous design o ce in the world. After three years with S&S and two years running his own o ces in New York where he designed several successful yachts, Frers Junior returned to Argentina and further developed his career. Through the 70s, Frers designed an unending series of successful yachts. Enter the age of the Maxis and, in the 1980s and 90s, a succession of ever larger, faster racing machines. One of his clients was Raul Gardini and this eventually led to Frers entering the America’s Cup for Italy where he once more proved how versatile his design genius was. In between these top-end racing yachts, Frers also built up an enviable record in designing production cruising yachts. He has been the exclusive designer for Nautor Swan for 40 years. He has also drawn many Beneteau and Hallberg Rassy designs as well as some of the largest sailing and motor yachts built at illustrious yards such as Abeking & Rasmussen and Royal Huisman.

ABOVE: 1940s Recluta drawings RIGHT: German Frers Snr at work, 1940s

The Frers dynasty of naval architects spans over 100 years of yachting history. Four consecutive generations, slightly confusingly all called Germán Frers and three of which are still alive and active today in their design o ces in Italy and Argentina, have left an indelible mark on yacht design in general and yacht racing in particular. In 1843 the ﬁrst of the Frers family, also called Germán, migrated to Argentina and soon became a well-to-do landowner in the fast-developing country.

When his son Germán Frers II died in 1907 at the age of 40, nine-year-old Germán seemed destined for a life as a farmer as well. But he developed an interest in yachting and admired the yachts imported from Europe that raced regularly on the River Plate, among them some 6-M and three 12-M yachts. He could have used these elegant and fast designs as a benchmark, but instead Germán was inspired by the seaworthiness of the Colin Archer type and his ﬁrst design in 1926 was the 30ft (9.1m) double-ender Fjord. When this yacht proved its seaworthiness in a storm, his career was launched.

This was evident during Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez in September, where they managed to lower the centreboard about one quarter down and the di erence was marked in the heavier conditions experienced there, with Recluta scoring a ﬁrst and a third against a very competitive ﬁeld of well-tuned boats. Six of them were yawls designed by Sparkman & Stephens that up to the arrival of the Frers boats a few years ago dominated this class.

The interior layout is very di erent to the original, which would have had bunks stuck way in the forepeak for the crew, with the galley there as well. The way down would have been a steep ladder and not the pleasant stairway it is now. There is now a large owner’s cabin in the stern with separate heads and shower. In the forepeak there is a removable partition that creates one large family cabin or two smaller ones with bunk beds. The top ones can be folded up so if you only have one person sleeping there it is even more spacious. The heads compartment in the bow has two doors so it can be accessed from both cabins when it is split. Both heads are large with separate shower and loo and not the usual compromise of shower over the loo bowl. The centre of the yacht is devoted entirely to a spacious and well laid out saloon with a large galley, a table for the whole crew to eat on and ample stowage for cruising.

48 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 RECLUTA the generosity of her owner and friend W Scott Perry. My father designed and built this yacht in 1946.”

“There are excellent artisan boatbuilders in Buenos Aires but without enough work. After a discussion with them I decided to build the largest design my father had done. He always said it was such a shame she was never built. I wanted to show to the world how good he was. He was a very interesting man. Very curious and a student of naval architecture. He corresponded regularly with all the other great names of his time and wrote to naval architects like Olin Stephens, U a Fox, Laurent Giles and Philip Rhodes for instance and he also sailed with Rod Stephens. She is totally classic, plank on frame with no modern materials. A true recreation. She has taken a lot of time to build, three years now with many delays due to the covid restrictions in my country.” Despite being a brand-new boat fresh out of the box,

DESIGN FrersGermanSr BUILT Buenos2021, Aires LOA (69ft20.4m11in) LWL (48ft14.7m3in) BEAM (15ft4.6m 1in) DRAUGHT 2.4 / 4.5m (7ft 10in / 14ft 8in) SAIL AREA 177m2 DISP 33 tonnes BALLAST 13 tons

“We have a penalty for being a replica, but I don’t really care that much about the results on corrected time. I of course derive enormous pleasure from winning outright; we Argentinians are quite fanatical and very competitive sailors, but for me the challenge is to beat similar-sized boats from the same era as Recluta on the water. She of course is really an ocean racer and not meant for round-the-cans racing in a bay. I built her mainly as a cruiser-racer. I like to cruise so I wanted a boat with a full and comfortable interior for family and friends. She sleeps six in comfort.”

“Recluta sails in an exciting class mainly made up of Frers, S&S and Anker designs. It gives me endless pleasure that in most events of the pre-Covid 2018 and 2019 seasons, Cippino, another of my father’s designs, and Fjord III were the top two boats in their class and that Cippino has won Cannes and Saint-Tropez outright several times. Though of course I would have been happier still if I had managed to beat them too! Ha-ha.

WHY THIS DESIGN?

“I couldn’t find one that I really liked on the classic market. None had the right size or the right shape, so I decided on a replica. It makes a lot of sense. When you are finished restoring an old boat you eventually get to crawl into a new boat as well, but you have to actually destroy the old one first. Also, it is much more expensive. Now I have very strong and safe boat.”

“Yes. It increases her draft by 2.1m so she will point higher and be faster as there is less drag coming from the helm. Now the helmsman is constantly ﬁghting the leeway she makes and that of course works as a brake. We really have a problem in light airs without the centreboard but in heavy winds the speed gives her windward ability so there it is less of a problem.”

There are also a few modiﬁcations to the hull shape: the stern for instance has slightly less overhang and is fuller. “The wider stern is simply to create more space for stowage as that is always a problem on long, relatively narrow boats like this. I am 80 years old. I

she experienced remarkably few issues in her first regatta season. Of course, she did have her shakedown delivery from South America, across the Atlantic with several storms on the way. Sadly, the only issue was one that seriously hampered her racing performance. The mechanism for raising and lowering her centreboard continuously malfunctioned, leaving the boat with the board jammed down in her first races. After several unsuccessful attempts to repair this, the choice was then made to finish the season with the board up. Was there be a marked di erence in performance when the centreboard is in use?

BRINGING RECLUTA INTO THE PRESENT

“And now I have Recluta. A 67ft ketch, designed by my father in 1942 but never built because of the shortage of materials in Argentina due to the war. This yacht was conceived at the time to replace a Camper & Nicholson-built yacht from 1901 that had been wrecked during a storm on the coast near Cape San Antonio, a headland approximately halfway between Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata. Her owner Charlie Badaracco was participating in a race between these two ports.”

Clockwise from top left: Recluta during her first sail on Argentina’s River Plate in spring 2021; a relaxed Frers enjoying the power of his custom-madeyacht; bronze winches from the Classic hatchesbronzeandclassicfather’scontemplatingmainfinishCompany;Winchbrightinthespaciouscabin;Frershisdrawings;doradeboxescustom-madefittingson FRERSZELMIRA CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 49

Zelmira issuepresentsFrerstheﬁrstofherbook to German Frers

think I have ﬁve or so more years where I can race competitively and cruise comfortably. I wanted to do that in comfort and safety. The coachroof is also a little di erent to the original, but people now are taller than in 1942. I simply wanted more headroom below.”

The Story Behind Recluta by Zelmira Frers is available for €75 through www.thestorybehindrecluta.com

I had the enormous pleasure of racing on Recluta in Cannes with her very capable and pleasant Argentinian crew, and experienced ﬁrst hand the promise of things to come from this remarkable but above all beautiful yacht: blistering moments of speed downwind and remarkable acceleration upwind when the pu s hit her. As Frers puts it: “She just heels a bit and goes for it. No weather helm at all – just the will to go faster!” I found her perfectly balanced and a joy to sail. The genius of Frers as a designer is evident in every way. Her crew are passionate about the boat and especially about sailing her and a sail change 500ms from the ﬁnish line to gain a few seconds was carried out quickly and happily.

In 2002, Barry Pickthall wrote an excellent book about the first two generations of Frers active as naval architects. The book was called A Passion for Design and there is truly no other word in the English language that so perfectly describes the emotion that drives this Argentinean family. Passion about sailing, passion about yacht design and passion about the importance of family, writes Ron Valent During the building of Recluta, Germán’s daughter Zelmira, herself an interior designer and architect, went to visit her father to find out where he was spending so much time lately. It was in a shed there in Buenos Aires that she saw the beginnings of Recluta for the first time and became inspired by what was happening there. She began to document the process, which has resulted in a remarkable book that gives an extremely personal and emotional insight into this emotive project.

ABOVE: On the wind o Cannes LEFT: A wide deck with a co ee grinder winch up by the mast Frers passion in print

Germán Frers is a remarkably modest, gentleman yachtsman of the truest sense although this can certainly also be said of the other two sailors on board bearing that same name. Recluta is a striking and exciting addition to the classic ﬂeet and a force to be reckoned with on the water.

“The changes are cosmetic. The lines are still completely fair on the lofting ﬂoor. I put a big wheel on instead of the little one it originally had. But as I said, I am 80 and want to sail myself and not have a professional hired person helming while I hang around and go to the stage to collect prizes as if I did it myself. That wheel makes that possible and if people feel I should get a penalty for that I will accept that – but it doesn’t make the boat go faster. I sail with my family. My daughter trims the main. My son is tactician. My grandson is on the co ee grinder all day working hard trimming the big headsails. A family a air!”

50 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 RECLUTA

The Story Behind Recluta is a beautiful, co ee table work of art that in words and images describes the obvious pleasure and passion that the Argentinian craftsmen were putting into the yacht and how deeply involved Frers himself was in the boat’s construction. An extremely personal and emotional book that is much more than just the documentation of a build process and possibly for the ﬁrst time reveals in words and images why yachts have a soul that is tangible and there to see and feel. A must-have for any serious lover of classic yachts.

51CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 CLASSIC BOAT SPECIALISTS Mylor Yacht Harbour, Cornwall N 01326 372 121 w www.mylor.com FULL REFITS TO RUNNING REPAIRS TRADITIONAL BOAT RESTORATIONS STRUCTURAL MODIFICATIONS INTERIOR JOINERY PAINT & DECKGEARVARNISH&RIG WORK

AKETCHCENTREBOARDFORNEWERA Saecwen of Lymington is a new strip-planked centreboard ketch, built by the Elephant Boatyard to a Nigel Irens design. Hardly run of the mill then... WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS NIGEL SHARP

The story of Saecwen of Lymington begins in 1962, when the first Saecwen was built by Priors of Burnham – one of about 25 Alan Buchanan-designed Saxon Class sloops, all given Anglo Saxon names. Saecwen (pronounced saykwen) is Anglo Saxon for sea queen. In 1970, Saecwen was bought by Captain Colin McMullen, whose grandson Charles was born the same year the boat was built. “My earliest memories were on that boat,” Charles said. The Watson family kept Saecwen for 28 years and she was, at one stage, co-owned by three generations – Charles, his parents and his grandfather. They regularly sailed her across Biscay to Spain and they took her across the Atlantic and back six times. “Summers were spent afloat,” said Charles. In 1989/90, Charles took a ten-month sabbatical and sailed her to Venezuela’s Orinoco Delta, back up through the Caribbean, then home to the UK again. By this time he was the ‘main owner’ of the boat but it wasn’t long before “small children and incredibly busy career periods took over” and that was clearly incompatible with the time-consuming nature of owning a wooden boat. “It was with great sadness that we decided to sell her,” he said. Over the next quarter of a century, Charles did some sailing in friends’ boats including numerous Round the Island Races, but he mainly got his “adventure fixes” from mountaineering and o -piste skiing (while maintaining his subscription to CB, of course). All the time, he had at the back of his mind that one day he would build a new wooden boat along the same lines as Saecwen. A couple of years ago the idea started to bear fruit after the sale of his PR company.

“I woke up in the middle of the night and said ‘right, we’re going to do it’,” he said. “It was easy to say it but I had absolutely no idea what to do!”

Choosing a yard to build the boat seems to have been a relatively straightforward process. Throughout the Watson family’s ownership of Saecwen, they had frequently had her reﬁtted at the Elephant boatyard on the Hamble which, coincidently, had also been run by three generations of the same family. The boatbuilding side of the company is run by Matt Richardson whose father Tom is now retired, but is still very much around, and whose grandfather founded the yard in 1952. “I’ve known the family for many years,” said Charles, “and I particularly wanted to build the boat by the water, surrounded by beautiful, amazing historic boats.”

Charles originally had in mind that the boat would be built of traditional carvel construction, but then he was “very, very gently introduced to the concept of glue, which was a new thing for me,” and so it was agreed that epoxied strip plank construction would be a better option.The hull was built upside down but, unusually, the build process started with the plywood sub-deck. This

Charles’s initial thoughts were to have a bigger version of Saecwen “but the more we talked,” said Tom, “the more he realised that in some ways things have moved on and there might be other ways to look at it. I have known Nigel for a very long time and I thought he would have some di erent ideas while still understanding the original Buchanan concept.”

ABOVE L-R: Bronze winch from the Classic stoveBELOW:dovetaildorademizzenthemountedCompany;Winchcompassbetweenwheelandmast;teakventwithjointsHobbit 54 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 SAECWEN OF LYMINGTON

Charles has been a member of the Royal Cruising Club – of which his grandfather was once the commodore – since he was a boy, and through that ‘extended family’ he has been good friends with Tom Cunli e for many years. So he phoned Tom and explained what he had in mind, as a result of which he met up with Tom and his wife Ros, and the three of them discussed the matter for several hours. “We all felt that, if he was still with us, Ed Burnett would have been the logical designer to approach,” said Charles, “but then Tom said ‘you could ask Nigel Irens’.”

Nigel recalls that when he ﬁrst met Charles, they “didn’t really move forward as I wasn’t Alan Buchanan!” But after they next spoke, Nigel produced a quick sketch which Charles thought looked “interesting” and that formed the basis for reﬁnements that suited both of them. Three fundamental aspects of the new boat, which Nigel proposed and which Charles soon accepted, were that she should be a heavy displacement, ketch-rigged centreboarder. “Heavy displacement gives a much more endurable motion,” said Nigel, “and if you are spending several weeks at sea you need to be comfortable and you don’t want to be thinking ‘when is this going to stop, I want to get o ’. For short-handed ocean sailing a ketch rig is very handy as you have so many more choices in terms of balancing the sail plan. And with regard to a centreboard, I like to think that the ability to get into nice anchorages is a secondary advantage, but the main thing is that the board can be given a decent aerofoil section to provide more lift upwind than a long deep keel, and with much less wetted surface area.”

55CLASSIC YACHT 2022 Left: Mizzen mast and cockpit table. Right: Ros Cunli e, Charles Watson, Tom Cunli e, Nigel Irens

All dimensions are in millimeters. All measurements to be checked in-situ. If in doubt ask. Tolerances: Over 1000 mm ±5mm Under 1000 mm ±1mm Angles ±0.5° Bolt Centres are ±1mm over any length Unless otherwise stated © 2019 This drawing and the information contained within the drawing are the property of Fish Composites Ltd. and may not be copied or used without the express written permission of Fish Composites Ltd. 14 13 121110 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 128 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 DrgSheetNoProjectTitleScale Fish Composites Ltd. The Old Dairy Tiebridge Farm North Houghton Stockbridge SO20 6LQ United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1264 811763 E-Mail: info@fishcompsites.com www.fishcomposites.comDateRev. CheckedDateDrawnNotes Issue21 Aug 19Revised after meeting 16th Aug Chris P2 10 Aug 19 2 Sep 19 Sections Added Chris General Arrangement Irens 50 Preliminary 5 Sep 19 Sht of 2 Aft Heads CorrectedP3P1 ChrisChris A 5 Sep 19 048-0004 Nick 1512 Head Under Flag Locker Over 672 1900 478 2000 2008 Bosun's Store Trotter Box TankBlack Wet Locker Folding Worktop 1160 2000 578 1635 1856186822365501399 DESIGN LtdNIGEL IRENSE mail : mail@nigelirens.com St Lawrence lane, Ashburton, Tel: +44 (0)1364 652554 Tanners Yard House,Devon. TQ13 7DD. U.K. 1 : 40 @ A3 1 © 2019 This drawing and the information contained within the drawing are the property of Fish Composites Ltd. and may not be copied or used without the express written permission of Fish Composites Ltd. All measurements to be checked in-situ. If in doubt ask. Under 1000 mm ±1mm Angles ±0.5° Bolt Centres are ±1mm over any length Unless otherwise stated Mizzen 15.75msq Yankee 107.8msq Main 49.9msq Staysail Partial Genoa 44.78msq 282 1598 10.0° 160012751295 10.0° 1255 225 12.5° 1625 159612.6°1244 Mainsail Area Forward 8.82 metres ALowe BASE1033 701 JP 231 FxedInneFoestay 11028 19.13 tonnes 4794 Mizzen Mast Centreline0016001129159815961676*12551244 I "I"Notes-ismeasured to the Top of Bulwark. Spreader Angle is measured to the centre of the Mast. Preliminary RM 30 degrees to be taken as 115 Knm. Main Mast is Keel Stepped. Mizzen is Deck Stepped. Final Rigging Geometry to be agreed with Spar Manufacturer.15.75 m^2 Height1090*115011531092138515381717DwlFrom11791183 47.32 m^2 FowardLowe 1176 Jumper 11243 PositionLongitudinalFromDatum-37-1.737-5798-5796-11193-11140-10818*-13302-13369 5.35 metres 9200 261 Spreader 768 49.9 m^2 Runners Mizzen Area 100% Foretriangle Area Note - Figures in Table are the Pin Centre. * To Be Confirmed 15.69 metres 1.40 metres 36.6° 59.2° 16.06 metres 1.60 metres Displacement 1.51 metres P Mizzen 552 5.42 metres E Mizzen MizzenStaysal BAS Mizzen Main 3.43 metres 3.07 metres SpltBaksays MizzenMainmastMainmastInnerForestayStayForestayV1D1Forward V1 Mizzen Forward D1 Mainmast Backstay Mizzen Aft D1 Mizzen Aft V1 Draft Centreboard Down Draft Centreboard Up MizzenSaysai DESIGN LtdNIGEL IRENSDevon.TQ137DD. U.K. Tel: +44 (0)1364 652554 St Lawrence lane, Ashburton, E mail : mail@nigelirens.com Tanners Yard House, SAECWEN LYMINGTONOF DESIGNER Nigel Irens BUILDER 2021BoatyardElephant LOA 50ft (15.5m)9in BEAM 12ft (3.9m)9in DRAUGHT 11ft 3in(3.4m)/5ft3in(1.6m) DISP 19.1 tonnes

56 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 SAECWEN OF LYMINGTON was laminated from two layers of 9mm plywood on top of concave shaped formers to give the required camber. Grooves were then routered into the upper face (which would become the deckhead when the whole thing was turned the right way up) which was then painted wherever the deck structure wouldn’t be ﬁtted to it.

The hull was then turned the right way up to allow the ballast to be ﬁtted (the 7,200kg lead keel and 800kg bronze centreplate were both cast by Irons Brothers), the deck to be completed and the interior to be ﬁtted out.

The deck structure was completed with an FRP foam-cored moulded cockpit, coachroof coamings in khaya, and a swept 10mm-thick teak deck (with the timber supplied by John Moody and laid by a team from Centreline Marine). Charles chose to minimise the amount of brightwork to try to keep maintenance to a minimum, so the whole of the coachroof and coamings are painted, for instance, and the teak handrails and bulwark capping rails are scrubbed. Varnished areas include the teak hatch surrounds (in which Solimar hatches are ﬁtted) over the saloon and forecabin, both of which Charles insisted on varnishing himself.

The bronze winches were supplied by the Classic Winch Company while many of the other deck fittings – including the deck prisms and fittings for the boom gallows – were supplied by Davey & Co. All the bespoke deck fittings, including the pulpit, pushpit, stemhead fitting, chainplates and stanchion bases – made by various local fabricators such as Duncan Barr, Solent Welding, Colin Kelly and Bob Young – are in stainless steel which was bead blasted and passivated as Charles “didn’t want them shiny”. The spars were made by Selden, the rigging by Performance Rigging in Hamble and the sails by Sanders Sails. Stowed on the foredeck is a glued clinker tender, which was built by Solent Wooden Boats in two halves (the stern section stows over the bow section) to an Iain Oughtred design. To launch her, the stern section is tilted up so it rests on the transom, the bow section is then lifted with a halyard attached to the stem, and the two halves are then bolted together. The halyard then continues to lift the whole boat over the guard wires.

“She rows beautifully too,” said Charles.

Below decks, Charles was particularly keen that the hull’s internal structure should be as visible as possible and this is especially evident in the case of the 50mm x 125mm bilge stringer (“you can’t escape it, it appears everywhere”). For additional reassurance, he was also keen to see evidence of mechanical fastenings, including some substantial bronze bolts, even in places where the epoxy resin may be doing a perfectly adequate job without them. “I do understand Charles’s approach,” said Nigel. “If he is at sea in di cult conditions, alone or with a small crew, he has to be conﬁdent that everything will be OK. That way his enjoyment of sailing the boat will be enhanced. Every decision on this boat has been led by him saying ‘I just don’t want it to break’.”

Meanwhile the 35 hull frames and deck beams (some of which were combined as ring frames) were laminated from 10mm khaya veneers then assembled upsidedown and ﬁtted to the underside of the ply deck with the beam shelf and carlins. After the khaya centreline components were ﬁtted, the hull was planked in 22mm-thick tongueand-groove Alaskan yellow cedar from Stones Marine Timber. Two diagonal layers of 6mm khaya veneer was then laid over the top of the planking and then this, in turn, was sheathed with a heavy epoxy/glass laminate.

