Innehållsförteckning för January 2016 från Classic Boat

NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA Keeping it in the family Katie Belle Cameron’s family ran the Cameron Shipyard in Nova Scotia for a generation writes Chris Museler. At 100, she held her great grandson Evan in her arms and more than 20 years later, an 80ft (24.4m) schooner was launched last year in her name to carry on the family’s shipbuilding legacy. “This is a dream that turned into a full-time job,” said Evan Densmore who built Katie Belle with his cousin Nick Densmore over three years in their hometown of Stewiacke, Nova Scotia. “I built a model with my grandfather when I was 13. We did some informal apprenticeships and now we are stepping the masts.” Densmore said his father and grandfather conceived of the idea to finally build the boat…

RIVA MODEL Ariston is one of many models available from Boatique in Henley-on-Thames. The Riva models are crafted from solid mahogany, they are given lashings of varnish and boast impressive attention to detail. Also available are the Aquarama and Super Aquarama in either 1:10 or 1:15. This 1:10 model of the Super Ariston comes with a certificate in a Riva branded box. £899 Tel: 01491 410840. boatique.co.uk MAST LIGHT These new bronze mast lights from Davey & Co are designed for boat use but are so aesthetically pleasing that customers have been fitting them around their homes. Apart from their looks, their major appeal is that they are good for wiring direct to 110v/220v AC, as well as for 12v/24v dc: You can choose from a range of LED lamps,…

Neil ‘Jaffa’ Harrison, sales manager, Doyle Sails Europe: “Bojar is quite unusual in her rig, having a fractional 3/4 headstay, but full-width masthead shrouds and a topmast forestay, on a very tapered mast. This limits the size of her foresail. It was obvious the current headsail was under-sized and lacked the punch needed. We produced a new No 1, as big as could fit in, the mould shape developed from a World Champion Etchell jib! We replaced the mainsail with a lighter-weight option, flatter than the previous sail so it could be sheeted on harder without stalling. The inventory was completed with two more headsails covering the racing wind range of 0-35 knots. All the upwind sails were manufactured utilising our Stratis membranes, which boast reduced weight, greater longevity and…

Here’s a great-looking gaff cutter that no one’s ever heard of. That’s quite surprising given that she’s from the Van de Stadt design house in the Netherlands. She’s design No641, and the first (and so far only) one, built in wood/epoxy a few years ago for superyacht project manager Jos Scholten (Athos, Windrose of Amsterdam, Mirabella V et al). The idea was for a light, fast, shallow-draught yacht that would be sufficiently seaworthy for North Sea crossings, and with the look of the old world above decks. Influences here were Harrison Butler, William Atkins and the Falmouth Quay Punts. Below the waterline, she’s of moderately modern shape, dishy with a lead-bulb keel, with a more traditional transom-hung rudder. The rig is simple, but again aided by modern thinking: the gaff…

GOSPORT, SOLENT Biggest sail floor in the world? North Sails has cut the ribbon on a new loft, with what the company believes to be the largest, raised sailmaking floor in the world, at 1,950m2 (21,000sq ft) reports Toby Heppell. The new loft is located in Gosport, Hampshire, and will be used to make sails for a range of boats from dinghies to super yachts, and in a variety of materials. The loft will cut its own Dacron and other cloths alongside more modern laminates. The facility includes a specially designed, moving sewing machine pod. There is also a separate section of the facility given over to maintenance and repair. EAST COAST, ENGLAND Save one of the first 8-M yachts Dr William Collier of GL Watson contacted us with a…

In September 2013, the owner of the 131ft (40m) ketch Antares – a British businessman and an accomplished sailor – was in Port Andrax, Mallorca with Iain Cook, his captain of four years. Antares was part of his small fleet of boats which didn’t, then, include anything that could be described as “classic”, but that was about to change. “We saw this old boat called Tern in the water looking very sorry for herself,” Iain told me. “She was down in the stern and the varnish was peeling off her, but my boss showed an immediate interest when he saw that she had a ‘Se Vende’ (for sale) sign hanging from the boom.” After getting in touch with Tern’s owner, Jon Baigent, who said she was a William Fife III…

Although Dublin Bay yachtsmen were not generally impressed by the appearance of Huff,” wrote an Irish Times correspondent in September 1951, “they are bound to admit that she moves, on occasion, faster than anything else in the bay.” The boat in question, which had been launched just three months earlier, was Huff of Arklow, a Flying Thirty designed by Uffa Fox and built by John Tyrrell & Sons of Arklow for Douglas Heard who was a member, and future commodore, of Dublin Bay’s Royal St George Yacht Club. And it is certainly true that her appearance was (and still is) somewhat unusual, and that she was (and still is) fast. Huff was by no means the first boat Uffa designed for Heard. Between the wars he had produced four International…

