MARCH 2021 £4.95 US$10.

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T H E W O R L D’ S M O S T B E A U T I F U L B O A T S

DOUBLE EXCLUSIVE
Robin Knox-

WINNER Johnston’s
secret archive

Herreshoff’s BROADS

Scud missile
CRUISER
From hire
boat to
racing yacht

ROWING BOATS
Buyer’s guide
THE LIFEBOAT
Development of the
all-weather saviour
www.classicboat.co.uk
CHICHESTER TO THE BROADS A POST-WAR EPIC CRUISE LIGHTING UP IN STYLE
Coastal cruise Small boat, big sea Using oil lamps
A CL A SSIC E N V I RON M E N T FOR T R A DI T ION A L BOATS

Birdham Pool is the oldest marina in the UK and our haven for classic and To complete the experience, we have
traditional boats. Even its location, just four miles from the historic county town five-star customer facilities, café and
of Chichester, nestled in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, reflects the great transport links complementing
pace and elegance of a bygone age. the enviable one-hour access to the
Solent and sheltered inland location.
S T O R A G E , R E PA I R A N D M A I N T E N A N C E
Birdham is owned by Castle Marinas, a
Looking after traditional boats is what and traditional skills offered by our group of 11 coastal and inland marinas
we’re exceptionally good at. Our 30 tenant artisans means we’re geared each with its own unique character. We
tonne hoist and transport, dry storage for storage, repair and maintenance are, and always will be large enough to
ashore and a boat yard of modern of all watercraft. cope yet small enough to care.
STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES, EDITOR

STRANGE DAYS, THEY SAY

Yachts designed by Albert Strange are, in their own modest way, as desirable as those by the
greatest names like Fife and Herreshoff. If you want a small sailing yacht and value aesthetics and
rarity over all else, any of his little canoe-sterned yawls of the early 20th century would be at the top
of your list. Albert Strange graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art and went on to become the founding principal of the
Scarborough School of Art. It would be impossible for someone so steeped in beauty to design an ugly boat – and he never did. When
we featured Mist in a 2006 issue, pictured tipped into a barge like an old mattress in a skip, a saviour came forward, in the shape of
John Kresja, who restored her. We published a plea for Tally Ho a few years after that, and a young Leo Goolden stepped forward
and is presently in the midst of the most talked-about yacht restoration in the world. Now, we present Sheila II, more elegant, more
typically Strange than either. I wonder: is anyone brave enough to take on Sheila and make it a Strange save hat trick?
COVER PHOTO: ©MARCO VILLANTI/JRTPHOTO

ISSUE No 393

classicboat.co.uk
Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place,
CONTENTS
COVER STORY
4 . ON THE DOUBLE
London, SW3 3TQ
EDITORIAL
Editor Steffan Meyric Hughes
+44 (0)203 943 9256
The Herreshoff yacht Scud, newly
steffan@classicboat.co.uk restored and class winner at Cannes
Senior Art Editor Peter Smith
+44 (0)203 943 9246 and Saint-Tropez in 2020
peter.smith@classicboat.co.uk
Sub Editor Bruce Williams COVER STORY
18 . LIFTING LID CLASSIC
News & Digital Editor Chris Rosamond
Group Editor Rob Peake
Publisher Simon Temlett
Publishing Consultant Martin Nott Built for the hire trade, loved as a
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yacht, fresh from a third restoration,
Andrew Mackenzie +44 (0)207 349 3779
andrew.mackenzie@chelseamagazines.com
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Meet the tugboat-racing, boat-collecting
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36 . BOOKS
MD Create Steve Ross

Our round-up of the latest books

Subscription
and back issues 38 . SAVE A STRANGE
Tel: +44 (0)1858 438 442 Lovely, famous Strange yacht needs a
Annual subscription rates:
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new saviour
40 . THE ACCIDENTAL CRUISE
Email: classicboat@subscription.co.uk
Online: www.subscription.co.uk/chelsea/help

18 34
Post: Classic Boat, Subscriptions
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The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd
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ISSN 2059-9277
Follow the Classic Boat team on
52 . ROBIN KNOX-JOHNSTON
Twitter and Facebook As you’ve never seen him before, with
newly discovered lost photos
COVER STORY
58 . LIFEBOAT DEVELOPMENT
Classic Boat is part of the Chelsea Marine
Magazines family, along with our other
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The hunt for speed in saving lives at sea,
from surfboats to all-weather heros 46 HOW TO
CHOOSE A
ROWING BOAT 52 UNSEEN PHOTOS
OF ROB IN
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12 . TELL TALES 66 . AFFORDABLE 71 . YARD NEWS

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26 . SALEROOM CLASSICS 77 . TRAD TOOL
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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 3

SCUD
MISSILE
Herreshoff’s newly-restored Bar Harbor 31
Scud lit up the classic racing scene in the
Med in 2020 with a double win at
Cannes and Saint-Tropez

WORDS STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES

PHOTOGRAPHS JAMES ROBINSON TALYOR
SCUD
I
n the late summer and early autumn of 2020, the
clouds briefly parted between lockdowns and
the world stepped outside for a short spell of
freedom. Throughout spring and summer,
boatbuilding and restoration work had continued
around the world behind closed doors at a steady,
uninterrupted pace, but sailing had been put on hold.
Amid a series of ever more affirmative press releases
(“We will go ahead!”) from the biggest beano of
them all – Voiles de Saint-Tropez – a lean shape was
taking form in a shed on the Tuscan coast.
In the end, the press releases came true, and that
shape, a newly-rebuilt Bar Harbor 31 called Scud, was
ready. With the huge rig, low freeboard and menacing,
low-profile upperworks, she looked dangerous, and so
she proved to be, winning first in class at Régates
Royales in Cannes in September. Straight after that she
reprised the feat at Saint-Tropez.
But is Scud, which had only emerged a few months
earlier from her chrysalis, really the fastest classic yacht
in the Med? Or even the world? The results suggest she
was in 2020, but of course, it comes down as much as
anything to the rating given by the Comité International
de la Méditerranée (CIM); and the race crew on the day.
Those factors played to Scud’s advantage, not only in
racing, but, in the case of a good rating, her survival.
In 1902, when they were designed, the Seawanhaka
Rule to which they were optimised (which penalised
LWL length but didn’t take into account the LOD) was
“in vogue” and the “scow-like hull of the Bar Harbor
with its long overhanging bow and stern was a result,”
writes US sailing authority Maynard Bray.
The Bar Harbor 31s were in fact the last Seawnhaka
yachts to leave the Herreshoff Yard before the Universal
Class (think J Class) took over. Even with that end-of-era
provenance, Scud, in common with so many designs from
Nathanael Herreshoff, has a cleanliness and modernity of
line make her look three decades younger than her age.
Under the water, the keel starts so far aft, with the bows
so fine, and the relatively broad, typically American beam,
that the boat is halfway between her era and ours. Above
decks, the low cabin trunk and square windows are
another Herreshoff motif. The gaff rig is the only clue to
the fact that she is in fact 118 years old, launched in the
6 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
spring of 1903, along with 12 sister ships, all built
over one winter at the Herreshoff Manufacturing
Company, then with a 300-strong workforce.
So Scud is the product of, by almost any
metric, the greatest of all naval architects; not
only that, but ‘the Wizard of Bristol’ (Rhode
Island) was at the peak of his career and had,
by 1903, designed and built 169 steam vessels,
and invented, patented or improved many of the
ideas that remain central to sailing even today. In
1903, the year Scud and her sisters were built, all eyes
Above: were on another yacht leaving the yard that year: the
Scud sailing 117 fourth consecutive Herreshoff-designed America’s Cup
years ago off the defender, the unsurpassed extreme machine Reliance,
Maine coast 144ft (43.9m) on deck with 16,000sqft (1,500m2) of sail,
and so finely built that even the wooden cleats were
Below: Mozzino hollowed out to save weight. Later that year, a few
and Alberto – hundred miles down the coast, Wilbur and Orville Wright
“fine carpenters” invented powered flight. From such a man, in such an
era and place, the vigorous novelty of Scud makes sense.
HERRESHOFF’S FORGOTTEN CLASS
While some of Herreshoff’s other classes, like the New
York 30s and ‘fighting’ New York 40s, even his more
modest designs like the 12½ dayboat, have come to
define his legacy, The Bar Harbor 31 class was, until
those two regattas in the Med, something of a forgotten
class. Even at their outset they were, according to
Maynard Bray “not unusual boats for their day and, in
fact, were about the smallest sailing craft – at just over
30ft LWL – that could lay official claim to the title of
‘yacht’ and thus be eligible to race and cruise with major
yacht clubs.” The Bar Harbor 31 was not dissimilar to
the Buzzard’s Bay 30, but with a fixed keel rather than
centreboard, and 9in (23cm) longer.
The owners were wealthy east coast yachtsmen, many
with holiday homes in Bar Harbor, Maine. It was not the
most cohesive class: these are challenging boats with a
huge sail plan, and history records scattered finishes,
collisions and even two entire losses of rig. Within about
five years, all but two of the yachts had changed hands and
left Maine. In time, auxiliary engines and bermudan rigs
began to show up. Some were even naturalised into the
new Universal P Class but “never made much of a
 SCUD

Above left to right:

Oregon pine bowsprit;
heart-shaped thimble;
mast hoops; oak tiller

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 7

SCUD
©ALEX PANZERAI JRTPHOTO
showing since their ratings were so high for their speed.”
Despite the clear racing pedigree, the generous beam
and depth of the boats meant that they later made good
cruising yachts, after conversion to bermudan rig.
The second quarter of the 20th century was tough on
the class, as it was on all boats, continues Bray, citing the
depression, the 1938 ‘New England’ hurricane and then,
of course, the war. Many of the class were lost.
When Federico Nardi, manager of the Italian
boatyard Cantiere dell’Argentario, discovered Scud
around the turn of the millennium, it was a only a happy
accident caused by a trip to see anther boat (the S&S
yawl Sonny) in Maine.
“I noticed Scud in the corner of the shed and went
inside to look” he remembers. “The boat was a disaster
but I went inside and made a short video to record the
moment.” This is where the seed was sown. “I knew this
would rate well and be a very fast boat” he said. A
shaky, handheld video clip shows Federico’s excitement
at the find, and the boat does, indeed, look disastrous;
the interior is like something from a frightening dream.
At that time, Federico could not find anyone to take
on the project. Soon after that, boatbuilder Brian Pope
took Scud to England and found a Belgian buyer, who
transported Scud back to Belgium. In the autumn of
2017, Federico managed to find the boat and its new
owner in Gent. The project had been started with the
disassembly of all the interior fittings and the removal of
some of the hull planking. By the time Federico arrived
on the scene, the boat had become home to a group of
travellers. “They were very helpful in the sense that they
helped to keep the boat alive,” said Federico.
By this point, Prada CEO and yacht collector Patrizio
Bertelli had expressed interest in buying Scud and having
her restored. It seems the Belgian owner had bitten off
more than he had realised with this job, and Federico
had to gently persuade him that it could never happen.
He told the owner: “If Mr Bertelli takes on the boat, he
will get it going again and then you’ll be able to go
sailing on it as his guest. It’s the only way this boat
will ever sail again.”
The owner saw sense and sold Scud, which then
made the overland journey to Cantiere
dell’Argentario, a world-class boatyard at the foot
of the pretty hill town of Porto Santo Stefano on
Italy’s Tuscan coast. The yard specialises in the sort
of glamorous yachts that go on to become well-
8 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
©ALEX PANZERAI JRTPHOTO
Above left: known in Mediterranean regattas. Past restorations
Three Herreshoff include the Charles Sibbick fin-keeler Bona Fide, the
yachts together famous S&S classics Dorade, Stormy Wheather, Nyala
at Cannes and others; and the Herreshoff New York 30 Linnet.
From floating on a barge on a Belgian canal, the boat
Above right: now found herself in safe hands, and with a fresh timber
Racing in the delivery from John Lammerts van Bueren at Touchwood
Med, 2020 BV, things were progressing nicely.
Enter one of the project’s great assets, Kurt Hasselbach
at MIT, Herreshoff’s alma mater and a repository of his
design work. “He gave us a lot of help, and all the
drawings we needed,” said Federico.
Herreshoff, perhaps surprisingly for a designer of
such technical marvel, was a half-modeller rather than a
draughtsman, and would rely on his boatbuilders to take
a table of offsets from his models to make that three-
dimensional dream into a two-dimensional reality on the
loft floor. Unless you are holding the Wizard’s half-model
in your hand, any drawing that you see will probably be
at least once removed from his primal intention. Enter a
young naval architecture graduate of naval architecture,
Irene Focarile. “Young girl, very clever” said Federico.
“So I gave her Herreshoff’s old notebook, containing the
offsets for 46 sections, all with amendments and said ‘go
for it’.” Two months later, she returned with Scud in
two-dimensional form, of vital importance before the
project could begin in earnest, given how much her
shape had deteriorated over the years.
Many of Herreshoff’s sailing yachts have kept their
shape relatively well over the years. This is a legacy of the
way they were built – ‘engineered’, some might say.
Herreshoff yachts were commonly planked in two layers
of carvel with the seams offset to create a stiff, waterproof
shell; and with an internal skeleton of bronze diagonal
Below: As found in ‘strapping’. Herreshoff specified four bronze straps on
a shed in Maine each side of the Bar Harbor 31s, each one connecting the
hull to the keel to augment the keelbolts’s holding
strength, and mortised into the fabric of the interior. But
after 118 years, even Scud had succumbed to the
slow gravitational pull of age.
The hull was rerebuilt: the new keel and
steam-bent timbers are in white oak. The two
planking layers are in white Atlantic cedar, 5/8in
(16mm) for the outer layer and 1/2in (13mm)
for the inner. Deck beams and bilge stringers are
in Oregon pine. The new deck is 1 1/8in (29mm)
yellow cedar. Inside, it’s a different story.
 C/O FEDERICO NARDI
MIT

Top: Interior of Scud looking forward. Above left: Old drawings and, right, a CAD render

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 9

SCUD
“Fortunately we saved most of the original interior in
white pine, renewing some of the missing parts in the
same timber and painted the finish white; and the
beautiful hanging knees in varnished hackmatack are off
the original boat,” explained Federico. All spars are in
Sitka spruce varnished with Epifanes mono-component
coating. The topsides are in tough, two-pack Awlgrip.
As with so many other big rebuilds it would have
been cheaper to build new. “It takes much longer to
build a boat on top of an existing one!” says Federico.
Given her age (118), Scud was originally engineless,
meaning the new Yanmar diesel could go anywhere in
the boat. The team chose the centre, under the saloon
table. “It gives the best weight distribution,” says
Federico. Traditional wisdom has rejected this advantage
against the drawback of noise and vibration in the
accommodation, but smaller, quieter engines are
beginning to swing the balance of the argument. And
Scud, although she appears in these photographs before
interior finishing, now has a comfortable interior with
standing headroom, a private heads and small galley.
Metal fabricator Jim Reineck & Son produced all the
hardware “with the sole exception of the round,
forward-facing cabin windows that for some reason
were not stolen from her,” said Jim. This was done using
the same drawings from MIT sourced by Kurt. It’s a long
list that includes all the blocks, deck hardware including
the cleats, flange eyes, the mainsheet traveller, main
boom gooseneck, headsail fairleads, bow and quarter
chocks. There was also a new stainless steel main shaft
for the original anchor capstan, all rudder hardware
10 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
Clockwise from including the rudder stock and deck bearing, the tiller
top left: socket and the rudder bearing straps on the rudder and
Piero and his deadwood. And finally, there was the spar hardware
plane; the ceiling including the mast spreaders, the mast and boom flange
going in; eyes, the martingale spike and bowsprit end fitting. “I
hackmatack am probably forgetting something though,” he added.
hanging knees; All the parts that would originally have been wrought
offering up a iron, like spreaders and the martingale, were redesigned
plank in bronze, and the blocks run on ball-bearings, Reineck’s
USP that translates into less friction and more speed.
After Guido Cavallazzi of North Sails had made the
new sails, Scud was relaunched in March 2020 into the
SCUD
silence of a pandemic. By Régates Royales in September,
LOA she was ready with a crack crew of Olympians and other
49ft top sailors, along with a good rating from CIM, which
(15m) values originality; and Scud’s broad beam and modern
underbody are as designed. The Bar Harbor 31 still
LWL sounds as terrifying as those wealthy Maine holidaymakers
30ft 9in found a century ago. “With no winches, she’s really above
(9.4m) the limit of manual handling,” says Federico. “The big
genoa creates a terrific strain. And we fly an authentic,
BEAM poled-out spinnaker, for which you get a two per cent
10ft 5in handicap advantage. It’s worth it... but you really earn it.
(3.2m) It’s hard, and you need good crew to handle her.” Today,
Scud is one of four class survivors: Indian is indoors at
DISP the Herreshoff Museum; Desperate Lark is cruising with
10 tonnes a bermudan yawl rig. And lastly, Joker is for sale as a
project at Artisan Boatworks. There’s a gauntlet for you.
SAIL AREA The author would like to thank Federico Nardi, Alec
1,425sqft Brainerd, Jim Reineck and, indirectly, Maynard Bray for
(132.4m2) the story of Scud and history of the Bar Harbor 31 class.
ARTISAN BOATWORKS
CUSTOM YACHT BUILDERS
Tell Tales Classic Boat’s address:
Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place,
London, SW3 3TQ
cb@classicboat.co.uk
Follow the Classic Boat team
on Twitter and Facebook

DEVON

Sharing traditional skills

Newly launched Cremyll Maritime Training aims to create a community
of people learning and sharing the skills of traditional boatbuilding and
seamanship.
Based at Cremyll in Devon, the project is part of a wider series of
initiatives driven by Dominic and Barbara Bridgman and their fellow
directors Robert Webster, Simon de Groot and Debbie Risbourough.
The CIC, or Community Interest Company, was formed in 2016 to
save the Tamar sailing barge Lynher from destruction.
“Our objective is simple: to introduce more and a wider range of
people to learning the skills required to preserve our maritime heritage,"
said a spokesman.
Thanks to the Earl of Edgcumbe they have secured the Gymnasium,
built as a training centre by the Royal Navy at Cremyll in 1899, as a base
for their range of vocational courses in traditional seamanship and
boatbuilding, environmental initiatives and
more subjects. “Our objective is simple: to
“At Cremyll we have the opportunity to
convey our passion for the local maritime introduce a wider range of
heritage and be a point of contact and advice people to learning the skills
for other maritime projects. The aim is to
share experience and knowledge to foster a
required to preserve our
wider and stronger maritime community. maritime heritage"
“The Cremyll Maritime Training is a project
that builds on the strength of Lynher CIC’s experience in conserving actually flytipped," said a spokesman. "The Fair Shores project was
historic vessels and transmitting the skills required to do so to the Rame created to clean the river shores often forgotten by beach-cleaning
Peninsula’s community and beyond." groups, or particular areas of the waterways that are unaccessible
Environmental schemes form a central part of the group's work and from the shore."
one scheme is the Fair Shores Project, started in 2019, when the team The scheme's findings will be passed on to Exeter University for
started collecting litter with local families aboard Lynher when exploring their research into waterways pollution.
the river shores.
“We mapped areas of the waterways where litter collects or is cremyll-maritime.org.uk/projects/

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

America's Cup history in the making?
As we went to press, INEOS Team UK, led by
Sovereign Sceptre Sir Ben Ainslie, was set to race in the finals of
the Prada Cup – the regatta that decides
which team challenges for the America’s Cup.
Reaching the Prada Cup finals was
nothing short of a sensational comeback for
the British outfit, which lost all of its races in
NIGEL SHARP/ SCEPTRE PRESERVATION SOCIETY

a warm-up regatta in December, only to win

all of its races in the Prada Cup opening
rounds in January. If Ainslie and INEOS win
the Prada Cup in February, it would be the
first time a British team has challenged for
the America’s Cup since the David Boyd
designs Sceptre (1958) and Sovereign
(1964).

