Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2010 i Classic Boat

It’s not often we publish on Trafalgar Day, 21 October. And without wishing to advocate any drunkenness on watch at sea, the proposal to splice the mainbrace to Nelson’s immortal memory is always a good reason to get a Navy-sized tot inside you! The traditional spirit, after British dominance of the West Indies in the 17th century, has always been rum and there’s a good rum cocktail on p77. It’s often said Nelson was brought back to Britain from Trafalgar in a barrel of rum and sailors would siphon some off periodically in the hope they imbibed some of his fighting spirit. Charming thought. The truth of Nelson’s body’s return to Britain is described by Victory’s surgeon Wm Beatty in a report which was published as a book by Cadell…

Classic Boat’s Restoration of the Year award 2010 is now open for nominations. Any boat that completed its restoration – and has been launched or otherwise deemed to have been finished – between 1 November 2009 and 1 November 2010 is eligible, and nominations can be from any reader, not just the boat’s owner or restorer. The shortlist, selected by the CB Editorial judging panel, will appear in our January issue and the winner will be announced on our stand at the London Boat Show in January (2011), and presented with a trophy in the form of an engraved Waterford decanter and glasses. The deadline for nominations by email is 1 November 2010. Please email us at: cb@ipcmedia.com, quoting ‘Restoration of the Year’ in the subject line. Or write to…

Clare Francis’s famous Robertson’s Golly returned to Portsmouth on 11 September, after a 10-week, 1,850nM circumnavigation of Britain. The 1974-built GRP Ohlson 38 sloop was sailed by a crew of 6-7 aged between 11 and 15. Most had been on legs of the 2007-8 Lively Lady around-the-world voyage. All the youngsters on both voyages raised their own funds in line with the ethos set by Alan Priddy, the man behind Lively Lady and Robertson’s Golly under the auspices of the charity ‘Around and Around’. Lauren Harris, 20 at the time, and a veteran of the Lively Lady voyage, was lead skipper on the Golly project, with a co-skipper, Kat Davies, also 20. Lauren told CB that the voyage was without a hitch though “trying to get the young crew out…

This 1958 Albatross must have been a real flyer, for in place of the standard Ford side-valve unit there’s a later installation with more than double the power. The popular aluminium-hulled Albatross MkIII was originally powered by a 1,172cc Ford 100E engine; with 36bhp the 12ft 9in (3.9m) sports boat could reach 34mph. However, some time later in its life this Albatross was fitted with the far more potent 83bhp, 1,600cc engine of the sporty 1967-70 Mk2 Ford Cortina GT. When it turned up as a surprise lot in a Bonhams’ classic car auction at Beaulieu, it sold for £3,680, despite needing recommissioning. More than 600 Albatross MkIIIs were built from 1956-9, attracting owners such as Stirling Moss, Brigitte Bardot, George Formby and Monaco’s Prince Rainier. Poignant Packard A prototype…

A 15sqm yacht with minimal freeboard, just 6ft (1.8m) of beam and room for only one below, sailed from Cowes to Stockholm in 12 days this summer with a crew of three. The challenge, issued by Baltic regatta organiser Olle Appelberg (see story left), was to retrace Uffa Fox’s 1,000-mile voyage of 1930, which he completed in 17 days in the 22sqm yacht Vigilant (CB262). Luke Yeates, 25, heard the call and bought the 33ft (10m) 15sqm yacht Vixen expressly for the purpose. Luke, along with Jack Gifford, 22, naval architect with GL Watson, and William Shepherd, a 19-year-old chemistry student, left Cowes on 24 July, reaching Stockholm for the start of the Baltic regatta series. Watches were taken in pairs, four hours on, two off, while the third crew…

For nearly 10 years there has been extensive excavation at the site of the former World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, reports Chris Museler. This past summer, among the old water pipes and trash at Ground Zero, the excavators uncovered the remnants of a 1700s sailing ship. Reportedly lying untouched for around 200 years, the ship, possibly a two-or three-masted brigantine according to archaeologists, was found while workers prepared the site for a new vehicle security centre. Only the front section of the ship, approximately 32ft (9.8m), was recovered and the frame timbers looked to have been purposefully cut, a possible demolition for landfill.…

We were relaxing in the wheelhouse when world-renowned yacht surveyor and author Ian Nicolson walked purposefully down the pontoon eyeing up our ketch. So we slid open the door to invite him in. “She’s a McBryde of course,” he observed, “but which one?” We answered in unison – “Glengour, built in 1934 by Adams of Gourock”. “Ah yes, of course,” Ian smiled, “the Famous one”. Famous or not, Glengour has been tugging at heart strings for decades. She charmed Uffa Fox into endorsing her as “a wonderful little vessel”. She enthralled one family for over 30 years with her sailing exploits. She moved a Harvard marine historian to publish his daydreaming about her. Then she lured her present owners into ‘bringing her back from the brink’ with a big rescue…

