Innehållsförteckning för May 2022 från Classic Boat

Following on from the announcement at the Paris Boat Show last December that a dedicated Classics Class will be run at Volvo Cork Week 2022, the Royal Cork Yacht Club is seeing a steady flow of entries for the regatta, which will be held inside and outside Cork harbour from 11-15 July. Racing will be conducted using the Jauge Classique Handicap (JCH) system “to allow classic boats with very different characteristics to race together as well as other handicapping systems as appropriate”. In addition, Pascal Stefani, President of the Atlantic Yacht Club (AYC), with the support of the Yacht Club de France, announced that they are arranging ‘Goto Cork 2022’ which will entail up to 20 classic yachts heading to Cork via the Scillies together. A delegation from AYC has…

Dawn mist hung across the gentle sea. In the half-light a dark fin sliced the bow wave. Then, just as mysterious, it vanished. I watched intently for some minutes. Of a sudden, alongside and astern, the grey waters thronged with uncountable others, converging from all sides. South west Wales lay 20 miles to starboard. Half a century before, this Sole Bay ketch had frequented Welsh and Irish waters. Now, with schools of dolphins as escort, Vega of Garth had returned. Designed by J Francis Jones (see our feature on page 54) and built in Scarborough during 1965, Vega is a survivor of the Sole Bay class of motor-sailing ketches: small wooden yachts with enclosed wheelhouses, real power for longer periods under motor, and a traditional rig to give reliable sailing…

The Albert Strange-designed, Fastnet-winning gaff yacht Tally Ho of 1910 came a significant step closer to completion in March, when owner and boatbuilder Leo Goolden and a small band of volunteers put the deck planks on. The 48ft (14.6m) vessel now has a swept deck fastened straight onto the deck beams – no plywood subdeck here – with thousands of Frearson-head deck screws, each of which had to be plugged in timber. The deck will be caulked with cotton and payed in the traditional way. Tally Ho is looking more like a yacht every day, but there is still a huge amount of work to do, including the rig, for which the spar timber, Sitka spruce, is ready and waiting. Next will come the cover boards, king planks, bulwarks and…

Joyce’s curious grip The tools and joinery of yacht furniture share significant overlap with other fields of woodwork, and many will recognise The Technique of Furniture Making by Ernest Joyce (Batsford, 1970) as a bible of their craft. But who has tried the curious saw grip illustrated – though not explained – by Joyce in his chapter on the mortise and tenon joint? While sawing cheeks with the closed-handle tenon saw, Joyce has four fingers passing through the aperture and his thumb resting on the upper horn. Using a smaller open-handle dovetail saw at the bench hook, his thumb again rests on the upper horn while his pinky curls beneath the lower horn and three fingers pass through the aperture. Normally we’re taught that the forefinger should point along the…

THE LAST FIFE The Fifes are coming back home to Scotland this June in the spectacular known as the Fife Regatta. To celebrate that, we have the story of Sonata, the last Fife yacht. CIELITO A recent addition to the Rahmi M Koc collection is this 43ft, 1930-built American motor yacht, restored and brought back to fighting form. FINDING ENDURANCE The wreck of the Endurance has lit up the media like none other. Here is the story of how Shackleton’s ship was found in the frozen Antarctic Ocean. PLUS… The traditional Broads yacht built in GRP for sale or charter; our guide to traditional deck gear and more; preview of the Fife Regatta in June; events guide to the 2022 season; and more JUNE 2022 On sale Friday 13 May,…

On 29 June 1938, a new yacht was launched at Camper & Nicholsons’ Southampton yard. Panda was the ninth schooner built by the company since World War One but, whereas most of the others were designed in-house by Charles E Nicholson, this was the second to come from the board of Alfred Mylne, and for the same owner: Captain J Duckworth Hodgson. Her hull was constructed from Colvilles Ducol high-tensile steel “which, owing to its noncorrosive qualities is very suitable for yacht building,” reported The Yachtsman. She had two six-cylinder 100hp AEC diesel engines, one of which had a McAllister clutch to drive a 13KW dynamo which provided power to the windlass, refrigerators and various pumps. Although Mylne initially drew a sail plan with gaff rigs on both masts, before…

