Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i Classic Boat

As backdrops go, this New England regatta is hard to beat. Camden’s natural harbour, lined by bars and restaurants on the inside and protected by islands and forest all around, is about as perfect a location for racing as you could wish for. The calibre, condition and seamanlike nature of the yachts, simply breathtaking. The racing was keen when the weather played ball. Light airs on Friday possibly resulted in more swimming than sailing but Saturday delivered perfect conditions for the 14nm course. The best racing was in the Day Sailor 1 class, where Ponyo and Graceful fought to the line, the former winning out for the Artisan Boatworks Trophy. Concordias are so well loved and represented here that they enjoy their own class. The 41 Otter took the trophy…

Ossie Stewart first spotted Dorothy in a Sandeman brokerage ad where the 33ft (10m) gaff sloop was described as Thames A-Rater built by Linton Hope in 1894. Ossie knew a thing or two about Thames A-Raters, having restored several at his yard in Surbiton, and he could tell this wasn’t one. A quick search revealed drawings of a boat answering to that description which proved she was a Thames One-Rater – not an A-Rater. Job done, and it would have saved his wallet a lot of wear and tear if he had walked away from the situation then and there. The more he looked at the boat, however, the more he liked her, and he ended up buying her, together with his boat buddy Damon Roberts. Both men have highly…

How do you determine your priorities when choosing between aesthetics and functionality in a boat? To what extent are you prepared to compromise one in order to achieve more of the other? These questions inevitably lead to more. For example, does making a boat look – and, importantly, feel – good inevitably make it less practical? And, conversely, is a boat that’s functional and versatile going to be less appealing? Choosing a boat, and particularly a smaller one, can involve so many questions and a fair few compromises. One way to reduce the compromises is to have a boat designed and built specifically to your requirements. Or, if you’re lucky, you might find one that looks as though it could have been designed especially for you, which is how Tas…

There once stood an old farmhouse on a slope looking over the Thames at Stanford-le-Hope, in Essex where the river becomes the sea. Joseph Conrad lived there for a time and it’s where he started his novella Heart of Darkness. Aboard the cruising yawl, Nellie, anchored in a calm while her crew await the ebb, the character Marlow relates the shocking story of colonial enterprise in the Congo which turns to murder and madness. “The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and sky were welded together…and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still…A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in…

I t’s over 170 years since the schooner America trounced the assembled might of the Royal Yacht Squadron in the famous race around the Isle of Wight. There was some controversy at the time over her having shipped a local pilot to navigate the Solent shoals and tides, but this was a minor issue. I can state with authority that she was superior to the opposition in a number of clearly definable areas. The early 1850s saw the blossoming of the sharp-bowed clipper ship which owed the origins of its revolutionary lean entry in no small respect to the pilot schooners on which America was based. The British yachts were still tied to a more traditional hull form. Less publicised, although I suspect equally significant, was the Yankee’s unusually powerful…

In the big shed at Traditional Shipwrights, Paul Kendall and Tim Frearson and the team have a serious restoration project on their hands. She might be just 35ft (10.6m) in length, but Aviona is a big boat at the size, with powerful-looking bluff bows and a big hull, mostly decked over for accommodation. She’s a John Bain design, but quite different to the designer’s earlier and better-known Silvers series boats. Aviona was built in teak and mahogany planks over steam-bent oak timbers, in 1962 by Seaborne Yacht Company for Charles Douglas Barwell OBE, founder of the Lower Avon Navigation Trust, formed in the late 1950s to regenerate much of the River Avon for navigation. Aviona was the first pleasure vessel to navigate the newly-reopened section between Tewkesbury and Pershore on…

Bradley Cain and his team from Sandycove Boat Yard in Newlyn Cornwall returned from this year’s Classic yacht festival in the Golfe du Morbihan shaking their heads in exasperation. “Everywhere I looked I found British classic yachts sailing under French flags. It’s all very dispiriting” He lamented. We Brits have been losing much of our maritime heritage to the Mediterranean for years. Now our classics like the 3-masted barque Kaskelot, one of the largest wooden ships still in commission, are simply crossing the Channel into more appreciative hands where the boats are cherished not only by their new owners, but by the regional ports they reside in. That’s because they are seen as positive marketing tools. Countries like France also have the skilled workforce and cost-effective facilities to maintain them.…

The posing for photographs was approaching almost farcical proportions. The seven crew members were smartly dressed in crew uniforms (last year’s, some faded more than others), and initially it all seemed pretty sensible while they relaxed and smiled in the cockpit and on the aft deck. But then someone suggested that there should be some action shots with everyone doing something, or at least looking as if they were. But there wasn’t really enough for them all to do, or even pretend to do, so a couple of them found themselves pointing pointlessly at some non-existent distant object. But it was all in good humour which, I strongly suspected, is the ever-predominant mood on this boat, even when racing seriously. We were on board Mark Dowie’s 1937 bermudan cutter Bojar…

