Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2022 i Classic Boat

The 2022 edition of Volvo Cork Week held in July in Crosshaven saw 192 boats taking part in a full five-day programme of racing inside and outside Cork Harbour. Racing took place on five separate courses with 14 different classes taking part, including the Classic Class, which enjoyed tremendous sailing in Mediterranean conditions on a series of windward/leeward courses off Roaches Point. A total of 18 classic yachts attended the regatta with nine entering the racing including two Cork One-Designs: Elsie owned by Patrick Dorgan and Jap, which was helmed by Harold Cudmore for the week. The 2022 classics regatta was the result of the postponed Cork 300 event, which had been scheduled for 2020. Colin Moorhead the Admiral of Royal Cork Yacht Club at the time felt there was…

BONHAMS Riva’s mahogany makeover As the glassfibre revolution gathered momentum companies like Chris Craft and Riva entered a transitional period, still producing vessels in mahogany but making them look like glassfibre so as not to appear behind the times. The 40mph 1966 Riva Junior, billed as “the young people’s rocket,” was on that very cusp. Though its white-painted hull mimicked polyester, the entry-level 18ft 6in (5.7m) sports boat was the last all-new Riva model to be built of mahogany in the traditional way. And while the immortal Aquarama endured into the 1990s, when Carlo Riva sold out in 1969 all new models introduced by US owner Whittaker were of glassfibre, including the 1972 Riva Rudy, which was basically a revamped Junior. Pretty much the only mahogany element of the Rudy…

WORKING CLASS Two exceptional working sail vessels – one old, one new Dartmouth broker Wooden Ships has two exceptional workboats on its books right now – “similar but different” as broker Richard Gregson put it. The first of these, the Falmouth pilot cutter yacht Pellew, will be familiar to CB readers and beyond. She was built by Luke Powell and team in 2020 as a replica of the original Vincent and was, at the time, the most talked-about new-build for years, not least because of her size. At 68ft (20.72m) on deck, she’s the biggest pilot cutter in the world. She was built solely with charter and sail-training in mind and constructed to Category 0 standards, enabling her to sail worldwide with charter guests or trainees and crew. The hull…

How do you keep traditional boat repair skills alive? One answer is to pass them on to the next generation. Within the Maldon Marine Boat Yard on the River Blackwater is father-and-son team Adrian and Sam Riva who have worked together for 14 years. Over this time, Adrian has passed his knowledge to his son. He says that it takes that long to develop all the skills required to run a boat yard that offers repairs and rebuilds of classic yachts and boats. Their hard standing and slip is full of boats that are in for maintenance, repair or restoration. Adrian himself learned his skills initially via an apprenticeship, which took in an assortment of different craft from clinker dinghies to classic yachts, under the guidance of shipwright John Yardley.…

“You have to have a passion for wooden boats and be slightly mad to commission a brand-new one these days,” said Simon Wisker, owner of the new gaff cutter Constance. “You are making a personal investment in preserving traditional skills without getting it back in financial terms.” Simon began sailing in the early 1970s when his father built a Mirror dinghy. For several years he and his family sailed this boat, and then later a Wayfarer, in Poole harbour near their home, and also on family holidays on the Percuil River, near St Mawes in Cornwall. Having continued to sail a bit at university in Exeter and then in Aberdeen, he built a 14ft (4.26m) clinker dinghy and took his own children sailing in the Lake District and on the…

SILVER WHISKEY TUMBLERS “The world belongs to those who enjoy it,” says the Robbe & Berking brochure and we’re sure we wouldn’t disagree, especially after knocking back a shot from these fine silver receptacles, which you can find in the German silversmith’s Dante Bar Collection. “The high thermal conductivity of the silver allows every drinking vessel to immediately assume the temperature of the beverage,” they say. Reason enough to pour another. €248 (around £212) for the 90g silverplated model; €357 (around £305) to have it gold-plated inside robbeberking.com DARTMOUTH GIN We’ve had a number of requests as to where sailors can find this fine gin, which has been spotted at various English south coast regattas this summer including British Classic Week and the Uffa Fox 50 event. Both events, indeed,…

Over the years, articles on advances in yacht design have invariably focused on hull form and rig, and very rarely on interiors – but it’s here that some of the most important changes have taken place, changes that affect not just the accommodation, but the entire vessel. The traditional yacht interior – at least up to around 30ft (9.1m), which was typical for cruising yachts of old – barely changed since it was standardised between the two wars by serial builders like Berthon, Hillyard and countless others. Spirit Yachts founder Sean McMillan has designed at least 100 yacht interiors, and although these include the wildly futuristic, like his collaboration with Rhoades Young on the Spirit 111 Geist, he has mostly held the hard-won wisdom of the past tightly in his…

