Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2022 i Classic Boat

In tourist board iconography, autumn in England is always a child in red wellies kicking neat piles of golden leaves on a perfectly still, sunny day in a forest. The reality, driving to the Suffolk coast this late October, was a steady drizzle running like grapeshot before a keening wind under complete cloud cover. At Levington, where the first Spirit 30 awaited us for a test sail, the wind was blowing well over 20 knots – and that was in the marina. Those of a delicate disposition might hesitate to call a quick test sail a ‘world first’ or an ‘exclusive’: these are terms better suited to lives turned inside out in popular papers. These days though, it’s hard to deny that the launch of a new model from Spirit,…

You may be able to gauge a gentleman by the cut of his jib, but I’d like to think an awning is more telling. Creases, or lack of, are the key, whether it is a Savile Row whistle (American readers and others not born, as was I, within the sound of Bow Bells, might want to call a cockney) or something run up behind the chandlery by a wonderful woman by the name of Liz, which just happens to be the name of the seamstress who made Sally’s awning, or cockpit cover. A month or so ago it was waterlines I was anguishing about, and the fact that for the last 30 years or so I have been trying to get hers spot on. Some years I reckon I’ve cracked…

Anyone who has had the opportunity to visit to Istanbul’s Rahmi M Koç museum has probably realised that American history is right at home within those thick walls on the waters of the Golden Horn. The dynasties of the Fords, the Carnegies and the Vanderbilts, to name just three, are well represented in the celebrated museum founded by the Turkish industrialist Rahmi M. Koç, himself a member of a notable family, and honourary president of an industrial and services group that grosses 22 billion Euros anually, and accounts for 9 per cent of Turkey’s exports. The magnate’s passion for classic yachts is well known among boat enthusiasts. His propensity to buy boats – not to say hoard – is such that it is even difficult to keep track of them.…

Oliver Brady was finishing university when he spotted a hulk on Strangford Lough in Nothern Ireland. Stepfather Gerry Dumigan, a classic Dragon owner and CB reader, beat him to the punch and bought it as a wedding present for Oliver and his now wife Lana. After six years of hard work including new keel bolts, frames, caulking, complete renovation of all the (teak) brightwork, mast repair and interior fit-out, the 1939-built, 35ft (10.7m) teak HS Rouse yacht is back afloat and looking great. “The boat is a testament to Gerry, who worked so hard on the restoration” said Oliver.…

A visit to Suffolk Yacht Harbour (SYH) is always interesting, for the breadth of restoration work on show. On a visit this October, it was finally time to see Ryegate finished, a project that’s been in the shed for five years, as the owner grew increasingly ambitious about the project as time went on. SYH originally had her brought to the yard from the lower reaches of the Severn, where she was lying in a sorry state. The 30ft (9.1m), Gibbs-built, single-screw motor yacht has had so much done over the last three or four years that it would be impossible to list it here. The yard’s MD Jonathan Dyke was on hand to show me around, and we both marvelled at the tiny little ship with its surprisingly usable,…

Day one of the August 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race – brutal. The fleet banged its way up the Solent into 30-knot headwinds, then as the tide turned off the Needles, a wind-overtide situation developed that none of the sailors there will forget. By mid-afternoon the recent winner of the Vendée Globe had turned for home, a 70ft round-theworld multihull limped in with an exploded winch drum, a 60ft racing catamaran dismasted, a glut of the latest, out-and-out race yachts turned tail and headed for the nearest port. Thirty boats retired by nightfall and many more were to follow suit. One of the oldest boats in the fleet, meanwhile, ploughed on. At the helm was the man who has owned her for four decades. By his side stood her long-time skipper,…

CHARLES MILLER LTD Beauty and the American beast When Sir Thomas Lipton’s Shamrock III arrived in New York to challenge for the 1903 America’s Cup, her fine lines and proportions drew praise and admiration. By comparison, the cup defender Reliance was a monster. Though both shared a waterline length of 90ft (27m), any similarity ended there, for while the elegant William Fife III cutter measured 134ft on deck, Nat Herreshoff had navigated through loopholes to create an extreme machine 13ft longer on deck and a monstrous 201ft from tip of bowsprit to the end of the 108ft boom. Reliance was the largest single-masted vessel in the world and easily trounced the British challenger 3-0, prompting Lipton to rue: “They tell me I have a beautiful boat. I don’t want a…

BEAUTY IS A LINE MARIELLA “Go up there and look.” I climb over the lines stretched across the bow. Mariella narrows gently but decisively, creating such an acute angle that only my feet fit in it. I hold onto the steel cable stretched from that point to the top of the mast. I balance, turn my back to the sea and focus. “Look at the contour”. Carlo, the owner, steps aside to allow me to see clearly. He brings his hands together and forms an arch, as if caressing the two sides of the boat: from my privileged viewpoint I can see they create a shape that is, quite simply, beautiful. To explore Mariella of 1938 with Carlo means first of all to learn his gaze: attentive, thorough yet delicate,…

