Classic Boat - May 2014

Classic Boat MAY 2014

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Fife’s Favourite

and her ocean voyages

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PLUS Award-winning ways Students’ craftsmanship ISLAND THAT TOURISM FORGOT

Gem of Greece

WAYS AND MEANS TO GET AFLOAT

Blow that pension!

05

RESTORATION WORKSHOP

Re-rigging to sloop

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Contents

YOUR O GUIDE T

CRAFTSMANSHIP

CLASSIC BOAT FINANCE

MAY 2014 Nº311

6

p51

FEATURES

LATIFA

37 years in the ownership of a loving owner

COVER STORY

30 . WOOD IS GOOD! Ted Spears on the construction techniques behind his Spitfire 18 COVER STORY

34 . BROADS APPEAL Find out how the IBTC helped Snowgoose spread her wings 44 . SECRET SPETSES There’s much more to this Greek island than a yacht regatta…

24 54

ALEXIS ANDREWS

51 . MONEY MATTERS Our guide to financing your favourite yacht COVER STORY

54 . TWO MEN AND A BOAT Antigua to New York in a sloop. Follow their adventure here 62 . YACHTING LEGEND We review a new book about the life and influences of Johan Anker 85 . ENGINE ROOM We head to Southwold to visit the masters of motorboat restoration

34

NIGEL SHARP

24 . TIP-TOP TROY Richard Bond reveals how he restored a rotten Fowey daysailer

85

EMILY HARRIS

COVER STORY

RICHARD JOHNSTONE-BRYDEN

17 . CHAMPAGNE TIME Full report and winners from CB’s second annual awards evening

COVER FRANCO PACE. RIGHT: NIGEL PERT

6 . GREAT SCOT Meet Latifa, William Fife III’s favourite creation

REGULARS 18 . TELL TALES 41 . SALEROOM 42 . OBJECTS OF DESIRE 95 . LOOKING AHEAD 96 . LETTERS 98 . STERNPOST ONBOARD 54 . CARRIACOU SLOOP TO NEW YORK 62 . JOHAN ANKER 64 . BOOKS 65 . LAZARETTE 67 . CLASSNOTES 68 . NEW CLASSICS 71 . GETTING AFLOAT CRAFTSMANSHIP 78 . YARD NEWS 80 . ELLAD RESTORATION – PART 7 85 . HARBOUR MARINE SERVICES 86 . BOATBUILDER’S NOTES 89 . ADRIAN MORGAN CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

3

Swiss movement, English heart

Made in Switzerland / Sellita SW200-1 self-winding movement / 38 hour power reserve / 42mm marine-grade 316L stainless steel case and deployment bracelet / Water resistant to 300 metres / 4mm anti-reflective sapphire crystal / Deep-etched back-plate engraving

GARY BLAKE

FROM DAN HOUSTON, EDITOR

A little matter of stability

classicboat.co.uk Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ EDITORIAL Editor Dan Houston +44 (0)207 349 3755 [email protected] Deputy Editor Steffan Meyric Hughes +44 (0)207 349 3758 [email protected] Senior Art Editor Peter Smith +44 (0)207 349 3756 [email protected] Production Editor Andrew Gillingwater +44 (0)207 349 3757 [email protected] Contributing Editor Peter Willis [email protected] Technical Editor Theo Rye Publishing Consultant Martin Nott Proofing Vanessa Bird ADVERTISING Advertisement Manager Edward Mannering +44 (0)207 349 3747 [email protected] Senior Sales Executive Patricia Hubbard +44 (0)207 349 3748 [email protected] Advertisement Production Allpointsmedia +44 (0)1202 472781 allpointsmedia.co.uk Published Monthly ISSN: 0950 3315 USA US$12.50 Canada C$11.95 Australia A$11.95 Subscribe now: +44 (0)1795 419840 [email protected] http://classicboat.subscribeonline.co.uk Subscriptions manager William Delmont +44 (0)207 349 3710 [email protected] Subscriptions Department 800 Guillat Avenue, Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8GU Managing Director Paul Dobson CHELSEA Deputy Managing Director Steve Ross ARINE M MAGAZINES Commercial Director Vicki Gavin Publisher Simon Temlett Digital Manager Oliver Morley-Norris Events Manager Holly Thacker The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ +44 (0)207 349 3700 chelseamagazines.com Copyright The Chelsea Magazine Company 2013 all rights reserved

Had a press release about upright soft-skin storage tanks a week or so ago. Upright storage tanks, I was informed, took up less space and allowed me to store more fuel on deck, so increasing the range of my vessel. You can feel like going red in the face in this job… But it wasn’t because I would regard “yachting” across an ocean under power as the ultimate waste in fuel oil; “you should get some sails, sir, and enjoy the rolling bosom of the deep…” No, it was a sense of horror at the writer’s lack of knowledge of stability because storing that much fuel on deck, however good an idea to a credulous weekender, will dangerously raise the centre of gravity to turn your boat into a capsizeable rolling pendulum when the sea gets up. And if one thing’s certain offshore, it is that the sea will get up. Stability at sea seems like an obvious criterion to the classic boat sailor. It’s why we like our long keels with vast lumps of lead slung below everything – it takes a lot to push us over and if we do go, we come straight back upright. There have been times when stability was disregarded, like the International Offshore Rule for racing yachts in 1973, which introduced GRP boats of light YACHTS displacement; broad beam, shallow hull and large CHELSEA MARINE “inherently sail area. The idea, I remember hearing, was to use the huge reserve buoyancy of the wider hull; stable, once as the wind pushed it over, so it would push back and stay upright; you only need a little keel, now. turned turtle” As it turned out, many of these designs were YACHTS inherently stable, once turned turtle with their rig in the sea. Things were out of CHELSEA MARINE hand and by 1978 the Offshore Racing Council ammended the rule to try to exclude potentially unstable boats from racing. Then the 1979 Fastnet storm happened and 18 people – 15 yachtsmen and 3 rescuers – lost their lives. Stability came back on the agenda and one yacht – the Contessa 32 (above) – was cited as being seaworthy. Her designer David Sadler has just died (p18) and godspeed to him; his legacy should be that stability remains paramount. By a twist of fate I think the 1979 Fastnet helped the cause of classic boats too, where old proven design has been shown to be seaworthy and so trustworthy. Plus they look good, of course… YACHTING

MAGAZINES

YACHTING

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MAY 2014

£4.75 US$13.75

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MAY 2014 sailingtoday.co.uk £4.20 05

WHAT TO WEAR

Offshore oilies

9 770950 331141 31/03/2014 18:11

£4.30 Issue #1673 | May 2014 www.yachtsandyachting.co.uk 05

9 771367 586100

AINSLIE & AC SKIPPERS GO EXTREME

Tested by us in the RNLI survival centre

Secret South West GULL’S EYE

HARBOUR GUIDE Dunstaffnage, Scotland

9 770044 000205

CLASH OF THE TITANS

SAIL FASTER

Inside track from the hottest racing circuit on the planet

Custom quality

SUMMER RACE WEEKS

Get ready

Estonia’s answer to the Nordic yachts

BLUEWATER BOAT

How to fit her out for ocean passages

16

PREPARA TION TIPS TO MAKE YOU

NEW BOAT TEST

Counting the cost of the storms

THE GALAPAGOS

First a new series of 74 in sailingtoday.co.uk May 2014 Rod Heikell’s favourites

SAILING STYLE

Our pick of the hottest shoes and clothing

STANDING RIGGING

Simple checks to keep your rig safe

ST205_001 ST205 BosunsBag CoverA v6.indd V2.indd 1 74

WWW.YACHTSANDYACHTING.CO.UK

05

RESTORATION WORKSHOP

Re-rigging to sloop

CB311 Cover2.indd 1

WEST COUNTRY • ALBANIA • SAARE 41 • DUNSTAFFNAGE • CLOTHING • RIGGING

LATIFA . SNOWGOOSE . SUMMER WIND . FOWEY TROY

WAYS AND MEANS TO GET AFLOAT

Blow that pension!

Bosun’s bag GO FURTHER I SAIL BETTER I BE INSPIRED

YACHTS YACHTING

Your guide to its hidden harbours

PLUS Award-winning ways Students’ craftsmanship ISLAND THAT TOURISM FORGOT

CHELSEA ARINE M MAGAZINES

EXTREME SAILNG SERIES | HUNTER IMPALA TEST | WEATHER STRATEGY | SUMMER RACE WEEKS

and her ocean voyages

Diamonds are forever Bond’s Solitaire Non-stop to New York 2,500 miles in a Carriacou sloop

Gem of Greece

YACHTS YACHTING

MAY 2014 – ISSUE Nº 205

MAY 2014 . ISSUE No 311

Fife’s Favourite

SAILING TODAY

CLASSIC BOAT

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

MAY 2014 | ISSUE #1673

Classic Boat

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for your best racing year yet

IN PURSUIT

Bloody Mary winners reveal tricks to hunt down the pack

SAILING ARABIA Special report on the multistage Middle Eastern Tour

THE £10K YACHT

How to go racing and win in an affordable one-design

DREAM TRIP Why Antigua is every sailor’s paradise

1673 Cover (1).indd 1

For traditional boat enthusiasts

For adventurous cruising sailors

For competitive sailors

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YACHTS YACHTING

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18/03/2014 20/03/2014 14:23 11:47 24/03/2014 14:36

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

5

Latifa Fife’s finest Famously described as one of the most beautiful yachts ever built, Latifa is a sight to behold. Here, her owner and circumnavigation skipper, Mario Pirri, describes the exhaustive restoration and shares his passion for this wooden wonder PHOTOGRAPHS FRANCO PACE

Above: the main saloon sports a pair of luxurious sofas port and starboard, a gimballed table and a heavy bookcase stocked with Mario’s favourite tomes.

JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR

Left: Latifa’s owner, Mario Pirri

8

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

I

first came across Latifa in September 1976 through a letter from Alistair Easton, the debonair Lymington broker, who described her in such enthusiastic tones that the next day I was on the first flight to London. The moment I saw her my heart missed a few beats as I knew, beyond any doubt, that our destinies were linked. As a trained architect, classical art lover and collector, I was immediately captivated by her utter beauty; by the harmony of her lines and the right proportion of every detail. In Latifa there is that rare, almost magical Fife combination of power and grace. Latifa was built in 1936 with a composite construction (much like the Cutty Sark and all the great boats built in the Clyde area) of 2in- (5cm) thick planks of Burma teak, fastened with bronze bolts on a strong steel structure, hot riveted and galvanised. Originally built as an ocean racer, Latifa had no engine, electricity or winches. However, when I first saw her, she had a six-cylinder, 100hp Nissan engine squeezed between the cabins and under the deckhouse. Without a trace of

LATIFA

soundproofing, when running or even idling, the noise was unbearable. This engine and gearbox system weighed almost a ton; the weight balanced by a number of lead pigs stashed in the bilges under the mast step. Add to all this a petrol generator and I was in no doubt that it all had to be removed and changed.

radical restoration To start the work I sailed her with a good crew to Gibraltar, then to the Beconcini yard in La Spezia, which, at that time, was the only one doing grand restorations and, under my supervision, they had done good work on my 52ft 5in (16m) A&R yawl Aleph. After careful consideration, my approach was radical. All the machinery, electrics, tanks, bulkheads, partitions, cabin sole and furniture were stripped out. All the 4,000 or so fastenings were tightened; the keel bolts were removed and then polished after being found to be in perfect condition; the seams above and below the waterline were splined to make the hull tight; deck seams were recaulked and re-payed; steel deck fittings were removed and

replaced with 316-grade stainless steel copies, sandblasted and painted; the steel structures were treated with epoxy and the whole of the interior from the deckhead to the bilges was painted in white enamel. At this point, I took the liberty (I had no choice really) of changing around part of the accommodation in order to create a proper, insulated engine room in which to fit, with access for maintenance, two 40hp Mercedes diesels, a 4.5kW diesel generator, two watermakers and various pumps, fans and blowers. To achieve this, the companionway ladder was hinged at the top and heavily soundproofed. The port and starboard cabins had to be shortened, doing away with the chest of drawers at the narrow bunks’ heads. A new cabin was created aft in the large space where once the sails were kept. In this cabin where, admittedly, the access takes a little time to get used to, there are the B&G navigation instruments, radar, two autopilot controls, GPS, radios, electrical panel, a proper chart table and two comfortable sea berths. Without instruments the deckhouse is totally original. At the risk of being called a heretic criticising Master Fife, I must say

Clockwise from top left: bronze compass binnacle and cushioned helmsman’s seat; just one of many delightfully verdigrised fittings; glowing toerails, covering boards and bowsprit; close-up of the pristine new deck and the skylight-mounted Dorade vent

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

9

IAN BADLEY

LATIFA

Above, top to bottom: original deckhouse with leather-backed Chesterfields, chart table and brass-cased instruments; doing battle during last year’s Fife Regatta (Latifa is in the foreground)

that, at the end of the long corridor, the short and beamy saloon did not have attractive proportions. I decided to lengthen it by repositioning the aft bulkhead, thus doing away with a cabin gaining one frame for the heads and two for the saloon, which now has good proportions allowing for two long sofas and a bookcase that would be frowned upon in the old days, but which is a must for me. In the galley the stove was athwartships, so the new one was moved to starboard on gimbals. The rig was restored to the original three headsails, all standing rigging replaced along with 20 new bottlescrews and 50 Merriman blocks; we added new sails from Ratsey, upholstery and gallons of paint and varnish. The result was a strong, classic 1930s yacht with modern equipment and accommodation for long-distance cruises in great comfort. I feel William Fife III would have approved.

solo sailor The experience that delighted me from the start was her seakindliness: the feeling of gentle strength and her comfortable, predictable motion, even in rough weather. 10

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

And it was these qualities that eventually, after years with crew and family, and in spite of the not-so-easy rig, encouraged me to resume my favourite solo sail: from Italy to Greece and Turkey, circling the Med, then finally past Gibraltar towards Antilles, landing in Barbados. Like most things in life, my singlehanded sailing started by chance. Many years ago I had to move my boat Aleph. I left the mooring with a degree of trepidation, with the idea of covering the 20 or so miles under power. But there was a nice breeze, and for the first time I hoisted and trimmed her yawl rig unaided. In those few hours I had a revelation. To be at sea, under sail, in silence, responsible only for myself and for the ship’s navigation, seemed the maximum expression of freedom. Even in strong winds, with everything on board in order, I enjoy being the total master of my time and losing the sense of it day by day. All that matters is the warm sun, the shapes and colours of the clouds, the sparkling dance of the reflections, clear moonlit nights, or moonless, under bright stars with a wake of luminous swirling plankton; the roaring of the sea past the hull.

mario’s masterclass To maintain this wonderful feeling of solitude, there are a few fundamentals to consider. The first is to avoid getting hurt. The second is a careful preparation of the boat. The rigging and sails must be in perfect order. The need of a reliable autopilot, possibly with a back-up, is essential. Also important is the smooth running of systems from battery charging to radar operation during off watches, to running lights and all that. Last, but not least, a consistent dose of good luck, however fleeting, is a precious commodity. People often ask me how I can manage alone such a big complex boat as Latifa. The easy answer is I don’t know! But I guess I have gained a lot of experience over the years. It must be said that Latifa’s Marconi yawl rig is an old complicated one with three headsails, all maintained in hanks, in spite of the pangs of envy I feel for the handling ease of roller-furling sails. I see that furling would not be in keeping with Latifa’s period (although there are some old rare photos showing rolled sails). The advantage of such a fractional rig is that the sails are

relatively small. The main problem is the running backstays. No mistakes are allowed there because, as you can see from the plan, the staysail and the intermediate stays converge towards the upper spreaders that are only supported by the runners, each set by a two by four purchase. The mainsail, worthy of the name, has two-slab reefing along a 32ft 8in (10m)-long boom and measures 1,292sqft (120m²). Taking in a reef is, for one person, a complex 20-minute operation that, in spite of my little tricks, leaves me exhausted. I installed an electric winch for the 164ft (50m)-long mainsheet. I have to say that my sailing, especially in the last few years, has become very lazy indeed. I do not enjoy the boat on her beam ends, with torrents of water on deck, and when the going gets rough, after having done all that is needed on deck, I take refuge in the padded aft cabin where the motion in minimal, the sounds are muffled and the bunk very comfortable. Latifa sails herself, accurately steered by one of the autopilots. The radar keeps watch and warns me when ships are getting too close. I only need to lift one eye from the book I am

Above: with her complicated rigging, you can see why Latifa is a challenge to sail solo

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

11

LATIFA

“She is one of the loveliest of sailing craft yet seen” BY THEO RYE

Latifa was commissioned by Michael Mason in late 1935 and launched in time for the 1936 season. She was designed as an ocean racer, but Mason wanted to be able to cruise her as well (he described an ambition to take her through the Strait of Magellan and round the Horn). William Fife III, who would be 79 by the time Latifa was launched, responded with a masterpiece (yard number 818) described as a “51ft 6in (15.7m) LWL fast cruiser”. Uffa Fox was typically ebullient

in his appreciation. Ever a fan of Fife’s work, Fox wrote in the 1937 edition of Racing, Cruising & Design: “She is one of the loveliest of sailing craft yet seen.” Douglas Phillips-Birt, a naval architect and accomplished technical author, wrote a more analytical appreciation of her form in An Eye for a Yacht in 1955: “The Fife sheerline, which we see in Latifa, shows a subtle variation on the relaxed curve in the way that a tenseness aft is developed where the sheerline rises more steeply than is now common from its lowest

Above: Latifa’s lines and genius designer, William Fife III

point to the stern. This tenseness gives strength to the relaxed curve, a suggestion of latent energy, beautifully apt for the type of boat.” It is in some ways more remarkable because Fife chose a canoe stern, which is a form that’s notoriously difficult to resolve. Fife had spotted an advantage under the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) rules; he wrote to Mason saying: “Canoe stern lines 51ft 6in (15.7m) LWL work out about the same rating under RORC rule as the counter stern lines 50ft 2in (15.3m) LWL”, and he returned to the type for Chris Ratsey’s lovely RORC racer-cruiser Evenlode the following year. The canoe stern was subsequently

reading to check on the instruments for wind speed and direction, and if needs be I can alter course with a fingertip. Virtual navigation really… Having said that, when I’m on deck I never wear a harness, not even when changing sails on the bowsprit. Only when reefing or flaking the mizzen I wrap its halyard under my armpits because there is not much deck space on a canoe stern. Going to sea for me has never been about racing; it’s about enjoying the mystical side to the ocean. Having to run to time in a competition would have erased all that.

STEEL PLATES

BEKEN OF COWES

In 2000-2001, under my strict supervision, more work was carried out at the Beconcini yard. From the keel up, eight planks were carefully removed on both sides, starting from the sternpost to the butt-plates, to well forward of the mainmast. The reason for this was the need to access two reinforced steel plates in the mainmast area down at the bilges. Along the top of the keel, on either side, there was a steel plate measuring

12

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

LATIFA adopted for nyatonga (830), a 24ft (7.3m) LWL sloop that Fife designed but wasn’t built until 1950, which in turn evolved into a series of doubleenders, built by Archie mcmillan, such as nyachilwa (836), navara (839) and eventually nevada (858, now ellad see p80) built in 1957. the designs for Latifa and evenlode were credited to William and his younger nephew robert balderston Fife, as was by then typical for nearly all the yard’s designs. it is difficult to evaluate robert’s influence, but he studied yacht design and it is possible that the canoe stern was his suggestion. in 1911, balderston had independently designed a canoe stern auxiliary yawl, gwyneth, built by Dixon brothers and hutchinson Ltd of southampton. in any event, the result for both boats was graceful and effective. Looking at her now it is difficult to imagine her as anything other than a yawl, a rig that seems to suit her perfectly, but she was also briefly a cutter. the dates on the sail plans in the archive at Fairlie Yachts tell the tale: Fife evidently conceived her as a yawl (the first plan is dated October 1935, and this is the one he first sent to mason), and she raced with this rig in 1936. there is then a cutter sail plan dated December 1936, at the end of her first season, which was executed for the start of 1937, but she was back to a yawl before the end of the season. she was campaigned vigorously by mason (he owned her until 1954, and

also lent her to friends to race). she won the bénodet race in 1936 and was second over the line in the 1937 Fastnet, which she had led from start to practically within sight of the finish when the wind dropped. she also tried her luck in the 1938 bermuda race but carried away her bobstay. however, she returned in time to win the Queen mary’s cup at cowes Week, so Fife lived to see his creation fulfil her intended role in style, with the rig he had always intended her to have. post-war, she won line honours and her class in the 1947 Fastnet. Fife’s friend and fellow yacht designer george L Watson described yacht design as the poetry of naval architecture. Latifa is an exemplary example of Fife’s poetry.

LATIFA LOA

77ft (23.5m) LOD

70ft (21.3m) beAm

15ft 7in (4.8m) DrAught

10ft 4in (3.2m) DispLAcement

39,916lb (44 tons) tOtAL sAiL AreA

2,200sqft (204m²)

11ft 10in (3.6m) in length, 1ft 5in (43cm) in height and ¼in (6mm) thick, bridging nine frames, through-bolted to the floors. The lower hull planks were then fastened onto the plates. This is a simple, clever piece of engineering because by connecting the floors to each other, it forms a grid preventing distortion from mast compression, thus sparing the planking from stress. After 64 years the two plates were extremely corroded on both sides, which meant that long sections of planking were scantly fastened. In spite of that, there was no leakage mainly due to the previous splining. However, replacement was not easy, as these plates have a double curvature – one on the frames and the other along the keel. After laboriously matching both curves by heating and hammering, the plates were held in position and the corresponding bolt holes on each frame were marked. Then they were taken down, drilled and temporarily bolted on to the frames. Next, the planks were clamped into position thus allowing, from the outside, the steel plates to be precisely marked through the fastening holes. Everything was taken down again

and the new set of holes were drilled, before the two plates were sent off to be hot-dip-galvanised. The reasons for such a long process are two-fold: to allow the plates to be galvanised all around and inside the drilled holes, and for the teak planks (perfect after a simple cleaning) to retain their original fastening holes and recesses. Inside, the substantial, if slightly corroded, bridge-like mast-step structure, spanning four floors and bolted on top of them, has been totally replaced and is now made of 316-grade stainless steel. Before reassembling all the pieces, the lower part of the frames and floors were found to have lost less than 1mm in thickness. Other areas that needed attention were the chainplates of both mainmast and mizzen. Although there was not as much corrosion, all four chainplates were removed. The inner side of all planking was in excellent condition. I chose stainless steel for the large plates. These are fitted below deck between the frames and planking, and help spread the load from the hefty welded rigging tangs going through the covering board and emerging on deck. The stainless-steel plates were

Left and above: Latifa pictured in 1951; at full sail, her double-ended hull, huge expanse of sail and yawl rig make a majestic sight

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

13

LATIFA

maRIo PIRRI

presented, marked, taken down, drilled and positioned. The original planks were positioned on them, the holes marked, the planks removed, the fastening holes drilled in the stainless plates, then the planking refastened. At this point, I wanted the steel structure of the floors and the frames up to the beams to be sandblasted. Years before I had seen the disastrous effect of such an operation on a boat of similar composite construction. Given the softness of the wood compared with steel, it is all too easy to blast away sections of the wood planking close to the frames. So, in order to prevent this, I had all the wood inside, frame to frame, temporarily covered with precision-cut 1mm metal plates, lightly nailed to the planking. Afterwards, the inside looked like a steel hull! Following the sandblasting, all the fastenings were tightened and the broken ones replaced. All the steel was epoxy-treated and it was painted again in white enamel. The 40hp engines have been replaced by two 50hp Kubota motors. Each engine drives an alternator, which is capable of charging both groups of gel batteries for a total of 672ha/hr. I also fitted a new 6kW Northern Light generator (replaced again in 1998) and new standing rigging. All this was a lot of essential work giving Latifa another long lease of life.