What is a classic sail? There are classic yacht owners who fly tanned sails, there are a few using cotton, there are those who use synthetic materials that barely lose their shape over a season of racing. The world of classic sailmaking encompasses a vast range of skills and materials, with hand-stitched leather cringles at one end and 3-D computer-modelling at the other. Is a classic still a classic when fitted with the most modern sails? Ask the question to Manuel Lastra of North Sails and he doesn’t hesitate: “Absolutely! The hull and rigging are what determine whether a boat is classic or not. Sails just provide the driven force.” The purists might disagree but the existence of dedicated classic sail lofts at North and other big sailmakers is testament…

It had been a long voyage from Antigua, with just a couple of short stops, but as we saw the first outlines of the Greenlandic coast appearing in the early morning light, we all felt something special, and no, it was not just the cold. I am still not sure how it happened, but I found myself working as skipper of the 95ft (29m) Baglietto ketch Sincerity (1929). It was a small step up in size and responsibility from my own boat, the 25ft Folkboat Lorema, which I sailed from the UK to Antigua last year (CB325). To say I felt out of my depth was an understatement. However, our motley crew (from Antigua, France, Australia, Germany, Canada, the UK and Norway) had managed to sail Sincerity 3,000 miles north…

One of the controversies when restoring or building wooden boats is whether or not to fi t a ply subdeck. Many boatbuilders are against them because when rain penetrates the deck – and it usually does – it gets between the planks and the ply, and spreads, causing havoc. It’s also hard to track down the offending leak. Many owners want them because they are watertight – until they fail. Boatyard Chantier du Guip’s position is simple: they don’t recommend them. There was no confl ict on this one, as the owner of Morwenna, Stéphane Monnier, was after historical accuracy, so ply was out. The original deck was shot to bits, and had to be replaced. Everything was carefully measured and the new deck, in thick, quarter-sawn teak for dimensional…

Foiling catamarans flying silently above the blue waters of Bermuda. America’s Cup. Pah! Sally touched 8.7 knots on passage back from Gareloch last year, under leaden skies, over grey seas. Now that’s what I call an adrenaline rush. She’s 79, a prototype Vertue, having been built in 1937, the year the Hurricane came into service, the RAF’s first monoplane fighter, and a year after they rolled out the Spitfire. There was something about those late 1930s that suggests the essence of genius was on the loose. Frank Whittle fired up the first jet engine while one Chester F Carlson invented the photocopier. A year or so previously, for these things all have gestation periods, Robert Watson Watt patented radar (coincidentally with the first canned beer and Du Pont’s nylon). Sally…

LYNX 16 Catboats and more Arey’s Pond Boatyard, which recently celebrated its 60th year, has an active sales division selling its own boats and some boats by other builders. We found a 1999, GRP-hulled 16ft 6in (5m), Lynx 16 catboat, one of Arey’s Pond’s own. Looking pretty tidy, she had a cuddy cabin to sleep two and a beamy cockpit for four, with a ton of extras and including an outboard motor, for just US$16,000 (c£10,500). Also on the books was a 1976 (wooden, of course) Beetle Cat for $3,900 (c£2,500) and a lovely 12ft (3.7m) Herreshoff Columbia dinghy, newly built in wood in 2009 for $3,995 (£2,600). We also spotted Marshall catboats and a Wianno Senior. A nice collection of small, affordable, classic American yachts, dayboats and dinghies. Tel:…

For devotees of old British tools, Sheffield is the holy city and the bible is a Buck & Hickman catalogue of around 50 years ago. The 1,200-plus pages of this old boatyard copy list everything from brass screws to band saws, all made in the UK, underlining the massive migration in manufacturing which has occurred within just two generations. The experience of buying tools has also changed. Online we can admire the air-brushed pixels of every tool for sale, scroll through reviews, then have our purchase couriered to the door. But it remains a pleasure, of a winter’s evening, to pore over the pages of a good tool catalogue, comparing spec and prices, making a list of the perfect kit. Of course, so many of today’s knock-off tools emerge from…

When this centenarian smoothing plane left Stewart Spiers’ small premises in River Terrace, Ayr, it was the embodiment of excellence – and it remains so today. Notwithstanding the many developments in metallurgy, design and manufacturing of the intervening years, when a vintage infill smoother is well fettled it’ll out-perform the best of today’s mass-produced tools. Spiers was a time-served cabinet maker before he started making planes; evidently he well knew what craftsmen required. By today’s standards an inordinate amount of hand work went into making this type of plane. The body was formed of three steel plates joined by dovetails which skilled finishing with ball pein hammer and file made almost invisible to the naked eye. Exotic hardwood infills were ‘overstuffed’, that is fitted to lie flush with the metal…

“Stone me,” said Dave the Deckie last Friday. “Look at him.” A man was walking down the quay towards the boat. He was wearing a green coat, and paused to say good morning to Cathy Squint. “His name is Cuthbert,” I said. “He found us on handfi nder.com.” The man in green stepped aboard, left foot fi rst. He swung a bag off his back and opened it. It was full of food. “Killed a pig last week,” he said. “So sausages. Fox got the chickens, so I brought a rabbit or two instead. And there’s some salmon in there somewhere. Bananas for afters. Weird thing, you know,” he said, “but I saw quite a lot of nuns on the way here. One of them had a cat on a…