Innehållsförteckning för December 2019 från Classic Boat

Officially the boat count was 144, but reducing the 43rd edition of the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival to such statistics would fail to do justice to the event. What best captures the essence of this charming gathering, in fact, it is not the number of boats that appear on the organisers’ list, but those that are part of the ‘natural’ environment of this unique maritime centre that, once upon a time, before the Great Depression left its mark, was a thriving commercial hub. Organised by the Northwest Maritime Center, this event is the most important of its kind on the US West Coast and is a brisk succession of meetings, seminars, demonstrations, boatbuilding contests and the like. On land, all around the jetties, you may find kiosks and other…

It was becoming increasingly apparent that we were on a collision course. We, on Amokura, were on port tack and the 8-Metre cruiser racer Altricia was on starboard, and somehow the sight of her gleaming varnished topsides heightened concerns. When it seemed certain to me that it was too late to do so, Amokura’s owner and skipper, Paul Moxon, called for sheets to be eased so that he could bear away behind her. But the wind was light and with everything happening in slow motion, Amokura responded quickly enough to the turn of the wheel. Paul had judged it perfectly and we continued on our way racing in glorious sunshine among a fleet of 192 boats taking part in Falmouth Classics. Amokura was designed by Fred Shepherd and built in…

This column has finally run out of ideas and, perhaps fittingly, it being the last edition of the year (although through the strange vagaries of publishing it will be read by those loyal followers who claim to read this stuff in early November), it is time to admit defeat. ‘Not before time’, you sigh. Over the years it has covered such essential matters as: an other-worldly encounter via Ouija board with Admiral Nelson, and the embarrassment of finding his trunk contained not seagoing uniform, but a selection of Lady Hamilton’s underwear (hence his adoption on the fatal quarterdeck of full dress, his Knight of the Bath badge a shining target for that French sharpshooter); a disapproving view of the vulgar bronze-look winches on a newly restored J Boat; the lining…

It was over half a century ago that John Watkinson’s design of the Drascombe Lugger launched a new genre of daysailer, but the origins of the boat reach even further back. In the Second World War, John served as a small-boat specialist in the Royal Navy and met his Wren wife Katharine while stationed in Northern Ireland. The couple later bought and managed Kelly and Hall, a small yard building and repairing traditional boats. After a few years, they decided to ‘sell up and sail’, but due to bad weather and seasickness they soon returned. Back in Devon, the next brief from Katharine would be for a dayboat instead, with no boom to bang heads, no engine to create fumes, and no cabin, ensuring a comfortable bed ashore at the…

When Sophie Grigson wrote Fish in 2000, her definitive guide to the seafood cuisine of the time, she confessed a startling thing. She almost forgot the trout, so well loved for so very long that it had developed a peculiar sort of obscurity borne of fame. Granted, it's an oblique reference to a Norfolk boatyard, but one that might appeal to the young(ish) Rob Marriott, a keen cook and food lover who these days is in charge of driving business at Landamores Boatbuilders, a yard so famous one forgets what it's famous for. Like most yards, Landamores has enjoyed mixed fortunes over the years. The yard was founded in the early 1920s, amid a Broads building boom that lasted most of the 20th century and is still far from dead.…

Once you’ve mastered the rudiments of sailing and found by some miracle you can, on occasion, get to more or less where you intended with tolerable levels of stress (and medication if necessary), it’s time to up the ante. The best way to do that is with a spinnaker – a word that strikes a peculiar kind of asymmetric fear into the heart of any normal weekend sea plodder. But there is nothing to be afraid of. Spinnakers provide entertainment and merriment for many amateur and professional seafarers alike, including Sunseeker owners; jet-skiers; containership masters; frigate and submarine commanders; paddle boarders; ducks; holidaymakers who’ve drifted into shipping lanes on pedalos and lilos; and golfers. The last are unusual among landsmen, as golfers (unlike birdwatchers, radio hams, Morris dancers and battle…

Ester was built for one purpose, and one purpose only: to defeat the Finns in 1901 and retain the coveted Tivoli Cup held by the Royal Swedish Sailing Society (KSSS). That she was designed by an amateur and went on to sweep all before her for nearly 30 years is impressive enough. That she was apparently scuttled on a dark night, then rediscovered 80 years later on the seabed, raised and rebuilt to race again sounds like the stuff of fairytale. And yet this is that tale. It really all began in 1900, the year before Ester was dreamed up by the gifted, young Gunnar Mellgren. In May, a remarkable yacht had been launched at Blekholmen boatyard in Helsinki. Aldebaran was designed by Gustaf Estlander to challenge for a number…

