Innehållsförteckning för April 2022 från Classic Boat

Ever since she was a child, photographer Kos Evans has created images that show the extraordinary dimensions lying beneath ordinary objects and occurrences. With the camera her grandmother gave her, during family holidays she didn’t photograph people or beaches, but silhouetted sewage pipes, strange perspectives, shapes and textures. She has always been fascinated by the possibility of showing the interesting aspects of plain, common things. Even today, her work is about sharing – and perhaps enabling – a poetic gaze on reality: “Take the boat restoration process: everyone has seen one. I have shot many, the latest being Baruna, a 1938 bermudan yawl designed by Olin J Stephens. Every time, the challenge is to find an original way to describe it, creating a story that conveys the overwhelming work involved.…

Classic Boat illustrator Claudia Myatt has been back in the Southern Ocean with her sketchbooks, this time as Artist in Residence for Friends of Scott Polar Research Institute. As guest on board the Royal Navy icebreaker HMS Protector, her voyage in December 2021 took her in the wake of past explorers, from the Falklands to the whaling stations of South Georgia and Deception Islands, the remote and uninhabited South Sandwich Islands and South Orkneys then down to the Antarctic Peninsula. In her sketchbook she tried to draw not just the scenery, but a host of impressions and stories as well as life on board ship, using drawing as a way to try to understand the many ways that Antarctica and the Southern Ocean islands hold such a powerful fascination for…

+44 (0)207 349 3758 Email:steffan@classicboat.co.uk HAMPSHIRE UandI – original speed I recently wrote in these pages that boats are only half of themselves without their people. In the case of Uandi (‘You and I’), I was dead right. When Alastair Garland came across the Fife-designed Belfast Lough day racer propped in a field back in 1995, it was her lucky day. Alastair is always busy restoring other people’s boats in his shop on the northern fringes of the New Forest so he wasn’t in a hurry, but at last the yacht is sailing again. His restoration philosophy is to retain everything he can of the original. The result is surely not so different from the boat that raced in 1897 against her 10 sisters. Now, she is the sole survivor.…

The launch of Flute an Arrow – the latest St Ives sailing punt – is imminent. Early in 2021, former classic yacht skipper Nick Mahlich recognised that another lockdown was a chance to fulfil a long-held dream to build a boat from scratch and approached Jonny Nance to make it happen. “This has been a joint project, as Nick has participated throughout. Given that building a boat is just about the most creative thing you can do with wood, this project has been essential therapy for us both during the winter months of Covid restrictions” Jonny said. Her name comes from a term of endearment my father used when we were small. It’s actually an anglicisation of a Cornish expression, once popular in the St Ives district meaning ‘child of…

FRETSAW Frame saws with their narrow blades and deep throats are especially useful for their manoeuvrability. A turning saw, for example, will navigate the quick curve of a knee or breasthook with the agility of a jetski, while its smaller cousin the coping saw excels with daintier tasks like removing waste from dovetail sockets. Much less do we hear of their near relative the fretsaw, despite the key role it has played in ornamenting the interiors of vessels as varied as riverboats and stately ocean-going yachts. Perhaps this isn’t surprising, since more efficient power tools displaced the elegant fretsaw decades ago. If you did fancy, say, an Art Nouveau interior in 2022 then doubtless its naturalistic perforations would be delegated to the safe but unfeeling touch of CNC laser machinery.…

The 2006 Newport to Bermuda Race was going to be that savoury moment for Beau Van Metre where he would proudly follow in his father’s footsteps. To do so would mean chartering the hottest race boats in the world and start trouncing the competition in ocean races. Al Van Metre, Beau’s father, a real estate giant from northern Virginia, had been an ocean-racing pacesetter in the intoxicatingly raucous and competitive days of the International Offshore Rule. It was in 1971 that Al bought the 60ft (18m), already-successful Sparkman and Stephens-designed Running Tide after a bidding war with media magnate Ted Turner that ‘Tide’ began a march to becoming one of America’s most decorated and recognisable yachts in ocean-racing history. Years later, after dark-hulled Running Tide was sold in the late-1980s…