The boat of the moment at Elba was a pretty white cutter called Manta. Built in 1935 in what was then Lussinpiccolo — now Mali Lošinj in northern Croatia — she was designed with flush decks to cross the Atlantic, although it seems likely she never left the Med. Her designer and builder, Mario Tarabocchia, did however make the journey to America, joining the team of Sparkman & Stephens as draughtsman. Indeed, he is said to have drawn the working plans of the revolutionary S&S 12-Metre Intrepid and was invited back to Italy to help with its 1983 America’s Cup challenge — an offer he declined. Manta’s current owner Ernesto Irace says that Olin Stephens described Tarabocchia as a ‘diamond’ of the S&S office, responsible for drawing many of their…

Acquiring the skills With the likes of Pendennis Superyachts of Falmouth and Berthon Boats of Lymington enthusiastically promoting their established apprentice schemes – as well as an ambitious new scheme linked to the Pioneer Sailing Trust and headed by time-served shipwrights Brian Kennell and Shaun White, it looks like the traditional industry of boatbuilding is doing its bit to support the traditional method of passing on working skills. The history of apprenticeships, with seven-year indentures, strict rules about drinking, gaming and probably wenching. and hand-lettered vellum certificates, conjures an archaic, and, to modern ‘want it now’ young people, off-putting image. Actually, modern apprenticeships are not at all like that, or not much at any rate. And for the UK economy, looking to stimulate growth and address the worryingly high levels…

Robin Smyth’s rebuild of Jesta has, in sailing terms, brought him full circle. He began sailing as a child out of Bridlington with his parents on their Howard Gresham of Brough-built Gresh. He then progressed through his teens racing J24s at the Royal Yorkshire Yacht Club, before sailing further afield with passages and races aboard friends’ yachts to France, Scotland and on holidays. In later life, he chartered with his family, but came to recognise the “dreadful inevitability” that it would be a deathbed regret if he were never to have owned his own boat. Now he just had to decide which boat. Being a working farmer meant that sailing would have to be local and quick to access. It all led back to the RYYC and Bridlington where his…

“Not everyone can justify owning a 15 ton, 42ft (12.8m) yacht or even want one (See Tyressa, p49). Age has an extraordinary and often unexpected effect: much to the surprise of the mind, the body just doesn’t react the way it did and it takes some getting used to. If I have to choose a smaller yacht in a few years’ time there is one very obvious candidate, the 28ft (8.5m) Sterling sloop designed by Kim Holman. And of the 19 boats built by his brother Jack at Uphams in Brixham, there is one very special example, Kitra. “In the spring of 2005, I recommended Kitra to some clients and they fell for her immediately they saw her. Every year since then they have made an extended summer cruise to…

“The IOD idea was suddenly relegated to the bottom of the list when I inspected a West Solent in Suffolk. I knew these boats from many years ago when I had sold one or two. I watched with admiration as large sums were spent on restoring several of them in Maldon, producing the prettiest yachts. A vicar friend had one in Cornwall and Pete Nash, boat builder in Dartmouth, has just completed building a new one here for the same vicar (story in next month’s CB). “It seemed to be fate that suddenly my world was full of West Solents and I really could see myself sailing one. Just another step up from an IOD, two steps up from the Herreshoff Islander (see panel, left). I love the idea of…

For any wooden boat enthusiast finding themselves in New England, writes Kirsty Morrison, a visit to the harbour of Vineyard Haven, on the north shore of Martha’s Vineyard, should be a pilgrimage that is undertaken at any cost. The serene little harbour is a floating classic boat museum and ownership of these beauties crosses all social demographics, from the landed gentry with an eye for style, to the everyday working man with a passion for timber and the skills to keep these traditions alive. At the heart of this little community lies the yard of Gannon & Benjamin, a 30-year partnership of two shipwrights who still believe in building boats plank-on-frame, which will outlast generations of humans. They built many of the boats in the harbour and have breathed new…

Two projects on the books at Harbour Marine of Southwold demonstrate the range of John Buckley’s yard’s capability. At the yard, the highly intriguing Gralian is undergoing restoration. A 45ft (13.7m) gentleman’s yacht from 1935 with a remarkably preserved original interior, she was built by Saunders Roe in Cowes, reputedly for a World War I flying ace, and is now owned by TV producer turned crime novelist Jonathan Lewis. The main problem is the decks, where fastening failures have led to leaks and hence rot beneath. John and his team are fixing this and fitting a new plywood subdeck, with 9mm teak on top and oak veneers on the underside. Leaky, unstable joints in the wheelhouse and superstructure have had splines epoxied in. Meanwhile in Lowestoft, the yard has been…

When we went to see Joe Irving at his yard on the banks of the River Humber, it had already been a busy week. He’d just launched his latest project, the complete rebuild of the Yorkshire One Design Jesta (see p42) after three years in the shed; he’d become a father for the first time – a son, Henry, two weeks late – and he had just secured the ownership of the yard he’s been working out of for the last 12 years. So he could have been excused being a little reticent in the face of a lot of daft questions from a prying journalist, but other than the usual Yorkshireman’s closeto-the-chestness – Yorkies generally treat even the most casual enquiry in the same manner as a demand from…

