Yard News from Levington, Suffolk: Holman’s own Stella in restoration

The Stella Story at Suffolk Yacht Harbour (SYH) stretches all the way back to the yard’s beginnings in 1967, when one of the founders was yacht designer Kim Holman. Holman drew the 26ft (8m) clinker Stella sloop in 1958 and the first, La Vie en Rose, won all her seven races at Burnham Week conclusively. More than 100 followed. Today, SYH has become the natural hub for old Stellas, fully restoring five over the years and, more recently, rescuing another seven abandoned examples for future work. SYH chairman Jonathan Dyke said: “SYH has always had a strong association with wooden boats and the link to Kim Holman gives us a certain historical responsibility to keep Stellas alive.” 

Currently in the workshop at SYH are two Stellas; Star Shell (hull 65) and Stella Munter. 

Star Shell is particularly special as she is hull 2 and Kim Holman’s own yacht, built in 1959 by Tucker Brown. She arrived at the yard in 2023 in very tired condition, but now she – and Stella Munter – have been almost completely stripped prior to renovation, redecking, and sheathing. 

Yard MD Joshua Major said: “When Star Shell arrived at SYH, she had an outboard bracket on her transom but no engine and not much else.  After assessing her, we established she was structurally sound and with skill, care, and attention she could be brought back to life.” Upon closer inspection, the team at SYH discovered Star Shell’s steel centreline fastenings and keel bolts had badly corroded.  The copper hull fastenings were tired and no longer secure. Localised re-fastenings were removed and replaced, and copper nails and roves were extracted, and new ones fitted. Structural floors, bulkheads, the keel and the rudder were all removed.  The deck and coachroof ply were stripped, and the chainplates were removed. As Joshua Major commented, “This was a case of if you are doing it, do it properly.  We didn’t hold back.” A considerable number of planks had to be reinstated due to cracks or rot.  Ribs and deck beams had to be removed, and new ones scarfed or steamed before engine beds were made and fitted. Joshua added, “Next steps will be to fit the structural floors and lay the new ply on the deck and coachroof.  After that, we will turn her over to prepare the hull for sheathing.”

Sheathing, as previously reported here, is now central to the SYH approach to old Stellas. “It’s a no brainer for clinker-built boats,” said Josh. Too many are vulnerable to unsustainable water ingress. Sheathing is the safeguard that keeps these boats alive and secure for the future.” When faced with a leaking Stella, the alternative to sheating is refastening (and effectively tightening) the planks). Jonathan Dyke added “For a wooden clinker of this age, 60-70 years on from its original build date, refastening is fraught with risk. It is unlikely to provide sufficient hull integrity to prevent leaks and water ingress for the long term.”

Out of the seven Stellas SYH has rescued, with the support of Andrew Gilmour (owner of Stella Timoa), there are four on the hardstanding awaiting restoration.

Jonathan Dyke said, “A Stella is a lovely piece of classic boat history that is easy to sail and once sheathed is manageable to maintain.  Whether it’s sailing with grandchildren or racing at classic regattas, the Stella is a versatile, pretty little boat that will always have a home at SYH.”

Boyne Cit, Michigan, USA: Warp speed runabout

Yard News from Van Dam Custom Boats, the Q Branch of the wooden boatbuilding world, is always worth a read; if they’re not building something beautiful and luxurious, which they often do, they’re building something utterly wild and previously unheard of. Right now, they’re building a 26ft, all-wooden, 350hp utility-style launch with a straight-shooting trad look, but the one before that carried the Van Dam hallmark of cutting-edge madness meeting svelte good quality. That boat, Victoria Z, is a Michael Peters-designed, 35ft (10.7m) wood-hulled mahogany runabout powered by two 427 Ford Cobras running through Arneson surface drives, giving a top speed of… wait for it… north of 110mph.

Southampton, Hampshire: One we missed at the boat show

We missed one at the Southampton Boat Show! It was this, the first Caprina 26 Classic, an Andrew Wolstenholme design built by Webb Boats. The 26-footer (8m) launch is built of Columbian pine and mahogany planking over an oak frame with solid mahogany decks. The boat also comes in ‘Contemporary’ guise, with an FRP hull and wood trim. This is a highly-spec’d, handsome day boat for up to eight, with plenty of locker space and fridge option. 

