Innehållsförteckning för February 2018 från Classic Boat

Peter Wilson of Davey & Co How is the market for traditional fittings in 2018? Very good, although to pick one year is deceptive. Over the last 10 years we have experienced positive growth but not always year on year. The key element for us is our distributors around the world. We are now at nearly 50 per cent export. What is the oldest pattern you use? Many items from our first proper catalogue in 1919 are still in production today but, of course, patterns are replicated because either more are needed to speed production, or they break or wear out. Many are from the first half of the 20th century and even those replaced more recently are to exactly the same design as before. What is the history of…

DEFENDER Designed by Wm Fife III, built by Wooden Boatworks, LOD 48ft 2in (14.7m), bermudan sloop Two years after the launch of a faithful replica of a 1931 racing 8-M (Invader, a CB Award winner in 2015), another one kisses the water – identical in every respect bar the tiller! The building of two identical replica yachts built to match-race, as these two have been, is something we’ve never before seen on such an ambitious scale. FLYING TEN Designed by U. a Fox, built by Johnson and Loftus, LOD 14ft (4.2m), rig berm sloop This new Flying Ten keelboat was launched in northern Scotland in February from the new partnership of Tim Loftus and Dan Johnson. Built in double-diagonal utile veneers, cold-moulded with epoxy for strength, she has proved quick…

BRISTOL 32 & 16 Design Andrew Wolstenholme, build Star Yachts, LOD 32ft (9.8m) and 16ft (4.9m) Launched 77 years after Operation Dynamo, the first Bristol 32 is the largest in the pretty, strip-planked semidisplacement, traditional Bristol series motor yachts, for an owner who wanted something to echo a Dunkirk Little Ship. The twin-engined (2 x 110hp) 32 will hit 20 knots+ and handles rough seas well. The icing on the cake is her little sister, for the same owner – the smallest Bristol yet – the Bristol 16! TT CORSAIR Design NG Herresho¡ /Matt Smith, built Artisan Boatworks, LOD 24ft (7.3m) This new tender is for a superyacht, still in build, which owes much to a series of sleek steam yachts once owned by financier JP Morgan. Their tenders were…

Last summer 54 Tall Ships took part in a 10,000- mile voyage from the UK to Canada and back, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation. The Rendez-Vous 2017 Tall Ships Regatta visited Portugal, the Canary Islands, Bermuda, Boston USA, many ports on Canada’s eastern seaboard and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, before sailing back across the Atlantic for a final stop-off in Le Havre to help mark the French port’s 500th birthday. It was a mammoth achievement for the boats and for organiser Sail Training International, including as it did more than 6,000 sail trainees. The fleet included boats from 22 nations, manned by 900 professional crew. Overleaf teenager Rosa Bown, from Devon, who crewed on Jolie Brise, one of the four boats that did the entire trip…

Le Havre opened its port to more than 400,000 visitors over four days as 30 Tall Ships swept in to celebrate the city’s 500th birthday. The event was the final stop-off in the Rendez-Vous 2017 Tall Ships Regatta, the fleet having sailed 2,700 miles from Halifax, Nova Scotia. As the ‘grandes voiles’ with a combined 25,000m² of canvas approached the concrete docks, vying for space with container-stacked cargo monsters, it seemed like every Havrais, from toddlers to the elderly, had turned out to welcome them. The visiting locals I spoke to were descendants of generations of fishermen, boatbuilders or pilots. It was a chance for hobbling great-grandparents to show the little ones how it had been. Children were wide-eyed, dwarfed by soaring masts which merged into a riotous tangle of…

A few years ago a friend asked me out to see Master and Commander, the Patrick O’Brian/Jack Aubrey movie. I refused for the same reason I refuse to see all films about sailing: because they are so full of technical mistakes I find them too painful to watch. My friend insisted, so eventually I agreed to go on the condition that if I found more than six mistakes he would refund me the price of my ticket. In the end, I found five sailing mistakes and added Russell Crowe’s accent, which lurches from supposed 19th century English to blatant 21st century Australian, as a sixth. But I loved the movie. The Mercy avoids this problem through a simple expedient: it’s not really about sailing. There are some sailing sequences, but…

