Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2015 i Classic Boat

That classic boating is an event-driven sport seems obvious. And it’s all about impact. The impact or effect of many boats together. We can all miss one lovely old boat in a trot of white-by-the-yard plastic. Indeed on her own she can seem rather forlorn; as if elegant sheer and raked overhangs should look incongruous, even uncomfortable, among bulb-hulled boats with double aft cabins. Bring her two sisters alongside, or moored in a row and suddenly there’s the gleeful feeling you might enjoy at an antiques fair. Your eye will be taking in the lines, sheer, bow and counter while your mind will find delight at the proportions of her coachroof or the arrangement of her varnished gull’s-wing hatches. Add another ten boats, some of which can even be built…

Ladies and gentlemen, 12-M champion of the world – Nyala. On every level this boat is royalty. She was built in 1938 at Nevins Yard in New York, and was Olin Stephens’ first 12-M, built for Frederick T Bedford, then president of Standard Oil. He gave her as a wedding present to his daughter Lucie when she married Briggs Cunningham. Cunningham was an esteemed racer of both yachts and cars, and he turned Nyala into a champion. In 1996 she was completely restored by Cantiere Navale dell’Argentario of Italy. The rebuild was overseen by Federico Nardi. She is now owned by Mr Patrizio Bertelli (inset), boss of the luxury goods company Prada. Bertelli is also a great yachtsman and his latest Luna Rossa is currently one of the more credible…

Southern Cross was custom-built for the young tobacco heir David Guthrie Dunn to circumnavigate the world in 1930. Planned as a three-year trip, this was not undertaken with any record or recognition in mind, but to allow the young crew to gain experience exploring the oceans and cultures of the world before embarking on their chosen careers. Unlike many of the early circumnavigations undertaken in small boats, this trip was well-funded by her millionaire owner. The following is based on James Shackleton’s insightful personal log of the voyage, but it also covers the history of the yacht, from inception to her current home in Mallorca. While Dunn was still a student at Cambridge he developed a meticulous plan to build an ocean-going cruiser and sail round the world. Southern Cross…

If it is part of the role of a classic motor cruiser to act as a weekend cottage – and let’s face it, that is part of its charm – then its conservatory is undoubtedly the wheelhouse, catching the sun and offering great views. That’s certainly the case with Meridies, a 1937 46ft (14m) Silver Leaf class boat built by JA Silver in Rosneath on the Clyde. I’ve instinctively bagged its best seat, high up towards the rear, while her owner, David Worthington, occupies the helmsman’s chair. Outside there’s a great panorama of the River Blyth at Southwold in Suffolk, but what I’m actually looking at right now is the past. This particular seat (more about it later) is served by a small occasional table that swings and turns out…

New hub for Baltic Classics This year the Baltic Classic Circuit will be divided into a Swedish national classic yacht cup series and a new, big international event to attract more foreign boats. This year it will be in Turku, where Finland’s third-oldest yacht club, Airisto, will celebrate its 150 years jubilee. The new event will still be part of the Baltic Classics Circuit. So far, 15 Swedish yachts have registered for the Turku regatta, with interest from British and German yachts coming in. The 12-M Blue Marlin (CB319) will be in attendance, as well as a number of other large yachts, as well as fierce racing in the 5, 6 and 8-M classes. MAY 23 - 24 Peter Norlin Memorial Classic Stockholm 27 JUNE ÅF Inshore Race Classic Stockholm…

Race-winning sloop Although Alan Buchanan was a tremendously versatile – not to mention prolific – naval architect, he is probably remembered best for his mid-sized bermudan cruiser/racer sloops drawn to race under RORC that he drew in the two decades or so following the war. He designed Sinbad in 1960, as a faster version of his own yacht at the time, Taitsing. She’s 37ft 6in (11.4m) long with 26ft (7.9m) LWL and 9ft (2.7m) beam, tiller-steered and, in common with some other Buchanan yachts, with a decent-sized cockpit for a boat of her vintage. She’s of ¾in (19mm) afromosia and mahogany planks on Canadian rock elm timbers and weighs in at 6.7 tons – on the light side, not surprising considering her designer’s background in aeronautical draftsmanship. She entered the…

