Innehållsförteckning för September 2018 från Classic Boat

The 18th annual regatta organised by classic boat hub Suffolk Yacht Harbour, on the UK’s east coast, attracted a varied fleet of 35 boats, with two days of racing in glorious conditions in June. A warm breeze of 8-14 knots allowed racing in Dovercourt Bay, Harwich Harbour and the Orwell and Stour rivers. The marina has a thriving Stella fleet and Timoa (1964) came out top after three races in the Stella class. Meanwhile the Tumlare Zest (1935) was winner in the regatta’s ‘slow’ class; and the West Solent ne-Design Arrow (1923) won the ‘fast’ class. It was a frustrating weekend for the 40 SqM yacht Venya, whose mast roke on a spinnaker reach, but helm Rufus Gilday was awarded the Spirit Yachts-sponsored hip flask for someone “in need of…

JOHN BUCKLEY, Harbour Marine Services How have you managed to carve such a strong niche in mid-century motor cruising yachts? One of the first we restored some 20 years ago was Rummy 3. People who saw her asked us to work on their motor yacht or find one for them to restore. These days the power of the internet often leads people to us by virtue of seeing images of our previous restorations. Being a full service boatyard we can deal with boatbuilding, marine engineering, marine electrics, fabrication, rigging, painting and so forth in-house, so the restoration process becomes much easier to manage. What do you like about these boats? Their style and class and the fact that we can, whilst restoring them, install all the modern gear that a…

Lake Wörthersee, nestling in Austria’s southern Alps close to Slovenia and Italy, is a summer resort for the well-to-do, known as ‘Austria’s Monte Carlo’. It is also a hotspot for 6-Metre yachts built to the First and Second International Rule. Metre boats have a history here and are enjoying a renaissance, restored and campaigned by owners who have a predilection for timber boats, fine wine and haute cuisine. The three go together well. The ensign you’ll see fluttering from the transoms here is dark blue with three golden stars, symbolizing Vela, Vento e Vino. Sail, wind and wine. The lake’s assemblage of ancient Sixes includes treasures such as Gefion III and Theresa, designed and built by Anker & Jensen in Norway in 1911 and 1913 respectively; Margaux (ex-Else), an LW…

The Baltic 12-Metre circuit now encompasses a summer-long list of venues with one or two events a month in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Germany. The Robbe & Berking Sterling Cup should be given the distinction of having kickstarted this exciting circuit some 15 years ago and the largest number of boats can usually be found at the event. This year the Sterling Cup was no disappointment, with twelve beautiful 12-Metres and ten very competitive 5.5-Metres coming together for four days of racing and an equally impressive social program that organiser Oliver Berking puts on for his guests. Among the 12s, nine pre-war boats formed the nucleus of the event while three yachts sailed alone in class, the gaff-rigged Heti from 1912, Chancegger from 1969 and Kiwi Magic from 1987. This…

Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk GRANBY, MASSACHUSETTS Laying the keel with wood from grandfather's trees Two guys, one boat, a world dream. Meet Steve Denette of Granby, Mass (red tee-shirt), fifth generation of a farming family to live on his farm. Sitting by him is his buddy Alix Kreder. The two 33-year-olds have started a build project of rare purity, despite having no experience in building boats or sailing them. The project's name "Acorn to Arabella" refers to the fact that they are building their boat mostly from wood on Steve's farm. The mast, for instance, will be from an oak tree planted by Steve's great grandfather. Steve and Alix chose as their design William Atkin's 37ft 6in (11.4m) Stormy Petrel, gaff version of the Ingrid. "Gaff is easier to fix, with an…

For some old-school boatbuilders the brass-tipped and hinged 24in (61cm) boxwood rule remains the preferred measuring instrument, folding to slip inside the apron pocket, always handy. Many others favour its more compact and versatile successor: the flexible steel rule. Although there were earlier pocket tape measures, the progenitor of today’s tool was the Farrand Rapid Rule, invented in 1922 by Hiram Augustus Farrand of New Hampshire. Farrand’s masterstroke was the concave-convex blade, both self-supporting and flexible enough to measure circumferences. Notice how the blade unwinds from a cup, and is retained by an M-shaped axiallymounted cross-piece, because herein lies a bit of magic. With the blade lifted above the lip of the cup, you squeeze the crosspiece, which is in two parts joined by a leaf spring, thereby releasing the…

September/October 1988 – CB9 The cover of our ninth issue depicts steamboats on Windermere in the Lake District, and there are more inland treasures inside the magazine, not least John Leather’s potted history of two of the most svelte craft ever to grace the Thames, the Thames A-Rater and the ubiquitous slipper launch. Elsewhere we receive a lesson in one of the most time-consuming and decorative finishes on a dinghy or yacht – the teak sole grating – and renowned modeller Malcolm Darch of Devon takes us on a journey through the benefits and pitfalls of investing in ship models.…