The internal layout, from forward to aft, is as follows. The forward cabin has a conventional vee-berth with an inﬁll to form a double; then to port there is a heads with

MAIN: Below decks, white paint and varnished khaya. ABOVE L-R: galley and varnished teak hatch surround 57CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

a separate shower, while to starboard there is a pilot berth, and in the passageway between the two there is dedicated tool stowage and a work bench that folds down and rests on a support on the mainmast; in the forward starboard corner of the saloon there is a Hobbit wood-burning stove and aft of that there is a settee berth and another pilot berth outboard of it; to port there is a large seating area around a table made from cedar of Lebanon from a 400- year-old tree that blew over in a storm near Salisbury; then there is a galley to port and a chart table opposite; ﬁnally, there is a double cabin to port and another heads compartment, with an oilskin locker to starboard. At the aft end of the saloon there is what Charles calls “the focal point of the whole boat”: a substantial 6in (150mm) square section oak post going from deck head to bilge. It is much more ornamental than structural but it is clearly very important to Charles as it came from a tree that he thinks was around 500-years-old and which fell down in the New Forest about ten years ago. “I grew up in the New Forest and have always felt very connected to it,” he said, “and I also knew this tree as well. And the warships of Nelson’s navy were built from New Forest oak including HMS Elephant, where the yard is now.” The ﬁt-out and the attention to detail is impressive. The two pilot berths, for instance, have integral stowage, USB charging ports and curtains. “I think it’s important for all crew members to have personal living space and to keep the main part of the saloon as a communal area,” said Charles. There is also dedicated stowage for tools, spices, di erent vegetables, Charles’s favourite malt whiskies, and also the bowls, plates and cups made from various wood species – including cherry, oak and ash – by David Fairman. The upholstery was made by Charlie and Penny Arton. Charles gives much of the credit for the well thought-out interior to Ros Cunli e who “really should write a book on the dynamics of living on a boat”. Charles wanted simple systems, particularly an engine “without lots of microchips and electronics which would need an expert with a laptop to diagnose a fault, which is not a practical proposition in the middle of an ocean” and this led him to a Beta Marine 75HP diesel. After being strongly advised to do so by Tom Cunli e, he decided to have a bow thruster – a Vetus Rimdrive –which he describes as “a necessary evil for a long-keel boat of this size” and which he hopes will minimise the “potential for embarrassment”. The boat also has a Schenker Zen 30 watermaker for “far greater independence” and a B&G navigation system that includes an electronic autopilot (in addition to the transom mounted Windpilot self-steering gear).

Throughout the design and build, Charles thoroughly researched every detail and sought the advice of many people and “traipsed around all the boat shows in Europe” looking at equipment and other boats, while Tom Cunli e remained his ‘mentor’ throughout. “I would say that hundreds of years of collective experience has gone into creating this boat,” he said. And even while “running a large company and travelling all over the world,” he tried to visit the yard weekly and is full of praise for the “incredibly enthusiastic and wonderful team” who built his boat. Below the brass builder’s plate on the big oak post is an oak board with the signatures of 24 of these craftsmen and women carved into it.

Nigel Irens and the Cunli es joined Charles for Saecwen of Lymington’s maiden voyage, from Hamble to Lymington. Even in light winds, Tom was impressed.

58 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 SAECWEN OF LYMINGTON

Soon after, Charles took Saecwen of Lymington to the Scillies and back to the Helford, during which he was “delighted with the boat’s sailing performance in all conditions.” For the rest of the year he will stay in home waters, at some point being joined by his partner before returning to Lymington with friends. He will avoid marinas as “the boat is designed to be anchored, not tied up, unless it’s to a lovely old harbour wall.” In time, he hopes to take Saecwen far, including “a proper circumnavigation of the British Isles and all its remotest extremities”.

“Of course she is fast as she is a Nigel Irens’ boat,” he said, “but she delivers the goods in a proper, seamanlike way. The Solent produced its typical sort of ‘washing machine sea’ but she drove through it most delightfully.”

ABOVE veneerlayerApplyingABOVEthebeforeinsideCleaningLEFT:uptheofthehullturningitrightwayupRIGHT:theﬁrstofKhaya

Charles’s new boat was launched in May and christened Saecwen of Lymington, after Charles had tracked down the original Saecwen to ask her current owner for permission to use the name. He found her in Gweek at the top of the Helford River where her owner was restoring her. To help him do so, Charles has provided him with countless o cuts of timber from the new boat. “That’s a rather lovely circular story,” he said.

59CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 gyccentenarytrophy.comJuergkaufmann.com/ClubYachtGstaad©Photo: THE MagazineClassicWithTHEAWARDCENTENARIANGYCOFYEARBoat GSTAAD YACHT CLUB CENTENARY TROPHY The only race in the world for centenarian yachts GYC-CT-Anzeige-2022-2-230x150mm-RZ.indd 1 09.08.22 12:16 Yacht Insurance 1924 Classic Schooner Simon Winter Marine Limited is an Appointed Representative of Winter & Co (Marine) Ltd Winter & Co (Marine) Ltd is authorised and regulated by The Financial Conduct Authority For a quotation please call 0344 545 6132 www.simonwintermarine.co.uk Simon Winter Marine Classic yacht & pleasure craft insurance

BRASS FOG HORN

A cutaway of a 1952 Thornycroft Standard Cruiser, one of myriad fascinating nautical items for sale through The Motorboat Gallery. In period style, here we see Mrs at work in the galley, in a dress, while her husband and son enjoy life in the cockpit. We can’t help wondering if the scene is less outdated than it looks, but the work itself is wonderful and the boat magniﬁcent. The Motorboat Gallery sells all manner of nautical memorabilia from bronze cleats, to travel posters, to half models. £115 themotorboat.co.uk

DESIRABLES 60 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

Rather than bellowing at fellow regatta competitors, at moments when they need reminding of the rules, consider bringing out this brass fog horn, a replica of a traditional model. Useful, too, when crossing the English Channel or navigating the coast of Maine. £21 thenauticalcompany.com

To celebrate being the o cial timekeeper for the Round the Island Race, with whom we are Media Partner, the family owned Marathon Watch Company launched a Limited Edition Round the Island Race Marathon Stopwatch – shockproof, waterproof, nautical and able to deliver “precision timing to help competitors get across the start line in perfect time and reach the ﬁnish line ahead of the rest”. The stopwatch features a unique face design inspired by the race logo. £550 uk.marathonwatch.com/collections/round-the-island

Classic

CUTAWAYTHORNYCROFT

MARATHON STOPWATCH

boat stu – nautical indulgence for you, your boat, your home and your wardrobe

MARLOE WATCH

The Solent watch takes inspiration from the “story of ambition and determination” of Sir Alec Rose, says manufacturer Marloe, while the Dart watch features the lat and long of the mouth of the River Dart in Devon, UK. £349 marloewatchcompany.com

PIRATE WATCH

61CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

Spinnaker Watches launched this new model in January, boasting an unusual Bathysphere-style bulging face. It is called the Piccard Automatic, drawing inspiration from the pioneering work of the Swiss oceanographer, who with Don Walsh piloted the Bathyscaphe Trieste to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 1960.

BRONZE DIVER’S WATCH

This bronze diver’s watch from Enoksen is rated to withstand water pressure down to 1,000m (3,300ft), thanks to its screw-down crown, and it features a helium release valve for commercial saturation diving. The face is 44mm in diameter, and the bronze case is topped by a 6mm-thick sapphire crystal. You may have spotted the newly restored HS Rouse yacht Red Robin in Enoksen’s publicity material. £550 enoksenwatches.com

SPINNAKER WATCH

“The Piccard timepiece encapsulates the spirit of both men and machine of historic and contemporary deep sea exploration through equipment designed to test the most excruciating of conditions,” says Spinnaker. £430 spinnaker-watches.co.uk

This Torpedo Pirata watch from Cuervo y Sobrinos celebrates the “rebellious and romantic side of the buccaneers” of the Caribbean, with its parts “clearly reminiscent of the brazenness of the great pirates”. The company says: “The case is in the shape of a cannon mouth while the lugs represent the bow of a ship plundering on the Caribbean Sea. The crown subtle design in the shape of the globe and the buckle recaptures the design of the lugs.” Approx £5,400 cuervoysobrinos.com

The Folio Society published an edition of Shackleton’s Antarctica to commemorate the anniversary of Shackleton’s death. The three-volume edition his accounts of his two most famous expeditions, with the complete texts accompanied by original photographs, drawings, maps, and panoramas. His granddaughter, Alexandra Shackleton, contributes the introduction. £195 foliosociety.com

TORCHES TRIED AND TESTED

SHACKLETON BY FOLIO

There was no better time to put a new torch through its paces than the depths of the UK winter, when we tried out these two models from Nebo. The Franklin Slide has a dimmable beam out of the front, and it also slides open to reveal a superbright 500 lumen bank of light that illuminates an entire room – this would render a cabin as if in broad daylight. The torch comes with a tough retractable clip to hang it from. Rechargable, with a magnetic base and a red mode, this is a sturdy beast to illuminate your nighttime boating activities. Nebo also have the Einsenstein 400 headlamp, which also has a red mode and di erent brightnesses, with a comfortable headstrap. Franklin Slide £44.99. Einsenstein Headlamp £24.99 harken.co.uk

Here we have models of the S&S One-Toner Volonte (above), along with Dick Carter’s Tina (right), and the S&S Amazon (inset) , built by C&N. The models are made by Shipshapes Models, using the “best material and traditional techniques…for the creation of a unique object, faithful to the original vessel”. Each model is built according to the naval architect’s drawings and whatever photos are available. Each utilises lacquered wood, nickel-plated ﬁttings, stainless steel and textile rigging – made in La Rochelle, France. From £3,600 Email shipshapes-models@wanadoo.fr

62 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 DESIRABLES

CUSTOM MADE MODELS

Rub dry your dishes on board, while fondly recalling the books that got you into sailing in the ﬁrst place, with this “limited edition” tea towel celebrating the 90th anniversary of Nancy Blackett. Arthur Ransome’s former yacht is now well cared for by the Nancy Blackett Trust on England’s east coast. £10 nancyblackett.org

NANCY BLACKETT TEA TOWEL

63CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 DESIRABLES

“The plaything of the very rich back in the 1950s,” says manufacturer Ionian Interiors. “The Côte d’Azur, Cannes, Monaco, Lago di Como… A beautiful model to remind you of that elusive dream.” Perfect for the middle of the dining table. £545 ionianinteriors.com

AQUARAMA MODEL

Davey and Co was founded in 1885, before anyone considered wiring a boat up for mains electricity, but this new version of the company’s classic mastlight now has a shore power 110/220v option. (12v and 24v versions are still available too.) It is cast in bronze with a choice of ﬁnishes, or in anodised aluminium. The base is angled up 10 degrees to aid the throw of light. From £177 captainwatts.co.uk

This foldable teak dock step is made by East Passage Boatwrights in Bristol, RI, recent winners in the Classic Boat Awards. When collapsed it can be stowed in the tightest quarters on board. Watch a video of it in action on the East Passage Boatwrights website. epbws.com

DAVEY MAST LIGHT

Davey & Co were not kidding when they recently announced their intention to bring their back catalogue to life. This 18in polished gunmetal pillar cleat has not been made in about 30 years. It forms part of the pillar cleat family. £399 plus VAT Davey.com

BIG AND LITTLE CLEATS

DECK STEPS

You can get your hands on one of these elegant silverplated ﬂutes by winning the Centenarian of the Year prize in our Classic Boat Awards, or if your yacht is newer than 100 years, then go straight to the Robbe & Berking website. From €284 shop.robbeberking.com

ROBBE & CHAMPAGNEBERKINGFLUTES

SHIP OF THE LINE

Well-suited to a classic regatta environment, where pale shades are often preferred to garish modern colours, these new stretchy shorts from Gill feature built in 50+ UV protection to ward o those heavy Med rays. £50 gb.gillmarine.com

GILL CETARA SHORTS

64 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 DESIRABLES

BRACELETSNAUTICAL These nautical bracelets are for men, women and children, made by Cannes company Mary and the Captain. You can choose a mini-anchor or shackle as the fastener and a theme, ranging from ‘rock star’ to ‘baby shower’ to ‘mini navy’. Each features a suitably nautical knot. From €19. MaryAndTheCaptain.co.uk

From the limited edition Shackleton Century Collection comes this atmospheric Explorer Jacket, inspired by what Shackleton and his men wore throughout the Endurance expedition. The wax ﬁnish “o ers a soft aged appearance while maintaining the character of the 100% cotton and is designed to age with wear”, says the company, adding: “A contemporary update on a classic design, beyond its good looks the Centenary Explorer Jacket is a serious piece of British-made kit.” £395 shackleton.com

When you’re in need of a bearing come sundown, simply turn to your ship’s wheel, where nestled among its spokes you will ﬁnd all the direction you need. 60cm x 15 x 52cm, aluminium. £190 athomeinthecountry.co.uk

Drawnin pen and ink, these sketches of a Ship of the Line feature the process of rigging a ‘Third Rate’, showing (top left) standing rig, (top right) running rig, (bottom left) fore and aft sail, (bottom right) square sail and driver. The set of four is an easily framed size of 30 x 40 cm and come with a written summary by Cpt Richard Woodman, LVO MNM FNI Elder Brother, Trinity, award winning author and Historian. Also available are sets of the Cutty Sark and naval ships. £28 tonyfernandes.co.uk

SHACKLETONEXPLORERCENTENARYJACKET

SHIP’S WHEEL WINE RACK

65CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 01603 782212 www.landamores.co.uk boats@landamores.co.uk Classic launches - Electric propulsion - Electric conversions - Restorations Mayﬂy 21 Electric RCD cat C for inland and coastal cruising ARTISAN BOATWORKS CUSTOM YACHT BUILDERS

WHALE ART

SHIPPING FORECAST PUZZLE

HARBOUR PUZZLE

NAVAL COOKBOOK

Galley, The Royal Navy & Royal Marines Charity Cookbook, “shines a light on the incredible skill and talent found within this demanding industry, thanks to the contributions of 20 professional chefs with a connection to the Royal Navy”. No hard tack is included. 240-page hardback. £25 waterstones.com

66 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 DESIRABLES

This 1,000-piece puzzle “will transport you to a coastal town harbour complete with boats, a lighthouse and sunbathers on the beach”. The puzzle also comes with a matching poster of the ﬁnished design and a trivia sheet “to expand your knowledge”. Size 68cm x 49cm. £18 talkingtables.co.uk

A must for all those who can recite the BBC Shipping Forecast areas o by heart, this is a colourful, 1,000-piece puzzle designed and made in Devon. Size 66x50cm. £25 hannahwisdomtextiles.com

Followers of the Rolex Fastnet Race will be familiar with the stunning photographs of Kurt Arrigo, who has released a series of whale portraits after he went free-diving with a pod of whales o Tonga. Kurt says: “The mother whale swam protectively alongside her curious calf and it was with her permission that I gently slid into the water, feeling vulnerable and exposed. On a single breath I approached the playful calf who seemed keen to interact as the mother watched closely. For thirty minutes I swam up to the surface for air, diving back down urgently, not wanting to waste a minute of this precious invitation.” Each shot is available as a ﬁne art print in various formats. €158 –shop.kurtarrigo.com€495

THE EYE Artist Marina Syntelis launched at the Southampton Boat Show 2021, where she sold 54 paintings. Visitors will have seen her ‘hyper-real’ works on show at BoatLife Live in 2022, in Birmingham, England. This painting, The Eye, “causes a lot of emotion”, says the gallery. Better on your wall than in front of your bow. From £884 thepapillon.gallery NEW LIFE FOR CHARTS Hannah Wisdom sews recycled fabrics onto old Admiralty sea charts to create nautical designs which she then translates onto ﬁne art prints, coasters, placemats, greetings cards, postcards, mirrors, notebooks, tea towels, cushions, clocks, bags, hangers and more. She is based in Plymouth, so some of the images relate to the area, while some are more general, such as the depiction of Sir Francis Chichester’s Gipsy Moth IV, approx 14.5” (36.5cm) square. The original artwork is available. £5 for a coaster; £69 for the Gipsy Moth print hannahwisdomtextiles.com

This nautical storybook for children is written by a Monaco-based yachting business consultant, Marcela de Kern Royer, teaching the basics of sailing through stories accompanied by illustrations by the Mumbai-based artist, Neha Patil. Not shirking from the use of technical terms, there is plenty of adventure and the publishers say the book “brings together important life values, as well as teaching respect for the sea and is aimed at the next generation of oceanographers, meteorologists, sailors and dreamers!”. £21.70 Lulu.com

SAIL AWAY

CHAIN PIPE

67CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 DESIRABLES

SUNBRELLA Sunbrella’s latest range adorning, here, the aft deck of a superyacht, but equally suited to something older. £POA Sunbrella.com

We love the background as much as the shoes, which are part of the summer 2022 range from British brand Chatham. They also do the Java G2, which is designed using the Genesis leather concept, aiming to “reduce consumption of water, harmful chemicals and energy throughout the manufacturing process”. From £105 chatham.co.uk

A bronze chain pipe to give a very high class feel to your anchoring activities, available from Classic Marine, the title sponsor of our Classic Boat Awards. Classic Marine, which operates online and through a shop at Su olk Yacht Harbour in Su olk on England’s east coast, o ers a vast range of classic boat-speciﬁc chandlery. Available in diameters.various£97–£242 classic-marine.co.uk

SEBAGO MANITOU LOAFERS

ANTIQUE TELESCOPE

CHATHAM AEGEAN

No yacht or dinghy should be without one. An antique ship’s telescope from the mid-19th century made by JP Cutts, measuring 8 inches closed, extending to 23 inches, with a 40mm objective lens giving 15x magniﬁcation. £240 scientiﬁccollectables.com

WUZZOS SHIPS LOG

Wuzzos started with deck shoes and now do a range of products including these smart logbooks, emblazoned with the name of your yacht on the cover. Wuzzos say: “Every seafarer knows it is best practice to keep a logbook as record of your vessels position, and activities. Wuzzos Personalised Ships Log has been developed to allow customers to add their boats name onto the book in a premium gold or silver colour foil. Manufactured from sustainably sourced Forest Stewardship Council paper, the 240-page logbook is available in 2 sizes (A4 & A5), 6 colours and delivered in a beautiful presentation box.” You can preview your design on the Wuzzos website before purchase. A5, £25, and A4, £35, with free shipping for Club Wuzzos members wuzzos.com

CHATHAMSHOESDECK

The Aegean in navy blue is a “high-performance style speciﬁcally designed for sailing”, says Chatham, yet it follows a classic boat shoe aesthetic and is “based on barefoot design technology”. “Marine enthusiasts will need a pair for their adventures on shore or at sea,” says the British company. £110 chatham.co.uk

Sebago probably didn’t name these handsome deck loafers after the S&S once owned by JFK, but the association does them no harm. Made of a “soft, yet thicker, resistant suede”, they feature a “leather sock lining” as well as “a fashionable vulcanized rubber outsole inspired by the historical ergonomic American high foxing boat shoe”, quite beﬁtting a president, really. They’re part of a new summer range from Sebago. £100 sebago.co.uk

CLASSICSFALMOUTH 68 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 2 7 8 1 3 4 5 6

SUMMER OF SAIL

PHOTOS AND WORDS NIGEL SHARP

There could barely have been a greater contrast in the weather over the three days of Falmouth Classics, Cornwall, in June 2022. Friday’s two races took place in glorious sunshine, initially in a reasonably steady south westerly breeze and then – after a mercifully short period of calm – in a cracking northerly. On Saturday, however, the strong wind forecast kept many boats alongside and the increasing gusts prompted the race committee to cancel racing for all but the ﬁve classes of bigger boats. Despite a cold grey morning on Sunday, a surprising number of boats took part in a spectacular Parade of Sail, led by the Falmouth All Weather Lifeboat.

69CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 SUMMER OF SAIL 1 Lulotte, 1972 Swan 55, 2nd overall in bermudans over 45ft class 2 Maybe, sail-training boat built in 1929 3 Alpha, 1904 Bristol Channel pilot cutter, 2nd overall in the pilot cutter class 4 West Country trading ketch Irene with Gig Greenbank 5 Anny of Charlestown, Danish-built ﬁshing boat 6 Peter Lucas, owner of the 1910 yacht Cynthia, 2nd overall in the gaffers over 40ft class 7 Tumblehome IV, Cornish Crabber 24. Runnerup for best-dressed crew in the parade of sail (theme: Queen’s 1953 coronation) 8 Amokura, 1939 Fred Shepherd yawl, 3rd overall in bermudans over 35ft class 9 Alva, 2011 ga cutter, 1st in the bermudans over35ft class 10 Proteus, home-built in the 2020 lockdown 11 Carlotta, built in 1899, won the pilot cutter class 12 Liberty Jane, Nicholson 31, winner of bestdressed crew 13 Parade of sail 14 Close ﬁnish between the pilot cutters Mascotte (1904) and Agnes (2003) 14 9 11 1210 13

GIORGIO SUPER REGATTAYACHT OF

SAIL 4 3 5 1 2

The Giorgio Armani Superyacht regatta, Sardinia, played host to the classics in early June. Set on the glorious Costa Smeralda coast, four days of racing launched the superyacht regatta season in the Med. The Herresho schooner Mariette of 1915, Shenandoah of Sark and the modern Spirit 111 Geist were in town. After taking part in 2019, it is a firm favourite for Mariette. Organised by the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, the race committee was headed by seasoned pro Peter Craig. After a delayed opening start, light to medium breeze saw Mariette in the lead. The fleet headed upwind to the first mark, the Mortoriotto rock, before reaching to the Passo delle Bisce strait and entering the Saline Gulf, at which stage the breeze was up to 13 knots. After rounding the Secca di Tre Monti, the fleet had a quick beam reach to the Monaci islet before finishing the 24-mile course in front of Porto Cervo. The breeze increased to the mid-teens for the second outing. Negotiating a 30-mile course around the islands of Caprera and La Maddalena, Mariette won day two’s race in spectacular style, beating her eight diverse opponents. Representing Spirit Yachts, Geist, the largest single-masted wooden yacht to be built in the UK since Shamrock V, was in the running. Current member of the British America’s Cup team Paul Campbell-James added to the talent pool, calling tactics on the Spirit 111. Shenandoah of Sark (1902) and Mariette enjoyed a friendly sail before the regatta start. Although not competing, Shenandoah then shadowed her fellow schooner on the opening day of racing. With the stunning coastline, varied courses set around La Maddalena archipelago and good wind range, the emerald coast is one of the great Mediterranean venues for racing. The Giorgio Armani Superyacht Regatta is encouraging participation from classic divisions for next season’s edition.

PHOTOS AND WORDS INGRID ABERY

SUMMER

ARMANI

71CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 1 Mariette of 1915 and Shenandoah of Sark sailing towards La archipelagoMaddalena 2 Giorgio Armani’s inaugural year sponsoring the Superyacht Regatta 3 Balletic moves while preparing to hoist the topsail 4 The Spirit 111 Geist rounding Monaci island 5 Geist preparing a sail change 6 Shenandoah of Sark 7 High on Mariette’s mainmast 5 7 6

72 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 3 4

PHOTOGRAPHS CLIQQ STUDIOS

20 YEARS OF SUFFOLK YACHT HARBOUR CLASSICS 1

Su olk Yacht Harbour (SYH) welcomed 50 classic sailing and motor yachts to its annual Classic Regatta in June 2022, on the event’s 20th anniversary. Among them were ﬁrst-timers and sailors who have competed in all twenty. SYH director Jonathan Dyke said: “This year was 2 undoubtedly the best yet. The weather was superb and the race management delivered fantastic racing in all three classes. It was proof that the classic yachting scene on the English east coast is very much thriving.”

The sailing yacht ﬂeet comprised a wide range from ga ers to spirit of tradition, IODs and Stellas. The oldest yacht was 1898 ga cutter and Dunkirk

73CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

1 1920 Alfred Mylne yawl Gudgeon (in front), with Britanny class sloop Droleen II (sail no 406) and the Holman sloop Phialle (sail no 80Y); 2 Overall regatta winner Mark Wincer with Su olk Yacht Harbour MD Jonathan Dyke; 3 S&S sloop Illiria; 4 Winner of the French Marine Motorboat Trophy was Ryegate; 5 Solani Sloop Malwen; 6 Harry Feltham designed and built clinker motorboat, Wagtail; 7 Spirit 52 Flight of U ord, owned by Spirit Yachts CEO Sean McMillan; 8 Fairey Huntsman Flower Power in the Parade of Power; 9 James Johnson, owner of Speardancer, won the Fairey Marine plate, pictured with Joshua Major, SYH Boatyard Services Director; 10 Andrew Gilmour, owner of Timoa, the Stella class winner, with Jonathan Dyke of SYH; 11 Spirit 30 Lady Elena (foreground) with S&S sloop Illiria; 12 Overall winner IOD Whisper (sail no GBR7), with One-Tonner Breeze of Yorkshire (sail no 1718) and S&S Sunstone (GBR2183), which was second overall; 13 Relaxing back at Su olk Yacht Harbour;

12 51286 97 10 11 13

74 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 SUMMER OF SAIL little ship Cachalot, 123 years older than the newest yacht in the fleet, the Spirit 30 Lady Elena, launched in 2021. The three-race series for the Fast, Slow and Stella classes saw a range of conditions from full sun, 18+ knots and very choppy seas in Race 1, to 11 knots and strong tides in Race 3. On Saturday, 13 motorboats took to the stage in the Parade of Power, among them eight Fairey Marine boats, the WG McBryde-designed motor yacht Blade, and the Gibbs of Teddington motor yacht Ryegate. That evening, the fleet headed back to SYH for live music, free cold beers, and wood-fired oven pizzas. After Race 3 on Sunday, the winners were revealed. First in the Fast Class was the IOD Whisper. The Slow Class was won by the 1920 Alfred Mylne yawl Gudgeon and the Stella Class by Timoa. Enderlein Sloop Thistle took home the Sa r Concours d’Elegance trophy, the Spirit Yachts “in need of a sti drink” prize was awarded to Bonaventure, and the Stella of the Year went to Persephone. The Classic Marine Fast Motorboat of the Year was won by the Fairey Huntsman 28 Seaspray, and Classic Marine Slow Motorboat of the Year went to the 1919 Thornycroft Morn. The Fairey Marine Plate went to James Johnson in Speardancer, and the French Marine Motorboat trophy was awarded to Ryegate.

15 Slow Class winner Ross Wey, owner of Gudgeon, with Jonathan Dyke; 16 Nigel Weir, owner of Ryegate, winner of the French Marine Motorboat trophy; 17 Recently restored S&S sloop Sunstone; 18 A wave from Vashti; 19 Will and Jenny Taylor-Jones owners of S&S sloop Sunstone; 20 Spinnaker drop on Robert Clark 10 tonner Cereste; 21 All smiles onboard Fortunella 34 Carrageen

1415 16 171819 2021

14 Holman sloop Phialle to windward, with 40 Sq M Spissgatter Venya;

75CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 SUMMER OF SAIL

Various makes of bronze and chrome plated winches –self-tailing and non-self-tailing - are readily available from several manufacturers, including British company Lewmar, Harken and Antal (both Italian), Hutton-Arco (Australian), Murray (made by White Star Products in New Zealand), Wilmex (Polish) and Classic Winch Company (based in the Netherlands).

The purist may not like the fact that the bronze winches produced by some of these companies are not visibly not completely bronze, typically having the central drive shaft – the top of which, where the handle is inserted, is visible – in chrome or stainless-steel; while Harken winches have an incongruous red line between the drum and base (although this, apparently, is a cosmetic ﬁnishing piece that is easily removed). Lewmar winches are completely bronze in appearance with the exception of the barely-noticeable dark coloured plastic rope-friendly self-tailing jaws and stripper rings. The drums for Lewmar’s larger winches are actually made from stainless steel, for additional strength, and then coated with a Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) to resemble bronze. PVD is a process by which a solid material is vaporized in a vacuum and then deposited onto a surface. It is normally available in a variety of colours and is generally reckoned to be more durable and hard wearing than chrome plating.

Nowadays it is possible to source a great variety of deck and rig ﬁttings for classic boats. While many of those are available as o -the-shelf items, almost anything can be custom-made if you know where to look. With regard to materials, the more traditional classic boat owners will probably favour bronze, brass or galvanised (or a ﬁnish visually resembling one of those), while others will be happy with stainless-steel or chrome plating.

Blocks, cleats, chainpipes, dorade vents and more... it can be a bit of a maze, and it’s important to get these things right ﬁrst time

Danish company Andersen’s winches are all made from stainless-steel with a polished ﬁnish as standard. But they can also be PVD coated either in black or a bronze e ect colour (or, by special order, any other PVD colour); or, by bead blasting the stainless steel, the ZT Finish replicates the look of galvanising or titanium. Instead of a more conventional “peened” surface on the surface of the drum where the rope is wound, Andersen winches have distinctive vertical Power Ribs which, the company claims, provide a superior grip on the rope without causing excessive wear.

WORDS NIGEL SHARP

WINCHES

Andersen’s Classic range includes winches with bottom-action handles, in some cases locating in the winch base, in others at the bottom of an under-deck drive shaft. Harken recently produced a set of winches with under-deck handles for a Second Rule 6-Metre. Although these were done to special order, they are now part of the company’s standard range. Murray winches also have bottom-action handles, and some of them are available with a cleat on the top of the winch. This is not intended to be a self-tailing device in the conventional sense, but allows singlehanded tightening of a rope without the need to uncleat. As it happens, White Star Products are now reducing their production of Murray winches due to slow sales and increasing costs, and are now only manufacturing the smallerLewmar,models.Harken, Antal and Hutton-Arco can all supply electric or hydraulic power units, generally for their larger winches, and with some companies able to provide electric motors in horizontal or vertical conﬁguration to allow for di erent space availability below deck. But Hutton-Arco not only provide power

DECK AND RIG CHANDLERYGEAR 76 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Winches by Classic Winch laser-printedCompany; deck gear from Spooner/ Ording; a new ‘classic’ winch yellow metal; and one in silver metal; a bronze mainsheet deck ﬁtting on the schooner Naema; aft deck on a San Marco runabout

In a joint venture between Paul Spooner Design and Dutch company Ording Blockmakers, 3D printing is being used to great e ect to make stainless steel and titanium ﬁttings “which look a little bit more at home on spirit of tradition boats and appeal to people who care about how these things look,” said Paul Spooner.

Ian Bloomﬁeld at East Coast Metalworks says that sometimes they modify an old casting by gluing a piece of timber on to it to form a new pattern, but that is generally only e ective when casting no more than a handful of new ﬁttings as the composite pattern may not last very long. East Coast Metalworks also occasionally use 3D printing to produce plastic patterns: “a quick way of getting an accurate pattern”.

Ordinarily a 3D printer typically works by laying down very, very thin layers of plastic in the right profile, and then building them up to create a 3D shape. In this case, after the desired shape of a component is created on a computer, a set of lasers fires at a box full of very fine metal powder. Wherever the laser beams cross, the metal melts and fuses together into a solid piece. It is much more versatile than casting or machining as there are no limitations on the shapes that can be created, and it is also possible to programme the system to create honeycomb structures (made out of the same metal) on the inside to save weight without loss of strength.Unfortunately bronze fittings can’t be created in this way because the bronze powder would just reflect the laser beams away, but it is possible to PVD-coat any stainless-steel fitting to replicate the appearance of bronze.Thereal potential for 3D printing is in the fact that a design is totally customizable. “If it can be created in 3D on a computer, then it can be made,” said Paul.

BronzeABOVE:cleat cast by Davey & Co

3D PRINTING

Davey & Co were recently approached by a customer who asked if they could produce twenty-five copies of the original fittings on a 1920s boat which he was restoring. As it happened, Davey were able to do so very easily, after establishing that they had not only made the original fittings but also had the century-old blueprint drawing filed away, allowing them to economically produce a new pattern.

OTHER DECK AND RIG FITTINGS

USA company Port Townsend Foundry have something like 35,000 patterns, some of which are over a century old. Proprietor Pete Langley told me that knowing what they have got and where they are is “one of the fun challenges” which is helped by an alphabetical system and limiting the number of sta who are allowed to access them.

Toplicht represents another Germany company which has a large number of patterns which were originally made by shipbuilders Abeking and Rasmussen 50 or more years ago, and their fittings are now being cast by the third generation of the same family that first did so. All of these companies can also fabricate bronze fittings as well as cast them, and sometimes the best solution is a combination of the two.

78 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 DECK AND RIGGING GEAR units for all their own winches, they can also do so for various other makes, including winches such as Barient and Barlow winches which are no longer manufactured.

Most companies are happy to modify an old pattern to suit a new request and this is normally a relatively straightforward thing to do with timber. Sometimes it is easiest to use an actual existing cast ﬁtting as a pattern, and Davey & Co, Colin Frake and East Coast Metalworks are all used to doing that. However, as bronze shrinks when it cools, the new ﬁtting will be slightly smaller than the original, which may or may not matter according to the application.

The collective message is that these companies can’t possibly put everything that they can supply in their catalogues or on their websites, so if you think they might be able to help them, just ask. “It’s all about ﬂexibility, and understanding what the customer wants and its functionality,” said Davey & Co’s Je Webber.

O -the-shelf fittings are available in bronze, brass, stainless steel and/or chrome from numerous companies such as Davey & Co, Classic Marine, Proboat, Brookes & Adams, Sea Sure, Perko, Antal, Lewmar and German company Toplicht. Lewmar and Antal are able to PVD-coat their stainless-steel fittings, and about half a dozen of Sea Sure’s pressed stainlesssteel products are PVD-coated in a bronze colour exclusively for Classic Marine. But if you can’t find exactly what you want from any of those companies, it is highly likely that you will be able to find someone to make whatever it is you want, although that is likely to have cost and time implications. You are probably never very far away from a stainless-steel fabrication company but let us take a look at those companies who can cast and fabricate bronze fittings. To cast any fitting, a pattern is needed. Patterns are traditionally made out of timber and they are used to form a sand mould, into which molten bronze is poured. So a certain mount of investment will be required and this will give many people the impression that a one-o casting, or a small batch of castings, will be prohibitively expensive.However, that need not be the case. To start with, it may well be that a suitable pattern already exists. For instance, Colin Frake, who produces a great variety of bronze fittings in Faversham, has “dozens and dozens and dozens” of patterns that he has accumulated over the past forty years or so. “I have never really listed what we can do, and that is probably my loss,” he said, “I just say to people let me know what you want and if I can help I will.”

CLOCK WISE FROM TOP LEFT: Bronze cleat in the open style from Davey & Co; Lewmar PVD blocks; bronze chain pipe from Classic Marine; Dorade box on RonstanScarabee;block in stainless steel for a new 12-M yacht built to a 1940 design; shroud plates Saecwenon

CONTACTS whitestarproducts.co.nztoplicht.de/ensea-sure.co.ukproboat.co.ukporttownsendfoundry.compaulspoonerdesign.comording-blocks.commarineware.comlewmar.comharken.co.ukeastcoastmetalworks.co.ukdavey.co.ukcolinfrake-classicyachtﬁttings.co.ukclassicwinches.comclassic-marine.co.ukbanda.co.ukarco-winches.comantal.itandersenwinches.com ABOVE: Sand RonstanblockDeck-mountedBELOW:castingfrom

Classic Marine also sell products from Timage, Brookes & Adams and Holland Yacht Equipment, among others. Davey & Co, 90 per cent of whose products they manufacture themselves (much of the remainder being Brookes & Adams products), also only sell to the trade while their UK outlets in the UK are Arthur Beale, Classic Marine, Norfolk Marine and Toplicht don’t manufacture anything themselves but they make a point of keeping large stocks of ﬁttings from many di erent companies, including Davey & Co, Wilmex, Spartan, East Coast Metalworks and Murray amongst many others. “It is our job to stock it and push other people to produce it,” said their representative Jochen Gnass.

Some of the aforementioned companies will sell direct to the public but others will only deal with the trade. Classic Marine, for instance, was originally founded by Murray McPhail and for many years manufactured and sold its own products to anyone. When Murray wanted to concentrate on manufacturing rather than retail sales, he sold Classic Marine to Su olk Yacht Harbour and formed Bronze Works. About three years ago East Coast Metalworks bought Bronze Works but only sells to the trade while Classic Marine continues to serve as the company’s retail outlet in the UK.

80 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 DECK AND RIGGING GEAR

Some boat owners are likely to want new galvanised fittings to match the appearance of existing ones. Years ago galvanised fittings may have shown a significant cost saving over bronze but Je Webber thinks the di erence is now only about 15%, and also that iron foundries and galvanisers tend to be reluctant to do one-o or small volume jobs. Furthermore, there also seems to be a general feeling that the quality of galvanising isn’t what it used to be. Sooner or later, galvanising will wear and the base casting or fabrication will start to bleed rust, and no one wants rust contaminating a beautiful laid deck. An increasingly popular alternative is to have a fitting fabricated or cast in stainless-steel and then bead blasted to give a dull finish which replicates a galvanised appearance.

There are, of course, many di erent types of bronze, several of which are suitable for marine applications. Their common characteristic is that they are all predominantly composed of copper, but other than that they have relatively small quantities of lead, tin, zinc, aluminium, manganese, silicon, phosphorous, nickel and/or in iron in varying proportions.

DISTRIBUTION AND SALES OUTLETS

GALVANISING

Probably the most commonly used bronze for boat fittings is gunmetal (or LG2) which in its polished state has a warm browny-gold colour. It can be easily cast, machined and polished, is relatively strong and very resistant to salt water. Aluminium bronze (or AB2) –which has a paler yellow/gold colour - has about double the strength (and a roughly equivalent strength to stainless steel) and so lends itself to high-load fittings such as rigging screws and chainplates. Fastenings are commonly made from silicon bronze and Port Townsend Foundry also favour its use for submerged items such as rudder fittings and bobstay fittings.

Brookes & Adams use manganese bronze for its single-piece forged ﬁttings because it is not possible to forge gunmetal, and manganese bronze is also commonly used in propellors. Phosphor bronze has a reddish-brown appearance and has great wear resistance and sti ness. Brass is much softer and weaker than any of the bronzes and also has poor salt water resistance, so should generally only be used for cabin ﬁttings.

TYPES OF BRONZE

The UK agent for Andersen winches and Ronstan is International Marine Products and they sell to the public through Classic Marine, amongst others. Marineware is the wholesale UK distributor for Antal while Harken have their own UK company in Lymington. HuttonArco, Colin Frake and Port Townsend Foundry all normally deal direct with all customers.

81CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 The UK’s leading classic yacht refit and repair facility The complete service for all motor and sailing yachts under one roof Teak decking & joinery Spray & hand finishing in paint & varnish Traditional rigging, ropes & splicing Timber masts & spars Marine engineering & electronics Bronze & stainless fabrication Race preparation & support 95 years of experience in traditional yacht refit & restoration Fox’s Marina & Boatyard, Ipswich, Su olk, IP2 8SA +44 (0) 1473 689111 foxs@foxsmarina.com foxsmarina.com Fox's Classic Boat ad - May22.indd 1 09/03/2022 17:07

82 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS 2022 After a huge voting turn-out, here are the winners of the 2022 Classic Boat Awards AWARDS SPONSORS IN ASSOCIATION WITH Awards 2022

WIINERS

RESTORED SAILING VESSEL OVER 40FT WINNER VIVEKA

Restored by Rutherford’s Boatshop, Designed by Frank C Paine, Built by Fred Lawley, 1930, LOD 72ft 9in (22.2m), Rig bermudan schooner

Everything about Viveka is distinctive, from her ﬁrst owner, JP Morgan, to her double-carvel hull construction, but most of all in her rig. Viveka is the only schooner-rigged yacht built to the International 12-M rule that we have ever come across. Her restoration, which was completed at the very tail end of 2020 for an English owner, was pretty much the complete works, and a very signiﬁcant project even for someone of the standing of California boatbuilder Je Rutherford, the conservator who, over the years, has been behind the restorations of the Universal P-Class yacht Joyant, the 126ft (38m) steam yacht Cangarda and the ongoing massive job on the schooner Coronet

The story of Stormvogel is a fable of glory and reincarnation. She’s e ectively the world’s ﬁrst maxi yacht, and she was built by and for the Dutch plywood king Cornelius Bruynzeel, in solid carvel planking. He campaigned her to line honours in the 1961 Fastnet. After a thorough rebuild at the Metur Yachts yard in Turkey, Stormvogel took on the same race again in 2021, six decades on. While lesser (read ‘modern’!) vessels retired in the harsh conditions, the storm bird ﬂew home in seventh place, in the very fast time of just 3 days and 19 hours.

HIGHLY COMMENDED RESTORED SAILING VESSEL OVER 40FT STORMVOGEL

RESTORED SAILING VESSEL UNDER 40FT

83CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS

RESTORED SAILING VESEEL UNDER 40FT WINNER BARBARA

HIGHLY COMMENDED

Restored by Metur Yacht, Designed by Ericus van de Stadt, Laurent Giles and John Illingworth, Built Cornelius Bruynzeel, 1961, LOD 74ft 6in (22.7m), Rig berm ketch

Restored by Woodbridge Boatyard, Designed by Bjarne Aas, Built 1956, LOD 33ft (10m), Rig bermudan sloop When Sir Michael Harrison died in 2019, aged 83, he’d owned and sailed his wooden International One Design on Su olk’s rivers for 35 years. After a thorough reﬁt, including new transom, replacement of many ribs and frames, all of her deck beams, both shear planks, a new Lignia deck and new wooden spars to replace the old aluminium ones, his son Edwin will continue the tradition.

FALCON

Restored Marcus Lewis, Des/built Archie Watty, 1947, LOD 18ft (5.5m), Rig bermudan sloop. On 20 January 1947, Olive Bate of Polruan, Cornwall, gave birth to a baby girl, Barbara. This was also the day that she and husband Arthur were set to put down their deposit on a house. Her reaction at discovering, the same day, that Arthur had instead spent the money on a Fowey One-Design, can only be imagined, even with the boat named after the girl. By the 1990s, Barbara (the boat) was in pieces in the Hebrides, but class sailor Richard Kitson and boatbuilder Marcus Lewis brought her back home to Cornwall and performed a rebuild that makes her today, e ectively, a brand-new boat, albeit on her original ballast keel.