ROSEWEST Serious teak The annual Classic Boat trip to the Marine Equipment Trade Show in Amsterdam in November was enhanced by making the acquaintance of Gabriel Berges of the Rosewest Shipyard, established in Lorient, Brittany, in 2004. These days, the yard is based in Bordeaux and focusses its e.orts on a stylish modern picnic boat, the Long Bay, and a sailing boat, the Cape Cod (see below). The three boats in this photo stem from the yard’s early days building traditional boats in Burma teak. Rosewest has a number of old stock boats to sell,cusses its e.orts on a stylish modern picnic boat, the Long Bay, and a sailing boat, the Cape Cod (see below). The three boats in this photo stem from the yard’s early days building traditional boats…

Lyme Bay was a surf zone. Even from high above the town of Lyme Regis, as the car breasted a blind summit and began the run down into the town, it was obvious that, despite the warm sunshine, it was a savage day, with lines of swell stretching across the bay like corduroy. Outside the Boat Building Academy (BBA), the standing rigging of boats on the hard was howling, but luckily, Lyme Regis has a harbour, the famous seven-centuryold Cobb featured in Jane Austen’s Persuasion, these days a winter haven for commercial fishing vessels. After six months’ intensive work to build their student boats, the graduates from BBA weren’t going to be scared o. by a bit of wind, and they gathered on the town hard to launch them into the…

In the early 1930s toolmakers C&J Hampton of Sheffield launched the diminutive Record 043 plough plane, capable of cutting rebates, stepped rebates, even tongue-and-groove joints, but designed primarily for grooving – to accommodate drawer bottoms, for example – and so it is widely known as a ‘grooving plane’. Measuring just 51/2in (140mm) from toe to heel, and weighing 20oz (567g), it’s a beautifully engineered all-metal plane which, for the craftsman making yacht cabinetry, o.ered a palm-sized alternative to the bulkier wooden plough which had long been a stalwart of the tool chest. Although of pensionable age (bought new in 1951 for 26 shillings) this example zips through the groove as speedily as a Scalextric car on a Silverstone straight, with its raked rear handle directing pressure on the cutting edge,…

When the so-called ‘gulasch baron’ Valdemar Henckel suffered his second major bankruptcy in 1921, he almost took the Danish town of Kalundsborg down with him. His shipyard there had grown to huge proportions, and the local bank couldn’t sustain the loss. After a lengthy trial, his assets were put up for auction to repay creditors, but there were two critical omissions from the list of lots. Neither of his two racing 7-Metre yachts were named – they had quietly disappeared. Victoria II was never found, but four years later in 1925, Victoria I showed up in the name of Henckel’s son-in-law. The gulasch baron had found a way to keep his gravy boat. Victoria I had been built in a hurry at Henckel’s shipyard, as a way to bring him…

Like a sorcerer, the owner of a boat that’s right feels he is in possession of a magic wand. With her in his hands he can tack up a tight channel in which others mis-fetch, he can steal a passage others burn fuel to make, he can weave a wake others can only follow. For me this has come true, because after more than 15 years of pursuit, the tiller of Betty II is now my magic wand and already I am spellbound at her turn of speed, directional stability and ease of driving, having recently sailed her from Keyhaven on the Solent back to my home at Leigh-on-Sea in the Thames Estuary, where she was built in 1921. This humble little gaffer is, quite literally, the only inanimate object…

SUPER SCHOONERS Germania Nova o. Palma leading Mariette and Naema downwind to the finish, captured by artist Shane Couch at the Superyacht Cup. Oil on canvas, 40x60 inches. POA palmavenuefineart.com SEXTANT A replica vernier sextant dedicated to the memory of Royal Navy Captain John Campbell, who developed this model in 1757. Hardwood handle and protective box. Instrument 20cm x 16.5cm Price £149 force4.co.uk KIAMA COAT Waterproofed in and out, so it can go on over a damp shore jacket or wet sailing gear, preventing chilling between races or if de-rigging in a cold boat park. Price £195 zhik.com MODEL YACHT An American model from the 1930s, complete with stitched sails and laid deck. Approx length 52cm (20.5in). Height on stand 79cm (31.1in). Price £79 thenauticalcompany.com CHEERS Clasp the mermaid firmly,…