Lining the river banks at Fawley Meadows near Henley this July were hundreds of classic vessels, many dressed overall. The 46th Thames Traditional Boat Festival also featured the largest fleet of the Dunkirk little ships. Recently returned from their commemorative sail to Dunkirk, the flotilla paraded down the river on its 85th anniversary sail past. The three-day fanfare drew crowds from keen historical boat enthusiasts and families alike. The Steam Boat Association presented magnificently polished and lovingly maintained vessels and synchronised slipper stern launches. Quintessentially quirky water craft included a coracle, paddled on the water by Alex Zivanovic. Argo, a World War Two ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ kayak, was paddled by twin brothers. In addition to the wooden boats, 15 or so amphibious craft added some light-hearted entertainment. The Thames Vintage Boat…

It all seemed so effortless. We were sailing an 87ft (26.5m) flat-bottomed, shallow-draft vessel displacing about 65 tonnes – the design of which is effectively hundreds of years old – to windward in a gentle breeze down a particularly narrow river, and we were making impressive progress. Of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised, for this was a Thames barge, a type of vessel which is legendary for being very effectively sailed in its working days by small crews in waters and conditions such as this. We had joined Blue Mermaid – a faithful replica of a barge of the same name that was built in 1930 – on her swinging mooring off Heybridge Basin on the River Blackwater in the Thames estuary, in the early hours to catch the…

Drying anchorage Yantlet Creek (above) in north Kent. This lonely and isolated creek is just downriver from Allhallows and can be accessed two hours either side of HW in a shoal-draught craft – no more than 4ft 6in (1.4m). To port is a shell beach, to starboard saltings which lead up to a sea wall, the other side of which are marshes that lead to the village of Allhallows. There are stepping stones across the creek that can be used at low water. There is good holding in soft mud. Or you can lie against the steep-sided shell beach just inside the entrance to port. All-tide anchorage Is Yokesfleet Creek (below right), a waiting anchorage off the River Roach, for craft wishing to enter the Thames Estuary via Havengore lifting…

This year’s Southampton Boat Show has attracted some beautiful, spirit-of-tradition motor cruisers, but little in the way of traditional sailing, at least on the water. However, as well as the Wooden Boat Stage (see p18), there is the Boating Academy, with daily talks from the top names in the industry on everything from the history of foiling to knot-tying lessons. See southamptonboatshow.com for all things show-related, including a full talks timetable. RUSTLER 42 Rustler Yachts is bringing two boats to the show this year. The first, the Rustler 42, is pure Rustler, the sort of yacht the Falmouth firm built its name on nearly half a century ago with the original Rustler 36. Designer Stephen Jones, who has done most of Rustler’s work, has an uncanny knack of drawing boats…

TAKING A PUNT, OR TWO We match a classic 1912 Falmouth quay punt against a modern interpretation designed by Paul Gartside and speak to their owners. TALLY HO! The epic story continues as we catch up with Leo and his crew on their latest adventure along the North Pacific Coast before they head east for an important 2026 rendezvous. OGA EAST COAST We report on the ‘Gaffers’ recent Suffolk gathering, a week of racing and rejoicing in good company and decent weather. OCTOBER 2025 ISSUE ON SALE 12 September 2025 Or why not subscribe? SAILING TODAY WITH YACHTS & YACHTING IN THE OCTOBER ISSUE • Dufour’s giant 46ft cruiser on test • Fastnet and Admiral’s Cup round-up • Expert guide on the latest sails • Exploring the Northwest Passage •…

Everybody knows somebody who’s sailed 62,746 nautical miles, which is a little bit unfortunate as they’re apt to tell you about it. They can be found in sailing club bars from Cowes to Scapa Flow sat all by themselves like a lonely atoll jutting out of a desolate, dark blue ocean of undulating nylon carpet topped with the yellow gold crests of yacht club insignia. Truly, these carpets are a wonder of nature – and 1950s interior design. In my early years, as I built up resistance to the static charge and, out of respect, avoided treading on the crests, just as you would with graves in a cemetery, and also for fear that it might be a hanging offence, I kept my distance from these Neptune-like figures whose stories…

The 18th Puig Vela Classica reflected this truly international and always fun regatta perfectly, where the only thing to challenge the racing is the joyous dock parties and general good will to all crews. In fact, this year, there was a third challenge, with some tricky conditions that veered from very light to forecasts that closed airports and ultimately curtailed the final day’s racing. There was still a proud buzz around the Real Club Náutico de Barcelona, following the Puig Vela’s inclusion in the 2024 America’s Cup, with some 40 yachts from 10 countries, split into six categories across size, rig and modernity, gathered. A flexible series of 10 possible courses of around 15 miles were created to try to cater for all weather scenarios. Day one saw the Classic…