With seating for 8 people, there is plenty of locker space and an option for housing a fridge. Propulsion options are diesel, petrol or electric, up to 370hp.

Yard News from Ullapool, Scotland: New skiff in build

Demand for traditional boatbuilding is on the rise in Scotland at least. Adam Way has found a ready market for his beautiful wooden 18ft Oban skiffs at his yard in Lochgilphead, Argyll. And Tim Loftus, based in Ullapool, has just completed a wooden 18ft (5.5m) Shetland skiff commissioned by another Scottish owner from the Ullapool yard he shares with Dan Johnson. This double-ender designed to row or sail, was on display, still in its building jig at this year’s successful Ullapool Lugger Festival. The Loftus and Johnson yard specialises in building and restoring wooden fishing vessels using sustainable Scottish Douglas fir, larch and oak. 

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The post Boatbuilding & Yard News: Craftsmanship Around the World appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

“Eet’s the end of summer,” said the taxi driver, en route from the airport to Barcelona, partly because he’d just learned to say it on Duolingo, but mostly because of the heavy rain and great bolts of fork lightning in the sky above the Catalonian capital. Racing on the first day of the Vela Puig Regatta was called off, crews huddling under umbrellas and pottering around the Royal Barcelona Yacht Club in sliders and anoraks. People hid, waiting for the sun to come out and dry sails and, on the smaller yachts, laundry. The big news at this year’s Vela was the arrival of 13 of the world’s 12-M yachts, which were lined up a few steps away in the old port near the city centre, and sparkling in the sun the next morning before racing got underway.

You always pick a favourite boat of course, whoever you are, and whatever your understanding, or lack of it, might be, and my eye was immediately drawn to Flica II, the startling black, modernist 12-M designed by Laurent Giles and built by Fife III in 1939. She’s a third-rule boat, the last yacht built at the Wm Fife yard, and conceived for an America’s Cup that might one day be played out in the 12-M class, an event that would not happen until 19 years later. Inside, Flica II had been stripped out for racing, and her young German crew, all around 20 years old, showed me the hydraulically-tilting mast; her many other innovations include rudder trim tabs. A halyard block had come loose under tension before the regatta, smashing a long, jagged hole in the hollow mast. She was out for the count at this regatta, while a local carpenter armed with little more than a power planer and a good eye, was carving a new graving piece to fit the awkward shape. The story up and down this line of 12s is the story of the beginnings of the modern America’s Cup, a cup that from 1958-1987 was sailed in that class, a period that saw more and more nations enter the fray, a period where the challenger no longer had to cross the Atlantic on her own hull to take part, something that it took an act by the US Supreme Court to effect. Here were yachts in wood, aluminium and glassfibre, with the counter sterns, cabins and traditional sheer of the pre-war yachts gradually ceding to the flush decks, flat sheer and those memorable, great flat retroussé sterns of the later boats. The America’s Cup ‘race village’ lining the dockside above hosted a steady stream of spectators watching the Louis Vuitton Cup (America’s Cup challenger races) unfolding on the big screen, and they gazed down on the classic 12s below their feet. America’s Cup fever had arrived in Barcelona, a city that joined the big stage during the 1992 Olympics and is now better known for the pithy slogan “tourists go home”. One local recalled the buoyancy felt by Barcelonians in 1992 and said that the America’s Cup was the nearest thing to it since then.

It was apparent, that second, sunny morning, that the classics and the 12-Ms were going to have company on the water. We passed the shoreside installations of various nations’ AC75s, noting American Magic (USA) Ineos (UK) and Luna Rossa (ITA) on the way out. A large, powerful RIB, tender to American Magic, came up behind, towing a seemingly unmanned AC75 American Magic out to the racecourse on the foil, the helmeted, miked-up crew of the yacht looking like special forces aboard the RIB.