SVEA Designed by Tore Holm (1937), re-designed by Hoek Design, built by Bloemsma Aluminiumbouw and Vitters, LOD 143ft (43.6m), rig berm sloop Drawn by Swedish master Holm but not built until 80 years later, her sleek lines and uncluttered deck give her a menacing look that speak of her potential as perhaps the fastest J out there, a theory given credence when her new crew won Svea’s first ever race, at last year’s historic J-Class regatta in Bermuda, and she went on to perform creditably at the J-Class Worlds in Newport. OUI FLING Designed and built by Spirit Yachts, LOD 52ft (15.8m), rig berm sloop Of the nearly 70 yachts built by Spirit, this one is unusual, being as it is an unapologetic race boat with a stripped-out interior for…

Reports had reached the Irish coastguards of a small yacht in distress in heavy seas. Now the men, with their rocket gear and lifelines, had taken up a position on the beach about a mile south of Malahide, County Dublin. Blinded by rain, they faced seawards into the teeth of a Force 9 gale that had torn a path of devastation the previous night along the English and Irish coast. About 1.30pm a body was spotted in the surf. Two coastguards ran in and hauled it from the sea. It was wearing a lifebuoy that bore the name Oona RUYC. Frederick West, the 18-year-old ship’s lad, had been dead for some two hours. Two hours later some yacht spars and then finally the wreck of the Oona itself were thrown…

LADY CORINNE Bluewater Hillyard ketch Pre-war Hillyards are usually well built of pitch pine on oak, seaworthy and far more attractive than people realise. This 37ft (11.3m) ketch built in 1939 fits the bill, differing only in terms of her ketch rig, although placement of the mizzen mast just aft of the cockpit is more akin to the less obtrusive yawl rig. Lady Corinne is, according to her broker in “impressive condition” having had a big refit in 2009, including a new deck, and much work since. Hillyards are commodious and this one boasts a lovely three-berth saloon with wood burner and a vee-berth in the forepeak. She has a good gear level, a rebuilt Perkins diesel (in 2007) and has taken her current owners to the Caribbean and back. A perfect…

The calms we ran into in the Sargasso Sea were like none I had ever experienced before. For days at a time there was absolutely no wind at all. The sea and sky merged at the horizon into a continuous silky blue that heaved slowly with the fading echoes of distant weather systems. Without wind to disturb its surface the sea became translucent, the life forms near the surface clearly visible. I soon stopped being irritated by the lack of progress and got absorbed by the sea itself, and its creatures. I saw many very small fish playing around the hull, including those which seemed to glow like LEDs just under the surface, and on several occasions beautifully coloured dorado fish broke surface nearby. There were several species of jellyfish,…

FRANCE Safety doubts leave Golden Globe hanging 12 CLASSIC BOAT FEBRUARY 2018 Tell Tales Classic Boat’s address: Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ cb@classicboat.co.uk The future of the Golden Globe Race 2018 was in doubt as we went to press, after concerns raised by the French Sailing Federation, FFV. The FFV made a surprise intervention as the race's organisers were preparing for a major press conference at the Paris Boat Show in December. It cast doubt over whether or not the race could start from Les Sables d'Olonne in Brittany. It was the latest in a series of setbacks for the race, that aims, like the original Sunday Times Golden Globe Race of 1968/9, to send solo sailors around the world non-stop, south of the three great capes…

Page 297 is perhaps my favourite, ‘Folding lavatories’, and No 2702, if Sally had the room, would suit her admirably: ‘Made in mahogany, polished. Bevelled mirror. Chromium-plated pump. Price £8 15s 0d…’ I am referring, of course, to that bible of the classic yachtsman (although in 1938 this was not so much classic as state of the art), the Simpson-Lawrence catalogue of yacht equipment, all 336 pages of brass and chrome, mahogany and porcelain, including the S-L Standard model, catalogue No 396 (£7 18s 6d), which has been in use in Sally’s forepeak since 1937, and has never – at least in my ownership – lost a beat, or whatever the term is for a gunmetal and chrome yacht’s loo. Leafing through those pages my eyes will recognise many bits…