The integrity of a wooden boat depends on accurate assembly of many straight-grained planks, shelves, beams and stringers. Down the years the shipwright has always reached for his ripsaw when cutting these long boards to width. This saw’s coarse teeth with cutting edges perpendicular to the blade rip down the grain like an express train of chisels. For many cuts today the hand-powered ripsaw proves quicker, quieter and more satisfying than submitting to the perceived convenience of setting up a screeching band saw. This Henry Disston D-8 with 28in (70cm) blade shown at the recommended ripping angle of 60º is about as large as can be handled comfortably. Saws from Disston’s long-defunct works in Philadelphia, USA, are held in high regard – the company made its own steel for the…

A West Solent OD built from scratch How a retired vicar and his wife decided to invest an inheritance in a new boat, launched this summer The story of Rainbow – a Taylor and Bates 1920 day launch which won this year Thames Trad Rally Art of the sea It’s the Royal Society of Marine Artists’ Exhibition in London (this October), and we’ll be reviewing this year’s output Plus: Mersey Mylnes and the story of the green Contessa 32 – a voyage through the French canals and the season’s roundup of regattas December issue on sale 18 November 2010 Subscribe now! Tel: +44 (0)1444 475675…

Blanka is the copy of a medieval boat (circa 1500) found in a dump outside parliament in Stockholm. It couldn’t be restored, but a replica was built, which belongs to the Stockholm Maritime Museum. A group of enthusiasts maintain and sail her. She is thought to be the first boat in Scandinavia to have had a sternhung rudder, as opposed to the Viking side-oar. The thwarts go through the hull to help keep the sides together, as she was a cargo boat, plying the coast of Sweden. This feature can be found on the Hansa boats in Germany. She is fairly fast when running, but can’t be very efficient against the wind. Her crew sail her with no help from an engine.…

6 NOVEMBER Royal Northern and Clyde Boat Jumble Helensburgh, Argyll, 2-4pm, preceded by lunch, £2 or free for U-18s. Tel: +44 (0)1436 842224 20 NOVEMBER CVRDA Traveller Series Race Classic dinghy circuit: Bristol www.cvrda.org 21 NOVEMBER Clovelly Herring Festival North Devon, Tel: +44 (0)1271 863969, www.ilfracombeyc.org.uk 7-16 JANUARY 2011 London Boat Show with ClassicBoat London Docklands Tel: +44 (0)8442 090333 www.londonboatshow.com 29 APRIL – 8 MAY 2011 Liverpool Boat Show www.liverpoolboatshow.co.uk AUSTRALIA 29 OCTOBER – 1 NOVEMBER The Cup Regatta Port Phillip, Victoria www.classic-yacht.asn.au 11-14 FEBRUARY 2011 Australian Wooden Boat Festival Hobart, Tasmania, www.australianwoodenboatfestival.com.au CARIBBEAN 20-23 JANUARY 2011 St Maarten – St Martin Classic Yacht Regatta www.classicregatta.com MARCH (TBC) 2011 Grenada Classic Yacht Regatta www.grenadaclassicregatta.gd 4-9 APRIL 2011 Les Voiles de Saint Barth www.lesvoilesdesaintbarth.com 14-19 APRIL 2011 Antigua Classic Yacht…

Smoking, with salting and drying, is among the oldest ways of preserving food. It has since developed into a means of adding taste as well, and though crude but effective in its basic form, it is now a popular way of adding flavour and sophistication to food without cooking it. Not just meat and fish... Meat and fish are the obvious candidates but no one should stop there. Cheese I’ve smoked with great success, though nothing to what I discovered on smoking halved cherry tomatoes, thanks to the late Hilton Matthews who supplied said tomatoes. Hilton was also known for his smoked garlic, which he supplied to supermarket chains. The tomatoes in question, once pulled from the smokehouse after eight hours or so, were so delicate and sweet that the…

“When my second oldest son Gerhard was 14 he wanted his own boat, so I decided to design one myself,” wrote Jack Köper of the Dabchick dinghy he designed in 1955 and first published details of in June 1956. “It had to be safe, easy for a young boy to handle, simple and cheap to build, yet fast enough to plane and provide real excitement. The result was the Dabchick, which I designed in six months. The size of the boat was entirely dependent on the materials I had to hand so I tried to get as much boat as possible out of three sheets of 8ft by 4ft plywood, 31/16 in (5mm) thick, and I succeeded in that I only had a few small bits left over.” The resultant…

The Scottish Government’s decision to let the clipper ship City of Adelaide go to Australia (CB, last month) has provoked criticism in the UK for failing to acknowledge the British, as distinct from exclusively Scottish, significance of the ship. It is also being taken to task in the British Archaeological Trust’s newsletter Rescue News for spending an estimated £900,000 of “taxpayers’ money” as a “dowry” to help the clipper leave the country. The newsletter also questions the basis of the report, by Edinburgh real estate consultancy DTZ, on which the decision was made. A rearguard challenge by the Sunderland-based SCARF group has not been ruled out. Meanwhile the Adelaide-based group ‘Clipper Ship City of Adelaide Ltd’ has been giving CB more detail of its plans for displaying the clipper –…