On the water, there was barely enough wind… about 6kts… for some of the heavier classics to move at all, but in 6kts of wind, the AC75s, just black sails on the horizon most of the time, were touching 30kts. It’s a strange dink in the curve of progress that the schooner America, the first winner of the America’s Cup in 1851, was probably capable of about 12kts. Nearly 140 years later in 1987, at the end of the 12-M era, that top speed was roughly the same. Today, just 37 years after the Cup was last raced for in the 12s, that top speed has risen to over 55kts, mid-race (63mph or 102kmh). One AC crewman, speaking off the record, estimated that the AC75 could go quite a lot faster still, perhaps enough to rival the outright world sailing speed record of 65.5kts (75mph/112kmh) set by Paul Larsen aboard Vestas Sailrocket II in 2012; but not enough to unseat the current ambition of the Richard Mille SP80 which hopes to reach 80kts (92mph/148kmh) next year.

Back in the real world, the classics fleet was putting on a mixed display. The heavier yachts were struggling to fill their sails, while twelve 12-Ms, capable of 12kts, each crewed by 12 or so sailors, put on an elegant display of close racing around their own course, spinnaker peeling neatly at the marks, lines slipping and groaning on their winches as they cleared the buoy. It wasn’t only the yachts. There were living legends out on the course too, like ocean-racing record-holder, Olympic medallist and America’s Cup sailor Marc Pajot aboard the French 12 French Kiss. “It is a very beautiful memory for me,” he said. “I reached the America’s Cup with French Kiss in 1987. Five of those same crew members are now here in Barcelona, 37 years later!”

The boat to watch though, was Kookaburra II, the eventual winner in class, one of several classics owned by Patrizio Bertelli, whose fashion company Prada is sponsor of the current Italian AC challenger Luna Rossa. She looked striking with flush decks and sharp aluminium outline in a powder-blue paint finish, helmed by five-time Olympic champion, Torben Grael. Torben, a veteran of many America’s Cup campaigns for the Luna Rossa team over the years, said of this classic 12-M class: “They are beautiful boats that require a good and well-trained crew for manoeuvres.” They were made more beautiful by the backdrop of Barcelona, with the nearly-complete Sagrada Familia and the Three Chimneys power station punctuating the skyline. On the beaches, tourists swam and lay on the sand, some watching the Louis Vuitton Cup on the big screen, with glimpses of the real thing beyond. But here, closer to the beaches, the more evocative, varied show was the mixed fleet of 77 classic yachts, including, other than the 12-Ms, three of the 15-Ms, four P Class going head to head and, to round it up at the top, the 23-M yacht Cambria, cock of the fleet and resplendent under her newly-relaid deck.

The next day was a mild sort of mayhem. I found myself on a press RIB, bouncing through a confused, pyramidal 2m-high chop at 30kts towards the fleet, helicopters chattering low overhead. This was the aftermath of a few recent conflicting weather systems, and I doubted the AC boats could have handled it. The classics lapped it up, with barely a reef in the fleet. There was much talk that evening, in the event marquee, about whether the new AC boats even qualify as sailing yachts. As one sailor pointed out, they surely do, as they need water as much as they need wind. They are certainly a world apart from the displacement hulls of the 20th century, and their evolution has only just begun. Class winner’s at this year’s Vela were Northern Light and Kookaburra II in the 12s (see panel, right), Recluta (Classics 1) Olympian (P Class), Comet (Vintage Bermudam), Kanavel (Classics 2), Oriole (Vintage Gaff), Emeraude (Classic IOR) Viveka (Big Boats) and Anima II (Modern Classics).