Follow all the racing on our sister

website yachtsandyachting.co.uk

12 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

 TELL TALES

Louisa
Heartwell
1902

Louisa Heartwell
set for restoration
The 38ft (11.6m) Liverpool Class RNLI lifeboat Louisa Heartwell was
built in 1902 at a cost of £982 and placed on service in September of
that year from Cromer, north Norfolk. Built by the Thames Iron Works
in London, she is non-self-righting, crewed by 14 oarsmen and rigged
with a lugsail and mizzen sail.
Originally donated to the RNLI by Miss Emily Heartwell of Upper
Holloway, London, the Louisa Heartwell launched 115 times and saved
195 lives before she was decommissioned in 1931.
She was motorised and renamed Waiora before resurfacing as a
houseboat under her original name on the Grand Union Canal, and
was moved in 1996 to Chichester Marina.
Premier Marinas bought her in 2019 and has now donated her to
RNLI/JOHN MCCALLION

the RNLI, which is overseeing her conservation and gradual

restoration to original design, with a plan to move her eventually to a
permanent berth with the historic lifeboat collection in Chatham, Kent.

For more on the history of lifeboats see our article on page 58

Cromer lifeboat, the

Louisa Heartwell, on its
carriage, with the crew
wearing kapok
lifejackets

PHOTOGRAPH
RNLI/GRAHAME FARR (LEGACY
OF MISS E HEARTWELL)

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 13

TELL TALES
OBITUARY
Bob Fisher 1935-2021
Bob Fisher, who died on 25 January aged
85, was an accomplished sailor, a
legendary sailing journalist and a
respected yachting historian. The
America’s Cup organisation called him
“an encyclopedia of sailing knowledge
and history” and said “his writings and
his books will last for generations”.
‘The Fish’ had written for Classic Boat
in recent years, but he was best known
for his writing in our sister title Yachts &
Yachting, which he joined in the 1950s.
His columns were a mainstay of the
magazine and continued in fearless and
often hilarious fashion until last year.
His writing was knowledgeable and
his opinions respected because he was a
sailor himself. In his youth Bob was a
world champion dinghy sailor; later he won the Little America’s
Cup and countless other races big and small, inshore and offshore.
Just one entry on his lengthy sailing CV is his class win in the
Round Britain Race in 1989, racing double-handed with Sir Robin
Knox-Johnston.
In recent years he was the co-owner of the 1896 West Solent
One Design Rosenn, which he brought back to its home waters
from the east coast and raced successfully with Barry Dunning.
Bob was the author of many books about yachting history,
notably his lavish and universally praised two-part history of the
America’s Cup, An Absorbing Interest. That interest stemmed from
his childhood, growing up in Brightlingsea, Essex, where the local
Vote for classic boats of the year
Don’t miss your chance to vote for the classic boats of the year in our
annual Classic Boat Awards. Voting closes at 9am GMT on 8 March.
Categories include the best restorations of the year, the best traditionally
built boats of the year, the best modern classics and the Classic Boater of
the Year award. There is also the Centenarian of the Year trophy (above),
which we organise jointly with the Gstaad Yacht Club, for boats older
than 100 years. The winners in each category are decided by public vote
only and despite thousands of votes coming from around the world, often
only a handful of votes makes the difference – don’t miss your chance to
vote for your favourites!
VOTE: awards.classicboat.co.uk
14 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
watermen wore Guernsey jumpers with the
names Shamrock and Endeavour
emblazoned across their chests.
Much later Bob would acquire the
nickname Mr America’s Cup for his
knowledge of the Cup, gained through
covering 16 consecutive Cups for Yachts &
Yachting and the Guardian newspaper.
He was known throughout sailing, hailed
on harbour quays worldwide by billionaires
and deck hands alike. Bob’s popularity was
such that more than one campaign was
started to have him awarded an MBE.
Bob was one of the first to be invited to
watch INEOS Team UK train on the Solent
in 2019. A comment from the team online
said: “The whole team are saddened to
hear of the passing of legendary British
sailing journalist Bob Fisher. A long-time supporter of the team, his
enthusiasm for the sport was immense and it will be deeply
missed. Sail on Bob.”
The America’s Cup official page posted: “Sailing and the
America’s Cup has lost Bob Fisher, a true gentleman of the sport."
A lengthy tribute online also came from Tracy Edwards, whose
Maiden crew Bob famously criticised as "a tin full of tarts". He later
became one of Maiden's and Edwards' biggest supporters, with
Edwards writing: "I am absolutely heartbroken and feel totally
bereft at the loss of such a great and true friend and a giant
among sailors and writers."
Bob leaves wife Dee and daughters Alice and Carolyne.
Dunkirk return cancelled
The postponed 80th anniversary return to Dunkirk of the Little Ships
has been cancelled due to ongoing concerns over the pandemic.
The fleet of surviving vessels from Operation Dynamo in 1940, today
known as the Dunkirk Little Ships, were due to make the
commemorative cross-Channel trip to mark the operation’s 80th
anniversary last year.
That was cancelled amid the pandemic, the first time the event
has not happened since it was started in 1960. It normally runs every
five years. Organiser, the ADLS (Association of Dunkirk Little Ships)
hoped to run the event this May instead but after detailed
consideration, the ADLS has cancelled this cruise too, in the face of
the continued pandemic. “We will be welcome to return to Dunkirk
in 2025 and we are determined
to make this an even more
memorable event in
remembering the valour of the
armed forces who had it far
worse than us in 1940,” said
ADLS commodore Simon Palmer.
There is talk of a
commemorative river cruise in
London later this year.
See adls.org.uk for updates
and further info
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TELL TALES

PARIS
Bugatti powerboats: the last
known survivor
The last known survivor of the powerboats built by Ettore Bugatti is heading for a new
owner in the US after being found in a barn, writes Henri Thibault.
Niniette III was built in 1933 by Cantieri Navali Celli, in Venice. Powered by an
8-cylinder, 1,500cc compressor engine that Ettore Bugatti sent to his friend Prince
Ruspoli, she broke two world speed records that same year, with Ruspoli at the helm.

PHOTOS HENRI THIBAULT

The boat remained in Italy and was found a few years ago by an Italian yachting
historian, stored in a barn since the end of WW2. The owner has decided to sell, but
Niniette III is still in good and original condition, as these photos of her make clear, on
show at the Retromobile Show in Paris last year.
In the early 1930s Ettore Bugatti bought the Coninck shipyard in Maisons-Lafitte, near
Paris, where he had racing boats built. Bugatti also made trains and planes.

PORTSMOUTH
No statue
for Sir Alec
Rose
Plans to have a statue of
BARRY PICKTHALL/PPL

circumnavigator Sir Alec

Rose in Portsmouth have
reportedly been given the
thumbs down by councillors. THE CHELSEA MAGAZINE
The News in Portsmouth WORD COMPANY
reported that a design for a OF THE We team up with
life-sized monument of Sir MONTH
Alec, the Southsea greengrocer who circumnavigated the globe
Project Wingman
from 1967 to 1968, were presented to Portsmouth City Council Classic Boat's publisher, The Chelsea
BOTTLE
earlier this year. The overall cost of £120,000 was deemed too high Magazine Company, is supporting Project
CHART
by the council, but there are plans afoot to incorporate a tribute to Wingman by supplying thousands of free
Sir Alec’s achievement in a bigger maritime display on the Those on which the set copies of its magazines to NHS staff.
Portsmouth seafront. Sir Alec Rose followed in the footsteps of Sir of surface currents are Project Wingman provides spaces for NHS
Francis Chichester in sailing solo around the world. exhibited, derived from staff to unwind and de-stress before, during
His yacht, Lively Lady, is a 36ft (11m) yawl designed by Fred papers found in bottles and after hospital shifts – an initiative set up
Shepherd. The 354-day solo circumnavigation of the world south which have been by aircrew who found themselves grounded
of the three great capes stopped just twice: in Melbourne, Australia, thrown overboard for during the Covid-19 epidemic. Chelsea
and at Bluff Harbour, NZ, for repairs. It was a year after that purpose, and Magazines chairman Paul Dobson said:
Chichester's famous, similar voyage on Gipsy Moth IV, while Sir washed up on the “The NHS has done a fantastic job
Robin Knox-Johnston completed his epic non-stop beach, or picked up by throughout the Covid epidemic and we are
circumnavigation in Suhaili a year later. Lively Lady was restored to other ships. pleased to be giving a tiny bit back in
mark the 50th anniversary of Sir Alec’s homecoming in 2018. The Sailor's Word Book return. We hope the doctors, nurses and
of 1867 other staff will enjoy our magazines.”

16 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

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Lockdown holiday Wrecks and racers photos Long Island commuter Top of the charts The fishing boats of Bali
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 RIVER
ROGUE
She was built as a classic, lifting-lid Broads hire yacht, and
more than a century on, she’s fresh from her third restoration
WORDS AND PICTURES RICHARD JOHNSTONE-BRYDEN
C
ommissioned by the Norfolk Broads Yachting
Company (NBYCo) during the golden age of
Broadland charter sailing holidays, Rogue’s
days as a hire yacht were brought to an early
end by the consequences of war. Her subsequent passage
through the hands of a succession of dedicated private
owners has included Government requisition, three
restorations, a prolonged spell on Cambridgeshire’s Fens
and racing success on her native Broadland waters.
Rogue’s story began with the laying of her keel in
1913 by NBYCo’s Wroxham boatyard. It is believed that
the 27ft (8.2m), gaff-rigged Rogue and her sister yacht
Vagabond were designed by the yard’s foreman, Alfred
Pegg. They were intended to be an enlarged and improved
version of a successful series of yachts built for NBYCo’s
18 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
hire fleet since 1909. The five-berth sister yachts were
completed in time for the 1914 season and could be hired
with or without the services of an attendant for an extra
£1 1s per week, while their standard weekly rates ranged
from £3 3s to £4 4s depending on the season.
The outbreak of war in August 1914 had little impact
on the Broadland hire industry, despite a number of the
professional boatmen volunteering to man the barges
supplying the troops in France. The Broads hire fleets felt
the full impact of the war when peace returned and
severe labour shortage as much as quadrupled the cost of
hiring a boat. NBYCo could not survive, and ceased
trading at the end of the 1920 season. An auction was
held from 6-8 October to sell NBYCo’s Wroxham
boatyard and its entire hire fleet, including Rogue.
 C/O DAVID SMITH

Right: Rogue on
the River Yare
in the 1930s

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 19

ROGUE
Sadly, no documentary proof survives to indicate who
bought Rogue. It is very likely that a Mr FP Smith
placed the winning bid, because he appears as her
owner within the Horning Town SC’s membership list
for 1922/23. Interestingly, Vagabond was snapped up
by Alfred Pegg, who set up a new hire fleet with his son
in Wroxham, so Vagabond continued to appear in
the annual Blakes brochure, while Rogue slipped
into the anonymity of private ownership.
Little is known about this part of Rogue’s
story until she was bought by Basil Brown
in 1935 and moved to his mooring in
Brundall.
WEEKEND CRUISING
The Brown family lived in Norwich and
spent their weekends working their way
round the Broads in Rogue during the
summer months. They planned each leg of
their cruises so that they could reach a
mooring where Rogue could be left while they
caught a bus or train home to Norwich for the
working week, before returning to Rogue on the next
Friday evening to resume their journey. These idyllic trips
were brought to an abrupt halt by the outbreak of World
War Two in September 1939. The Government
subsequently requisitioned large numbers of small craft
on the Broads as part of its anti-invasion measures and
arranged for them to be anchored on open stretches of
water to prevent the landing of enemy seaplanes. Thus,
Rogue was moved the short distance from her Brundall
moorings to Surlingham Broad where she remained at
anchor until 1943. As the threat of invasion eased, the
Browns were issued with a special permit from the flag
officer in charge of the Great Yarmouth Naval Base in
July 1943, which allowed them to retrieve Rogue and
enjoy the deserted Broadland rivers for the rest of the war.
Three years later, the Browns sold Rogue to the
recently retired naval officer Commander David
Bickmore, who had just embarked on a new career as
maths master at the Paston School in North Walsham,
Norfolk. David Smith was one of his pupils in the late
1950s and joined Rogue’s crew for three very happy
seasons competing on the Broadland regatta circuit. As
20 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
he recalls, “Commander Bickmore was always on
the hunt for crew, so when he found out about
my interest in sailing he asked if I would like to
help him race Rogue. She was kept at Martham
Boats during the winter months and one spring I
joined him for the sail back to Wroxham. Once
we had cleared Potter Heigham, he went down
below for a nap and left me on the helm.
Unfortunately, I subsequently encountered a
motor cruiser which forced me to gybe and I
ended up splitting the topsail from top to
bottom – I did hear a few expletives from
the cabin at that point! Sadly, I lost touch
with the Commander and Rogue when I
left Paston, although I continued to look
for her name within the sailing results
column in the Eastern Daily Press.”
Rogue was put up for sale after
Commander Bickmore’s death in 1972 and
caught the eye of the former boatbuilder Charles
Lovelace and his wife Sarah. They were hunting for
a classic Broads sailing yacht to cruise on the Fens, as
Charles recalls: “I simply fell for her lovely lines at first
Top: Sailmaker sight. Rogue had spent the last five years moored in a
Mike McNamara pen which was all silted up by the time we bought her.
One of the fenders had pushed itself through the hull due
Above: Martin to rot and I was amazed that she was still afloat because
celebrates the the hole was only two inches above the waterline!
restoration’s end However, this did not put us off and her bilges were
actually completely dry despite the damaged plank.
Below: Picking up When the time came for us to move her, it was as though
momentum as the she had dug her own grave and she refused to budge
wind rises when we pulled on the mooring lines. In the end, we had
to enlist the help of a motor cruiser to pull her out. We
Opposite: Martin took her across to a nearby boatyard to be lifted out of
Budgett (at the the water and on to a trailer for the journey to our
hlem) and Mike Cambridgeshire home, where I built a covered area to
McNamara take protect Rogue from the weather.”
Rogue for a Having stripped Rogue back to bare wood to
shakedown sail in establish how much rotten wood had to be replaced,
on the River Bure Charles spent the next two years restoring Rogue to her
former glory. This included replacing part of the hog, a
lot of planking in the bow, sections of the bulkheads at
the fore and aft ends of the cabin, the lino on the cabin
ROGUE
roof, recaulking the hull and installing a reconditioned
4hp Stuart Turner engine in the cockpit. On completion
of the work, Rogue was launched at Banham’s boatyard
in Cambridge and initially kept at the Cam Sailing Club
in Waterbeach. “That season, Rogue won an all-comers’
race from the outskirts of Cambridge to Denver,”
remembers Charles. “The other competitors included the
Broads yachts Harmony and Elf. We spent most of our
weekends exploring the Fens and moved her to a
mooring to the north of Ely in Littleport, where she was
kept during the summer months for the next 18 years.
Rogue was a terrific boat to sail and I could easily handle
her on my own in light airs. She could sail quite close to
the wind and was pretty fast on a reach, although the
Fenland rivers were not really wide enough to get the
best out of her. I relied on the engine to negotiate the
various locks and to ensure we got back to our moorings
on a Sunday night!”
22 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
Above: Barton The combination of running his own business and the
Regatta 2007 demands of a young family absorbed the time Charles
had previously devoted to Rogue, with inevitable
Below: The consequences in the mid-1980s. Charles laid her up ashore
controls to the until he had the time to restore her again. Around this
Torqeedo Cruise time, David Smith embarked on a quest to find out what
2.0 FP pod had happened to Rogue. Members of the River Cruiser
electric motor Class managed to put him in touch with Charles who
and fitting the said that he would be willing to part with her to the right
rudder person. David and his wife Kate went to Cambridgeshire
in July 1989. Undeterred by what they saw, the Smiths
agreed a deal that led to Rogue returning to Norfolk
three months later, to begin her second restoration.
A legacy from David’s uncle helped pay for
the main structural work to be carried out by
South River Marine in St Olaves, including the
replacement of her hog, transom and most of
her hull planking. A year later, Rogue emerged
from South River Marine’s main shed for the
13-mile road journey to a barn in Brooke.
For the next three years, David spent evenings
and weekends completing the restoration with the
help of his friends Fred Ninham, with whom he had
sailed a Javelin for many years, and retired boatbuilder
Bill Jenner, who owned the Broads yacht ‘little’ Dragonfly.
Rogue was ready to return to St Olaves for relaunching
in May 1993. Describing how the rejuvenated Rogue
handled, David said, “I sailed her single-handed on
several occasions. She is really easy to sail and very stable
in heavy winds. The leeward deck rarely went under; she
would heel to a certain point and stay there, which is
why she always excelled in strong winds.”
The Smiths enjoyed many happy years cruising
around the Broads and competing on the local regatta
circuit. The return of Rogue’s name to the sailing results
Even in light airs,
Rogue slipped
along nicely

Below: The extra

headroom
provided by the
lifting cabin roof
 2 Southford Road, Dartmouth, South Devon TQ6 9QS
Tel/Fax: (01803) 833899 – info@woodenships.co.uk – www.woodenships.co.uk

27’ Wooden motor yacht professionally built in 2014. Scandinavian style
design, clinker planked in Larch on oak frames. Vetus 42hp diesel with low
hours. Integrated Simrad electronics. Lovely accommodation with a double
berth foreard and single in the saloon. Full standing headroom throughout. Very
comfortable coastal or canal cruising boat in superb condition. Dorset £47,000
33’ Miller Fifer GHVLJQHGDQGEXLOWE\0LOOHUVRI6W0RQDQV2QHRIWKHÀQHVW
examples of a Miller Fifer to be found, owned by a professional shipwright for
many years she has a meticulous annual maintenance program. Ford 95hp diesel
with 4 blade prop gives 7 knots cruising speed. Well equipped and ready to go. A
superb example, 2020 survey report available. Devon £45,000

54’ Silvers Brown Owl motor yacht designed by John
Bain and built by Silvers Marine in 1934. Teak hull
planking and teak superstructure, the best money could
buy at the time. Twin Cummins diesels. 4 sleeping
cabins plus 2 heads. Well cared for in current 25 year
ownership, cruised every summer around the Brittany
coast and professionally maintained each winter.
Brittany £145,000
42’ McGruer Bermudan Sloop built in 1946. Mahogany
on oak hull, lead keel and bronze bolts. Fractional sloop
rig on alloy mast. Yanmar 29hp diesel installed new
in 2019. 6 berths with plenty of original joinery. Dog
house provides shelter at sea and 2 good berths. Well
maintained yacht with very good performance and
elegant looks, a true pedigree classic. Scotland £64,000
40’ Sparkman and Stephens Finisterre yawl built at
the Wing on Shing Shipyard, Hong Kong in 1960. Full
length teak planking makes her a very durable vessel.
Extensively cruised in present 30 year ownership. Her
shallow draft of only 4’ when the centreplate is up is
very attractive. Lovely original interior with 5 berths
and good headroom. A quality yacht for sensible money.
Wales £39,500

34’ Alan Pape gaff cutter built in 1991. Strip plank 49’ Laurent Giles Dorus Mhor ketch, built in 1970, the 25’ 5 ton Hillyard built by Hillyards in 1938. Planked
hull using resorcinol glue. Beta diesel 2007, 6 berths in last example to be built launched. Built to Lloyds 100A1, in mahogany on oak frames. Bermudan cutter rig, new
very spacious interior. Recent rigging and sails. 2 round iroko on oak hull, cascover sheathed underwater. All teak standing rigging 2018. Kubota 12hp diesel engine.
Britain cruises and an Atlantic circuit under her keel. VXSHUVWUXFWXUH  SURIHVVLRQDOO\ UHÀWWHG DQG QRZ LQ YHU\ 3 single berths with 6’1” headroom in the saloo.
Currently coded under MCA for commercial work. Very smart condition. 2016 rigging, 2019 sails. 7 berths in Professionally maintained and in lovely condition,
smart and well equipped yacht, absolutely ready to go. 2 sleeping cabins. Recent survey. 2019 cruise to the complimentary 2019 survey available. Ready to go
Hants £99,500 Baltic proved her as absolutely ready for her next owners. cruising in the coming season. Sussex £7,000
Cardiff £125,000
Another fascinating selection of traditional and classic yachts only from Wooden Ships. Call for true descriptions, genuine honest values and a service from people who know their boats.
Saleroom By Dave Selby

ONSLOWS
ONSLOWS

Golden sand, azure sea... must be Clacton!