Save up to 27% + FREE delivery www.classicboat.co.uk Order your subscription today Save up to 27% off the shop price with an annual subscription to Classic Boat: UK £42.95 | Europe €66.95 | USA $76.95 Australia $114.95 | Rest of World £58.95 Subscribe online www.chelseamagazines.com/CCBO0222 or call +44 (0) 1858 438 442 (quoting code CCBO0222) NB: Prices and discounts based on the UK cover price of £4.95. If for any reason you’re not happy with your subscription, you may cancel within 14 days of placing your order.…

WHALE ART Followers of the Rolex Fastnet Race will be familiar with the stunning photographs of Kurt Arrigo, who has now released a series of whale portraits after he went free-diving with a pod off Tonga. Kurt says: “The mother whale swam protectively alongside her curious calf and it was with her permission that I gently slid into the water, feeling vulnerable and exposed. On a single breath I approached the playful calf who seemed keen to interact as the mother watched closely. For 30 minutes I swam up to the surface for air, diving back down urgently, not wanting to waste a minute of this precious invitation, both myself and the whales curious to download all that we could about each other. Once the mother decided that playtime was…

The shadow of a vast, ancient vessel has lain in the ground above the River Deben in Suffolk for 1,400 years. Believed to be the burial place of the East Anglian king Raedwald in around 624AD, stains of timbers and rusty iron rivets were all that remained when the treasure, one of the richest finds in England, was removed and installed in the British Museum in the famous excavation of 1939. Now, historians, shipwrights and many volunteers are using the specifications meticulously gathered by those wartime archaeologists to reconstruct the Sutton Hoo Ship and gain a greater understanding of our earliest maritime history. “We knew it was a rowing boat,” says Professor Martin Carver, chair of the Sutton Hoo Ship’s Company, the charitable organisation running the project. “It had tholes…

Built by Hitchens & Ford of Feock in the 1870s, Shadow is thought to be the oldest surviving boat built specifically for oyster dredging. She was used as a yacht for a while between the world wars and was last in commission as an oyster dredging boat in 2012. Soon after that she was bought by Chris Ranger (generally known as just ‘Ranger’), an oyster fisherman who also owns the 1966 oyster dredging boat Alf Smythers (they are commonly referred to as Falmouth Working Boats). “I wasn’t looking for another boat,” said Ranger, “but I really want to save Shadow for the fishery.” About a year ago he moved Shadow from the beach at Mylor to a yard in a nearby farm where he hopes to restore her if he…

Here’s a yard hidden away in the industrial heritage of the North East, a veritable time capsule harking back to the great ship and boatbuilding days on the River Tyne when great ships like the Mauretania, Carpathia, and in later years the two aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious slid down the slipways, together with my far more modest classic yacht Sea Jay. World War Two kept the coal, iron and shipbuilding industries well stoked but by the mid-60s and early 70s, shipyards along the Tyne were struggling under cost and delivery pressures from Korea and Japan. And along with them crumbled the smaller boatyards sandwiched between the large slipways that fed like pilot fish off their larger commercial cousins. Now, the ships, the yards, the skilled jobs,…

This is the story of a boat that has – twice in her life, at the very beginning and very recently – been a big secret, although the circumstances could hardly have been more contrasting. She was designed by André Mauric and built by Louis Grossi in Marseille in 1939. No one knows, so it would seem, what the boat’s original name was but her first owner was a Portuguese nobleman called Manuel de Carvalho de Ávila, the third Count of Ávila. It is thought that the boat was sailed for the very first time – with the owner, his wife and Mauric on board – on 3 September 1939, and that when they returned to the builder’s yard afterwards, they heard that France and Britain had declared war on…