The Itchen Ferry Cautious Clara, featured in our Top 200 boats (CB200), is nearly at the end of her seven-year restoration under owners Peter Crook and Elspeth Macfarlane (CB255). She’s afloat again and will be sailing in the early part of next year. She was built by H Gales of Cowes for Lionel de Rothschild MP as an Itchen Ferry type yacht. She’s of full-length pitch pine planking on oak frames and of a very heavy construction: just 30ft 4in (9.3m) of yacht but an astonishing displacement of 12 tonnes.…

Maldon Town Regatta Race was set in lashings of winds and reefs, reports Peter Smith. Close-quarter racing between gaff-rigged yachts led to a collision approaching the first windward mark involving the two classic yawls Charm and Cormorant and resulting in a broken bowsprit and both mizzen spars on the latter. Class winner was one of the smallest boats, Saltair, with the largest, the 100-year-old Hardy in second. The large smacks race was won by Paul Winter’s Maria. a Holman-designed Sterling came first in the bermudans. Winner in the gaff cruising yachts was Bernard Patrick on Molly Cobbler.…

Mighty containerships are now steaming so slowly to save money that they take longer to cross the oceans than sailing ships of 150 years ago, reports Andrew Rosthorn. A new report estimates that most container ships move more slowly on the great trading routes than the fast sailing ships of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The clipper ship Cutty Sark, built in Scotland in 1869, carried wool from Australia to Britain in 67 days, with a top speed of 17.2 knots, while she once averaged 15 knots, sailing 360 nautical miles in a day’s run of 24 hours. Many modern containerships can achieve 25 knots. But the report ‘Slow Steaming – A Transient Fashion or Here to Stay?’ from the research firm Dynamar, based in Alkmaar, Netherlands, suggests…

After the 2009 victory of the monster cat boat Kathleen (CB263), this year’s Opera House Cup winner couldn’t have been more different, reports Chris Museler. The 1930 International Six-Metre Totem took home the cup. Sailing newcomer and owner Jesse Smith sailed the engineless 36-footer (11m) more than 60 miles singlehanded to Nantucket for the annual Panerai-sponsored regatta, armed with only a surfboard as a tender and the navigation application on his mobile phone. Kathleen did not make this year’s event but her season’s sparring partner, the 32ft (9.8m) Barnegatt Bay cat boat Silent Maid, with yachting legend Gary Jobson aboard, pushed Totem hard. Silent Maid won the Gwen Gaillard ‘Spirit of the Race’ and the newly-restored NY 50 Spartan (CB268) won the Robert H Tiedemann award for their “truly authentic”…

An electric boat reliant on wind power might as well be engineless in the Malacca Strait. The prevailing breeze in the wet season is variable 5 knots – barely enough to maintain steerage way, let alone turn the blades of a wind generator. Occasionally, squalls precede a thunderstorm, but only when you’re lining up for a tricky harbour entrance, not when you need power. So we save our precious amps for lights and cabin fans and go a-drifting. The monsoonal sou’westerlies will blow us from Singapore to Borneo, but first we have to con our way down the funnel-shaped strait. This might take a while. As the ‘spout’ narrows, the breeze dies and tides strengthen. Most yachts simply motor; for slow-moving sailors there are few places to drop a hook…

The second Thames Revival this year brought classic yachts upriver from the coast and river cruisers downriver, all to gather in London’s St Katharine Docks. It looks like this hugely popular regatta is here to stay People in period clothes, traditional boats dressed overall, sculling races in tenders, the sound of vintage British Seagull outboards cutting across the gentle rhythm of a jazz band... a beer tent or afternoon tea... all taking place half a bow-shot away from the Tower of London: it was a Thames Revival festival to remember! And only in its seond year the event already seems perfectly formed for the boat owner and casual visitor alike. Some 50 boats had made it to the event, drawn from the upper reaches of the river, like the 11…

Designed in 1973, when Dick Carter was at the height of his powers, Naif summed up the modern design ethos. Enormously beamy, with fine ends and a deep fin keel, she was like a kick in the teeth to the traditionalists. Her revolutionary under-xdeck rigging cleared the deck of obstructions — and also, according to legend, snipped the finger off one unfortunate crew member while he was sleeping. Her twin wheels gave the helmsman a clear view on both tacks, and her stripped-out interior reduced weight. Naif was Raul Gardini’s third design by Carter and the best performing Italian boat in that year’s Admiral’s Cup — although that was still only good enough to give them eighth place out of 16 teams. Twenty years later (and a year after his…

Harker’s Yard in Brightlingsea on the East Coast is a newly-built facility with factory accommodation and foreshore services on the River Colne, owned and operated by the Pioneer Sailing Trust. Shipwrights Brian Kennell and Shaun White, below, were responsible for fitting out the factory. Shown here, below and left, is the 1870 43ft (13.1m) yacht Volante, built by John Harvey of Wivenhoe, currently undergoing a major restoration by apprentices under the direction of Brian and Shaun. Here, left, they are working on her keel.…

Born of disaffection with the Royal Yorkshire Yacht Club’s 20-ton minimum rule at the turn of the 19th century, the history of the Yorkshire One Designs – the oldest one-design fleet still racing regularly – is about as tumultuous as the seas of Bridlington Bay in which they race. The breakaway group founded the Pirate Yacht Club, with the skull and crossbones on its burgee, and in 1897 ordered eight boats from Field & Co of Itchen Ferry, Hants, to a gunter-rigged, shallow-draught design by the yard foreman JS Helyar. All the boats were transported in one batch via rail to Bridlington in June 1898 and lots were drawn for the ownership of each boat, numbered Y1-Y9 (but omiting Y3 to avoid confusion with 8 when racing). The attitude of…