“The brilliant blue of the sea in this series is something to marvel at.” So
ran one review of the series of “East Coast Joys” rail posters, and east
coast sailors used to drinking tea as thick as mud and sailing on water
the colour of tea would most definitely agree.
Nevertheless, by 1931 when these six posters – designed to be
displayed individually or as a panorama – were produced, graphic
design was beginning to be recognised as art, and foremost among the
British exponents was Tom Purvis, who studied under an elderly Degas
and Walter Sickert and was also acclaimed as “The King of the
Hoardings.” London & North Eastern Railway, who commissioned these
works, even held public exhibitions of the latest poster art that were
reviewed in national newspapers including The Times, and at the 1931
expo these posters could be bought individually for 2 S 6d... 12½p each
in today’s money.
In a recent sale at specialist poster auctioneer Onslows, this extremely
rare full set, which makes a panorama almost 4m (13ft) long, was bought
by a US collector for £19,500. What made them worth more than the
sum of their individual parts was the fact that their uniformly excellent
condition and colouring suggest they have always been together as a
set. Not a bad return on the 75p the set would have cost in 1931.

BONHAMS CHARLES MILLER LTD

Polar snap That sinking feeling
As the first professional A battered lifejacket and lifering recall the
photographer on an drama of a forgotten episode of superhuman
Antarctic expedition, heroism that captivated the nation as it
Herbert Ponting’s unfolded in newspapers and newsreels
incredible images of the across the world.
wonders and terrors of In heavy weather in December, 1951 and 380 miles west of
the continent, taken on Land’s End, a crack opened across the main deck of American
Scott’s tragic 1910-13 freighter SS Flying Enterprise, and the stricken vessel soon took
expedition, are a part of on a 300 list. Yet when help arrived and took off all the crew
the iconography of polar and 10 passengers, Captain Kurt Carlsen stayed aboard in a
exploration. valiant effort to save his ship.
This image, ‘The Though listing to 800, a tow was attempted, but parted 37
Freezing of the Sea’, was miles from safety. With the funnel by then horizontal, Captain
taken in April, 1911 at the Carlsen walked along it to board the salvage tug. The Captain
onset of the Arctic was decorated on both sides of the Atlantic. His lifejacket and
winter before Scott set lifering, which serve as a
off on his fatal push to memento to his heroism,
the pole. After Ponting’s sold for £,1054.
return to England,
blue-toned carbon
prints were produced
for sale, and this very
large format 769mm-
high, blue-toned carbon
CHARLES MILLER LTD

print would have cost

just over £2. A century
BONHAMS

on it’s expected to fetch

£4,000-6,000.

26 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

 Harbour Marine Services
Incorporating Southwold & Ipswich Boat Yards

SPECIALISTS IN CUSTOMISED RESTORATIONS & REPAIR OF ALL CRAFT

Telephone +44(0)1502 724721 - Email info@harbourmarine.co.uk - www.harbourmarine.co.uk

DAVEY & Co
LO N DO N L I M I T E D Ö E s t . 1 8 8 5

TRADITIONAL YACHT FITTINGS PROPERLY MADE SINCE 1885

TR A D E M AR K

Telephone +44 (0)1206 500945 Ö Email info@davey.co.uk Ö www.davey.co.uk

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 2

Objects of desire
MARINER’S SELECTION
An essential selection of items that
might find a place on every traditional
boat or boatyard. The sailmaker’s
needles, palm, hook, beeswax
and twine wouldn’t do Ben
Ainslie much good as he
races in the Prada Cup in WIRE ART
Auckland, even if he Unique wire sculptures
does have ‘real’ sails, insipired by the coast
but they are all items and the nautical history
still used today by a few of Cornwall. Shipwright
traditional sailmakers. Ben Baker uses iron
wire to transform his
classicmarine.co.uk fluid single line
drawings into
something tangible,
pairing the designs
with found timber, or
using pieces from the
vessel depicted if he
can. The wire drawings
can come to life using
cranks, levers and
threads of nylon.
£POA, available for
commissions

benbakerart.com

KIDS’ BOATHOUSE
“The Plum Boathouse Wooden Playhouse allows little
ones to jump on board and sail away to whatever
island their imagination takes them,” we’re told. “It
allows them to enjoy the great outdoors and
embrace the weather, rain or shine.” £649.99

BAG FROM plumplay.co.uk

SAILS
We always enjoy the products of
German company 360Grad, which
makes bags and accessories from
recycled sails. The brand’s spring
and summer 2021 collection uses a
series of carefully selected colours: XV STRIPES
“The yellow stands for optimism,
luminosity, spirit, sunshine, light.
BEDDING
The grey means strength, resilience, Inspired by coastal living and
and serenity. Thus, our models in the ocean, up and coming
the yellow /grey combination stand brand XV Stripes hails from
for confidence and patience – Cowes and offers nautical
strength and hope. Everything will bedding, upholstery and
be fine!” All models are handmade, interior decoration for your
light, weatherproof, robust and home or boat.
upcycled. POA Oxford pillowcase/cushion £60

taschen-aus-segeltuch.de xvstripes.com

28 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

 Traditional equipment for classic boats.

Order online or come and visit our chandlery

at Suffolk Yacht Harbour on the east coast.

Telephone: 01394 380390 or 01473 659394 | Email: info@classicmarine.co.uk | www.classicmarine.co.uk

Classic Marine, Suffolk Yacht Harbour, Levington, Ipswich, Suffolk, United Kingdom IP10 0LN

Photography Credit: © Emily Harris

© Jürg Kaufmann
BONA FIDE 2011 MARIGOLD 2012 OLYMPIAN 2014/2019

2 11 – 2 21
The 10th Gstaad Yacht Club Centenary Trophy
30th September 2021 during Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez

ORIOLE 2015 SPARTAN 2016 TILLY XV 2017/2018

Adrian Morgan
CHARLOTTE WATTERS
Classic misuse of a word
Real classic ownerhisp involves rot, rust and reward
E
very so often a magazine other than this one
arrives in the wooden letter box, up the stony
track that leads down to Burnside Cottage. At
the moment that entails a 200-yard trudge through
deep snow, and one year the snow was so deep I had
to borrow a pair of snow shoes. (Tip: keep your feet
well splayed, or you’ll trip and fall flat on your face,
whereupon it’s almost impossible to get up again).
As an antidote to Classic Boat – I won’t mention its
name – I find it refreshing to read about foiling America’s
Cup boats, top-level racing and impenetrable articles
about the hydro-, and increasingly, aerodynamics of
modern sailing. It is a far cry from the kind of boats we
own and like to read about here, even if some of them
are way beyond our means or aspirations.
What gets me, and this is going to turn into something
of a rant unless I rein it in, is how new yachts are often
described as “modern classics”, almost before they have
hit the water. Classic has become a marketing term, just
as books sold at airports – should we be so foolish as to
set foot in one at the moment – often claim to be “the
30 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
new best seller”. Not every book on the shelf can be a
best seller, just as not every book or yacht “destined to
be a classic” will ever become so.
With yachts, it smacks of nautical appropriation, to
use a modern buzz word. It is frankly annoying having
spent years telling folk you have a classic 5-tonner, to
read that you can buy a new classic 5-tonner – not that
anyone uses Thames Measurement any more – off the
peg, bereft of patina, varnish immaculate and none of
the deck leaks and ‘issues’ that those of us with proper
classic boats have to cope with year in year out. It feels
like cheating, an example of “passing off”. Ultimately,
it’s just not fair on those of use who really do own classic
yachts to read about these newcomers, however classic in
style, looks and rig they happen to be. NB: actually,
classic boat owners seldom claim ownership, but that
they are simply “guardians, custodians or keepers for the
future”.
Thing is more often than not this classic ‘thing’ is only
skin deep. Under the hull, rather than a heavy lump of
shaped iron or lead, attached to a hefty slab of elm or
oak, the whole thing hanging tentatively off the hull via
wooden or steel floors on a handful of wasted steel or
bronze bolts, we may well discover a well-engineered
bulb, firmly attached to a stainless structure. Keepers of
such boats will never have the kind of rot and corrosion
problems we enjoy solving, and which make
“guardianship” of a classic so rewarding. They will
never need to chip and repaint those rusty floors in the
depths of winter, or replace the copper fastenings eaten
away over time. They do not in short
have the right to call themselves
classic boat owners, until they have
camped aboard and waited all night,
cold and wet, pumping bilges until
seams took up (or didn’t).
No, classic boat ownership comes with responsibilities
that those with new boats are simply not prepared to
deal with, of which the responsibility of guardianship
ranks pretty high on the list, and who would blame
them?
Having got that off my chest, thoughts inevitably turn
to what constitutes a classic yacht, and as quickly veer
away. It is an old chestnut; every classic boat owner...
sorry, guardian... believes they are the custodian of a
never-to-be-repeated gem which one day will be
recognised as such.
I was sent a photo from the far east of a supposed
Laurent Giles cutter a while back. It bore little
‘What gets resemblance to anything in the catalogue, until I stripped
me, is how away the coachroof, and a Wanderer II emerged, built
new yachts from scaled up plans in a 1936 Yachting Monthly, and
are often executed in a local hard wood. Was it a classic? Who
cares. It had, to my mind, one attribute to its classic
described credentials. It probably leaked, a little. To be called
as “modern a genuine classic boat owner requires a high degree
classics”’ of suffering.
you dream it,
we build it 21 years
of passion

french
shipyard

www.franckroy.com

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 

 BOSUN’S BAG
PRACTICAL TIPS FOR THE TRADITIONAL BOATER
WORDS TOM CUNLIFFE ILLUSTRATION MARTYN MACKRILL
They’re at it again. Every time I settle in to enjoy a period film or
TV drama, all credibility is expunged by what really is the
simplest of errors. Cowboy films are a good example. Here
comes The Man with No Name to shoot the forces of darkness
back to Hell where they belong. I’m hooked into the story up to
my neck until I notice a detail that reveals beyond doubt that the
director understands nothing. It even happens in Downton
Abbey and recently in the much-vaunted Bridgerton currently
making a fortune for Netflix. How, I want to know, do these
people imagine their characters operated indoors after dark by
the light of oil lamps rendered useless by blackened glass
chimneys? Of course they didn’t. It isn’t a lifetime ago that I’d a
home in the Yorkshire Dales where some of the outlying farms
still used Aladdin lamps. In my own world, I’ve had three boats
where the main lighting below decks was paraffin-fired and I still
use an oil riding light with a noble dioptric lens. Nobody in their
right mind, either afloat or up in the hills, would tolerate
blackened chimneys for a moment. First, you’re paying good
money for the paraffin and if the glass is opaque you might as
well pour it down the sink; and secondly, because getting a
crystal-clear glass is dead easy.
CABIN LIGHTS
Here’s the secret, step by step. Some riding lights vary in detail,
but I’ll deal with them further down the page.
The right fuel No need for expensive ‘lamp oil’. I’ve never used
it. British or US Paraffin/Kerosene from any roadside garage or
old-fashioned hardware store is fine. I did once suffer a foul
batch in the Canary Islands which blackened everything
including my deckhead, but that was a one-off and it was far
from home.
Clean the glass well Very carefully, with warm soapy water
and a soft cloth, wash it out. You may need a wooden spoon to
ease the cloth down inside the glass where the non-metallic
handle will guard against damage. The bosun’s toothbrush is
useful too. Dry the glass and do not let it near a flame until all
moisture has quit the scene. Get the rest of the process right and
you’ll only do this once a week.
Trim the wick Wind it up so it pokes out above the burner and
cut it square across with sharp scissors to remove all carbon.
This is a monthly job, or less.
Lighting up Having filled the reservoir to a half-inch from the
top, wind up the wick so it’s clear of the burner. This encourages
it to light. Put a match to it, then turn it down as low as you can
without extinguishing it. As the flame takes hold it will rise a
little.
32 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
Glass on At this point, install the still-cold glass chimney into
its holder. Give it a moment to absorb a little heat from the tiny
flame, then wind up the burner until the flame is level with the
slot.
Slowly does it You’re nearly there now. Tentatively feel the
chimney to see how it’s warming up. When it’s getting hot to
touch it’ll be safe to wind the flame higher, knowing you won’t
crack the glass. Now it’s just a matter of experiment to see how
far up you can set the wick without the flame actually licking the
glass and without any suggestion of black smoke. Keep an eye
on things for a few more minutes to make sure there’s no hint of
smoking, and that’s it. Lovely warm light just as it should be -
and always was in the days when no alternative offered itself.
RIDING LIGHTS
A decent riding light consists of a cylindrical can, or cage, with a
glass strip to disseminate the light from a lamp burning inside.
Its structure allows air to circulate to the lamp and it has a
sophisticated draught excluding system to keep the flame from
being blown out. The lamp itself usually comes in one of two
forms. The first is the same in principle as a cabin light. The
second has the guts of a cabin light, but no chimney. That is
supplied by the body of the lamp. Whichever version you have,
the lamp must first be lit and settled before it is offered up to the
cage. A cabin-lamp type is lit exactly as described above, but
note that when it is inside the cage with the doors shut, the cage
too will heat up and draw the flame upwards, so set the wick on
the low side before inserting it.
A ‘chimneyless’ lamp is lit and simply inserted into the cage in
a draught-free environment – often the saloon. As usual, be
aware that as the cage heats up the flame is going to rise.
Experience and trial and error will show how much wick to give
it, but once the flame’s in place behind that dioptric lens, what
looked like a modest glimmer will shine out like a beacon.
HANGING THE RIDING LIGHT
Any spare halyard attached to the upper hoop on the cage will
suffice to hoist the lamp. The lower hoop takes a downhaul
which is secured to some suitable point on deck directly below
the hoisted lamp. Any residual tendency to swing about can be
defused by taking a light line forward from the upper hoop,
leading it round the forestay and back to the lamp. A double-
downhaul works too. Balance the three lines. The lamp is now
triangulated. Hanging it 8ft (2.6m) or so up gives the lens its best
chance of doing its magical work – perhaps higher on larger
yachts. If ever you doubt it, row a hundred yards away after
sunset and be delighted by the view.
Tom Cunliffe’s videos on lamps are at youtu.be/gfX67kcCx5M
FOR THE WORK OF MARTYN MACKRILL, VISIT MARTYNMACKRILL.CO.UK OR MESSUM’S GALLERY, MAYFAIR, LONDON MESSUMS.COM

MARTYN MACKRILL Son of a marine engineer and grandson of a trawlerman, Martyn is Honorary Painter of the Royal Thames Yacht Club and the Royal Yacht
Squadron. His depictions of classic boats, from clinker rowing boats to Edwardian schooners, have made him one of the most sought-after marine artists, and his
work forms part of major collections worldwide. He and his wife, Bryony, sail the restored 1910 gaff cutter Nightfall (CB328).

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 33

 DOUG LEEN

Tugboat
man
Vietnam vet, park ranger, dentist,
small-craft conservator and tugboat
skipper.... meet Ranger Doug!
WORDS AND PHOTO BRUNO CIANCI

34 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

B
orn in the State of Washington in 1946, Doug
Leen is a lover of nature. A veteran of the
Vietnam War, during which he built airstrips
with the US Navy for two years, he has owned a
number of boats, including two wooden tugs, the first of
which – Winamac – sank during a parade held on 23
May, 1991 at ‘FraserFest’ in Vancouver, after being hit
by Harken 6. “I bought, restored and drove the
Winamac for a year and a half before she sank”, says
Leen. “I raced her twice, perhaps three times. I recall
taking a third place in Olympia once, and a fifth place in
Seattle. Tug racing is still popular and is sort of tongue-
in-cheek; it’s not about racing as all the boats are limited
by their hull displacements and, to a lesser degree,
horsepower. It’s more about testosterone and fun.”
Leen, who spends most of the year on Kupreanof
Island, near Petersburg (Alaska), currently owns 15 craft,
many of which have been found abandoned in a state of
rot, and were finely
restored by him. Among
these are six canoes, two
specimens of Norwegian
faerings, two skiffs built by
Davis Boat, a dory from
Saint Lazaria and an
aluminium Feathercraft
that was also found in
derelict condition. Two of
the above craft, a 14ft
(4.3m) double-ender built
by Davis and the dory,
were respectively named
Onkel Ole and Sven, after “Tug boat racing is still
Doug Leen’s great uncles
who had immigrated from popular and
Norway. in-cheek. It’s more about
Doug’s ‘capital ship’,
though, is his second
testosterone
tugboat the 73ft (22.3m)
Katahdin, a native
American name for the highest peak in Maine. She was
built in 1899 by Martin Hansen on the Duwamish River,
near Seattle, for the Anacortes Packing Company and
initially equipped with a steam engine. That was
replaced in 1935 with a 350hp Union Diesel engine that
has transformed the boat into the most efficient tug in all
of Puget Sound. The Foss Towing Company was the last
owner to use this tugboat for commercial purposes.
Eight other owners followed.
Doug Leen came into the picture in 1994. “I bought
the Katahdin after discovering her sitting derelict on
Orcas Island, while mired in a divorce and lawsuits. I
paid only $10,000 for her ‘as is, where is’ and rolled up
my sleeves for an odyssey that involved a lot more than
bending wood and painting.” For the next 18 years, the
‘Kat’ served as a floating home and transportation mode
between remote Alaskan villages where Leen worked as
a dentist, one of his many professions. Right after
graduation from college he had become a National Park
Service ranger, a position he held for seven years, thus
earning the nickname ‘Ranger Doug’.
“Eventually,” Leen says, “I became a dentist. In 1999
I sold my private practice and took a year off vowing
never to even think about dentistry for a while. In 2001,
shortly after the 9/11 attacks, I was offered temporary
employment in Alaska, again as a dentist, and I accepted.
So I drove the Katahdin up the coast with three
neophytes, and stayed.” The choice fell on Petersburg – a
town founded by Norwegian fishermen, and at the time
“the only one to have a marine railway that could haul
out my boat; it was mid-May and I beat to weather for
three days down Chatham Strait in a 35-knot gale.
Everyone stopped by the boatyard to see the tug and I
eventually met the local dentist who suggested I take a
look at a unique property
that faced the Wrangell
Narrows entrance, with the
granite spire of the Devils
Thumb just across the
Frederick Sound. It was a
classic Alaskan log cabin and
I fell in love with it instantly,
so I bought it. I’ve lived in
Alaska pretty much year-
round for nearly two decades,
now. Winters, obviously, are
long and dark. With the
Covid-19 pandemic, I’ll be
wintering over, and seeing
what evolves. This is the right
is sort of tongue- place to be until it blows over.
I’m totally isolated and love it
here.”
and fun.” Next to the log cabin is a
red-painted, self-built boatshed,
a traditional Norwegian
‘naust’ (another tribute to Doug’s roots) stuffed with his
collection of small craft. “I decided to turn this shed into
a museum,” says Leen, “and for a simple reason. When
this town was founded, in 1893, it was all fishing
oriented and there were many boats. Today, the
Norwegians have lost their language and their old
wooden rowboats were getting tossed aside and left to
rot, so I would grab and fix them up as a retirement
project. Then I’d host rowboat races on 4 July or on 7
May – the Norwegian Constitution Day – for the kids
and anyone who wanted to race. Fun was had by all.”
The naust has no dock to it, but a trolley designed to
lift hay up to the tops of the barns. There is an upstairs
split mezzanine for smaller craft, oars, sails, boat
furniture and the like. Most people would simply call it a
shed, but to Doug Leen it means much more than that.
CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 35
 A round-up
of the latest
BOOKS
Once again, we face lockdown, at least
this time without the agony of a perfect
spring going to waste. It’s time to enjoy,
and expand, the library
REVIEWS BY SAM JEFFERSON
AND STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES SKETCHBOOK SAILOR
BY CLAUDIA MYATT
Illustrator and artist Claudia Myatt’s work can be seen in this magazine
most months, alongside Tom Cunliffe’s column. At the tail end of 2019,
Claudia shipped aboard the 1915 Dutch herring drifter Tecla to voyage
by sail from the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador, all the way down to
Cape Horn then back up the other side to the Falkland Islands. Being
Claudia, she left her camera at home, and the result is a thoroughly
illustrated travelogue of her voyage. What makes this particularly
A MODERN delightful is that, unlike most travel narratives, this one is as much
SINBAD about life on board ship as it is about the sights seen. After all, a bowl
BY AYLWARD of porridge is as important to a sailor coming off watch as the sighting
EDWARD DINGLE of whales; so here you will find both. SMH
One of the more obscure
sailing classics out there but Published by Golden Duck, £14.99
worth a read if you can get
hold of a copy. The is the THE DOLPHIN: THE
‘autobiography’ of the LIFE OF DAVID LEWIS
wonderfully named BY BEN LOWINGS
Aylward Dingle, journalist You seldom hear his name now, but
and sailor who, after much David Lewis was one of the leading
adventure (misadventure!) sailors of the 1960s and 70s, with
on tall ships, settled down some amazing firsts to his name
to make a living writing including, arguably, the first world
pulp fiction. He achieved some fame circumnavigation by catamaran.
in this, later appearing as one of the first guests on Desert Island Discs. More famously, he was the first
This confessional takes the ‘unreliable narrator’ concept to a new level. to sail solo to Antarctica, in 1972 on
All is presented as fact and much has the tang of authenticity. There the 32ft Icebird, related in his classic
are beautiful descriptions of sailing tall ships including the legendary clipper book Icebird. He was also present
Thermopylae, a diversion into treasure hunting in the Kerguelen Islands and at the genesis of ocean racing,
shorebound spells as a bare-knuckle boxer and as footman to JP Morgan when he took on Francis Chichester and others in the first OSTAR of
in New York. Yet Dingle also describes as fact episodes that – I hope – can’t 1960 and wrote The Ship would not Travel Due West about it. After the
be true, most worryingly how he murdered the cook of a steamship in his Antarctic voyage, he made a study of ancient Polynesian navigation
command and later inadvertently blew the vessel up in the Southern Ocean, techniques, culminating in a treatise on the subject: We, the Navigators.
killing most of the crew. Later yachting adventures, Iike the first solo David was born in Britain but emigrated to New Zealand with his
passage from the USA to Bermuda, are backed by newspaper reports. family at the age of seven, becoming a doctor in adult life. His personal
Mostly, you’re don’t know what to believe. Ford Maddox laid down the life, with no fewer than six marriages, was as stormy as his terrifying,
template The Good Soldier but Dingle adds a whole new dimension. SJ freezing, sailing exploits. This biography tackles both unflinchingly. SMH