Restored by Harbour Marine Services, Designed and built by Cli and Jones of Castleford, 1930, LOD 34ft 2in (10.4m) Power: twin diesel Lazy Days might have been rather optimistically named, given the wartime service this little river cruiser saw, not least at Dunkirk, where she spent three days ferrying troops in Operation Dynamo, breaking most of her ribs in the process. She was rebuilt as a yacht in 1952, and her most recent stint of work at Harbour Marine has seen 50 to 75 per cent of the hull re-planked due to rot on the port side, and an engine reﬁt to give a ﬂat cockpit sole. Now, nearly a century after she was launched, she’s ready to live up to the promise of her name.

Awards 2022 HMSC/O 84 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS

WINNER FLOWER POWER

RESTORED POWERED VESSEL ALL SIZES

HIGHLY COMMENDED

LAZY DAYS

Restored by Josh Major/Su olk Yacht Harbour, Designed by Alan Burnard, Built Fairey Marine, 1967, LOD 28ft (8.5m) Power: twin diesel. As a marque, Fairey Marine is so soaked in glamour, it could be Britain’s answer to Riva. The company’s quintessential motorboat was the hot-moulded timber, twin-engined Fairey Huntsman 28, as featured in From Russia with Love. This one was built as a 21st birthday present for model Penny Carter, who raced her in three Cowes-Torquay races. She now belongs to Josh Major, shipyard director at Su olk Yacht Harbour. After a thorough restoration and re-engine, Flower Power is better and faster than ever; her two 215hp diesels give her 37 knots ﬂat out.

RESTORED POWERED VESSEL ALL SIZES

MCCARTHYJOE

KEES STUIP

HIGHLY

Built by Steve Morris of Kilrush Boatyard, Designed by Alfred Mylne, LOD 36ft 5in (11.1m), Rig ga cutter

NEW SAILING VESSEL ALL SIZES

The Dublin Bay 21s were drawn by Alfred Mylne in 1902, at the invitation of the Dublin Bay Sailing Club. The next year, five boats had been built and two more soon after that. Amazingly, all lived to see the present day, when class aficionado Fionan de Barra and yachting historian Hal Sisk came up with a plan to rebuild the entire fleet of seven, all on their original ballast keels, but in strip plank. As a concept, its audacity is perhaps unparalleled, but by 2021, Naneen, Garavogue and Estelle were racing in Dublin Bay under collective ownership. The other four will follow soon.

MEDIAWATERLINE Awards 2022 85CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

SPIRIT 30 Built by Spirit Yachts, 2021, Design by Sean McMillan, LOD 30ft (9.2m), Rig bermudan sloop She’s the first open day-sailer from the world’s leading Spirit-of-Tradition builder, whose yachts have featured twice in the Bond films. The Spirit 30 is a fast, opulent, modern flyer, with a skimming dish hull, fin-and-bulb keel, carbon spars, rod rigging and moulded sails. Above the water, she’s pure 1930s gent’s keel boat, though quite a bit faster in practice, as we discovered. And she’s all wood, built in 15mm Alaskan cedar. COMMENDED

WINNER DUBLIN BAY 21 FLEET

NEW SAILING VESSEL ALL SIZES

Built East Passage Boatwrights, 2021, Designed Walt Ansel, LOD 24ft (7.3m), Power: single diesel At around two tonnes, this is a substantial Down East style picnic launch, built to a very high standard in traditional American double carvel timber, which gives great strength and the stability to hold paint ﬁnishes without cracking. This ﬁrst one has been in development for some time and was worth the wait. The 150hp Yanmar gives 15 knots cruising, 20 tops.

WINNER EAST PASSAGE 24

HOODCWC/O Awards 2022 86 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS

NEW POWERED VESSEL ALL SIZES

C/O EAST PASSAGE BOATWRIGHTS

JOHNSTONE-BRYDENRICHARD

TENACITY Designed/Built John McShea, 2021, LOD 19ft 6in (5.9m), Power: single diesel We visited John Shea’s yard in 2021, but here is one of his creations aﬂoat in all her glory. Tenacity was built for David Cheesman, in mahogany planks on an oak keel and timbers, with teak decks, and styled after the Salcombe launch, but with a glowing varnished ﬁnish to suit her role as a stylish, traditional gent’s day launch. Tiller steering and a 14hp Yanmar complete the traditional picture. HIGHLY COMMENDED

87CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 ... all a sailor’s heart can wish for. for classic boat lovers equipment for traditional ships, classic yachts, boatbuilders and shipyards WB_Display_Ad_6-21.indd 1 6/16/21 10:55 PM Delivery www.angliastainless.co.ukWorldwide

This heavy-weather legend was designed and built by William Fife III in 1914 as a cruising 19-M yacht, but the 94ft (28.7m) ketch would still beat everything in sight when it blew hard. She was restored at Chantier Guip from 2017-19 and today, Sumurun is as active as ever in classic racing and to see her sailing is simply one of the great sights in the world of traditional vessels.

HIGHLY COMMENDED Awards 2022 88 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS

SUMURUN

The Gstaad Yacht Club was formed in 1998 by a group of sailors with the vision to “create a unique global yacht club away from water”. The Centenarian of the Year trophy ties in with the club’s annual Centenary Trophy race, at Les Voiles de SaintTropez, attracting some of the oldest yachts aﬂoat. The Centenarian of the Year silver bowl (above) and silver champagne ﬂute (left) are made and donated by Robbe & Berking.

GSTAAD YACHT CLUB CENTENARIAN OF THE YEAR

WINNER FIREFLY

The 34ft 6in (10.5m) Albert Strange yawl Fireﬂy reaches her centenary this year with a nearunblemished record. She entered Clay family ownership in 1934 and now belongs to the grandson, boatbuilder Jamie Clay. She’s never needed rebuilding and is almost all original. Aside from the war, she has only missed a single sailing season. Fireﬂy was a runaway victor in this year’s voting, proving that in terms of appeal, a Strange-designed yacht is the equal of anything. GSTAAD YACHT CLUB CENTENARIAN OF THE YEAR

WINNER KATIE MCCABE

The award goes to a man who’s probably the only person to have restored yachts by the three great Scottish designers Fife, Watson and Mylne. He’s a retired engineer with a doctoral degree in coastal engineering and he’s lectured on yachting history in five continents. His early years were spent racing Cadets and Enterprise dinghies from Crosshaven in Ireland. Later he raced successfully o shore with brothers George and John, and he was the co-founder Irish Sea O shore Racing Association in earlyMoving1970s.into smaller boats, he kickstarted a revival of the Water Wag class, the world’s oldest one design, by building first new Water Wag in 20 years in 1977. He proudly declares he’s campaigned it for more than 40 seasons! We give him the award this year for his stunningly ambitious ongoing project to restore all seven of the still-extant Dublin Bay 21s, but it’s just the tip of an iceberg. In 1983, he restored the 1884 Fife III-designed 22ft ga cutter Vagrant, then re-enacted her maiden voyage from Scotland to Dublin. In 1992, he built a replica of Simon & Jude, a 30ft catamaran designed and built for Sir William Petty in Dublin in 1662. There were more, but in 2005 came Peggy Bawn, a 35ft GL Watson-designed ga cutter built in 1894. It redefined the bar in terms of small-yacht restorations and became the first boat we devoted a series to the restoration of, written by our late, great technical editor Theo Rye. Hal’s specialist publishing house was behind Martin Black’s acclaimed GL Watson biography. If that weren’t enough, he’s chairman Association of Yachting Historians and was key to the scanning the Lloyd’s Register of Yachts as well as The Yachtsman magazine and more to come. There is perhaps no one in the world who puts as much into the history of small-boat sailing, and probably no one who has spent as much, yet failed to walk away with a 100ft yacht or a J Class. That failure is his greatest success.

YOUNG CLASSIC OF THE YEAR

Our first ever Young Classic Boater of the Year is life-long sailor Katie McCabe. Her incredible round-Britain voyage at the record-breaking age of just 14 was undertaken on her 1952 West Channel One Design, bought by Katie for £800, which she earned doing weekend jobs. Falanda had been imprisoned on dry land for a decade, but Katie brought the boat back to life with advice from her boatbuilder father and woodcarver mother. The slog, however, was all hers. In June 2021, she set o to sail around Britain. Katie had no paper qualifications and was just 14, but a lifetime of living afloat had prepared her perfectly. She arrived back just in time for the start of her next school term.

BOATER

CLASSIC BOATER OF THE YEAR WINNER HAL SISK SHARPNIGEL Awards 2022 89CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS

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Classic prize-givingAwardsBoat2022 1

Awards 2022 CLASSIC YACHTS 202290 PHOTOS JOSH ISKANDER

Congratulations

Nearly 200 guests came from around the British Isles, Europe and the US to collect their trophies or just to soak up the atmosphere at the Classic Boat Awards, held at the Royal Thames Yacht Club in London on 12 April. The audience of boatbuilders, owners, sailors, designers, historians and more was rewarded by a brilliant overview of classic sailing from John Lammerts van Bueren, reproduced overleaf. to all! Anticipation for the unveiling of the winners is always high 2 The Royal Thames YC kept the drinks ﬂowing 3 Classic Yacht’s editor Rob Peake presented the ceremony 4 The trophies were handmade by Classic Marine in conjunction with Su olk Yacht Harbour Steve Morris of Kilrush Boatyard (right) and fellow boatbuilder Fabian Bush 6 Paul Horton of Harbour Marine Services (centre) whose restoration of Dunkirk Little Ship Lazy Days was Highly Commended 7 Winners (l-r) Fionan de Barra; Stephen Morris; Marcus Lewis (behind)

91CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 14 9 13 15 1817 12 16 whose restoration of Barbara was a category winner; Hal Sisk (kneeling); Je Rutherford (with trophy); Katie McCabe; Penny Leander; Jamie Clay (with Centenarian’s bowl); Matt Lis (kneeling); John McShea; Carter Richardson (with trophy); Karen Underwood; Spirit 30 owner Robert Gillespie 8 Classic Boater of the Year was Hal Sisk 9 Spirit Yachts MD Karen Underwood accepts the Highly Commended prize for the Spirit 30 10 Matt Lis of Woodbridge Boatyard 11 Penny Leander, who raced the restored Fairey Huntsman Flower Power, a category winner, in Cowes-Torquay races in the 1960s 12 Young Classic Boater of the Year Katie McCabe, who sailed around Britain solo aged 14 in a Morgan Giles design 13 Lincoln Redding, navigator on Highly Commended Stormvogel in last year’s Rolex Fastnet Race, with David Cheesman, owner of Tenacity, Highly Commended in the New Powered Vessels 14 Carter Richardson of East Passage Boatwrights, whose EP24 won the New Powered Vessel category 15 Owner of the 100-year-old Albert Strange Fireﬂy, Jamie Clay, with William Riordan of the Gstaad Yacht Club; Fireﬂy won the Gstaad YC Centenarian of the Year trophy 16 For the Dublin Bay 21s, Fionan de Barra, Hal Sisk and Steve Morris 17 Je Rutherford, over from California with his wife Gladys Fleitas, accepted the trophy for Viveka, Restored Sailing Vessel of the Year 18 Jonathan Dyke of the event’s title sponsor Su olk Yacht Harbour (centre) with The Hon Lady Judy McAlpine (left) and Classic Boat’s Martin Nott 7 8 10 12 11

JOHN LAMMERTS VAN BUEREN CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS OPENING ADDRESS BY Awards 2022 TAYLORROBINSONJAMES THIS PAGE: JOSH ISKANDER; CAMBRIA: JAMES ROBINSON TAYLORCLASSIC YACHTS 202292

LEFT: herehis2022.LondonYachtRoyalceremony,BoatatBuerenLammertsguruandhistorian,yachtingtimberSailor,merchant,authorclassicboatJohnvanspeakingtheClassicAwardsattheThamesClubininAprilWepublishspeechinfullBELOW:Fife’smasterpieceof1928, Cambria

So, o to the DIY to get some two by four and a sheet of tarpaulin, add a heater and that old boat suddenly was a comfy home. With the notable exception of Scandinavia, wooden boat traditions had faded around the world. I remember the nicknames for the old 8-Metre fleets like “The Rentokil Fleet” and “The Rotting Row”. Still, many of them survived. What saved them was their inherent beauty and the thrill of driving them to windward. What fun it was to pity the guys who pitied you when you raced an old clunker in a modern fleet and finished ahead of them all. What saved them was the low cost; you could buy them for a song, slap some glassfibre on the planking and have fun. Sure enough, some were butchered, transoms were cut to get a better rating under RORC rules, rigs were changed, doghouses were added to get headroom, engines were added, old interiors were replaced by nice fashionable Formica ones. Winches were added, rigs were reinforced, keels and rudders were changed. Of course the rust of the steel frames leaked through the planking and the steam-bent frames broke. Gradually, planking became soft and the bilges were filled with concrete and epoxy to stop the leaks. Labour cost was high so the owners and crews learned to maintain their boats and keep them afloat. I am ever so grateful to these people as they saved many of the boats we admire and celebrate this evening!

Now let’s imagine that there would be a magazine covering the lives of these old boats. Imagine that the Royal Thames opening its doors for ‘the beaten-up old boats awards’. Something had to change to make that possible. That change came with a lady named Elizabeth Meyer. She decided to do the unthinkable and in 1984

You see, we all look at things di erently, judge di erently, enjoy di erent aspects. To me, beauty goes beyond the lines, beyond craftsmanship and the choice of materials. To me it includes personal memories of friends on board, of stories told under the cabin lamp, of fun and laughter. To me beauty is also defined by the courage, the madness and passion to own, create or preserve something unusual. At least to me, without the latter, beauty has no meaning. So here we are: we judged each other’s boats and projects, judged craftsmanship, dreamed away with stories told and untold, gazed through the shortlist, and like me, you probably realised we are about to make a few people happy while disappointing even more. So how do we judge? Does e ort and determination count? How about the ‘one-man band’ in a tin shed, hanging upside down in the bilge to replace a broken frame while his mates are getting drunk in the pub? How about the person fortunate enough to just write a cheque to get the job done? Who and what are we awarding? Is it just beauty, is it the yard, the architect, the owner? What about vision? Should those breaking new ground be awarded or should we award authenticity and tradition? Is the project where the yard is able to exceed the budget more valuable than the kid who saves an old wooden dinghy from the boneyard and fixes it up on a shoestring budget? All of us weigh things di erently and most of us weigh things di erently on di erent days. This evening we celebrate those who the majority admired and inspired most. But not so long ago it would have been unthinkable for us to be here at the Royal Thames to celebrate classic and wooden boats. Less than 40 years ago the usual reason to buy a classic was simply that you could not a ord to buy a proper fibreglass boat!

“ 93CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS

Ladies and gentlemen: As Cambria’s captain Chris Barkham would say: “beautiful boats attract beautiful people” and, as I look around, how right he is. Thank you all for being here tonight to honour and celebrate the most beautiful boats in the world. Thank you for the honour of having me speak tonight. I would like to start by taking you back to 1982, to Lymington, and an old Thames barge stuck in the mud near the bridge. I was told the man on board had some old winches I could use for my boat so I went below to meet him and have a look. As I climbed down the companionway, a phone rang. I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation and it went like this: “Hi Harry, Joe here! Hey, I heard you broke up with Sue. That’s too bad. But you know, once you’re married the boat gets in between and you have to make a choice, well, you chose for the boat, you did the right thing believeWell,me!”that set the tone as we chatted and I showed him a picture of my boat. “Ahh, she’s a real beauty and I can tell you what these things are all about too, you see, once you get used to the smell of dry-rot, you can’t live without it”. She was a 31ft Teal Class, designed by Luke, pitch pine on oak, built by Eddy Williams. She came on the market in 1980 and I fell for her, but like every normal student I was broke and couldn’t a ord her. Until the moment her owner realized I was the only one who came every couple of months, just to dream and say hello to a pretty boat. No o er came forward, but for some reason he entrusted the boat to and let me have her for a song. She was my ﬁrst really beautiful classic boat. So let’s deﬁne beauty. Let’s for now agree to disagree.

Another reason could be that you needed a cheap home. Stuck in canals and mud berths were some lovely J-Class yachts, 15, 12 and 8-Metres and of course lots of cruising boats of the early 20th century. They were saved from the scrapyard because their scrap value was lower than the cost of moving them.

“ 94 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS she bought the remains of Endeavour, widely regarded as the most beautiful J-Class ever built. Elizabeth was 31. Old enough to have childhood dreams, young enough to not realise what she was getting in to. The first one to sum it up was Tom Sopwith, the man who raced Endeavour for the America’s Cup. When Elizabeth told him about her plans to restore his old boat, she didn’t expect his first words to be: “You’re a darned fool!” But Elizabeth was determined to follow through and three years later the world was in awe. The most beautiful J was no longer stuck in the mud, no longer a house boat. The unthinkable happened and Endeavor sailed again! She took the boat around the world and entered regattas. Elizabeth Meyer’s passion for Endeavour and her dynamic personality changed the yachting scene for decades to come. She had shown the world that old boats are worth saving, that they can be restored, be raced and cruised and yes, that they can bring huge satisfaction and joy. With Endeavour, Elizabeth inspired a generation of sailors and encouraged them to restore forgotten classics to a scale and standard unthinkable on that rainy day at Calshot. In the Mediterranean, men like Luigi Lang played a pivotal role in creating rules under which classic boats could race. Naval architects like Olin Stephens, Doug Peterson, Jacques Fauroux and German Frers came to the scene and enjoyed sailing the old boats again. Forgotten techniques of the past were brought back to life. Young sailmakers called up the old fogies to help them learn to design and cut Dacron sails. Wooden spars had to be built again, forgotten timber species had to be sourced once more. Riggers who just finished their course in PBO and composite splicing had to learn what seemed an ancient art; splicing galvanized wire. And what about the crew? I remember our first days on Eleonora. We were overwhelmed by the huge sails and complexity of the running rigging. Most of the sailors on the dock knew how to race a Farr40 but few knew how to sail a classic schooner using transfer lines, jiggers, queens and jackyards. But the movement was persistent and so what once was a small and lone group of old boats became a fleet of well over 1,000 and the focal point of the sailing season in places like SaintTropez, Cannes, Argentario, Cowes, Brest and Maine. And when you think about it, who would have ever imagined we would run out of wrecks to restore? That lost boats of the past would be built again? Ed Kastelein led the way with his reconstruction of Westward, the schooner Eleonora. Soon the schooners Elena, Germania, Wolfhound, Columbia and Atlantic followed. What about the 20 or more 6, 8 and 12-Metres yachts, built brand new to 90-year-old plans? All that and more inspired a new type of yacht, a hybrid of the old and the new. Sean McMillan led the way in promoting what we now call ‘Spirit of Tradition’ yachts. The feel of a real wooden boat, lines inspired by the past as much as the present, resulting in designs that are in a class of their own.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, look at where we are tonight, look at what we are looking at, look at the nominees we are honouring and the winners we are celebrating. Trust me, dreams come true, they really do.

Thank you and congratulations to all nominees and winners of tonight.

Covid-19 didn’t bring much good to the world. But, if for us sailors, something good came out, then it has to be the revival of club racing in small boats. And so a whole new movement has started with wooden Stars, Finns, OK dinghies and more being restored and raced around the world. Away from the crowds, even professionals like Rod Davies and Paul Cayard once more enjoy sailing and racing wooden dinghies. When I was a kid, I gazed at the photos made by Beken, Levick, Kirk and Rosenfeld. I read the stories of pre-war racing in what I regarded as the most beautiful yachts ever built. As a kid I always thought I was born at the wrong time, that I would never see them race like they did back then. I didn’t dare even to dream about witnessing more than 100 restorations from close by, crossing the Atlantic on a schooner or racing aboard Cambria. What about the idea to build a sawmill in Alaska and cut Sitka spruce for wooden spars? I can hear my late father whisper: “Wake up Johnny, time to step out of the dream.”

BELOW: Spirit Yachts has led the Spirit of movementTradition Eleonora, the ﬁrst of the big schooner replicas

95CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 “You are welcome to use my name, my experience, and any photos of the boat in your testimonials. I am a true believer in your CPES product. I have been using it since 1991 on every piece of wood I put into a boat.” www.makewoodgood.co.uk Support and advice on: +44 (0)1732 824 700 Makes varnish or paint last Glues the top coat to the wood Glues wood bres back together Waterproof but breathable Made largely of wood resins Penetrates deeply Stops tannin bleed Christian Carleton used Epifanes varnish over CPES on Taurus (pictured right) in 1991. He writes: CLEAR PENETRATING EPOXY SEALER THE WORLD’S FINEST WOOD PRIMER You

The second golden rule, for long-term brush care, is never leave it with the tip resting on the bottom of a pot of dirty thinners. Drill a hole through the handle of the brush so it can be hung in a pot with the bristle tip o the bottom by about ½ inch (12mm) and pour in about 1 inch (25mm) of white spirit. Spin out the brush in a bin and it’s clean and ready to go. Once you have ﬁnished varnishing, pour any leftover varnish into a another pot (never back into your precious stock of clean varnish!), clean out the brush in the graduated mixing pot with white spirit, cleaning both at the same time, then spin out the brush and hang it back in the storage pot. Place the cleaned graduated mixing pot upside down on a polyethene covered surface for use another day.