“I was thinking about the pleasures of simple sailing in keelboats like the IOD and the West Solent Restricted Class (see right and below) – then along came TTES, Thomas the Tank Engine of the Seas: it blew all my good intentions and I did a 180º about turn. “I met Jimmy Miller in his yard in Anstruther many years ago. His production of the Miller Fifer range of motor-sailer yachts based on the big fishing boats he was building was inspired. His yachts were not expensive, they looked good and performed well and kept the yard active in thin times. The range was from 26ft to40ft (7.9-12.2m). The popular models were the 28-footers and the 32-footers. With a 12ft (3.7m) cast-iron keel 8in (20cm) wide and 10in (25cm) deep,…

“Tyressa is a 42ft (12.8m) Robert Clark design lying here in Dartmouth. Berthons built four in the 1960s, same lines but all slightly different. I have admired her ever since I first sold her about 25 years ago. “I have always thought that Robert Clark only ever designed one really good yacht, Mystery, and most of those that followed from his board were derivations of the same design. While other UK designers followed the Americans and discovered the performance advantages of extra beam, sometimes taken to excess with resulting disasters in shape, Clark stuck to his sleek, narrower beam with slight overtones of the Victorian yacht and produced some of the sweetest designs on the water. “He shortened counters, reduced wetted surface areas, maintained his ballast ratios and still produced…

Adam Way, who famously restored The Truant for Ross Ryan (soon to appear on TV with Griff Rhys Jones at the helm), is currently working on a smaller but scarcely less intriguing project. It’s sprung from the Wee Dooker (below), the replica Loch Fyne Skiff which he helped members of the community in Tarbert Loch Fyne to build. This has somehow led on to a new design for an 18ft (5.5m) clinker day sailer. Adam says he had this boat in his head for years, before stumbling upon drawings by Phillip Oke from 1938 of an amazingly similar 1886 Oban skiff. “She has a beautiful round stern, a very useful lug sail and jib carried on a long bowsprit and is not too heavy in the displacement. She looks fast.…

Following the closure of Morwellham Quay, Will Stirling, who was boatbuilder in residence there, has had to find new premises. He’s fetched up not far away at Bere Ferrers on the peninsula between the Lynher and Tamar rivers. It boasts a railway station and, for Will, an enclosed shed for a change. It’s currently filled with his latest project, a 20-ton Stirling-designed gentleman’s cutter in the Victorian style (more in CB soon). Meanwhile, commissions for the 9ft (2.7m) general Purpose dinghy continue to keep him occupied. One of Will’s students on the first dinghy building course, John gallagher, won Best New Build at Plymouth Classics for his 12ft (3.7m) naval sailing dinghy Frolic, and Will himself has been honoured by the South West Maritime History Society for ‘exceptional research and…

The twin-screw, sea-going gentleman’s motor yacht, Themlyay was built by Staniland & Co of Thorne, Yorkshire in 1939. Prior to the war she was registered as owned, perhaps since new, by Thomas and Henry Edwards (56 shares) and a Jack Eves (8 shares), but on 17 February 1942 she was requisitioned by the Minister for War Transport and taken to help the war effort. What is odd though is that when the vessel once again appears on the register, in 1948, being registered to an Edward Holdsworth of Leeds, she was purchased from one Jack Eves, a major in the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. Eves had obviously kept track of the vessel through his service, or perhaps he made use of her through his role in REME,…

Hacksaw Stanley’s high-tension low-profile hacksaw has the firm’s patented quick blade change system with a very fine tension adjustment and is able to cut through many different materials. The £14.39 saw mounts the blades at either 90º or 45º. The low profile enables the user to work in very confined locations and would be excellent for emergency repairs afloat. http://www.stanleyworks.co.uk/ Rust converter We’re big fans of this rust convertor, from Coo-Var, part of the Teamac Paints group based in Hull. The milky looking fluid can be painted onto wire-brushed rusty surfaces where it turns them black with a hard shiny finish which can be over-painted in around three hours. We’ve used it on various iron and steel surfaces aboard and it holds up very well – covering around 20m2 per…

Meranti Richard Hare, with Robertsons Boatyard’s Mike Illingworth, look at meranti, a hardwood species best known in plywood form. It’s cheap – but can it be used to good effect? Meranti (Shorea spp) is somewhat similar to mahogany but not related to it. Sourced from the tropical rainforests of South East Asia (Indonesia, the Malayan peninsula and the Philippines) its figure is bland and it is shipped in colours ranging from dark red to yellow. It is most commonly found in plywood form – a sheet of WBP meranti plywood may be described as South East Asian tropical hardwood plywood, though not all the veneers will always be meranti. It’s also known as lauan, seraya and (misleadingly) Philippine mahogany. Its density varies from as low as 400kg/m3 up to 705kg/m3,…