The 12-M Fleet at Barcelona

D Class – Vintage

Thea (Second Rule, 1918, Johan Anker)
Oldest 12-M in the regatta

La Spina (Second Rule, 1929, Vittorio Baglietto)
Italy’s first 12-M, recently restored

Seven Seas of Porto (Third Rule, 1935, Clinton Crane)
Won six major races in her first three years

Eileen 1938  (Third Rule, 1938 Christian Jensen)
Built to the 12-M rule but as a cruiser/racer, identified by the ‘E’ sail number

Northern Light (Third Rule, 1938, S&S)
Class winner at the regatta, and at the 12-M Worlds in June in Porquerolles

Vim (Third Rule, 1939, Starling Burgess)
Built for Harold Vanderbilt, the first yacht to have rod rigging. Restored this year and runner-up in class at the regatta

Flica II (Third Rule, 1939, Laurent Giles)
Last Fife-built yacht, arguably the first ‘America’s Cup’ 12, with rudder trim tabs, rod rigging and hydraulic-tilting mast. DNS at this regatta 

Jenetta (Third rule, 1939, Alfred Mylne)
Built for William Burton, restored 2019, Robbe and Berking. Third in class at the regatta. The tartan topsides represent designer Alfred Mylne’s alma mater, University of Glasgow

D Class – Modern

Kookaburra II (AC Rule, 1985, Swarbrick & Murray)
Crusader (AC Rule, 1985, Ian Howlett)
South Australia (AC Rule, 1985, Ben Lexcen)
French Kiss (AC Rule, 1985, Phillipe Briand)
Kiwi Magic (AC Rule, 1986, Bruce Farr)

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The post Puig Vela Classica 2024: 12-M Fleet Racing in Barcelona appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Classic Boat New England Road Trip

A V8 pick-up, Tom Petty on the stereo, cowgirls in denim shorts, roadside diners and motels with flickering neon lights… This was the dream for CB’s ad manager Hugo and I as we set out on our way in the new world. Or New England at least. We should’ve known better, having visited this part of the world in 2018. The reality was less colourful: a reliable Japanese hire car, Cape Cod Rock on the radio, boatbuilders in denim (not shorts), a historic hotel with creaky stairs in Rhode Island and… well, Wendy’s burgers.

First stop on the New England tour: JM Reineck and Son

This is Bob and son Jared. They love the house – spent seven years waiting for a suitable house with ground/basement you can drive into. They also have lovely lake (pond) views and plenty of land (albeit not any of it flat!!).

We looked at bronze blocks. Apparently these are Herr in origin and last for ages. The boat is an original Buzzards Bay 15, Flickamaroo, built in 1916. It was the start of everything: “I took it out of the water in 1981 to tighten a few bits. She didn’t go back in until 2011!” Bought it 50 years ago, aged 79. Now the son has joined the enterprise, which is run from their cavernous converted basement. He’s building bronze Herreshoff blocks at the moment. They last seemingly forever. He’s into a 22-year long-term test with a guy who runs fishing charters on a skipjack schooner. Sails go up and down at least four times a day, every day. They’re still fine. Recent job was L Francis boat Catriona. Current job is 7/8in blocks for Cherise, 57ft Alden yacht. Doing hollow cleats for that too – Reliance style.

Arey’s Pond

Arey’s Pond, America’s builder of new catboats in GRP (and, occasionally, wood) was our next stop about an hour away, so we hit the road and wound through endless lakes (there are 3,000 in the state of Massachusetts), rivers, forests, and towns with names like Chatham, Sandwich and Rochester. The yard is in a lovely setting by a small lake (‘pond’) reached by a dirt road, and a river leads into Mount Pleasant Bay, protected from the Atlantic by a long spit of land.

I count more than 50 catboats on the lake, all blowing this way and that to their anchors as a strong breeze blew through, but the sun is out and cats are being readied on land to spend the summer afloat. Up some stairs in the canvas shop, we meet Geoffrey Cabral, who once got off a speeding ticket in England on the strength of spelling his first name properly. He has also been Arey’s ‘canvas guy’ on and off for 25 years, and loves the job.

In his time, he’s made sails, welded custom swim ladders, done all the canvas work on the 186ft schooner Adix, and even made a body bag for a burial at sea. He’s originally from Bermuda, and for a while lived on a Venus ketch he’d restored himself, and lost in a freak hurricane. “I really never thought I could live in New England” he says with a smile, but the job, the setting, and the nearby surf beaches mean that he now calls the place home. The only mystery to Geoff is that more young people don’t want to go into his line of work, and marine in general. And if you’re wondering about the long hair, and thinking it goes with surfing and listening to Cape Cod Rock (Geoff is a fellow fan, it seems), then you’d only be half right. He grows it to cut every six years and donates it to a charity making wigs for cancer patients!