BONHAMS The Runabout that inspired Riva With a name like Christopher Columbus Smith your destiny is pretty much mapped out for you. He was born in Michigan in 1861 and, by 1930, the company that bore his name had become the world’s biggest manufacturer of mahogany motorboats. As the world plunged into the Great Depression, the company cut back production and produced more affordable craft, before a recovering economy allowed a flowering of flamboyance and style before the onset of war. The so-called barrel-back runabouts produced from 1939 to 1942 are considered by many aficionados the ultimate expression of Chris-Craft’s ‘vintage’ era. It’s beyond doubt that Carlo Riva was inspired by them. Most popular was the 19ft (5.8m) twin-cockpit Custom Runabout, with 393 made. It is reckoned around 50 survive…

COLUMBIA The Gloucester fishing schooners of the 18th and 19th centuries were vessels of legend, plying the stormy Grand Banks then racing home, holds full of cod. The original, wooden 141ft (43m) Columbia of 1923 was lost. This steel replica was built by Eastern Shipbuilding Group in 2014. THE ENDEAVOUR When a vessel such as the 1764 HMS Endeavour bears the distinction of carrying James Cooke and crew to discover Australia and NZ, as she did from 1768-1771, there is a historic imperative behind building a replica, which the Australian Maritime Museum did in the late 1980s. INVADER AND DEFENDER Very occasionally, someone builds two the same to race, as with Bull and Bear in the mid-90s, replicas of 1860s sandbaggers. The idea went big, when in 2015 Wooden Boatworks…

It was appropriate the wind was blowing northeasterly as the spring rain dimpled the Blackwater estuary, for a breeze in this quarter has for centuries held northbound trading vessels within the confines of the Thames Estuary. Out in the river, Cambria’s bob fluttered furiously at the truck of her topmast as Richard Titchener, head of the Sea Change Sailing Trust and, today, skipper of the last trading sailing vessel to fly the red ensign, nosed the heavy barge skiff into the rusty old lighter, which serves as a pontoon at Heybridge Basin, Essex. Here waited a charterparty of folks eager to discover what it was like to sail in an engineless trading ship, among them myself and Phil ‘Ginger’ Latham, both, at different times, former mates of the Cambria, invited…

If you love Tumlares – and many do – this might be the ultimate one. Not only is Aibe the first in class, built in 1934 by the Kalle Johnsson shipyard in Sweden to the now-famous Knud Reimers design, but she was completely overhauled inside and out as recently as 2017. The Tumlare, for those unacquainted, is an exceptionally fine-lined, double-ended 27ft (8.3m) bermudan sloop of near-mythical sailing qualities, albeit with spartan interior accommodation. For the icing on the cake, the boat comes with much original documentation, including owner history, photos and plans. Asking €30,000, Lying Morbihan, France, owner Didier Lemaitre, dlemaitre56@gmail.com THE TREEHOUSE Little clinker cabin launch This little wooden clinker cabin launch of 20ft (6.1m), with electric propulsion, is believed to have been built in the ’60s. Not…

PLANES Preventing backlash The separate pivoting and screw-threaded links in the chain of parts responsible for depth adjustment in a bench plane, each with its own small looseness of fit, result in a degree of play in the control wheel – especially in a well-worn tool. The first full turn of the wheel on my old Stanley No 4 achieves nothing, although there’s only half a turn of play in the younger No 3 shown here. The same applies to spokeshaves, such as these Stanley Nos 151 (flat) & 152 (curved) tools, which have twin depth-adjustment screws, enabling the blade to be skewed to cut progressively finer from one side to the other. Each depth-adjustment nut has a flange engaging with a slot in the blade, resulting in about one…

SHIPWRIGHTS IN THE FREEZER Two British boatbuilders and why they sail their own wooden yachts to the frozen north every year S EXPRESS The world’s first bermudan-rigged yacht class turns 100 LATE FIFE YACHT It’s time for ‘Fifes on the Clyde’ 2020. Here’s a beauty from the designer’s later years, restored by her owner PLUS… The Mayfly 16 and 21 motor launches from Norfolk; catching up with Robbie Fabre, our youngest ever ‘Restoration of the Year’ winner; the best photos and paintings of the year; end of the season report from the Med, and more JANUARY 2019 ON SALE Friday 7 December 2019 (or why not subscribe!)…