Like Hoover and Sellotape in the UK, Helle has become a word synonymous for knife in Norway. Known for lasting for generations, they are seen as a traditional family heirloom. To look at their website is to witness true craftsmanship, each knife and sheath demanding up to 45 separate hand-crafted manual operations using stone, horn, bog-aged wood, leather and in this case cork for the handles so it floats. The blade is made from triple-laminated Stainless Sandvik 12c27 knife steel. All come with a lifetime warranty. A lot of knife at around £45. www.helle.no Cool Yeti Loved by those American outdoor types, the Yeti Cooler (this is the 35-quart Tundra) is one of the first things we’ve reviewed that meets the IGBC (Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee) standard for bear-resistant containers.…

The Last Grain Race In the summer of 1938, 18-year-old Eric Newby signed on as an apprentice aboard the four-masted barque Moshulu for a trip to Australia in ballast, where they loaded a cargo of grain, then back to Queenstown. The book he wrote about the voyage is a fascinating account of life before the mast in the final days of commercial sail, seen through the eyes of a young man. We follow his first few days as he struggles to fit into an environment where the predominantly Scandinavian crew regard him simply as “noh strong”. Then, once the ship leaves port, he shares with us the confusion of his initiation to sail, tacking down the Irish Sea, followed by the exhilaration of the fair wind that flings them into…

Many a glass of rum will be raised to history as Trafalgar Day is celebrated this 21 October. For more than three centuries, in the Royal Navy’s longest-serving tradition, rum was issued daily to serving sailors wherever they were around the world. The ration was, at first, as high as a quarter of a pint twice a day, before eventually reducing to an eighth of a pint (or 70ml, roughly three pub measures) served at lunchtime. The rum was known as ‘pusser’s rum’ because it was served by the ship’s purser and today, the Pusser’s Rum brand makes the same rum as served in the Royal Navy going back even before Nelson’s time. The rum ration finally ceased on 31 July 1970, now known as Black Tot Day, and this…

LETTER OF THE MONTH supported by Old Pulteney Whisky Letters to the editor: Classic Boat, Leon House, 233 High Street, Croydon, Surrey. CR9 1HZ email: cb@ipcmedia.com What a delight to come across your article in the latest edition (CB268) featuring the National Scorpion Class. It was in the early 60s when my wife and I were looking for a boat around 14ft (4.3m) in length to replace the little 11-footer which had been our introduction to racing, that we found ourselves at Canvey Island where Chapman Sands SC was hosting an event for the Scorpion Class. We were really impressed to see these sleek dinghies revelling in the windy conditions and how well the lighter crews were able to cope. There and then we decided that this was the boat…

Seen in the gulf of St Tropez during the first day of Les Voiles de St Tropez (27 september): Atlantic, the new replica of Charlie Barr’s legendary 1903 schooner, had the chance to play with something of her own size, the schooner Creole. Atlantic, with a waterline length of 135ft (41.2m) and flying 18,500sqft (1,720m²) of sail gives away 23 years of design development, 3,000sqft of sail and 5ft (1.5m) of waterline length to the Camper and Nicholson-designed Creole launched in 1926. There was no formal race so no one knows which is the faster.…

The hard at Pin Mill, after eight years and £300,000, has been re-concreted and improved to provide better facilities for boats, including barge scrubbing posts and a flat, high-tide hard area. The hamlet in Suffolk, departure point for the Swallows in We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea, celebrated the ‘unveiling’ on 16 September. It will be run by a community interest company formed by the council and made up of local sailing interests and the council among other bodies.…

The new wing of the Mersea Museum on Mersea Island in Essex, was opened this summer. Three years in the planning, it took seven months to build at a cost of £150,000, £45,000 of which was provided by the HLF. The rest was made up of private donations, mostly one-off large payments of around £10,000, including one from David Cooper, lately of Holman and Pye, who masterminded the project. The museum is now busy digitising its archives of over 16,000 photographs and various collections like that of the late John Leather. Growing popularity in terms of visitors means that the museum will now open every other Saturday throughout the winter. See www.merseamuseum.org.uk.…

The 10-Metre yacht Itaka became the first winner of the Baltic Classic Master Cup in the waters off Helsinki on 13 August in choppy seas and strong winds. At the awards ceremony, Feargus Bryan, chairman of SCYT, presented skipper and owner Ingmar Bergman and the crew of Itaka with the GL Watson Trophy. The cup is now awarded to the overall points winner of the Baltic series. A yacht must complete three of the four regattas in order to be in contention. This 105-year-old trophy was proposed by the GL Watson design studio in recognition of Scandinavian yacht design and Scandinavian classic yacht owners. This year was the inaugural issue of the newly-formed Scandinavian Classic Yacht Trust and its Baltic race series, which comprised five regattas in Sweden, Finland and…

Africa’s oldest steamer, the 1898-built Chauncy Maples, has already garnered half the money needed to turn her into a floating hospital ship to serve the people living on the banks of Lake Malawi. We reported the story of this steamer, in Tell Tales CB266, which was first transported to the lake in the Victorian era in thousands of pieces. The project has been substantially funded by insurers Thomas Miller, and led by the Chauncy Maples Malawi Trust. With half the money in place, work started this September to strip the hull. Next step is to find the £800,000 worth of parts necessary for the renovation work. www.chauncymaples.org…