Entries have opened for Cowes Classics Week 2022, with racing from 27 June to 1 July. The regatta – billed as the “world’s biggest classic yacht regatta of its kind” – takes place right after the Island Sailing Club’s Round the Island Race, making a week afloat for yachts and smaller boats. Cowes Classics Week, run by the Royal London Yacht Club, is open to a wide range of yachts and offers multiple race courses catering both for large one-design fleets and for all-comers in handicap fleets. “Classic yachts built in wood or steel before 1975, or GRP yachts designed at least 50 years ago, are eligible,” says the club. “So too are all classic S&S-designed yachts, including Swans and S&S 34s, regardless of design date. Spirit of Tradition yachts…

In partnership with Classic Boat, National Historic Ships UK is running its popular annual photography competition for the 13th year. Following on from last year’s theme of ‘Back to the Water,’ we are looking for images that celebrate the theme of “Journeys”. How you interpret this theme is entirely up to you. You could capture the physical voyage of an operational vessel on our seas, lakes, rivers or inland waterways – a fishing boat setting off at dawn, a lazy sunny afternoon on a pleasure boat, or a lifeboat returning from a late-night call. It could be a vessel’s conservation journey; an owner or volunteer hard at work on their boat or celebrating a milestone in the long life of their craft. We’re hoping for photos showcasing a wide range…

BONHAMS When Britannia waived the rules The pert and pacey British-built Albatross sports boats, which did much to popularise waterskiing in the UK, became playthings for the rich and famous in their 1950s heyday. Aristotle Onassis owned one of the lightweight aluminium flyers, Prince Rainier of Monaco had no fewer than six at one time, and HRH Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was also a valued ‘customer,’ to the extent that when he returned his Albatross for a service, the directors of Albatross wrote to Buckingham Palace with the following proposal: “Would it be in order to sell the current boat and supply one of the latest type? There would be no expense involved.” In those less censorious days the Duke graciously accepted the free upgrade, and his 1956…

Despite a forecast that left little room for optimism, staff, students and spectators at the Boat Building Academy (BBA) were determined that the three boats built by the Class of May 2021 should at least make some contact with the water on launch day. It was entirely sensible, however, that they should all stay within the relative shelter of the harbour and that the two sailing boats shouldn’t even consider hoisting their sails. First into the water was the 14ft (4.3m) clinker motor launch whose sponsoring student is Karl Bedlow, a former insurance underwriter. Built to Paul Gartside’s design number 189, she is of clenched clinker construction with a sapele keel, oak stem and transom, steamed oak timbers, khaya planking, and oak gunwales and fit-out. With a Tohatsu 20hp outboard…

In Britain this type of wooden screw cramp disappeared from the workshop soon after the more robust and easily manufactured iron G-cramp appeared but it persisted in mainland Europe at least until World War Two. French tool makers called it simply ‘une presse’, available either ‘sans boulon’ (without bolt) or as in this example ‘avec boulon' (with bolt). You’ll appreciate that if the screw is tightened on the work with great force, leverage at corners of the open rectangular frame will cause their glued finger joints to loosen and eventually fail; hence the significance of the supporting bolt for heavier use. Since the forces generated while persuading planks around frames of a wooden hull are considerable shipyards used many more cramps with the bolt than without. Evidence of its use…

May be it’s just me, but in my personal experience I’ve found that there are few more desperate sea creatures than the delivery skipper, as virtually everyone who has ever asked me to crew on a delivery has turned out to be desperate, sectionable, certifiable, self-medicating and quite clearly unhinged. After taking these qualifications into consideration I then ask searching and pertinent questions such as “will it sink?” and “if we don’t, will we stay in nice marinas with showers and nightlife nearby?” Come to think of it, the second question makes the first one redundant, but if the answer to the second is the least bit equivocal or does not contain key words like “Saint-Tropez,” I normally turn them down flat. Anecdotally, this scientifically proves that the only sea-dwelling…