The worlds of yacht design and vernacular build have collided on the beach near the boatbuilding town of Cajaiba tucked inside Brazil’s Camamu Bay, where an Ed Burnett yacht is in build using computer-cut templates by men who have built by eye for generations. The yacht is a 56ft (17m) canoe yawl – “neither a canoe nor a yawl” as Ed points out – and in build for an Englishman and his Brazilian wife, who have a holiday home nearby and want a boat to sail the bay. She is “slightly like a huge Rozinante” continues Ed, referring to L Francis Herreshoff’s elegant, 28ft (8.5m), slim-beamed canoe yawl of 1952. Both are, in fact, bermudan ketches. As we were writing this, the spars from Collars in Oxford in England were…

Building in clinker is all about line; well not all: you must make an effort at least to ensure the water keeps outside the planking through the closeness of joints, tightness of fastenings and so on. The rest, however, can be unreliably entrusted to the swelling effect of placing a wooden sieve in water, as voiced by reassuringly confident yacht brokers throughout the ages: “It’s OK, she’ll take up. Just give her time.” I wonder how many of them, having uttered those immortal words, commission in hand, slunk off with fingers firmly crossed? At the yard where I worked for a while we used to have various categories of leak, ranging from the slight weep to the flood and described in colourful terms. “Hey, Joe, look here, it’s p*ssing out,”…

The Puig Vela Classica regatta should make any true sailor happy. Expensive wooden boats slugging it out in a Force 4 on a big bay full of azure water should inspire even the dullest of imaginations. The Puig is regulated by the International Mediterranean Committee (CIM) which takes into account each boat’s authenticity and year of construction. But these are not races fought on objections and technicalities, this is a sailor’s regatta won by crew, spinnaker and wind. The Puig Vela Classica Regatta has been running since 2008 in Barcelona and the organisers have really got it right. Last year saw the 12-Metre World Championships. These are the aristocratic superstars of racing, designed by the likes of Fife, Burgess, Nicholson and Stephens. The 12-Ms also represent almost three decades of…

In Alba’s case it is difficult to work out if owner or yacht is more distinguished. Damián Ribas (inset) had been President of the International Mediterranean Committee (CIM) as well as being a past Commodore of the Real Club Nautico de Barcelona. He is also a distinguished architect and a very nice man. Alba was launched in 1956, a yawl designed by Philip Rhodes in his study in New York. Later she was moved to Germany by freighter to continue construction at Abeking & Rasmussen, the prestigious shipyard used by Americans during the postwar years. Alba has two twin sisters, Hyrondelle and Skywave. What is noteworthy about Alba is that she is almost entirely original. Her rigging, shackles and winches have been conserved and replaced with original pieces when they…

The discovery of an original builder’s half-model of extreme composite clipper Thermopylae, hidden from view for 147 years, is bound to re-ignite the perennial unresolved yacht club debate as to which was faster, Thermopylae or her better known sparring partner, Cutty Sark? Thermopylae, built in 1868 at Walter Hood & Co in Aberdeen, set record runs right from the start and in 1872 famously beat rival Cutty Sark on passage from Shanghai to London by a week; however, Cutty Sark was delayed for six days at sea as shipwrights built a new rudder after she lost her original in a gale. Different routes, different winds and variations in the way passages were measured means the debate rages on, yet there are Thermopylae champions who insist to this day that she…

The Jacquart Baltic Classic Masters Champagne Regatta is a classic yachting event held since 2010, rotating through major Baltic cities including Stockholm, Helsinki and St Petersburg. The most recent Jacquart Champagne Regatta was hosted by HSS, the Helsinki Yacht Club of Finland. The second oldest yacht club in Helsinki, HSS was established in 1893 and has the largest classic fleet of all Nordic countries. I had hoped to sail on a classic yacht from Stockholm along the archipelago straight to the HSS private island, Liuskasaari. Those dreams went up in smoke with an email notifying me that the yacht’s plumbing and head were malfunctioning; attached was a ferry ticket and good wishes for a safe journey on the ship. Like a good soldier, I trudged with my sailing duffel, dry…

Cowes, capital of yachting Yes, the Royal Yacht Squadron really is 200 years old this year and it’s benefiting not only from two special regattas – the Westward Cup (last run in 2010) and a bicentennial special. The 2015 Transatlantic Race from Newport RI to Cowes will act as the mother of all feeder races for the latter event, bringing a fleet of around 50 yachts into town for the circus, among them some classics: Dorade, Dizzy, Carina, Mariette, Solution and Swan Valhalla. Also slated to attend the big party are three of the J Class (Velsheda, Ranger and Lionheart), the wonderful oddity that is Maltese Falcon and other classics including Tomahawk, Eleonora, and the 8-Ms Helen and Enchantment. That’s not all though: the event is preceded by two of…

