Innehållsförteckning för September 2022 från Classic Boat

UKHO to withdraw paper charts There was widespread dismay from UK sailors as the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) announced it would be stopping paper chart production by 2026. The “sunsetting” process will begin this year, starting with larger scale charts. The plans affect the UKHO’s portfolio of Admiralty Standard Nautical Charts (SNCs) and Thematic Charts “in response to more marine, naval and leisure users primarily using digital products and services for navigation”. The UKHO said its digital charts could be updated “in near real-time, greatly enhancing safety of life at sea (SOLAS)”. “Today’s world is unrecognisable to the one that existed in 1795, when our organisation was founded. Back then, mariners navigated by the stars using a magnetic compass and surveying with a leaded line marked in fathoms. They could…

THINNEST WATERPROOF WATCH The Spence 300 Automatic from Spinnaker Watches is the “thinnest dive watch on the market”, just 11mm thick, yet boasting more than 300m of water resistance. Its “barely felt slimness and stealth” will come in handy on a yacht or dinghy where snags are bad news. £500 spinnaker-watches.com RECYCLED SUNGLASSES SunGod’s new 8KO Infinite Lenses feature “50% recycled materials for the very first time”, continuing “to push the boundaries of sustainable innovation in the eyewear industry”. Plus the company’s limited edition Sierra model, pictured, has been designed in collaboration with the Great Britain SailGP team, led by Sir Ben Ainslie with Hannah Mills, pictured, also on the team. From £85 ungod.co YETI ROADIE COOLBOX With northern hemisphere classic sailors taking a beating under the highest temperatures in…

So often when researching the stories of famous naval architects, family shipyards or sailors, we spend our time listing what they did, where and when. Most times you can only guess what people felt about their life’s achievements. Frank Morgan Giles, of course, was remarkable in the three fields of design, construction and competition. He is also remarkable because his professional influence extended from first setting up his own business around the turn of the last century, until his death in 1964. He was driving his ideas forward at a Morgan Giles board meeting only seven weeks before he died. In some senses Frank’s biography can be divided into two parts: the years he shared with his wife Ivy, and the cold decades after she died so suddenly and unexpectedly,…

CUILAUN Late McGruer minter We called our February issue cover yacht, the 1968-built Rinamara, the ‘last McGruer’, referring to the long career of her designer, James McGruer. Luckily, the tradition of designing and building commodious, fast wooden seagoing yachts passed straight to son George, who drew the 55ft (16.8m) bermudan ketch Cuilaun in 1970 for a repeat customer based in Dublin Bay. Two near-sisterships followed in the early 70s – Ceresio (now Talisker Mhor) and Glory B IV, now known as Border Legend. Cuilaun appeared on our cover in the July issue. “Since Cuilaun was launched at Gareloch in 1970, her original Irish owners have cared for her every need, and in return she has carried them and their friends speedily, comfortably, safely and elegantly over deep and blue water…

Many the man in question a restoration article starts with a brief history of the boat before going on to describe the job, making reference in passing to the builder. Sometimes, though, is as interesting as his boat, so before taking readers through the life and changing times of Uandi, I’m going to introduce you to Alastair Garland. Alastair and I first crossed tacks around 1990 when the foreman of the Elephant Boatyard at Bursledon sent him along to caulk my old pilot cutter. This should have been a daunting task with 50ft of planking, as he observed, on both sides. The seams were 80 years from new and had been around the block more than once, but Alastair had her ‘clattered up tight’ in short order. Learning that he’s…

For a boat to survive for a century or more, a slice of luck is needed, or more likely several slices: of equal importance are the avoidance of catastrophic disasters, and the owners who have loved her enough to spend the necessary time, money and energy at crucial times. Angele Aline has benefited from her share of the latter but has come perilously close to the former – several times. While she was being built by Société de Construction Navale on the beach in Fécamp, she was called Jean but when she was launched in November 1921 she was christened Jules Talleux, the same name as her first owner, whose family already had a fleet of fishing boats in Gravelines. She was a Dundee, the name given to French ketch-rigged…

The shock! The sudden acceptance of a fact you’d been aware of but tried to hide for years, nearly 30 in my case. Your boat, my boat, Sally, born in 1937, fashioned by the finest shipwrights, designed by a master was not, in fact, not… perfect. Until that moment (I can date it precisely to midday on 24 May) and place, Johnson & Loftus’ yard on the shores of Loch Broom when, standing back to admire my undercoat, crouching low to inspect my waterline (it’s taken years to get it right, hopefully 28th time lucky) I noticed that Sally was not, as I said, whisper it low, perfect. The bold sheerline I had admired so much, and the little tippy-up bit at the stern, from a low perspective formed a…

The much anticipated Fife Regatta took place in Scotland from 10-17 June. The fifth edition of the event, first seen in 1998, saw the largest ever gathering of Fife yachts returning to their birthplace on the Clyde. A total of 280 participants, 23 yachts varying in size from 19-125ft (5.8-38.1m) and racing in three classes in the Largs Channel, Rothesay, the Kyles of Bute and Loch Fyne. The weather was unashamedly Scottish with the first day lost due to high winds with 25 knots off Great Cumbrae but from then on there was exciting racing for the next five days in everything from bright sunshine to fog and drizzle. As ever, the participating boats are invited to the event. The oldest on show was Ayrshire Lass (1887), designed by the…