The day was long, and we drove to our next hotel in Newport, Rhode Island. The white-painted, weatherboarded Bellevue House is the oldest hotel in the town, opened nearly two centuries ago and straight out of Moby Dick. In town, we find the least touristy bar we can and eat burgers and drink beer, watching the baseball, and weather reports showing floods and promising 100pmh winds through the night for much of New England.

Photos from Mystic Wooden Boat Show, New England

The First Sunrise: Boatbuilding in Maine

The main regret of our two US yard tours so far (the one detailed in this issue and another in 2018), is that we’ve not yet made it as far north as Maine, one of the world’s spiritual homes of classic yachts and working boats, a place I know well from youth, having spent a three-month summer there. Another is that we’ve not yet made it over to the west coast, to the epicentre of Port Townsend in Washington and around, although our correspondent Bruno Cianci got as far as California on his own American mission last year. As for Maine, the first place in America to see the sun rise, we’ve followed a few yards from afar over the years. The first of these is Artisan Boatworks, run by Alec Brainerd, who we bumped into at the WoodenBoat Show in Mystic. For some years now, Artisan has been championing the great one-designs and dayboats from American history – the yard has built new or restored almost countless keel boats like the fabled Dark Harbor 17, Buzzards Bay 15 and 18, and various of Herreshoff’s famous 12.5s and their derivatives. They have also been involved in all sorts of other projects, like the restoration of the 1959 S&S yawl Glory, a build of a replica late-18th century Gil Smith catboat (Whirlwind II inspired by Mariam) and a new, 39ft (11.9m) luxury day-sailer designed by fellow ‘Mainiacs’ Stephen Warings Yacht Design. This new boat, Wisp, has been cold-moulded in wood and is nearing its final stages. Artisan presently has the 1903 Herreshoff Bar Harbor 31 Joker for build, one of just 13 built. Alec is keen to find a buyer to start the restoration, and the yard has gathered together all plans and historical information. The other recently restored member of that class, Scud, belongs to the Prada family and has been clearing up racing in the Mediterranean.

Rockport Marine, founded in 1962 by Luke Allen, is another yard that builds new as well as carrying out restoration work, and in common with American boatyard tradition, designs much of its output in-house, with iLn-house designer Sam Chamberlin. The wide variety of boats over the decades has included traditional plank-on-frame and modern wood-composite vessels. Quite notably, two of their most recent projects feature in our awards this year: the LW38 day-sailer and R37 down-east-style lobster launch. This latter has her roots in the lobster yachts from the 1950s by Newbert and Wallace, and was built for simple, sturdy cruising, with no fewer than four layers of col-moulded timber used in her construction. She’s 37ft (11.3m) long as the moniker implies, and has the unique distinction of an open transom for easy swimming and tender deployment and retrieval. The single 550hp diesel will let the boat cruise in the high teens and top out above 25 knots, and an onboard shower and galley make overnighting a possibility, as well as island-hopping at speed. The cold-moulded LW (Little Wolf) 38 is initially striking for her simple good looks. This first one, Mar Amore, was built for island-hopping, weekending, and singlehanding or short-handed sailing.

A few years ago, we hauled the Little Harbor 36 Thora and were taken with the hull shape and svelte centerboard. This memory was fresh when a client called looking for a shallow draft yacht. The brief was for a daysailer (maybe a ‘weekender’) to be mostly single-handed, that would sail a long season, and needed to get underway without fuss. The initial inspiration was Aage Nielsen’s Design 324, and the boat was built in jut 56 weeks. She carries her beam aft to give a good-sized cockpit for day-sailing guests, and a centreboard means she can reach places other boats can’t. The interior will sleep four and there is an interesting touch in the deck hardware, which is all bead-blasted 316 stainless steel – “a soft look which does not need polishing and complements the muted running rigging and modern rope lifelines” according to Rockport. Past restorations include the 1924 Fife schooner Adventuress, the 1941 sardine boat William Underwood and the Alden-designed 1938 motor sailer Trade Wind a few years ago, still looking pristine when we spotted her at the WoodenBoat Show in Mystic. 

