Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i Classic Boat

SOUTH OF FRANCE Centenarians race at Saint-Tropez Twenty three yachts, each more than 100 years old, took part in the 10th anniversary Centenary Trophy at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez in late September. The annual race is organised by the Gstaad Yacht Club and has steadily grown in stature and number to become one of the centrepieces of this spectacular regatta, and so it was this year, as an epic race took place worthy of the most competitive modern yachts and featuring two former America’s Cup helmsmen. It was light easterly winds in which the fleet set sail from Le Portalet Tower at midday and at the end of a 7.5-mile circuit around the bay, it was the 1913 P-Class Olympian that took line honours after a close battle with Spartan.…

SHIP OF THE LINE Drawn by Tony in pen and ink, these sketches of a Ship of the Line feature the process of rigging a ‘Third Rate’, showing (top left) standing rig (top right) running rig (bottom left) fore and aft sail (bottom right) square sail and driver. The set of four is an easily framed size of 30 x 40 cm and come with a written summary by Cpt Richard Woodman, LVO MNM FNI Elder Brother, Trinity, award winning author and Historian. Also available are sets of the Cutty Sark and naval ships. £28 tonyfernandes.co.uk CHATHAM AEGEAN The Aegean in navy blue is a “high-performance style specifically designed for sailing”, says Chatham, yet it follows a classic boat shoe aesthetic and is “based on barefoot design technology”. “Marine enthusiasts…

The 42nd Thames Trad took place over the August Bank Holiday. The beautiful varnished Thames boats and Little Dunkirk ships parading down the river to a commentary are joined by historic cars and bicycles, planes and military vehicles. The Crooked Billet pop-up pub and other places offer food during the day and music at night. Postponing until August worked surprisingly well. After so much covid seclusion, a weekend outdoors with beautiful classic boats to see and enjoy was just the ticket. See tradboatfestival.com…

In the summer of 1921, four American sailing boats crossed the Atlantic as deck cargo on board the steamship Francesca. Their arrival in Britain heralded the start of what would later be described as “a series of contests which has no equal for keenness and sustained interest in the history of international yacht racing”. The previous year, American yachtsman Paul Hammond had visited Britain with a view to re-establishing international yacht racing after World War One. Among the people he met was Algernon Maudsley, Rear Commodore of the Royal London YC, who had won two gold medals at the 1900 Olympics. The result was an agreement to start a new international team-racing competition – thought to be the first ever – to be called the British-American Cup. The trophy itself…

HARDY 42 The Cornish yard of Cockwells had much to celebrate this year. Twenty five years in the business, around 100 employees these days, a thriving superyacht tender design and build service, the success of the Duchy range (a 27 and 35 were present) and now this – the purchase of the venerable Hardy range of tough, displacement cruising motor yachts. This one is an electric/diesel hybrid, and the whole effect, inside and out, is very high end. A comfortable boat for any sea. Price varies, but think around the £1 million mark for one of these beauties. More to come on this, we hope. See cockwells.co.uk. DEVON DABBER Honnor Marine’s Devon Dabber is the smallest of their split rig boats, being a 15ft 9in (4.8m) boomless lug yawl. The…

+44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk BRIDLINGTON, YORKSHIRE Pilot cobles Venus and Viking to be restored The oldest surviving traditional north-east coast coble will be restored to full sail, 121 years after her launch, reports Paul L Arro. Built in Hartlepool as a six-plank pilot coble in 1900, she has survived the rigours of time and a watery grave. The Bridlington Sailing Coble Preservation Society (BSCPS) is living up to its name, after prolonged negotiations with Hartlepool Borough Council to receive both this boat, Venus, as well as Viking, a double-ended pilot boat, as museum transfers. This will enable both vessels to be fully restored, regularly sailed and join the growing fleet of sailing cobles in Bridlington harbour. Venus is quite unique as a surviving pilot coble, one of many…

A glorious late-summer’s evening in Dublin Bay. Three identical boats race each other in fading sunshine and a gentle but steady breeze. With multiple place changes and with on-water camaraderie which would later be accentuated ashore, this is one-design racing at its very best. But these are by no means ordinary one-designs. They are the first three reconstructed boats of a revived class that originally sailed over a century ago: the Dublin Bay 21 Footers. At the turn of the 19th century there were already three one-design classes in Dublin Bay: the 1887 Water Wags (still active today and generally considered to be the world’s oldest one-design class), the 1897 Colleens and the 1898 Fife-design Dublin Bay 25s. Then in October 1902 at a general meeting of the Dublin Bay…