CIRCE Designed Sparkman & Stephens, built by Plym Neglinge Yard, 1950 LOD 56ft 9in (17.3m), rig bermudan yawl Skipper and naval architect Theo Danel is behind the immaculate and considerable refit of this 1951 Fastnet winner, one of the few S&Ss built in Stockholm. Theo undertook cosmetic and more serious work throughout the boat, finishing up with a more ‘Stephens’ look and fit-out. CHIPS Designed by Burgess, built by Graves Yacht Yard, 1913 LOD 50ft (15.2m), gaff sloop French sailor Bruno Troublé bought the P-Class Chips, still sailing but with the keelson rotten through and in three pieces. It ended up being a two-year total rebuild, a job carried out by John Anderson in Maine, before Chips went to the Med to set the cameras whirring. Bruno was previously behind…

CARINA Designed and built by Fred Lawley, 2018, LOD 58ft 9in (17.9m) Carina (ex-Old Glory) has been the personal project of Joe Loughborough (LMI, Rhode Island) for the past decade, as he tackled a serious rebuild in downtime from customers’ boats. The double carvel fir planks were OK, but just about everything else needed replacing or revamping. This summer, she did a timed run at 9.5 knots to celebrate. WISE FOLLY Designed and built by John Hart, 1915, LOD 27ft (8m) This Edwardian Thames launch went from wreck to ready in just nine weeks, to be shown at the Southampton Boat Show. From a bare, holed hull with a loose stem, the team at Michael Dennett Boat Builders was able to come up with a perfect, electric-powered (6kW) launch fit…

I’m delighted this month’s Classic Boat is making the point that affordable classics are out there waiting for good homes. I grew up on a strict diet of cruising literature, which meant reading those noble accounts written in the years between the two World Wars. Much was to be learned from their pages, but they had an important feature in common. Nobody talked about money, yet I yearned to know how Peter Pye, Eric Hiscock and Edward Allcard funded their voyages. Back in those days, discussing personal finances in public was just not done. One thing was clear. Buying a boat that my wife and I could live aboard and which was capable of ocean sailing could set us back as much as £5,000. It never crossed our minds to…

You can say what you like about America’s Cup foil yachts and lightweight Volvo flyers rattling off 25 knots all day, but until you’ve sailed rail-down on a 200-ton schooner under jackyard topsail and gollywobbler, you’ve led a sheltered life. Schooners have always stirred the romantic in a seaman’s heart. From the blockade runners of the American wars through the noble fishermen of the Grand Banks, they’ve been the stuff of legend, but the greatest were the racing schooners of the Golden Age before the outbreak of WW1. Everybody who cares about yachting has been delighted by the Beken photograph of William Fife’s Susanne booming down the Solent with every stitch set. That’s what a schooner should look like, but she’s long gone. So were they all, gone with the…

CORNWALL Yachts, ferries, dinghies and more at Butler & Co Things are busy at the Butler & Co yard on the Fal estuary, with a good number of projects on the go. Firstly, there is a 38ft (11.6m) Norman Dallimoredesigned cruising yacht of 1938, Bandor. She’s having a new stem section, deck recaulk, and replacement keelson and floors. The owners will do the paint and varnish themselves, and she’ll be out sailing again in spring. The second big project is a new, wooden 41ft (12.5m) passenger ferry for the Thomas family of Tenby in Wales. It’s Butler & Co’s second such vessel for the Tenby fleet, having built Foam a decade ago. She’s to a Nigel Irens design, built of iroko planks on an oak basket and work on her…

ON NOW Titanic lifeboat building Falmouth, Cornwall One of the great features of the National Maritime Museum is the boatbuilding area that is on permanent display to the public. Presently, the team is building a replica of a fascinating small craft: Lifeboat 13 from the Titanic, for a forthcoming exhibition. Visit nmmc.co.uk where you can see a short introductory video of the project by boatbuilder Andrew Nancarrow x Other sailing magazines from the publishers of Classic Boat IN THE LATEST ISSUE l Interview with The Mercy director l Exploring St Helena, the Atlantic’s most adventurous cruising ground! l Boat test on Hanse 548 IN THE LATEST ISSUE l Volvo Ocean Race: old salts prepare for Southern Ocean l 75ft foiling monohull for the America’s Cup l How to get a ride with…