There are two application methods that suit this type of varnish. Firstly, a 4in (10cm) roller with a foam brush for tipping o is ideal for large areas. Secondly, a brush, not a throwaway item but something you keep and cherish for years. The roller sleeve can be a cheap foam variety or a smaller diameter mohair sleeve such as an Anza Elite that does not shed ﬁne hairs. The foam brush has a chisel point that leaves a track as you lightly stroke it through the varnish bursting the bubbles and removing the dimpled surface left by the roller. The plastic roller tray attracts dust electrostatically, so always line it with kitchen tin foil. Apart from the tray itself, the roller sleeve, the foam brush and the tin foil are single use and thrown away, so you may take a view on this practice.

THE VARNISH Golden rule number one: never to dip you brush into that can. NEVER. The material in that can leaves the manufacturers completely clean, so let’s keep it that way. You always decant the varnish into a clean graduated mixing pot. With a known quantity of varnish you can accurately add the correct amount of thinner using a small graduated measuring pot. On the side of the manufacturer’s can it will probably tell you the thinning ratios. Always use the manufacturer’s thinner rather than ordinary white spirit which slows the drying time. If your workshop is stone cold, say below 10 degrees C, then you can add an accelerator, such as Epifanes TDA, and this needs to be very carefully measured.

96 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL BOATS

WORDS COLIN HENWOOD DUST CONTROL Ideally, prepare the work in one place, clean it thoroughly, then move it into another (clean) place to apply the varnish. If the piece of work is a whole boat, then clean the boat and its surroundings in situ. Towards the end of the job, a simple polyethene tent over the boat keeps airborne dust at bay. You need a good workshop vacuum with a small brush head to remove most of the dust then a tack cloth to really deal with the ﬁne deposits before applying any coating.

PREPARATION BETWEEN COATS

This is the part of the job where some lose heart, but it is not that bad if you know a simple technique that is quick and e cient. The ﬁrst thing to understand is that these varnishes (and paints) need a mechanical key, they do not stick well to a shiny surface and the classic “peeling paint” image is because of poor preparation between coats. The prep must also remove any dust pimples and any other lumps. Between the build-up coats the Varnishes have been protecting timber and enhancing its appearance for years. But what to buy in 2022 and how to apply it?

The key to success is a very logical approach, a brushing or rolling pattern that spreads the material evenly over the whole area and finishes with a fine tipping o in one direction. The usual starting point is well in from and edge and take the varnish out to the edges. On anything other than a flat surface, avoid putting a loaded brush or roller into a corner where a dollop will squeeze out and run, or, brushing onto an edge or over a hole will also squeeze out varnish that will not be able to resist gravity. Before moving onto the next area or piece, check back for any runs, curtains, missed areas, and the odd drowning bluebottle; if you are quick, these can be dealt with before the varnish shows the first signs of curing.

THE TOOLS

HOWVARNISHTO

HOW TO APPLY THE VARNISH

The most common question is “how many coats?” Well it depends. The idea is for the build-up coats to fill the grain of the timber and arrive at a well covered and deep gloss surface. If the surface in question is horizontal, then about six coats will su ce. On a more vertical surface it will be more like eight coats. At this point, to achieve that mirrored gloss finish the surface will need a more rigorous preparation. If you are lucky enough to own a finishing sander that links to a vacuum then this tool is ideal for larger areas, otherwise use a cork block and sand dry or a rubber block for sanding with water, the abrasive grade to use is P400. You are aiming for a “flat” smooth surface completely abraded. The real danger is that you inadvertently rub through back to the wood which is, obviously, a retrograde step. With wet sanding it is especially easy to rub through as you cannot see what you are doing through all the water clogged with deposit, so, the trick is to have a squeegee to hand and regularly scrape o the water to see how you are doing. With everything perfectly prepared carry out a very thorough clean up with the vacuum followed by the tack cloth. I always apply two “final” coats as the first flat-down removes a significant thickness from the build-up coats, the second preparation is very light as the surface should now be flat but you still aim for a completely abraded surface.

97CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 technique is to lightly “de-nib” the surface with P240 or P320 grade paper, this can be in your hand or on a cork block and it is very quick but you must be thorough. The surface will still have more shiny bits than dull/scratched bits, so, using a soft abrasive pad such as maroon 3M ScotchBrite or Norton Beartex, dull o the whole area. The target is to do just enough work and not too much, you are trying to build-up the varnish layers not remove them. Be wary of using a machine at this stage as it is very easy to take too much o . The spongy ScotchBrite is very useful in the inside of a clinker dinghy where it will e ciently abrade around the roves and ribs.

PREPARATION FOR THE FINAL COATS

How many coats? Colin suggestsHenwoodsixfor a horizontal surface, more like eight for a vertical one

TWO-PACK VARNISHES

VARNISH GUIDE

98 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 VARNISH

During all the build-up coats you will have established a system of brushing or rolling out the varnish that avoids runs and missed bits on the pieces you are coating. You will also know the quantity of varnish you need to decant and the ideal quantity of thinner to add for the varnish to flow and brush out easily. So you are ready for the final two coats that will give your project a great finish. To get to this point a few things need to be aligned; firstly, the workshop or the space you are using for coating needs to be as clean as possible. Secondly, the ambient temperature should ideally be around 18 degC, the pieces you are going to coat and the varnish all need to be at the same temperature, and this temperature needs to be maintained so there is no chance of condensation and the materials cure properly. Lastly, you need to be dust free. The jumper you were wearing all winter while you built the boat needs to be replaced with one of those hooded white coveralls favoured by murder scene investigators. I carry with me a new tack cloth to re-clean every item as I varnish.

Deks Olje is another coating with a separate base coat and top coat. Deks Olje D1 is a penetrating oil. This can be used as a stand-alone matt product, but overcoating it with Deks Olje D2 varnish gives a gloss ﬁnish.

ABOVE: Always decant into a separate pot before applying

SPECIALIST PRODUCTS

Two-pack varnishes have been around for a good 30 years and they are currently produced by all the single-pack manufacturers mentioned above apart from Le Tonkinois. They are particularly good for filling grain on bare wood and for quickly building up film thickness, as in most cases multiple coats can be applied in one day. In fact, two of Skippers’ products – Poliglass and Acriglass UV – can have as many as six coats applied in a day. The chemical bond negates the need to sand between coats – which is not only labour-saving but also contributes to the faster build-up by not rubbing any thickness away – although many professionals might give a light rub to avoid an accumulation of imperfections. The finish tends to be harder – particularly with polyurethane two-packs which is what most of them are – and has greater longevity and so a reduced need for subsequent maintenance coats. There downside is that they are more expensive and harder to apply than single-pack varnish, and as most of their hardeners contain isocyanates, there are considerably greater health and safety considerations. They are also less flexible, although this is less of a problem on cold-moulded or splined topsides, or on plywood. Acrylic two-packs are a little more flexible and a little easier than two-pack polyurethanes and they can also be polished which can be useful to remove dust from a less-than-perfect initial coating system or to breathe new life into a finish dulled by age.

WORDS NIGEL SHARP

Hempel’s Wood Impreg is another saturating primer – introduced on to the market within the last two years – which can be used as a base coat for any of the company’s single-pack varnishes. Awlgrip’s Awlwood is a single-pack moisture-activated acrylic urethane varnish. The application process (which starts with its own coloured primers) is universally acknowledged to be very quick and easy, while its quality of ﬁnish, its hardness and longevity is seen by many as almost revolutionary among single-pack products.

SINGLE-PACK VARNISHES

In recent years some varnishes have been specially formulated for oily tropical hardwoods such as teak and iroko. These include Jotun’s Benar Marine and also Epifanes Wood Finish Gloss Coelan, a single-pack product that comes with its own primer (pigmented red or yellow), has been on the market for about 30 years. It is extremely ﬂexible and has established a reputation for great durability, but it has a very short shelf life and there are varying opinions about the di culties of application.

Still the most popular kind. Brands include International and Hempel, Epifanes,Jotun, Awlgrip, Skippers and Le Tonkinois. Many of these are formulated from long-established recipes – Epifanes Clear Varnish, for instance, was first made in 1902, while Le Tonkinois’ recipe goes back 200 years – and still include natural ingredients such as tung oil, pressed from the seed of the Chinese tung tree. They are relatively inexpensive and easy to apply, and their flexibility is sympathetic to the movement, and expansion and contraction, of solid timber on traditional boats. Their downsides, however, compared with more modern alternatives, is that regular maintenance coats need to be applied, particularly in areas of high UV light. They are also relatively soft although some manufacturers produce a polyurethane version that gives a little more durability. While most single-pack varnishes have a gloss finish, some are available with a satin or matt finish for cabin interiors, and many others can have matting agents added to them.

99CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 ADVENTURE sailingventuresailholidays.comHOLIDAYSOver 200 skippered voyages to choose from on a variety of unique boats available for solo travellers and private charters. V EN TURESAIL No experiencesailingneeded! CORNWALL DEVON ISLES OF SCILLY SCOTLAND HEBRIDES & ST KILDA Anne T. Converse PHOTOGRAPHYMARINE•TRAVEL•EQUINEPEOPLEP.O.Box209Marion,MA02738|USA5087286210anne@annetconverse.comwww.annetconverse.com Untitled-147 1 01/03/2019 14:53ANNE T CONVERSE IBC CB Aug19.indd 1

POWERPULLING JAAP ORDING We meet the man known the world over as a maker of classic wooden blocks and deck gear WORDS STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES CLASSIC YACHTS 2022100

Jaap, when pushed a little, says he’d do his own blocks in elm, if he had a boat – which he doesn’t, not having all that much time for leisure. Besides, who wouldn’t take their own blockmaker for a sail? Jaap has as much time sailing on other people’s boats as he needs!

As for the metalwork, Ording blocks are o ered with the metal components in either aluminium bronze or 316 stainless steel. Like the woodwork, this is done in-house, so Jaap is a busy man, but a happy one, too: he might work 12-hour days in spring and summer, but “it’s never boring – it’s always a pleasure to go to work”.

Jaap makes a model using a 3-D printer, then works with a local caster who sand casts the item, which goes back to Ording forInﬁnishing.termsof blocks, Ording’s biggest ever was an 80cm ﬁddle block commissioned as a display model. The photo opposite shows Jaap holding 45cm triples, built for a cruise ship to hang a lamp. The biggest ever project was for the clipper ships Amsterdam and Oman, which needed 800 blocks each. “That was me, mum and dad...we brought in others too.”

Today, the idea of wooden block-making as a cottage industry sounds quite natural, but as Jaap Ording is quick to point out on the phone from his home in Haarlem, Netherlands, the wooden block was in fact “the ﬁrst industrialised product in the world.” The Royal Navy used an immense amount in the days of sail. Each of its ships would have around 1,000 blocks, and the annual RN block order was around 100,000 units a year. Jaap’s business today, although clearly busy and industrious, is a di erent story altogether. “Dad started the business in a shed in his parents’ back garden in 1970,” he says. George Ording and son started working mainly on the huge Dutch ﬂeet of classics, and the business soon spread into a dedicated workshop in Almere where it still is today. Jaap’s father worked until his death three years ago, but Jaap’s mother Barbara now 69, is still there. She is, in fact, the only other employee at Ording Blocks. “Covid was di cult. Projects slowed down. We are always at the end of the line,” Jaap explains, meaning that on any project, the riggers are the last to collect their pay. “The banking crisis was similarly di cult... but things are picking up now.”

In terms of timber types, George started o using elm, which is traditional for blocks. “Blocks were traditionally made in once piece with steel bindings around the outside. When the bindings are put on red hot like this, elm doesn’t burn too badly, which accounts for its popularity as the traditional block timber.” These days, Jaap makes blocks in ash as well, and teak, but the wood they most often use is black locust. “It’s very durable, easy to get hold of, but a bit harder to machine and ﬁnish.” That durability is an important point, given the maintenance shortfall in wooden blocks.

“Then there is a lot of sanding,” says Jaap. This stage – Ording Blocks is in the Netherlands, remember – is done on an old clog-sanding machine, which is a floor-standing sander, with a long, flexible, sprung, vertical belt. “This is important for the sanding of curvy things like blocks and clogs, as the fast-moving paper will conform to the contour of the work piece, so avoiding the risk of flat spots. It’s not a dangerous machine” Jaap says, “but it does hurt if it catches your fingers.”

“Maintenance with blocks is a problem. Many owners don’t maintain them well. They should really come down every year, but people don’t tend to know their boats as well as they used to. Ash is popular for the classics – I don’t know why! It’s very tough, but not rot-resistant. It has a very white appearance though, which might account for its appeal.”

Despite the company name – Ording Blocks – Jaap also o ers bespoke deckware, like cleats. “There is often deck hardware missing on classic projects. These are always custom jobs. Bronze and stainless steel bindings for masts, cleats and more.”

BLOCKSORDINGC/OPHOTO

The craftsmen of old might be surprised to learn that the ﬁne tradition of wooden block-making is in so few hands, but they’d surely be pleased that it remains in such good hands.

This is most likely with the smallest size that Ording o ers – the 6cm block, and for that reason, they are Jaap’s least favourite block to make. Next up is varnishing. Each block is dipped in Epifanes two-pack – “so the inside gets done as well”. Then a further ﬁve to six coats are added by spray, often more if the customer asks for it. The sheave and metalware are put in at the end. The sheaves are made by a local specialist, who will also make sheaves that run on ball-bearings, popular with racing sailors for the increased speed and ease of pull. There is a bit of noise about this at the moment but Jaap, who loves the history of blocks, is quick to point out that these have been around for at least a century, at least with rollers if not balls. “Herresho had ‘gliding’ or lubricated bearings. The good thing is that he drew everything, so a Herresho yacht can have Herresho blocks. To my knowledge, Watson, Fife and so on didn’t draw blocks, so you have to make a best guess.”

101CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 JAAP ORDING

The planks are then planed and glued together. The next stage is the CNC router, where the block shapes are cut out and drilled.

quality of the planks as they are cut.” The planks spend a year seasoning naturally outside, then one month in a kiln to get the timber down to the required 12 per cent moisture content.

The block-making process starts, of course, with timber procurement. Jaap starts o by buying trees – ash, for the purpose of the following example. “The Netherlands has a national forestry organisation that holds auctions once or twice a year, where you can inspect any logs before purchase.” Jaap takes his logs to the sawmill, operated by his long-standing sawyer, and inspects the logs carefully before they are reduced to planks. “I help with this – it’s a lot of fun, and you get to see the “The block was the ﬁrstproductindustrialisedintheworld”JAAPORDING

Brambling 102 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

Have you ever been lucky enough to visit the yard where your boat was built? Some may not still exist, but Berthon Boat Company, where my 8-ton Gauntlet Bardu was built 70 years ago, most certainly does. It’s been building boats since 1877 and since 1918 has been based at this site at Lymington, on Hampshire’s coast. The business was started by the Reverend Edward Lyon Berthon, following the successful design of his collapsible lifeboat in 1855, one of which can still be seen at the yard. Today, the yard is run by Brian and Dominic May with a sta of over 140, including 20 apprentices. It was their great grandfather Harry (HG) May who bought the yard in 1918, and who later designed and built the Gauntlet class. The 36ft 9in (11.2m) Gauntlet class resulted from an enquiry for a yacht by a Mr Berge in 1934; however, he decided on a di erent design built by Phillips of Dartmouth. Harry May was so incensed by this that he built his design anyway and challenged the Phillips boat to a race. By throwing down the gauntlet and winning the race handsomely, this now famous design was born. There’s a stunning model of the original Gauntlet, Brambling, in the o ce at Berthon. Berthon is a big site, providing a one stop-shop for boats, o ering a comprehensive range of services including climate-controlled spray painting and reﬁt sheds, all accessible using its 75-tonne hoist. It has a contract to service MOD small craft, and also services RNLI lifeboats.Inside the sheds there are a couple of classic gems. Firstly Ripple, a West Solent One Design, originally built by Berthon in 1925. The design was conceived in 1924 by HG May and is now being lovingly rebuilt by apprentices with laminated iroko frames with Alaskan yellow cedar planks. The pre-made teak deck is expected soon which will be ﬁtted as one Sailor Peter Smith visits the yard where his boat was built 70 years ago

BUILDING ON THE PAST BERTHON BOAT COMPANY

GauntlettheBELOW:inlifeboatCollapsibleABOVE:designed1855Modeloforiginal

complete piece. She will look stunning when back on the water next year. On my visit, I met shipwright Martin Young, who has worked at Berthon since 1972, first as an apprentice. He will retire soon after 50 years, but not before he and other chargehands and foremen have passed their skills on to the next generation of apprentices.Forward from Ripple lies Sardonyx, a 12m (40ft) 1957 bermudan sloop designed by Fred Parker and built by Moody, also being comprehensively restored. This yacht is similar to another Fred Parker design, her smaller sibling Brynhilde, which was originally built in 1958, and restored by Berthon last year under the rules of Lloyds Register to A1. Parker’s association with Berthon Boat Company started in 1927 with a five-year apprenticeship, after which he continued to work at Berthon on design and There’s a third Fred Parker out in Berthon’s 280-berth marina called Phizz, a bermudan sloop built in 1951. Bardu was the last Gauntlet to be built when she was finished in 1951, and draftsman Jim Hazel who helped build her is still in contact with the yard. On the day of my visit, to my further delight, senior project manager Ian Stables unrolled the original drawings of her general arrangement and sail plan; still stunningly beautiful. There are details and line drawings too. Five 8-ton Gauntlets were built: Mitten 1937, Nausikaa 1939, Miranda of Lleyn 1950, Gay wind 1950 and Bardu 1951. In 2027, Berthon will celebrate 150 years. Wouldn’t it be nice if the Gauntlets and WSODs could return to their birthplace to help mark the anniversary? Today, Berthon is a busy modern yard but one that has deep history and the skills to restore and build classic yachts. I left thinking: what about another Gauntlet or West Solent One Design?

SolentABOVE:WestOneDesign Ripple RIGHT: Fred designedParker-Phizz LEFT: The BELOWshedshadowlessnewsprayLEFT: Sardonyx BELOW RIGHT: drawingsaccommodationOriginalofBarduRight: Papoose RIGHT: directorManagingBrianMay

EAST CLASSICCOASTYARD SUFFOLK YACHT HARBOUR

WORDS STEFFAN MEYRIC

The two dinghies in progress are a 14ft Wright & Son sailing dinghy, from 1967, that’s just had a re-varnish, three new timbers and a new trailer; and Jonathan Dyke’s own 16ft (5m) larch on oak open boat from the 1880s, originally a working pulling boat, and later a sailing Winkle Brig in local races. Jonathan’s father had the boat in commission before Jonathan was born, and now she’s on her way back to the water once again.

HUGHES 104 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

ABOVE LEFT: Helen ABOVEJonathanTimoa,co-ownerPorter,ofandDykeRIGHT: Ryegate re-launched

We have a quick look around an attractive wooden IOD, the popular 33ft (10m) racing class of yachts. This one, Whisper, was one of the last built in wood, in 1965. She’s just had quite a bit of work too – structural hull frame repairs this season. Next to her is a GRP – but quite attractive – early 1970s Swan that has just had a deck refurb.

Avisit to Su olk Yacht Harbour (SYH) is always interesting, for the breadth of restoration work on show. On a recent visit to this idyllic site, on the River Orwell on England’s east coast, it was to see Ryegate finished, a project that’s been in the shed for five years, as the owner grew increasingly ambitious about what should be done. SYH originally had her brought to the yard from the lower reaches of the Severn, where she was lying in a sorry state. The 30ft (9.1m), Gibbs-built, single-screw motor yacht has had so much done over the last three or four years that it would be impossible to list it here. The yard’s MD Jonathan Dyke was on hand to show me around, and we both marvelled at the tiny little ship with its surprisingly usable, and highly original interior. One thing that is always a dead cert at SYH is a Stella being doctored. Kim Holman’s lovely little (26ft/8m) post-war clinker sloops are, as a fleet, beginning to feel their age; they were built lightly to race, and economically. Now, Timoa is taking a bold step into new territory by being completely sheathed on the exterior; it’s either that or a refastening at best or a rebuild at worst. The class association has given its blessing and we’ll follow Timoa with some interest, as others in the class have expressed an interest in the same treatment. Sheathing is controversial, but as Jonathan points out, it saved Pen Duick for Eric Tabarly, among others over the years. And when you do it properly and dry the timber (to 6 per cent moisture content in this case), the idea becomes very compelling. By contrast, another Stella in the yard, Stardust, is receiving a stop-gap solution common to the class that will keep her going as original for a while, and this is the fixing of thin battens to the lands to keep the boat watertight.

MERMAID The most challenging boat, perhaps, is the amazing Mermaid. She’s clearly to the lines of a working vessel – oyster smack perhaps – but was actually built as a yacht in 1860, making her one of the oldest sailing yachts in the world. Currently, the yard is redesigning the interior, repainting, revarnishing, and moving the engine forward to just behind the mast for better weight distribution. It seems clear that more jobs will follow in time. This could turn out to be a really big project.