Milan, September 12, 1946. After three editions cancelled because of the world war, the crowd gathered for the opening of the Fiera Campionaria, the city’s annual exhibition of everything new and exciting. Milan still bore the painful scars of bombs, but the time was ripe for reconstruction and a future defined by progress. In the vast ‘Transport and Locomotion’ pavilion, the nautical area welcomed a handful of exhibitors determined to make people forget the difficult times. Among them, however, some were at the heart of the war effort not so long ago. Cabi-Cattaneo, Alfa Romeo, Baglietto or Cranchi produced the famous MTM (Motoscafi di Turismo Modificati) single-seater speedboats loaded with 300kg of explosives launched against enemy ships. The pilot, a combat swimmer, would jump from his seat before impact. Between…

Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk SWEDEN Queen of the Baltic re-launched The extraordinary 12-M yacht Svanevit (S2) is undergoing a total rebuild in Sweden. She was built in 1930 at August Plym’s famous yard, Neglingevarvet in Saltsjobaden outside the Swedish capital, Stockholm, to a design by Gustaf Estlander. She was commissioned by the Swedish publicist Erik Akerlund for the Royal Swedish YC’s centennial celebrations, which Uffa Fox, among others, sailed over to attend. Her famous interior “a decidedly odd one for a racing yacht” according to the foundation that owns the boat today, was commissioned to showcase the high standards of Swedish crafts to the world. She moved to England in the 1930s where she was owned by a Swedish sailor for 20 years. After another Swedish owner – her third – she…

WEE BRITANNIA The 1904-built Elrhuna, the oldest surviving Robertson-built boat and designed by Alexander Robertson himself, is thought to be a scaled-down version of GL Watson’s famous masterpiece. A CENTURY OF RIVA The late Carlo Riva was behind what many would say are the most beautiful motorboats of all time. SMALL BOAT BUYER’S GUIDE As part of our irregular series, we’re looking at sailing yachts up to 32ft, a size that will take a family of four anywhere. PLUS… We test the popular water-ballasted BayCruiser 23; action from the Vela Puig in Barcelona; the latest books; Morgan Giles Part Two; Jonathan Greenwood in the Mediterranean OCTOBER 2022 On sale Friday 9 September 2022. Or why not subscribe? 30 YEARS AGO September 1992, CB51 “It’s fair to say that even those…

20th year Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, British Classic Week attracted 50 classic sailing and motor yachts for a week of sailing, cruising, and socialising in the Solent in July. Yachts ranged from the 64ft 4in (19.6m) Spirit 65 modern classic Chloe Giselle to the 25ft 3in (7.7m) folkboat Folkdance, sailed by a double-handed crew. Winner of Class 4 and the regatta overall, Jonathan Dyke (owner of Cereste), commented: “It was a truly memorable week of great sailing and dockside parties. As always at British Classic Week, our fellow yachts were extremely well sailed, and we had some tough competition. We’ll be back next year!” The sailing fleet competed in a six-race series overseen by the Royal Yacht Squadron: three round-the-cans races, two passage races and a female-helmed inshore…

SOTHEBY’S/CHRISTIE’S Victory model tops £600K Nelson scored another victory, this time in the saleroom, when a full-hull model of HMS Victory sold for £630,000, the second highest price ever paid for a ship model at auction. The 56in-long (142cm) model (top right) constructed during Victory’s “large repair” between 1800 and 1803, during which Britain was briefly at peace with France, is the only known model of Admiral Nelson’s flagship from this period and bears witness to the very short period when Victory was in her prime Trafalgar state. The Victory of today is substantially different. Key 1800-1803 updates shown on the 1:48 scale model include the new smaller carved figurehead of two cherubs supporting a royal standard. The open stern galleries were also closed in and glazed, with restrained painted…

We ran up the English Channel ploughing a foam path through iridescent green seas, our swelling white sails rolling past purple, mauve and brown-stained chalk cliffs, under grey and black clouds. Such attention to colour had become second nature to me having spent the past three days with marine artist Martyn Mackrill aboard his 1910-built gaff cutter Nightfall. The Royal Yacht Squadron’s Honorary Painter was on passage to the East Coast from his pontoon berth in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, to seek out new hues in the waters and big skies of East Anglia which his boat was designed for. Martyn is also Honorary Painter for the Royal Thames Yacht Club and so felt it was high time to come round to the London River. Originally built on the Norfolk…

Abbey Molyneux stepped into the boat restoration trade just 18 months ago, in March 2021. At just 30 years old, Abbey accepted a commission to renovate Queen of Light, a dilapidated 90-year-old Broads luxury hire boat owned by Luke Paterson – a Norfolk farmer. She rebuilt the boat and launched it in time for Henley Traditional Boat Show. She then rented a barn from Luke and set up her own yard – Abbey Boat Builder. There have been 12 completed projects since Abbey’s arrival, and the yard has never had fewer than two boats in at a time. Her only promotion has been through social media posts of her work but she’s now looking at taking on help and extending her premises. Working alone and being 5ft tall and slightly…

SHEET METAL SAW When the need to cut metal arises it helps to be using the right tool. Nipping ends from copper boat nails is a case in point, where you may get by with carpenters’ pincers if their jaws are sharp but how much easier the job is with purpose-designed end-cutters. For larger diameters and harder metals a hacksaw is the tool of choice. Its tiny wave-set teeth and narrow blade tensioned in a frame gnaw neatly – albeit slowly – through brass, aluminium or steel bar. Sawing sheet metal, however, poses its own problems. Even over short distances the narrow hacksaw blade is prone to wander, meanwhile the frame severely limits the depth of cutting. For thin and malleable sheet metal, tin snips may be effective, although they’re…