Beauties with spirit SCANGAARD 26 LOA 27ft 1in (8.3m) BEAM 8ft (2.4m) DRAUGHT 3ft 11ins (1.2m) DISPLACEMENT 1.8 tonnes SAIL AREA 332sqft (30.8m²) BALLAST RATIO 44 per cent These two spirit-of-tradition yachts are from the German company of Scangaard. The 21-footer, which we tested a few years ago in CB is a daysailer while the 26, introduced in 2013, has a cabin. They are both GRP boats, built to order, with a degree of customisation. They share certain characteristics hailing, as they do, from old designs. The 21 is an adaptation of a 1940s Abeking and Rasmussen-designed training vessel and the 26 is a larger version of it. So they have long keels, deep (although self-draining) cockpits, transom-hung rudders and high ballast ratios. The “technical equipment is reduced to a…

Yavanna was Buchanan’s third design for the Earl of St Germans, and his biggest. The earl wanted a yacht that could be lived aboard year-round, sail anywhere, and compete under CCA (in the USA) as well as RORC. She was built by Kings of Burnham-on-Crouch in 1965 to Lloyds 100-A1, with Burma teak hull planks copper-riveted to Canadian rock elm frames, with bronze strap floors and two ringframes near the mainmast. Like many of Buchanan’s yachts, she was tank-tested, a very sophisticated process for a post-war English yacht designer. Her rig is cutter-headed bermudan yawl, steering is by wheel and her spacious interior will sleep up to seven, dine six easily and offers 6ft 3in (1.9m) headroom all-round, according to her brokers. She needs a re-finish but her brokers are…

Have you ever looked at old, GRP sailing yachts from the 1960s or 70s looking forlorn and neglected, with ugly, bulging cabin tops, pulled up on some hard, and thought – “that’s actually got a really nice hull shape”? The current job on for Bill Trafford of Alchemy Marine (previously featured in these pages), who takes such hulls and builds new, attractive superstructures atop them, shows just how beautiful some of these hulls are. The boat in question is a tired Elizabethan 23, designed by David Thomas in 1969 and she’s by no means the most attractive yacht ever drawn. But look at the lovely shape that emerges when the lid comes off! We look forward to seeing the end product.…

Traditional Tool The slender shell bit echoes the natural form of the razor shell and like that elegant mollusc it bores holes rapidly and straight. Originally forged in iron and mounted in a hand-turned auger, it is one of the earliest of shipbuilding tools and has changed little down the centuries. A Roman faber navalis (shipwright) would recognise the shell bit immediately, and use it both to bore the mortises of mortise-and-tenon joints used in connecting hull planks of that period, and to fit the wooden pegs locking tenons in place. The only development in the shell bit in the last 2,000 years has been in how it is turned, with the auger’s wooden T-handle giving way to the more efficient cranked brace, allowing continuous turning, and the bit’s shank…

Classic Boat’s address: Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ For phone numbers, please see page 5 Leading naval architect Nigel Irens has received an award from the Old Gaffers Association in recognition of his advancement of gaff rig. The Jolie Brise Trophy, a model of the famous 1913 Le Havre pilot cutter made and donated by Rev David Mumford, was first introduced in 2014. That year it went to Andrew Wolstenholme for his Kite design (25ft gaff trailer sailer), which romped home first on handicap in the windy 50th Anniversary (of the OGA) Regatta in Cowes in 2013. It fell to Andrew to nominate a recipient for the 2015 award. OGA member Andrew felt that significant developments in gaff rig were not taking place within the association, so…

The 180ft (55m) paddle steamer Medway Queen will travel under tow from her Gillingham home to muster with the Little Ship fleet in Ramsgate this 16-19 May. She will not make the crossing to Dunkirk, as she is not yet in steam. After a hugely successful 2013, in which the Medway Queen was relaunched after a rebuild in Bristol, 2014 was anticlimactic. But now, the Medway Queen Preservation Society has been awarded a new development fund by the HLF, to enable it to re-group, re-organise and apply for big grants to finish the job. A true one-off Norwegian sailor Gabriel Lund found the 1915 yacht Jeloen abandoned after conversion to a motorboat and 50 years in a reed bed. He bought her in 1990 and spent four years bringing her…