Brooklin Boatyard have, like Rockport, been around over half a century founded, as it was, by Joel White (1930-1997) in 1960. Joel, through his design and building work, was one of the best-known figures in the classic boat world in his time, but it’s perhaps less well known that he was also the son of author and essayist EB White, whose works include Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. These days, it’s another American do-it-all yard: restoration, new build and design, and they’ve done plenty of it. Restoration of a little mahogany runabout Come From Away, the spirit-of-tradition sailing yacht Harper; and Legend, a modern take on Ernest Hemingway’s 38ft sport fisher, have all featured in our awards over the past few years. The yard has also built quite a few larger spiri-of-tradition yachts, including the 91ft (27.7m) cold-moulded Sonny III. In 2015, Broolin collaborated with an unusual design partner: the architect Frank Gehry, for the build of the sailing yacht Foggy. The yard is currently busy with a new 56ft cruising sailing yacht and the larger, 55ft version of the Hemingway boat – the Wheeler 55, which has just been launched.      

Lyman Morse has built around 110 yachts over the last four decades, and like the others on these pages, they have featured quite prominently in our Awards in more recent years, firstly with the outrageously gorgeous Hood 57LM, a tall, powerful sport-fisher style yacht with a high outside helm, built in cold-moulded timber, and all bright finished. They followed it up a couple of years later with Shadow, a cold-moulded Hood 35LM which was so technologically advanced that it wouldn’t need any crew to motor from one destination to another, which we thought would rather defeat the point, until Drew Lyman pointed out that it would be very handy for deliver trips! Either way, insurance won’t allow it, so the point is moot for now. Either way, she won our award that year (2023). Another 35 was built just a year later. The new 42LM, with a similar, sport-fisher launch, is also now in build. These are all handsome, fast, planning or semi-planing motor yachts built in cold-moulded timber, but the yard has also built quite modern-looking sailing yachts in the material, like two LM46 sloops, and even an all-carbon, 30ft (9.1m) electric foiler, Naiver. Who knows what they might do next?!

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The post Classic Boat Road Trip: Tour of Boatbuilding in New England appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

The 1930s Dunkirk little ship Breda played a pivotal part in the war, and now she’s making the most of peacetime with a fabulous interior and plans to go cruising.

Dunkirk Little Ships

The fleet of 800 or more small, civilian vessels that sailed from England to save Allied troops from the beaches of Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo has become a central pillar of British identity. At the same time, the story of these Dunkirk little ships has become so weakened by repetition that it’s reached the point where it’s in danger of becoming just another trope in the national consciousness. It might have been, as the 2017 film put it, Britain’s darkest hour, as a ferocious German army pinned us against the edge of the sea, but the actions of those few days remain the greatest hour that a fleet of pleasure vessels has ever seen and ever will see, in terms of lives saved, and the shaping of the course of the rest of time. A letter written to Classic Boat in 2010 by a Dunkirk veteran named Richard Samson of Deal in Kent gives some insight into what it was like to be on those beaches in 1940. 

He tells of “the wide-eyed fear, of the noise, of the shouting, and the uncontrollable cursing each time the Stukas arrived, ie “Here they come again, the B*****ds” “Where’s our effing Air Force” “Run for Ch**st sake, Run” and the relief you felt when the planes had gone and you were still alive.” Official records don’t record what Richard saw: “The few drunks wandering around totally unaware of the chaos around them.” “One lasting memory I have is when I was transferred from the rowing boat to one of the Little Ships. I knew then that I’d made it back home to England. I liken it now to the same feeling I get when I’ve been out for the day. I’m tired, hungry and a bit cold and I’m wondering I’ve missed the very last bus home. Then I see its welcoming lights coming round the corner to take me home. There’s warmth and comfort on that bus, just as there was on that little ship. What a fool I was not to ask its name. I would so much like to know its name and if it’s still afloat. Thank God it was on that night in early June 1940.