Pocket-sized angle finder The mini-bevel gauge we made from an old hacksaw blade in April (CB 406) is normally used for transferring bevels while planking the hull but is also handy for noting unknown angles when out and about. Whereas a carpenter’s sliding bevel is too bulky a tool to be counted among the standard inventory of the pocket, not to mention conspicuous in use, our slim 3in bevel stows easily in the wallet and may be discreetly deployed wherever an angle arouses curiosity. Here the mini-bevel is used to note the dovetail angle at corner joints of a sailor’s ditty box. For future reference the angle is noted on a straight-edged card, likewise carried in the wallet. Holding power of wood screws Not the least of many factors affecting…

BUGATTI LAUNCHES For decades, these little launches designed by Ettore Bugatti were forgotten. Now, three more have been built new CAPE HORN A sturdy yacht with a sturdy name, built in steel to go anywhere, and now rebuilt as strong as ever REDWINGS Charles Nicholson’s iconic development class at Bembridge Sailing Club, celebrating 125 years this year PLUS… Photographer James Robinson Taylor, late summer action at Saint-Tropez, Washington, Geneva and Essex, racing in the 12-M class and more DECEMBER 2022 On sale Friday 11 November 2022 Or why not subscribe? 30 YEARS AGO NOVEMBER 1992, CB53 Three decades ago, the cover boat had a strong, double-ended, working look – the sort of vessel that you might imagine had descended from a Scandinavian fishing boat of some sort. She is, in…

A total of 10 of the best 12-Metre yachts on the Baltic circuit, including nine classics and one modern 12-M turned out in Flensburg for the annual Robbe & Berking Sterling Cup recently. Besides the 12-Metres, the organisers always invite a selection of other yachts such as Dragons, 6-Ms and 8-Ms but this year in addition, thirteen 5.5-Ms sailed the class Open German Championships, and a dozen classic Rivas provided an extra classic atmosphere. For years, the top five or six of the Baltic 12-M fleet has been a fairly evenly matched group but with the Olin Stephens-designed Vim from 1939 regularly topping the list as the winner. However, this year newcomer Northern Light not only shook up the competition but has also given fresh impetus to the already immensely…

The story of Voluta begins with her first owner George MacAndrew, a businessman who took his holidays at Seaview on the Isle of Wight and who wanted a boat that could be moored close inshore. MacAndrew was a serial boat owner and astute yachtsman who had already commissioned boats and yachts from several Solent boatbuilders. In his notebook ‘Notes Relating to my Sea Boats and Yachts, 1886-1902,’ he describes his adventures in said craft and his dealings with the boatbuilders, in a charming glimpse back into a distant age, when yacht cruising was still a fledgling sport. A yachtsman could walk into a boatyard through the wood shavings and sawdust, see the craftsmen at work and stop and talk through his conception for a new yacht build with the boatbuilder…

+44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk WOODBRIDGE, SUFFOLK First traditional new build in 50 years On 4 June the Woodbridge Boatyard (formerly Everson’s) hosted the OGA (Old Gaffers Association), enjoying a long Jubilee weekend cruise on the Deben, for a celebratory barbecue. Toasts of honour, after the Queen of course, were Clytie, centenarian this year, and the yard’s own beautiful new dinghy La Mouette. The 30ft (9.1m) high-peaked gaff cutter Clytie, surely the longest-serving and oldest resident dame of the Deben, was not only built at the yard but has been kept and maintained here, and sailed by the same family, ever since Sir Clifford Paterson (great grandparents of the current owners Jo and Paul Masters) commissioned her in 1922. She is often cited as the inspiration for the Deben…

ECE PLANES When the Bailey-pattern metal plane, bristling with screw adjustments, arrived in the UK from America, the wooden hammer-adjusted plane was pushed aside like the horse-and-cart before the motor car. Solid beech plane stocks were retired as door stops or went to the fire in a last blaze of glory warming the inglenook. But a renaissance in hand skills has stirred a hunger for these old ‘woodies’ which – for the traditional shipwright especially – are as symbolic as they are practical, with wood as a boatbuilding material having rebounded from near extinction during the age of plastic. As surviving wooden planes are dusted off for us to marvel at their scars and improvised repairs bespeaking a lifetime of hard graft, their historical interest often outweighs their potential as…