Some countries excite greater passion than others – Italy is a prime example. Little wonder red became its national car-racing colour back in the early 1920s. Decades before Ferrari was spawned from its racing division, Alfa Romeo embodied mechanical excellence, not only on the ground, but in the air and on the water After a retrospective exhibition of its major aeronautical, civil and military achievements at the Museo Storico (historical museum) Alfa Romeo in Arese, Milan, the museum is undertaking a similar initiative to celebrate decades of victories in motorboat racing under the Quadrifoglio flag. WORLD CHAMPION WITH FERRARI A handful of Italian car and boat collectors already regularly meet up with a bunch of Swiss and French colleagues to show their enthusiasm for Alfa Romeo. In late spring every…

Last freight carried by a British merchant sailing ship was 100 tons of cattle cake loaded onto Cambria from a ship in the Tilbury Dock and discharged at Ipswich in October 1970, with Bob Roberts as skipper and Dick Durham as mate. In 1988 the Cambria Restoration Project was started by the late Tony Ellis and in 1992 the National Register of Historic Vessels was formed, with Cambria on the list. In 2007, over £900,000 was earmarked for Cambria from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Cambria Trust was formed to raise the rest needed for her £1.4m restoration. Shipwright Tim Goldsack started her rebuilding in 2007 and four years later she was again sailing, coming first in the Coasting Class of the 2011 Thames Sailing Barge Match. TYPE Mule-rigged…

TIME FOR AN ELECTRIC OUTBOARD? The Quiet, Convenient, Reliable, and Easy-to-Use Alternative to Petrol “Using a well-engineered electric outboard has been a revelation. The stress, mess and worry of oil, petrol, starting issues and sheer weight have melted like snow in April… the vital question is “how far will it go?”… the answer is “further than you think… certainly miles beyond anything I’ve asked of it in four years’ cruising…”TOM CUNLIFFE, writing in Classic Boat, Nov 2019 FROM £1529 Epropulsion Spirit: - 1018Wh battery - Faster to charge - Battery floats if dropped - Foldable tiller means only one cable to connect - Three shaft length options - Direct drive FROM £1675 Torqeedo 1103: - 916Wh battery - GPS data on tiller gives speed & range indication - Removable tiller…

Edited by Steffan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk IPSWICH, SUFFOLK Biggest since Shamrock V The Spirit 111, whose build we have been following, was launched from the Spirit Yacht yard in early October. At 111ft 3in (33.9m), she’s not only the largest yacht to date from the renowned spirit-of-tradition yacht builder, but she is, the yard believes, the biggest single-masted, wooden yacht built in Britain since the J-Class Shamrock V, created for the 1930 America’s Cup. At the request of her young, overseas buyer, the Spirit 111 has been designed and built in-house by Spirit Yachts to be "one of the most environmentally friendly sailing superyachts ever created", according to the yard. A Torqeedo electric propulsion system using a 100kW motor will propel the yacht silently for…

Few vessels put to sea without an adjustable spanner. Even where spanners of fixed sizes are carried, an adjustable spanner is useful for securing one end of a nut and bolt while its fixed-size cousin turns the other. The tool’s origins, however, are entirely agricultural. Yorkshire-born inventor Richard Clyburn settled in Gloucestershire sometime in the 1820s to set up an iron foundry in Uley village with fellow Yorkshireman George Lister. When Clyburn and Lister went their separate ways the foundry was taken over by the Earl of Ducie, who kept Clyburn on as manager, meanwhile encouraging the development of new machines for tilling the land and harvesting crops. As the machines diversified, so the range of nuts and bolts holding them together proliferated, and this seems to have been the…

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1989, CB17 The International Twelves, the first international one design dating from 1913, is virtually unknown in Britain, birthplace of the little clinker lugger. The design was by Briton George Cockshott, and later revised by Morgan Giles. They remain popular in much of the rest of the world, particularly in Holland and Italy, but there are fleets as far away as Japan. Once every two years, they arrive at the Monaco Classic Yacht Regatta, and we saw them there a fortnight ago, launching from the club’s slipway into the new harbour. They were overshadowed by some of the biggest superyachts in the world and, on land, every sort of supercar known to man. They just went to prove, as if proof were needed, that a wooden, clinker, 12ft (3.6m),…