Above, left to right: one of two huge reinforced steel plates used by Fife to reduce stress on the planks; laid up in the boatyard, the sheer scale of Latifa’s elegant form becomes obvious. Below: the Latifa windvane that stands proud on top of the parish church in Fife’s home town of Fairlie, Ayrshire

NIGEL PERT

designer deck

14

The original deck needed to be redone and I always had a clear idea about what to do, but every yard I talked to wanted to do something different. So I postponed until, in 2009, I met Richard Straman in Antigua, owner of the wonderful 1923 Fife schooner Astor. Richard’s approach had been exactly the one I had thought of and, after many years, it looked perfect! So Latifa went back into the yard and work began. First a careful deck relief was done, marking the exact position of every fitting. Then everything was removed, every single piece catalogued with its fastenings and two crates were filled with more than 200 pieces inclduing the cockpit coaming. Only the deckhouse and skylights were left. Of the deck’s original 113/16in (46mm)–

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

maRIo PIRRI

thickness, only 1¼in (32mm) remained in the most worn out areas. It was then sanded and levelled to 13/16in (30mm) and the remaining caulking was pried out, the seams cut and splined with teak strips and glued with epoxy. On top of it an exact reproduction of the old deck was made with 5/8in (16mm) teak planking, glued, primed and rubbered. All fittings were replaced. Meanwhile, the masts and spars were taken back to bare wood and given 12 coats of varnish. The topsides were sprayed with Awlgrip. In 2013 all the stainless steel standing rigging was replaced, the topsides sprayed again with Awlgrip and the covering boards varnished. I have owned Latifa for 37 years and she has always been maintained and upgraded to the highest standards. I’ve neither thought nor dared to calculate the cost, but I presume it’s a few million! I look at the results. Latifa has taken me across the oceans without a glitch and has given me great pride. She is a twice Overall Winner in the Concours d’Elegance at the Antigua Classic Week; she won the 2013 Fife Regatta and, of course, she has just won the Classic Boat 2014 award for Best Hull Form. Latifa is now back in La Spezia. Along with the usual maintenance, 24 new gel batteries have been installed. Both autopilots have been overhauled, any play in the steering system minimised, a new Webasto heater installed, the aft cabin coaming and hatch replaced, the 20 most important blocks redone, all running rigging renewed and paint and varnish applied. I have always considered my singlehanded voyaging to be a private affair and never made much about it. But recently I have read some preposterous claims about some solo Atlantic crossings in the ketch Eilean. I know for a fact that to do this you need a boat prepared for it. So, to put the record straight, I have completed 15 solo ocean crossings: three across the Atlantic on Aleph, 11 across the Atlantic on Latifa and one in the Indian Ocean, from Cairns to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.

“I have completed 11 solo crossings of the Atlantic on Latifa”

STOCKBRIDGE YA C H T B R O K E R S

CARL LINNE

Length: 32.3m / 106’ Builder: Holland Jachtbouw Delivered: 2003 refit 2011 Price: € 3.95M

A modern classic built by Holland Jachtbouw, she was designed to replicate the Bristol Channel Pilot Cutters, but with modern systems and performance. Her current Owner has taken her to far flung destinations involving extensive maritime conservation work. She has been a successful charter yacht, recently upgraded and having now completed her 10 year Lloyds survey, she is offered for sale in pristine condition.

www.stockbridgeyachts.com [email protected] O: +44 1725 510738 M: +44 7788 925337

B a m Bi

Gir l

1946 Third rule 6-mr by Knud h. reimers

A. Anderson sK95 squAre meTre from 1911

loa: 11.32 m

|Beam: 1.90 m |Dr aft: 1.65 m | Price: EUR 63,000 | |loa: 14.81 m |Beam: 2.96 m |Dr aft: 2.04 m |Price: EUR 178,000

a na lí a

fr e Y J a

75 fT Alfred mylne yAwl from 1925

inTernATionAl 8-meTre Cruiser by erling KrisTofersen

loa: 22.88 m

|Beam: 4.39 m |Dr aft: 2.60 m |Price: EUR 900,000 | |loa: 12.30 m |Beam: 2.60 m |Dr aft: 2.00 m |Price: EUR 115,000

Di a n a

C a Pr iC e of H uon

bill dixon sPiriT-of-Tr AdiTion CuTTer builT by wAlsTed

45-fT roberT ClArK Admir Als CuP winner of 1967

loa: 19.20 m

|Beam: 4.87 m |Draft: 2.30 m |Price: EUR 475,000 |

|loa: 13.82 m |Beam: 3.06 m |Dr aft: 2.05 m |Price: EUR 140,000

Member of t he Robbe & B erk i ng fa m i ly

YA C H T S

+49 (0)461 31 80 30 65 · [email protected] · w w w.classic-yachts.de

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CLASSIC BOAT AWARDS 2014

Star-studded evening Our second annual awards evening was spent again at the sparkling Bremont boutique in Mayfair where winners and runners-up gathered for an evening of champagne and well-deserved bonhomie. Professor Mark Horton, who co-hosts BBC’s Coast and who also sails a Maurice Griffiths 28ft (8.5m)

Lone Gull, spent the evening with us and helped give out some 21 awards! We felt honoured that people came from as near and as far away as America to make the night such a success, and we can relay that thanks were given to all our loyal and dedicated readers who voted in their thousands. Good one!

1 Charles-Henri Le Moing won our Lifetime Achievement Award for instigating raiding by sail and oar. 2 The Ed with Didier Griffiths, whose Ellad (p80) is our Restoration – Under 40ft (12m) of the year. 3 Chris Hood came from America to pick up his award for best Spirit of Tradition Under 40ft (12m) for the CW Hood 32. 4 Design genius Andre Hoek picked up the SoT Over 40ft (12m) award for Alexa. 5 Emmet Hart picked up the Powerboat award for Snowgoose (p34) 6 Stratis Andreadis from sponsors Salty Bag with Epi Unzueta, captain of So Fong: Best Below Decks winner. 7 The Hon Alexandra Shackleton picking up Tim Jarvis’s Person of the Year award. 8 Mario Pirri collected Latifa’s Best Hull Form award (p6). 9 Martin Black won our John Leather award for his GL Watson book. 10 Tommi Nielsen and Sarah White: Boatyard of the Year 11 Tony Allen picked up the Editor’s Choice award (given posthumously) for Kenny Coombs. 12 Peter Moor: Best New Build. 13 Pilgrim’s Mike Chater: Restoration – Over 40ft (12m).

SPONSORED BY

Since 1790

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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Tell Tales

Classic Boat’s address: Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ For phone numbers, please see page 5

OBITUARY

A modern designer with a classic touch

JoHn LiGHT

David Sadler, the designer of some of the most capable small yachts of the 1970s and 80s, has passed away at his home in New Zealand, aged 93. With a sailing background in Merlin Rockets, he went on to race a Folkboat very successfully before drawing a modified version for GRP production by Jeremy Rogers, and in April 1966 the Contessa 26 was born. These sound little cruisers carried on in production until, by 1990, they numbered over 750. The Contessa 32 joined in 1971, with an eye on IOR racing and cruising, and quickly reinforced the 26’s reputation for speed and seaworthiness. A class win for the C32 at the 1971 Cowes Week was followed by “Boat of the Year” at the London Boat Show in 1972, a much sought-after accolade at the time. With his son Martin, Sadler

GaRy BLaKe

BY THEO RYE

Yachts was set up in 1974 with the launch of the Sadler 25, another successful fast cruiser with good offshore manners. As the company grew, David gave up his post at the Ministry of Defence in 1977. In the disastrous 1979 Fastnet Race, a C32 was the only Class V yacht to finish. The official inquiry into the fateful race favourably compared the stability of a C32 to a

Above, left to right: David Sadler; a Contessa 32 in action

typical half-tonner of the period, further enhancing the reputation for seaworthiness of Sadler’s designs. Later that year the Sadler 32 was launched, to be followed in 1981 by the “unsinkable” Sadler 26 and 29. With foam buoyancy bonded in, this unusual feature proved a hit with nearly 600 built. Sadler retired in 1981, before finally settling in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand.

RiCHaRd JoHnSTone-BRyden

Hobie Alter 1933-2014

Restored HMS Alliance reopens to the public

Ainslie to support NMMC

By RiCHaRd JoHnSTone-BRyden

olympic supremo Sir Ben ainslie has been named as the new patron of the national Maritime Museum Cornwall. The nMMC, 10 last year (CB307), keeps two of Ben’s winning boats in its collection – a Laser and the Finn Rita.

The principle attraction of Gosport’s Royal navy Submarine Museum, HMS alliance, reopened to the public in april at the end of a two-and-a-half-year, £7m restoration. designed to fight in the Pacific during World War ii, Britain’s first preserved submarine served across the globe during the Cold War, and briefly held a world record for the longest submerged voyage. The 281ft (85.6m) a Class submarine set the record off the West Coast of africa shortly after her completion in 1947, when she took 30 days to cover 3,193 miles underwater. Since opening to the public in 1981, she has acted as a memorial to the 4,334 British submariners lost in both world wars, as well as the 739 men who died in peacetime disasters. With the notable exception of the beginning of 2014, she has remained open for the bulk of her restoration, which included the reconstruction of her bow and stern, blasting back the exterior to bare metal, the creation of a dry platform to enable access to the hull, internal restoration work, installing a new sound system to recreate the sounds of an active submarine, and “dressing” the interior to create the impression that the crew have just stepped ashore.

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news reached us while going to press of the death of Californian Hobie alter, aged 80. as a surfboard manufacturer, his catamaran, the Hobie Cat 16, is possibly the most successful boat type ever designed, with over 250,000 built.

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

Rawhiti 1906

Final Arch Logan restored Rawhiti, the biggest and last and fastest of all the lovely creations from the pen (and boatyard) of Arch Logan – ‘New Zealand’s Fife’ – was built in 1906. She’s 54ft (16.5m) long and was restored recently – full story in CB284 and online at classicboat.co.uk.

WILLIAM CULvER

GWEEK QUAY

EMILY HARRIS

More than 100 people made the journey to Gweek Quay in Cornwall at the end of March to celebrate the relaunch of the 79ft (24m) LOA schooner Kelpie, as she emerged from her shed following a 15-month rebuild. The crew, workers, friends and other supporters braved a brisk breeze and were rewarded with champagne and short speeches. A bottle of champagne was emphatically smashed on the bow and, as if on cue, she floated free on the tide. A mixture of Gallic hospitality and Cornish informality combined in the hog roast and drinks afterwards, expertly hosted by Mariette’s crew (who

evidently know a thing or two about dock parties) and the celebrations went on late into the night. Charlie Wroe, skipper of the Fife yacht Mariquita, the only 19-M sailing today, found Kelpie for sale in the USA in 2012. She was designed by Ford, Payne & Sweisguth in 1928 as Hopeful, and built by Harvey Gamage’s yard in South Bristol, Maine. During the Second World War she served as a USCG coastal patrol boat, and afterwards cruised to Mexico, Hawaii and the Pacific, before settling in California. By the 1990s she acquired the nickname “The Fastest Schooner in the West” after success in offshore races, including the Newport to Ensenada. Having fallen on hard times, Charlie spotted her potential and a crew was despatched to make an epic 9,000-mile journey with her back to Cornwall, where she arrived in late 2012. Working from original drawings and photographs, she has been restored to her original gaff rig with an all-new interior, engine, systems, deck and rebuilt transom. She is now in Falmouth for the final fit-out before her debut at the Pendennis Cup in late May. Report by Theo Rye

PPL MEDIA

Anglo-French alliance for Kelpie launch

LORiEnt, FRAncE

Tabarly remembered A special event in Lorient will be held this summer to mark 50 years since her most famous son, and arguably the most celebrated yachtsman of the 20th century, Eric Tabarly, won the OSTAR in 27d 3h aboard his ketch Pen Duick II. Pen Duick II will be in attendance at the Breton port. During his life, Eric Tabarly won pretty much every ocean race you can think of, including the Sydney-Hobart, Middle Sea, Transpac and, in 1997 at the age of 66, the Fastnet. In 1980, aboard the trimaran Pen Duick II, he broke the transatlantic sailing record set 75 years before by the schooner Atlantic, by sailing from New York to the Lizard in 10d 5h. More than that, though, he is credited with igniting French sailing, ocean racing and boatbuilding to the status it enjoys today. CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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TELL TALES

DEVON

Two boat fires in a week c/O THevIewFrOmTHeDArTmOuTOFFIce.cOm

This March the press was full of stories of how a Dunkirk Little Ship had been destroyed near Dartmouth, reports Clare McComb. However, these were hastily corrected because the African Queen, a 51ft (15.5m) General Service Launch (Dickens Series II), was built in 1946 and although designed for naval use was too late to participate in the war effort. Nevertheless, for the Dart community her loss is no less devastating: as the best-known charter boat on the river, her comings and goings were watched by everyone, including Andy Kyle, who

records the day-to-day happenings on the river on his website, and who sent in this amazing image of the boat ablaze. The following day, her blackened wreck was sickening to see. More than 60 people rushed to assist in vain. The Lower Ferry carried fire appliances over from Dartmouth, and two lifeboats, the Coastguard, harbour staff and fishermen fought all night, removing the 700 litres of diesel on board; however, the blaze kept re-igniting below decks. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Days later Blue Storm, a 25ft (7.6m) Bayliner, burned down, also in Dartmouth. Everyone hopes

Above: African Queen ablaze on the River Dart

African Queen can be salvaged as she is still just about afloat. Blue Storm was irretrievably destroyed as her glassfibre hull burned more fiercely than wood. Afterwards, Dartmouth fire chief Andy Callan stressed the importance of taking proper fire precautions, such as regularly tested gas, carbon monoxide and smoke alarms, and professionally installed appliances and electrics. He said people need to remember that gas cylinders explode like bombs, carbon monoxide is as inflammable as acetylene and that you risk your life if you cut corners with safety.

Transat Classique It’s been confirmed that Panerai’s Transat Classique will leave Lanzarote on 7 January 2015 bound for Martinique, 3,000 miles away.

HAJO OLIJ, c/O New DAwN TrADers

Correction and apology

Deadline for grants The Transport Trust gives small grants to worthy restoration projects (afloat, on land and in the air), without the usual public service caveats. Deadline for applications this year is 30 June. Visit transporttrust.com to learn more. 20

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

FALMOUTH

Holland’s sail-trader visits Falmouth The engineless sail-trading ship, the brigantine Tres Hombres – thought to be the only one of her kind in the world – is due to arrive in Falmouth on or around 16 April, bearing a mouth-watering cargo of rum and chocolate. Her friendly Dutch crew are inviting interested parties on board to learn more. Go to newdawntraders.com for more information.

Gremlins got aboard us in our Awards issue in April where we said Ben My Chree had won when it was Trasnagh! We are sorry! Our monochrome portrait of Luke Powell in the March issue (p33, CB309) should have been credited to AnnMarie Colbert.

WORD OF THE MONTH

RUMBO

rope stolen from a dockyard. rumbowline is therefore condemned canvas, rope, etc. Also the coarse rope that secures new coils of rope. A Ansted, Dictionary of sea Terms

TELL TALES

BUYING A

CLASSIC? LOOK FOR THE

C/O SPIRIT YACHTS

LOGO

ANTIGUA CLASSIC WEEK

Separate class for Spirit Yachts For the first time, Spirit Yachts will have their own class at the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta (17-22 April), such is the popularity in the Caribbean and USA. Only last month, we reported that Spirit Yachts will be opening a new office in Hong Kong this autumn. As we went to press, 10 Spirits were expected to line up on the start line. For more information, go to antiguaclassics.com.

By following this code, BMF members offer their customers quality, competitive pricing and peace of mind. When you buy BMF, you will also experience ethical business practice and great customer service.

CB ARCHIVES

HLF money for junk yacht sail training The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded £63,000 to enable sail training on the restored 40ft (12.2m) junk yacht Boleh. She was built after the war in Malaysia, with glass from Japanese fighter aircraft windscreens for portholes, and recently restored by the Portsmouth charity Boleh Trust. bolehproject.com

Look for the BMF logo and buy with confidence C/O THE ORGANISERS from over 1500 accredited companies that adhere to the British Marine Federation’s Code of Practice.

NORWAY CENTENNIAL REGATTA

Norwegian king’s Anker 8-M yacht races The King of Norway’s boat, the 8-M yacht Sira, has confirmed entry to this year’s big centennial regatta in and around Oslo. It is as yet unconfirmed whether King Harald V will helm. Sira, built in 1938, is sometimes cited as one of the great triumphs of her designer Johan Anker, who has recently been canonised in a major new biography (see Books, p62). Don’t miss it – 15-22 July

Every company displaying the BMF logo is proud of all it represents. Buy BMF. Buy with confidence. Look for the logo. britishmarine.co.uk/logo

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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BPC766 bmf orange ad boat CB 50x268 May14.indd 25/03/2014 1 10:11

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The new Tempus 90 ‘Tempus Fugit’ competes in the Voiles de Saint-Tropez at full pace, posting an incredible 5th equal in the IRC Class A.

Classically beautiful. Totally contemporary. Combining stunningly classic good looks reminiscent of an earlier era with an outstanding turn of speed, these beautiful yachts are sure to turn heads wherever they are seen. The new Tempus Class, created by Humphreys Yacht Design and built by Arkin Pruva, combines the latest design techniques and the very best of modern yacht-building. Constructed of cold-moulded wood epoxy, a Tempus Class yacht is not only breathtakingly beautiful but also exceptionally strong and easily maintained. Designed for luxurious bluewater cruising, these yachts can also make a big impression on the race track. Whether simply cruising or competing, Tempus Class will do it in style.

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Day One: loro Piana Superyacht Regatta, Virgin Gorda, BVI.

www.tempusclass.com [email protected] +44 (0)1590 671 727

baby

Bond’s

With just four months to salvage, redesign and restore a rotten old Troy One-Design called Solitaire before the Fowey Royal Regatta, Richard Bond and his team had their work cut out. Find out if they made it… story AND photogrAphs NIGEL SHARP

R

ichard Bond is an habitual owner and restorer of classic boats – he has previously had five 6-Metres, including Caprice and Erica, and the S&S yawl Tomahawk – and having had a house in Fowey for 30-odd years, it was perhaps inevitable that one day he would own a Fowey Troy One-Design. About five years ago, he asked the Troy Owners’ Association for permission to build a new one and this was duly granted. However, it wasn’t until early 2013 that he decided to go ahead with it and, in the meantime, the building of a number of other new boats had given the Fowey harbourmaster concerns about mooring availability, crowded start lines and the number of neglected older boats. So the class association changed the rules: before anyone would be allowed to commission a new Troy, they would first have to sail on an existing

Above: given her rotten state, Richard and his team of expert restorers have done a splendid job returning Solitaire to a seaworthy condition 26

boat for three years. Richard then heard that T13 – originally built as Little Gem in 1947 and later renamed Amber – was for sale. She had been lying ashore neglected in Polruan for about four years, during which time her deck had been crushed and she had broken three planks. Richard bought her and took her to boatbuilder Peter Williams’ yard just up the Fowey River at Bodinnick, initially with the intention of just “tidying her up and getting her afloat”. The reality, however, was to prove very different. Peter served his apprenticeship some 20 years ago with John Fuge who, by a neat quirk of fate, had helped build T13 when he was serving his own apprenticeship with Archie Watty, the man who had designed the Troy in 1928, specifically to sail in Fowey Harbour, and then produced the first 15 boats. In total, 28 have been built – three by Peter – and all but two survive. Very soon after T13 arrived at Peter’s yard it became apparent that she was in a bad condition. At the same time, Richard decided that not only should the work be done really thoroughly, but that it must be finished in time for him to race the boat at the Fowey Royal Regatta in August. It was now April and the pressure was definitely on.

design dramas Peter had two concerns regarding the shape of the boat, the first being that, according to local folklore, she was too short. However, as soon as he took a tape to her he found that her overall length was “pretty much bang on” but that her wooden keel was too far aft and her sternpost was too raked, resulting in the two pieces of false evidence that had

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

misled people for so many years – a short horn timber and a rudder stock that was tight to the transom. So after removing much of the bottom planking, he moved the existing forefoot forward and fitted a new wooden keel and sternpost in the correct position. The class rules specify that the centreline components have to be grown oak and, while it was easy enough to obtain these straight pieces, it proved much more difficult to get a curved piece for the stem. This presented an additional problem as the stem provides the datum from which almost everything else is measured, so Peter was understandably keen to fit it as early as possible. After the class association turned down his request to fit a laminated stem, he eventually made a special trip to Dartmoor to get a suitable piece of timber from local supplier Anton Coaker English Timber Ltd. The other ‘shape’ issue was the beam of the boat, which Peter knew was about 4½in (115mm) too narrow. After removing the deck and the beamshelves, he decided to offer up the moulds he uses to build the new boats – one of only two sets in existence and officially approved by the class association – inside the hull. He had done this previously when restoring T4 and he felt that it was the “only way to be fair about it” and that “no one can then say anything has been tweaked or messed about”. He made some cuts in some ribs and planking and then tried to force the moulds down to splay the planking outwards. However, he was still not able to get them down far enough – in fact, they were about 8in (20cm) above the keel – because, as he had

Clockwise from top left: old rotten stem; new wooden keel; garboard, two conventional planks and glued strips viewed from inside and showing one of the templates; new hull timbers and foredeck; Solitaire has a unique-inclass swept teak deck and cedar king plank and covering boards; bronze winches came all the way from Italy; new stem and hull planking; new garboard and planks topped with glued strip planks

SOLITAIRE

Above, left to right: race start with Solitaire positioned 6th from right; owner Richard Bond at the helm of his very own Bond girl

suspected, the boat’s bilges were too slack. After making expected, and this theme carried on right through to the some more cuts, he eventually got the moulds down to later stages when Richard asked Peter to paint the inside the keel and fixed them there. He then fitted new of the planking and varnish the timbers. The result, garboards and two conventional planks above them, however, beautifully accentuates the Troy’s fine lines then a 12in (31cm) width – the maximum permissable inside the hull. – of narrow strip planks, glued and edge-nailed, in the While all the work for the new rig was carried out area of the tuck. within Fowey Harbour – Peter made the new spars, and “The early boats always used to have trouble there the sails and rigging were provided by Alan Harris at Sail because that’s where all the stresses of the keel are Shape – the winches came from much further afield: working against the boat,” Peter explained. The Harken in Italy and, uniquely among the Troy fleet, they remaining planks were left in place at this stage to use are made of bronze. After burning the candle at both them as ribbands, while new oak timbers were steamed ends, Peter managed to finish T13 in time for Richard to in place throughout the boat. “The association was very have his first sail at the Fowey Royal Regatta. keen, and I think quite rightly so, that things were replaced bit by bit rather than by going through the the name’s bond… process of building a new boat,” Peter told me. He also For obvious reasons, Richard named a number of his found it useful to use the old planking as a guide to previous boats after characters in the Bond films – he has widths and runs when fitting the new Brazilian cedar owned a Wayfarer called Odd Job and RIBs called Pussy planks. There is no class rule regarding timber species for Galore and Moneypenny – and he continued this theme hull planking but there is a minimum weight of 30lb (while also respecting the Troy class’s tradition to name (13.6kg) per cubic foot, and most of the newer boats are boats after gemstones) by naming T13 Solitaire, after the planked in cedar, which is light and stable, and tarot card-reading temptress in Live and Let Die. preferable to the heavier larch or “cheap softwood that I met up with Richard halfway through Fowey Royal the equivalent of Jewsons would sell in the 1930s”, Regatta just after he had come ashore from a race in which was generally used in the original boats. which he finished 8th in a fleet of 20 (he ended up 7th Throughout the project, Peter tried to save weight overall at the end of the regatta), and he said: “I’m very wherever possible, while keeping within pleased, absolutely delighted that I have class rules. Nevertheless, Richard was rescued an old Troy rather than build a new particularly keen that, while three other one. At the time I thought it was a bit of a Troys have straight-laid teak decks, T13 nuisance but it was the best thing to do – LOs would be the first with a swept teak deck. the association were absolutely right in their 22ft (6.7m) More than 10 years ago, he had acquired approach to it.” He was also full of praise seven tons of teak skirting boards from a for Peter Williams: “He’s done a fantastic LOA disused hospital. Having sold much of it, job and he did it with consummate style. 18ft (5.5m) he then brought some more to Peter’s yard Full marks, I’m so pleased with what he’s for T13. To try to minimise the extra done. It’s been a treat.” LWL weight, Peter fitted a thinner-than-usual Another of Richard’s rituals is to keep 17ft 6in (5.4m) 3/8in (9.5mm) ply sub-deck, and kept the pieces of timber that have been replaced BEAM teak at just 5/32in (4mm) thick. However, during previous restorations, and to use 5ft 9in (1.8m) he found that he was unable to edge-bend them in some way in subsequent boats. the teak planks enough, even by steaming In this case, a piece of Tomahawk’s old DrAught them, so he ended up fitting a semi-swept wooden keel has been fitted to the forward 3ft 9in (1.2m) deck with snapes in the cedar covering end of Solitaire’s stainless-steel tiller. boards, as well as in the king plank. “Isn’t that nice that I can hold that tiller sAIL ArEA Many aspects of the restoration were and I know that it’s a piece of 297sqft (27.6m²) much more time consuming than had been Tomahawk?” he said.