Sail and power, little and large, old and new... it’s all here

FROMCLOCKWISETOP: Timoa (left) ready sheathingfor and Mermaid in the boardRobertdinghy;Johnathan’sworkshop;craftsmanClarke;On Whisper having new frames ﬁtted

FINISH LINE GREEN COATINGS 106 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 WORDS NIGEL SHARP

“A traditional polishing antifoul works on erosion, so over time the product wears away as water passes over it, and it then releases new biocide to the surface”

Tim Bannister, Technical Support Specialist at Akzo Nobel

But chemists have been working hard to ensure antifouling e cacy is maintained. “We don’t have to put 500 grams of copper into a product to make it work any more,” said Chris Toole, Product Manager at Hempel UK. “You can now put 50 grams in because actually the other 450 would just dissolve and sit in sediment.” Tim Sexton, Marine Manager at Jotun UK, added, “It’s all about clever resin chemistry that sticks the biocide particles together and to the boat, allowing controlled management of the biocide leaching rate, releasing just enough biocide for high performance.” Paint and biocide manufacturers have ongoing research projects to discover less harmful biocides one of which, for instance, is actually a horse tranquilliser which literally sends to sleep any animal organisms which get near to a hull so that they then just drift away. But there are other alternatives to traditional antifoulings. One of those is generally known as a foul release system which is essentially a biocide-free, inert silicon coating which has a very low surface tension which stops fouling from adhering to it. These are produced, for instance, by International Paints (Intersleek), Hempel (Silic One), Jotun (Seaquest) and Ocean Coatings (Defender). A barrier coat allows them to be applied onto existing traditional antifoulings and they generally last a lot longer than traditional antifoulings before they need overcoating. But they have disadvantages. Firstly, unless extreme care is taken, there is a risk of silicon contamination of other surfaces of the boat (or even neighbouring boats) during application, which will seriously hinder subsequent application of other paints and varnishes; for optimum performance, they rely on a ﬂow of water over the hull, so they are much more suitable for commercial craft that are mostly

“A traditional polishing antifoul works on erosion, so over time the product wears away as water passes over it, and it then releases new biocide to the surface,” said Tim Bannister, Technical Support Specialist at Akzo Nobel which makes International and Awlgrip paints This problem was far worse in the years before regulations came into force, when the general policy amongst paint manufacturers was to use the strongest possible biocides – as well as arsenic, lead, mercury and tin – as they were, not surprisingly, most e ective at reducing fouling. As regulations have been tightened, the number of allowable biocides has been reduced, from something like 50 three decades ago to about 10 now (in fact in some parts of the world, such as California and Sweden, biocides are now almost banned altogether).

We all need paint. Our houses, our cars and, of course, our boats are covered in the stu . Sometimes we apply it ourselves and sometimes we employ professionals to do so, but either way we want to know that it will look good and that it is of a high enough quality to protect wood from rotting, steel or aluminium from corroding and GRP from osmosis, and to minimise the fouling of underwater surfaces. But it is an inescapable fact that many paints can have serious consequences for the environment and for people’s health, not only during their manufacture and application, but throughout their lifetime of protection and even when they are ultimately removed and disposed of. As time goes on, regulatory bodies introduce new rules to diminish these consequences, but does that mean that paints are becoming less e ective, or is the hard work of the paint manufacturing companies’ research chemists keeping up? The biggest culprits are probably traditional antifoulings. Not only do they emit VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds which are present in solvents) into the atmosphere during their manufacture and application (as do all other solvent-based paints) but they also leach biocides into the water throughout their useful lifetimes.

The race towards ecologically sound coatings is in full ﬂow. These days, antifouls can be anything from horse tranquiliser to physical remedies inspired by sea urchins.

107CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 WEEK;CLASSICBRITISHSHOT:MAIN YACHTSHINCKLEYNOBELAKZOINSET

Nothing leaches out of the wrap and, Sam assured me, “the material is rigorously tested to make sure the nylon hairs are robustly held in the adhesive substrate.” The wrap is guaranteed for ﬁve years although the company expects it to work for longer than that. To renew it, the old wrap needs to be removed by “applying heat and pressure” before a new one is applied.

None of the above alternative systems is completely maintenance free during its lifetime, as they will all beneﬁt from regular cleaning just as conventional antifoulings do (and the e ectiveness of all solutions will, of course, vary from locality to locality).

Another alternative is Coppercoat which has been on the market for about 30 years. This is a water-based, VOC-free epoxy resin which is ﬁlled with recycled copper powder. It can be applied straight on to GRP gelcoat or bare timber (and will also then provide a similar protection to those materials as a conventional epoxy would). Its average life expectancy is claimed to be 10 to 15 years, after which a new coating scheme can be applied on top of the old. It does leach copper into the sea but only, according to scientiﬁc tests, between 1.4 and 1.9 micrograms per square centimetre per day. “To put that into context,” Coppercoat’s MD Jason Kenny told me, “the limit in California, which is the toughest place to get approval, is nine micrograms. That means that almost all traditional antifoulings are not allowable in California.”

ABOVE LEFT: Rik Breur of Finsulate ABOVE RIGHT: A yacht wrapped with hairsRIGHT:FinsulateNylonofFinsulate

Furthermore, the system works best if it is ﬁtted in conjunction with an antifouling coating so it is not intended to be an absolute alternative.

“The material is rigorously tested to make sure the nylon hairs are robustly held in the adhesive substrate” Sam Mason, Finsulate UK

108 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 GREEN COATINGS under way at speed, rather than the typical, relatively slow recreational boats which spend most of their time moored (this is true, to some extent, of any antifouling, but more so with foul release systems); their coatings are quite soft (which they need to be to maximise the foul release capability) and so are susceptible to damage (from collision with ﬂoating objects or even from slings and hull supports in boatyards), and repair is not straightforward. With regard to this last issue, according to Keith MacGregor of Ocean Coatings, Defender’s adhesive (primer) coat “is very, very tough, as a result of which the silicon top coating is mechanically tougher than it would otherwise be”.

Finsulate is a system which has been available in Europe for about seven years but has only recently been introduced to the UK. It was developed by Dutch material scientist Dr Rik Breur who drew inspiration from sea urchins which are covered in tiny spines which prevent fouling from attaching to them. The product comes in the form of a self-adhesive wrap (750mm wide in the case of the Seagrade which is suitable for displacement boats) the outside of which is covered with a ﬁne mesh of nylon spines which e ectively minimises the potential contact area for fouling. “Application is readily learned, but it takes a certain knack, and needs a level of experience,” said Finsulate UK’s Sam Mason.

“At the moment we are sending our team of expert installers to wherever they are needed, but we plan to train the people who would usually do the antifouling so that in time they can be certiﬁed to apply the product.”

“The limit in California, which is the toughest place to get approval, is 9 mircograms. That means that almost all traditional antifoulings are not allowable in California” Jason Kenny, Coppercoat MD

A very di erent alternative comes in the form of ultrasound, a system which emits tiny high-frequency sounds from one or more transducers ﬁtted inside the hull to discourage growth on the outside. It has one hugely signiﬁcant disadvantage though, certainly for many readers of this magazine, as it doesn’t work on wooden boats. “The sound resonates within the material,” said Nick Gri n of Ultrasonic Antifouling Ltd, the original company to develop this system, “and it can’t jump from one plank to another, but more importantly, it just gets absorbed by the wood.”

“Unless you completely stop doing things, which we’re not going to do, you always have to balance the di erent aspects and decide what’s the best way forward,” said Phil Horton, environment and sustainability manager at the RYA. “The key things, as far as we are concerned, are to think carefully about what is the best material for your boat in your particular situation, rather than just go to a chandlery and buy the ﬁrst thing you see on the shelf; then to apply your paint properly so you don’t have to keep redoing it and keep using more material; and if you remove old coatings, do so safely, be careful to capture all of the old material as it comes o , and dispose of it properly while treating it as hazardous waste.”

Epoxies, as Tim Bannister told me, “are still the stalwart of protective coatings – full stop.” One essential component of most epoxies is bisphenol. There are many di erent forms of bisphenol, a few of which have already been banned on the basis that they can be harmful to humans, but regulatory authorities are currently taking a close look at all bisphenols. The general consensus in the paint industry seems to be that if they had to produce epoxies without bisphenols, they would be of inferior quality and therefore be a much less e ective protective coating, which is where the “best available technology” argument comes in. That argument has also recently been successfully used in the case of isocyanates, albeit with some compromise. Nearly all two-pack polyurethane topcoats contain isocyanates which are known to also be harmful to humans and on that basis, the regulatory authorities tried to ban them completely.

“The key thing is to think carefully about what is the best material for your boat, in your particular situation”

While paint manufacturers are increasingly doing their best to use responsible ingredients in their products, there is clearly a very di cult balance between doing the right thing for the environment and making sure that products still perform.

Many paints for cars and houses are now water-based rather than solvent-based and, although marine paints seem to have been left behind with this, they are beginning to catch up in an attempt to reduce, or even eliminate, VOC emissions (Jotun’s Pilot WF, water-based primer being one example). Some people’s intuitive perception might be that a water-based product won’t work on a boat which is going to spend most of its life in the water but, in this context, solvent and water serve the same purpose, which is to reduce the viscosity of a product so it can be easily applied; and once the paint has cured, the water has evaporated (just as a solvent does) and is no longer present in the cured coating.

Paint manufacturers have previously been able to resist regulatory bodies’ potential new restrictions with the “best available technology” argument. Of course, we would all agree that, from an environmental point of view, it is in everyone’s interests for paints not to contain any chemicals that are harmful to people or the environment. But at the same time, paints need to be good enough to do the job they are intended to do. If paints were only available in an inferior quality compared to what we have now, more of it would have to be manufactured and applied, and more often. Furthermore, they would protect the assets that they need to protect less e ectively and so those assets might rot, rust or decompose in some other way and may ultimately have to be scrapped. In the case of antifoulings, vessels would transport more “invasive species” between di erent areas (any fouling system which was applied badly, is damaged or is simply in need of re-applying already does) and fuel consumption would increase. All of that, too, is bad for the environment.

109CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 GREEN COATINGS

To ﬁnish on a lighter note, Kate Moss, an ex-paint development chemist and now of the Knot Agency who represent Jotun, told me that adding chilli powder, no matter how potent, is an old wives’ tale and will probably only result in sore eyes for the person adding it. It has been tested as a boosting biocide, but didn’t show any e cacy. Indeed, if it had worked, all the paint manufacturers would be using it as it is a cheap, environmentally friendly solution!

Phil Horton, RYA

But after some lobbying from various paint companies using the “best available technology” argument, it was agreed that, from next year, products containing isocyanates can no longer be applied by a DIY applicator, but still can be by a professional who has been through a training course for the safe use in handling of isocyanates. (As it happens, whatever the apparent advantages of two-pack paints, most, maybe all, paint manufactures would strongly advise that traditionally-built wooden boats should only be coated with single-pack paints whose ﬂexibility better suits inevitable plank movement). And it is highly likely that, before long, the application of an increasing number of products will be restricted to trained professionals.

ABOVE: Coatings from productsDefenderBELOW:Jotun

EPOXIES AND WATER-BASED PAINTS

POSITIONPOLE The 1930 schooner Viveka was a sleeper in California for half a century. Now she’s winning in the Med WORDS STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES PHOTOS JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

112 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 VIVEKA

ABOVE LEFT: A keen crew has brought success for Viveka in the Med Galley,ABOVEregattasRIGHT:andrest of the interior, predominantlyis in mahogany with black traditionalchamferedtimbercappedbeamslaminateddetailing.walnutThedeckareinsolidandforthelook

Fast-forward to 2012. The Olympics had come to London, making it the first city in the world to hold the games three times. Great Britain was, pound for pound, taking more medals than any other nation, and nearly a billion people around the world watched on. Around this time, British sailor Rob Gray was looking at the magnificent, restored steam yacht Cangarda with its saviour, boatbuilder Je Rutherford, when he saw two masts in the distance. Soon he was crunching over mussel shells in a graveyard marina to have a look. “That’s always fatal”, says Rob now. It was, of course, Viveka. He knocked on the companion and was answered by a living legend, a man known to you or me as Merl Peterson, but to those who knew his feats, as the President of the Pacific. “Merl was an incredible man and it is a privilege to have known him,” remembers Rob. The late Merl Peterson, then in his 80s, had by that point owned Viveka for 57 years, the latter 20 or so as a liveaboard. He had kept the boat going on a modest budget, the old-fashioned way that included a recipe that came to be known as ‘Merlcrete’, an impregnable mix of epoxy and other bits. Merl had sailed Viveka far and wide, including at least one circumnavigation. Much of this was single-handed, which speaks volumes for the handiness of a staysail schooner rig. Rob agreed a sum for Viveka with Merl, but not wishing to harry him from his home, lodged the

Stepping o the plane onto the deck of Viveka this late May, everything seemed new. At Voiles d’Antibes there was a sensation of waking from a bad dream, with bare feet on teak, sunny skies, hard shadow lines, laughter, cold beer and groups of friends hugging each other for maybe the first time in two or three years. The sky was washed pure blue and it seemed the planet had rebooted for Antibes, back in its rightful early summer slot as the opener of the classic yacht-racing season in the Mediterranean. Also new was the staysail schooner Viveka, winner of our 2022 award for the best restored sailing vessel over 40ft. Actually, she’s 92 years old, but her near-complete rebuild at Rutherford’s Boatshop in California, her unusual staysail schooner rig, and the fact she’s never raced on the Med circuit before, made her the boat to watch. On deck, skipper Gery Atkins is giving a quick briefing. “New boat, new crew” he says at one point, making it clear he expects neither breakages nor miracles. Despite a low-key showing at the Palma Vela in October 2021, this is really a boat still shaking down for a new chapter of her life, and nobody would expect a good result right now. Amid the heady summer holiday scent of sun cream, we head out for a day of sail-changes before the big race, the engine in the bows almost silent. Frank Paine (1890 – 1952) was one of a band of brilliant east coast American designers in the first half of the century. In 1912, Paine joined Starling Burgess’s aeronautical business in Marblehead Mass, and after World War One, he and Burgess founded the yacht design firm of Burgess and Paine, employing among others L Francis Herresho and Norman L Skene. Flight was in its infancy. Speed records on land, air and sea were falling all over the world, and hydrodynamic and aerodynamic lift were on the mind of every automotive designer. In the same o ce, under Paine’s mentorship, was Raymond Hunt, who would go on to design the deep-vee hull and the world’s most popular outboard boat – the Boston Whaler. What a heady time that must have been, as these brilliant, brave young designers breathed the heady air of unlimited possibility, and looked to a future defined by their ideas. This was the crucible that created Viveka Paine, unusually, split his attention between the International and Universal classes, drawing a number of successful 6-Ms, 8-Ms, R and Q-Class yachts. He is best known for the J-Class Yankee, which he designed in 1929 to defend the America’s Cup the following year. Also in 1929, Paine, showing the breadth of his practice, drew Thebaud, the last American fishing schooner to vie for the International Fishermen’s Cup, the race for the Grand Banks fishing schooners. There was a third boat designed that year too. She was a 72ft staysail schooner built to racing yacht lines. It’s said she measures to the 12-M rule, but it’s not been ratified. Either way, in 1930, Viveka (originally named Joan II) was launched from the Fred Lawley yard in Quincy, Massachusetts for an owner who wanted a fast cruiser. That owner was none less tan JP Morgan Jr. Not a lot else is yet known about Viveka’s early history, but it’s thought that she served in the war, by then named Seaweed, as part of the so-called Hooligan Navy, a government-requisitioned fleet of yachts used as spotter patrols on both coasts of the USA.

VIVEKA THE CRUISING LIVEABOARD

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: The saloon; crew at Antibes, with skipper Gery second from left, front row, and owner’s son Alex, race helm at Antibes, third from left, back row; nav station theelectronics;integratescleverlymodernﬂyingﬁsherman.

A familiar story now played out. What started in 2013 as a partial restoration became a complete rebuild. Planking that had looked good turned out to be brittle. In the end, all the frames and planking were replaced like for like.

Viveka, in common with many quality US yachts of the era, is double-skinned in two layers of fore-and-aft planking, in this case with a mahogany outer and an inner of yellow cedar. Naval architect Jim Antrim, who had been on the team since Viveka came ashore, had worked out a new general arrangement. The thinking here was to preserve authenticity and originality where practicable. There would not, for instance, be a half-tonne iron cooking range in the bows, but Jim thought the boat had the buoyancy up there to take an engine, a single 130hp Nanni diesel with a hydraulic transmission to two bronze sail drives mounted on each stern quarter. This unconventional arrangement means the diesel is in its own spacious engine room, the living quarters are left undisturbed and cockpit noise is minimal.

BELOW: Each of the 76 bronze ﬂoors is new and cast to a unique

The deck comes back in roughly eight pieces, with 8ft (2.6m) ﬁnger joints making the seams invisible. “It doesn’t save a whole load of money – but it saves a couple of weeks over the six to do it the usual way.”

The year 2020 began with the pandemic and ended with a controversial presidential election that would lead to the storming of the Capitol. In the late summer, it must have seemed as though California was ablaze, as the state saw its biggest forest fires on record. Work on Viveka continued in an atmosphere that was sometimes politically heated, and on one occasion the real heat of nearby fires caused a wind that blew a tent down, nearly destroying a mast. Mark Niall, a 25-year-old boatbuilder from Australia, serving on Viveka as sailing first mate, said: “I’ve never been involved in such a dynamic group of people than at Rutherford. The talent – Je ’s reach – is justOnehuge.”early morning in October 2020, tra c stopped, as two new spruce masts built in-house (Viveka’s rig was kept largely original) made their way down the street from Rutherford’s to the sea, where Viveka was waiting afloat, having made a similar journey herself. Soon after that, she sailed away from the smouldering landscape of fire and pestilence, and under the Golden Gate Bridge, bound for Mexico, there to travel as deck cargo through the Panama Canal, and onto Palma in Spain, her new home port.

“You never know what you’re buying if it’s already done. And I really enjoyed the million decisions that had to be made. With wooden boats, if it’s not wood, it must be cast in a foundry! There’s part of me in the boat now.”

“They are fishing,” laughs Stjepan. The big ‘kite’ (jib) goes up instead of the dying golliwobbler. The wind has dropped to three knots. We’ve been out a few hours, switching to lighter and bigger sails, but it looks as though fun is finally over for the day. We are virtually becalmed on a flat sea set rolling by the wakes of the big motor yachts in the bay. A steady procession of helicopters thump by overhead, bound for Monaco. Over the next few days, Keith’s son Alex, a capable yachtsman and enthusiastic racer in his own right, helms Viveka around the cans. The result? First in class. The classic world has a vigorous new campaigner, one that will be gunning for more silverware at regattas to come, a future for which she’s well prepared.

VIVEKA THE RACE-WINNER

114 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 VIVEKA money with a lawyer and asked Merl to call him if and when the time came. When that call came, Je Rutherford was ready to start work.

cappingunvarnishedbowsprit,capstan;rebuiltoriginalrefurbishedcompasslevers;starboardport–enginesteeringpedestaloriginalperiodbronzeunderstateddetailCompanionwayFROMCLOCKWISEOPPOSITE,patternTOPLEFT:showinginsetportholes;wheelonbronzeandgear;controlsthrottleandanddriveMerl’swithpatina;bronzeshortwithteakrail

In 2019, Rob, with other commitments, sold the boat to a new owner, his friend Sir Keith Mills, a Royal Thames YC member, former CEO of the London Olympic bid, and a keen sailor who has owned a TP52 and Farr 40 over the years. He was also heavily involved with Team Origin then Land Rover BAR for Ben Ainslie.

“Racing GP boats is a challenge as I grow older,” said Keith. “When I looked at Viveka, I could see by the hull lines she was going to be quick.” The project continued, now under Keith, and with future skipper Gery Atkins and his girlfriend (now wife), Maria moving to California for a year to oversee and help on the project. The other

As soon as we are out in the bay of Antibes, Gery announces tacking practice: six tacks, one every two minutes. The number two is hanked on to practise peels. Croatian helm Stjepan says Viveka will sail as close to 500 in flat water, 520 in the rough. Now we bear away under twin headsails, staysail and fisherman, but there’s only 5-6 knots of wind by this point. The staysail and fisherman come down and the golliwobbler goes up. Looking around the cockpit, it’s apparent that the staysail schooner is not only closer-winded than the magnificent ga schooners, but far easier to understand. The mainsheet goes on purchases to the horse, then down to the aft-quarter winches. There are cockpit winches for the jib and runners. Staysail and halyard winches at the mast complete the picture. We tack. The main is almost centred. The stay and jib are fuller, outside the bulwarks. “We need to keeps things soft” mutters Gery, an experienced schooner man. We spot a pod of dolphins breaching erratically.

attraction for Keith is that the yacht was in development.

The deck was built entirely o site at Teak Decking Systems in Florida. “I thought at ﬁrst – you can’t pre-fab a deck!” said Je , who’s now used this solution several times. Amazingly though, you can, after carefully making a pattern in ply and shipping it to the company.

115CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 VIVEKA VIVEKA DESIGNED Frank C Paine BUILT Fred Lawley, 1930 LOA 72ft 9in (22.2m) LWL 48ft (14.6m) BEAM 14ft (4.3m) DRAUGHT c9ft (2.7m) DISPLACEMENT 36.6 tonnes CONSTRUCTION laminatedDouble-planked,frame

Six decades after a sensational line honours win, she took on the Rolex Fastnet Race again in 2021. We trace the story of Stormvogel WORDS ROB PEAKE MAXISOFFIRSTTHETHE

BORLENGHI/ROLEX Approaching the ﬁnish o Cherbourg in the 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race, 60 years after she won the race

Trimming was 19, the South African Naval Academy’s Seaman of the Year, but with no boatbuilding experience, when he found himself on the build site in Stellenbosch, one of three people who would oversee the realisation of Bruynzeel’s dream. He recalls: “I was engaged on 1 July, 1960. Only the hull lines had been lofted onto a scrieveboard. A big khaya log was being rotary veneer peeled for the hull planking. Only the afrormosia keel was in place. Not much progress. Launch date was scheduled for February, 1961, with departure mid-February with the last of the strong SE winds, before the adverse NW arrived in April.”They had eight months to construct the most advanced ocean racing yacht ever built. In their favour was the fact that Bruynzeel’s factory was adept at manufacturing industrial wooden laminated beams and plywood, and it employed many experienced woodworkers. Similarly, timber-sourcing was not a problem. The factory’s trusted timber agent selected prime logs: khaya mahogany came from Nigeria for the hull planking; sapele from the Ivory Coast for the interior veneer panels; American White Oak came from the Appalachian mountains in Virginia for the laminated and steam-bent frames; afrormosia from Cameroon for the keel; spruce from northern Finland for the longitudinal stringers; sipo from Nigeria for the plywood bulkheads, longitudinal girders and hull ceilings; and Kiaat, a rare South African wood, for the elegant toerail cap and wheel.

118 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 STORMVOGEL Day one of the August 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race – brutal. The fleet banged its way up the Solent into 30-knot headwinds, then as the tide turned o the Needles, a wind-overtide situation developed that none of the sailors there will forget. By mid-afternoon the recent winner of the Vendée Globe had turned for home, a 70ft round-theworld multihull limped in with an exploded winch drum, a 60ft racing catamaran dismasted, a glut of the latest, out-and-out race yachts turned tail and headed for the nearest port. Thirty boats retired by nightfall and many more were to follow suit. One of the oldest boats in the fleet, meanwhile, ploughed on. At the helm was the man who has owned her for four decades. By his side stood her long-time skipper, pleased to see the recent refit was standing the old girl in good stead. Her international crew, a collection of first-class, mostly amateur sailors, worked her hard, despite the conditions.Shewas Stormvogel, on a mission to mark the 60th anniversary of her winning Fastnet line honours in 1961, when she was navigated by Chichester.

“We weren’t throttling back, we were pushing her all the way,” says skipper Graeme Henry. “O Hurst the waves got steeper and you had to be careful, but we had the power and she pushed her way through. A lot of boats retired, but here you’ve got a 60-year-old boat and we were still racing.”

DESIGN TRIUMVIRATE Stormvogel, though, is more than just a great boat in heavy weather. She’s a step forward in yacht design history, as radical in the early 1960s as the latest foiling Vendée Globe yachts are today. She was the brainchild of her owner, a Dutch construction timber manufacturer called Cornelius Bruynzeel, and she was the product of not one but three great naval architects – Ericus ‘Ricus’ van de Stadt, Laurent Giles and John Illingworth. If a collaboration between such talents seems doomed to failure, on this occasion the three cooks did not spoil the broth, but Stormvogel’s build and her subsequent maiden year afloat, when she stunned the yachting world, were achieved against the odds. Perhaps like the petrel she is named after, Stormvogel revels in living life the hard way. Certainly there would have been easier places to build a state-of-the-art yacht than rural Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 1960. Cees Bruynzeel had moved there after WW2, having left his Dutch family business making plywood kitchens. He replicated the plywood factory at Stellenbosch, where his wife Titia, a Dutch Reformed Calvinist, loved the Huguenot vineyards. Bruynzeel was a keen sailor and had won the Fastnet Race in 1937 on corrected time in Zeearend, a Sparkman & Stephens heavy displacement yawl. He subsequently did further Fastnets in small, light displacement boats designed by Van de Stadt, namely the 12.5m Zeevalk and 9m Zeeslang in 1956. Both yachts were hard chine construction, built of Bruynzeel plywood. He became convinced that light displacement was the key if you wanted to be first boat home. But to win an o shore race like the Fastnet, one that would almost certainly see heavyBruynzeelweather?resolved to build light, but big. A radical, ‘planing’ yacht, capable of surfing downwind at high speed in strong winds. He wanted a boat with the longest waterline length allowed – 70ft (23m) – under the rating rules of the Royal Ocean Racing Club and the Cruising Club of America.

ARRIGO/ROLEXKURTPHOTOS:FASTNETMAINALL

“He was not an engineer or even a talented sailor, but he had evolved a conceptual idea, for what we would now call a Maxi,” says Michael Trimming, who became an integral part of Stormvogel’s build and first year afloat. “Cees had an iron will and indomitable determination. He was a loner, abrasive and inflexible at times, but capable of silently conceding.”

TRIMMINGMICHAELPHOTOS:BUILDB&WALL

RoundingABOVE: the Fastnet Rock in the 2021 race BELOW: Ray Hartman with the Khaya mahogany log, Mahogany’speciﬁedtoaccuratewastoveneers,thebutpreferred1960;Stellenbosch,BruynzeelSipoaftertestsfor3/8”thickchangedKhaya,whichalsoamorematchLaurentGiles’‘African

MAIN Fastnet2021,Saint-TropezVoilesRacingPICTURE:atLesdeINSET:2021

120 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 STORMVOGEL

Trimming recalls: “Life on board in 1961, without the equipment and luxuries of 2021, was reasonably comfortable. Food was well-organised by Jenifer and we relied on a para n stove, which was an evil smelling beast, but functioned okay. Food was mostly divided

Stormvogel was launched on 25 April, 1961. There was a three-hour sea trial to test one set of sails (“and primarily to do a photo shoot for the press”, adds Trimming), before the crew of 15 departed Cape Town on 3 May, heading for Europe.

“This proved to be a ﬂawed decision,” Trimming says, “which left all three designers perplexed and caused some considerable interface problems and delays. They formally collaborated, but it soon became apparent during the build process that there should have been just one lead designer.”

Trimming, who was also on board for the trip north, says: “Cees was desperately anxious to sail, because he was already convinced that we would arrive too late to participate in Cowes Week and prepare the boat for the Fastnet Race. Cees reminded us that Stormvogel’s 1961 Fastnet Race would be the fulﬁlment of his life’s dream, and that we must not waste the money, time and e ort by arriving late for our ‘date with destiny’.”

The young Trimming dealt personally with the designers, at times having to work out the right way forwards through conﬂicting technical information – and hampered all the time by slow international communications. Meanwhile he sketched dorade vents, hatches and more for the local craftsmen to construct.

Bruynzeel had models of each tested in the SandersRoe towing tank, at the University of Southampton. The Van de Stadt round bilge design had the best characteristics, but still the Dutch o ce had no time. So it was that Bruynzeel decreed that Van de Stadt would design the hull, the keel and the rudder, Illingworth would work out the rig plan, and Giles would take care of the construction plans and the overall co-ordination.

The build team was led by Bruynzeel, with Ray Hartman and Trimming on site. Key components came in locally from Cape Town and from all over the world, not least the keel, rudder, standing rigging and Sparcraft masts, a total of 17 sails from Ratsey & Lapthorn and the Merriman co ee-grinder pedestal winch, all of which arrived less than a fortnight before departure from Cape Town. “It was,” Trimming recalls drily, “a major assembly challenge.”

But as Trimming remembers, the undertaking was far from straightforward: “Deliveries of equipment from USA and Europe were slow and it was a nerve-wracking experience. Very little could be sent by air. Most came on mail ships, which had varied schedules and sailing times of two weeks from Europe.” Bruynzeel had initially asked Van de Stadt to design the boat. However, Van de Stadt’s Zaandam drawing o ce was busy at the end of 1959, so Bruynzeel turned to Olin Stephens. He, however, was not interested in the light displacement, planing idea. He proposed a variation of Bolero, a 72ft heavy displacement yawl. Bruynzeel declined and went instead to the English designer Laurent Giles, who did have experience of building large, lightweight wooden hulls. While Giles was still working on a preliminary design, Bruynzeel by chance met Illingworth. Bruynzeel ended up with two very di erent designs, from Giles and Illingworth. He asked Van de Stadt for his preference, but the Dutchman appeared not to be enthusiastic about either, so over the following weekend laid down his own basic lines, giving Bruynzeel a third option.

It is credit to the build team and skilled Cape Malay craftsmen that the project was completed at all. In fact, it was completed in exemplary fashion. In 1993, Stormvogel was surveyed by Seabird Consultants of Singapore, who issued a General Condition Survey Report and Valuation. The report said: “There is no doubt that this yacht was built to the highest standards by craftsmen one does not often ﬁnd these days.”

Skipper Gordon Webb ran a tight ship, the dual aim of the voyage being to train up the race crew for the Fastnet. With him was wife Jenifer and their four-monthold baby Linda, kept safe in a hammock cot.

RIGHT: pioneer”“plywoodBruynzeel,CeestheLEFT:CuttingfromthetimeOPPOSITECLOCKWISEFROMTOP:Postrefitsaloon;aclassicBekenshot,otheIsleofWightin1961;refittednavstationandcockpitLEFTfromthetimeOPPOSITECLOCKWISEFROMTOP:refitsaloon;aclassicBekenshot,otheIsleofWightin1961;refittednavstationandcockpit

CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

CHICHESTER COMES ABOARD Francis Chichester, famous after winning the 1960 OSTAR, was the obvious choice to assist with Stormvogel’s ‘date with destiny’. Bruynzeel was race skipper, with Webb the sailing master, Chichester the navigator and Frans Hin on weather. Trimming was assigned to carry out navigational tasks for Chichester.

Stormvogel could not defend her Fastnet crown. She was second in the next edition in 1963, beaten by less than an hour over the line by the S&S Capricia. Bruynzeel may have been disappointed at the time, but over the next few years he claimed many more line honours victories all over the world – the Middle Sea Race, the Bermuda Race, China Sea Race, Sydney-Hobart, the Transpac and more. To make a modernday comparison, Stormvogel was the Rambler, Comanche or Wild Oats of her era, adding a lustre to the international yacht races that she attended, very much the boat to beat. In between, she sailed around Cape Horn, survived a collision with a whale and did numerous ocean passages, covering 159,000 nautical miles in her first seven years afloat, an incredible 22,700 miles every year. Bruynzeel, indeed, was a keen yachtsman and he was ably assisted by first-class skippers. He had built Stormvogel to mark his 60th birthday and passed the yacht on at the age of 75 to its second owner, Werner Mattman. By then, Stormvogel was becoming outclassed on the racecourse and she enjoyed a quieter life, in the Mediterranean and Caribbean, owned by Adriano Goldschmit, until in 1982 she was bought by the man who owns her still. Stormvogel has had four owners.

As Stormvogel headed past west Africa, a debate ensued between Webb and Bruynzeel over whether to leave the Cape Verde Islands to port or starboard. Bruynzeel was keen to save time by cutting the corner “in conﬂict with the pilot book”.

It proved to be a race-winning move. “Unknown to us at the time, Stormvogel passed all the other leading competitors during the night. We never saw another boat after passing Longships.”

Like the 2021 edition, the 1961 Fastnet Race started with steep wind-against-tide seas o the Needles. Stormvogel sailed up the Solent ahead of the ﬂeet of 91 starters, but took one heavy pounding which resulted in a broken wire main halyard. The crew anchored in the lee of Old Harry Rocks, to reeve a new main halyard. Four hours later they rejoined, at the back of the ﬂeet. They made up ground, but after passing the Longships Lighthouse, Bruynzeel decided to follow the big boats north into the Celtic Sea. Trimming takes up the tale: “Chichester and Frans Hin had been tracking a deep depression forming down in Biscay. The BBC had the depression passing south of Longships, but Hin predicted a more northerly track. Chichester advised Cees to tack out west.”

SECOND IN 1963

One of the crew, Matt, fell overboard eight days out from Cape Town. Trimming says: “He was retrieved after 20 minutes. Lifejackets were bulky Board of Trade Java cork and kapok, terribly uncomfortable, so were stowed away and never worn.”

At 2340hrs on 28 May, Stormvogel was hit by a violent line squall to the west of Sierra Leone, which laid her down on her beam-ends with the head of the mainmast underwater “for an interminable time”.

“Seawater poured in down below,” says Trimming. “It’s hard to portray the severity and drama of it –suddenly being at 90 degrees to the horizon, the fury and unearthly noise and violence of the event, in the pitch black dark of night. There were two hand-operated bilge pumps. Not operative when you are at 90° of heel.”

STORMVOGEL LOA 74 ft. 6 (22.72m)in LOD 73 (22.25m)ft LWL 59 ft 4 (18.10m)in BEAM 16 ft (4.88m)4 DRAUGHT 9ft (2.82m)3in SAIL AREA 2,589 sq ft (238 m2) DISPLMNT 31.2 tons 122 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 STORMVOGEL into tinned cans, which had been dipped in varnish to avoid rust and stowed in the bilges. Salami hung in the crew quarters. Regular breakfasts were the ﬂying ﬁsh which landed in the mainsail overnight.

“We had one magnetic compass (not swung due to our hasty departure), a towed Walker log, which picked up weed, and a sextant. The new HF-SSB radio had been installed the day before departure and did not function. We were meticulous with noon sights for latitude and assumed GHA longitude.”

The rig held and nobody was badly injured, although crew were thrown out of their bunks. Baby Linda remained unﬂustered in her hammock. Trimming reﬂects: “Without a functional radio, we had no means of sending a Mayday. For a critical few minutes Stormvogel was in real danger of sinking.” They sailed on and after a maiden voyage of 7,000nm and 60 days, the boat and all crew arrived at Zaandam in Holland, healthy, in excellent spirits and well-trained for the race that lay ahead.

Henry helped prepare the boat in Sydney when she took a central role in the movie Dead Calm, starring Nicole Kidman, shot in the Whitsunday Islands in 1987. Gradually, Henry and his team brought out more of the old performance characteristics. “She has a lovely hull form, reasonably narrow and nicely balanced,” he says. “In the early days, we pushed the boat up to 15 knots. Since the latest rebuild, we’ve had 22 knots. Impressive for a 60-year-old wooden yacht.” A well-used boat needs upkeep. Stormvogel has had several major reﬁts, the ﬁrst overseen by Henry at the Keppel Shipyard in Singapore in 1993. He admits: “When you dig deep into these projects, you think ‘where do we stop?’ The question that I raised at the time was ‘is it worth saving?’

123CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 STORMVOGEL

She is lucky, too, to have come under the care of New Zealand boatbuilder Graeme Henry, a man who has been associated with the boat as skipper, on and o , since 1986. “You can really feel her pedigree,” he says. “Stormvogel’s got that history and an energy that you don’t get with many boats.”

Michael Trimming, now aged 79, who has gone on to have a successful career as a naval architect, reﬂects: “With her sensational line honours win and stunning heavy weather performance in the 1961 Fastnet Race, Stormvogel initiated a radical, high-speed, conceptual change and paradigm shift in the design and philosophy of o shore racing yachts. Stormvogel was the ﬁrst of the Maxis.”

On board for the Rolex Fastnet Race was the owner, Henry and Hulleman, with the 16 crew including prominent Solent sailors Richard Acland, Lincoln Redding, John Santy, Richard Beardsall, Richard Sawle, Italian Figaro sailor Alberto Bona on tactics, US bowman Michael Champion and Thomas Ripard, of the great Maltese sailing family. Ripard is the grand nephew of Paul Ripard, who sailed on Stormvogel for the inaugural Middle Sea Race in 1968.

“The owner was adamant and said: ‘I will not let this boat die in my hands’. He has been prepared to put the money in to keep the boat alive.” Stormvogel did the Panerai circuit in 2007/08, where her authenticity stood her in good stead under the CIM rating. When the most recent refit started, keeping the boat true to her original form remained a key tenet. Long-time skipper Ian Hulleman, a Kiwi boatbuilder like Henry, began in Finike, Turkey, in 2014, with some repairs to the mainmast bulkhead. The job grew, and wo back-breaking years later, having done a significant amount of the work himself, the decision was taken to go through the whole boat. The stripped-out Stormvogel was motored 200 miles down the coast to Metur Yacht in Bodrum, a builder of the Hoek-designed Pilot Classic range, and work began again, with Hulleman on site for another two years, overseeing engineering, deck work, joinery, spray-painting, stainless steel work, a new mast and systems upgrades. She was ready for relaunch in early 2020, but then the pandemic struck. She eventually made her way west towards Cowes for July 2021, where she took a star turn at the British Classic Yacht Club’s regatta, British Classic Week. Being in Cowes was also a moment to reflect on the boat’s six decades afloat. Among the visitors was Linda Kayton, née Webb, who had last been on board as a baby on that maiden voyage of 1961. “She came with her sisters and uncle and it was very emotional,” says Henry. “There were a lot of people in Cowes from the boat’s past. We had Ondine and David Kerley, who were married on board in Phuket. We had British former skippers Chris and Graeme Lawrence.”

ABOVE LEFT: In pieces, yearsandBELOW:GraemeatMichaelABOVEJuneworkTurkey,MeturwheeledbeingintoYacht,formajortobeginin2017RIGHT:Trimmingthewheel,withHenryThennow,60on

Stormvogel ﬁnished the Fastnet an extraordinary seventh overall, sixth in class in IRC1. She crossed the line after three days 19 hours – an hour quicker than her time for the shorter course to Plymouth in 1961. “Very good for a 60-year-old boat,” remarks Henry. “The owner was very pleased.”

THE CRUEL SEA BY MONSARATTNICHOLAS OK, nothing to do with sailing but an awful lot to do with the sea. This classic read focuses on the vicious Battle of the Atlantic during WWII when the British Navy desperately tried to keep the supply line between the US and the UK open in the face of a sustained and savage attack by the German ‘Wolf Pack’ of U Boats. To this end, large convoys of slow moving merchantmen were escorted across the Atlantic by the Royal Navy with predictably awful results. The book is fiction but it clearly draws heavily on Montserrat’s own experiences serving as Sub Lieutenant and eventually Lieutenant Commander on various corvettes and Frigates during this epic running battle. As such, the book has the very clear tang of authenticity which makes it both gripping and horrifying in equal measure. This is certainly not a book for the faint hearted and Monsarrat pulls no punches in portraying the war at sea for what it was; savage, remorseless and relentless. The book also conveys with great accuracy the extent to which Britain and its allies were caught on the hop in 1939 and also charts the path from rather ad hoc amateurism at the start of the war to its development into an e ective fighting machine. Monsarrat is clearly a patriot but not blindly so, making for a balanced and considered narrative that looks at the complex relationship with other allies such as the US and Russia. The real star, however, is the North Atlantic, which comes across exactly as it should; bleak, savage and, yes, cruel. Sam Je erson The Cruel Sea is still in print and available cheaply as a paperback. For the collector, we found a first ed at £225

instantlymoreintroductionThebuiltyachtscompletebefore,goesGRAYNICHOLASThisboldlytitledbookwherenonehastooerahistoryofthedesignedandbyDavidHillyard.namewillneedlittletomost:withthan700built,therecognisable, double-ended Hillyard – often with the telltale twin cabin – is nearly as iconic as a Seagull outboard. David Hillyard was an early ‘production’ builder, churning out simple, but well-built family yachts geared towards comfort and ease of use, but they were not necessarily as slow as the jokes about them suggest: my own 1932 Hillyard Billy Blue only entered one race in my time as coownership, but beat every other boat in the 11-strong, mostly modern, ﬂeet over the line. It helped that it was blowing a Force Six that day, and Hillyards are stout sea boats. Arthur Ransome famously owned two (Lottie Blossom and Nancy Blackett), but we discover here that the novelist Nevil Shute also owned a Hillyard –Runagate. Nicholas Gray, author of Last Voyages (2017) and Astronauts of Cape Horn (2018) presents the story in full, from the beginnings to the heyday, alongside sections of photos new and old, showing the yard in its heyday and some of the surviving ﬂeet today. Pub Lodestar Books, 2021, lodestarbooks.com, £20

CLASSIC AND NEW SAILING

BOOKS

THE MAN, HIS SAILORSANDBOATSTHEIR

124 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 We round up the latest nautical books and re-visit some classics from the past

REVIEWS BY STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES AND SAM JEFFERSON

SAILORSANDHISTHEHILLYARDMAN,BOATSTHEIR BY

moreintroductionThebuiltyachtscompletebefore,goesGRAYNICHOLASwherenonehastooerahistoryofthedesignedandbyDavidHillyard.namewillneedlittletomost:withthan700built,the

FAREWELL MR PUFFIN BY PAUL HEINEY

BY TIM DAVISON

As a winner of Nationals and Euros over 50 years in various classes, not to mention blue-water cruising and writing 20 books on sailing, Tim Davison is well aware of the fact that sailing is, in fact, dreadful. Far better, then, to learn to blu it without ever having to get your hair wet. Here is his guide for sailors and would-be sailors to holding your own in conversation and staggering your audience with your sailing knowledge. If you do decide to bite the bullet and buy a boat, Tim provides a jargon buster. For instance, “ready to win” means “hasn’t won yet”. And “good racing record” means “lots of 4ths and 5ths but no podium ﬁnishes”. The book also includes a guide to the characters in any sailing club that must be avoided at all costs. It’s a laugh a minute, and John Quirk’s cartoons are, as always, gold.