Freely available on abebooks.co.uk for £10 or less Published by Lodestar Books, £17

36 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

PILOT CUTTERS
UNDER SAIL WEATHER AT SEA
BY TOM BY SIMON ROWELL
CUNLIFFE Simon Rowell understands what a
When a British sailor thinks sailor needs to know and explains it
of a pilot cutter, he from the sailor’s point of view, says Sir
envisages the Bristol Robin Knox-Johnston, and we know
Channel type, such has better than to challenge him on that.
been its incredible Considering what it covers, this is a
resurgence in recent years. pretty thin book, just 94 pages in fact,
But wherever in the world which is a relief to those in need of a
ships seek haven, pilot quick refresher course. It would also do
cutters will be found. They great service as a fast reference work,
are, perhaps, the aristocrats as it covers all the concepts you are
of the working boat world, likely to need at sea, from the global forces like the jet stream and
with their yacht-like turn of coriolis effect, through national or continental concerns like the
speed, lack of cargo and wealthy gentlemen owners and skippers. This anatomy of a low-pressure system or how to understand the
book by CB columnist Tom Cunliffe, first published in 2013 and newly Shipping Forecast, all the way down to local variations like katabatic
reproduced, is a guide to the many pilot cutter types of northern and thermal winds. Now, what does “later” mean again... SMH
Europe, and a continuation volume to two earlier books that covered
pilot cutters from just about everywhere else in the world. It’s a thorough Published by Fernhurst, £14.99
work illustrated by hundreds of sketches, photos and paintings. Tom
knows traditional sail as well as anyone, and his ownership of three WEST COUNTRY
pilot cutters over three decades brings the book to life. SMH CRUISING COMPANION
BY MARK FISHWICK
Published by Seaforth, £16.99 After 32 years in print, this is now the
ninth edition of Mark Fishwick’s classic
pilot. It is obvious why so many cruising
yachtsmen would want this in the
wheelhouse for any sort of west
country cruise. Firstly, it’s a
considerable work, roughly A4 in size
and nearly 300 pages. The level of
detail is forensic. Name a village and
Mark will tell you the opening hours of
its main shop and how to get there. And there is a clear chartlet of
every port. The guide covers the coastline from Portland Bill, all the
way to the Scillies, then back along the north Cornish coast as far as
Padstow. Coverage of the rarely-cruise north coast is scant. SMH

Published by Fernhurst, £42.50

DES TOWNSON MASTERING

BY BRIAN PEET
A somewhat niche publication this
one, but it’s unquestionably very
worthy and well researched.
Author Brian Peet documents
the life of New Zealand sailor and
yacht designer Des Townson
who is best known – particularly
among Kiwis – as the designer of the Starling,
Zephyr, Mistral and Dart dinghy classes.
In actual fact, Townson had a remarkable 3,500 designs to his name
by the time of his death in 2008, including a number of larger yachts.
The book is clearly painstakingly researched and looks not only at his
designs and method but also his personal life and sailing achievements,
making this a well-rounded read. As I say, it’s best you have some
vested interest in Townson to get the most out of this book but
nevertheless, it’s a fine read. SJ
NAVIGATION
BY PAUL BOISSIER
True virgins make dull company!
Cadbury’s Dairy Milk [is] very tasty! If
you think this reviewer has lost the plot
(sic), then you’ve been too long
befuddled by the brain rot brought on
by the glove-in-hand seducers of GPS
and chart plotter. Real navigation and
its syntax of mnemonics has become,
as others have bemoaned, a lost art
these days, but basic, old-fashioned
nav and pilotage is still an absolute must, not just for the satisfaction,
but in case of gear failure. This book covers everything needed in
order to know where you are at a given moment, plan a voyage,
predict water movement around the boat, calculate a course to steer
and estimate arrival time. And... groan... tidal height at arrival! SMH

Published by Mary Egan Publishing Published by Fernhurst, £17.99

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 37

 CHANCE TO SAVE AN
Albert Strange yawl
Chances at Albert Strange ownership don’t come up often, and Sheila
II is the quintessential Strange – and one with a great history, too
WORDS REBECCA HAYTER
T
he Albert Strange yawl Sheila II is famous
for her title role in Adrian Hayter’s book
Sheila in the Wind (Hodder and Stoughton,
1959), but while the book has recently
enjoyed a major refit courtesy of Lodestar Books, the
boat remains in dire need of repair.
Sheila II was built by Dickie of Tarbert, Scotland in
1911 and is for sale in New Zealand. Richard Wynne of
Lodestar Books says the Albert Strange Association is
watching closely, hoping the book’s revival will inspire a
buyer to restore Sheila II.
“Her design was commissioned from Albert Strange
by artist Robert Groves around 1908 following his original Sheila
launched in 1905,” he says. “Groves has left some very evocative
sketches of both boats under sail. Given a free rein by the client,
Strange would always favour performance over accommodation,
believing it to be an important safety feature; this resulted in some
of his most beautifully proportioned designs, of which Sheila II,
some would argue, is the finest.”
Sheila II is typical canoe yawl of the sort that made Strange’s
name known. She originally set a roller-furling jib, a gaff mainsail
with a yard topsail over, and a gaff mizzen sheeted to a bumkin.
The hull was built of full-length pitch pine planking on oak frames
on the rigid base of a long cast-iron ballast keel.
Hayter, a New Zealander, had virtually no sailing experience
when he bought Sheila II in 1949. In the previous decade, he had
fought as a British officer with a Gurkha regiment in the Second
World War, earning the Military Cross; witnessed the Partition of
India and been actively involved in the Malayan Emergency.
But the war left him conflicted. To make sense of it all, he sought
solitude on the open sea. He left from Lymington in England on 12
August, 1950 and sailed to New Zealand via India against
prevailing winds. Sheila in the Wind recounts his foray into celestial
navigation – at one point, due to a basic error, he was lost mid-
ocean until he realised he could smell sulphur. He remembered
reading that Mount Etna was in eruption, so he took a bearing on
the wind and transferred that bearing on the chart through Mount
Etna. A sun sight later allowed him to plot his position.
He nearly succumbed to infection following a back-street
appendix operation in India and his army training came in useful
during armed escort by Indonesian authorities at sea.
He developed from novice to instinctive sailor, but barely made
Australia. Sheila II was leaking badly and encrusted with barnacles.
With progress slow, Hayter ran out of food and water; he ate the
MIKE HUGHES
barnacles and distilled sea water in a homemade condenser.
Even his arrival at Westport, New Zealand in 1956 was a
do-or-die surge through breaking seas as he became the first person
38 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
to sail solo from the United Kingdom to New
Zealand.
In 1961-2, Hayter sailed from England to
New Zealand via the Panama Canal in an even
smaller yacht: the Folkboat Valkyr. The Royal
Akarana Yacht Club, NZ recognised the solo
circumnavigation with its Blue Water Medal.
Hayter sold Sheila II in the 1950s and was
briefly reunited with her in 1970 for a
television documentary about his voyage,
called Isn’t it Terribly Lonely?. Around 1973,
Peter Nelson of Auckland bought Sheila II and sailed her in the
1977 inaugural Two-Handed Round North Island Race. In 1983,
Sheila broke her moorings off Devonport Yacht Club and suffered
extensive damage. Two owners later and still in disrepair, she was
bought by Russ Rimmington who kept Sheila II from further
deterioration but other projects intervened and he is now looking
for a buyer to undertake her restoration.
The major work includes removing the keel, treating its rust and
refitting it. Most frames and some planks in the hull and deck need
replacement. The cockpit is not original and needs replacement.
The interior has been gutted and would need a total replacement;
some photos of Sheila II’s original interior exist. She would need a
new engine, recaulking of hull and decks, and a repaint. Most of
the original main and mizzen masts, gaffs, booms and wooden
blocks survive but she would need new rigging.
In Sheila in the Wind, Hayter’s writing straddles the physical
voyage and the spiritual adventure; some descriptions of the ocean
forces are so compelling the reader clings to their armchair. This
has made Sheila in the Wind a classic, worthy of being republished
more than 60 years later, and 30 years after Hayter died of cancer.
Wynne says the Albert Strange Association has always valued
Sheila II and feels a sense of frustration at her long years out of the
water. “Reissuing Sheila in the Wind brings a remarkable sailing
adventure, a deeply human story, and a beautiful classic yacht
design back to the world’s attention,” he says.
As she is today,
ready for restoration.
Those interested in
buying Sheila II
should contact
Russ Rimmington in
New Zealand, email
huntingdonfarm@
xtra.co.nz
 Sheila II’s official
welcome in Nelson, NZ
with Adrian’s brother Jim and
Jim’s son, Stephen Hayter

SHELIA II

LOA
31ft 7in (9.6m)
LWL
24ft (7.3m)
BEAM
8ft 6in (2.6m)
DRAUGHT
4ft 11in (1.5m)
SAIL AREA
545sqft (50.6m2)

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 39

WE DIDN’T
MEAN TO
GO TO SEA
In a window between lockdowns, Michael
and Beverly Briggs, owners of the Fife yacht
Mikado, took their newly-restored Silvers
motor yacht Kingfisher to explore the upper
Thames. At least, that was the plan...
WORDS AND PICTURES MICHAEL BRIGGS

40 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

 T
he plan was simple. Beverly and I would have
a sort of training cruise for navigating locks,
rivers and bridges, and with uncertainty about
how far we could go with the various Covid
restrictions, we decided to explore as much as we could
of the Thames. We thought we’d certainly reach Henley
and Sonning and perhaps get up as high as Oxford
before the first really low bridge stopped us. As a
highlight, we planned to celebrate our 39th wedding
anniversary at the French Horn in Sonning where we
spent our wedding night 39 years ago. September
promised perhaps a little less congestion on the river
than August, before getting her back into healthy
saltwater for the winter.
And so, on 29 August after tea, we set off eastwards
from Chichester, bound for Beachy Head the next day,
then an overnight stop at Dover or Ramsgate. Our
planned overnight passage was prevented by a last-
minute crew cancellation due to illness, so we decided to
sail by day. Strong northerlies were forecast, but we
reckoned we could stay inshore and avoid the inevitable
lobster pots by motoring only in daylight. After weaving
through the rocks off Selsey as the sun set behind us, we
found a snug anchorage just north of the moorings off
the lifeboat station east of Selsey Bill for a quiet night,
planning to start east just before dawn as the tide turned
in our favour. We were under way again by 0500 over a
smooth sea but with an increasing offshore wind. We
hugged the coast, just a few hundred yards off most of
the time, passing innumerable beach huts, bungalows
COMMISSION AIR / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

and the ribbon developments of the English south coast,

together with lovely Regency terraces and the occasional
pier at Brighton, Eastbourne and the other famous
resorts, and a good view of Lancing Chapel on its hill
West of Shoreham, not to mention some spectacular
chalk cliffs including Beachy Head.
Things were hotting up by Dungeness, with the wind
blowing at Force 7 or more, but the sea remained
perfectly manageable just a cable or two off the beach.

Main picture: The

river Deben
viewed from
Flexistowe Ferry
Right: Kingfisher
moored off
Ramsholt Quay

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 41

SOUTH EAST ENGLAND VOYAGE
We thought we needn’t worry about the Dungeness firing
range on a Sunday, until a passing dredger radioed us,
asking us whether we were planning to don our tin hats.
So offshore we had to go, where it really started to get
rough. Turning almost north, two miles off the tip of
Dungeness to a planned rendezvous with friends on the
beach at Hythe, we started taking the spray in buckets,
putting our ancient but much-loved clearview screen to
its first hard test (with us, that is). It passed with flying
colours, performing much better than the screen wipers
on the other wheelhouse window. Going almost eight
knots into a really nasty wind and sea fully demonstrated
the Silver Leaf’s splendid qualities as a sea boat, even if
slightly loose sealant in the scuttle over my bunk left me
just a little damp that evening, and more than a little
annoyed, before the central heating dried us out and a
dose of Captain Tolley’s Creeping Crack Cure prevented
a recurrence.
We reached Dover by late afternoon and were
directed to a very short pontoon in the old marina area
for the night. The Dutch have just built a splendid new
marina at Dover but it’s currently unusable (and closed
off) because strong onshore winds bring in a swell that
makes it uninhabitable. Plans are afoot to erect barriers
to put that right in the future.
DOVER, AND A CHANGE OF PLAN
We left Dover the next day in gentler seas, passing North
Foreland then turning west to approach the Thames.
While passing Margate we called to book our berth in
Limehouse basin for the night. A casual
mention of our planned trip upriver to
Teddington Lock produced the reply that the
river was closed to all traffic at
Hammersmith Bridge until further notice.
Apparently the hot summer had made it too
unsafe to let people or cars over it or boats
under it. Reflecting that it was just a bit
unlucky for us to have encountered the first
total long-term closure of the Thames since
probably the middle ages, and one which hadn’t
even been posted on the Thames Conservancy
website, we were forced to reconsider our plans.
42 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
The skipper, being an Arthur Ransome devotee, had
long yearned to visit Pin Mill and the Suffolk coast, the
Walton Backwaters and the Broads, so it didn’t take long
to decide on a sharp turn north up the East Coast. We
Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea, Secret Water and Coot Club
were quickly downloaded on Kindle as pilotage guides.
But first we kept to our plan to have a trip through
the Swale, the ribbon of sea that runs between the
mainland and the Isle of Sheppey from Whitstable to
Queenborough, before setting off north the following
day. This was an unexpected delight and giving a tow
under the bridge to Queenborough to a yacht with
engine failure ensured us preferential treatment alongside
the small all-tide pontoon when we got there. Despite it
being Monday afternoon, the only good eatery being full
and the church with its lovely painted ceilings closed due
to the pandemic, we really liked Queenborough. The
harbour-master could not have been more welcoming,
and the little village (with its packed fishing boat creek
Above: Kingfisher behind it) is a gem among the industrial ugliness all
doing mothership around. It’s also a great jumping-off point for
duty for the Fife destinations on almost all points of the compass.
yacht Mikado
CROSSING THE THAMES ESTUARY
Our next longish passage to Suffolk and the River
Orwell was in perfect conditions. Passage-making in the
Thames Estuary is so very different from the dangerous
navigational challenges across and around the shallows
of yore. GPS has taken care of that, and the old feeling
of being out at sea has been closed off by the
innumerable wind turbines to seaward. Apart from some
nervousness about the fuel gauge (with a light heel to
port, and the gauge reading the starboard tank level, we
had more than we realised – all part of the learning curve
switching from sail to power), it was an uneventful
cruise to the Royal Harwich Yacht Club for tea time, a
beautiful and peaceful spot, but disappointingly empty of
people as a result of the pandemic.
After a trip up the River Stour to see the town of
Mistley, once a major Thames barge port now looking
derelict and forlorn, we returned back downriver to find
a peaceful anchorage near Wrabness, with its little
wooden holiday houses built out on stilts over the
crumbling foreshore. Then it was back up the Orwell to
leave Kingfisher with Jonathan Dyke and team at Suffolk
Yacht Harbour for a haul-out, scrub and much-needed
anode change, while we travelled to Cowes to race in the
delayed Spring Classics regatta aboard Mikado.
We were back aboard Kingfisher by 7 September, on
our way to Ransome territory – the Walton Backwaters
featured in Secret Water, a remote
wilderness of unspoilt creeks, wildlife
and mud flats. Since Ransome’s day, a
marina has been built at Titchmarsh.
We steered well clear of it, not that it
intrudes seriously on the beauty of
the rest of this place. We started
at the anchorage at Stone Point,
with its small sandy beach, where we
met Andy and Jane Easdown, on a
cruise on their own yacht. Then we
moved to a completely secluded
SOUTH EAST ENGLAND VOYAGE

CHRIS LOFTY / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Main picture: Beachy Head
Above: All clear through the trusty clearview;
Woodbridge, at the head of the River Deben

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 43

SOUTH EAST ENGLAND VOYAGE
spot behind Horsey Island in Kirby Creek, just where
Arthur Ransome’s young explorers set up their camp,
anchoring for the night just clear of the upstream end of
the oyster beds. There was no need to go ashore as the
unique atmosphere could just as well be soaked up over
leisurely drinks in the cockpit. A memorable day
followed by an utterly undisturbed night, with not a
boat, or a soul, in sight.
RIVER DEBEN
Entering the River Deben, the next river up the Suffolk
coast, is what my late father would have called character-
forming, through the notorious river bar. But the local
mariners keep moving the entrance buoys to adjust for
the shifting sands. All you have to remember is to ignore
the plotter and follow the prescribed course. Once
through the entrance, the river is calm and rural.
The Ramsholt Arms fully lived up to its good
reputation and we celebrated our 39th wedding
anniversary there with a very good dinner of local fish,
taken on the riverside terrace, followed by a short row
back to Kingfisher, glowing like a gem in the golden
sunset.
The next day saw us going upriver to Woodbridge on
the tide before returning to Prettyman’s Point for a night
at anchor among the sea birds.
HEADING FOR SOUTHWOLD
To time our exit over the Deben River bar, we started
early the next morning, bound for Southwold. The early
morning fog lifted to reveal another perfect day, and we
set off on the long(ish) haul around Orford Ness and
Sizewell, leaving the delights of the Alde and the Ore for
a future occasion. The ‘harbour’ at Southwold consists
of the very narrow mouth of the River Blyth, where the
modest tidal range is belied by rather strong tidal
streams, and a cross current under the piles of the
otherwise quite straightforward entrance. On the South
side is pretty little Walberswick, with two nice gastro-
pubs. On the other is a very old-fashioned fishing dock,
with fresh fish stalls, a superb chippie, and the classic
boatyard Harbour Marine Services and another pub.
Across a mile of fields, lies the beautiful, fashionable
44 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
seaside town of Southwold, filled with swanky
clothes shops, galleries and fine eateries. And yes,
tourists, even in September.
The two sides of the harbour are connected
by a (still rowing) ferry and, upstream, by a
footbridge which used to carry the infamous
Southwold Railway, the most schlerotic, chaotic,
slow, unreliable and under-resourced little narrow
gauge railway in the UK, now long since demised, but
its memory still fondly revered by steam enthusiasts (like
me... I have something similar in my garden).
We received a royal welcome from Harbour Marine
Services, with a RIB to guide us in and no fewer than
three staff to take our lines at a pontoon made ready for
us, followed by a tour round their excellent classic motor
yacht restorations and projects (see Yard News on p71).
Full of developing ideas about what we might yet do
to beautify Kingfisher still further, (perhaps with HMS’
assistance) we were rowed across to Walberswick by the
energetic and charming young ferrywoman to a good
Top: The author’s lunch in the garden of the Anchor pub, followed by a
snorkel fused to stroll around the village, a well-earned siesta and
a hosepipe for excellent fish and chips in the evening.
short, shallow
dives to check Michael and Beverly continued their voyage with an
the propellers 10-day Broads cruise, finishing back in Southwold,
where Kingfisher is now receiving a full refit. The closure
Above: of Hammersmith Bridge continues to be a bane to
Southwold Thames boat users, and will for some time.
Kingfisher 1935 Silver leaf
Kingfisher is a 1935 Clyde-built, teak-on-oak 42ft (12.8m) Silver Leaf in very
original condition and, after having her refitted soon after purchase at
Stirling & Son, in very sound condition too. She was advertised (correctly)
as accommodating two in utter luxury, four in comfort and eight at a
pinch. With central heating and towel rails, hot and cold running water and
all the mod cons behind the teak panelling, we went for the luxury option
of two of us for cruising the rivers, lakes and canals of Europe, and the
eight-berth approach to accommodate the racing crew of our 1904 Fife
racing cutter Mikado, which sleeps only two. Kingfisher has modern
engines and navigation gear, and with twin outward-turning screws, 4ft 2in
draught, huge freshwater tanks coupled to on-deck and below deck
showers, and an easily lowered mast we can take her almost anywhere at
her 8-knot cruising speed, within a 400-mile range.
PHOTO: Richard Johnstone-Bryden
CHICANE, ALFRED MYLNE 1926

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 45

 ROW YOUR BOAT
There has been a steady rise in recreational rowing
over the past few years, and the choice can be
bewildering. What’s the right boat for you?