In the output of almost any yacht designer, it is the anomalies, like Herreshoff’s catamaran, Tore Holm’s J-Class or Fife’s seaplane tenders, that are the most tantalising. The English yacht designer CR ‘Kim’ Holman (1925-2006) was best known for his seaworthy cruiser racer sloops in the 25-30ft range like the Stella and Twister, and for some larger cruising yawls and ketches in the 35-50ft range. Stiletto is, for him, that moment of rarity. By 1961, when Stiletto was launched, Holman was relatively unestablished, but he had just made a big splash with his 1959 yacht La Vie en Rose, a 27ft (8.2m) clinker-hulled fractional sloop that won all her seven races at Burnham Week. She was the first of more than 100 Stellas. The early years of the 1960s were,…

The fourth Cowes Spring Classics took place during August, delayed from the traditional May date, and based at Shepards Marina in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Once again the event was a big success, building on the regatta’s aim to be relaxed and inclusive, with a wide range of classic yachts from 20ft (c6m) gaffers to the big pilot cutters, metre yachts to larger classics – and everything in between. Four races were run in the east Solent by Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club, followed by the usual mix of social events for owners and crews. The overall winner was the 8-M yacht Erica, with class wins for Golant Gaffer Satellite and West Solent One Design Suvretta. The next edition of Cowes Spring Classics will be 20-22 May 2022. See…

Following cancellation last year, the 2021 Mersea Week saw competitors return with great enthusiasm for some very competitive racing on the River Blackwater estuary in Essex. Five races were held in a variety of conditions, peaking out at 20+ knots on the final day to fully test crews and their boats. A 15-strong entry in the Classics & Gaffers class ranged from the beautifully restored 47ft (14.3m) Alfred Mylne yawl Gudgeon to the 22ft (6.7m) gaffer Fanny of Cowes, built in 1872 as an Itchen ferry. The top three overall positions went to boats in the Fast Division, with the Tumlare Zest coming out well on top, ahead of the Laurent Giles Brittany-Class Droleen II and Flicka II, a Nordic Folkboat. Zest and the Stella Lodestar were the only two…

Makaira has been an epic project unlike any other at Dennetts Boatbuilders of Chertsey. Indeed, Makaira herself has been unique since her beginning in 1938, built by Scott Paine’s British Power Boat Company as an ‘express cruiser’, the only one they ever built. And with her 47ft 6in (14.5m) mahogany hull, now painted glossy black, her deep mahogany panelling and period chrome fittings, her teak deck and tan rooftop, she’s going to be turning heads for the rest of her life. And that’s even before she’s had a chance to open up her throttle and reach her 30-knot speed… Makaira was found in a corner of Pembroke Dock in 2012, her 1930s streamlined design unrecognisable after layers of unsympathetic additions through the years, including high cabin sides, chunky stanchions and lifelines.…

Pencils for woodwork Woodworkers can be very particular about their pencils. For laying out fine joinery some swear by the draughtsman’s mechanical pencil, but the fine lead often proves fragile on a grainy surface and cheaper models exposed to the rigours of the workshop are prone to disintegrate into their component tubes, springs and buttons. For marking accurately with rules, bevels and try-squares, also running inside knifed lines to make them more visible, an ordinary Staedtler Noris HB is hard to beat. Its 2mm lead takes a fine chisel edge which stands up well to general use. But for boldly marking big timbers a chunky carpenter’s pencil is better. Some are oval in section but the four-square type feels more practical, and of the many available today it’s the Blackedge…

CELEBRATING CLASSIC BOAT’S 400 ISSUES GERMAN FRERS’| NEW YACHT The yacht designer’s new 67ft ketch, recently built in Argentina to a 1942 design that his father built, but lost in a storm. This summer, she crossed the Atlantic to race in the Med with three generations of Frers on board. CLOSE-HAULED TO HAWAII Nothing goes to windward like a 747, discovers Ellen Massey-Leonard as she sails with her partner from French Polynesia to Hawaii to find a new anchorage for Celeste. THE NAME’S MARINE – FAIREY MARINE With the recent release of Daniel Craig’s last outing as 007, we’ve gone all Bond aboard a newly restored Fairey Huntsman 28, the type used in the boat chase in From Russia with Love. PLUS… Royal Society of Marine Artists annual show; books…

CHARLES MILLER LTD Thick as a plank An attempt by the Yacht Racing Association, forerunner of the RYA, to amend its rating rules to stem “unhealthy development,” backfired spectacularly in 1882 as designers including GL Watson navigated the loopholes to create extreme and freakish mutants, which won races… if they didn’t sink first. With absurdly narrow girth, extreme draught and a massive spread of canvas, they were likened to a “plank on edge,” as demonstrated by Watson’s 1885-built five-tonner Doris, with its beam of 5ft 6in (1.6m), waterline length of 38ft (11.6m) and draught of 6ft 8in (2m). Doris was indeed a winner, but when the 1886 Oona, an even more extreme example, sank, taking the life of her designer, the brief plank-on-edge era was over. BONHAMS Mega money for…