SOLITAIRE

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

WINNER

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Close quarters with…

Ted SpeArS Man of steel, then man of strip plank… The founder of North Quay Marine has never conformed to type Story steffan MeyriC hughes portrait phil starling

C

onyer Creek, a tendril of the Swale Channel that separates the Isle of Sheppey from mainland Kent, is just a few miles east of Queenborough, that favourite bolthole for sailors on passage in the Thames Estuary. It’s classic north Kent – endless vistas over marshy plains to the sea, big skies, muddy creeks and centuries-old, white-painted clapperboard houses. This was smugglers’ country in the 18th and 19th centuries and, later, a centre of brick-making and barge-building. There is building going on at North Quay Marine, too, with a new shed going up on a hillock behind the the Spears’s household. Spears Snr, 91, Poplar-born ex-Thames tugman and boxer… “a proper Cockney”... is out at lunch, the beagles are at the vets being neutered and son Ewan drifts in and out. But in Ted’s sitting room with its view over the creek and the odd watercolour by his own hand, all is calm. In January, we sailed the latest boat from the yard of North Quay Marine (aka Ted and son Ewan), the brilliant Spitfire 18 (CB310), and we got to thinking about how, over the last 20 years, North Quay Marine has been building its little yachts and dayboats in Western red cedar strip plank in a sector dominated by GRP and ply. Spirit Yachts is a notable exception in Britain and, elsewhere in the world, particularly Turkey and the USA, large Spirit-of-Tradition yachts are built in strip. But in the 15ft to 30ft (4.6m-9.1m) range, North Quay Marine is alone. Ted was born in nearby Rochester in 1948 when the family was living aboard a First World War steam pinnace converted to a yacht. “Dad was mad about boats – even more than me,” he says. Ted built his first boat aged seven with his father’s help – a 7ft 8in (2.3m) Foil dinghy, built from tortured ply, round-bilged and fastened with bifurcated copper rivets, glass and tape. Soon after, the family moved onto terra firma and bought a 29ft (8.8m) Polperro Gaffer called Wendy. Ted remembers sleeping on sail bags in the fo’c’s’le on family holidays, although his love is not for distant shores and blue water, but for estuary and river sailing in small boats. By 1967, the family arrived where they have lived ever since – Conyer Creek. Spears Snr, who had left

tugboating and found success in the Sixties boom years in slum clearance, demolition and specialist machinery moving, bought the local yard on sight, together with three shipwrights and three apprentices. Soon after, Ted found the 2.5-ton Hillyard Mynx in a field and restored her with wife-to-be Mary. He sold her two years later (to buy an MG sportscar!) but by 1975, married and with son Ewan on the way, bought the boat he had been lusting after for years – Welcome Too, a clinker, 32ft (9.8m) ex-Admiralty rowing cutter built in the 1930s and converted to a yacht in 1948. She would influence the look of the North Quay boats years later.

Man of steel Around this time, Spears Snr and his wife moved to Scotland to run a small charter-fishing and chandlery operation, leaving Ted and younger brother Bill to take over the Conyer yard. “What we did not want to do was fit out GRP shells from Colvic, which was what everyone else was doing at the time,” Ted recalls. So they busied themselves with repairs and maintenance, until a customer came asking for a 38ft (11.6m) steel yacht hull, swiftly followed by another. “That was popular then – no comebacks, no hassle – but I wanted to build a complete yacht.” That order soon came, for a Canadian sailor who wanted a 42ft (12.8m) ketch to a Maurice Griffiths Good Hope design. “We built it all in steel – right down to the cockpit. At her launch, she went down the slip and just kept going. I knew so little then – I was just winging it. She was 8in (20cm) below her waterline, so I phoned Maurice Griffiths, who said ‘don’t worry – just paint a new waterline – she’ll be as stiff as a church’.” The boat turned out to be fast and seaworthy – if a little wet! Steel boatbuilding continued for 17 years, and included about 25 yachts and scores of other craft, including tugs and barges for lands as far-off as Nigeria and Mozambique. As Maurice Griffiths retired, Ted took over designing, after a course of home study (favourite book being Norman L Skene’s Elements of Yacht Design).

“What we did not want to do was fit out GRP shells from Colvic…”

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

Man of strip planK Two jobs in the early 90s are worthy of particular mention: one was for a 110ft (33.5m) superyacht in

TED SPEARS

C/O NORTH QUAY mARINe

Above, left to right: a North Quay 19 with its high-peaked gaff, obviating the need for a topsail and with built-in camping potential; Conyer Creek, Spears’s HQ

PHIL STARLING

steel to a Tony Castro design – “the biggest boat ever built in Conyer Creek” – and an order for a 28ft (8.5m) Edwardian-style steam launch. She had to go on a trailer, making steel too heavy. Enter strip-planking, which had been gaining in popularity since the early 1980s. It was similar to building in steel, so Ted felt at home with it. “The owner – Mr von Finck, a very nice gentleman – owned a bank that backed Hitler’s war effort and helped build Messerschmitts. ‘Don’t mention the war’ [Fawlty Towers], suddenly became a significant commandment at the yard. When he collected the boat, I noticed that the name of the bank on the cheque he signed was the same as his name. And when he told us what his name for the boat was, we were astonished: Spitfire! In England, he said, you call a lady with fire in her belly a ‘Spitfire’, and his steamboat had a fire in her belly!”

NORTH QUAY mARiNe

“It looked as though someone had attacked it with a chip hammer”

By the 1992 recession the yard was failing. Ted went to the Southampton Institute to train as a marine surveyor, but in 1996 a friend employed him to design a dayboat. Remembering the lines of the clinker naval cutter Welcome Too, Ted drew a handsome shape: plumb bow, tucked-up transom and a nice sheer, although the boat was quite progressive in terms of her strip-plank build and use of space, including two berths under the foredeck and a cruising canopy that extended aft into a custom-built tent. That summer, he took the boat to the Greenwich Wooden Boat Show. “James Wharram and a couple of other boatbuilders showed some interest and the next morning we were presented with a trophy [CB’s Professional Boatbuilder of the Year]. We didn’t even know there was a trophy to be won, let alone that we’d been judged for it!” Ted and, in later years, son Ewan, have built 18 more of the North Quay boats in 15ft (4.6m), 17ft (5.2m), 19ft (5.8m) and 22ft (6.7m) variants, with and without cabins – and even a 30-footer (9.1m). In that time, Ted has become wedded to strip planking, partly because, as he freely admits, he’s “not a boatbuilder” and it’s 32

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

“straightforward for amateurs, which is essentially what we were”. There were also economies of scale: for a boatbuilder, every new order can feel like the last, so Ted was not keen to invest in a mould for GRP building – an expense that would have taken 20 boat sales to recover. Steel, too dense for the volume of small boats, was out. “A nice boat is rounded,” says Ted. So ply – though possible to round – was out too. Western red cedar has a durability (rot resistance) equal to teak. It’s denser than a pure former, like balsa, but less dense than something like fir, which only needs the glass and epoxy for protection. On a Western red cedar boat, wood, glass and epoxy pull together to form a strong monocoque; so strong, in fact, that in ½in (12mm) strip planking, a 17-footer (5.2m) doesn’t need frames. “I wasn’t worried about weight. The 17-footer came out at around 992lb (450kg), which is what I think a 17-footer should weigh.” So far, history has proved Ted’s hunch about strip plank to be right. Just last year he was aboard the steam launch Spitfire, now under a different owner and in the Netherlands. All his boats have remained maintenance-free since then. Ted’s only concern about strip plank – that as an encapsulated monocoque it would be hard to repair, was allayed in 2000 when a storm-damaged boat arrived for repairs. “It looked as though someone had attacked it with a chip hammer – holed in two places below the waterline and chipped all over.” They turned the boat upside down, removed the glass/epoxy skin, dried it out, then cut neat round holes around the jagged holes caused by the boat’s banging against a sea wall in Chichester Harbour, then plugged and resheathed. Another advantage of strip over GRP was energy absorption, meaning that the chips did not craze outwards, as they would on a glass hull. In 2012, Ted’s knowledge of modern wood construction led to him being appointed by Lloyd’s as a specialist surveyor to the Queen’s barge Gloriana. While the future might be in faster boats, like the Spitfire 18, one thing that looks set to remain constant is Ted and Ewan’s commitment to building in strip plank.

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Fifties flavour It takes something very special to win a Classic Boat award – and here it is! Thanks to one man’s passion and the redoubtable restoration skills of the IBTC, Snowgoose is one of the finest Broads cruisers on the water STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS RICHARD JOHNSTONE-BRYDEN 34

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

T

he winner of this year’s CB Powerboat of the Year award represents the ultimate incarnation of an interwar design that was created by one of the pioneers of motorboating on the Broads, Ted Landamore, and refined by his son Leslie to reflect the tastes of the early 1960s. Following a year-long restoration by the Suffolk-based International Boatbuilding Training College (IBTC) commercial division, the 37ft (11.3m) Snowgoose has been returned to her former glory and sympathetically optimised for extended cruising on inland waterways. The origins of Snowgoose’s chequered career date back to 1935 when the Wroxham-based boatbuilder and

designer Ted Landamore drafted the lines of the 32ft (9.8m) four-berth Vesta class motor-cruiser for his expanding hire fleet. Twelve years earlier, Landamore had returned to the Broads to set up a boatbuilding business following his wartime service. During his time away, the local hire fleet industry had been shaken to its core by the impact of the First World War. The carnage caused severe labour shortages and triggered a 300 per cent rise in the cost of hiring the sailing craft that formed the bulk of the local hire fleets. These craft were usually chartered with at least one professional member of crew, thereby making their owners extremely vulnerable to any rise in manpower costs, especially in a period of austerity. However, the

Above: few Broads cruisers, new or old, cast a more arresting shadow on the water than Snowgoose

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35

Clockwise from top: modern furnishings contrast with bygone features, such as the old-school radio, hinting at how Emmet has retained much of Snowgoose’s vintage charm

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increasing availability of lightweight petrol engines, suitable for marine use, created the opportunity to develop motor-cruisers that could be handled by those new to boating. This enabled the yards to dispense with the services of their professional crews, which, though unfortunate for some, was the industry’s salvation. Astute boatbuilders like Ted Landamore and Broom boats increasingly focused their efforts on the development of motor-cruisers that went on to form the backbone of hire fleets across the Broads. Like several other family-owned boatyards in the area, Landamores built up its own hire fleet, which led to the construction of the first Vesta class motor-cruisers in 1935. After the Second World War, Ted Landamore enlarged the Vesta’s design to create the 35ft (10.7m) five-berth Vestella, and a total of seven were built between 1949 and 1955. They introduced countless families to the magic of boating on the Broads, although one such family had very different ideas when they hired Vestella 6 in May 1957. Instead of pottering around for a week, they renamed her Loup de Mer (sea wolf) and tried to head to France. However, they abandoned her in Ramsgate harbour and escaped to the continent. Vestella 6 returned to Norfolk on the back of a truck and the culprit was caught several years later when he returned to England.

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

Fortunately, not all of Landamore’s customers took such a direct or illegal approach when they wanted to acquire one of the yard’s motor-cruisers. Edward Suckling, who had been one of the company’s long-term hirers and a close friend of Ted Landamore, purchased Vesta 5 when she was withdrawn from the fleet in 1954. Clearly, he admired his friend’s design and six years later commissioned an improved version of the Vestella class. Originally named Eclan in honour of her builders E C Landamore & Co Ltd, she was subsequently renamed Snowgoose by a later owner. Ted entrusted the task of drafting the revised design to his son Leslie, who had qualified as a naval architect. The notable differences included the lengthening of the hull by 2ft (61cm), adding two Morris Vedette petrol engines to improve manoeuvrability, and increasing the size of the windows in the cabinsides, as well as the forward half of the hull. Leslie managed to disguise her fulsome proportions through the clever use of two thin rubbing strips along each side of the hull, and a coat of white (not grey) paint to the upper section of the forward half of the hull finished off Snowgoose’s contemporary appearance. By the time Andrew Holmes purchased her in 1999 (sadly, the whereabouts of this boat in the preceeding 39-year period is something of a mystery), Snowgoose

SNOWGOOSE

Clockwise from top right: the well-appointed galley; clever curves, cutaways and brightwork hide Snowgoose’s considerable bulk; the cockpit, complete with super-comfy captain’s chair

had been fitted with a pair of Ford Watermota Sea Tiger petrol engines. They were replaced by two 29hp Nanni diesel engines during an extensive refit by the now defunct Brundall-based Native Yacht Company in 2003. The other work included fitting new upholstery, a generator and an inverter. In-between cruises, Andrew kept Snowgoose in a wetshed within the village of Horning. Sadly, Snowgoose lost this protection when she changed hands in 2007 and was moved to Brundall, from where she rarely moved. Her new owner lived on board until ill health forced her to move ashore in October 2011 and put Snowgoose up for sale. Although no one could find a key to unlock the interior, Irish businessman and boat enthusiast Emmet Hart was captivated by Snowgoose’s lines when he saw her in 2012: “I had looked at a number of boats, motor and sail, and initially was not set on a wooden boat. But it needed to be comfortable, spacious and with character. I was not adverse to buying a restoration project provided she had the ability to meet the above. After looking at lots of options, Snowgoose caught my eye.” From what he could see, her recent inactivity had clearly taken its

toll, which was confirmed by the subsequent survey. Undeterred, Emmet struck a deal and decided to use her to explore the Broads for the summer with his wife Clair, while searching for a yard to carry out the restoration. Apart from introducing the couple to the Broads, these cruises provided them with an opportunity to consider what, if any, changes they wanted to make. Choosing the right boatyard can be a daunting process, as Emmet explained: “I sought lots of advice and recommendations, then drew up a shortlist in Norfolk, Suffolk and on the Thames. However, the yard visits and subsequent communication, or lack of it, was very disappointing. Most of them didn’t want the work: more than 50 per cent never sent me a schedule of charges, so I quickly whittled down the list to three. IBTC Heritage stood out and my research confirmed the quality of their workmanship. Nat Wilson, the owner of IBTC, was very thorough in his assessment of what needed to be done, how long it would take, and the budget required. More importantly, he cared about the boat and the quality of the work. During the restoration, the team always took time to explain the processes,

“In the end they did what they said they would, on time and within budget”

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SNOWGOOSE

Above, left to right: Snowgoose edges out of the shed at the IBTC Heritage yard; the team responsible for her immaculate restoration

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They wanted to optimise the interior for extended cruising for two people, while retaining the ability to accommodate guests overnight. The aft cabin originally had two large single berths laid out in an L-shape. These were exchanged for one double berth in the aft port quarter, while the shower was replaced by a new en-suite heads/shower compartment. The removal of the halflength wardrobe along with the repositioning of the generator allowed more natural light to pour in. Although the galley, situated between the wheelhouse and the saloon, retains its original layout, the Harts decided to replace the 1960s Formica worktops with oak. The remaining internal alterations were confined to the forward cabin where the heads were removed to create a spacious cabin, which will become a study in due course. Shortly after her launch, Emmet moved Snowgoose to Wroxham where she joined Katinka in a wetshed. The sight of these beautiful boats together presented Emmet with a real dilemma – which one should he keep? While he could afford to run the pair, he felt they should be regularly used rather than laid up gathering dust. Having enjoyed a memorable summer of cruising in Katinka, which included several months on the Thames where she caused quite a stir during the Henley Royal Regatta, he reluctantly decided to put her up for sale. “They are both very different boats, but more of my soul is in Snowgoose so when I received an offer for Katinka, I agreed to sell her,” said Emmet. At the time of writing, the formalities of the sale are being completed. Thus, Emmet and Clair will spend this season exploring the Broads in Snowgoose before possibly SNOWGOOSE taking her across the Channel in 2015 to begin making their way BUILDER down the French canals towards the Ted Landamore Mediterranean. The idea for this trip was triggered by one of Emmet’s LOA previous adventures, as he explains: 37ft (11.3m) “I once flew a private plane to Cannes and cruising through France to the BEAm Med is probably a similar, but slower 11ft 9in (3.6m) experience, so we plan to tackle the DRAUght trip over two seasons. Beyond that, 2ft 3in (0.7m) our plans remain open-ended and may involve the movement of Snowgoose mAx spEED to other European inland waterways 8 knots before eventually bringing her back to the Broads.”

difficulties, solutions and suggestions – it was clear they knew what they were doing. In the end they did what they said they would, on time and within budget.” The commercial division of IBTC Heritage was originally set up by John Elliot to provide students with up to six months’ work experience after their graduation. However, it was always a bit of a halfway house so, after Nat and Gill Wilson purchased the college in 2005 they decided to turn it into a commercial boatyard with a permanent workforce that specialises in wooden boats. Unlike the college, IBTC Heritage is not constrained by a syllabus, so it can tackle a broader range of projects. The combination of the college’s reputation and his dealings with the staff convinced Emmet to bring Snowgoose to Lake Lothing in Lowestoft to be slipped by IBTC Heritage on 24 October 2012. The subsequent stripping out of her interior revealed the full extent of her deterioration and inevitably extended the scope of the structural work, which included replacing 50 per cent of the hull’s planking, renewing 30 per cent of her timbers, fitting new floors throughout, recaulking the entire hull, adding a 3mm mahogany laminate to the transom, repairing the cabinsides and the cold-moulded coachroof. As Emmet contemplated the prospect of being without a boat for the 2013 season, he purchased the immaculate 44ft (13.4m) Broom Admiral class motor-cruiser Katinka (CB310) in February 2013. Meanwhile, IBTC Heritage had made enough progress by April for Emmet and Clair to firm up the rest of their plans for Snowgoose.

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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Generous rake Broad base Large caps Six fastenings

Saleroom CHARLES MILLER LTD, LONDON

Astronomical astrolabe An incredibly rare 16th-century mariner’s astrolabe found in a junk shop could fetch £50,000, or possibly a great deal more, when it comes up for sale at Charles Miller Ltd’s next London maritime sale on 30 April. The early Portuguese instrument, used for determining latitude at noon, and predating the sextant by centuries, was discovered by a British collector who hung it in his kitchen for decades. In 20 years as a marine specialist, it’s the first time auctioneer Charles Miller has actually touched one. He said: “I’ve never encountered an intact one before, only fragments recovered from wrecks. It’s really exciting.” It was also an astonishing

chance find, as Charles Miller recalls: “The vendor’s late father spotted it in the window of a junk shop while on holiday in Madeira in 1958. Every time he went past, the shop was closed, until the very last day of his holiday. He had a whip-round among

Above: this 16th-century astrolabe could fetch five figures

BONHAMS

Churchill’s Victory rally cry A morale-boosting visit by Winston Churchill to Portsmouth, after the city and dockyard had been devastated by air raids in January 1941, is captured in this signed photograph of the wartime prime minister aboard HMS Victory. The symbolism is obvious – on this visit Churchill proclaimed: “We shall come through. We cannot tell when. We cannot tell how. But we shall come through.” The photo, offered by the family of War Office photographer WT Horton, made a morale-boosting £8,125.

DAVE SELBY

ARTCURIAL, PARIS

F1 power for Ferrari hydroplane Antares II is no ordinary hydroplane. Not only is it just one of three known survivors with a Ferrari engine, it’s the only one in the world fitted from new with a Ferrari F1 engine. Built in 1953 on a wooden frame with metal superstructure by Guido Abbate’s famed boatyard on Lake Como, Antares II competed in the 1954 and 1955 Italian championships with a 4cyl 2.8-litre F1 engine producing 223bhp at 6,000rpm. In the 1970s the original engine was removed to be fitted to a Ferrari car. However, in the 1990s, the languishing hull was restored and fitted with a Ferrari racing engine that was the best match to the original. At Artcurial’s February auction, it failed to sell for the estimated €400,000-€600,000 (£335,000-£500,000), but may still be available through separate negotiation. artcurial.com classic articlesb/osat.co.uk/ a for extra leroom stories

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family and friends to raise the £450 to buy it.” Research in 1987 recorded just 65 surviving astrolabes worldwide. Since then, the list has grown to around 100, many of them wreck-finds discovered after improvements in diving technology. However, this one, created in 1595 by craftsman Francisco de Goes, is in fine original condition, cast in bronze in a wedge section with a ballasted bottom to keep it stable as it swung from its pivot ring. In 2013 an astrolabe in shipwreck condition made £37,500 at auction, while in 1999 one in good condition made an astonishing £135,000. With these figures in mind, there’s every chance the estimate for this new find will be exceeded by some margin on auction day. Don’t miss it – for more details, go to charlesmillerltd.com.