WORDS ROGER NADIN

46
 M
any of us will have looked longingly at
large yachts and wished we owned one.
Many will have bought or built their first
boat as a teenager and will have seen their
boat-owning life as a progression from small dinghy or
canoe through to ever larger and more luxurious craft.
But life will eventually tell you that the simple things in
life bring the most pleasure and for many, it is a
realisation that takes them back to the smaller boats of
their younger days.
The simplest form of boating is a canoe or a rowing
boat. In the past, rowing boats were the mainstay of
most harbours, and the Viking longboats took their
oarsmen to the far reaches of the then known world.
Today, unfortunately, we tend to think of rowing in
terms of Olympic champions, muscled oarsmen and
women bending their backs to beat their competitors.
There is, however, another world. A world of peace and
quiet, of infinite tranquillity and solace, of gentle,
rhythmic oar strokes across lakes, down rivers and along
a coast. Rowing can take you on solo trips or with a
partner or family. There is, dare we say it, a special
‘socially-distanced’ satisfaction in being out on the water
under your own steam.

WHERE CAN YOU USE THESE BOATS?

Well, just about anywhere that is not outside the
capability of the boat that you plan to use. Some boats,
like dories in particular, were developed for use out at
sea and can have tremendous sea-keeping ability. Few of
us live far from some type of water, be it canal, lake,
river, or sea. Even city dwellers can find a stretch of
easily accessible water within a short drive so they can
carry a boat on a roof-rack or tow a light trailer. Away
from the hustle and bustle of city life, there is a pleasant
world of water lapping along past the gunwale of your
own small craft. Your quietness as you slip along a canal
or river means that wildlife hardly notices you and you
will thrill at the sight of a colourful kingfisher flashing by
or the view of a nest full of fledglings hidden in the reeds.
With your painter hitched to a riverside tree or your
boat pulled up on a small beach you’ll enjoy a lunchtime
sandwich and a cup of something warming on a winter’s
day. You might even rig up a boat cover-cum-tent and
spend the night rocked to sleep tucked up in your
sleeping bag. There is virtually nothing to stop you
cruising and camping wherever you want.
Most rowing boats today are based on traditional
designs, on well-used work boats that have stood the test
of time: dories, skiffs, yawls, sharpies, Whitehalls,
PHOTO C/OGILLIAN NAHUM OF HENLEY SALES & CHARTER

wherries, faerings, prams, guide-boats, and others. All

these craft used to be built by skilled artisans who
understood riveting, joinery, spiling, caulking and all the
other craft skills that were handed down from generation
to generation. Somehow these boats always “looked
right” and, in the world of boating especially, what looks
right usually is right. Just look at the sleek, curved
sheer-line of a Ness Yawl or an Adirondack guide boat!
TRADITIONAL THAMES Many of these rowing boats can also have a sail
ROWING SKIFF added and have been further developed by modern boat
The traditional Thames rowing skiff forms the designers to suit today’s leisure requirements. The old
basis for many of toady’s designs. Can be methods of construction have been replaced to put
rowed, sailed and camped in as well (or creating your own craft within the reach of just about
badly!) as in Jerome K Jerome’s time
(Three Men in a Boat) CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 47
CHOOSING A ROWING BOAT

THE DRAKE 17
ROWBOAT
FAERING
17ft (5.2m) and designed as a
fixed-seat rowing boat but with
some downwind sailing ability
if required. At just 110lbs/50kg,
it can be car-topped. Also
available in 18 and 19ft versions

KATHY MANSFIELD
SHENANDOAH
WHITEHALL
Skin on frame, LOA 13ft 6in (4.1m)
Digital Plans $55, kit $500

C/O JAMES KEALEY

anyone who can follow an instruction manual and plan. ELF The first thing anyone considering a new boat, whether
If time is short or you feel that you do not have the FAERING professionally built or self-built is its intended use:
ability or space to build your own boat, then there are The Elf Faering is
skilled professionals available aplenty. The satisfaction of a relatively small • Solo rowing
building your own however, is considerable and there’s (14ft 11in /4.6m) • Rowing with friends and family
an easy way of doing this – use a kit. version of a • Rowing and sailing
Norwegian • Short trips locally
FOUR WAYS TO GET AFLOAT IN THE faering. Plans £120 • Long-distance inland trips
RIGHT BOAT • Coastal cruising
1 Commission a professional boat builder. Check out • Camping trips
Wooden Boatbuilders’ Trade Association: wbta.co.uk • Keep fit
2 Take time out and do a traditional boat building • Roof-rack or trailer
course and build the traditional way • All of the above
3 Buy the plans and build your boat to modern methods.
4 Buy a kit. Most modern designers supply kits Let’s just look at a few boats that you might like to
worldwide through local CNC wood cutters. A kit consider but, in doing so, be aware that for every boat
dramatically reduces the time and skills required to and designer shown here there are literally hundreds of
build a perfect boat. other craft available (and we apologise for any designers
or suppliers who may have been left out).
WHAT BOAT? The Adirondack Guide Boat is a true rowing boat.
If you spend time on the web researching boats, you’ll be Originally used in the USA’s Adirondack Mountains for
staggered at the number available. It is a confusing array carrying hunting parties (and their resulting carcasses),
of designs, types of boat and methods of construction. this high-capacity, beautifully shaped boat is now as a kit

48 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

 OONAGH! PRAM DINGHY
Rugged pram dinghy aimed originally at the
tender market but found to be an ideal
rowing and sailing craft for general use. Just
11ft 8in (3.6m) and 170lbs (77.1kg). Plans $149
and CNC kit $1,995
C/O ADIRONDACK GUIDE BOAT CO
ADIRONDACK
GUIDE BOAT
Available in lengths from 12-17ft
(3.7-5.2m) as a cedar-strip kit for $3,800
or built for $15,700. Also supplied in Kevlar
from $2,675
or professionally built in either cedar wood or using
Kevlar (which results in an extremely light boat). They
are also available as skin-on-frame boats which also
provides real lightness: the SOF build method now uses
very modern material such as polyethylene or ballistic
nylon stretched over a wooden framework to give a very
quick and simple build – search for skin-on-frame boats
on the web for more information. If you want to row
great distances with rhythmic ease, this could be the boat
for you. There are SOF guide boats, Whitehalls, wherries
and skiffs, like the Classic 12 Geodesic Skiff Row &
Sailboat. They all have the easy-to-row characteristics of
their originals but with the advantage of being very light.
One of the simplest methods of building a wooden boat
is the ply-on-frame method. A simple wooden frame is
built, then ‘skinned’ with plywood. This sort requires the
minimum of woodworking skills and only simple tools.
Boats like Jeff Spira’s 15ft Cape Cod Rowing Skiff or
Clint Chase’ Caravelle Skiff (14ft 4in or 15ft 8in) or his
faering-based Drake 17 Rowboat (which can also be
sailed downwind) are prime examples. These provide
boats that are brilliant at both rowing and sailing –
spacious enough for the oarsman and one or two crew.
BENJAMIN MENDLOWITZ
DORIS STITCH AND TAPE
DORY Another similarly simple method of construction is stitch
Designed by and tape where plywood panels are literally stitched
Vivier. LOA 16ft together using (usually) copper wire and the resulting
4in (5m). A joints are then fixed together using glassfibre tape and
development of epoxy – the stitches being removed once the epoxy has
the light dory set. If building such boats from a kit, the ply panels will
sort of vessel. be delivered with all stitch holes pre-drilled for you. This
Digital plans system produces a surprisingly strong and workman-like
€156 structure as can be seen by the numerous Mirror
dinghies which have started the sailing careers of many
of today’s yachtsmen. This method of construction is
used for John Welsford’s Light Dory and for the Selway
Fisher Skylark, both of which are ideal rowing and/or
sailing craft. Welsford has also designed a particularly
useful 14ft 8in sail-and-oar double-ender which uses the
glued lapstrake method, a method shared by Iain Oughtred
designed Elf Faering.
PRAM DINGHY
The Mirror dinghy referred to above is, of course, a
pram dinghy which is not the first shape that you might
think of when looking for a good rowing vessel. Two
CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 49
CHOOSING A ROWING BOAT
PASSAGEMAKER
11ft 7in (3.5m) pram dinghy weighing 90lb (41kg). A light and
very capable vessel equally at home under sail or oars. Plans
and a manual $143 or full kit at $1,469
CAPE COD ROWING SKIFF
Designed by Jeff Spira. LOA 15ft 1in (1.4m)
Digital Plans $59.99, printed Plans $69.99. A
simple boat to build
C/O JEFF SPIRA
remarkably similar boats prove that assumption wrong:
the Passagemaker from the drawing board of John C
Harris at Chesapeake Light Craft built using their own
LapStich method; and Oonagh! (the name comes from a
Celtic faery queen) from Dough Hylan at Hylan and
Brown Boatbuilders, using the glued lapstrake method.
Both make superb rowing and sailing craft. Both boats
were partly designed as competition to the ubiquitous
inflatable/small RIBs seen in use as tenders in many a
harbour or marina. It turns out that they also make
excellent vessels for more widespread use. Both boats
come in at just under 12ft in length and around 5ft in the
beam. While Passagemaker weighs in at 90lbs (41kg)
and could be lifted on to a roof-rack without much
effort, Oonagh! is a heftier option because of the use of
more internal structures as well as stouter planking, and
would therefore require a trailer. Both are excellent boats
in their own right. There are advantages to a pram
dinghy in that, compared to the pointed end of a more
traditional shape, the wider bow provides additional
space within the boat as well as more stability and
buoyancy.
No article on sail-and-oar vessels would be complete
without mentioning the French designer Fracnois Vivier
and his Doris design (‘Doris’, it turns out, is the French
for dory). Like so many boats, this is based on an earlier
craft known as the Swampscott Dory from the USA.
This open-boat business is, if nothing else, a very
international industry. Doris was designed specifically
with good rowing and sailing abilities and to be light in
weight for its size.
50 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
C/O DAVE GENTRY
THE SKIN-ON-FRAME RUTH WHERRY
Unique, high-performance rowing wherry of 18ft (5.5m) but weighing
only 45lb (21kg). Plans $68 ($55 for digital). Frame sets cost $500
THE All around the world there are places to use a small
CLASSIC boat. Places where you can get away from the city just
12 SKIFF for an hour or so – or even for a few days. Those of us
Skin on frame boat who have experienced lightweight camping know the
of 12ft (3.7m). Can pleasure to be had from an overnight stay in the wild.
be rowed or sailed. With a rowing or sailing boat you’ve got a choice of
Weighing in at just pulling up to a beach, mooring alongside a canal or river
30lb (13.6kg), she is and setting up tent or, on larger vessels, sleeping on
like a Whitehall board. This latter is much preferable since you probably
with a skeg. Plans won’t need anyone’s permission and you can drop
$95, partial kit $130 anchor or tie up pretty well anywhere that’s safe. Here in
with standard the United Kingdom, we have the Dinghy Cruising
Dacron cover or Association (dinghycruising.org.uk) and the Royal
$155 with heavy- Yachting Association provides training (rya.org.uk/
duty Dacron training) . A good read on the subject is Roger Barnes’
The Dinghy Cruising Companion and his YouTube
videos. Elsewhere in the world there’s help around if you
need it. In fact, dinghy cruising and camping is becoming
something of a new ‘craze’ as we seek more from the
natural world.
So, put your thinking cap on. Decide what type of
boat you need. Place an order for your boat plans or kit
– or indeed find a builder to do it for you. Check
whether you need any form of permit to use your local
waters. Then – just get out there and enjoy the great
watery outdoors.
For more on rowing, cruising by dinghy and the
sail-and-oar movement, see our two-part feature on
Giacomo de Stefano’s sail-and-oar odyssey from London
to Istanbul, various of Roger Barnes’s adventures, and
plenty on Francois Vivier, at classicboat.co.uk.
 Boat kits
for explorers

Dry dock and slipway services upto

250’ (75M) x 40’ (12M)
Specialists in wooden vessel repair
Coded welders and steel vessel repair
Shot blasting and protective coating application
Mast and spar construction and repair
All ship repair services available
For more information visit:
Plans & Kits available
www.woodenshiprepairs.co.uk to build your own boat
or call 07849522164
Arctic Dry Dock, Arctic Road, Cowes, ChaseSmallCraft.com/Why
Isle of Wight, PO31 7PG, UK

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 51

 LOOKING BACK Sir Robin Knox-Johnston examining the lost file of negatives taken
prior to and on his successful return to Falmouth when winning the Sunday Times
Golden Globe Race to become the first person to sail solo non-stop around the world

RETURN TO FALMOUTH Robin Knox-Johnston sails his 32ft yacht Suhaili into A RELAXED ROBIN KNOX-JOHNSTON June 1968: A clean-
Falmouth, England, accompanied by a flotilla of little ships carrying family and shaven RKJ aboard Suhaili during the sail from Surrey Docks,
media. That day, 22 April 1969, he became the first man to sail solo non-stop around London, to the start of his solo non-stop circumnavigation
the globe, having set out from Falmouth, England 312 days before. attempt from Falmouth, Cornwall

ROBIN KNOX-JOHNSTON
MORE LOST PHOTOS
REDISCOVERED
We thought we'd seen them all – but in the dusty arhives of
the Sunday Mirror, there was treasure bound for the tip
52 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
 ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BILL ROWNTREE/PPL

COPPER TINGLE 24 April, 1969: RKJ inspects the copper tingle he had FIRST PINT RKJ enjoys a pint of beer at the mayor's reception in the
dived overboard to tack in place to repair a leaking garboard strake, gardens of the Royal Cornwall YC, after stepping ashore. The mayoress
breath-holding in shark-infested waters. In this photo, Suhaili is beached was given time to redo her wind-blown hair and put a hat on. At sea, Sir
by the harbour wall in Flushing, across the water from Falmouth. Robin had hankered after steak, chips, beer and lemon meringue pie.

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 53

 F
ive decades after Sir Robin Knox-Johnston won
the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race to become
the first person in history to sail solo and
non-stop around the globe, a second cache of
some 2,000 negatives covering his preparations
and return to Falmouth in April 1969, has been discovered.
The first batch of 3,000 images was saved from being
thrown in the skip, when former Sunday Mirror
photographer Bill Rowntree happened to return to the
Mirror’s old offices at Holborn Circus to attend a pension
meeting and bumped into the picture editor who asked if
they were worth keeping. Rowntree put the box under his
arm and took it home, where it might have stayed hidden
in his cellar forever.
Now a second box of equal historic importance has
come to light. The photographs, all taken by Bill Rowntree,
cover the fortnight before Knox-Johnston’s departure
aboard his 32ft, ketch-rigged double-ender Suhaili from
Falmouth on 14 June 1968, and his victorious return to
world acclaim 312 days later.
Bill Rowntree, Sunday Mirror correspondent Bruce
Maxwell and Ken Parker from Cassell, publisher of his book
A World of My Own, joined Robin on a sociable delivery
voyage from Surrey Docks to Falmouth.

A PICTURE OF
DETERMINATION
June 1968: RKJ
aboard Suhaili during
the sail from Surrey
Docks, London to the
start of the race off
Falmouth, Cornwall

THE FINAL MILES

22 April, 1969,
Falmouth: RKJ sails his
32ft yacht Suhaili
towards Falmouth,
England to become the
first man to sail solo
non-stop around the
globe. This was a time
when the Flat Earth
Society was still in
existence, and even
seasoned yachtsman
thought it to be an
impossible feat. For
everyone else it was;
Robin was the sole
finisher among nine
starters to complete
this 30,000-mile
supreme endurance
race, organised by The
Sunday Times
newspaper.

54 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

 ROBIN KNOX-JOHNSTON NEW PICTURE ARCHIVE
RADIO SILENCE The Sunday Mirror newspaper donated a Marconi Kestral
long-range radio so RKJ could make weekly calls to their correspondent
Bruce Maxwell throughout the voyage. The radio was soaked by a wave
that flooded in through the open hatch during a knock-down shortly
before rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and he was unable to
broadcast again other than on a low-range VHF set. Weeks went by
without any news, which could only be passed on courtesy of passing
ships. At one point, it was feared Knox-Johnston might have been lost at
sea until he was sighted by the tanker Mobil Acme west of the Azores on
Day 296.
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BILL ROWNTREE/PPL
SHOOTING SHARKS RKJ gets out his 303 rifle for a bit of target practice
during the sail from Surrey Docks, London, to the start of his solo
non-stop circumnavigation attempt from Falmouth.
“I didn’t take the gun with the intention of shooting a shark but with
the intention of dealing with one if the occasion arose,” Sir Robin recalls
now. He did have occasion to use it, just once, when a shark started
circling Suhaili while Knox-Johnston was patching a leaky seam in the
Doldrums, south of the Cape Verde Islands. He got back on board, shot
the shark, then hurried to complete the repair before others were
attracted by blood in the water.
CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 55
ROBIN KNOX-JOHNSTON NEW PICTURE ARCHIVE

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BILL ROWNTREE/PPL

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BILL ROWNTREE/PPL

FRYING FISH June 1968: A relaxed Robin Knox-Johnston, pictured at the
galley cooking freshly-caught fish during the sail from Surrey Docks,
London, to the start of the race off Falmouth. RKJ's meals for the rest of
the voyage were mainly out of a mountain of tins that he managed to
pack into the 32ft ketch.
TROPHY PRESENTATION 22 April, 1969, Falmouth: RKJ is presented with
the Sunday Times Golden Globe Trophy at an open ceremony on the
balcony of Falmouth’s public library, after stepping ashore for the first time
for 313 days. He donated the cash prize of £5,000, then a considerable
sum, particularly for someone his age, to the bereaved Crowhurst family.