It takes 33 minutes to travel from Plymouth to Calstock by train, chuntering along 11 miles of one of the prettiest railway lines in the country. Alternatively, you can go by boat, although the journey is likely to take you a little bit longer, as I discovered when I joined the Tamar barge Lynher in Plymouth. We were late leaving, so missed two hours of northgoing current, then the forecasted southerly breeze failed to materialise which meant we had to putter along under engine alone. It took us three hours to reach Cargreen, some five miles upstream of Plymouth, where we had to wait another five hours, stranded by the outgoing tide, before resuming the final leg, through the upper reaches of the navigable Tamar. And what a journey it…

This is getting sailing back to its roots. The words of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston as he talks briefly into a microphone the evening before Falmouth’s Parade of Sail in June. He is speaking at an event on the waterfront, in the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club, a stone’s throw from the mooring where he had prepared his departure in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race exactly 50 years earlier. With mischievous relish, he tells everyone the club told him off in 1968 for redirecting his mail through them despite not being a member. Now, they are making up for that pomposity and historic lack of vision with a passion. Outside, his yacht Suhaili sits on the pontoons and looks tiny next to Gypsy Moth IV. Two iconic boats in the centre…

I was under a lot of pressure, or so it felt. I was on board Wagtail, a Couta boat owned and helmed by Nick Williams, and we were racing against 14 other Division One boats off Sorrento at the bottom of Port Phillip Bay in the Australian state of Victoria (another dozen Couta boats were racing in Division Two). It was the second race of the day and in the first I had watched Wagtail lead from the start and win comfortably. If she could repeat that in this race she would clinch the line-honours series. But things were not going so well in this race and we were lying second to a boat called Jocelyn. I was all too aware that the only other difference was my presence on…

As perhaps befits a yard with the bold strapline ‘the boatyard of the sea’, Kirié faced many storms in the marine business before it became the renowned player it is known as today. The boatyard was founded in 1927 in Les Sables d’Olonne by Auguste Kirié, after a long apprenticeship in the marine industry including running boat rental around Paris after World War One. Initially, Kirié specialised in canoes and small dinghies, as he had done earlier on the Seine and the Marne rivers. His son Claude, who took over at the start of World War Two, showed talent as a racing driver, winning numerous races in the 1950s, giving the yard greater publicity and taking it in a new direction. Claude won the famous Six Heures de Paris in…

MAYFLY 16 New dayboat for the perfect picnic We had many enquiries about this pretty new dayboat in last month’s Yard News, so here’s a bit more about it. She was designed by Andrew Wolstenholme, and these days, she is being built by the Landamores Yard in Norfolk. She’s a 16ft (4.9m) six-seater, transomsterned river launch, and the yard, the founder builder of Oyster Yachts back in the day, are building it anew, to what it calls “Oyster quality” standard. So far so good then. The elegant form and tumblehome towards the stern give this boat a great river style and the details seem to be well thought out too. The steel tiller with wooden handle is a nice touch (the boat is also available with traditionalstyle sidewheel steering) and…

19 AUGUST OPERA HOUSE CUP Sponsored by Panerai and part of its north American series, the 46th edition of this classic event in Nantucket operahousecup.org 26-31 AUGUST MERSEA WEEK Family friendly races (merseaweek.org), followed on 1 September by the West Mersea Town Regatta (mersearegatta.org.uk) 26 AUGUST – 1 SEPTEMBER COPA DEL REY Lovely setting in Mahón, Menorca, a longstanding Balearic regatta now sponsored by Repsol. velaclasicamenorca.com 1-2 SEPTEMBER BOSHAM CLASSIC BOAT REVIVAL Bosham SC, Chichester Harbour. Classic dinghy regatta, this year with an Ian Proctor Centenary Rally. classicboatrevival.co.uk EVENTS UPDATE Sandhamn Regatta 9-11 AUGUST Sandhamn, Sweden Part of the Baltic Classic Circuit sailtrust.org Svendborg Classic Regatta 10-12 AUGUST Svendborg, Denmark classicregatta.dkr Hamburg Summer Classics 11-12 AUGUST Hamburg, Germany The main event in the German calendar hsc-regatta.org OGA 55th Anniversary 11-19…

Perhaps it would be hard to find a subject more likely to stoke controversy than to propose a candidate for ‘the greatest boat ever built’, but that is my, perhaps unlikely, contention. The Cutty Sark is famous to millions as the fastest of the tea clippers. That much is unchallenged, but the description relegates this remarkable vessel to the ranks of mere commercial shipping, while in reality she was more than that. Indeed, as a commercial vessel she had some limitations since the prime motivation behind her design was speed, even at the cost of compromising her cargo carrying capacity. On outward passages she usually loaded coal from Australia to China because “she was too fine forward to load barrels of tallow”. But she was also built to a standard…

The records of the Crossley family of St Germans, Tamar pilots for several generations, show that from 1933-39 the Lynher River saw an extraordinary burst of shipping. In that time, the Crossleys piloted more than 1,500 ships upriver, not counting the hundreds of barges plying these waters without pilots. In his study The Shipping and Trade of the River Tamar, historian Ian Merry describes how a “cavalcade of small coasters, smacks and barges played their part in the last great upsurge of waterborne trade in the Tamar’s estuary”, with ships coming from as far as Russia and Holland. The main attraction was the stone quarries at Poldrissick, Treluggan and Cumbletor. Ironically, the so-called ‘blue elvan’ they produced was in demand for building roads which would ultimately lead to the barges’…