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Objects of desire Cool comfort This is a sofa that might just float your boat. Spotted at the recent Rétromobile classic car auction, it’s made from the shining aluminium float of a Grumman Albatross seaplane, which was introduced in 1949 and served into the 1990s with the US Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. The float has been converted into a settee by Italian interior designer Arteinmotion and could be the start of your very own float-up restoration of a Grumman HU-16. Price c£27,500 arteinmotion.com Tel +39 (0)522 924056

Small wonder Malcolm Darch’s model of the Fife schooner Cicely displays the exquisite detail and workmanship we have come to expect of the West Country model maker. These models are faithful to the real boat with many astonishingly intricate features – you can even see her saloon through the deck hatches. This one took 18 months to make. £POA Maritime Show Case Models, Salcombe, UK Tel: +44(0)1548 843029

Time for a change Luxury Italian watchmaker Panerai is the world’s main sponsor of classic sailing regattas. The firm even restored its own yacht – the 1936 Fife III Eilean (CB264) – that’s the inspiration behind this new range of navigational instruments. The set comprises a clock, hygrometer (to measure moisture and thus predict rain or fog), barometer and thermometer, all with Panerai’s classic rounded square face measuring 14cm (5½in). They are made from low-carbon 316 stainless steel for rust resistance, with über stylish plain black dials for optimum legibility. Barometer £3,125; Clock: £3,065; Hygrometer/Thermometer: £2,640 panerai.com Tel: +44 (0)20 719 40260

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

otography Photography by Emilyby Harris Emily Harris

SO FONG Sparkman & Stephens, 25m / 82ft

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From the board of the late, great, Olin Stephens, So Fong is one of his most endearing designs. Her sweet lines were inspired by the Cape Cod schooners, and her charming interior is faithful to her Asian origins. A fine all-rounder, as comfortable From board circuit of the late, great, Olin Stephens, of in hisperfect most endearing Her sweet lines were inspired on thethe regatta as she is family cruising, So SoFong Fongisisone now condition.designs. Lying Spain. For further information by the Cape Cod schooners, and her charming interior is faithful to her Asian origins. A fine all-rounder, as comfortable please contact Mike Horsley, [email protected] +33 493 34 68 98 on the regatta circuit as she is family cruising, So Fong is now in perfect condition. Lying Spain. For further information please contact Mike Horsley, [email protected] +33 493 34 68 98 www.edmiston.com

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Spetses revisited

With idyllic warm-water sailing, authentic Mediterranean charm and an annual classic yacht race, what could be better than a few days on the Greek island of Spetses? Former resident, Nic Compton, heads back for a catch up PHOTOGRAPHS NIC COMPTON

Left and right: the gloriously tranquil surroundings of Spetses harbour, complete with whitewashed Neoclassical houses, turquoise sea and the age-old launching ramps; author Nic Compton (far left) with his dad Charles and late brother, Simon, on board their motorboat Silvretta

ALAMY

P

hraxos was beautiful. There was no other adjective; it was not just pretty, picturesque, charming – but was simply and effortlessly beautiful. It took my breath away, floating under Venus like a majestic black whale in an amethyst evening sea…” This is how John Fowles describes the island that is used as the setting for The Magus, the novel which turned him into a literary phenomenon. It’s the story of an Englishman who goes to Greece to teach English at a private boarding school and becomes embroiled in mind games with a (possible) former Nazi collaborator who lives in a villa on the other side of the island. The book is full of puzzles and mysteries, but one which didn’t take long to solve was the location of the real Phraxos. A few months after the book was published it was identified as the island of Spetses, and thus began a literary association unrivalled in Greece until Captain Corelli’s Mandolin threw Kephalonia into the limelight in the 1990s. By the time I arrived in Spetses in the mid-1970s, the island had succumbed to a flood of English tourists, shipped in by the thousands on cheap package deals. Out of season, however, a strong expat community of writers, artists and academics – many of them living on boats in the Old Harbour – gave the place a surprisingly cosmopolitan feel for an island occupied by fewer than 4,000 people. It was a great place to grow up, messing around on boats, swimming several times a day and generally roaming around the island free as birds. Although we were poor financially, our quality of life was extremely high. Since then, the island has reinvented itself as a chic resort for wealthy Athenians, who bomb down in their luxury motor yachts at the weekend and pile into the CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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Above: wooden boats jostle for harbour space with the millionaires’ superyachts. Below: the annual regatta brings out the best boats and ageless fashions. Right: majestic Med – sailing under a sultry sun is just one reason to visit Spetses

Old Harbour three boats deep. The English package tours have all but vanished, along with most of the boat-living community, but despite the change in demographics and the arrival of some large new developments, the innate beauty of the place – its distinctive architecture, pine-covered hills and crystalclear waters – remains.

childhood memories My main impression revisiting the island after an interval of more than 20 years was of constant sensory delight. It’s impossible to walk 10 yards in Spetses without seeing some delightful architecture, or smelling an exotic flower, or hearing birdsong and the sea lapping at the shore. For a visiting sailor, the place to be is in the Old Harbour – not the ‘new’ jetty by the town centre, which is exposed to the prevailing wind and to the wash of every passing ferry. It’s in the Old Harbour that the island’s fortunes were made, first in the mid-1700s by building fast cargo ships that could outrun the Barbary pirates and carry wheat from Russia GREECE to the western Med, and again in the early 1800s by building a fleet of ships that could dodge the British blockade of Napoleon’s empire. PELOPONNISOS By the 1820s, Spetses was one of the most powerful islands in the region and its shipowners were so wealthy they took to hiding their gold in wells. It was during this period that the grand houses that line the coast 46

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were built. It was its large fleet of ships that enabled Spetses, along with the neighbouring island of Hydra, to play an important role in the Greek War of Independence. None more so than the island’s most famous heroine: the legendary Laskarina Bouboulina. A successful shipowner who inherited two fortunes from her two husbands, she devoted all her resources to the fight against the Turks and was treated as an equal by the other (male) members of the revolutionary council, eventually becoming the only female admiral in Greece’s history. Not surprisingly, her image is to be found all around the island, as well as on Greek stamps and, when I was a child, on the country’s 50-drachma note. The flag from the War of Independence, depicting a Christian cross crushing a Turkish crescent next to the motto “Freedom or death”, remains Spetses’s banner to this day. The island was still a hub of boatbuilding when I was a teenager, with half a dozen yards in the Old Harbour building traditional wooden caiques, mostly for fishing. Most of the yards have now been replaced by bars and cafés, but a few new caiques are still being built, but all for leisure use. Not only have the waters been overfished, but an EU directive means that fishermen are paid to Athens give up their fishing licences – providing their boats are destroyed. As a result, more than 5,000 caiques have been SPETSES broken up in the past 10 years. The Old Harbour is made up of two AEGEAN parts: the inner harbour, or Baltiza Creek, SEA where the speedboats cram in at weekends

SPETSES

in the summer, and the outer harbour, where you can either lie at anchor or anchor off with a long line to the shore. The outer harbour is the only sensible option at weekends, though during the week and off-season you might be able to squeeze into Baltiza Creek – especially on the far side, where the pool that used to be used as a ships’ graveyard has been cleared out.

the good old days From the Old Harbour, it’s a short walk into the town centre – either along the coast past the former shipowners’ houses now converted to holiday homes, or taking the shortcut via the St Nicholas monastery and down a path lined with bougainvillea and oleander (and passing probably the best bakery on the island). Cars are banned from the island – apart from a few taxis (just one when I was little, now around six) and some vans for essential services – so the only means of transport is either by amaxi (horse-drawn carriage) or motorbike. This means you’re unlikely to get run over by a car, though you do have to be on constant guard (especially if you have small children) against the relentless stream of motorbikes, usually stacked high with everything from a yiayia (granny) to the kitchen sink. Downtown Spetses is the Dapia, a lofty terrace of cafés overlooking the crescent-shaped harbour where locals and tourists alike gather to enjoy a frappé (iced coffee) and some kourabiedes (butter biscuits), while watching the latest arrivals coming off the ferry. Some of

these will no doubt be heading for the impressive Poseidonion Grand Hotel. Built in 1914 by the island’s benefactor, Sotirios Anargyros, it’s modelled on the Belle Époque hotels of the Côte d’Azur and certainly brings a touch of class – or pretentiousness, depending on your politics. Described in The Magus as “an obese GreekEdwardian hotel” that was “as at home on Phraxos as a hansom cab in a Doric temple”, the Poseidonion isn’t loved by everyone, but there’s a sense that, 100 years after it was built, the rest of the island may have finally caught up with Anargyros’s vision, and the hotel seems less incongruous now than it did before. Another Anargyros legacy, the private school at the end of town where John Fowles taught, also gets short shrift in The Magus, where it is described as “a dauntingly long building several storeys high and reminiscent, in spite of its ornate Corinthian façade, of a factory”. Like the hotel, the narrator says, the building is “equally at odds with the landscape”, though he’d be relieved to know that the spread of pine trees in the school grounds means it is now mostly hidden from view. Indeed, Spetses was known in ancient times as Pityoussa, the island of pine trees, and although forest fires have denuded large tracts of the island, those shady woods are still one of its defining features. The description of Phraxos still applies: “Its beauty was rare even in the Aegean because its hills were covered in pine trees, Mediterranean pines as light as greenfinch feathers. Nine-tenths of the island was uninhabited and

“It’s not the kind of arduous sailing northern sailors might be used to”

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SpetSeS Left and right: a typical Aegean schooner at full sail, known locally as a caique; enthusiasts get a close-up view of the action

uncultivated: nothing but pines, coves, silence, sea.” Back in the Old Harbour, the rustic taverna where we used to eat fried squid on a balcony over the water has become a smart restaurant; the grubby bar where my father used to buy his retsina loose by the gallon is now a fancy gellateria, and the muddy track to the lighthouse is now a paved road lined with expensive villas. But perhaps most shocking of all is that the boatyard where my friend Vagelis used to work building caiques has been closed down because, after 40 years’ leasing the site to Vagelis’s family, the owner decided he could make more money opening a bar and art gallery. But not all change is for the worse. A recent development is the annual

CruiSing inForMation Fuel: Fuel quay on the dock at the entrance of Baltiza Creek, on the west side of the harbour. Water: At the fuel quay. Chandlery: At the fuel quay. Shipwright: There are three boatyards on the east side of Baltiza Creek. Try Pantelis Korakis +30 22980 74128 or email [email protected]. Mooring fees: Free, except at fuel dock, which may charge 25 euros for mooring overnight in peak season. Be warned: there is now a new

48

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

national tax for all yachts, regardless of nationality, in Greek waters. Charges are: 23ft to 26ft (7m-8m) LOA – €200; 26ft to 33ft (8m-10m) LOA – €300; 33ft to 39ft (10m-12m) LOA – €400; over 39ft (12m) LOA – €100/metre. Hazards: Rocks and shallows on the shores of the outer harbour; shallows at the inner end of the small quay on the east side of the harbour. Do not moor at the town quay (especially not the east side), which is exposed to wash from ferries and water taxis.

Spetses Classic Yacht Race, which takes place in June. Now in its fourth year, the event was started by sailing enthusiast Stratis Andreadis (and CB Awards sponsor) and the owner of the Poseidonion, Antonis Vordonis, as a way of highlighting the plight of the indigenous boats, as well as attracting some extra tourism to the area. The event attracts a mix of craft, including a few genuine classics, but, crucially, it has stimulated a revival of interest in Aegean schooners, many of which have been rigged and restored to take part in the regatta. In that sense, it has already been a force for good.

opportunity knoCkS Spetses certainly has plenty to offer the cruising yachtsman. When I was a teenager, I skippered a 24ft (7.3m) Cornish Crabber for an elderly American couple who lived on the island. We devised a selection of trips: for a quick swim, a potter around the corner to Agia Marina was sufficient. For a half-day sail, we might head over to the mainland to the sandy coves on either side of Costa, or sail west past the Dapia to the idyllic Zogeria Bay. A whole day trip would be sailing around the island, stopping on the way at Paraskevi beach for lunch and drifting back into harbour on the last breath of wind. The best overnight trips were either to the bustly town of Hydra or, at the other extreme, the deserted bay of Dhokos, both east of Spetses. Or we might head the other way to the little-visited town of Leonidhion, set in a dramatic mountain range on the mainland to the west. And that remains one of the attractions of Spetses. As well as providing a safe harbour with a town rich in history and culture, it’s surrounded by unspoilt coves and harbours. It’s not the kind of arduous sailing northern sailors might be used to – the afternoon breeze rarely blows stronger than a Force 3–4 – but it’s wonderful relaxing family sailing. You’re not likely to run aground on a falling tide, no-one’s likely to get seasick, and you won’t have to pretend to enjoy beating into the wind for two hours on the way home because you’ve misjudged the current. Quite the opposite. The principal danger is that, after sailing in such benign and, frankly, hedonistic waters, a budding sailor might never want to sail anywhere else! Spetses Classic Yacht Race, 19-22 June, classicyachtrace.com. The new Corfu Classic Yacht Race, 12-14 June, ccyr.gr

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FEATURES OF THE BOAT AND OUTDOOR SHOW

• The SAS Auctions in Association with Henley Sales Charter Ltd are holding a Special Sale of Classic & Modern Boats, Memorabilia and Model boats • Amateur Boat Building Awards • Cordless Canoe Challenges • BBQ on the Beach • Extended Boat Section • Outdoor Section • Classic Car Exhibition • Steam Boat Association Steam Engine Build Competition • Huge array of Food and Drink • Extended Childrens Area • New Fishin’ Kitchen and Demo Theatre incl. Cooking at Sea and Storage on Board • Shopping Areas incl. Crafts, Food Courts, Gifts and Lifestyle Pavilions • Free Access to Wildlife Park from the Boat Show

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Friday/Saturday/Sunday

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

E: [email protected]

BROKERAGE

C L A S S IC Y AC H T B RO K E R AG E 53ft. THORNY built Hampton CROFT MOTOR-YACHT John on Thames for decks and interior. Frank Muirhead Thornycroft design 31ft. MISS SILVER motor-yacht. Good Twin 90hp diesels. Rare in 1938. Teak hull, John Bain design, CLASS MOTOR-SAILER and original period liveaboard. BSS Successful fifty/fi 1963. Complete Cert. £95,000 New fty 27ft. SCARBO Norfolk Ketchteak decks and superstructure.ly restored by Ocean Yacht Company ROUGH ONE-DES rig 2013. 50hp Four berths, aft IGN SLOOP Beta diesel. £119,000 stateroom. New . built in 1950. Keel-up restoratio berths. n by Coombes John Ley design, Cornwall from 18hp Yanmar diesel. Exception Boatyard. Three 28ft. HILLYAR sailing. £9,950 al example. Owner 1926. ProfessioD GAFF CUTTER David Hillyard retiring nal re-fit. Pitch design, built in pine hull, teak brightwor West Sussex in two cabins. 30hp Yanmar k. Four berths £12,500 diesel. Good strong rig.

Money matters

Cornwall 26ft. YONNE design, ClemensCLASS BERMUDIAN CUTTER Magazine Best of Portsmouth in 1935. Winner Harrison butler 36ft. SILVERET opportunity to Restoration 2012. An exception of Classic Boat restored for actorTE CLASS MOTOR-YACHT own a virtual new al Robbie Coltrane. Formerly owned HB. £60,000 yacht and a rare diesel, Devon one new ketch rig 2013. ExcellentFour berths, 50hp Thornycro and 31ft. CORNIS built in 1931. £40,000 H MOTOR-SAILER ft condition and Silverette number by Gerald Pearn, Looe. Designed and built Iroko 52ft. STEAM Ireland Thornycroft diesel, 400 sq. hull and decks. Four berths. in 1970 PICKET BOAT ft. ketch rig. Generous 50hp picnics or fishing. Samuel White £29,750 cockpit for family Admiralty by Gills of Chatham design for the West Sussex Liveaboard style interior, 72hp 1910. Teak hull, iroko superstru First World War BMC diesel. Useful cture. survivor. £39,950 ketch rig. Rare pre Somerset 25ft. CYCLON Dickies of TarbertE 11 CLASS CUTTER Harrison Butler design Saab diesel. Good1931. Teak hull and decks. rig. Re-commissioning Four berths. 12hp by £5,500 required.

32ft. RAMPAR 1972. Iroko hull. T MOTOR-YACHT John Desty Four Worcestershire expenditure. One of berths. Twin 48hp Perkins design, built in 30ft. WANDE diesels. the last Ramparts £27,000 design. HambleRER CLASS SLOOP Laurent . Ideal pied-a-ter Much re. built in 1985. Iroko Giles’ hull, mahogan famous Hiscock 25ft. Central London berths. 20hp Bukh diesel. y brightwor CYCLON Good, high specifi £27,000 cation example. k. Five Anderson RigdenE 11 CLASS CUTTER Harrison & Perkins Butler design by West Sussex Four berths. 20hp Yanmar 1932. Pitch pine hull, diesel. Long family teak brightwork. Realistically priced. ownership. £8,000 Hampshire

Tel: +44 (0)1

www.classicya

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/ 07949-095075

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• info@class

icyachtbroke

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Tel/Fax: (0182 Southford Road, Dar 03) 833899 tmouth, Sout – info@woo h Devon TQ6 denships.co.u k – www.woo9QS denships.co.u

k

58’ Lutine of Helford one of the most famous English yachts, Laurent Giles design, built C&N in 1952by the Lloyds YC.for Teak hull and decks, complet ely rebuilt in present ownership. Yanmar 100hp. 7 berths. Recent complete cosmetic refit, ready for the classic yacht circuit. Executo Sale. £339,00 r 0

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42’ Looe Lugger in 1904 as one built of the last sailing fishing boats, and she was from fishing only retired 1970’s. Pitchin the late on sawn oak pine hull frames. Powerful 2 mast standing lug rig, twin new in 2011. 55hp diesels in 3 cabins. 8 berths working boatA beautiful nice conditionin very . Devon £80,000

31’ West Country gaff cutter built of Porthleveby Kitto n in 1898. Complete rebuild previous ownershiin p. Well known as one of the fastest work boats in the area. Yellow pine planking oak frames. on sawn very keen to Owner sell hence Cornwall £16,000

50’ Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter, built in 1899 and restored over the last 8 years in present ownership. Sound hull, new interior, systems and rig. Rare opportunity to own an original Pilot Cutter, one of the best designe sea boats d you will ever find. Canada £190,000+VAT

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23’ Bermuda cutter built n in 1952. Mahogany planking all copper and fastened with bronze deck and teak sheathed coachroof. Beta 10hp 2003, new rigging. interior with Simple galley and 2 heads, berths. Very smart and boat, professio pretty maintained withnally complete records of work, very sensibly priced. Hants £13,500

from people

CLASSIC BOAT

who know their

APRIL 2014

Above and inset: brokers and yards want your business, but don’t buy what you can’t afford

boats.

77

27/02/2014

11:54

New pension rules now mean you can unlock capital to buy your dream boat. But is that the best option? We find out

B

uying a classic boat has always been an inexact science because it involves a component of human emotion not always apparent when purchasing an equivalent GRP craft. It’s about sleek lines and the smell of varnished wood on water, so much so that the impact can be intoxicating and cause buyers to lead with their heart and not plan with their calculator. In last month’s Budget, the Chancellor, George Osborne, ripped up the pension rulebook, which means for some the prospect of buying a new boat has suddenly become a distinctly more realistic proposition. Disregarding those whose pensions are linked to workplace salary schemes, currently, a saver has three choices. If the total pension pot is worth less than £18,000 this can be withdrawn, 25 per cent being tax free and the remainder charged at the individual’s marginal rate. Where the value exceeds this amount, the saver can have up to two pensions worth up to £2,000 each as cash lump sums, again subject to income tax. Option two is to buy an annuity that guarantees a monthly income until death. In reality, a 65-year old with £100,000 can expect an income of £5,800/pa at today’s rates from the annuity. Unless the pensioner can show £20,000 of guaranteed n ca income from other sources, their , you From April 2015 e ol wh ur yo annual income is capped. Finally, withdraw x free ta % 25 n, io ns a saver can leave the pension sum pe invested in the stock market and take a gradual income from the proceeds. Unless the individual can show £20,000 of guaranteed pension income from

NEW PENSION RULES

other sources, such as a state pension, final salary pension scheme or another annuity, the annual income is capped. Right now, the maximum someone can withdraw from a £100,000 pension is £7,080. Anything above this is charged at 55 per cent and, understandably, no major pension provider offers this service. From April 2015, this crippling tax rate is to be scrapped and you will be able to withdraw the entire pension pot (the first 25 per cent will be tax free and then the remainder will be taxed at the individual’s marginal rate), thus making it easier to dip in and out of the fund and use the money to buy something big. “Buying a wooden boat must be regarded as a hobby; it’s about the love for sailing,” says Peter Gregson of Wooden Ships Yacht Brokers. “If the boat increases in value during your ownership, then that’s a bonus. In addition to the purchase price and mooring/yard fees, add in the cost of maintenance and upkeep, which can be markedly dearer with a wooden classic. Buy what you can afford,” he asserts. So what happens if you haven’t got a pension fund, or you are not of retirement age to be able to access it? That’s where a loan comes in. Ken Drinkwater of Woodrolfe Brokerage takes up the point. “Finding suitable funding can be a stumbling block, even for cheaper wooden craft, and for some time now sales in this sector have struggled. For example, a classic craft on our books that started at £20,000 stuck for years until the price fell to below £10,000; a deal has now been agreed for £8,200.” However, not

“Buying a wooden boat must be regarded as a hobby”

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

51

MARINE FINANCE

all buyers can run to £20,000 and many brokers are critical of the unwillingness of some major finance houses to even consider loans for cheaper craft, sighting lack of understanding and knowledge over the Here we look reputation of many respected boatyards, such as at five ways Buchanan, Hillyard and Morgan Giles, and the quality of borrowing boats they’ve created. £25,000 over “That’s the reason I argue against my customers, in 60 months the main, seeking help from the larger maritime finance companies,” says Peter Gregson. “Rumour has it that in Promarine such establishments, wooden boats are seen as a lot of finance trouble and they’re unwilling to look any further. It’s laziness really.” Some customers for Wooden Ships’s a month* craft are in the enviable position of having the ready £39,895/5yrs finance to support such purchases from their own APr 19.1% assets. And here we’re talking five-figure sums, perhaps using investment capital rather than letting it sit idly in a bank account earning (almost) nothing. Ken Drinkwater says Woodrolfe has established a good relationship with Promarine Finance, where marine Barclaycard finance director Stuart Austin, an enthusiastic sailor himself, says they specialise in the under £50,000 a month** maritime loan market. “It makes no difference whether it’s a wooden or GRP craft,” maintains Stuart. “Our £37,500/5yrs APr 18.9% customer loan application begins with an asset outline form emailed to the client, followed by a credit check and bank statements, before progressing to the survey stage equating value against sale price.” In stark contrast, from our research, the criticisms over the lack of available loans from some of the big natWest loan finance houses clearly has credibility. Will Bowen, head of media relations at Barclays Wealth and a month Investment Management, says that after a recent £29,878.80/5yrs strategic review, Barclays no longer provides marine APr 7.5% finance for new clients because it has a sizeable and sustainable client list and no desire to change this. Karyn Theron, marketing communications manager at Lombard, another of the big lenders, said that it has never traded in the classic-boat sector, yet was unable to remortgage + arrangement fee say why. However, while it is true Lombard actively promotes its loan business, a quick telephone call reveals the limitation of its loan service spectrum. a month Theron reinforces the point by saying that it doesn’t £28,444/5yrs matter if you’re considering a used classic craft or a APr 3.6% new build in timber, it won’t fund the purchase. Dominic Prisco of Close Brothers financial services paints a more positive picture, saying that every request is treated individually, starting with the specification of boat, the loan value against the overall cost, Barclays loan followed by the applicant’s personal details and an out-of-water survey, before deciding whether a month to proceed. The minimum amount they’ll £28,374.60/5yrs consider is £50,000. APr 4.9% Alternatively, a marine mortgage available from someone like HSBC Commercial Banking can offer a certain attraction, the package representing up to 85 per cent of the value of the boat spread over 10 to

Loans

£664.75

£625.00

** MiniMUM payMent. MontHly fees redUce as tHe aMoUnt oUtstanding is paid off

£497.98

52

£474

£472.91

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

15 years. The minimum advance is set at £100,000 with the boat itself providing security against the loan. While perhaps not everyone’s idea of the perfect financial solution, some consider buying their craft using a credit card, especially in the under £30,000 category. It might also solve the answer to purchasing the necessary parts, paint and varnish should you also be looking at a buy-to-restore project. However, check the interest rate first – credit card rates can be eye-wateringly high. If you prefer a more traditional loan, then you need to take into account that some finance houses expect you to contribute a proportion (say 30 per cent) as a statement of commitment – rather like the part-payment applicable with some home mortgages – towards the overall cost of the craft. Unlocking equity in your home is also often an attractive way to raise cash, and re-mortgaging is a popular route for this. Many lenders are still offering low deals of around 2.5 per cent – tied in for two years, but these often have an arrangement fee, typically around £990. New guidelines tightening up on mortgage lending will mean you need to satisfy a bank you can afford it. Some existing mortgages have large reserve overdraft facilities and these can be the best way to borrow with lower rates than loans, typically around 4.9 per cent. In the case of boats for sale outside the UK, 20 per cent VAT must be added if the craft is to be imported. However, craft built in the UK before 1985 do not attract VAT but, given instances where it has been restored after that date (and let’s face it, most have), evidence of the VAT paid on materials and components should be available to view and form part of the boat’s provenance. Naturally, VAT must be paid on new wooden boats, perhaps making the purchase of a classic craft a more attractive proposition? Another cost to consider is transporting a boat from its current location after purchase. For example, to transport a 26ft (7.9m) wooden vessel from Essex to South Wales on a truck costs £600 plus VAT. Clearly, the number of funding options is vast, making it even easier to buy the boat of your dreams.