Competing in this summer’s Round Britain & Ireland Race against a fleet of cutting-edge race boats will be this 1959 Vertue. The 25ft Laurent Giles design is below the minimum length for the race and has been given a wildcard entry for the race, run by the Royal Western Yacht Club. Owner Matteo Richiardi will be sailing double-handed with a mate, having been inspired by the offshore reputation of Vertues, as told in classic books such as Humphrey Barton’s Vertue XXXV, David Lewis’ The Ship Would Not Travel Due West, and Peter Woolas’ Stelda, George and I. The Round Britain and Ireland Race starts on 29 May, open to double-handed and short-handed monohulls and multihulls of between 27ft (8.23m) and 70ft (21.34m), starting and finishing in Plymouth, Devon, with 48-hour…

An enthusiastic owner new to racing under sail and a crew of experienced sailors at their first J-Class regatta together proved a winning combination as Ranger clinched the Saint Barth’s Bucket J-Class title in March. Under America’s Cup-winning skipper Ed Baird, Ranger finished one point clear of Hanuman and Velsheda after four races at the French Caribbean island’s annual superyacht regatta. Ranger was built of steel in Denmark from 2002-3 as the first of the ‘replica’ Js, constructed to the original Starling Burgess and Olin Stephens lines of Harold Vanderbilt’s ‘Super J’ which won the 1937 America’s Cup 4-0 against Endeavour 2. At 28.6m Ranger is the longest on the waterline of the trio racing at St Barths, compared to 27.7m for Velsheda and 26.8m for Hanuman, and even after…

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Like Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, the first-series Colombo were in fact four: four extreme and overpowering mounts destined for competition more than for Gran Turismo. The creation of these exceptional runabouts from 1960 owed nothing to chance and everything to local circumstance. At the time, the Centomiglia del Lario endurance race founded in Como in 1949 triggered the creation of new projects and year after year stimulated the spirit of competition over the region. It last took place in 2020 despite the pandemic, proving that in Italy at least, speedboat racing is still alive and in rude health. Since the beginning, the event has fuelled the ambitions of gentleman drivers, often major industrialists or local luminaries with the money to have new boats capable of winning built nearly every…

The Acorn to Arabella boatbuilding project has announced that they will launch Arabella in 2023, with an exact date and location coming soon. The last open house will be 7-8 May 2022, and installation of the whiskey plank will be live-streamed via YouTube on 28 May this year. The builder, Steve Denette, is the fifth generation of his family to live at Pinetum Farm in Granby, Massachusetts, where he is building Arabella and where he harvested, dried, and milled a lion’s share of the wood used in her construction. He climbed the maple that now makes his galley counter backsplash, and his great-grandfather planted the spruce that has now become the lumber for her main mast. The popular YouTube channel, Acorn to Arabella, releases weekly videos documenting the project. Recent…

Edited by Steffan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk Work continues apace at the yards of Isle Ewe boats on the scarcely populated Isle of Ewe, and Johnson & Loftus Boatbuilders in nearly Ullapool on the mainland. On the island, Alasdair Grant and team are well on with the rebuild of the Loch Fyne skiff Clan Gordon (bigger photo above), with the boat fully re-framed, and planking progressing in native larch and oak, milled at the sawmill shared by the two yards. They are also mid-build with a 17ft (5.2m) carvel-planked, inboard motor launch. Meanwhile in Ullapool, Johnson & Loftus are busy with the rebuild of the Zulu St Vincent (inset photo above). The hull has been reframed with home-milled Scottish oak and the stem and sternpost have…

The establishment of The Scottish Fisheries Museum in 1969 was an important first step to representing the fishing history of Scotland. Fishing has served an important role in the economy of Scotland and UK, with exports to many European markets at a time when the fleets were primarily engaged in fishing for the ‘silver darling’ herring. The museum’s enlightened approach took on the difficult task of creating a floating section and did not just relegate the past to static exhibits. This approach was supported by full engagement with the local community to conserve and explore the physical methodology of fishing, its people and ancillary industries. This was reflected very soon after the establishment of the museum by a desire to have boats in a seagoing condition; a further impetus to…