Ever felt robbed? We reckon Sally woz, but it’s a while ago and forgotten; well, how could that be if I am about to remember it and, for the first time, record it in the annals of Classic Boat? Now I am not a racing man, or put it another way, I like to race whenever I can, but pretend not to care. Those who obsess about any one aspect of their lives, or pastime, be it golf, sailing or fitness, are doomed to disappointment. There is no such thing as perfection, indeed Muslims, I am told, believe only Mohammed to be perfect, which is why Arab boatbuilders leave something not quite right, so as not to offend. Whether that’s true or not, I always left some imperfections in my…

Built by Benetti in 1967, Odyssey III began life as hull number FB67 – one of the Italian shipyard’s Mediterraneo 33 series – and was first launched as Admiral Bolitho. An icon of Italian yacht building and superyacht style, Benetti reached international acclaim in the early 1960s, when it became the yacht brand of choice for the global elite. It was one of the first players in yacht building to transition from wood to steel construction, heralding the birth of the modern luxury motor yacht. Delivered at the pinnacle of this era, it was Odyssey III’s classic and timeless design that appealed to Richard Sykes, who bought the yacht in 2016 with the aim of carrying out a restoration. “I have a passion for classic cars, and I tend to…

DUST CONTROL Ideally, prepare the work in one place, clean it thoroughly, then move it into another (clean) place to apply the varnish. If the piece of work is a whole boat, then clean the boat and its surroundings in situ. Towards the end of the job, a simple polyethene tent over the boat keeps airborne dust at bay. You need a good workshop vacuum with a small brush head to remove most of the dust then a tack cloth to really deal with the fine deposits before applying any coating. THE VARNISH Golden rule number one: never to dip you brush into that can. NEVER. The material in that can leaves the manufacturers completely clean, so let’s keep it that way. You always decant the varnish into a clean…

One story that has emerged from the pandemic, which has been such a busy time for so many boatbuilders, is the establishment of a new boatyard set up to cater for classic restoration and maintenance – with a focus on the most popular cabin yacht of all time, the Folkboat – which is 80 this year. Fanatical Folkboat sailor Simon Osgood has now taken over the 15,000sqft premises formerly known as Green Marine, and the yard has been picking up work from the start. “My initial thought was to take on the site and install the guys who had refurbished my Nordic Folkboat – Dan and Rob McAdam, two highly skilled boatbuilders with more than 30 years experience, and who I have much respect for,” said Simon, who owns a…

Bevel gauge from a hacksaw The carpenter’s bevel gauge is usually too big and bulky for the delicate angle-finding of fitting knees or transferring bevels while planking a small boat. When fitting a new plank you need a gauge that sits snugly between the exposed frame and the edge of the plank already fitted at each station. It should also be finger-adjustable yet sufficiently rigid to hold a measurement in transit between the hull and the bevel board. The solution favoured by many a frugal shipwright is to rivet up a small bevel gauge from an old hacksaw blade. Conveniently, the blade comes pre-drilled for riveting courtesy of the two holes attaching it to the saw frame. At a shade under 3in (7cm) this example (1) is small enough to…

AWARDS 2022 The results are in and the winners will be revealed. Photo shows Cynara, winner last year in the Restored Sailing Vessel Over 40ft category. GIACOMO COLUMBO We revisit the racing mahogany runabouts built by Giacomo Columbo on the shores of Lake Como from 1957 onwards NAEMA The grand schooner Panda was launched in 1938 from the Camper & Nicholsons boatyard in Southampton, to a design by Alfred Mylne. We meet Naema, the new replica PLUS… Meet East Coast sailor, fisherman and yachting historian Robert Simper; a coastal motor-sailing voyage from the East Coast to Scotland; the life of English post-war yacht designer Jack Francis Jones; and much more MAY 2022 On sale Friday 14 April, 2022 Or why not subscribe? 30 YEARS AGO April 1992, CB44 Issue number…