Don’t forget… ■ New pension rules applicable from April 2015 could help you unlock capital ■ Promarine Finance demands an upfront payment of 30%. On a £25,000 boat, that means you’ll have to find a cash advance of £7,500* ■ Add 20% if the boat is purchased outside the UK ■ Add on transportation costs from one mooring or boatyard to another ■ Check APR, especially on credit-card finance ■ Only ever buy what you can afford UsefUl contacts marine-finance.org; woodenships.co.uk; business.hsbc.co.uk; mjlewisboatsales.com; closeaviationandmarine.co.uk

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Onboard ANTIGUA TO NEW YORK

CRUISING . SEAMANSHIP . EQUIPMENT

Antigua to N ew York Most people would run a mile from setting sail on a 2,500-mile, non-stop, open-ocean adventure in a classic wooden workboat. But these two daredevil sailors are made of sterner stuff. Here’s their inspiring story STORY BRITTANY MEYERS PHOTOGRAPHS DENIS DOWLING

D

enis Dowling and Dubi Klein had been battling 40-knot sustained winds, huge ocean swells and torrential, blinding rain for hours off the coast of North Carolina. They were in an open wooden boat that rises barely 2ft (61cm) above the sea, in conditions that would test any vessel and crew – and they never felt more alive. The fact that they had taken their traditional Carriacou sloop, Summer Wind, further than any Carriacou sloop had ever gone, was an afterthought. “I don’t ever want to go to sea in a plastic boat again,” was all captain Dowling was thinking. He was in love. “There was this distinct and very real feeling that we were doing it together – us and Summer Wind. That she

would take care of us…” Denis recalls introspectively. That beautiful boat and all her well-oiled timbers, meticulously hand-laid frames and her rugged wooden spar, which had travelled so far from her home in the Grenadines, was performing flawlessly. Denis and Dubi, expert sailors in their own rights with well over 150,000 nautical miles accrued between them, agreed: this was the first time they had ever really been sailing. The word “adventure” gets thrown around a lot these days. By definition, to adventure is to “engage in hazardous activity, especially the exploration of unknown territory”. While sailors are no strangers to exploits on the high seas, very few of us have actually gone where no man has gone before, or done something

ALEXIS ANDREWS

Left: what a landfall! One of the world’s most famous landmarks towers over Summer Wind after her epic sea voyage

ONBOARD ANtiguA tO NEW YORK that can truly be defined as adventure. And it is this small fact that is precisely what makes Denis and his 2,500-nautical mile journey from Antigua to New York City aboard Summer Wind that much more magical.

wood is good! In an age where plastic boats are the norm, to see a classic wooden boat with a design dating back to the late 1800s is truly something to behold. The Carriacou sloop is no different and despite her very practical workboat roots, her lines are incredibly race-like and clean. Low to the water with extreme deadrise, flush decks and a squat, wide transom, they were ahead of their time. With a solid timber for a spar – usually harvested from a forest in Grenada – and an oversized and powerful main, they are also fast and efficient sailers. Historically, the essential element for inter-island commerce, these workhorses would traffic everything from produce to livestock between the islands of the West Indies. Their distinct silhouettes graced the horizons of these waters for the better part of a century, and as many as 130 of these West Indian sloops were working during their heyday in the early to mid-1900s. Hand-built on beaches out of West Indian cedar, by the cracked and calloused hands of some of the finest shipwrights in the Caribbean, West Indian sloops were built with heart and soul. Sadly, only 17 are left in working order today, while the rest are rotting away on beaches of the islands they once served. I first met Denis at Nanny Cay Marina in

Tortola, British Virgin Islands, and it didn’t take long to spot him. He was, of course, working scrupulously on the deck of Summer Wind to ready her for their journey. Sporting a tattered straw hat and sun-bleached dreadlocks, he greeted me with a warm smile and an invitation aboard. It was immediately apparent that Summer Wind was Denis’s passion, his pride and his joy: she had been completely rebuilt from the keel up and she was beautiful and impeccably maintained. He had island-hopped from Antigua to St Maarten with no instruments or modern systems (besides an engine), using only dead reckoning, the Southern Cross, and local knowledge. While his excellent seamanship coupled with a welcome dose of serendipity got him that far, he knew that Summer Wind needed more gear and some basic systems for the offshore journey to the East Coast. The first job was to build a berth for sleeping when off watch. The interior of a Carriacou sloop is not ideal for overnight passage-making; she lacks any and all creature comforts, and inside you’ll see nothing more than wooden frames with some lead in the bilge for ballast. Function, not comfort, was the priority of this refit: her propeller needed to be re-pitched, her exhaust system rebuilt, hand pumps installed, and dead-eyes and chainplates needed replacing to make her seaworthy. Furthermore, while Denis is a purist in the most authentic and traditional sense, a solar charger was necessary to run the recently installed VHF, GPS, running lights and, of course, stereo. Other than an EPIRB for

“Every piece of nautical knowledge in my arsenal was put to the test”

Clockwise from left: dolphins were a welcome sight; rough seas brought a sharp sense of reality; Denis enjoying a quieter time at the helm; Dubi showing off the Carriacou’s decidedly cramped below-decks accommodation

56

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

ONBOARD ANTIGUA TO NEW YORK

emergency and a tiller pilot to provide the crew respite from hand steering, these were the only conveniences that would modernise Summer Wind’s century-old features. No heads, no galley, no settee, no dodger, no bimini and no freshwater system ensured that this was going to be a rustic journey to the past and Summer Wind was going to be the time machine.

changing course After a solid month of 12- to 18-hour days under the hot Caribbean sun, Denis and his first mate Dubi crossed the final items off Summer Wind’s to-do list. The original plan was to island-hop to Florida, but with the threat of hurricane season upon them and so many other hazards to consider by staying close to shore, he and Dubi grew skeptical. Aside from that, they were without a dinghy to shuttle them to and from land and the added expense of shoreside accommodation, the cost of marinas and meals became daunting. So, at the very last minute they decided to head offshore and make the journey in one fell swoop; a potentially riskier endeavour, but one they were more comfortable with. They would leave Tortola heading north, eventually turning left and sailing non-stop to West Palm Beach, Florida, a trip they estimated would take about 10 days.

reality bites On 23 June 2013, after the final frantic provisioning and preparation, Summer Wind glided out of Nanny Cay

under full sail and headed out to sea. Denis and Dubi’s spirits were high and it seemed an incredibly auspicious beginning for an epic journey. As they got out of the lee of the islands, however, conditions changed. Night began to fall and the winds and seas picked up considerably. “It was like the ocean said, ‘wake up boys’,” Denis recalled. “It became clear that we needed to reef immediately.” Reefing a mainsail is pretty easy, if a little cumbersome. Reefing the main of a Carriacou sloop, however, is an entirely different beast requiring one crew member to man the tiller and massive flogging sail, while the other wrestles the sail and halyard at the mast. There are no halyard winches, no lazy jacks and certainly no roller furling aboard a Carriacou sloop. Add bucking seas, breaking waves and gusting winds and you have a veritable wrestling match not for the faint of heart. With the main finally reefed and Summer Wind more manageable, Dubi took the first watch while Denis crawled below to get some rest. Almost immediately she took a huge wave over the quarter, pooping the entire cockpit and thoroughly drenching Denis in his bunk. Soaking wet, uncomfortable and apprehensive about what lay ahead, doubt crept into his mind. “Are we in over our heads? Should we be doing this?” he wondered to himself. But there was no turning back. “The first few days were a huge learning curve and I’d be lying if I said it was easy. There was an overall feeling of total exhaustion. We were really, really tired, but we were committed,” Denis admits. Being physically closer

Above: no wonder Denis has a beaming smile when this prize wahoo is on the lunch menu

Summer wind LOA

37ft 5in (11.4m) beAm

9ft (2.7m) drAught

3ft 3in (1m) dispLAcement

13,700lb (6.2 tonnes) sAiL AreA

764sqft (71m²)

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

57

ONBOARD ANtiguA tO NEW YORK

ALEXIS ANDREWS

Above: back for more punishment: the boys leave the New York skyline and head home

to the ocean than they had ever been took a toll on them. The simple act of going to the bathroom was an ordeal that involved strapping oneself to the mast while hanging overboard as the boat bucked and yawed with the waves. Sleeping, even in the custom-made quarter berth, was uncomfortable at best. Their block ice melted in four days and their food started to spoil. The open ocean was relentless and the boys were bruised and battered. As sturdy as the Carriacou sloop is, comfort is not her forte. Exposed, rustic and lively in a blow, she requires a tremendous amount of energy and stamina to sail, let alone live on. “I have never been challenged like that before. Every piece of nautical knowledge in my arsenal was put to the test and used,” says Denis. But something magical happens when you are faced with a great challenge: you adapt. Which is exactly what they did. By day five, Denis and Dubi not only found their groove, but a brotherhood. The journey became spiritual and there was an incredible and undeniable feeling of being at one with the ocean. Euphoria replaced exhaustion and their bodies adjusted to the boat and the ocean. Denis and Dubi were in tune with each other and the sea. “It felt so natural,” Denis reminisced, “This boat had been built by hand, on a beach with local materials. She had a spirit. She was alive.” On day seven, the weather took an ominous turn. The skies grew dark, the barometer started dropping

and winds picked up considerably. With no way to access weather data, Denis was at a loss: “I worried that perhaps something was brewing. It was hurricane season and we were out there, so I asked for a sign. Something, anything, to tell me that we would be all right.” They were 200 miles east of the Bahamas and, as if summoned into existence by his very thought, a bright yellow butterfly – one that, ironically, matched the yellow accent colour on Summer Wind – suddenly appeared. It was the sign he needed. After passing north of Nassau in a building weather system, they made landfall in West Palm Beach as expected. After a couple weeks of respite and re-provisioning in Florida, they continued their sail up the east coast, almost exclusively under sail, stopping only in Beaufort, North Carolina, for, ironically, a weather forecast.

“It was hurricane season and we were out there, so I asked for a sign”

58

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

new york, new york On 5 August 2013, 44 days after departing Tortola, Denis, Dubi and Summer Wind arrived in New York City, where they sailed, triumphantly, into New York Harbour. The moment would be captured by filmmaker and Carriacou sloop enthusiast Alexis Andrews for his upcoming project Vanishing Sail – a documentary about the history, near extinction and modern resurgence of these incredible ships. Alexis told Denis he wanted an iconic image for the film, which is precisely what he got: Summer Wind

NeilThompsonBoats NeilThompsonBoats www.neilthompsonboats.co.uk www.neilthompsonboats.co.uk NeilThompsonBoats

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The Norfolk Oyster The Norfolk Oyster The Norfolk Oyster

The Norfolk Oyster is a 17’ gunter rigged centreboard dayboat, with simulated clinker hull, spruce and tan sails. Hercentreboard simple efficient rig ensures excellent The Norfolk Oyster spars is a 17’ gunter rigged dayboat, with simulated performance under sail in light or strong winds whilst her deep bow and ample clinker hull, spruce spars and tan sails. Her simple efficient rig ensures excellent freeboard make her immensely seaworthy. Both mainsail and jib have fixed reefing performance under is sail or strong whilst her deep bow ample The Norfolk Oyster a in 17’light gunter riggedwinds centreboard dayboat, withand simulated points (2 positions inimmensely mainsail, 1seaworthy. in jib) so that reducing sail is easily accomplished. freeboard make her Both mainsail and jib have fixed reefing clinker hull, spruce spars and tan sails. Her simple efficient rig ensures excellent A small(2cut-out in the transom1enables outboard motoristoeasily be fitted with ease. points positions insail mainsail, soan that reducing accomplished. performance under in light in orjib) strong winds whilstsail her deep bow and ample When not in use, this can be stowed in chocks in the large forward locker. A small cut-out the transom seaworthy. enables an Both outboard motor behave fitted withreefing ease. freeboard make in her immensely mainsail andtojib fixed The Norfolk Oyster is a perfect dayboat, combining the needs of small children When not in use, this can be stowed in chocks in the large forward locker. points (2 positions in mainsail, 1 in jib) so that reducing sail is easily accomplished. with those ofOyster keen sailing parents. A small cut-out in the enables ancombining outboard motor to beof fitted with ease. The Norfolk is transom a perfect dayboat, the needs small children We currently have two Norfolk Oysters for sale,inboth year’s warranty. When not inofuse, this can be stowed in chocks the with large1forward locker. with those keen sailing parents.

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The Norfolk Oyster is aNorfolk perfectOysters dayboat, needs of small children We currently have two forcombining sale, boththe with 1 year’s warranty. with those of keen sailing parents. We currently have two Norfolk Oysters for sale, both with 1 year’s warranty.

Norfolk Urchin

Norfolk Oyster

Norfolk Gypsy

Norfolk Smuggler 25

Norfolk Trader 45 & 65

ONBOARD ANTIGUA TO NEW YORK sailing into one of the world’s most famous harbours for the very first time. The photo is, indeed, a classic: a ship of yesteryear completing an epic journey, the first of its kind, ghosting peacefully past the majestic Statue of Liberty into the city of new beginnings. Two universal symbols of freedom: Lady Liberty and a voyaging sailboat, intersecting: Summer Wind had arrived. Docked and settled, Denis called the boatbuilder Alwyn Enoe, to let him know that one of his ships had sailed further and harder than any other Carriacou sloop ever had. She had taken care of her crew and brought them home safely. But it was more than timbers or frames or craftsmanship, it was her essence and her grace that made the journey what it was. She had become more than a boat on this odyssey: she became a living entity with a soul and a spirit, such is the magic of a hand-crafted wooden ship. “Summer Wind is real strong, you know?” Denis told the original boatbuilder Alwyn over the phone. And with a wise and knowing chuckle, Alwyn replied with a Caribbean flair and said: “I know.”

Above, left to right: sunset, Atlantic Ocean style – does it get much better than this?; the boys’ makeshift toilet, all ready for the next overboard pit stop!

CRUISING INFORMATION: ANTIGUA TO NEW YORK LEAVING ANTIGUA When we set sail, we didn’t even have a working compass. We left around 4am bound for Gustavia and I took my last bearings with the stars and kept the wind angle constant until I started to pick up swell north of Antigua. I kept the swell angle until St Barths, 8 hours later.

FROM GUSTAVIA TO ST MAARTEN This was an easy daysail as it’s all visible from St Barths. In St Maarten, I installed a working compass, running lights, a VHF with integrated AIS and a Raymarine A67 module with a GPS antenna. I wanted to keep the equipment to a minimum, not only for the sake of space but for the tradition of the vessel. I would love to have sailed a hundred years ago, but the reality of our seas today is such that without this equipment, I would have been more of a navigational hazard. I purchased NV chart packs for the Bahamas chain and the east coast of Florida, a hand-bearing compass, dividers and a Breton plotter. As for books, I had a nautical almanac, sight reduction tables for navigation (selected stars), and a cruising guide to the Bahamas, which actually offered very little in the way of seamanlike pilotage.

BAHAMAS BOUND As we prepared for final departure in Tortola, we decided to abandon our 60

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

Channel it was dark and I received an updated forecast. The weather had been about Force 6 and was now becoming F7. It had just enough north in it to carry us without a stop across the Gulf Stream and into West Palm Beach.

New York

USA

Beaufort

ATLANTIC OCEAN

FLORIDA TO MARTHA’S VINEYARD

FLORIDA West Palm Beach

Nassau THE BAHAMAS

CUBA St Maarten

Tortola

Gustavia Antigua

Above: with the island-hopping route out of the equation, Denis and Dubi took a more hardcore, bluewater route to New York; local NV charts

former plan of island-hopping and take an offshore route (see map above). I got hold of a North Atlantic overview chart, which became my go-to chart. I couldn’t get a sextant, so we ended up with dead reckoning and GPS. I did find that my iPhone with Navionics software proved more accurate than the Raymarine.

WEATHER ROUTING I used a weather-routing service before we left Tortola, knowing that I would likely have no contact with the outside world for more than a week. When we finally reached the Northeast Providence

In Florida, we loaded up on charts as far as Martha’s Vineyard. We were now in peak hurricane season so we made a quick hop (four days) to Beaufort, NC, and left the following day to meet with a heavy south blow. My intention was to reach the continental shelf at the same time the weather started to become near-gale, giving me ocean swell to deal with instead of inland chop and slop, as well as a dead run on the genoa up to New York. The system moved in faster than anticipated and was accompanied by electrical storms. We blew the genoa out while scrapping the main as the first set of squalls came in, and ran the rest of the F8 blow on the storm jib alone.

NEW YORK I was surprised when we approached New York Harbour. I had been expecting something closer to the volume of traffic found at Gibraltar or the Dover Straits. But I guess we arrived on a quiet day… Denis Dowling

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ONBOARD

Books

JOH A N A N K ER MASTER O F YAC HT DES IGN

The man with the Midas touch BY CLARE MCCOMB

T

here aren’t many people in this world who have won two Olympic gold medals, the first in 1912, the second 16 years later in 1928; designed, built and raced their own yachts to victory; and penned the lines for a host of other legendary racing boats that won major competitions, including eight Olympic golds, two One Ton Cups, four Coupe de France

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races and many others. Add into the equation a vision that dictated decisions about the International Rule and designs like the Dragon class, which are still influencing the sport well into the next century. Believe it or not, but this impressive portfolio belongs to Johan Anker (18711940). Some readers may not even recognise his name – but this very special biography will go a long way to putting that right. It has just been translated from Norwegian into English, which is why, at last, we have a chance to read his amazing story. Anker ran the Anker & Jensen boatyard at Vollen, near Oslo, and between 1905 and 1940 it built no fewer than

THE MA N, THE DESIGN ER & TH ELIN KR E SAILO AGSET R VOLD • OLE EN GEN

ONBOARD

355 boats. Anker is perhaps known as a master of Metre class yacht design – producing many elegant and fast yachts – and a useful index contains a staggering role call of Metres and Square Metre designs, conjuring up a busy racing scene in the years before World War II. For Anker, only the optimum solution to any problem would do: when he had decided what that was, he could argue his case in several languages. In the 1920s he was respected wherever yachtsmen gathered to race, and wherever the rule-makers gathered to make decisions. This beautiful book offers a complete and detailed technical account of his life’s impact. It is illustrated with images from the great Edwardian photographers – and they are works of art in themselves. The narrative is often

Clockwise from main image: gifted designer Johan Anker; 15-Ms at Europe Week 1914; Lisbeth V in the foreground with other 6-Ms in the 1933 anniversary regatta; Johan and his second wife, Nini, 1936

told through the diary of his second wife, Nini, whose insight and affection shine through. This is the best gift you could give to a sailor who has read everything. For technical detail and fascinating yachting tales, it is a cracking read. I couldn’t put it down and have returned to check a thought a hundred times since. The book is so many things: reference work, biography, a sensitive romance and a history of yacht racing. Be warned – it has such broad appeal that you might find someone else in the family walks off with it. I have already had to retrieve my copy twice! Johan Anker, Master of Yacht Design: ankeryachts.no £60 plus p&p, 360pp, 346mmx243mm, pub Randviken 2013 CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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ONBOARD BOOKS

The Dinghy Cruising Companion

SUNDOWNERS WITH GUY VENABLES

by Roger Barnes Dinghy cruising is more a lifestyle choice than just a budget form of yachting. To enjoy it you’ll need to appreciate its benefits, and this book will certainly help you do that. Roger Barnes, long-time president of the Dinghy Cruising Association, has put together practical advice covering all aspects of buying, equipping and sailing a boat, along with some inspirational tales from his own adventures and short reviews of some suitable craft. Barnes, an architect by profession, has a meticulous eye for the finest detail, even down to the type of sticking plasters for your first-aid kit – cloth-based ones “seem to adhere more readily to damp skin than the plastic ones, and also provide cushioned protection for the wound”, which perhaps tells you a bit more about dinghy cruising than he intended. The writing is a pleasure in itself, with a self-deprecating sense of humour that is probably essential to the enjoyment of the pastime. On camping tents he says: “Nowadays I have a tan-coloured tent and my mornings are always blissful. Every day dawns sunny and golden, until I open the tent flaps and discover otherwise.” If you’ve ever even remotely considered dinghy cruising, or just like reading sailing books in general, this book is a worthwhile read. It might encourage you, it might put you off, but you’ll assuredly enjoy the experience of finding out. It’s the definitive work on the subject and the best insight into it since The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow. PW RRP £15.99, 256pp, published by Adlard Coles, 2014

Sextant by David Barrie The overwhelming brilliance and ubiquity of GPS these days has taken away much of the magic of navigation. The sextant – one of the most important of all man’s inventions and an icon of ingenuity – is a magician’s tool, seizing heavenly bodies and bringing them down to Earth. So this is a eulogy to an archaic tool and the men who developed it through its permutations: astrolabe, cross-staff, back-staff, quadrant, then sextant. Object history is often written by well-meaning cavillers but Barrie, who writes engagingly, realises that even scholarly books need narrative device. And so, we join the author as a young man in 1973 in Maine on board Saecwen, a 35ft (10.7m) Saxon sloop, en route to England under the tutelage of Colin McMullen (RN retd). Sailing transatlantic, the young Barrie learns to steer by sun and star, while the Barrie of now relates the history of the sextant and its proponents – from Cook in the 18th century to Worsley in the 20th. By the time we reach Falmouth, it is clear that this is also a paean to an age before digital technology, like GPS, placed a plane of user-friendly translucency between us and the physical world. SMH RRP £16.99, 368pp, published by Harper Collins, 2014 64

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

Secret stash I cannot stress enough the necessity to keep a few bottles of something on board at all times. Imagine the scenario: you pull into an unfamiliar bay to anchor one afternoon and there is only one other boat for company. You raise your gin pennant, shout across, or even radio him, and invite him aboard so you can grill him for information about nearby supermarkets, cheap restaurants or the etiquette of dealing with the local pirates. An offer of tea will get you 15 minutes of his time, but there’s a finite number of cups one can offer before feeling faintly ridiculous. What you need are several bottles of wine or a bottle of spirits and then you have his undivided attention for at least an hour. Wine is gentler but, on the practical side, spirits take up less room per unit. Gin is always good in these circumstances, but a single malt or a good rum is excellent as it tends to let the evening last a bit longer and, in practical terms, can be mixed with water. Our editor was particularly impressed by a delightful Frenchman who climbed aboard his boat holding two bottles of his own wine. That’s nice when it happens, but you can’t count on it. Offer him tea after that and he’s likely to throw it overboard and lead you onto the rocks. As I would. The other reason to keep something on board is that even the shortest of journeys can become an epic battle against the briney and, once safely tucked away at anchor, it is natural to reward oneself with a liquid medal. After crossing the Atlantic in a 32ft (9.8m) Contessa 32, and in tantalising sight of the Anchor Bleu pub in Bosham, near Chichester, I had to wait two agonising hours for customs to turn up. We’d been without booze for 30 of the 40 days we’d spent at sea. When we finally made it to the bar we were refused service because we were swaying so much due to our incurable sea legs. After the interjection of someone who recognised me, and who could verify my story while simultaneously holding me back from diving head first over the bar, we were finally served with a few pints of beer and some chasers. Like I say, keep a few bottles on board at all times… if you can.