That faraway look told a familiar story. Often have I seen it on the faces of those about to make one of the most expensive mistakes of their lives. And no, we’re not talking about an over-hasty marriage (although buying an old boat, especially one you’ve only set eyes on a few weeks before, is much like a lightning romance in a distant land: a triumph of lust over commonsense). And thus he came towards me with that look. What did I think of her? And what would it take to get her back in the water? He had poked about inside and she was pretty sound, as far as he could tell (though not being a boatbuilder, or even much of a sailor, he couldn’t be sure, which was…

“Cazza la randa! Lascia il fiocco! Attento al boma! Vai, cazzo, vai!” It’s the start of the third race of the Aethalia Epoca regatta on the Italian island of Elba, and the boys from the Italian Navy have overshot the line. Without a moment’s hesitation, they turn the boat around and perform a neat 360 around the start buoy. It’s a bad start to the race and tempers are frayed. Still, I’m surprised to hear the helmsman shout with such gusto at the two men on the foredeck who, were they in uniform, would be his military superiors. I’ve joined the three petty officers and six ordinary seaman of the Italian Navy on board their latest acquisition: Chaplin, a 1974 Sangermani sloop, donated to the Sport Velico della Marina Militare…

With more than 350 entries the inaugural National Historic Ships Photography Competition clearly got you out there and snapping away. CB editor Dan Houston was one of the judges, along with actor David Suchet, Peter Mumford of Beken, Coast’s Mark Horton and Campbell McMurray of NHS TRADITIONAL MARITIME SKILLS IN ACTION WINNER ‘Beer Lugger 2010’ by Jon Palmer. “A wonderfully evocative abstract,” said Mark Horton and we all agreed with him, adding that it was also interesting in showing how a boat like this gets built. CLASSIC BOAT CATEGORY HIGHLY COMMENDED ‘low tide castletown iom’ by Ian Kippax. “He captures this Low Water scene perfectly; excellent composition.” The category winner, ‘Lifestyle’, by André Boto is our Big Picture this month on pages 4 and 5. TRADITIONAL MARITIME SKILLS IN ACTION…

With just 12 or so boats remaining, the people who sail the 112-yearold Yorkshire One Designs out of the Royal Yorkshire Yacht Club (RYYC) in Bridlington are a tight-knit bunch. Word goes around when a new prospective purchaser comes on the scene and much chatter is engendered regarding any alterations or modifications to boats. So, when someone spends many times more than the usual cost to rebuild one of these 25ft (7.6m) vessels, there will be talk. Jesta, YOD11, has just finished no ordinary rebuild. Boatbuilder Joe Irving, who has rebuilt her for owner Robin Smyth, has been allowed to indulge himself, lavishing Jesta with all the adornments and embellishments that his considerable talents allow. When they were originally constructed in 1897/98, the YODs were built lightly and to a…

A few people over the years have told me to “go and see Peter Gregson”. The Dartmouth-based classic yacht broker seems to have a cult appeal among the many who know him – and speaking to Peter on the phone over the years, hearing his intimate knowledge of seemingly every yacht afloat, I formed a vision of a 120-year-old guru with bones of Burma teak. Peter’s office, the sitting room of a former cottage shop on the steep hills of Dartmouth in south Devon, is in a state of disarray when I arrive – the builders have been. This is the nerve centre of Wooden Ships, the name of Peter’s brokerage, and I wonder how many buyers have sat here dreaming of Caribbean and Baltic odysseys – first-timers aflame with…

“Some of the best known yachtsmen in the world trained on International One Designs and the class still races actively in various ports around the world. It is a true one design (CB268). “I saw the IOD as the obvious progression from my 21ft (6.4m) Herreshoff Islander which I share with an old friend and keep on a mooring in Salcombe. She has two berths, no engine, in fact nothing else. A couple of pasties, a few beers and a good torch. Sailing life does not come much simpler.”…

Fifty years ago the Dowty Turbocraft speedboat, unique at that time in being waterjet-propelled, was introduced at the 1960 London Boat Show. It looked, felt and sounded powerful and could perform manoeuvres and stunts that no conventional speedboat could match. With its flush jet intake, it had no underwater appendages and a shallow draught which meant the Turbocraft could plane at full speed in ankle-deep water and slide sideways dramatically in turns. With its propulsion machinery protected inboard there was no risk of damage from grounding and swimmers were safe near the boat. It was an ideal sports boat, particularly suitable for towing waterskiers and shallow-water operation or as a fast tender for large motor yachts. The Dowty Turbocraft story began in 1959. The 14ft 6in (4.4m) Boat Show model…

The Herreshoff Maritime Museum in Rhode Island has set up an afterschool programme for 14 to 18-yearolds to enable them to learn boatbuilding skills by working alongside the museum’s staff and volunteers on restoring and maintaining its collection of Herreshoff 12½s. The programme’s aim is to help young people become responsible individuals while contributing to their community’s rich cultural heritage. The curriculum covers skills such as sanding, painting, varnishing, hand-tool use, wood varieties and their properties and planning a project and sequencing work efficiently. The sessions will take place on two afternoons a week and occasional…