What they found, and what these pictures show, was a

young man totally relaxed about the challenge ahead, yet
with a steely determination in his eyes. “Yes, I did feel
confident,” Sir Robin recalls now. “I was a professional
sailor and had great faith in my boat. I had built her with
friends and had sailed her from India to England so knew
all her strengths and foibles. At the time people didn’t
understand. One asked me if I thought I had it in me to
complete the voyage. My answer was I didn’t know. ‘Ask
me again in a couple of weeks,’ I said. He saw that as
weakness. I saw it as being practical. He had no concept of
the drive and determination I had to see it through.”
Knox-Johnston set off wearing the same Guernsey
knitted jumper that he wore on his return when the Sunday
Mirror decided to have him checked out by a psychologist
who found Robin “distressingly normal.” The only physical
difference between departure and return was a beard,
which he has kept ever since. “I didn’t set out to grow a LIVE OUTSIDE BROADCAST BY THE BBC 22 April, 1969, Falmouth: RKJ sails into
beard”, he says, adding, “and during my first once-a-week Falmouth, England, accompanied by a flotilla of little ships carrying family and
radio call to Bruce Maxwell, I asked him where the razors media. Knox-Johnston’s return was broadcast live to the nation by the BBC, with
had been stowed. The following week, I learned that Ken David Vine commentating. The nation, along with most of the industrialised world,
Parker still had them in his car. They had never been would tune into the BBC again a few months later to watch the Moon landing. The
packed onboard – the rest is history!” American astronauts were aware of RKJ's navigational feat and sent congratulations.

56 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

 ROBIN KNOX-JOHNSTON NEW PICTURE ARCHIVE

FLOTILLA RECEPTION 22nd April 1969 - Falmouth: Robin Knox-Johnston sails his
32ft yacht SUHAILI into Falmouth, making history by becoming the first person to
sail non-stop a round the world, accompanied by a flotilla of little ships

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BILL ROWNTREE/PPL

LAUNCHED June 4, 1968: SUHAILI, Robin Knox-Johnston’s 32ft ketch
rigged yacht being launched by crane into Surrey Docks, London, prior
to a voyage down to Falmouth and the start of solo non-stop
circumnavigation attempt on June 14. Knox-Johnston was accompanied
by Bruce Maxwell and Bill Rowntree from the Sunday Mirror newspaper,
and Ken Parker, Knox-Johnston’s publisher at Cassell.
NEW SAILS June 1968: Robin Knox-Johnston checking out a new set of
Cranfield Sails for the first time aboard his 32ft ketch Suhaili during the
sail from Surrey Docks, London, to the start of his solo non-stop
circumnavigation attempt from Falmouth. One of the most memorable
passages in A World of My Own recounts a sleep-deprived RKJ sewing
his beard into a sail repair in his exhaustion, then agonisingly tearing it free.

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 57

 Left: The design of
a beach-launched
lifeboat. Note the
three drain holes
allowing rapid
drainage of water
taken on board

THE NEED
FOR SPEED
Saving lives at sea has always been
bound to the speed of rescue, from
the first rowing boats to the 60-knot,
all-weather motorboats of today

WORDS DAG PIKE

COURTESY RNLI
W
hen someone is drowning out at sea there
is always a need for speed but there are
so many aspects to rescue at sea. Anyone
going to the rescue has to first of all get
to the wreck and then when they have rescued the
survivors they have to get safely back to the shore. It is a
delicate balance and in the past the need to survive has
always taken precedence over the speed factor.
Two centuries ago, trade by sea was at its height but
relied on sailing ships which in turn relied on the wind.
Too little wind and they could be in trouble close to the
shore. Too much wind and they could also be in trouble
close to the shore and for the watchers on the shore,
there was little they could do to help. At best they went
to help in their working boats under oars or sail which
was a brave but highly risky approach; but you can’t just
stand on the shore and watch.
Main picture: ARRIVAL OF THE SURF BOATS
Zetland lifeboat Eventually it was realised that rescue at sea needed a
at Redcar in 1802 dedicated type of vessel designed to the highest levels of
seaworthiness then available. Many of these had to
Above: Fishguard operate from open beaches like their fishing fleets and so
No1 lifeboat, the surf rescue boat was born. High at the ends with a
c1889; A lifeboat pronounced sheerline and buoyancy to keep it afloat
crew launches a even when flooded, the crews would fight their way
surf boat through through the surf to go to the aid of the vessel in distress.
heavy surf These surf boats were provided locally and later they
became organised into national institutions, mainly
manned by volunteers using dedicated lifeboats, designed
to the highest standards then available. If you look at
early lifeboat design there is a surprising similarity in the
designs around the world; high ends, perhaps with
buoyancy around the gunwale to give added stability and
maybe with buoyancy boxes incorporated at the high
COURTESY RNLI
THE HISTORY OF THE LIFEBOAT
COURTESY RNLI
ends to give the boats a self-righting capability. Oars
were the primary means of propulsion with sails added
to for use when the wind and course allowed. That style
of traditional lifeboat lasted up until the start of the 19th
century, but technology was changing and lifeboat design
had to follow.
1890: THE FIRST STEAM LIFEBOAT
The advent of steam power for ships prompted what was
probably the most significant change in lifeboat design
ever for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).
In 1890 a steam-powered lifeboat was developed, and
with it what was probably the first waterjet-propelled
boat. Six of these steam boats were built and remained in
service for over 40 years but steam power had an obvious
disadvantage in the time needed to raise a head of steam
before setting out but replacing the frailty of oars and
sails in stormy weather was an obvious advantage and
these steam lifeboats paved the way for petrol and
diesel-powered lifeboats.
Early in the 1900s, the first petrol engine-driven
lifeboats were built. At that time there was some
uncertainty about the reliability of using petrol engines
which were still in their infancy, so the traditional
double-ended design was retained as were oars and sails.
The first motor lifeboat in the USA was introduced in
1899 and the RNLI followed suit in 1905 with other
European lifeboats making the change at around the
same time.
So the pattern was set for the next 60 years with the
only major change being the switch from petrol to diesel.
1930 saw a radical change in lifeboat design with the
first lifeboat built that was faster than displacement
speeds. Unreliable aircraft were ditching in the Dover
Straits so the RNLI had a boat designed and built by
Thornycrofts with a pair of 375hp petrol engines and
18-knot capability, twice the speed of conventional
lifeboats and in addition to her pioneering speed, she
was the first lifeboat to have an enclosed wheelhouse.
1960S: THE LIVERPOOL CLASS
When I started working for the RNLI in 1964, the 35ft
(10.7m) Liverpool class of traditional lifeboat was still
very much in evidence. For sailors, the image of the
traditional lifeboat that puts out from the shore to rescue
those in distress is a lasting picture of the ultimate in
seaworthiness. These were the pinnacle of the boat
60 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
designers’ and builders’ art and that view persisted up
until the early 1960s when the nature of the casualties
they had to deal with was changing.
This new breed of casualty tended to be leisure boats
in trouble in fine and moderate weather and now that
speed to reach the casualty became as important as
coping with rough seas, creating a dilemma for the
designers: how to combine speed and seaworthiness?
THE RIB
The initial solution was found with the inshore lifeboat,
small, fast inflatable rescue boats that could put out from
the shore, even from open beaches. These were the
modern version of the surf lifeboat and the French were
pioneers with the RNLI following suit. These inflatables
morphed into the RIB which became the boat of choice
Above: Harwich for inshore rescue. The RIB was and probably still is, the
steam tug most seaworthy boat of its size anywhere in the world
class-lifeboat and a great example of how speed and seaworthiness can
Duke of be combined. At the time I was in charge of the RNLI’s
Northumberland inshore fleet and we built the first RIB at the RNLI depot
at Boreham Wood. That first one did not work in open
seas but along with Atlantic College we persevered and
combining the inflatable tube with a deep vee hull, the
RIB became the rescue boat of choice for many lifeboat
organisations.
Could a fast version of the all-weather lifeboat be
developed? One of the first attempts at this was the 44ft
(13.4m) steel lifeboat developed by the US Coast Guard
that used a new hull design to produce an all-weather
lifeboat capable of about 14 knots. It represented a
dramatic change in the approach to lifeboat design with
much of the safety being placed in the extraordinary
manoeuvrability, and I did prolonged sea trials in the
prototype that the RNLI evaluated.
The Dutch lifeboat society was also interested and I
was tasked with taking this 44-footer to Holland for
trials there. Storms seemed to follow us around and we
left Dover when the ferries stopped operating in a Force
10. We left crawled into Dunkirk Harbour 40 miles later,
battered and bruised but fully intact apart from a missing
radar antenna when a wave had broken right over the
top of the boat.
Below: Wells- We were so proud of the way that the boat behaved
next-the-Sea which was largely due to the powerful engines and their
Liverpool class instant response and the ability to drive that boat
Lifeboat Cecil according to the conditions. This was a transformation
Paine compared with the traditional lifeboat design and with it
COURTESY RNLI
COURTESY RNLI
COURTESY RNLI
Main image: Dover
lifeboat Sir William Hillary
Top: Tynemouth’s second
petrol motor lifeboat,
Henry Vernon 1905 Above:
RNLI Edmund and Mary
Robinson Watson 41 Class
NIC COMPTON
Top: Colin Archer
designed Norwegian
lifeboat
Above: 44 MLB sold by
US Coast Guard to RNLI,
shown here during
trials. The boat arrive in
England in 1964
COURTESY RNLI
THE HISTORY OF THE LIFEBOAT
came the realisation that here you had a lifeboat where
much of the safety of the boat had been transferred into
the hands of the person driving it.
That 44ft steel design has been used all over the world
with more than 100 built. It took some time for crews to
adapt because while these faster boats were readily
accepted by the younger crew members, the older hands
were reluctant to make the change. It was a challenge to
adapt to this new form of seamanship as well as learning
to use the modern electronic systems.
Eventually the need for speed in the fast changing
world of rescue started to take priority. The US Coast
Guard built their first deep-vee lifeboat, a 47-footer
(14.3m), and the RNLI followed suit with a design from
the famous firm of GL Watson that initially featured
their ragged chine concept but that was removed on later
versions. The Dutch lifeboats changed over to deep-vee
hulls but their version was based around the RIB
concept, using RIBs up to 45ft (13.7m) long. I am not
convinced this is the best solution because many of the
features found on smaller RIBs like tube deformation on
wave impact, did not work with the heavy-duty tubes on
larger RIBs.
The Norwegian lifeboats switched over from their
traditional designs based around the famous Colin
Archer hulls to modern deep vees and they went for
speed, ranging up to between 30 and 40 knots. These
were the fastest lifeboats in the world at the time,
recognising the need to get to modern casualties in the
quickest possible time. The US Coast Guard with their
47-footers and the RNLI with their Arun Class of
lifeboat were more cautious and they were comfortable
with their all-weather lifeboats doing just 25 knots.
Apart from the design of the boats, there are two
factors that have to be reckoned with when it comes to
fast lifeboats. When you are working out in the open sea
you want a lifeboat that can travel faster than the waves.
This allows the boat to dictate its position in the waves
when operating in big following seas. With open ocean
storm waves travelling at a possible 30 knots or more it
helps to have that margin of safety.
However, once you get into the realms of 30-knot,
all-weather lifeboats so much of the safety of the boat is
then in the hands of the person driving the boat. The
safety of the boat depends on using the speed, the power
and the manoeuvrability. When you are using volunteer
62 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
Above left: FB’s crews, that level of expertise is not always available and
60-knot lifeboat the solution lies in the hands of highly-trained, full-time
crews. The US Coast Guard can justify full-time crews for
Above right: their boats because they are employed in a wide variety of
RNLI fast other duties as well as lifesaving, while the Norwegians,
Severn-Class where the lifeboat service is a charity, have full-time crews
lifeboat and limited to just three very highly trained people.
B-Class Atlantic The RNLI has stayed with its traditional model of
75 inshore using mainly volunteer crews but often combined with a
lifeboat full-time coxswain and the French and Dutch seem to
operate a similar system. There is no perfect system of
crewing fast, modern lifeboats and each organisation
finds a solution. The fact that there have been no major
lifeboat casualties in recent times may show that the fast
lifeboat solution is the correct one but it may also reflect
that lifeboats are much less likely to go out in extreme
conditions these days; perhaps heroic rescues are a thing
of the past. The next step in development might be to use
unmanned rescue boats. The technology is there already.
60-KNOT CAPABILITY
The Norwegians set new speed standards with their fast
lifeboats moving up into the 40-knot zone and with their
latest designs they rely very heavily on technology. The
helm station rivals that of the Space Shuttle with the
coxswain having everything close at hand to make up for
the reduced crew numbers. Progress in another direction
comes from Italy where the latest development is a 60-knot,
all-weather lifeboat. Developed by FB Design, it relies on
developments the company has carried out in the fast
patrol boat sector and is based on hulls with a very deep
vee of around 25° and self-righting capability.
So the speed factor is now part of the lifeboat heritage
and much of the focus in the design is aimed at reducing
the chance of a failure which can be a primary cause of
many disasters. However, in all modern lifeboat
development that the author has researched, there is one
major safety feature lacking. Just like virtually every
leisure boat out there on the water, all of these modern
lifeboats have their two engines mounted in the same
compartment. This means that if there is an engine room
fire or water ingress, both engines could be out of
commission and the lifeboat helpless. This is the Achilles
heel of modern lifeboat design and when asked about
this, a naval architect from the RNLI commented ‘We
have always done it like that!’
 Considering
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Classic Boat

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i Ease of Use Switch on, twist the i Power Forget slow speed “trolling
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i Range There are many variables,
i Ease of Handling The batteries but most users achieve at least 9 to
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i Three shaft length options
i Direct drive (no gearbox)
and down” weight (the shaft/motor
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mind which way up they’re stored.
i Quietness & Smoothness
Electric motors are a delight to use.
WRNQRWVPLQȵDWDEOHGLQJK\
Much more if you slow down a little.
i Reliability Many outboard motors
don’t get used very often, and small
petrol motors hate this. Electric
outboards have fewer parts in
general, and in particular there’s
no carburettor to “gum up”.

Of course, it’s not all perfect. The range may still not be enough for some users.
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FARIDA
Laurent Giles gem
Around the mid to late 20th century, British innovation in sailing
boat design was at a pinnacle, with groundbreaking designers like
Uffa Fox, Laurent Giles, John Illingworth and Angus Primrose
leading the world. The 35ft cutter Farida, launched to a Laurent
Giles design in 1939, slightly precedes the fury of post-war
innovation, but when you consider than she’s almost contemporary
with Whooper (1937) which, at a similar size and from the same
designer, has won probably more classic racing silver than any
other yacht in… well, certainly Britain, you can be assured she’ll fly.
Her form manages to be both unusual and beautiful, a trick Giles
was sometimes able to pull off. She was re-launched in 2019 after a
To see more boats for sale go to classicboat.co.uk
64 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
complete, no-expense-spared restoration, and made a big
impression on the editor of this magazine when he took the helm
for a sail. The original quality of build, and of the subsequent
restoration work, give substance to that allure. You might initially
balk at the price, but don’t think of this as a secondhand yacht, as
she’s probably better than the day she was launched. This is a gem
for an aficionado, a yacht that could enter any regatta on earth, and
LESTER MCCARTHY
probably win a fair few too.
Asking £250,000, Tel: +44 (0)1202 330077
sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk
ALCOR SECONDO
Italian-built Laurent
Giles design
Here’s another Laurent Giles, but of a different nature.
Alcor Secondo was built in 1958 for a Spanish
yachtsman and the yacht has been in the Med much, if
not all, of her life, competing over the years at the
regattas, and not entirely without success. She’s a 75ft
7in (23m) ketch with huge amounts of usable deck
space (as befits her Med design), and accommodation
for six guests in four double cabins. Power is from two
Rolls Royce engines of 320hp each, which is a lot for this
size of boat, placing her into the motor-sailing category,
at least in terms of capability under power: the broker
claims an 8.5-knot cruising speed and a 10-knot top
speed. Despite the traditional overhangs, the keel
arrangement is of the fin and bulb type, as originally
designed. Build is by Sangermani, then at the height of
its powers as a world-class boatyard, so quality should
be assured.
Lying Mediterranean, Asking €290,000, YPI Yachts
Tel: +377 9999 9797, ypiyachts.com
With 30 years of experience specialising in traditional and
electric boats we will do our best to find the ideal craft to
suit your individual needs — for a day or for a lifetime.

For more information contact

HENLEY SALES AND CHARTER LTD
+44 (0) 1491 578870 | sales@hscboats.co.uk
www.hscboats.co.uk

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 65

 By Peter Poland

AFFORDABLE
CLASSIC
Salcombe
Yawls
LESS
THAN
£10K

66 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

A
friend and I once decided that walking might
make a change from sailing. So we set forth to
walk from Branscombe to Bigbury, a 100-mile
stretch of the south-west coastal path marked
by knackering climbs and knee-wrenching descents.
As we hit the path from Start Point to Salcombe on
August Bank Holiday, our landlady warned: “Watch out
for the hurricane.” We thought she must be mad. Some
hours later we sat outside a Salcombe pub, huddled
against driving rain and a rising gale. Apparently
this was the ‘tail end of Hurricane Charlie.’
As we watched yachts scurrying for cover,
several elegant yawl-rigged dinghies continued to
brave the elements. They weren’t going to miss
the fun. I was astonished that open dayboats
were preparing to take on Charlie – but these were
no normal dayboats. They were Salcombe Yawls.
Salcombe Yawls trace their history back two
centuries. They started life as inshore fishing boats,
evolving to cope with the short steep seas and long
rollers that swept up the Channel. They had to be able to
beat out of the estuary against a strong tide before
fishing under a reduced rig of jib and mizzen.
In 1853 the fleet of yawls – then called Licensed
Watermen’s Boats – started racing in the Salcombe
Regatta. Then in 1917 a very young Jim Stone –
apprenticed to Edgar Cove in Salcombe – built himself
Y2. During the winter of 1938/39, Y14 was built for son
Alec and from around 1946 Jim Stone built many more
in East Portlemouth. Between them, Jim and his son Alec
built more than 80 SYs up to 1995.
The Salcombe Yawl Association was established in
1965 and Jim Stone helped draw up the inaugural Class
Rules. Since then Michael Atfield in Salcombe has also
built 30 yawls. Then two top British designers – Phil
Morrison and Ian Howlett – put their minds to work on
the tolerances in the restricted class rules and both
produced new designs (from SY141 onwards) that
planed earlier and easily. This led to the creation of three
racing divisions: red for boats post SY141; blue for fast
For sale via Stones Boatyard
Y14 Built by James Stone in Y123 Built by Mike Atfield
1939, rebuilt by Jim Stone in 1981. Completely rebuilt by
1999. One of the original and Stones Boatyard in 2013.
most famous yawls, this New planking, new ribs,
beautiful wooden boat is centre box, ready to sail.
ready to sail. £10,000 £8,000
older designs; and gold for less optimised yawls
whose crews go racing for fun rather than for
pots.
Ian Howlett (of 12-M and 6-M fame) often stayed
Above: The in Salcombe and told me “out of the blue in 1991 I
Salcombe Yawl was contacted by Jim Stone (third generation of Stone
began as a fishing boat builders) ... [who] explained why he would like
boat, but now has to set in motion a new design/build of Salcombe
a strong racing Yawl.” Stone decided that Michael Atfield should
fleet build it; and several more followed on. Howlett said:
“the build quality of his traditional clinker planking
was exceptional and we’ll probably never see such
SALCOMBE fine examples again.” Like their predecessors, these
YAWLS new hulls had gleaming clinker hulls and varnished
timber spars. They are a joy to behold. There’s only
LOA
one problem. A new one costs about the same as the
16ft (4.9m) new Mercedes estate that might be used to tow it.
BEAM Paul Tripp is a recent owner who regularly visited
7ft [(2.1m) Salcombe from an early age, saying he always
dreamed of owning a Salcombe Yawl. He told me “I
MIN WEIGHT bought it in 2012 for around £3,500. The new ones at
840lbs the time cost around £40k! Not many are being built
(381kg) now but the fleet is strong. I have spent quite a lot on
mine because it was – as the price suggests – not in
SAIL AREA great condition. I have repainted, replaced the sails
174 sqft with secondhand racing sails, put in a bronze
(16.2m ) 2
centreboard and have replaced the decks, boom and
mizzenmast mast.”
Paul races occasionally but mainly uses her
for leisurely family sailing, adding that Salcombe
Yawls “do sail beautifully and are very powerful
with a full rig. I just love an evening sail with a
high tide and a drink! It’s very satisfying and
quiet.”
Those who are tempted to buy a yawl can
sample its charms by hiring one first. Local
fisherman Bill ‘Scratch’ Hitchen will rent his by
the day or the week (including a dinghy with
outboard, mooring and safety gear) or give
sailing tuition by the half day, finishing with a
Saturday race run by the Salcombe Yacht Club.
Then you can contact Tristan Stone to look at
Y151 Built by Mike Atfield in used boats for sale and discuss any extra work
1991. Morrison design ready that may be needed. If you have any questions
to sail. £8,000 on the SY, Tristan will know the answer!
All these boats available
info@stonesboatyard.co.uk Stonesboatyard.co.uk, Tel: +44 (0)1548 844122,
Tel: +44 (0)1548 844122 Bill Hitchen, Tel: +44 (0)7966 840436
Salcombe Yawl Association, syoa.co.uk
CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 67
BROKERAGE