ONBOARD

Lazarette VISIT Sailing Equipmen t cla

Masthead light Although current regulations stipulate that a masthead light should be seen from two nautical miles, a cargo ship doing 20 knots covers that distance in just six minutes. So, lights with 5nM visibility make sense because they will warn said tanker in 15 minutes. This is a massive safety area and one that’s addressed by the Hella NaviLED PRO 5nM masthead light. It uses the latest LED efficiency and it can be combined with the 2nM and 3nM port, starboard and stern lights. Waterproof, durable and with an 8ft (2.5m) marine cable. £159.99 inc p&p furneauxriddall.com Tel: +44 (0)23 9266 8621

Sailing boots The Dubarry Crosshavens are highperformance, thermally insulated, gaiter sailing boots. With the bottom half designed like a leather shoe, they offer complete radial movement of the ankle while being inside a boot. Fully insulated but never too hot, very comfortable and using Dubarry’s award-winning NonSlip-NonMarking durable PU/rubber-moulded outsole, these are simply exceptional boots from the daddy of all sailing boots. £325 inc p&p

ssicboat

.c

o.uk For many product re more views

Sailing gloves

With amara synthetic leather, super-strong Kevlar stitching and 1mm neoprene rubber, these tough little gloves will keep your hands warm and protected without being so vast and clumsy they make the wearer look and feel like Dr No. Just right for sailing in cooler winds, and with thin tips, they are ideal for fiddly on-deck duties, or handling gadgets like nav equipment, smartphones or tablets. £11.50 plus p&p ewetsuits.com Tel: +44 (0)141 221 7674

dubarryboots.com Tel: +44 (0)1608 677622

Tek-Tanks Davey deck plates Davey understands that all sailors are different, which is why they’ve come up with an ingenious selection of polished gunmetal (or chrome) deck plates that can be used with interchangeable fittings great for racing, cruising or in harbour. Their uses are endless and they enable the sailor to be inventive when personalising the way they sail. Tapped for M8, M10 and M12 metric thread, these could be the most useful things on deck. From £18.42 plus p&p

Designed to fit directly to the hull, these moulded waste-disposal tanks are an innovative heads solution. In gravity mode the waste discharges straight to the sea or, in sensitive areas, the seacock is closed and the tank is used for later discharge. A five-year warranty is standard and they also offer bespoke custom tanks for odd shapes and wonky boats. £311.51 for the 40-litre tank or £340.27 for the 60-litre tank. Prices include p&p tek-tanks.com Tel: +44 (0)1420 525477

classicmarine.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1394 380390

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

Jamie Medlin - Marine Artist Photo-realistic Oil Paintings

Private Commissions & Limited Edition Prints

+ 4 4 ( 0)1326 2 1 9 2 7 5

www.jamiemedlin.com

ONBOARD

Classnotes Brixham Sailing Trawlers BY VANESSA BIRD

B

rixham in Devon has been at the heart of Britain’s fishing industry since the Middle Ages. It has been described as the birthplace of the deep-sea trawling industry, a town whose fishermen were instrumental in the creation of numerous new fishing ports around Britain. Most of the sailing trawlers that were developed from the late 1700s have their roots in the Brixham boats, and indeed many were built in the area. It was the Brixham fishermen that helped establish new ports at Hull, Grimsby, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Ramsgate; and their craft proved so successful that many of them continued to trawl under sail until World War II. Trawling for fish began in Brixham in the late 1700s. Prior to this, driftnetting had been used, but dwindling fish stocks meant that fishermen now had to go further afield for their catch. The need for more seaworthy craft able to travel greater distances at speed led to the creation of a new breed of working boat. The first to be developed was the Mumble Bee, a sloop and then cutter-rigged 30 to 40-tonner of up to 40ft (12.2m) LOA. Originally from the Mumbles area of Swansea, the cessation of the local oyster trade led to a fleet of the sloops being sailed to Brixham. The boats’ broad beam, full bow and long, straight keel made them well suited for trawling, and soon many local yards were building them. By the mid-1800s, however, the need for speed was paramount. The arrival of the railway in Brixham in 1868 opened up huge possibilities for the fishing industry, with potential new markets, but the boats had to be

NIC COMPTON

fast in order to deliver. And so the Mule was developed. Larger than the Mumble Bee, the Mules, measured more than 60ft (18.3m) LOA, and were initially rigged as gaff cutters, but proved so unwieldy that they were eventually re-rigged as ketches. New legislation that allowed larger beam trawls then led to 70ft (21.3m) LOA ‘big sloops’, designed for their power and speed. With their straight stem, cod’s head, long keel and mackerel’s tail, they were powerful beasts that could tow heavy trawls in all conditions, and they proved so successful that fleets were soon established around Britain, with 3,000 in commission by the late 1800s. They proved popular in northern Europe, too, and although the arrival of the steam engine threatened their future, trawling under sail continued until 1939. Today, Brixham remains the third-biggest fishing port in the UK, and although now dominated by a new breed of modern motorised trawlers, there is a new fleet of sailing trawlers based there. Since 1999, the Trinity Sailing Foundation has moored its vessels there, including Leader (1892, big sloop) and Provident (1924, Mule). The port is also home to Pilgrim (1895), Vigilance (1926) and Kenya Jacaranda (exTorbay Lass, 1923) – and each year hosts a regatta for trawlers that dates back to the early 1900s.

“They were designed for their power and speed”

Above: the Brixham Trawlers Vigilance and Provident racing off Brixham in Devon

BUILDERS There were numerous yards in the Brixham area which built trawlers, including Uphams, WA Gibbs, Robert Jackman, Sidney Dewdney and John Williams. Gibbs could deliver a fully commissioned trawler within 12 weeks, with the big sloops costing around £1,200, the Mules £500 and the Mumble Bees £400, in the early 1900s.

LEADER

SPECIFICATIONS AVERAGE MULE

LOS

90ft 5in (27.6m) LOA

Leader was built in 1892 and is the oldest and the largest Brixham Sailing Trawler still in existence. She was built for William Robbins by WA Gibbs for £1,100 after Robbins borrowed money from fishing entrepreneur of the time Robert Hellyer, who moves to Hull in 1854 and established a fleet of some of the largest trawlers in the UK.

FASTEST TRAWLER

60ft (18.3m)

Ibex, built by Uphams in 1896, is reputed to have sailed 140 miles from Bristol to Brixham at an average speed of nearly 10 knots.

BEAM

HISTORIC ARCHIVE

70ft 6in (21.5m) LWL

18ft (5.5m) DRAUGHT

9ft 4in (2.9m) SAIL AREA (MAX)

3,010sqft (280m²)

DISPLACEMENT

205,030lb (93 tonnes)

In 2000 a project was set up to create a historical archive of information on the Brixham Sailing Trawlers. Part-funded by the Lottery, details of all the boats registered in Brixham are included. See brixham sailingtrawlers.co.uk Vanessa’s book, Classic Classes, is a must-buy. For more details, go to classicboat.co.uk CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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ONBOARD

New Classics CORnISH CRaBBERS

Range expands

ALL PICTURES C/o CoRnISh CRAbbERS

Cornish Crabbers has added two small boats to its range: the 10ft (3m) Limpet and the 12ft 3in (3.7m) Cormorant, both designed by Roger Dongray, who drew the original 19ft (5.8m) Cornish Shrimper back in the late 1970s. Another development is the range of motorboats, like the 17-footer, which comes straight from the Crabber 17 (5.2m) sailing boat, and the Shrimper-based 19-footers. These might suit a sailor who has switched to power but still enjoys the more genteel way of cruising. This is a company on the move, now with a Hamble office where you can test the new dinghies, and sailing weekends at its HQ near Rock in Cornwall. (See CB soon.) cornishcrabbers.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1208 862666

CORMORanT LIMPET

Less is more Like the Cormorant, the little lug-rigged Limpet looks the part with a spruce mast and yard, and plenty of wood trim. And, like the Cormorant, she’s designed to be rowed, sailed or motored. Sailing doesn’t get much simpler than this, although she’s also available as a tender without a rig. LOA 10ft (3m) Beam 4ft 3in (1.3m) Draught 7in (18cm) / 2ft 4in (73cm) Displacement 144lb (65kg) Sail area 45sqft (4.2m²) RCD D Cost £3,490 inc VAT

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

Family values Cornish Crabbers is calling this one a “family dayboat” since it accommodates two adults and two small children. It’s an ambitious claim, but not unreasonable given the generous beam, solid weight and lockable storage. The spars are in spruce with hardwood detailing throughout, and the sail insignia makes for an attractive little boat, particularly with the lug rig. Kit level is decent and so is the build quality. As for performance (whether under sail, oar or motor), we hope to find out this summer! LOA 12ft 3in (3.7m) Beam 5ft 5in (1.7m) Draught 7in (18cm) / 3ft (91cm) Displacement 277lb (126kg) Sail area 76.5sqft (7.1m²) for lug, 102sqft (9.4m²) for gunter RCD D Cost £5,990 (lug), £6,990 (gunter) including VAT

Organised by:

The Royal London Yacht Club

21-25 July 2014

www.charles-stanley.co.uk

Artisan_ClassicBoat_2014Final2.indd 1

www.cowesclassicsweek.org

2/18/14 9:12 AM

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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Irene - a West Country Trading Ketch in Gloucester Docks. www.tnielsen.co.uk 70

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

Discover more at www.tnielsen.co.uk +44 (0)1452 301117

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ONBOARD

Getting afloat S

Each month we do our best to give you an exclusive insight into some of the world’s greatest yachts and motorboats. But there’s really only one way to do this and that’s to jump on board. So, from our list of top-class 2014 award winners, we’ve picked out the ones you can enjoy right now…

C/O HOEK

Your chance to sail a winner SPIRIT OF TRADITION WINNER OVER 40FT (12M)

Truly Classic 51

One of the shapeliest looking SoT boats ever built – and you agreed, voting the TC51 Alexa to victory in her class (large SoT boats). She’s also more stolid and sensible than many of her peers – and she’s wooden! Andre Hoek designed her and Metur Yacht in Turkey built her. More on Turkish-built boats next month. Cost: €650,000-€900,000 (£540,000-£750,000) ex VAT. Contact Hoek at hoekdesign.com or call the office in The Netherlands on +31 299 372853

BEST HULL FORM WINNER

Fife’s favourite

She’s thought to be the favourite of her designer, Wm Fife III, and this year, she’s won our first ever award for hull form (see page 6). Here she is, in great condition and looking completely fabulous: Latifa.

C/O CW HOOD

C/O PILGRIM TRUST

MARC TURNER

Asking: E2.5M (c£2.1M) sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1202 330077

C/O THE MOORS

RESTORATION WINNER

TRAD NEW BUILD WINNER

SPIRIT OF TRADITION UNDER 40FT (12M)

Voyage on the oldest existing Brixham Trawler, Pilgrim BM45. A week-long West Country and France cruise is on limited offer to CB readers for £649 (down from £799); or a nine-day cruise of the Solent, taking in the big Yogaff regatta is on offer at £799 (down from £999) – just quote us when booking. But hurry: both are in May.

She’s not for sale, but John Moor & Son (Peter) are raring to build another. Unfortunately, we’re not talking cheap here, but this is ‘superyacht quality’ and, according to her builders, virtually every fitting is bespoke. An instant classic and long-lasting heirloom.

“A boat that reminds you of why you fell in love with sailing,” said US magazine Sail, when it won their ‘best boat’ award in 2011. She’s a modern/ classic daysailer with a PHRF rating of 147 that enables her to compete with modern boats. She has a foam sandwich hull, rod rigging and loads of carbon. Fast and beautiful – and good value.

Cost: £650. pilgrimofbrixham.co.uk, Tel: +44 (0)1803 858148

Cost: around £150,000. Tel: +44 (0)1726 842964, email: [email protected]

Cost: cUS$105,000 (£63,000). cwhoodyachts.com, Tel: +1 781 631 0192

Sail on Pilgrim

White Rose of Mevagissey

CW Hood 32

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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BOATS FOR SALE

Boats for sale Looking to sell your boat? Reach over 50,000 readers each month

To advertise call Edward Mannering on +44 (0) 20 7349 3747 or email [email protected] Copy Deadline for next issue is 25/04/2014

Friendship

An eye turning gaff rigged classic dayboat built by Salterns in 2013 uniquely finished in Russian pine and chromed fittings She is offered ready to sail with trailer. Little used though the year and dry sailed. A joy to sail! Further details tel: 07909 537423 email: [email protected]

Stunning 1913 EaSt CoaSt onE DESign

25’ teak launch in need of restoration Once restored, would make ideal boat for Thames or Norfolk Broads. Boat lying Suffolk. £3000. Contact 0744 3119740 or [email protected]

Thought to be an Andrews hire boat, recreated by Peter Freebody in 1976 with added rear saloon. Gastoldi Ford engine 25 hours. Same owner since 1975. Excellent condition. Retirement forces sale. Lying Poole. Transport can be arranged. A real head turner. £22,000 ovno. Richard 01628 824382

HerresHoff Haven 12.5

1970 Tolcraft Shark, originally built for racing, this boat has been carefully restored and had a cabin added. A new Mercruiser 4.3 MPI engine and outdrive was fitted in February 2008. This is a classic motor boat in very good condition for the year. £14,950. Contact 07973537014 or email [email protected]

Romilly 23

Offers over £8,000 Phone Simon Crosse on 01603 621 628

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

1970 TolcrafT Shark

double-ended gaff cutter

Almost brand new and top spec. Romilly built by CoCoBe in Holland www.romilly.nl delivered in May 2013 and very lightly used. Fitted with all the extras, cream sails, wood trim, fresh water tanks, press. Water, deck shower, automatic bilge pump/manual bilge pump, 12V/220 sockets, shore power, battery charger, nav. Lights and most importantly a Mastervolt 4KW electric engine with 4X100AH lithium batteries giving a cruising range at 4.5 knots of about 27NM (6 hours). R52 is Rosalyn Bris fitted with electric engine, batteries and generator http://vimeo.com/12072429. Back-up get-home 2KW Honda generator and very quick charging (3 hours from flat) of batteries also an important feature. Centre plate/board (0.5 - 1.5 m) for shallow draft mooring or anchoring and superb and easy-tohandle sailing characteristics as well as performance to embarrass much bigger yachts. Summer & winter covers as well as road trailer included. Price substantially below replacement co st. £47,500. Contact [email protected] orcall 01243 530 874.

Built in 1900. Sculls; removable sliding seat; fast. Lovingly maintained by Olympic oarsman for the last 30 years.

1930’s Thames day launch 36fT

GU Laws design for the Royal Corinthian, Redshank is no’ 5 of only 10 (CB June 2013). Comes with extensive equipment, brand new sails, full TackTick (race, wind, depth etc. and remote repeater), Road Trailer, Cradle and Outboard. Extensive restoration complete, photos available. £14,000 Contact: 0781 5752061 Email: [email protected]

Built in wood to high professional standard in 2011 and never launched. CE certified and stored under cover. 16’ long x 6’, lift keel, gaff rig, a proper little yacht; see CB issue number 135. Ready to sail, incl. new road trailer. Reduced price £17k. Contact 07930152933 / 01646601024 or email [email protected]

Mahogany skiff by banhaMs of CaMbridge

Fairey Christina 25

£100,000-00 + Refit and Refurbishment. 1 X 200 HP Volvo Diesel All Offers will be Considered. Highly Recommended Office: 0044 (0)1481 726335 • Mob: 0044 (0)7781 104419 Email: [email protected]

This beautiful double-ended gaff cutter designed by Peter Bruun, (known for Grinde-Kaskelot design) and inspiration from Colin Archer Pilot cutter. the boat is build larch on oak and the deck is made of solid teak. Only owned by one person and always cared for in a shipyard, and it is stored indoor during the winter. Practically new spray hood 2013 and the boat appear in a very good condition. When the sail is up it is 68 square meter and it sail as fast and well as many new modern boats. €69,000. Contact 0045 25154171 or email [email protected].

GOLANT GAFFER NO3.

Roger Dongray designed 19 foot, 2 berth cruiser. Built 1998, Yanmar GM10. Well equiped, new cover and hood. Lovely boat, beautifuly maintained. Lying St Just in Roseland. £10,500 ono. Tel. 07802 853203. [email protected]

Cox & Haswell RapieR 3100

A beautiful example of historic classic vintage boat. An excellent weekend ‘family getaway cruiser’ with pedigree heritage. Lovingly restored. Large cockpit and spacious cabin all fitted to a high standard. Sleeps 4-5 in comfort. Redesigned galley. Twin diesel Cummins 6BT driving shafts. Plotter, Radar, Fishfinder, etc. ‘Pegasus’ has a notable history - winning best all rounder prizes in the Cowes/Torquay events in 1967, achieved ahead of the Fairey Marine Range. A true classic of her day. £26,000 T: 07761 909543 E: [email protected]

BROKERAGE

FOR SALE BY OWNER Th e 1 9 3 0 J o h n A l d e n S c h o o n e r {Design No. 458}

70’ loa • 61’ lod • sail area 2,200 sq. ft Full compliment of sails & equipment Newly on the market after 29 years of ownership, this meticulously maintained schooner is currently available for sale by owner. Located in San Diego, California, USA, Dauntless has been featured on several covers and issues of Sailing Magazine, Wooden Boat, Nautical Quarterly and Santana magazines. Re-built in 1975, Dauntless has a competitive record including races from San Diego to Hawaii, biannual Master Mariners Regattas, and numerous races and cruises along the California coast. History, Specifications, Gallery & Contact Information

www.schoonerdauntless.com Photos ~ Bob Grieser

CLASSIC YACHT BROKERAGE 53ft. THORNYCROFT MOTOR-YACHT John Thornycroft design built Hampton on Thames for Frank Muirhead in 1938. Teak hull, decks and interior. Twin 90hp diesels. Rare and original period motor-yacht. Good liveaboard. BSS Cert. £95,000 Norfolk

31ft. MISS SILVER CLASS MOTOR-SAILER Successful fifty/fifty John Bain design, 1963. Completely restored by Ocean Yacht Company. New teak decks and superstructure. Four berths, aft stateroom. New Ketch rig 2013. 50hp Beta diesel. £119,000 Cornwall

27ft. SCARBOROUGH ONE-DESIGN SLOOP John Ley design, built in 1950. Keel-up restoration by Coombes Boatyard. Three berths. 18hp Yanmar diesel. Exceptional example. Owner retiring from sailing. £9,950 West Sussex

28ft. HILLYARD GAFF CUTTER David Hillyard design, built in 1926. Professional re-fit. Pitch pine hull, teak brightwork. Four berths in two cabins. 30hp Yanmar diesel. Good strong rig. £12,500 Cornwall

26ft. YONNE CLASS BERMUDIAN CUTTER Harrison butler design, Clemens of Portsmouth in 1935. Winner of Classic Boat Magazine Best Restoration 2012. An exceptional yacht and a rare opportunity to own a virtual new HB. £60,000 Devon

36ft. SILVERETTE CLASS MOTOR-YACHT Formerly owned and restored for actor Robbie Coltrane. Four berths, 50hp Thornycroft diesel, new ketch rig 2013. Excellent condition and Silverette number one built in 1931. £40,000 Ireland

31ft. CORNISH MOTOR-SAILER Designed and built in 1970 by Gerald Pearn, Looe. Iroko hull and decks. Four berths. 50hp Thornycroft diesel, 400 sq. ft. ketch rig. Generous cockpit for family picnics or fishing. £29,750 West Sussex

52ft. STEAM PICKET BOAT Samuel White design for the Admiralty by Gills of Chatham 1910. Teak hull, iroko superstructure. Liveaboard style interior, 72hp BMC diesel. Useful ketch rig. Rare pre First World War survivor. £39,950 Somerset

25ft. CYCLONE 11 CLASS CUTTER Harrison Butler design by Dickies of Tarbert 1931. Teak hull and decks. Four berths. 12hp Saab diesel. Good rig. Re-commissioning required. £5,500 Worcestershire

32ft. RAMPART MOTOR-YACHT John Desty design, built in 1972. Iroko hull. Four berths. Twin 48hp Perkins diesels. Much expenditure. One of the last Ramparts. Ideal pied-a-terre. £27,000 Central London

30ft. WANDERER CLASS SLOOP Laurent Giles’ famous Hiscock design. Hamble built in 1985. Iroko hull, mahogany brightwork. Five berths. 20hp Bukh diesel. Good, high specification example. £27,000 West Sussex

25ft. CYCLONE 11 CLASS CUTTER Harrison Butler design by Anderson Rigden & Perkins 1932. Pitch pine hull, teak brightwork. Four berths. 20hp Yanmar diesel. Long family ownership. Realistically priced. £8,000 Hampshire

www.classicyachtbrokerage.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)1905-356482 / 07949-095075 • [email protected] CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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BROKERAGE

Brokerage

To advertise Call Patricia Hubbard +44 (0) 207 349 3748 [email protected] Copy Deadline for next issue is 25/04/2014

Windsor Belle is an exceptional 60 foot steam launch, currently on the Thames and operating with MCA certification for 60 passengers. Built in 1901 by Burgoine as a passenger launch and now believed to be the finest working steamer in the world, she would also make a perfect private launch for a family with a full galley, two heads, a large private saloon and plenty of deck space. For more information please contact Gillian Nahum at Henley Sales and Charter Ltd. Email : [email protected] or call 01491 578870

Please visit www.hscboats.co.uk to view our wide range of classic boats for sale and charter. For model boats, dockside clothing and boaty curios visit www.boatique.co.uk 74

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

BROKERAGE

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

56 ft William McBryde Gaff Ketch 1952 Designed by W.G McBryde, YVES CHRISTIAN is a proper little ship drawn at a time when this was appreciated – sea kindly and comfortable she has plenty of beam, which with her firm sections and snug ketch rig make her very stiff - and she was originally designed for long sea trips and Mediterranean cruising. Her current owners have attended with great attention and dedication to the period and detail of the boat’s structure, meaning that her systems and interior are impressive. This is a vessel with little left to do but perhaps prepare a passage plan for somewhere you have always wanted to go to, very confident she will look after you. £280,000 Lying UK

51 ft Laurent Giles Royal Huisman Ketch 1971 Launched in 1971 this yacht is a remarkable combination of Jack Laurent Giles’s design, a Wölter Huisman build and finish by A.H. Moody & Son; three of the greatest names in yachting at that time – and frankly they didn’t get much better than that. BUCEPHALUS is a strong, comfortable classic yacht equipped to the highest standard and fitted out not so long ago with the intention to sail around the world, but the owner’s plans have now changed. She however is more than capable and absolutely ready to go.