Which little ship carried Richard Samson to safety? It could have been Breda, but it could have been any of them. Every Dunkirk little ship was the last bus home. As it happens, Breda’s story is well documented. She was designed and built as Dab II JW Brooke and Co in 1931 for George Smart of Westcliffe-on-Sea. By 1940, the year of Operation Dynamo (AKA the Dunkirk evacuation), she was owned by a Colonel Hardy, whose only anger at learning Dab II had been requisitioned, stemmed from the fact that he would not be going with her. That duty fell to Lieutenant RW Thompson, who took her across the Channel three times in six days. On her final return journey, she rescued a group of Dutch soldiers from the town of Breda. She went on to serve as a patrol vessel for the rest of the war. When Colonel Hardy was reunited with his yacht at the end of the war, he renamed her Breda in honour of her war record, and of the Dutch troops who’d fought a brave rear-guard action before their rescue.   

Saving a Saviour: Breda

By the end of 2017, Breda was abandoned on a Thames mooring and rotting from the inside out. Alain Lemans, a Belgian settled in England who fell for motorboats at the age of seven after taking the wheel of a small, wooden powerboat on a family holiday, was looking for a 24-carat classic. He had already owned a 26ft Swift Junior-class motorboat built by 1946 by William Osborne called Little Ann, that he’d had restored at Dennetts, while diving in and getting his own hands dirty too on weekends. Breda, at 52ft long, is in a different league. Work started, again at Dennetts, in early 2018. Again, Dennetts was in charge, with Alain contributing his time when he could. The hull alone required 3 new ribs, 35 planks, 30 deck beams, gunwale and beamshelves both sides, a full aft cabin rebuild and a new transom.

Just four months later, this was complete and she was back on the water again. Over that summer, the diesel tanks were emptied and cleaned, the hoses, seals and senders replaced, and the two Ford Sabre 135hp six-cylinder diesels – the “blue monsters” – recommissioned, thanks to Jonathan Parker at Parker Marine Services. All bronze items were removed and rechromed, and the gun-metal stanchions were removed, stripped, sandblasted, repainted and reinstated.

That winter, the forward cabin was rebuilt, the forward deck, original teak, was removed and restored and replaced (all 151 planks – “carefully numbered and diagrammed like an elaborate Tetris pattern to aid reinstallation”), the entire hull stripped and the new beamshelves in. This was followed by deck beams, ceiling and two layers of marine ply and epoxy over the entire cabin structure to make it weatherproof. Later, the entire wheelhouse was rebuilt in mahogany, Now it was time to start on the inside.      

Down Below

The interior of this Dunkirk little ship is flamboyant, imaginative, unique, and quite in keeping with the 1930s, expressing as it does the curt, symmetrical excesses of the Art Deco movement.  “She’s a good example of just how far you can take one of these boats,” says interior designer Heather Dennett, who works hand-in-glove with husband Steve who, with dad Michael before him, has run Dennetts since 1962. It was born of the desire from owner Alain Lemans to express the Deco aesthetic to the maximum. Alain’s original requests were tempered by Steve and Heather’s experience, for example in their insistence on a central aisle to enable quick access to the bows when necessary. “Having recently taken Breda across the English Channel in some challenging weather conditions, I’m glad I listened,” says Alain. “Luckily none of these practical changes meant I had to give up on the espresso bar or the ice-cube maker!” The result is one of the best interiors you’ll ever see on a boat.