The YachtMarket.com Southampton Boat Show marks its 50th birthday this year by celebrating another significant half century anniversary – that of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston's famous world-girdling voyage of 1968/9. His boat Suhaili will be on display five decades after she departed from Falmouth in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race (see p20). The Southampton show runs from 14-23 September and this year has become Britain's only major boat show, following the cancellation of the 2018 London show, normally held in January. For classic boat lovers, the Southampton event offers a feast of small boat delights in the Wooden Boatbuilders Trade Association (WBTA) section, which always includes fresh restorations, newly built wooden dinghies, wooden dayboats and small yachts and more. On almost all these stands the builders are present, happy to…

If these days time is money, it was even more important than that to Nelson, who once remarked: “Time is everything; five minutes makes the difference between victory and defeat.” It is recorded that on the morning of the Battle of Trafalgar, William Beatty, surgeon aboard HMS Victory, observed how Nelson “called Lieutenant Pasco, Mr Ogilvie, and some other officers near him and desired them to set their watches by the time of that which His Lordship wore”. Later that day on October 21, 1805, with victory secure, as Nelson lay dying, the watch that he wore in battle was among his belongings removed for safekeeping. The circa 1787 pocket watch by Josiah Emery was a fine and accurate timepiece, with an early lever escapement of the type still used…

VOR, IMOCA, TP52, ORMA, VPLP, ORC, IRC? What on earth…? I sometimes think we classic boat people inhabit a rather too insular world, ignoring the obvious fact that once upon a time the racing boats we label classic would, like those used in the Volvo Ocean Race, or built to the International Monohull Open Class Association rules, once have been the state of the art. Those S&S mould-breakers Stormy Weather and Dorade could be seen as 1930s equivalents of the current TransPac 52 class boats Sled and Azzurra, for example, albeit they don’t race out of sight of land. These days for a cutting edge designer, where once it might have been Olin Stephens or Robert Clark, you might now approach Humphreys, or Van Peteghem and Lauriot-Prévost, Marc and Vincent…

Last year Classic Boat published an article I wrote about the constituent parts of a lines plan. The response from readers was so strong that we decided on a further piece looking at what can be read into a set of lines. For a modern boat skimming across the surface as her keel cleaves the depths, the answer is ‘not a great deal’, but when it comes to displacement hulls pushing their way through the water, much can be learned and a great deal of fun is to be had in speculating. I am not a naval architect and I have no academic training in this particular discipline. However, a lifetime of casual study of boats on paper and in the water has given me a fair grasp of how…

RUGOSA One of only four New York 40s still sailing Rugosa is one of a select group of four New York 40s in sailing condition left in the world, of the 14 originally built. The design is one of Nathanael Herreshoff’s most famous, drawn for the New York Yacht Club in 1916 for racing and cruising, which is what they have done with uflagging success to this day. Rugosa won the landmark 2001 America’s Cup Jubilee regatta in Cowes before enjoying a four-year extended cruise of much of Europe, Caribbean and east coast of America. Others (Chinook and Rowdy) have gone on to make the NY40 the most successful type in classic racing in CIM history. The “Fighting Forty” as it became known, is still perhaps the benchmark for the…

19 AUGUST OPERA HOUSE CUP Sponsored by Panerai and part of its north American series, the 46th edition of this classic event in Nantucket operahousecup.org 26-31 AUGUST MERSEA WEEK Family friendly races (merseaweek.org), followed on 1 September by the West Mersea Town Regatta (mersearegatta.org.uk) 26 AUGUST – 1 SEPTEMBER COPA DEL REY Lovely setting in Mahón, Menorca, a longstanding Balearic regatta now sponsored by Repsol. velaclasicamenorca.com 1-2 SEPTEMBER BOSHAM CLASSIC BOAT REVIVAL Bosham SC, Chichester Harbour. Classic dinghy regatta, this year with an Ian Proctor Centenary Rally. classicboatrevival.co.uk…

MAH JONG Stunning 52ft S&S yawl saved from the ravages of a Caribbean beach and restored to win a Classic Boat Award BOAT BUILDING LESSONS Tom Whitfield, long-distance mentor in boatbuilding to our columnist Adrian Morgan, tells it like it is FORTUNA II A handsome and seamanlike motor sailer for a sailing couple, Fortuna II was found in a state of disprepair but is in fine form today PLUS… A competition to win a berth in Venice; we report from regattas in New England, Cornwall and the Solent; history of women in early sailing; CIM’s origins; and a lot more… OCTOBER 2018 ON SALE Friday 7 September, 2018 (or why not subscribe!) OTHER SAILING MAGAZINES FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF CLASSIC BOAT IN THE LATEST ISSUE • How to get to…