BY TIM DAVISON

Pub Fernhurst Books 2021, fernhurstbooks.com, £9.99

PALMERTOMyoungerreaderstellstheﬁctionalstoryofthreeyoungRNrecruitswhojoinanArcticconvoysailingthroughthefrozen

THE NAVIGATIONGUIDEPRACTICALTOCELESTIAL

If you’ve ever had a new crewman turn up with a big, hard, wheeled suitcase, or one who catches a line on shore then passes it back to the boat without ﬁrst taking it around a bollard – then you might like to send a prospective crewmember one of these next time! It’s a clearly laid-out, colourful pocketbook that takes the prospective yachtsman through everything from what to pack to knots to goose-winging a headsail to life on board and lights and shapes. In fact, the reader who gets through this and understands it would be quite a handy crewmember!

BY PHIL SOMERVILLE

BY ThisPALMERTOMnovelforyoungerreaderstellstheﬁctionalstoryofthreeyoungRNrecruitswhojoinanArcticconvoysailingthroughthefrozennorthernseasto deliver supplies to Russian Soviets. These Allied convoys, famously hunted by German U boats, are sometimes described as “the worst journeys in the world”, not least because of the high stress su ered by the crews, as they waited, week after week, for a torpedo to slam into their ship and sink them. I’ve started to read this to my ten-year-old son at bedtime – so far, so good! It’s vivid, simple and e ective, and in bringing to life a vital, and sometimes overlooked, part of the British war e ort, it’s the perfect children’s counterpart to Nicholas Monsaratt’s classic (left). Pub Barrington Stoke 2021, barringtonstoke.co.uk, £6.99 a as STAR

125CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 BOOKS

This was released back in July 2021. Bill Bryson said “it would be hard to imagine a more thoughtful, intelligent and compassionate person to go to sea with than Paul Heiney.” And Gri Rhys Jones has called it “high comedy on the high seas.” If it’s good enough for those two... Pub Bloomsubury, 2021, Bloomsbury.com, £11.69

Pub Books,Fernhurst2021,fernhurstbooks.com,£12.99 fact for your audience If decide bullet instance, STARARCTIC

It’s lucky this is a step-by-step book because it’s likely that you might want its wisdom when all your electrics – including the GPS of course – are on the blink. Of course, you’d be wise to do quite a bit of practice before that moment, but there seems to be a rise in interest in sailing by the stars, part of a disillusionment with relying too heavily on technology to carry out so many tasks. The author has been teaching celestial nav for years, and guides the reader through the subject, demystifying the aspects that have stymied many would-be practitioners over the years. The hardbacked book is 150 pages long and comprehensively illustrated with diagrams and photos. Pub Adlard Coles 2021 bloomsbury.com, £30 THE NEW POCKETBOOKCREW’S

BLUFFINGSAILOR’S BIBLE

I have to confess, I do sometimes wonder how many of these books the reading public can absorb – but they keep coming, partly because of new blood in the sport, and partly because of changes in techniques progressing with experience and technology. This one is quite nifty actually. The blurb describes it as “the notes you wish you’d written when you attended your sailing course” and that’s pretty much what it is. The book is supremely clear and easy to navigate and one of the best features are the checklists, to stop you forgetting something important that you last might have heard in a classroom decades ago. It’s also sensibly priced. The author, rather impressively, is a Cambridge-educated engineer who packed it all in to go sailing and stopped counting after 50,000 sea miles. He is also author of the well-known Reeds Crew Handbook. Pub Adlard Coles 2021, bloomsbury.com, £14.99

Once past the slightly uninspiring cover and confusing title, this is a treasure trove for vintage motorboat enthusiasts. Ray Bulman (1930-2020) was an o shore powerboat racer and journalist. Not only did he live the powerboating life from the early 60s onwards, but he wrote about all aspects of the subject in his columns for Motor Boat & Yachting, titled ‘Bull’s Eye’ and ‘Back Chat’ (hence the title). There is a lot here: 200 full-length columns reproduced as they appeared in the magazine, and the subjects range from powerboat racing to piracy attempts, vintage steam launches and motor ﬁshing vessels of the 1930s. The book has been produced for the Classic O shore Powerboat Club (of which Ray was a commodore) as a tribute to his life’s work. Pub Classic O shore Powerboat Club, email nickysales@btinternet.com

PRACTICAL SKIPPER BY BILL JOHNSON

This, over 228 pages, is the complete guide to everything windvane by a man who has studied, used and built them his entire life. It’s not one to put out for guests, but if you need a windvane self-steering system for a long voyage, this will be an invaluable reference. Pub Wind Pilot Books, windpilot. com/books, $34.99 (hardback), $28.99 (softback), $8.99 (E book)

Pub Lodestar Books, 2021, lodestarbooks.com, £30 (sewn bound), £35 (spiral bound for workshop)

BUILDINGOFDETAILSDINGHY BY sonothesePublishingWynneI’veSTIRLINGWNCpraisedDickatLodestarbeforeinpages,andI’vehesitationindoingagain.Thisand Hillyard (previous spread) are two of the imprint’s latest, and both live up to the reputation Dick has established for producing attractive, clear and relevant books aimed straight at his readership. Will Stirling has built over 50 of his attractive, clinker dinghies over the last couple of decades – that’s as much, or more than, anyone these days. I was lucky enough, some years ago, to spend the day ribbing out a 14-footer with Will, although he also made me sweep the ﬂoor as authentic apprentice penance! This book is the distillation of his knowledge and experience. So ﬁrstly, you’ll want a set of plans. Then you’ll want this book too, which gives practical detail to every step of the journey. With those two by your side – and a bandsaw and a ton of patience – you could, in theory, build a clinker dinghy if you’re brave enough.

126 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 BOOKS

THE WINDVANE REPORT BY PETER FOERTHMANN

ELECTRICSBOATESSENTIAL BY God3RDPATBALLAMOLIVERANDMANLEYEDITIONhelpanyonewho has to wire his own boat but, if you are the capable sort who understands these things, this looks like a decent guide, crammed with circuit diagrams, tools needed and tables of numbers of things. It starts o so cheerfully! The only things we need to know, we learn, are: fuse size, how much power a thing uses, wire thickness, and how long you can run a thing o the battery. Then it gets deeper… and deeper… and deeper. Pub Fernhurst Books, 2021, fernhurstbooks.com, £16.99

BULL’S EYE AND BACK CHAT BY RAY BULMAN

This is the true story of Coast Guard Reserve boat 3070 (57ft John Alden Cutter Zaida – for sale – see the Getting Aﬂoat page) taking on winter blizzards along the Atlantic seaboard in December 1942. Her disappearance as a result of this brought about one of the greatest searches in maritime history. Zaida was one of the private yachts used by the US Navy whose duty was to report the positions of Allied ships that had been torpedoed, and if possible, pick up survivors. The book describes so well this small ﬂeet of yachts leaving Long Island Sound crewed by experienced amateur sailors, often to take on the most severe winter weather in a sea riddled with enemy U Boats. Brave sailors and brave boats, this is a story of true courage and remarkable human spirit under pressure. An exciting read with rich descriptions of the yachts, their people and this tenuous chapter in history.

THE NAVY HUNTS THE CGR 3070 BY LAWRANCE THOMPSON

Barney PubSandeman1944, reprinted by Scholar Select in 2018. availableSporadicallyonline THE OTHERLAUGHTERETERNALANDPOEMS W

thiswhenBurgesssuicide1903,collectionBurgesswidelyMetreoningreatestHeBURGESSSTARLINGmightbeoneoftheyachtdesignershistory(seeourarticleStarlingBurgess,theboat),butit’snotknownthatpublishedthisofpoemsinayearaftertheofhisﬁrstwife.wasonly24or25hesatdowntowriteashisresponse,but had lived through other tragedy, including the loss of both his parents at the age of 13. In style, the poems echo that of the English romantics (Shelley, Blake and the gang). It’s disappointing that there is not more here about seafaring and oceans, but it is still obviously an essential purchase for any Burgess fan. The introduction, a short essay of praise, is by Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel Hawthorne. The version I have was £3 or so on Amazon, and published by Forgotten Books. There are a few versions knocking around, and they are cheaply and easily available. on Starling Burgess, the Metre boat), but it’s not widely known that Burgess published this collection of poems in 1903, a year after the suicide of his ﬁrst wife. Burgess was only 24 or 25 when he sat down to write FROM THE LOFT FLOOR TO THE SEA BY CHRISTIAN TOPF

This book tells a story that has been a long train coming: the history of the yachtsmen who served their country as volunteers in the RNVSR in World War Two. And who to tell it better than novelist and journalist Julia Jones, who has not only the gift of the pen, but whose father was one of that cadre of sailors who helped ensure that the war was won ‘in the yacht clubs of England’ to paraphrase Wellington’s (apocryphal) quote about the ‘playing fields of Eton’. The men of the RNVSR included some familiar names, among them Maurice Gri ths, Nicholas Monsarrat (The Cruel Sea), Sir Peter Scott and August Courtauld, along with around 2,000 others, drawn from the white-collar ranks of English society. What started as a chance discovery of some of the author’s father’s old papers and letters in the attic has become a surprising story of heroism and sacrifice, as these volunteers found themselves commanding destroyers (having only “called in for a gin” in one case!) to undertaking covert missions and engaging with the the dangerous daily drudge of minesweeping. Some died in the process, and those who survived were changed forever. Here, finally, is their testament. Pub Adlard Coles, hardback, 2022, £20, adlardcoles.co.uk

This book was the most unexpected joy. The prospect was questionable: an in-depth account of the building of Luke Powell’s extraordinary super-sized pilot cutter replica Pellew, one of the biggest traditional new-builds in the world for many years. The substantial hard-backed book actually turned out to be an epic photo essay, wonderfully shot and beautifully published, each picture captioned with enough detail that by the time you reach the end, you have a really solid understanding of how not just Pellew, but how any carvel-planked wooden sailing vessel is built. That makes the book not only enjoyable, but hugely informative –images and captions are the best way to describe this process. In its own modest way, it’s a masterpiece. Pub Lodestar Books, 2021, lodestarbooks. com, £45 and Sandeman

COURAGEUNCOMMON BY JULIA JONES

127CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 BOOKS

The Thames SC based in the far west London suburb of Surbiton on the non-tidal Thames, is the oldest riversailing club in the world and recently celebrated its 150th year. You might these days associate dinghy sailing with tearing across reservoirs in fast planing or even foiling craft – but for many years, competitive river-sailing was a sport for gentlemen of the era. And as such, TSC has played an amazing role in the development of not just dinghy sailing, but yachting too, through innovators like the yacht designer Linton Hope and the boatbuilder-designer Alfred Burgoine, both of whom were heavily involved with river racing in the pre-war years of the 20th century. TSC is best known for its ﬂeet of superlative Thames A Raters, many of which are still sailing today. Rather poignantly, the foreword is by the late HRH Prince Philip, who was an active patron of the club for an astonishing 61 years. One of the great joys of the book is the huge number of topquality photos that richly illustrate the club’s history from its very dawn.

ADDICTED TO

I HAVE WON, I HAVE LOST BY TAPANI KOSKELA

Tore Holm (1896-1977) was born in the small coastal town of Gamleby, 100 miles or so from Stockholm, to a designer/builder father (Knut) and into a family tradition of designing race-winning yachts to the dangerously slender Square Metre classes. Tore went on to triumph in these classes and in the International Rule as well, including the well known 8-M yachts Sylvia and Ilderim. He is notable for the extreme elegance of his designs, as well as their performance, an elegance that is still in evidence in his larger boats, like the 53ft ( 16.1m) Havsornen. Aside from his brilliance in design, Holm was a decorated racing yachtsman who competed aboard his own boats in no fewer than five Olympic Games from 1920 to 1948. He medalled in all but one, taking home to Sweden a total of two gold and two bronze medals. This book covers all aspects of Tore’s life in great detail, from his ancestors to the Swedish sailing scene that formed the backdrop to his life, his boatbuilding and design career, to accounts of seemingly every race he took part in, which included o shore and competitions.round-the-cansTherearealso chapters on significant restorations and recent new-builds. The author is a research physicist and owner of a Tore Holm 6-M yacht (Silene) and this book represents two decades of his research into the Swedish master. A criticism occasionally levelled at the these books is that they are too comprehensive, but in the case of yacht designers, they are usually only done once, so it’s important to make a biography like this definitive. I Have Won, I Have Lost certainly satisfies that requirement. The fact that it’s beautifully illustrated by a combination of photos, drawings and clear technical graphs is the icing on the cake. A few useful appendices – particularly a boat list with year and length and so on –would have been helpful, but at least there is a boat index; and the timeline near the beginning is helpful. The English version reads well too: the fluent, precise and modestly descriptive tone is perfectly suited to the material.

Pub Thames Sailing Club 2021, thamessailingclub.co.uk, £POA MORE ADVENTURE BY BOB SHEPTON Bob Shepton’s adventures are well documented – not least in Classic Boat magazine. It’s fair to say that the a able retired chaplain and Tilman style sailor, mountaineer and general adventurer is closing in on national treasure status. Many readers will already have enjoyed Addicted to Adventure, his ﬁrst volume, which looked back at many of his swashbuckling trips to far corners of the world generally aboard his trusty Westerly Discus, Dodo’s Delight. Unsurprisingly given the title, Addicted to More Adventure picks up where the last book left o , with further tales of journeys in the high latitudes and beyond. Highlights include a west–east transit of the North West Passage plus a trip from Antarctica to Easter Island. The narrative style is easy and informal and Shepton always comes across as a thoroughly likeable man who narrates quite stressful incidents and impressive achievements with sang froid and modesty. Amazon £15

Pub Classic Boat Association of Sweden, 2021, veteranbaten.se these notableyachtsfor his boatbuilding signiﬁcant represents(two books comprehensive,

128 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 BOOKS A VERY HAPPY LITTLE WORLD BY MARK LAITY

THE FIVE YEAR VOYAGE BY STEPHEN LADD Stephen Ladd is probably best known for his adventures narrated in Three Years in a 12-Foot Boat. A trip through the rivers and waterways of Central and South America that took in paddling, portaging and a bit of sailing too – all carried out in extreme discomfort as you can imagine. Following on from that, Stephen managed to convince his adventurous wife Ginny to take a similar trip in a 21’ boat – this time with an outboard – to carry out a similar trip on a slightly grander scale. Setting out from Florida, they head to the Caribbean along the coast of Central and South America then ascend the Orinoco River to a remote stream connecting with the Amazon. They descend this to Manaus, then climb another tributary south through Bolivia. They then transit the world’s largest swamp then ﬂoat down the Paraguay to Argentina. At this point Ginny falls pregnant and Steve opts to do the decent thing and sail the boat home himself. Regrettably the boat is wrecked on the way home. This is a book it is hard to get bored with and is written with a certain degree of long su ering humour. It’s a good contrast to Tristan Jones’ Incredible Voyage, which covers many of the same routes but is an altogether grumpier book. Seekers Press $16.95 the being

These days we all know Herman Meliville for his somewhat weighty tome, Moby Dick, which charts the familiar story of man meets whale, loses leg, becomes obsessed with whale… you know the tale.

BY DAVID EDWARDS

ThisMAYwas ﬁrst released in 2010 and the news is essentially that this is the latest edition. As such, it features important updates which, as you can imagine, are quite extensive on inland waterways. As someone who relied on this book to get me through the canals and rivers of France as I traversed the country from the English Channel to the Mediterranean, I can personally vouch for its excellence. Many state that you have to buy the Fluviacarte maps to get through the canals but I did not do this and had absolutely no problem thanks to this well thought out book that provides essential facts such as distances between locks, etc, but also excellent insight into the many stop o s along the route and also clear directions on how to deal with the many varied di erent types of locks along the French waterways. I would say it’s an invaluable guide for anyone planning to traverse France by boat. Sam Je erson Imray £32.50

BY ROD & LUCIN DA HEIKELL

It’s a right rollicking swashbuckling yarn and Melville is, of course, a superb narrator.

During his lifetime, Melville only really enjoyed success thanks to his autobiographical Typee which charts the adventures of himself and a fellow sailor who jumped ship in Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas after many months serving on a whaling ship. Having ﬂed the vessels they went in search of a friendly local tribe called the Happars, with the aim of hiding from the captain of the ship. The pair had been warned to avoid the altogether more violent Typee tribe but inevitably they stumbled into the Typee village and the rest is history.

Yet Melville’s masterpiece was only a real hit after the great writer had died.

Although the dialogue is a touch dated, it still grips the attention as the story heads towards an inevitable denouement. The book is laced with poignancy too as it was a fairly unique description of life in a South Sea Island village viewed from within, at a time before many of these tribes were decimated by illnesses brought from Europe and centuries old ways of life were permanently disrupted. Melville painted a sympathetic and fairly enlightened view of people often dismissed by colonialists as ‘savages’. His adventures inspired the next generation of voyagers with Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson both making a pilgrimage to Nuku Hiva as part of pioneering yacht cruises.

129CLASSIC YACHTS 2022 BOOKS

INLAND WATERWAYS OF FRANCE

Sam Je erson Imray £45 TYPEE BY HERMAN MELVILLE

Another Imray publication that is not new but has been revised for a new edition. This is another book that I can personally vouch for as it has been my bible for three seasons of sailing in this area and has been absolutely indispensable. Heikell is known as one of the major hitters in the ﬁeld of pilot guides and he shepherds you around the French Mediterranean coast with gentle authority. The guide naturally runs from the Spanish border to the Italian but Heikell also o ers invaluable pilotage for those entering and navigating the canals that run through Languedoc Roussillon connecting the River Rhone with the Canal du Midi, an important route. In addition to being very well researched and authoritative, one of the standout features is Heikell’s diplomatic descriptions of some of the less desirable ports along the way, whereby much is achieved not by what is written but what is omitted.

MEDITERRANEANFRANCEANDCORSICAPILOT

LEFT: Ashmole Faire-Ring of Norfolk RIGHT: Katie McCabe him, he duly set sail and went west to the Caribbean. Around the same time, Steve Dennette and Alix Kreder, two rock-climbers in their early 30s started to build a new 38ft William Atkin ketch on Steve’s family’s farm in Connecticut in the most traditional way, by felling trees planted by Steve’s grandfather. Is early 30s ‘young’? It will suit most of us to think so, I suspect. Then the ages really started falling in earnest. Ashmole Faire-Ring of Norfolk on England’s east coast, burst onto our pages a couple of years ago, aged just 17, when he took on the partial rebuild of a half-sized Thames barge yacht called Growler, built in 1922. Shortly after that, we heard of Katie McCabe, who bought a 26ft Morgan Giles-designed West Channel One-Design built in 1952 – at the age of 12! By the age of 14, she’d sailed Falanda around Britain, becoming the youngest person ever to do so in the process. Up in Ullapool, Megan Loftus, 16, has just embarked upon the restoration of former CB editor Nic Compton’s yacht Kingfisher of Baltiza. This is a Suhaili type, and Megan plans one day to follow in Suhaili and Robin KnoxJohnston’s wake and sail around the world. As the daughter of boatbuilder Tim Loftus, Megan is steeped in the world of sailing, and at the old age of 16, this is actually her second yacht; her first was a century-old Itchen ferry. Stan Brown, aged 16, has just bought a 25ft Yachting World 5-Tonner for £1 and has had it craned into the family’s back garden for a restoration to start. These are just the instances I know of. I wonder how many other young people have recently got the classic boat bug? It’s definitely a trend, and the thing that might surprise some readers is that, so far, the success rate of finishing the build or the restoration, has been 100 per cent. That is far higher than the overall success rate. So much for the listless young, then…

WORDS STEFFAN MEYRIC-HUGHES

SHOT

It pays for anyone to be wary when claiming to have spotted a trend, but in the little global fraternity of traditional sailing, you have to be as careful as a drunk on a ladder. If one boat owner, say, chooses to retain the Formica in his galley when refurbishing a post-war cruising yacht, it’s possible, given the sample size to call it a ‘trend’, but not necessarily advisable. What about the trend of the ‘young conservator’ or YouTube boatbuilder? It’s not entirely a new idea: Alec Laird became famous for his restoration of the 72ft LOS ga cutter Patridge of 1885, over two decades (1979-1999), a job that he started while still a teenager. That was considered amazing at the time, and every reference to his great work included mention of his age. Then there was Ashley Butler, who restored the 38ft-long (LOD), 1903-built Morecambe Bay prawner yacht Ziska, starting in 1997 at the age of just 19. He sailed it from Cornwall across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. For some time after that, not much blipped our radar, and we could have let those instances lie as oddities to be remembered in isolation. Then something seemed to happen. Or perhaps someone happened. Leo Goolden, a boatbuilder in his 20s, restored a Folkboat and, again, sailed it across the Atlantic. He’s now in Port Townsend, Washington State, in the ﬁnal two years (he hopes!) of a mammoth rebuild of the 1910 Albert Strange cutter Tally Ho, a massive, 48ft boat, atypical of her designer. It is, simply, the most talked about restoration of all time, a claim that’s easily proved by the number of people who have viewed his YouTube ﬁlms he’s made of the restoration – millions.

Max Campbell, also tied to England’s West Country, was next, restoring a little 22ft Clyst Class sloop built in 1965 and named called Flying Fish. In the wake of the young men who went before

130 CLASSIC YACHTS 2022

PASSING

Classic boat owners are getting younger

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