Boats for sale

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PHOENIX
A beautiful gentleman’s Classic motor
yacht circa 1930, kept to a high standard.
Teak on Oak, LOA 11.15m,beam 2.64m ,
new engine with low running hours, bow
thruster, new keel, surveyed in 2019 with
all minor points addressed. Lying Ipswich
suffolk.
£35,000.00 1938 LAURENT GILES CUTTER.
Built by Hinks of Appledore N Devon, of pitch pine on oak frames.
Contact: André 07885 341155 Fairlight is masthead cutter rigged and is similar in design to the
or famous Vertue class but considerably larger (40’loa) and a
email: Bentleyboys60@gmail.com smaller sister to Dyarchy, also built in 1938. In present ownership
for over 40 yrs. Reluctant sale due to age (of owner!).
Lying Falmouth £80,000 Ono
Contact: syfairlight@gmail.com 07836513500 01326210423

1938 LAURENT GILES

CUTTER.
Built by Hinks of Appledore N Devon,
of pitch pine on oak frames. Fairlight
is masthead cutter rigged and is
similar in design to the famous
Vertue class but considerably larger
(40’loa) and a smaller sister to
Dyarchy, also built in 1938. In
present ownership for over 40 yrs.
SHETLAND 16FT DOUBLE ENDER. Reluctant sale due to age (of
Built by Allcraft in Lerwick. Sound condition. Mast and sails replaced. owner!).
Complete with road trailer. Rare classic that sails beautifully. The Lying Falmouth
boat is valued at £6,000 and would be happy to look at all offers. £80,000 Ono
Please get in contact David Beckly for further information on: Contact: syfairlight@gmail.com
Tel: +44 (o)1822 852658 07836513500 or 01326210423
Email : debeckly@gmail.com

TWISTER 28
CHEETAH OF
BURNHAM.
Tucker Brown wood 1967
Beta16. East Anglian Offshore
Champion. Professionally
restored. New ply/epoxy deck,
keel floor chainplate bolts,
cushions chrome, teak cockpit
toe rails hatch dorades.
Survey 2020 Stunning.
Lying Burnham on Crouch.
£20,000 16 FT LOA WOODEN SAILING DINGHY
01702205255/07905262074 Professionally built 2018. Gunter rig, steel centre plate. Brown
or kenlayzell@hotmail.com furling jib and mainsail. Combi-trailer. New 3.5 Outboard.
Excellent condition throughout. £11,250. Whitstable.
Tel. 07852266006.

INTERNATIONAL
ONE DESIGN BRAND NEW, 18 FOOT CLINKER BUILT AUXILIARY LAUNCH.
1966. Just completed this year in Scotland by ‘Clydeside Traditional
“WHISPER”. The last Boatbuilders’. This is part of a range of clinker built vessels designed
wooden IOD built by
Bjarne Aas. Professional and built by the yard. Strongly built from three quarter inch Scottish
restoration in 2013. larch with side decks of one inch Origan Pine. The vessel is fitted with
New sails 2017-2019. rudder and stern gear and may be fitted with an engine of your
Revarnished 2019. choice. However a Lister engine is presently fitted but may be
New Selden mast and substituted for a Betta or similar at cost. You may however wish to fit
rigging 2020. your own engine to the substantial engines seats already fitted.
Winter cover and cradle. Standing lugsail and jib are fitted as an auxiliary.
Classic Regatta winner
2019. The price we are asking for the ‘Girl Pat’
Lying Suffolk is £14,000 ex engine
£30,000 Contact Pat Matheson on
Tel: 07850 779911 or 01414456094
Email: markwincer11@ email clydesideboatbuilders@yahoo.co.uk
gmail.com

68 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021


We hope that you enjoy our selection of vintage and classic sailing yachts. Please do not hesitate
to contact us if you require any further information on any of the yachts featured here.
54ft Ed Burnett Bermudan Cutter 2018
From renowned designer Ed Burnett’s drawing board, HELENA
was launched in the summer of 2018, her every detail fashioned
by a small team of British craftsmen with a proud heritage of
wooden boatbuilding led by shipwright Mike Ludgrove over
a period spanning more than a decade. With lines echoing
from the 1930’s, she is every inch a classic inspiration from
the Golden Age of yachting, yet combines all the advantages
of watertight and modern construction and new and efficient
systems. When we visited HELENA immediately after her return
from the Mediterranean it was almost impossible to believe this
was a boat that had sailed 9000 miles in one summer. She is
capable and beautiful - what more can we say!
£850,000 Lying UK
49ft McGruer Bermudan Ketch 1973/2020
BORDER LEGEND is a resurrected masterpiece from when finely-
built wooden yachts were still just about the norm, and designers
and builders could call on a century or more of handed down skills.
Her design by George McGruer is a natural evolution from the
renowned work of his father, James, and her build was by the last
generations of a highly skilled workforce managed by the wider
McGruer family since the 1890s. Circumstances saw her fall on
hard times before recent rescue and a major refit under current,
experienced ownership - so that one of the finest, last generation
wooden yachts is now available for the pure enjoyment - and it can
only be that - of her next owner.
£225,000 Lying UK
For further information please contact:
+44 (0)1202 330077
info@sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk
Brokerage listing
C L A S S I C A N D V I N TAG E YAC H T S
35ft Laurent Giles Bermudan Cutter 1939/2018
Quintessentially Giles, FARIDA is a gem: one of the most
carefully thought out yachts of her size of her day; perfectly
proportioned overhangs, sweet sheer-line and unmistakable
Jack Laurent Giles styling still capable of turning heads. Her
powerful rig is easy to handle and she is very quick even in light
conditions, while her delightfully airy accommodation offers
perfect comfort in the classic style. Skilfully and beautifully
rebuilt/ restored over a five-year period for a very passionate
owner using as much of the original as possible and the finest of
materials where new, FARIDA was relaunched in 2018 in ‘better
than new’ condition, and given normal just deserts should offer
many years of sailing fun and passion into the future..
£250,000 Lying UK
23ft Ed Burnett Gaff Cutter 2018
PANACEA’s design was close to Ed Burnett’s heart: a proposal
for his father; partly the result of deep experience with his own 23
ft Harrison Butler gaff cutter aboard which he lived as a student
of yacht design, and regularly sailed between Southampton and
Falmouth. Add Ed’s earlier traditional boatbuilding experience
with Gannon & Benjamin on Martha’s Vineyard, his reputation
for attention to detail and the execution of incredibly precise
drawings, and it’s easy to understand what a pleasure PANACEA
was to commission, and to build, and then to enjoy afloat. Now all
the provenance and pleasure and beauty of the lightly used, still
young PANACEA is available to her next owner at significantly less
than new build cost.
£98,500 Lying UK
Our classic and vintage yachts & motor
yachts are available to view at:
– www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk –
46ft Silvers Bain ‘Silver Leaf’ TS Motor Yacht 1937/2001
Silvers manager and designer, John Bain, perfected the art
of building motor yachts in volume, yet at such a high quality
and so effectively marketed that even through the Great
Depression years they almost couldn’t keep up with demand.
And they are still coveted, these superbly stylish yachts so
ahead of their time in terms of comfort and sea keeping.
MERIDIES, a longer than usual, teak planked Silver Leaf
Class, has benefited over the years from owners who changed
nothing of her authenticity, and more recently have dealt with
the structural needs of this young at heart octogenarian. With
MERIDIES, vintage style meets practicality in symbiosis.
£240,000 Lying UK
32ft Berthon 8 Ton Gauntlet 1939/2014
The Gauntlet Class’s elegant and instantly recognisable lines,
sturdy seagoing reputation, and jaunty air have endeared
generations of yacht sailors who know a good thing. Most are
still going strong, many have enjoyed restorations, but few with
the finesse relatively recently applied to the 8-Tonner NAUSIKAA,
once owned by author Graham Greene. The aim: to compliment
the essential qualities above with accommodation in which a
family could enjoy time aboard in comparative luxury: rare even
on even a modern boat this size. The result is a success in our
view, and moreover NAUSIKAA is no slouch, beating the entire
fleet of the British Classic Yacht Club on corrected time in their
2014 Round the Isle of Wight race in often boisterous conditions..
£80,000 Lying UK
22 Market Street, Poole,
Dorset BH15 1NF, UK
MEMBER OF THE ABYA
CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 69
 PHOTOGRAPHY
MARINE • TRAVEL • EQUINE
PEOPLE

Brokerage • Management • Storage

1930 William Fife 6 Metre -
Nada

An elegant, fast and up

to date William Fife III 6
Metre, with a championship
inventory

£120,000 UK

1902 William Fife

III 36 Clyde Linear –
Sibyl of Cumae
With her classic and
very striking lines
Sibyl could only
have come from fhe
drawing board of Fife.
£235,000 UK P.O. Box 209
Marion, MA 02738 | USA
info@themetreyard.co.uk 508 728 6210
themetreyard.co.uk
anne@annetconverse.com
+44 (0)7771606747
www.annetconverse.com
PHOTO: BENJAMIN MENDLOWITZ

ARTISAN BOATWORKS +1.

+1.
CUSTOM YACHT BUILDERS

70 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

Craftsmanship
Yard News Edited by Steffan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758
Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk

KILRUSH, IRELAND

Dublin Bay 21: boats 3

and 4 well on the way
The rebirth of an entire class sounds like the stuff of pipe dreams, but it
is precisely what has been going on for the last few years at the Kilrush
Boatyard in County Clare. The classic yacht restoration scene in Ireland
may not be as evolved as it is in the UK, USA or many European
countries, but it has a great champion on its side in the form of one-man
dynamo, yachtsman and yachting historian Hal Sisk. Hal first came to our
attention for the very authentic, detailed restoration of GL Watson’s 36ft
(11m) cutter Peggy Bawn of 1896, a restoration that set a new bar in
smaller yachts. He has done much since then, but this new project is
again based on the restoration of smaller yachts .
The Dublin Bay 21 Class was drawn by Alred Mylne from 1902-3 and
the remarkable thing is that all seven have survived and are together.
They are beyond reasonable restoration, so the idea, under the guidance
of naval architect Paul Spooner, has been to build new, cold-moulded
hulls with gunter rigs carrying the original lead ballast keels, and start
the class all over again. It stretches the term ‘restoration’ to the limit, but
there is undeniably a continuation of identity, and with a project of this
excitement, let’s not get sidetracked by semantics.
Since the project’s inception in 2017, two yachts (Naneen and
Garavogue) have already been launched. The third, Estelle, is waiting for
the deck to go on, and the fourth, Geraldine, was already framed out as
we went to press. That’s an awful lot of work for Steve Morris and his
guys to get through, particularly as it has to fit in around other work, like
the major refit of an Arthur Robb ketch, and the electrification and other
recent work to a traditional Gleoiteog which the yard relaunched in
October 2020.

C/O STEVE MORRIS

Hal hopes to sail three of the class to their spiritual home of Dublin in
April, where they (and subsequent yachts) will remain the property of
the Classic Association and let out on a ‘pay to sail’ basis. Above: Traditional Gleoiteog, now electric

SOUTHWOLD, SUFFOLK
Busy time at Harbour Marine Services
Harbour Marine Services have, like many other boatyards, showed no sign
whatsoever of slowing down throughout the pandemic, as their current
work list proves. “We’re flat out in both sheds” said yard owner John
Buckley. The yard has become known for its restorations of vintage motor
yachts from the likes of Silvers and Saunders Roe, but they’ve restored a
fair few sailing yachts over the years too, and are presently working on the
original Kim Holman-designed Rummer, a Yachting World Five Tonner, and
are even refitting a modern classic, in the form of a Truly Classic 31 from
Hoek Design. In terms of powere vessels, there’s a McGruer 41 in for a full
C/O HMS

restoration, a Bates 33 is in for a full refit and outside helm, and a

Kingfisher Silverleaf also in for a full refit. The yard also recently acquired
L to R: Yachting World Five Tonner Dynamene; McGruer 41 Jorvic the historic chandler Davey and Co.

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 71

CRAFTSMANSHIP

JANE LANGSTON

Above: Dan Scully and

Cooper Weldon (right),
installing deck beams

MALDON, ESSEX

Major rebuild for Thames sailing barge Pudge

The last 12 months has been a very busy period for the team rebuilding the Thames sailing barge Pudge
in dry dock at the Fullbrige in Maldon. The major overhaul led by Kevin Finch on behalf of the Thames
Barge Sailing Trust includes a new deck and beams, stem and new king planks either side of new hatches.
Pudge was built in 1922 by the London & Rochester Trading Company in Rochester, Kent. She was

JANE LANGSTON
requisitioned in May 1940 while in Tilbury, drafted to Dover and thence to Dunkirk to take part in
Operation Dynamo. Pudge is one of four surviving Dunkirk spritsail barges. She ceased trading in 1960.
She is expected to return to sail in May 2022 for her 100th birthday.

UNDERFALLS, BRISTOL
Two new motorboats and a clinker fishing dinghy
Star Yachts has received two new orders – “not big ones, but both in
new directions” said Star Yachts’ Win Cnoops. Win is known for
building, under his Star Yachts moniker, some lovely, traditional,
wooden, strip-plank motor launches in varying sizes. The new orders
are for a 19ft (5.8m) “fast launch” without the customary stepped
deck, at the customer’s request; and an 18ft (5.5m) version of the
open 16-footer (4.9m), the yard’s first boat to receive electric drive.
“With the extra 2ft in length, she’s going to look very sleek indeed!”
said Wins. Build has just begun on the 18 (left), and the 19 (right) will
start straight after that. Win tells us that his boatbuilding neighbour
at the historic Underfalls Yard, John Raymond Barker, best known
for the build and restoration of pilot cutters, has started build on a
traditional clinker fishing boat for himself. We look forward to
catching up with all three projects in the flesh in 2021.

72 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

 PLYMOUTH, DEVON

New dinghies, restored yachts

It’s been business as usual at Stirling and Son, under the historic Number One Covered
Slipway, and at the ‘sister yard’ in Treluggan, over the border in Cornwall. A huge
Norwegian ice-class wooden motor yacht still dominates the east slip at Stirling and
Son, and she’s been joined by the 47ft (14.3m) McGruer sailing yacht Rinamara on the
west slip. There is also the never-ending stream of new clinker dinghies, the most recent
of which was delivered to her new owner for Christmas. There has been a significant
increase in welding and engineering work at the slipway too. Treluggan’s sheds have
the overspill of smaller boats and these include the delightful 35ft (10.7m), 1963
Arthur Robb teak yawl Nin Dar Anna, undergoing a refit. You can read our feature on
Nin Dar Anna by typing her name into the search box at classicboat.co.k.

C/O WILL STIRLING

BURNHAM OVERY STAITHE, NORFOLK

Growler coming together
The teenaged yacht conservator Ash Faire-Ring has been back at
work on his restoration project after taking two months out to sail
around the UK on his friend’s oyster smack Primrose. Since returning in
November, he has been busy replanking his 34ft (10.4m) Thames
sailing barge yacht Growler in its homemade, unpowered, unheated
tarpaulin tent. Ash was hoping for a summer launch
last year, but the new aim is to complete the inner
layer of planking, then tackling the outer skin
before the engine goes in in the first week of March.
“Very exciting times,” as Ash put it. Growler was
built in 1922 on Conyer Creek in Kent.
C/O FOX’S

IPSWICH, SUFFOLK
Spruce-up for the
Queen’s Gloriana
The Queen’s rowbarge Gloriana has arrived at Fox’s Marina and
C/O ASH FAIRE-RING

Boatyard for a winter refit. The work planned involves complete

re-finishing of topsides, bottom and all exterior surfaces, including
the specialist application of two pack-paints, varnishes and gold
leaf. At 88ft (26.8m), Gloriana fits inside Fox’s heated workshops,
which can accommodate vessels up to 100ft (30.5m).

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 73

MARINE DIRECTORY To advertise call Andrew Mackenzie +44 (0)207 349 3718 or email andrew.mackenzie@chelseamagazines.com

Marine Directory BOATBUILDERS

BOATBUILDERS
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Ipplepen Devon TQ12 5TZ
Call: 07860 488544
Email: info@seahopperfoldingboats.com KITTIWAKEBOATS.CO.UK
Visit: www.seahopperfoldingboats.com

DAVID MOSS BOATBUILDERS

Quality boatbuilding in wood 8’-50’, clinker, carvel or strip-plank,
spar-making, painting , welding, lay-up facilities
Repairs - Restorations
15ft Sea Otter 31ft gaff cutter Polly
Photo: Keith Allso

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Contact Roger 01260 252157, roger@kittiwakeboats.co.uk
Photo: Peter Chesworth

Skippool Creek, Wyre Road, Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancs FY5 5LF

Telephone: 01253 893830 Email: davidmossboatbuilders@gmail.com
www.davidmossboatbuilders.co.uk
Hayling Yacht COMPANY
Quality traditional wooden boat repairs Established as wooden boat builders
and restoration, painting, varnishing,
polishing, antifouling, engine servicing, in 1935, and trusted to refurbish
electric conversions, cranage to 35 ton. and repair yachts such as Lively
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Call 02392 463592 for a chat with
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www.haylingyacht.co.uk

Cox’s Boatyard Ltd. Barton Turf, Norwich, NR12 8AZ. 01692 536206
www.coxsboatyard.co.uk ebishop@coxsboatyard.co.uk
Marcus Lewis
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Woodford’s ALAN S.R. STALEY

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7 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

 MARINE DIRECTORY
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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 7

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Boatbuilder’s Notes By Robin Gates

1 5

Wood planing stop

& bench dogs
BY ROBIN GATES

Half the secret of planing the face of a small board

successfully is securing the work – the other half is using a
well-tuned hand plane. The basic set-up is to butt the end
of the board against a low planing stop with its far edge 2 6
supported by bench dogs, to prevent the board from
pivoting. Commercial versions are often metal, some dogs
being complicated by ball catches or springs while some
planing stops have teeth like a rip saw to dig into end
grain – risking damage to both plane and user if you miss
your stroke. Using hardwood offcuts and hand tools you
can make entirely safe versions which cost nothing and
suit your own requirements.
In this instance a blind mortise for the planing stop was
bored using a brace and bit before squaring it up with a
chisel. The stop is essentially a short tenon with a wide
head and so quick to make that you may as well prepare
several of different heights. Using a stop in a blind mortise 3 7
rather than a friction-fitting stop in a through mortise
avoids the loosening or jamming caused by changes in
humidity which can compromise height adjustment. As a 1 Face planing with the
bonus, the blind mortise is filled by a blank when not wooden stop and bench dogs
required, thereby restoring the level surface of the bench. 2 Boring the blind mortise
These dogs are of oak salvaged from an old chair leg, 3 Chiselling the mortise to shape
with square heads 3/4in (18mm) high. The round tenon 4 A planing stop and its mortise
was pencilled onto the end grain through a dog hole in 5 Chiselling to the shoulder of a
the bench, then the shoulders of the head were established bench dog
by sawing at the corners, before chiselling to shape and 6 Rounding with a rasp
sawing to height on the bench hook. The fit was perfected 7 Sawing to height
by knocking the dog into its hole, giving it a twist and
then attending to the burnished high spots with a rasp. 4