A democratic playground Despite very healthy classic sailing scenes all around the world (notably on both sides of the English Channel, Germany, Scandinavia, the Antipodes, Caribbean and the USA), the Mediterranean remains, as its name implies, the centre of the world – at least in terms of racing. The almost tideless blue seas, climate and proximity of fashionable seaside resorts are a few good reasons why. Most Mediterranean regattas are much more democratic than folk suppose. Alongside the biggest classic yachts in the world are scores of much smaller yachts – and even the odd workboat. And the website of Monaco Classic Week asks not for your job title on its application form – but for your T-shirt size. The standard of finish is high though: it’s not the size…

It’s a pleasure sailing Maine waters. You’re always on the look-out for beautiful boats around a headland or in the next cove. I’ve enjoyed this many times, mostly aboard my family’s Herreshoff 12½ Pilgrim (CB305), but also when I was meant to be concentrating on racing the 6-M Flapper. I’ve been lucky to spend so much time in a part of the world where beautiful boats are still a viable way of life: here on the Maine coast. The success of the goodlooking classic craft that ply the waters from Casco Bay to Jonesport can be attributed to three industries: lobstering, boat-building, and tourism. Visiting yachtsmen might curse the lobster-trap buoys that cover Maine waters (and the fishermen might curse the yachts and their propellers with far more fluency), but…

The yard of Alexander Robertson & Sons stated in its 1967 brochure for the Piper One-Design, “One of our reasons for producing Piper was that we believed there was a need for a new class to replace some of the many local one-design classes, which are now proving costly to maintain. “In our development of the boat we have constantly reminded ourselves that the primary object of the Piper is to give good class racing in quality boats at controlled cost.” Sandpiper, the prototype Piper One-Design, was first introduced to the sailing world at the 1966 London Boat Show where, rather unusually, she was exhibited part-built. Designed by David Boyd the previous autumn, build time had run short, but rather than miss a good marketing opportunity, the yard decided to…

Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk Robertsons has been surrounded by rumour since long-serving manager Mike Illingworth retired last summer, reports Peter Willis. Mike was also part-owner and alarming tales spread of the yard being redeveloped for housing, or at least reduced in size. In fact, as the new general manager Alan Fulller and new owner Clive Eminson recently reassured CB, it’s very much business as usual, albeit with some much-needed new equipment. Alan, 50, and nearly 30 years with the yard, has stepped up from yard manager. Clive, a chartered surveyor and yachtsman who lives nearby, told us “I bought the business because I wanted it to continue – I’ve been connected with it since the 1980s and it’s nice to be involved in something local.” The only…

Things to do in the next few weeks ALL YEAR Boat jumbles The peak of the boat jumble season is upon us, and you would be surprised how many there are! In addition to the famous Beaulieu (26 April), we found jumbles in Cheshire, Norfolk, Argyll, Dorset and Gloucestershire – and that’s just in March. There is a great, simple website that seemingly lists them all. Boatjumbleassociation.co.uk 20-22 MAR Windermere Boat Show Windermere Marina Village Windermeremarinavillage.co.uk First one, with free parking Auctions If you enjoy our monthly saleroom (p25), why not go to an auction? 15 APRIL Bonhams Marine Sale Knightsbridge, London Tel: +44 (0)20 7447 7447, bonhams.com 12 MAY Charles Miller Maritime Sale Entries accepted until 4 March. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7806 5530, charlesmillerltd.com Merseyside Maritime Museum Merseyside…

My other boat is a yacht “In the minds of some people, the word ‘yacht’ conjures up a vision of social superiority to which they can never aspire.” Although many different people may have felt the urge to write those words in contemporary times, they were actually part of a letter entitled “Why Yachting is not more popular” published in the November 1906 issue of Yachting Monthly. The word ‘yacht’ is derived from the Dutch jacht which itself comes from jachten meaning to hurry or hunt. It is generally acknowledged that the Dutch were the first people to go sailing for pleasure and Charles II took to the sport when he was in exile in the Netherlands during the English Civil War. After he was restored to the English throne…