The first ever Wooden Boat Stage at the Southampton Boat Show will headline multiple panel discussions and highlight the wooden boat building community over 10 days. Inspired by a visit to Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival 2024, co-organiser and founder of Women in Boat Building (WIBB), Belinda Joslin (pictured bottom right) wanted to bring the skills and charm of wooden boatbuilding to Southampton. “Two years ago I visited Southampton and found a show that didn’t reflect the yards and boating world I was a part of. But the North West Pacific festival presented an inclusive and exciting programme of highly talented craftspeople welcoming us into their world and sharing their passion and skills.” Co-ordinated between the Boat Building Academy (BBA), the Wooden Boatbuilders Trade Association (WBTA) and WIBB, as well…

The numbers tell it all. A record 444 entries made this year’s 100th anniversary Fastnet the biggest event in ocean-racing history. Over 2,900 crew members of 57 nations from as far as Kazakhstan, Lithuania and Zimbabwe took part, most ticking off one of the great bucket list dreams of our age. The low number of retirements – just 18 – reflect the champagne conditions during the Rolex-sponsored race. For most, it was a three-day beat in moderate conditions to the Fastnet Rock, followed by a spinnaker run and reach all the way back to Cherbourg, which has hosted the finish line for the past three events. Within the fleet were mighty multihulls, maxis, Admiral’s Cup yachts, classics and standard production boats down to a few minimum-sized 30-footers (9.1m). The 105ft…

Wooden boatbuilding is on the red list of the Heritage Craft Association and National Historic Ships. The skills and knowledge are endangered. So how do we ensure that traditional wooden boatbuilding is preserved and steered into a practical, working future? It seems as though Norway has found a way to preserve its great clinker-building past for the future. A SCHEME TO FUND WOODEN BOATBUILDING “Above all, it’s about preserving the intangible cultural heritage,” Tore Friis-Olsen explained to me. “This is the knowledge the builders hold in their heads and their hands. It’s not something that can be learned from books. The boatbuilders are central to the whole project.” Tore is the leader of Forbundet Kysten, an organisation that provides assistance and financial backing to preserve coastal heritage in Norway. Small…

Pretty much any boatyard visit is enough to trigger tool envy: there is usually an ancient, heavy-duty bandsaw, some kind of serious table saw set-up with plenty of room for in-feed and out-feed, the sort of drill press that you install with a forklift… the list goes on. What they’ve just installed at the the Jeremy Rogers boatyard, the cradle of all things Contessa, is on a whole new level. It’s a 6 bar, 200C0 autoclave, a monstrous steel cylinder that stretches halfway across the workshop floor. The yard, which diversified into making carbonfibre davits and other components some years ago, is taking it up a step in terms of quality, to make industry-leading, void-free structures. And well you might too, if your client list included the navies of the…

Pecheur is an interesting concept as a project. She’s one of the last – if not the last – Parkstone Bay Cruiser 21 built in timber in, it is thought by the owner, 1971. FC Mitchell built quite a number of these in the post-war period, including a run of production in glass after the early 1970s. She’s just under 21ft (6.4m), traditionally built in mahogany carvel planks on steamed oak timbers, with a diesel in a box in the cockpit, transom-hung rudder and small cabin. The yard offered three main variations on this theme, moving progressively from ‘bigger cockpit, smaller cabin’ to its inverse. These were: the Sea Horse (one cabin window each side), the Sea Fisher (two windows each side) and the Sea Cruiser (three cabins each side).…

German brothers Wilhelm and Carl Fein built the first portable electrically-powered drill in the 1890s but for the next quarter century a significant drawback to the species was the difficulty in operating its remote on-off switch. Taking one hand off the job to switch off would unbalance the bulky tool, stress the bit and break it. Inspired by hand guns of the time, Black and Decker’s invention patented in 1917 added a trigger switch to the pistol grip, enabling two-handed control from start to finish. In the essentials, our 1950s half inch standard drill built at the firm’s long-gone Harmondsworth, UK factory appears virtually unchanged from those early examples assembled at the Baltimore, USA factory, and strikingly similar to corded drills of today. When the DIY craze took off in…

SEPTEMBER 1995, CB87 Thirty years ago, Sir Francis Chichester’s Gipsy Moth IV, the one he did the one-stop, round-the-world voyage in from 1966-7, was being lifted from her tomb next to Cutty Sark in London’s Greenwich, but only for a refit so she could sink back in and rot some more. Why not send her back to sea, asked then-editor Robin Gates, in a refrain so often uttered by editors of this magazine over the years, about different boats, including her neighbour Cutty Sark. Usually, it doesn’t happen. “It can’t happen. It shouldn’t happen. Boats are supposed to be kept on land,” the incredulous conservators explain to us, in the manner of one telling a child that a real shotgun is not the most suitable present, even if it is…