76 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021


JOINER’S NAME STAMP
The relationship that develops
between an artist or maker and his or
her hand tools is difficult to describe,
but the pain felt when a tool is lost
might be compared to losing a finger
– because it’s in the hand that the loss
is most keenly felt. A replacement
may do the job but will never take the
place of one which, over years and
projects, grew to be an extension of
the worker’s arm.
A look inside the tool chest of an
old shipwright reveals chisels worn
to glimmering steel stubs, hand saws
shrunken to pad saws by so much
sharpening, and planes bearing dark
imprints of the hands which pushed
them across miles of timber. Over a
working lifetime these tools have
become a family, perhaps a little
awkward in their old age but all the
more loved for that – only their
owner understands them fully. And
there’s something else they share –
the owner’s name stamped indelibly
in the wood.
This was common practice when
wooden handles and blades of
high-carbon steel were the norm.
Most hand tools today have moulded
plastic grips and induction-hardened,
Traditional Tool
high-speed steel blades that cut well
when new but resist sharpening.
These tools are designed to be
thrown away when they grow dull,
and they are cheap enough that
while a loss will be inconvenient, it
won’t break any hearts. For the short
time that a disposable saw will
remain usable, the lurid scrawl of a
Sharpie will suffice as insurance
against theft.
Saws and chisels present no
alternative to stamping in the long
grain, but on wooden planes a better
impression is made in the end grain,
normally at the toe because the heel
receives such a hammering that an
owner’s name would soon be
obliterated.
By Robin Gates
Clockwise from In this instance the name of Will
above: Joiner’s Fife was stamped using an 'Imperial'
stamp with joiner’s stamp supplied by Buck &
movable type; Hickman of London. This infinitely
One-piece forged adaptable tool follows the principle
steel stamp; of letterpress printing developed by
Relief lettering in Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th
the 18th century century, using movable steel type
composed in a ‘chase’ and clamped
by a screw on one side.
The more typical joiner’s stamp is
a solid forging with name cut
permanently, like this one issued to P
Minchin. Older stamps with zig-zag
borders produced letters in relief, as
for James Collins who owned this
side-bead moulding plane in the 1700s.
NEXT MONTH: Hall’s spokeshave
ROBIN GATES
CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 77
Letters
LETTER OF THE MONTH
SUPPORTED BY OLD PULTENEY WHISKY
Trekka sistership
triggers memories
Last month’s Letters took be back over 40 years in an
instant. In the mid / late 1970s, as a teenager I sailed at
Ullswater YC. I recall a beautiful home-built Trekka
there, built by the brother of one of the regulars at the
club and brought to Ullswater from their home in the
North East of England. She was sloop rigged and, as I
recall, cold moulded. Definitely highly varnished and
finished to a very high standard. As there were not
many Trekkas built, and given the coincidence of
location, it could be that Chinook is that same Trekka.
As a new wooden boat, the Trekka was unusual for the
time, when GRP boats dominated. There was a very
active Hunter 19 /Hunter Europa racing fleet which
was taking inspiration from the exploits of Willing
Griffin. There was also a very active fleet of Olympic
class Tempests with the more competitive members
heading off for Olympic trials. The remaining wooden
boats were plywood, either a couple of Hurley
Silhouettes or a Percy Blandford Lysander. It was also
a time when the more adventurous members of UYC
were starting to haul their boats to the sea for a few
weeks each summer, my father included. Usually the
Clyde, though I recall one who sailed his Splinter
across to Norway with his son. He
then upgraded to a Marieholm 26
which was deemed too big for the
club’s moorings. John Guzzwell and
Trekka were certainly inspiring to a
generation of sailors in the 1960s.
Chris Jones
We Clean your Sails and Covers
to find out more visit www.tiptopsails.co.uk
78 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021
The fishing boats of Indonesia revisited
Ian Neubauer’s image of the Madurese perahu jarring (net fishing boats), as I
knew them, is the photo I never did get during three decades in the region.
Bravo! For the moment at least there are still impressive fleets of ‘working sail’ in
Indonesia. While stationed in Lombok I used to take my daily run along the
ridgelines at dusk. As darkness fell, the entire Lombok Strait, all the way to Bali,
would light up like a magic carpet as the crew of each little outrigger pumped
up their Tilley lamp for the hours of darkness ahead. It was always an uplifting
display of the human spirit.
On the Sunda Strait, where we kept a beach cottage for many years, it was
always a joy to take the Hobie 16 out before breakfast to welcome the fleet coming
back from a long night among the djinns (demons), fishing the weird, disconcerting
waters of the Krakatau lagoon (formed by the Krakatoa eruption in 1883). The
fishermen would be tired and cramped from their overnight vigil, but always game
to match up multihulls (a century apart
in evolution), in an impromptu race
home to the morning fish markets of
Labuan. Labuan was also a stronghold
of the Mayang, a similar, highly
decorated vessel, now power-assisted
with a side-slung motor. I attach a
couple of images of the Mayang.
Euan Ross
Drascombes
forever!
It was pleasing that the Drascombe
Lugger was selected, in your January
2021 feature 10 Yachts and Dayboats
under 23ft, as Best for Families. In
recent years the Drascombe Association
(DA) has seen its membership gravitating towards family sailing. There are many
stories recounted in our quarterly publication Drascombe Association News of
family adventures, in the ‘Junior DAN’ feature written by young sailors. The
Drascombe manufacturer Churchouse Boats has hosted its annual Drascamp in the
summer holidays, which is targeted at families. The 2019 event at Cleavel Point,
Poole had more than 100 participants including a significant number of multi-
generational families participating in the week of fun-filled sailing and camping. It
is hoped that Drascamp will return this year. While the Lugger was the first off
John Watkinson’s board in 1965, he went on to design a full range of traditional
boats over the ensuing 15 years, from the 15ft Scaffie to the 25ft Gig. Nearly 5,000
boats to his designs have been built worldwide and there is a dynamic and active
secondhand market. It is indeed pleasing to see these boats handed down through
families. There are also a number of Scout groups that use various of the models
– the layout gives plenty of space for a crew and the rig/oars plenty to do. The DA
is planning a full programme of rallies for the 2021 season, subject to restrictions.
Dave Staniforth, DA Membership Secretary
 LETTERS

Some missing history of Andrillot’s

I was very interested to read the article on Andrillot in the December issue
and particularly that little was known of her ownership before 1981, so I’d be
grateful if you could forward this to Uli Killer please.
In 1972 I travelled from Cornwall to Stranraer and back the next day to
look at her. She was then owned by the very hospitable Brian Bagnall, who
gave us supper and beds for the night. If memory serves, he cruised in
Andrillot along the Scottish and Irish coasts. Despite the rainwater passing
through her deck, I was still minded to buy her until I had her surveyed by Ian
Nicolson, the Scottish naval architect and author, and decided there was too
much to do. I bought a nine-year old Cheoy Lee Vertue instead.
Some weeks later, I received a telephone call from Peter Quilter of St Ives,
Cornwall, who had heard I had looked at Andrillot. I advised him not to touch
her. However, he did buy her, spent two or three years working on her, sailed
her briefly, then sold her. I concluded that we had each bought the right boat,
his to work on and mine to sail.
Peter Quilter is listed as the owner in the supplement to Peter Woollas’s
book Vertue, published in 1973. I believe he sold Andrillot to one Neil Reid, a
British Army officer, who is listed as her owner in the 1980 Lloyds Register of
Yachts, and who might have filled the gap
Greek nautical etiquette
DECEMBER 2020 £4.95 US$10.99

between the new and recent owners. I am researching and writing a book in Greek on nautical
Many years later, in or about 2002, etiquette past and present.
I called on friends who were living in T H E W O R L D’ S M O S T B E A U T I F U L B O A T S I have bought a small card, the size of a playing card,
WIN!
sheltered accommodation in Salisbury. We GENESIS written and illustrated by a British officer stationed at the
were invited to drinks by a neighbour, who First ever Raymarine
fort of Corfu. The officer made the card in 1862 when Corfu
turned out to be Dick Kinnersly. There was Vertue returns Axiom 9 MFD
worth £1200
was the capital of the United States of the Ionian Islands, a
an oil painting of Andrillot on his wall, with WORKING
CLASS HERO
British protectorate. The card was used so the officer could
Lugger
an RCC burgee. restored speedily ascertain what the flags or black balls hoisted from
Andrew Pool the fort signified. The seventh flag mentioned is to signify
‘Petrel’. Does any reader know what type of boat Petrel is/

… And a bit more PETTERSSON

LAUNCH
was? I am certain that the fort did not hoist a flag to signify
that a flock of Petrels was flying by.
missing history BOOK COVER ART
Swedish magic

STRANDED IN
PATAGONIA Stratis Andreadis, Corfu
Winston Megoran Sailing home non-stop
I was delighted to read the article about A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE
Spirit yachts
LATE SUMMER SAILING
Racing at St Tropez
LINE TENSION TOGGLES
Easy home project
www.classicboat.co.uk

OUR DADDY

Andrillot in the December issue. She

looks absolutely stunning. I wonder if you could put me in touch with Uli
LUGGER “T
here are days when you’re working on
board, stuck in a confined space, and
you wonder why you’re doing this,”
says Steve Styles, co-owner of the 44ft

OF LOOE
7in (13.6m) Cornish lugger Our Daddy. “Then you sail
into Paimpol for the traditional boat festival, and people
line the quayside applauding that boat as you go in. Your
chest swells with pride and you realise that’s why you do

Killer as I can fill in a little of her lost history. I bought her in Mylor in 1976,
it. People become passionate about these old boats not
because they’re a business prospect, but because of the

After a long life fishing under motor, the Looe emotions they evoke and how beautiful they are to sail.”
And well might Steve’s chest swell with pride, for it

Lugger Our Daddy is back to full lug rig for Preparing to go fishing in
was that cruise to Paimpol and the Breton coast that
earned Our Daddy the title of Regional Flagship of the

took her up to the Baltic the next year and then back to the Medway three the first time in seven decades 1924. Note that both
masts are rigged and a
sail lies on the port deck
Year in 2017, an honour awarded by National Historic
Ships to just four vessels in the UK every year. It’s an
award which Steve and his boat partner Tim Sunderland
earned not just because of a major – and sometimes
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS NIC COMPTON controversial – restoration of the boat, but for their public

years later. I have some limited documentation and a fascinating book by

outreach programme, making the boat available to a
wider public and sailing her well beyond home waters.
But then Our Daddy seems to inspire devotion from
all who know her, not just in the port from which she
fished continuously for 65 years but also among the
nation’s nautical aficionados. Not for nothing is she

Peter Woolass about the class, which I would be happy to send to him. celebrated as “Looe’s best-known lugger” (according to
one website), while one previous owner describes her as
“without doubt the best Looe lugger I’ve ever seen”.

LAST OF THE LOOE LUGGERS

My wife and I have very fond memories of sailing in Andrillot – a trial

Built by Richard Pearce in 1921, she was one of the last
(some say the last) Looe luggers built on sailing boat
lines – although she was fitted with two Kelvin engines,
one 13hp and the other 7hp, suggesting that was already
an important source of power. Most of the hull was
decked over as a fish hold, but aft of the engine room

Baltic cruise led to our marriage the following year. I’m so glad she has was a small cabin with five berths and a coal stove for
her crew to hunker down on the frequent overnight
outings. The boat was built for Alfred Pengelly and
skippered by his son John Edward – the Pengelly family
having fished the Cornish coast for over 200 years.

gone to such a splendid owner who has been able to lavish all the attention
According to the highly entertaining autobiography
written by Alfred John Pengelly (son of John Edward,
grandson of Alfred), the Pengelly family already owned
two luggers, Our Girls and Our Boys, but grandfather
was “determined that he should not be forgotten” and
so named the new boat Our Daddy in his own honour.

on her that she truly deserves. Although built with a sailing hull and fitted with a pair
of lug sails, it’s unlikely Our Daddy sailed for very long. A
photo from 1924 shows her with both masts rigged yet
fitted with a wheelhouse which would have impeded a
full-size foresail, suggesting she already had a cut-down
rig. Another photo taken a few years later shows her with

Nigel Reid the gaff steadying sail she carried for the rest of her
working life.

BUILT TO FISH
Whatever her means of propulsion, the new boat was
soon put to work, following the traditional seasonal
fishing pattern of that part of the world: longlining for
conger, ray, skate and ling off the Lizard from March to
July; drifting for pilchards off Newlyn in August and

24 CLASSIC BOAT DECEMBER 2020 CLASSIC BOAT DECEEMBER 2020 25

Déjà vu for CB! Well done Our Daddy

What a marvellously informative magazine CB is, clearly the best on the market. Our Daddy (December CB) seemed a well-researched and
Between its covers there is something for everyone. I quickly snatch it up as it falls nicely balanced article. There were a few inaccuracies but all
through the letter box and search for the bargains in the ‘Boats for Sale’ section, told a very enjoyable read. The 30 years of the Looe regatta
wishing that I still had my youth. After reading it right through I place it in the rack has put the Cornish lugger back on the map. I am now
only to be found again within a couple of weeks and with short term memory loss attempting to get the Polperro gaffers back to their home
it’s like have two magazines a month. village to raise there profile a bit. Some of those little boats
Brian Jones, Boldre, Lymington had done some amazing voyages.
Thank you very much Brian. If you send the same email next month, we won’t be Paul Greenwood, chairman of the Cornish Lugger
remotely offended! Ed Association

CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 79

 Next month
SAILING TODAY WITH
YACHTS & YACHTING

with

MARCH 2021 £4.95

SOLENT CRUISING AS
A COUPLE
DELIGHTS Ultimate test
of teamwork!
Exploring off the How to fund
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with YouTube

RACING
Recover
from a
poor start

BOAT TEST

Moody's new
deck saloon
NEW KIM HOLMAN YACHT AMERICA’S CUP
Capsize at 47 knots
FIND A MOORING
Tips and contacts
VENDÉE GLOBE
Cape Horn drama

The newly-launched 43ft wooden

sloop Cass must be the first new
wooden Holman yacht since the birth
IN THE MARCH ISSUE
of the GRP era
z Solent: getting off the
beaten tracks
z Cruising as a couple? How
to survive and thrive!
z Racing tactics: recovering
RUN RABBIT RUN after a poor start
The 33ft Dick Carter yacht that prevailed z Vendee Globe: Southern
against the giants to win the 1965 Ocean madness
Fastnet, now restored. z America’s Cup: THAT crash
at 47 knots

PLUS... z On test: the new deck

We visit the Rhoda Mary Shipyard where saloon from Moody
Luke Powell built Pellew; Tom Cunliffe on the
fine art of a free lunch; the America’s Cup Available online
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SPEED VS AUTHENTICITY
The debate is well rehearsed on the
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APRIL 2021 ON SALE
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Available online

30 YEARS AGO
March 1991, CB33
We kicked off this issue with a visit to Pier Piersma in Holland, builder of
Dutch lee-boarders, rich and glowing with what looks like a hundred
layers of varnish, one with leeboards raised like the wings of an ladybird.
Then the opposite: Zilverwiek (Silverwing), an 8-Metre class yacht
designed and built to cruise by the great Swedish designer Tore Holm in
1939. “A joy to sail: two people can handle her easily” wrote the
uncredited author. “The helmsman has his own cockpit and trims the
mainsheet which runs on the bridge dividing him from the crew. The
crew lets the backstays on and off and tacks the staysail. The runner
system is simple and efficient. The wires are led below decks to two
winch drums which roll up the slack wire and tension the stays
accordingly. The cockpit is deep, giving some shelter from the spray which
whips across the flush foredeck and the low arched coachroof. The large
cockpit easily accommodates the six (maximum) crew allowed for races.”
It’s a highly efficient, if cramped, set-up and, compared to the highfield-
based runner systems often seen on classic yachts, mercifully simple and safe.

80 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

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CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021 81

Sternpost Far left: Vertue No1 Andrillot and left back in 1936
as a gaff rig cutter. Below: Vertue No3 Monie

ROGER ROBINSON
NIC COMPTON

Andrillot: how original is she?

Roger Robinson has mixed feelings about Vertue number one

I
t has been wonderful to see Andrillot back on the water after 1950; Cardinal Vertue around the world via the three great capes
her recent refit, making the swift passages for which she was in the 1960s, (at astonishing speeds); and the GRP Sparrow,
designed (CB390). As the first of the legendary Vertues she is a doubling Cape Horn in the 1990s. There were dozens of others.
pretty special boat: there can only, ever, be one first. Andrillot only became Vertue No 1 a decade after her launch
However, the boat we see today is quite different from that when a class was named after the war. Although she was just a
which slid down the slipway at Moody’s boatyard in Bursledon on one-off, gaff-rigged cutter, she was the only Vertue to be built with
a spring day in 1936. That boat was a 25ft (7.6m), gaff-rigged that ‘old-fashioned’ rig until Fionn V140 was launched in Australia
cutter, with a short, low coachroof. There was no propellor and she in 1973. Only two more Vertues have since taken the gaff cutter rig.
had a pretty basic layout down below. Her surprisingly tall, 37ft So Andrillot, the gaff-rigged one-off, remains the original
(11.3m) mast, stepped well into her, illustrated Laurent Giles’ latest physical incarnation of a Vertue, and for that reason alone is
thinking on how a modern gaff cutter should look. incredibly important to some people, as an artefact. She is, of
Nic Compton’s superb photos show that even with her stubby course, a private yacht, unencumbered by any kind of listing
bowsprit, bermudan rig, bumkin and extended coachroof with the legislation. The changes to her cabin top, rig and interior as well as
fore-hatch high on its forward end, the visual integrity of her hull the addition of an engine have all been pragmatic. They are quite
remains intact. However, the reality of Giles’ original concept has significant and some might even say questionable, but they are all
been lost. Yet this is the boat that led to the sublime Dyarchy, then easily reversible. But Andrillot herself is quite a different boat
Kalliste and Wanderer III, and nearly 300 Vertues. nowadays and I wonder if she is happier? It seems to me that she
Sally II was built to the same lines as Andrillot but lacked the has already lost something indefinable, the patina of age about her
distinctive thickened sheerstrake, that vital, signature detail of many visible parts, which has gone forever. But does it matter?
Laurent Giles designs. Monie was the third boat built to the same If she is so important how could it be that she has changed so
lines and her revised drawings were used for most of the first 14, much? Should she have been protected in some way, perhaps with
low-coachroof, pre-war Vertues. She is now kept, reverently, in Italy. listing legislation? It is surely unimaginable that private pleasure
A major revision of the drawings in 1946 lead to the building of yachts could become subject to such controls? Does it matter that
Kishti, the first Vertue with an extended coachroof with the mast this little yacht appears to have taken another wrong turn 85 years
stepped upon in, and a compact doghouse aft. This was after she was launched, well into the 21st century?
reminiscent of the similar structure on the revolutionary pre-war Fifteen years ago this magazine listed its top 200 classic boats
Wapipi, and created perhaps the iconic Vertue ‘look’. The visual nominated by readers. Vertue XXXV represented the class. This
power of the working-boat hull, complete with thickened followed over 30 years of growing awareness of the historical,
sheerstrake, enabled these alterations to succeed, and was cultural and aesthetic value of some special yachts. Since then,
universally accepted. Tough post-war yachtsmen ordered numerous largely by a kind of slow osmosis, it could be said that most of
sisterships because the boats ‘looked right’, the older important sailing yachts in this country
exuding a sense of seaworthiness. Once Kishti’s have now been sensitively refitted and are well
drawings were available, most Vertues were built “The changes are cared for.
to that general design, which was gradually refined quite significant I feel compelled to say that sometimes the
further over the decades. There have been at least and some important questions should at least be asked. If we
eight amendments and improvements since 1946, are to avoid falling into the hands of the
including the development of the Vertue II
might even say bureaucrats then we need to take some real
drawings for GRP and cold-moulded construction. questionable, but responsibility for the objects with which we find
The reputation of the class was partly built on they are all easily ourselves to be custodians.
the outstanding passages made by them over the reversible.”
years: Vertue XXXV across the North Atlantic in (Roger Robinson runs www.VertueYachts.com )

82 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2021

 Rustler 33 and Rustler 24
Modern Classics by Rustler

Beautiful yachts, beautifully built

Tel: 01326 310120 | www.rustleryachts.com

Rustler Yachts | Maritime Buildings | Falmouth | Cornwall | TR10 8AD
2