Phyllis, built 1913, and thought to be the last of the Royal Mersey Restricted class of racing yachts, has just been returned to the water after a ‘keel-up’ restoration by David Moss. Her owner of nearly 10 years, Kevin Goulding, chose David after some earlier work had to be abandoned and undone, but Phyllis had to wait her turn until David and his small team were ready for her. Based on the Lancashire nobby, the class was developed for the Royal Mersey Yacht Club at Rockferry on the Wirral, and adopted in 1905. Eleven of the class appear to have been built between 1906 and 1935, when they were superseded by the still-active Mersey Mylnes. Some of the Restricteds were Mylne-designed, but not Phyllis – she was designed by GH…

As it’s usually the last piece of work at the end of a restoration, the painting of the boat’s name can get rushed or done without the diligence it deserves. There is a beautiful 80ft (24m) sloop moored in Palma which has the name displayed in huge stickers down the hull in pastille mauve using the Loose New Roman typeface (think Pink Panther opening credits). The overall look is one of a laminated cocktail menu where they’re particularly proud of their Long Island iced teas. These tragedies can be avoided with a few sensible guidelines. Firstly, the colour of your hull will roughly determine the colour you should paint the lettering. Hues of opposing brightness and colour are the most legible and a colour wheel can help you make this…

Q How can I make the interior of my boat lighter? It’s in varnished mahogany (satin), so I don’t want to ruin it with any hare-brained idea. Is there a relatively easy way of changing the colour of the interior? Monique • I put a light carpet over the dark wood floor and painted the ceiling gloss white ¨C massive difference. Csail • If you want to cut holes in the deck, deck prisms are good, but at £200 for a 250mm by 75mm, dear. By the way, if anyone has had replacement prisms cast for a reasonable price I would be interested. Bobobolinksy • I rebuilt everything below decks myself, so I am the only one to blame for the fact that my teak matchboarding bulkheads and oak panelling…

Five days and 2,500km, towing our dear Drascombe Caboteur camper-cruiser up from the south-west of France, took us to the campsite I’d found as a good base to start exploring the 24,000 or so islands in the Stockholm Archipelago. Trosa is a lovely little former fishing village with a good harbour and slipway, 50 km south of Stockholm. At the campsite at Havsbad we booked a ‘stuga’, one of their wooden huts, for a week in order to get ourselves organised before starting our cruise. The owner, Björn, and his family soon became friends and all the logistical problems were solved: car and trailer were safely parked for a month and Björn lent us his own berth in the little private harbour. The only thing Björn couldn’t organise for us…

This book was being given away to attendees of the Thames Classic Revival, see p22, and it’s a perfect partner for a cruise up the London River. It’s the story behind the origins of Thomas Doggett’s famous Coat and Badge rowing race – the longest continual-running sporting event in history, we are told, which still takes place each year on the River Thames, as it has since 1715. But it also the story of the tidal river itself and Crouch brings to life the days when Thames watermen plied their trade from the various landing spots on either side of the river – days when getting about by boat was still the fastest way to travel. We meet the family of young Edwin Crossback, as he finishes his apprenticeship as…

One of the most important questions for any mariner ashore is, ‘Where is my boat and how do I get back to it?’ This is particularly true on Saturday nights in busy harbours subject to strong tide. It is tempting to join the big crowd of people standing on the quay peering anxiously into the dark. It is even more tempting to try to summon your boat by singing to it. Do not yield. If you start singing, so will everyone else. Either your own boat will be confused, or it will not be listening, or (most likely) you will have anchored it firmly before rowing ashore to the pub. Before embarking on the hunt for your boat, ask yourself these questions: is my boat aground, and do I have…

Last month’s CB carried the story of the Pisces 21, a 21ft (6.4m) Chuck Paine adaptation of a Nat Herreshoff design. Pentimemto is another Chuck Paine/Herreshoff design, but 5ft (1.5m) longer. She was built in 2005 by Dave Corcoran of Bullhouse Boatworks of carvel cedar on oak, with an electric motor. US broker David Jones Classic Yachts is handling the sale. The firm surveys all yachts over 19ft (5.8m) and has a good list Stateside and around the world. David says of Pentimento, “Easy handling yet stimulating sailing, as-new condition.” With trailer, in Maine, $99,500 (c£64,000) – tax paid. SPARK: Maurice Griffiths design Raised topsides and doghouse do not combine to make the sleekest yacht, but practicality was always more of a concern than aesthetics to Spark’s designer, Maurice Griffiths.…

I wish I had a proper boat. One built in a factory where everything is precise and standardised. A man and a boy, in a shed, built mine and I swear she sails better on one tack than the other. The smells too are strange. Linseed oil, wood shavings, varnish and caulking cotton. Being the ‘new man’ that I am I’m more used to ammonia, bleach and Marigolds. I’m a dab hand at cleaning a bath and polishing, and these skills would come in handy in maintaining a proper boat. I do wish I had a proper boat. It would have a great big steering wheel I could drape myself over in masterful pose. I would then have must-have Mustos to further enhance the image, and would motor around the…