As anyone who has been to or seen photos of the Finnish Wooden Boat Show in Kotka knows, Finland is awash with beautiful wooden boats. So it must take a certain courage to set up, in your mid-40s, as a builder of wooden boats in such a crowded market place. But Mats Vuorenjuuri had reason to believe he might have a slightly different take on Finland’s national pastime. “There are many people building small traditional wooden boats in Finland – there is a natural demand because we are so used to having a wooden boat on the lakeside,” he says. “But I’m interested in combining modern technology with traditional designs, and there are not so many building professionally in glued plywood construction. So I thought it was a small slot…

Like bears waking from hibernation, small classic boats rolled out of storage, bound for Washington’s Puget Sound. The first sighting in early June was at the start of the Seventy48, 70 miles in 48 hours from Tacoma to Port Townsend: paddle, pedal, or row. Wherries, dories, and skiffs battle modern kayaks in weather that blew out half the fleet. A smaller but rugged group of vessels competed in the WA360, a pandemic replacement for the Race 2 Alaska. 360 miles of engineless, unsupported racing with tidal rapids, currents, and terrifying seas. Keeping the race classy were a 23ft Macgregor, a 17ft Montgomery, a 23.5 Bolger Schooner and a modified Lightning, complete with sock monkey. Team Time and Tide rowed the course in a two-bow handcrafted beauty adorned with a wolf…

Champagne sailing conditions in September might sound far-fetched but that’s how yacht crews in the 6th Hamble Classics Regatta hosted by the Royal Southern Yacht Club described racing last Saturday. New arrivals in all classes ensured hot competition in the one-design classes plus intense racing amongst the strongest entry list yet for the competitive IRC class. With a flood tide and westerly breeze rising from 10 to 20 knots the IRC and Regatta classes run by PRO Peter Bateson had two races with tough windward beats from QXI to the RORC and RTYC race marks, fine judgement of lay lines would be crucial. In the Gaffers Ossie Stewart’s 1894 Dorothy won the single long race while on the one-design course CRO Kathy Smalley and team managed three races for the…

We caught up with Lance Whitehead in August at this year’s British Classic Regatta in Cowes, where his Dartmouth Distillery Co was providing a pop-up gin bar for competitors, and delivering Dartmouth English Gin and tonic to crews, by RIB, as they returned from a day’s racing around the Solent. Discussions revealed a family business founded on centuries of traditional seafaring tradition in Dartmouth and the surrounding area – shipwrights, master mariners, Brixham trawlermen, which has given the company its nautical identity. Dartmouth Gin’s branding includes a seahorse and waves, and the iconic imagery on the labels was inspired by medieval wrought iron heraldic leopards, and the tree of life, that represent Dartmouth’s debt of gratitude to King Edward I for his support in 1186 to get a church built…

A touch of Finesse… The Finesse story started at the dusk of wooden boatbuilding in 1961, when the world was turning its eyes to GRP. Boatbuilder Alan Platt, who’d recently set up a rudimentary yard in Thundersley, Essex, built a 21ft (6.4m) clinker cabin yacht with a centreboard, to a design by Laurie Harbottell, for cruising the Thames Estuary, or ‘East Coast’. This was effectively the first Finesse 21, and 80 were built over four decades. In 1969, Alan launched the Finesse 24 to his own design (the usual controversy exists around this). This was a similar craft but, at 3ft longer, a real four-berth cruiser. You can tell by looking at the 24 that the cabin space is gargantuan for a boat this length and you’d not be wrong.…

SPILL PLANE Today’s yacht chandlery developed out of the business of the chandler making wax candles which, before electric light, were an important means of illumination aboard ship and in the workshop. For obvious reason, any candle burning below deck within the ‘wooden walls’ where holds were stuffed with gunpowder and tarred oakum, or in the shipwright’s shop knee-deep in flammable shavings, had to be enclosed by a lantern. The Ship-master’s Assistant and Owner’s Manual of 1832 advising on regulations for the ports and harbours of England, noted that "work done by candle-light, either by joiners or other tradesmen" was prohibited within the dock walls, and that "all chips and dirt made must be carefully collected and removed". Still, history is ablaze with vessels destroyed by fire, at sea and…

My mate Sea Sick Dave knows more about seasickness than anybody I’ve ever come across. In fact he’s an expert, and his partner Kate says he suffers so acutely that just the sight of water with washing-up liquid in it makes him have to lie down, start moaning, roll his eyes and break out in sweats. In these circumstances he finds that watching TV programmes about very fast cars is the only thing that alleviates his suffering. Indeed, if you’ve ever suffered from seasickness you’d do well to learn from Dave’s exhaustive – and exhausting – experience, and apply the techniques he’s developed, many of them unique, to overcome this most unpleasant of maladies, which Dave has completely conquered through the application of science, art, mysticism and mindfulness. Here’s how.…