Dartmouth broker Wooden Ships has a number of well-maintained, large working sail vessels on its books at the moment. Here are three of them. For more detail on these, or the other pilot cutters available, see woodenships.co.uk or phone +44 (0)1803 833899 PROVIDENT Mule-Class Brixham trawler A Brixham Trawler built in 1924 as a ‘Mule Class’ (referring to her size – Provident is 70ft/21m in length). She fished with a crew of three men and a boy for six years, before being bought by a wealthy American and converted to a yacht by Morgan Giles. She was bought in 1951 by Island Cruising Club founder John Baylay, which was the start of her charter career that has continued until the present day. Provident was rebuilt between 1986 and 1990. In…

There is much afoot as always at Artisan in Maine. One sizeable job in the shop right now is the complete rebuild of a 26ft (8m) open launch that was built by JO Brown on North Haven Island, Maine, in the 1920s. The boat is called Grampus (above) and will also be re-powered as part of her resurrection, with a new Volvo D2-60. Next up this winter will be the restoration of a Clinton Crane-designed IDEM Scow (bottom left). There’s a fascinating story behind these boats, and this will be the third that the yard has restored. Also in the shop at the moment is a rare 9ft (2.7m) Bugatti YOU-YOU motorboat undergoing a restoration (middle left). On the service side, the yard has about 80 classic boats in its…

The cutting edges of auger bits for the brace deserve as much care as those of planes, saws and chisels but it’s not unusual to see them jumbled with other small items in the bottom of the tool bag. Sharpening their cutting lips and spurs is a fiddly operation requiring a loupe and safe-edge files, so best not to chip or dull them unnecessarily. A fabric tool roll is one answer but if you’re working on site, a full roll of 13 bits from ¼-1in in stages of 1/16in (6-25mm in 1.6mm stages) is bulk you can do without, when only two or three sizes may be needed. The traditional solution is to make individual wooden boots, each barely bigger than its bit (1). This 7/16in (11mm) single-twist auger bit…

OVERALL WINNER Thames Sailing Barges By Fraser Gray, Gravesend, Kent THE NATIONAL HISTORIC SHIPS UK OVERALL WINNER 2021 NEWCOMER JOINT WINNER Ebb and Flow By Raymond Carruthers from Killearn, Stirlingshire HIGHLY COMMENDED On the Weaver By John Eyres from Warrington, Cheshire HIGHLY COMMENDED On the deck of The Blue Peter By Ed Whiting from Dilton Marsh, Wiltshire PEOPLE’S CHOICE WINNER The boat at Thornham By Gary Holford from Halesowen, West Midlands NEWCOMER JOINT WINNER The RRS Discovery, Orion and the V&A By Kuljit Athwal from Broughty Ferry, Dundee CLASSIC BOAT WINNER Ethel Alice & Besom Fleet. Moment of beauty By Sandy Miller from Chelmsford, Essex…

It was a heated debate (ok, an argument) with fellow East Coast OGA members about the merits of the lug rig that led John Owles to design his latest boat. “They were saying the lug rig was no good – that it was just a table cloth on a stick halfway up the mast. I pointed out that the development of the rig in places like Brittany and Loch Fyne – where they faced a long beat to windward – meant they had to produce a rig that was efficient and easy to sail. Nigel Irens spotted that when he designed Roxane and Romilly and gave them a high-aspect lug rig. And he knows a thing or two about designing fast boats!” John had by then designed and built several…

Edited by Steff an Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: steff an@classicboat.co.uk The 9ft 7in (2.9m) tender hull was designed by Ian Oughtred and the marine ply planks cut by Jordan Boats for stowage on the foredeck of Saecwen (our cover boat September 2021). There were no plans of the interior, rudder, sail plan and no scantlings. For these we used Ian’s Sea Hen as a basis, which was a very similar boat. The point to make the break between the two halves was a difficult decision. For the nesting to work, the centreboard had to be in the forward half but to keep some distance between it and the centre of pressure of the sail it had to be as far back as possible. We chose a point…

Work is gathering pace on the restoration – for the second time by the same people – of Britannia, the 58ft (17.7m) sailing whelker built by Walter Worfolk and his two sons in King’s Lynn in 1915 (CB June 2020). She was bought, by then motorised, in the 1970s after she had finished fishing, by boatbuilder Sam Samuels and his wife Vicki, who lived aboard for 20-odd years, in the West Country and then in the Western Isles, slowly restoring her to original condition, doing a bit of chartering and raising two sons along the way. They eventually sold her in 1996, only to come across her, in 2013, in Brixham, Devon, in terrible condition, more or less abandoned on an outer mooring. With all their shared history, they couldn’t…

The efficiency of drill bits has tested the inventiveness of toolmakers for generations, and in no field more significantly than boatbuilding. When you consider how many holes are required for fastenings in even a small vessel, the importance of the drill bit soon becomes apparent. But turning back the clock 200 years, to when the wooden ship figured prominently in exploration, trade and war, if the fitting of its countless bolts and treenails could be accelerated by a faster, cleaner-cutting bit, this small tool might tip the balance of power. The early ‘shell’ bit was shaped like half a razor shell with sharp edges, requiring that a gouge first carve a depression in the wood to get it started, and frequent stops to clear waste. Although Archimedes had invented the…