47 ft Laurent Giles Yawl 1951 As with Jack Laurent Giles’ Vertue design ISMANA displays that purposeful charm blending style with function as only he knew how - a style that has the onlooker captivated; more subtle than the very long overhangs that seduce so easily and far more seaworthy as a result - her current owner has fully restored her with the help of Hubert Stagnol and he seems to have known exactly what he wanted to achieve. Her structure is impressive enough but it’s in the simple detailing and original fittings on deck and below that make this boat very special. f235,000 Lying France

47 ft Stow & Sons Gaff Yawl 1895 VALERIE has been beautifully and sympathetically rebuilt, commensurate with her vintage, which at nigh on 120 years makes her a genuine historical artefact. Thus an object of such rarity, beauty and desirability can be experienced and enjoyed as was intended by her maker so many tides ago. The simplicity of her finish and fit-out with the re-introduction of her original yawl rig makes her a handy craft capable of being easily sailed by a small crew. Partial completion of her interior enables a new owner to specify his own accommodation arrangements, for which an outline option exists. £200,000 Lying UK

35 ft Ed Burnett Gaff Cutter 2003 Ed Burnett’s aim is to design yachts of distinction that will give their owners many years of pleasure - we would go further and flag him as one of very few designers of the modern era who can draw a long keel yacht to match Laurent Giles or Harrison Butler for proportion and style. IVY GREEN was conceived to provide a little more space than afforded by the successful design No 010 ZINNIA without becoming a burden to handle for a cruising couple; her commissioning owners. She is now well proven and is offered with an impressive inventory and ready for the season. £150,000 Lying UK

45 ft A M Dickie & Sons Motor Sailer 1936 Dickies knew better than most how to build a strong and supremely seaworthy vessel. Designed on the lines of a fishing boat - but as a yacht – her finer lines make her the more beautiful while retaining all the seagoing qualities of a working vessel. TUNNAG’s wonderful varnished teak hull and the warmth of her characterful interior are fully revealed. These inherent qualities have kept her in long and loving ownerships – Her most recent having lavished a superb refit, fully revealed in her wonderful condition today. She is totally ready. £155,000 Lying UK

72 ft James Silver Motor Yacht 1952 THELMA VI was built at the renowned yard of James Silver and sons at Rosneath on the Clyde under their chief designer John Bain and is possibly the last surviving “Bain 72 “. The wheelhouse and saloon roof were ‘modernised’ in the early 1970s although she still retains much of her original character and style and is as an exceptional sea-boat with her trusty Gardner diesel engines and Vosper Maxi Fin stabilizers - accommodation boasts 6 berths in 4 cabins and a large double crew cabin forward.

59 ft Lawley Motor Yacht 1918 Fred Lawley’s yachts notably combined attention to the detail of materials and sound methods of construction - they were much admired for their beauty of line, excellence of finish, sea going qualities and comfort. CARINA, formerly OLD GLORY with her stunning lines culminating in a canoe stern is no exception; her interior is simple and largely original. Significant upgrading in recent years has raised the bar, both structurally and cosmetically to her original glory.

£165,000

$385,000 USD VAT unpaid

52 ft Sparkman & Stephens Sloop 1944 Designed by K. Aage Nielsen while at S&S – Olin Stephens considered him the best designer they had ever had. Nielsen’s manic attention to detail extended to his demanding the best from his builders and CICLON was no exception - and benefitting further from being the yard owner’s own boat! Launched in Cuba in 1944 she was rarely off the podium – beating such legends as STORMY WEATHER and TICONDEROGA. Of course beautiful and fast – is it time now to reintroduce her to her sisters? f350,000

Lying Cyprus

email: [email protected]

Lying UK

£265,000

Lying UK

Lying US

www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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BROKERAGE

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

E-Mail: [email protected] • Tel: 01621 859373 • Mob: 07736 553487 Specialists in the brokerage of Classic Vessels, Traditional Yachts and Working Boats

42ft Ex Baltic Trawler,1950’s Used as live aboard. Oak on oak, Mercedes eng London £47,500

23m Klipper Motor Barge, 1894 Iron coastal vessel. New eng installation, genny, heating. 3 cabins. Fully functional. Essex £125,000 Open to offers

23.9m ex USA Patrol Vessel 1949 Steel and aluminium. Twin Deutz engs capable of 20kts. Live onboard. Kent £150,000

40m Steel Spitz Barge, 1956 245hp GMC eng. Crew qrtrs. Huge empty clean hold. Ripe for conversion. Essex £65,000

38ft Gaff Yawl, 1905 French built, Pitch Pine. New engine.6 berths, interior needs refit N.Essex £39,950

34ft Essex Sailing Smack,1890 5 yrs rebuild. Engineless Gaff Cutter Stove. In commission. 4 berths, CK375 N.Essex £49,000

32ft Cardinells Bermudian Yawl, 1932 Extensive sail wardrobe. Centre cockpit, Good headroom, Vetus Engine. Kent £16,500

11.43m Hillyard Sloop, 1971 Long keel, Ford Mermaid. 6ft 6ins h’drm, sleeps 6. East Scotland £28,000

28ft Falmouth Quay Punt, 1912 Classic sailing, 100yrs on. Sails ‘06/7 Lister 18hp eng. 4 berths. Cornwall £25,000

23ft E.Woods Gaff Cutter,1930 Pt1 reg. Meticulously kept & maintained. Engineless. Interior varnished finish. 2 berths. Suffolk £19,950

28ft Friendship Sloop (replica) 1978 American design. Strip plank construction. Volvo Penta new eng, Gaff cutter. Kent £18,500

35ft Prawner 1900 Restored 2009-11 & sailing. Crew accom for 4. Vetus ’07 eng Gaff Cutter Essex £19,500

22ft Elton Boat building Co., 1982 Gunter rigged with centreboard. Clinker larch planking Yanmer 2GM. As new entire inventory. Boat barely used. West Scotland £16,500

Oysterman16, Gaff Sloop GRP fixed keel. Engineless Refitted and in commission. Essex £7,950

18ft Blackwater Sloop 2.5ton,1963 Yanmar GM10 ‘05. Carvel planked, Long keel. Twin berths Essex £ 3,950

www.heritage-marine.com 76

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

BROKERAGE

www.TallShipsforSale.co.uk www.ClassicYachtsforSale.com

42m on deck, Classic Brig two-masted square rigged sailing ship built Steel 1958. Rebuilt to current form, 2005. Can seat 60 for Dinner! World-wide classification. € 3,900,000 - based - Netherlands

38m (124ft) Steel Brigantine Sail Training Ship.

Air conditioned accommodation for up to 36 in 17 cabins plus 12 crew berths in six cabins; Bar and lounge. Well-equipped comfortable. €1,900,000 - Location Valencia, Spain

3m (75ft) Replica Dubrovnik Karaka, built 1901, rebuilt 1996.

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

17.5m, 57ft on deck, Wishbone Ketch, built Oak on Oak in 1928.

10m (33ft) Fairey Marine Swordsman, fast cruiser. Up to six berths, two heads, excellent

Construction is cold moulded, double diagonal over strip plank Cedar, all epoxy / glass sheathed. 6 berths. Yanmar 40hp diesel. A real stunner! €139,000 - Lying Costa del Sol, Spain

She offers accommodation for up to 17 in 5 cabins. Engine is 121kw (162hp) 6-cylinder diesel (1979) Recently chartering. €89,500 - Location Gdynia, Poland

10 guest cabins, 25 pax, Air conditioning, Very different! €895,000 - Lying Croatia

galley, Twin Volvo Penta TAMPD41P-A 200bhp diesels installed 2000. Superbly maintained. One Owner from new. 2010 Survey £49,500 Offers Invited! - Location River Colne, Essex

17.6m (58ft) Classic Teak and Mahogany Italian Yawl by Sangermani, 1948.

Beautifully restored, great performer on the Med. Classic Yacht racing circuit. Eight berths, New Sails €300,000 - Italy

8.9m Hallberg Rassy 29, built 1986.

5 Berths in two cabins Luxury, High class fit out. Volvo Penta diesel on saildrive, very well equipped including Dinghy, Outboard and launching trolley. £29,000 - Location River Colne, Essex

www.EasternYachts.com See Website for Photos, Specifications & Surveys 19 Colne Road, Brightlingsea, Essex, CO7 0DL • Tel: +44 (0) 1206 305996. Planning to sell: Please call Adrian Espin for details.

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

Bermudan cutter designed by Winthrop Warner, one of 12 built by Graves of Marblehead, 1954. Planked in mahogany, 2001 refit with new deck, coach-roof and cock-pit with wheel steering. 4 berths. Volvo diesel. For 30 years the American Guiness family yacht. An exquisite classic in the purest sense. Devon £49,000

58’ Lutine of Helford one of the most famous English yachts, Laurent Giles design, built by C&N in 1952 for the Lloyds YC. Teak hull and decks, completely rebuilt in present ownership. Yanmar 100hp. 7 berths. Recent complete cosmetic refit, ready for the classic yacht circuit. Executor Sale. £330,000

29’ McGruer centreboard sloop designed and built by McGruers in 1966. Planked in larch from one tree, all copper fastened. Spacious cockpit with 4 berths. 2013 mast, 2009 Beta diesel. A much loved yacht that is a real head turner wherever she goes Scotland £18,750

42’ Looe Lugger built in 1904 as one of the last sailing fishing boats, only retired from fishing in the late 1970’s. Pitch pine hull on sawn oak frames. Powerful 2 mast standing lug rig, twin 55hp diesels new in 2011. 8 berths in 3 cabins. A beautiful working boat in very nice condition. Devon £80,000

46’ Bermudan ketch built in Sweden in 1948. Pitch pine planking on sawn oak frames. Powerful ketch rig on wooden spars. New Bukh 38hp diesel. Basic interior with 6 berths and large saloon, races regularly in classic regattas. Big boat for the money. IOW £35,000

23’ Bermudan cutter built by Keith Nelson in 1952. Mahogany planking all copper and bronze fastened with sheathed deck and teak coachroof. Beta 10hp 2003, new standing rigging. Simple interior. Very smart and pretty boat, professionally maintained with complete records of work, very sensibly priced. Hants £13,500

37’ Percy See bermudan cutter built in 1956. Major refit in 2012 including new deck, engine and rig. 5 berths in new improved interior. Cruised by present owners from UK to Greece in the last 18 months. Elegant yacht in lovely condition, full inventory and ready to sail away. Greece £31,000

24’ Fife One Design conceived for the Royal Angelsea Yacht Club, this is the only one of the class to have been built by Fife. The most elegant day boat you will ever see with a breath taking sheer line. In the same ownership for over 50 years, this little gem now needs a new and caring owner. Devon £28,750

28’ Maurice Griffiths Roach Class built by Shuttlewoods in 1965. Trademark raised topsides give her much more volume than a standard 28’ yacht. Professional refit 2003. Cruised extensively by present owner around northern Europe. Respectable and honest yacht. France £12,500

Another fascinating selection of traditional and classic yachts only from Wooden Ships. Call for true descriptions, genuine honest values and a service from people who know their boats.

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

77

Craftsmanship Yard News

Edited by Steffan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: [email protected]

GRIMSBY, LINCOLNSHIRE

LIVERPOOL, UK

Return of a tug tender

Rosanna, a one-off gaff yawl built in 1960 by Everson & Sons of Woodbridge, was being lifted out for her annual maintenance as we went to press. Formerly Glee, Rosanna was built along the lines of a retired fishing smack, but “refined through from amidships aft to produce a handsome, counter-sterned yacht”, her joiner owner John Wragg told CB. Soon after her launch, Maurice Griffiths redesigned the sail plan from cutter to yawl, as her owner found her “a little too much”. Now she’s a “sturdy vessel and a delight to sail”, said John, who rebuilt her between 2001 and 2007. This year, the job list is a little longer than usual, as John is going to rent out his house, move onto Rosanna, and do some serious British cruising.

Ten years after local tugman Dan Cross bought her for £1 to save her from the scrapyard, Daniel Adamson, one of Britain’s two remaining ‘tug tenders’, will return to public service on her old haunts around the rivers Mersey and Weaver, and the Manchester Ship Canal, in 2015. Since 2004, 80 volunteers and 500 members of the Daniel Adamson Preservation Society have spent 90,000 man-hours, aided by thousands of pounds' worth of grants, restoring the pair of two-cylinder compound condensing engines (500hp each). However, the boiler must be reconditioned and steel hull plates beneath it replaced before ‘the Danny’ can return to service. The Earl of Derby, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool and MP Louise Ellman were among those who made a tour of the ship to celebrate her first decade of salvation. Learn more at danieladamson.co.uk

C/o JoHN WRAGG

C/o dAPS

Rebuilt smack yacht restored

LOWESTOFT, SUFFOLK

Two projects for IBTC

C/o RESCUE WoodEN BoATS

The commercial division of the International Boatbuilding Training College, IBTC Heritage, is currently working on a couple of unusual projects. The first has involved the fabrication of a new oak stem for the 24ft (7.3m) Norwegianbuilt Havfruen. Normally, this would have been made in three sections, but the owner, Andrew Longman, wanted to follow the original design by opting for a single-piece stem. Across the shed, there is the 27ft (8.2m) double-ended motor-cruiser Mouche. This winter’s work includes reframing and replanking the aft port quarter, fitting new deck beams and laying a plywood deck that will be epoxy sheathed. RJB

BURNHAM NORTON, NORFOLK, UK

C/o RICHARd JoHNSToNE-BRydEN

First wooden crab boat in 25 years

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

They were once a common sight on the Norfolk coast, but today it’s thought there might be only one or two left in commission. Now, Rescue Wooden Boats, a heritage charity set up in 2010, is building a new one for a private client. She’s 16ft 10in (5.1m) long and traditionally built in larch clinker planks on oak frames, with a grown oak stem. Auk, as she will be named, resembles a Viking craft but has one concession to modernity, which is the use of Sikaflex on the lands – the originals used pitch pine and horse hair for sealant. The heyday of the original crabbers was the 19th century, when they were used to tend crab pots under sail. After the First World War, the fleet was largely motorised. This one will have the option of either, with a 20hp Nanni diesel and a dipping lug rig.

CRAFTSMANSHIP

CORnWALL, UK

C/O JOn BRAy

Big gaff cutter for a boatbuilder A substantial new boat is in build at Gweek Quay in the shape of a traditional gaff cutter measuring 40ft (12.2m) by 12ft 2in (3.7m) beam. She’s the personal project of shipwright Jon Bray, who learned his trade under Ashley Butler, with some welcome help from apprentice Mike Snell. The gaff cutter is inspired by several Cornish working boats and evolved through a number of half-models. The work, which started in July 2013, is well advanced – the hull, cockpit and coachroof are finished, with the spars well on their way. She’s larch on oak, bronze-fastened with an opepe deck, traditional pole mast, a 3.2-tonne external lead keel and Appledore roller reefing. When complete she will be Jon’s family yacht.

AMSTERDAM

MALLORCA

C/O BRenDOn HAy

Work to the William Fife III-designed Tern continues apace at Ocean Refit. She’s a Belfast Lough One-Design (BLOD), one of nine built and three remaining, and all named after birds. Tern was built in 1897 by John Hilditch of Carrickfergus, near Belfast, and bought recently by an anonymous owner who wishes to race her, once restored, in the Mediterranean. The 24ft 6in (7.5m) yacht sports a gaff-cutter rig, which is being reinstated by Chuck Rigging, with new sails from Ratsey & Lapthorn, who made the originals in 1897. Tern is racing successfully towards a planned August launch and the idea is to mark the beginning of the next phase of her life by racing at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez this autumn.

Hoek Design won Boat of the year in the sail category at the recent HISWA Amsterdam Boat Show, for the essence 33 cruiser/ daysailer. The boat certainly seems to be doing well, with hulls three and four now in build. In March, Andre Hoek was in London to collect an award from us, publicly voted for, this time for best boat in the Spirit of Tradition (Over 40ft/12.2m) category (see p71).

C/O STepHenS WARInG

Another month, another award

Little Fife bird returns

NEW YORK STATE, USA

Runabouts revisited A wooden runabout inspired by 1920s American Gold Cup racing is in build at the Tumblehome Boatshop near Lake George. She was drawn by Stephens Waring in Maine, who has been responsible for many lovely SoT creations. The runabout, although designed in homage to the likes of Hacker, and built comparatively traditionally (three layers of planking on sawn mahogany frames, all soaked in epoxy), is quite a modern beast, with a constant deadrise hull and chine flats below the surface. Above water, she sports twin bucket seats up front (again, traditional) but in the aft cockpit there’s a more modern set-up with longitudinal bench seats that fold up to form a sun lounger. Aft of that is a deck hatch that folds up to reveal a swim platform and ladder. She’s 23ft 10in (7.3m) and, with her 340hp petrol V6, should hit 60mph. She is due for launch this summer. CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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CRAFTSMANSHIP

ELLAd’s REsTORATION PART 7

From sloop to yawl and back again In the last part of our series on restoring the 1957 William Fife III double-ender Ellad, we look at how the team changed her rigging, mast and paintwork story NIGEL PERT PhotograPhs dIdIER GRIffIThs

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CRAFTSMANSHIP

1

Change of rig

2

Revised sail plan

Ellad came out of the Fife yard in 1957 as a sloop (above left), but her second owner sailed her as a yawl (above right). Ellad has now been rerigged as a sloop again.

Didier didn’t like the 4/5ths sloop’s sail plan proposed by Fife (above right) and chose the better-balanced 7/8ths rig plan (above left) by Jack Gifford, of GL Watson & Co Ltd.

3 Mast

4

alterations

Several kilos were planed off the mast (top left). A channel was cut for the cables (top right), and the head fitting was re-galvanised and painted. An LED light and rubber cable protection were also added.

E

llad was launched in 1957 as a sloop, but Didier inherited her with a yawl rig that was put in by her second owner. Although this was in line with the work done on Latifa (Fife’s more well known double-ender), it was not efficient on a 34ft 6in (10.5m) yacht, so Olivier Cyrille and the team set about changing her back to her original sloop configuration. Fife originally proposed this yacht with either rig. Didier referred to these original propositions and, in consultation with William Collier, elaborated his sail plan. Didier didn’t like Fife’s 4/5ths plan, finding it unattractive. He asked Collier if 7/8ths would be a heresy. He thought this acceptable, presuming Archibald (Fife’s nephew, who built Ellad), had simply ignored the mizzen of the yawl, without repositioning the mainmast to compensate. This led to an imbalance with the 4/5ths arrangement. Didier wanted to race Ellad, not cruise her, and to increase her potential for speed. So he opted for a 7/8ths formula. The height of the mast was retained, but the mainsail and jib were both increased in area, and the new sail plan was

Mizzen removal

As a yawl, Ellad ’s mizzen was stepped in the hole to the right, which meant the mainstay was eccentrically placed. The new backstay’s anchorage is the stainless steel fitting (far left).

TOP TIP

drawn up by Jack Gifford of GL Watson & Co Ltd. The original mast, although in fair condition, had a large diameter, so was very heavy and rigid. This diameter was reduced, “Varnish timber spar giving a lot more flexibility and reduced s every year to maintain wo weight. As a consequence, surface damage od through lack of varnish since 2005 was also in good condition” largely alleviated. Olivier followed the Didier Griffiths technique as for making a new spar, planing eight flats, 16 flats, etc, to retain roundness. The bulky rectangular winch seats of this 45ft 11in (14m) Oregon pine mast were also removed and new ones made later. The masthead remained virtually unchanged. The resulting boat was much better balanced, yet had kept her strength. During the trip to Scotland for last year’s Fife Regatta, she experienced gusts of 47 knots (MWF9) with no ill effects. A channel – later filled with a batten – was machined at the mast foot to enable cables to pass through at sole level (a length at the top and bottom of the otherwise

Varnish

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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CRAFTSMANSHIP

5

Building th e boom

Epoxy was used to assemble the boom halves, built in Oregon pine, hollowed to 1ft 11in (58cm) from the extremities and planed pearshaped to accommodate a rail, which in the end was unnecessary.

7

Gold standard

When Didier sanded her down, he unearthed this intricate dragon motif. To make the most of it, he filled it in, then had it recarved and gold-leafed for her second season.

hollow mast is solid). The reduced diameter meant the mast fitting for the lower crosstrees had to be remade, the other mast had removable spacing pieces to accommodate the old diameter. The galvanised steel fitting for the boom gooseneck, like other fittings, was stripped and re-galvanised before painting. A new boom was made of two pieces of Oregon pine to accommodate the bigger mainsail. Each half was hollowed to within 1ft 11in (58cm) of the extremities, to allow the fittings to be attached. This boom may need remaking, as the new mainsail is loose-footed and this boom is not designed to only have force at its extremities, consequently it now bends slightly. Also, in their first race with the new mainsail, they found they couldn’t gybe as the boom touched the backstay. Back in port, a few centimetres were sawn off! All winches were renewed and all standing rigging was replaced in stainless steel. Olivier Cyrille: www.chantier-naval-des-rias.com 82

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

6

Stepping th e mast

After being craned in at Bénodet, the leather mast boot that went around the mahogany flange (above right) leaked, so Didier resorted to using self-welding tape underneath.

8

Painting th e hull

Here’s the hull with its first coat of below-waterline primer. Topsides are almost completely taken back to bare wood, ready for painting. The large lettered name was not retained and ‘decorations’ became gold.

Painting perfection The interior of the hull and bulkheads were spray-painted before fitting out and all furniture was painted before installation. The hull exterior was sanded to wood before the surface treatment (see below) was added. On sanding near the bow, boatbuilder Olivier Cyrille found the trace of an original dragon insignia that had been replaced by a less elegant version, so this original was reinstated in gold leaf. Where the existing varnish was intact, Didier sanded it with grade 240/320 paper, then applied two coats of one-component gloss varnish, resanded and reapplied one or two coats of gloss varnish. On areas of bare wood, he applied two to three coats of two-component polyurethane gloss varnish or Epifanes PP Extra (two component) varnish. Never use these products over one-component varnish! The paint process was as follows: two coats of Epifanes Werdol white wood primer, sand (grade 180/240), two coats of Epifanes undercoat (Epigrond), sand (240/320), then two coats of Epifanes Nautiforte.

Photo by Billy Black.

Eggemoggin 47

Turning heads, even as she passes them on the racecourse. Join the fleet of new performance daysailers in the Spirit of Tradition class.

(+1) 207-359-2236

• brooklinboatyard.com • brooklin, maine, usa

It’s not the winning... . . . but she was first overall in the ‘Spanish league’ in 2013. Argyll will be taking part in 11 classic regattas across the Med this coming season. Charter a legend. Competitive rates for a competitive classic. Phone Mary on +44 (0)7910 947 296 or go to www.classicyachtargyll.com CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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Art Marine

The aLL new North Quay

Spitfire18

Limited edition prints and commissioned paintings by Geoff Hunt pprsma

“England Expects…” – HMS Victory makes Nelson’s signal, 21st October 1805. A new limited edition print by Geoff Hunt

Also works by Roy Cross, Jenny Morgan, Steven Dews, Mark Myers, James Dodds and other fine marine artists. Call 01795 521711 • Email [email protected]

www.artmarine.co.uk

www.northquaymarine.co.uk

020 7460 4551

Peter Freebody & Co

NQM005 Classic Boat ad 129d x 99w.indd 1

26/11/13 11:31:40

Boatbuilders, Designers & Restorers of Traditional River Launches A fine selection of classic launches for sale Moorings available Est 300 years Mill Lane, Hurley, Berks, SL6 5ND

+44 (0)1628 824382

www.peterfreebody.com 84

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

CRAFTSMANSHIP YARD NEWS

HARbouR MARiNE SERvicES, uK

busy outfitting cruisers to cruise PHOTOGRAPHS EMiLY HARRiS Harbour Marine Services, based at Southwold on the pretty River Blyth, is acquiring a well-earned reputation for restoring gentlemen’s cruisers – the classic TSDY (twin screw diesel yacht). Readers might remember the utterly gorgeous Gralian (CB280) shortlisted for a 2012 award, but the yard also had a Yachting World 5 tonner, Dynamene, up for an award the same year. Classic Boat recently dropped in and saw the boats in the shed being restored, or outside waiting their turn and, indeed, a Silver Leaf they “did earlier”, about which watch this space! With six boats in various stages of work there is plenty for founder John Buckley’s 16 craftsmen to be doing. We’ll have a bit more on this yard when we cover the finished Silver Leaf – meanwhile here are some workshop shots of her sistership Chinda.

Above: Kim Peskett offers up the iroko covering board for the deck of Chinda, a 1947 John Bain-designed Silver Leaf, which has come from the River Medina upstream of Cowes to benefit from the HMS treatment. The 46ft (14m) TSDY was built by Anderson, Rigden and Perkins in Whitstable, Kent. She’s having work on her planks, frames, deck and shaft. Her owners plan to cruise to the Mediterranean in a couple of years and we wonder if they need any crew...

Above: steady now! Kim planes the covering board for a neat fit. This is the kind of craftsmanship that had earned Harbour Marine its reputation – with boats literally queuing outside to be restored. The company has expanded from its original shed in the late 1980s, taking advantage of the resurgence of interest in traditional boats, but also turning its hand to modern yachts and workboats to be flexible when needed. More on Chinda’s sister Meridies in a summer issue. CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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Art Marine

The aLL new North Quay

Spitfire18

Limited edition prints and commissioned paintings by Geoff Hunt pprsma

“England Expects…” – HMS Victory makes Nelson’s signal, 21st October 1805. A new limited edition print by Geoff Hunt

Also works by Roy Cross, Jenny Morgan, Steven Dews, Mark Myers, James Dodds and other fine marine artists. Call 01795 521711 • Email [email protected]

www.artmarine.co.uk

www.northquaymarine.co.uk

020 7460 4551

Peter Freebody & Co

NQM005 Classic Boat ad 129d x 99w.indd 1

26/11/13 11:31:40

Boatbuilders, Designers & Restorers of Traditional River Launches A fine selection of classic launches for sale Moorings available Est 300 years Mill Lane, Hurley, Berks, SL6 5ND

+44 (0)1628 824382

www.peterfreebody.com 86

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Traditional Tool Pulling power: the claw hammer The gut-wrenching groan of a large nail being pulled from timber is among the most uncomfortable sounds in the boatyard, but the tool responsible for it is one of the most useful. This stalwart of the toolbox, combining a flat face for driving nails with the tapering slot of a curved claw for extracting them, has been around since Roman times and changed very little in the last 2,000 years. In a good-quality tool like this 20oz (567g) example, forged around 1950 at the long-gone Albert Works of John Garrington & Sons in Darlaston, Walsall, the striking face is subtly domed, or crowned, to avoid leaving ‘half-crowns’ on the timber after driving a nail home. Another useful refinement is the sharp inner edge of the claw that bites into and grips the nail’s shank. The adze-eye fitting of the head to the handle, or helve, was invented in the 1840s by New York blacksmith David Maydole. Before Maydole the helve was fitted into a simple round

opening in the head, which would soon loosen under the strain of extracting nails. Maydole extended and squared the opening – similar to an adze – to create a rock-solid joint. Traditionally the helve is of a springy, straight-grained wood like ash or hickory (as here) but as with boats, wood has lately given way to GRP. The hammer is the first tool many of us use, and how quickly it falls into contempt as more sophisticated planes, drills and saws come our way. Often it is condemned as a desperate

Clockwise from above: pulling a nail with the claw; steel wedges tighten the helve; the crown of the striking face

choice of tool, ridiculed as the “Birmingham screwdriver”, whereas it is a highly versatile tool made in numerous shapes and weights to suit the special requirements of countless trades. Of course, a claw hammer isn’t the tool of choice for riveting up your dainty Thames skiff – you’ll need a lightweight ball-peen hammer for that – but if there are hefty spikes to be sunk in a tough-grained timber or temporary structures to be nailed in the yard, this hammer delivers the power and momentum required.

roBIn gatEs

story and PhotograPhs ROBIN GATES

roBIn gatEs

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87

e e n ad id ai M pr Brit th t wi rea G in

“Rainbow” 3rd in class at the Fife Regatta 2013

Chandlery for traditional ships and classic yachts Webshop: www.toplicht.de Free catalogue: „The little Brownie“

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22-28 Tower Street, Brightlingsea, Essex CO7 0AL Tel: 01206 302863 • Fax: 01206 305858 Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

Camper and niCholsons 44 - 1961

Built by Camper and Nicholsons, Gosport, this 44 ft Bermudan Yawl is constructed of teak and mahogany on grown oak frames and built to meet Lloyds 100AI. Only 4 owners in the past 50 years! I still have the original specification with hand-made notes along with 13 line drawings from the Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Hull and topsides repainted in May 2012. Full set of new Ratsey sails. Decent Perkins 4108. Loads of spares. Lying South Spain. Priced reduced to £39,000 For full history see www.classicyachtcharter.eu Email. [email protected]

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

toplicht Hamburg O Germany

Phone: +49 (0)40 88 90 100 Fax: +49 (0)40 88 90 1011 [email protected]

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Charlotte watters

Adrian Morgan

In a bit of a scrape

or tools. My favourite is a bluehandled Draper scraper with a knob. Work a burr onto the edge and it will scrape away for hours, carving off satisfying swathes of paint, layers deep. Plus a triangular shave hook for the lands, a scraper and, finally, a kind of hooky thing with a point on one blade and a flat on the other side. Gear fettled it is time to get down to work. Fingers crossed the gunge someone laid into the lands is not silicone. No, it’s cheap frame sealant and it is peeling off nicely, in long, paint-covered snakes. Let’s do all the lands on one side first before scraping the planks themselves; see what’s going on under there. Not bad. Whoever built her knew what they were doing. The lands are crisp, and given a soaking she will probably take up without the need for mastic. There is a small split in the garboard, easily fixed with epoxy and dust mix, a few gashes where a fly fisherman has drawn her ashore and caught a sharp rock. No rot, so far. And the knots in the larch have been stabilised from the time she was built. The builder took some care with this boat and all these years later, it is beginning to show. A rhythm is established. Work the gun with the left hand, followed by the scraper in the right. The paint is coming off in inch-wide strips now, like wallpaper in a doll’s house, and it is easier under the waterline where the larch is a little damper. It will get harder higher up the topsides, but right now it’s going pretty steadily. Meanwhile the mind is free to wander; a tune pops up from somewhere. Thoughts and reflections come and go. What’s for supper, I wonder? Scrape, blow, scrape. What is the meaning of life? Scrape, scrape. There’s another strake stripped. Two-and-half hours have passed. That’s a strake every, say, 20 minutes. So, 16 strakes, that’s…? Time for a cuppa. It’s strangely relaxing. And mindless, well no. There is a skill to it: the edge on the blade; heat of the gun; when to work the scraper without tearing the grain, or damaging the lands. Must be the same doing any repetitive job. Wonder what it would be like sweeping the streets. Plucking chickens? Scrape, scrape, scrape. Gosh. Look at the time. That’s nearly four hours and three-quarters of one side is done. All at £20 an hour. Car mechanics get double that. I could scrape all day at that money. Pity. Hmmm… Wonder what’s for tea? Time flies. Scrape, scrape, scrape…

Adrian rolls up his sleeves and starts stripping paint

I

t is not all about applying perfect coats of Epifanes (please note that other varnishes are available, indeed my favourite is Coo-Var, but that’s another story). No, sometimes this boatbuilding business, well actually very often, is about scraping off coats of varnish of indeterminate age and provenance. I am not sure what they had been slathering over the 16ft (4.9m) clinker loch boat that’s currently in the shed, but it sure wasn’t Epifanes, or Coo-Var for that matter. Thick, it was, and brown but, mercifully, it peeled off under the glare of the heat gun with what can only be called a sigh of relief. Or rather the sighing was from the old boat herself, beginning to breath again after 20 years of slow suffocation. One good thing about old varnish or paint is that it comes off easily. God help anyone trying the same thing in the future on the two-pack finishes on the chandler’s shelves. And, do you know, I rather enjoy the meticulous process of scraping off the bottom of a clinker boat (the inside is quite another matter). Mind you, the prospect of hours of scraping can be daunting, and what will be revealed under those layers? Rot, broken strakes, splits. Yet, strange to tell, once started it becomes quite therapeutic. First you must choose the right tool for the job,

“I could scrape all day at that money. Pity.”

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

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MARINE DIRECTORY

Marine Directory

To advertise Call Patricia Hubbard +44 (0) 207 349 3748 [email protected] Copy Deadline for next issue is 25/04/2014

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photo: Stephen Wolfenden

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A range of simple small craft plans for very easy home building in plywood

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

• Shipwright • Boat Building • Spar Maker • Repair & Restoration of wooden boats • Surveys of wooden ships

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Marine Directory BOATBUILDERS

BUSINESS FOR SALE

Peter Freebody & Co

Sailing Business For Sale

Boatbuilders, Designers & Restorers of Traditional River Launches A fine selection of classic launches for sale Moorings available Est 300 years Mill Lane, Hurley, Berks, SL6 5ND

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MARINE DIRECTORY Echomax Press Ad Classic Boat 2012:Layout 1

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

Harbour Way, Bristol, BS1 5UH, UK T: 07967 993 298 • E: [email protected] UK Patent No. 2112706

Marine Directory

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

Looking ahead Things to do in the next few weeks

NEXT MONTH

Antigua 2014 17-22 APRIL 2014 antiguaclassics.com Tel: +1 268 460 1799 The main event in the Caribbean, with 50 to 60 yachts every year

DAN HOUSTON

WAVE RUNNER

UK

OVERSEAS

2-5 MAY

Pilot Gig Worlds

18-20 APRIL

OGA Easter Rally Tollesbury, Essex, oga.org.uk For the first time, this rally is being held in historic Tollesbury. 27 APRIL

Concordias have been described as the yacht that gets bigger as the weather gets rougher. We have been aboard for this feature on the class

30 APRIL – 27 MAY

Isles of Scilly worldgigs.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1720 422670 100+ rowing gigs in this singular spectacle. An extra reason to finally make it to the Scillies this year?

Black Sea Tall Ships

9-11 May

3-4 MAY

Classic Offshore Powerboat Club Cowes Rally

Keels & Wheels Concours d’Elegance

Varna, Bulgaria – Novorossiysk, Russia – Sochi, Russia – Constanta, Romania sailtraininginternational.org Tel: +44 (0)23 9258 6367

Beaulieu Boat Jumble Beaulieu, Hampshire beaulieu.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1590 614614 Boat jumble season is in full swing. Be warned: the bargains go quick, so arrive early. For a list of all UK boat jumbles, visit boatjumbleassociation.co.uk.

Seabrook, Texas keels-wheels.com Tel: +1 713 521 0105 Heady mix of classic speedboats and cars – mostly cars

Cowes, IoW classicoffshore.com Tel: +44 (0)7786 383 970 Speedsters of yesteryear.

BLITZ DEFENDER The extraordinary story of the fully restored Massey Shaw, credited with saving London’s St Paul’s in the Blitz, after her heroism at Dunkirk

USING DYNEEMA

From the publishers of Classic Boat SAILING TODAY

Bosun’s bag

IN THE LATEST ISSUE

MAY 2014 sailingtoday.co.uk £4.20

Offshore oilies

9 771367 586100

Tested by us in the RNLI survival centre

Secret South West

 Oilies – putting the best to test at the RNLI survival centre

Your guide to its hidden harbours

WEST COUNTRY •

 Saare 41 – on test

GULL’S EYE

ALBANIA

HARBOUR GUIDE Dunstaffnage, Scotland

•

SAARE 41 •

DUNSTAFFNAGE •

CLOTHING

NEW BOAT TEST

Counting the cost of the storms

Custom quality

 Standing rigging – top tips to keep your rigging safe

RIGGING

First a new series of 74 in sailingtoday.co.uk May 2014 Rod Heikell’s favourites ST205_001 ST205 BosunsBag CoverA v6.indd V2.indd 1 74

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Estonia’s answer to the Nordic yachts

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IN THE LATEST ISSUE £4.30 Issue #1673 | May 2014 www.yachtsandyachting.co.uk 05

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

TOP TO BOTTOM: DAN HOUSTON, DAN HOUSTON, KATHY MANSFIELD

PPL MEDIA

11 MAY Jester Challenge, Plymouth, UK, to Newport, USA jesterinfo.org Informal transat for yachts under 30ft (9.1m), in the spirit of the original OSTAR, which featured Gipsy Moth III (left). Some 35 boats are sailing this year, mostly various ‘chemical classics’, including a Hurley 22, a couple of Albin Vegas, Contessas, Sadlers, Corribees and Trevor Leek on Jester.

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Letters Letter of the month supported by oLd puLteney Whisky

Above, from left: X3 Mischief, X2 Mayfly and X5 Madcap racing in the Solent during 1912

Cowes Classics Week is a growing event for the XODs with 40 boats competing last year and more anticipated this year – even taking into account the numbers competing in the more demanding Cowes Week regatta. The Classics Week is a very different event with shorter back-toback racing and a stronger social side. The key for the XODs is the

C/o mArk GrimWAde

Pic your favourite

Facebook for sailors/boats? As always, i opened the last issue (Cb310) at the Letters page and i noted tony Waldeck’s missive, “Where are they now?”. his letter has rekindled my belief that there is a need for some form of “search engine” to achieve this end. friends reunited proved a most successful aid in connecting people and there could be a maritime equivalent. i even have a name for it… “exboatAhoy!” it could be said that i am in the same boat as tony Waldeck as my wife and i sail Wizard of paget – a foam-sandwich ex-Admiral’s Cup ocean racer from 1969. she and her sistership Quest of paget were the very first commission for German frers when he first set up on his own. it took us 12 years to find Quest in maine and then only by a tremendous fluke. ideas and suggestions? (not to me, i’ll be off sailing). Mark Grimwade, Shotley, Ipswich 96

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

I wanted you to know that the Nordlandsbåt yard has a Facebook album where you will find plenty of photos of Lillebror, Runner up – Traditonal New Build in our awards: CB310: facebook.com/pages/ Nordlandsbåt/425519 030856270?ref=br_tf My interest in classic boats comes from growing up in an environment involving ships, and my plan is to further involve myself and my business helping the great culture of traditional ship building and the world around it. Johan Alv Christensson, Brakstad, Norway

freedom of choice for sailing style and shore activities – some owners do both, some just one event. The common theme is good-quality racing in a large competitive fleet – with great company. For the record: last year’s Cowes Week winner, X80 Lass, was built in 1946, and last year’s Cowes Classics Week winner, X91 Astralita, was built in 1949. And yes, the younger sailors compete as well; the Cowes Week winner in 2011 was 21-year-old Andrew Shaw in X186 Phoenix, built in 1988. Not bad for a class that first took to the water in 1909, is still built to the original design and materials, and still sports wooden spars. John Long, deputy chairman of the XOD Class Association

A place for poetic licence i did read with amusement in the may 2013 (Cb299, p65) edition of Classic boat story entitled “meet bundy” by Guy Venables. this short story goes on about “our” bundy and, yes, it is over exaggerated as the “best rum in the world”. it brings back memories of the line on mark rosenstein’s sailing page, at the end of the line on the sydney-hobart race, which was described as the greatest blue-water ocean race ever! With this caveat: “[And Australians would never exaggerate!]”. Well i’m Australian, and i do sail and i often wonder about the height of the seas people often say they encounter. during my last open water sail in the notorious (am i bragging?) bass strait, we were told the sea swell was 2m. At times it was 2.5m and i’m sure the seas on my video were 3m. type “schooner enterprize in bass strait” into youtube for a look. i know only too well winds, waves and swells can be higher than any weather prediction. i truly believe, however, it’s a sailor’s right to embellish any maritime story with the exception of a maritime enquiry. Add in some beverage consumption and everything becomes faster, wetter, steeper and more dangerous. keep up the good work.

Tony Ruth, by email

Guy VenAbLes

Dan Houston gently teases us through his interpretation of the synergies and competing nuances of the Cowes-based Panerai British Classic Week, the Charles Stanley Cowes Classics Week and the Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week. But he is misguided in his conclusion. Owners of the XOD class speak with their boats on the water and this year they will be competing for the 90th time at Cowes Week. Around 80 XODs regularly attend Cowes Week, not counting the 145 XODs that raced in Cowes Week 2011 to celebrate the class’s centenary.

C/o Xod AssoCiAtion

X marks the spot

LETTERS Send your letters (and also any replies please) to: Classic Boat, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ email: [email protected]

A couple of years or so back I visited the Dutch Klassieke Schepen event. It was held in the pretty port of Enkhuizen on the west side of the IJsselmeer and it was a Mecca for classic and modern sailors alike. It was much more than a mere exhibition; it was a jamboree celebrating maritime history of both pleasure and commerce. Held in a series of marquees on the harbour, there were many displays of boatbuilding and restoration. However, it was the “afloat section” that made it. There were all kinds of craft, ranging from steam tugs to rowing dinghies, many of which were available to board and view; there was even a spectacular demonstration of loading cargo into the hold of a trading schooner. So I decided that I would definitely attend Klassieke Schepen in 2014, but when I checked on the

STEFFAN MEYrIC HUGHES

What have they done to Klassieke Schepen?

dates I was dismayed to learn that the event had been moved from Enkhuizen to Amsterdam and combined with the HISWA Boat Show. Nevertheless, as it was held over my birthday, I decided to go! The winter HISWA is held in a soulless exhibition centre and what a disappointment! The HISWA show was pretty lacklustre, predominantly

Above: the old Dutch Klassieke Schepen show featured a well-stocked “afloat section”

One good Tern deserves another

DAVE SELBY

Constable’s bermudans

Model mystery Every year in February when I visit the exquisite rétromobile classic car show, I find diversion among the trade stalls where there are always objects of maritime interest to root out. This year I found, among other curios, shipping posters, pond yachts and several models, including this bizarre contraption, which has me totally stumped. What is it? I don’t know if it’s a pond yacht, a presentation model, or perhaps a model of a yacht that was never built. It was about 4ft (1.2m) long and finely made with riveted planking. Its rounded form reminded me a little of Fairey Marine’s Atalanta monocoque construction, but even more extreme, with its whale bow and rounded hull. It’s almost like a submarine yacht. The vendor had no idea, except for a guide price of €8,000. Does anyone have any answers? Dave Selby, Maldon, Essex

We are pleased to announce that eminent colleagues at the National Maritime Museum, London, have pronounced that there is NO problem with the boats in Yarmouth Jetty (CB310, p96), bar a bit of commonly seen artistic licence!!! This is seen in numerous works, including famous paintings by Turner, and is no basis for doubting attribution. What was seen in the BBC show was 19th and 20th-century restoration, reinforcing and altering Constable’s original sketchy boats that are no more than a few rapid strokes, repainting them with a later hand. This has been removed and now the painting looks more like Constable than ever. Sarah Cove ACR FIIC FBAPCR, Accredited Paintings Conservator, Constable Research Project Ed – Thanks for clarifying. It would have been good if the BBC’s Fake or Fortune programme had mentioned these bermudan yachts as being repainted later.

BBC

TrEVOr CHErrETT

Unless I have a namesake you have unfortunately mistakenly attributed the letter “Love at first sight” about Tern, the William Fife III-designed Belfast Lough OD, to me. I am sure I would have fallen in love with her as well and I would be happy to attend the St Tropez Regatta, but I have nothing to do with Tern. Trevor Cherrett, Wiltshire Ed – sorry! The letter was from Brendon Hay

featuring motorboats, and the Klassieke Schepen part was tucked away in a small hall. There were some nice exhibits, including a traditional Dragon, a varnished Skerry Cruiser and a motor launch from the 1920s. However, there was nothing to keep me there for more than an hour, whereas at Enkhuizen my wife had to drag me away to get the last train home. But, what’s not to like about Amsterdam on a sunny afternoon? We found a bar with an outside terrace overlooking two canals and had fun watching the wide variety of craft having “near misses”. There was even an Amphicar, which a Dutchman on the next table described as “a lousy car and a lousy boat”! All very enjoyable, but can we have Enkhuizen back please? Chris Potter, by email

CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

97

Sternpost

Storm troopers PPL

Barry Pickthall laments the loss of the lighthouse keeper

M

ay 20th marks the 500th anniversary of Trinity House, the guardians of English and Welsh navigation, and the 16th year since our last lighthouse keeper turned the key to lock up North Foreland Lighthouse in Kent for the final time, ending a four-century-old lifestyle (see CB125). The writing had been on the wall since lighthouse automation began in the 1920s, following the development of acetylene gas illumination systems. It brought to an end the notion of an idyllic lifestyle of men and women being paid to do little else but watch the sun rise and set from perches high up on the headland. Certainly, there were lighthouse keepers like George Gilmour who spent his time working as a relief keeper, photographing the spectacular surroundings wherever he was stationed. Where is he now, I wonder, and whatever happened to his archive of pictures? For those of us stressed out by life’s shortcomings, a spell in a lighthouse might seem a welcome change, but the job was never quite as romantic as it seemed. In the early days, the role of lighthouse keeper was two-fold: to give an early warning against hostile ships, and to maintain a light that sailors could rely on to give

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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2014

“The job was never quite as romantic as it seemed”

them some idea of their position. In America, the appointment of lighthouse keepers was often political, endorsed by the president, who either wanted to reward a supporter with a tranquil lifestyle to end their years, or to lock their foes away from the political limelight. Life aboard a lightship was altogether different, where boredom took over, interspersed with periods of horrendous weather. When the weather was bad, some lightships were liable to drag their anchors, or worse the chains would break, so the vessel, which was usually without propulsion, was then at the mercy of the very dangers it had been positioned to guard against. One of the most notorious postings was aboard the Nantucket, commissioned in 1931 to warn shipping from the fog-shrouded shoals off the New England coast. During their first year of operation, the crew had to up anchor in fierce weather and go to the rescue of an eight-man fishing vessel that eventually sank five miles from the light. The Nantucket’s crew had ample reason to be thankful that their lightship had a propulsion system (most did not) when, during another storm in 1933, her anchors dragged and she drifted 32 miles off station. A year later, the lightship survived a glancing blow from the SS Washington, but four months on, the British White Star liner Olympic rammed her amidships in dense fog. Four of Nantucket’s crew went down with the ship, and though seven others were picked up by her lifeboats, three of these later died of their injuries. One can understand why lighthouse keepers might be less concerned about such events, though one exception was in 1921 when a submarine ran onto the rocks adjacent to the Newport Harbour Lighthouse on Goat Island and carried away the keeper’s house! Apart from the ever-present threat of the sea, the inaccessibility of many lighthouses meant food often ran short. Keepers generally kept a three-month supply of dried meat and ship’s biscuits for times when the supply vessel was unable to get through. For us amateur sailors, the greatest regret for the loss of our keepers is felt at Christmas, when club members used to pay a visit to their local lighthouse and drop off a hamper as a thankyou for serving us throughout the year. It’s a service those keepers of lighthouses who are still alive today probably miss too! (More Trinity House history next month.)

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