It was clearly one of Heather’s more enjoyable jobs, and she shows me photos of her and Alain whooping it up in full glad rags at a ‘field visit’ to London’s famous Art Deco Quaglino bar, part of a developing friendship between yard and owner. At Alain’s house, he shows us the beautiful, engraved chopping board that Steve crafted for him on the occasion of his marriage to husband Michael – not that Alain will let a sharp knife anywhere near it of course! And later, when we join assorted Dennetts of various ages, friends and yard staff, on the riverside terrace of their house a stone’s throw from the yard for Friday night drinks, Alain comes along too. He only lives down the road after all, when he and Michael moved there to be nearer the boatyard. You could say the story of Breda is the story of a friendship between owner and yard. You could say it’s the story of how an owner with merely human funds has achieved the extraordinary on a quite relatable budget; or the story of an owner and designer who went out on a limb to create an extraordinary interior. It’s all of those, but more than anything, Breda’s tale is about taking an artefact from one of the most dangerous, frightening episodes in recent history and rebuilding it as a monument to joy. Inappropriate? Hardly: it’s what Breda was built for. And more than that, the freedom to enjoy life is what the millions of Allies fought the war for.

At nearby Penton Hook Marina, this Dunkirk little ship is alone in a sea of white fibreglass, her rich, stained mahogany varnish glowing in the late afternoon light. She’s so perfect, inside and out… the sort of boat that makes you want to kick your shoes off at a hundred paces in fact… that it comes as a surprise to learn that Breda’s future holds some blue-water adventures. “She’s happiest estuary and coastal cruising where she belongs,” says Alain, as we have a look around the boat, a glorious swirl of mahogany with detailed geometric inlays in burr maple and walnut. Alain, whose live entertainment company was hit hard in covid, did his Day Skipper in the long days of lockdown, and enjoys proper cruising and meticulous passage-planning, and the boat is, after all, still a 52ft cruiser with two double cabins, inside and outside helms, separate heads and a stolid, ship-like demeanour. He and Michael got a sense of the Dunkirk spirit too, when they went on an informal pilgrimage there in 2022. “I got goosebumps going in as people clapped,” he remembers. (Michael, who is a serious cocktail aficionado… favourites include the Martinez… was in charge of the actual spirits.) Breda’s future also holds the promise of new engines, when funds allow. The new wheelhouse has a removable section installed to facilitate this when the time comes. For now, Alain fires up the old Ford Sabres and the boat comes alive with a vibration, the sort that sends glasses and crockery shivering slowly to the edges of precipices, where they fall and smash on the cabin sole. Alain has no hesitation about what his dream voyage would be: a recreation of a chapter from the boat’s peace years – a journey through the French canals to Mediterranean shores. “If I were retired, I’d go tomorrow,” he says. For now though, excitement is building for the 2025 Dunkirk return, a five-yearly ritual for the remaining fleet of little ships. Since the 2017 film, interest in this has gown exponentially. Vessels are in restoration up and down the land, none more so than at Dennetts; and there is the added impetus of having missed the 2020 return for the covid outbreak. Next year, nothing will stop Breda and her sisters from reminding everyone once again, if any reminder is needed, that ships large and small have always shaped nations and decided the course of humankind.   

BREDA the Dunkirk little ship

Designed and built JW Brooke, 1931

LOD 52ft (15.8m)

Beam 12ft 7in (3.8m)

Draught 3ft 4in (1m)

Engines 2 x Ford Sabre 135hp

Classic Boat Awards 2024 Winner

You may recognise Breda from this year’s Classic Boat Awards… She won the Powered Vessel Under 100ft award!

Take a look at the other 2024 Classic Boat Award winners… 

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The post 1930’s Dunkirk Little Ship Breda: Restored and Cruising appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

How Sailmaking is Changing

The east coast branch of OneSails (there is a Solent shop too), is not much to look at from the outside; just another of those squat, brick buildings that sit on marina hards up and down the country. It’s actually the closest possible experience to walking into a tardis. Above the standard-looking sales office on the ground floor is a huge sail loft, around 6,400sqft in fact, all warm, with supporting columns and a low ceiling. It is the den of sailmaker John Parker, who started cutting cloth in the 1970s… the ‘Dacron era’… under British sail-making legend Austin ‘Clarence’ Farrer, under the banner of Seahorse Sails. “It was like the British hi fi industry in those days,” says John.

Everyone in the industry links back to him, or the Ratseys or Bruce Banks. And that time was bonkers. All over the place! You had a unique chance to experiment. You’d alter sails after a weekend on the water – it had a very crafty feel, less mechanised.” After starting a various stints working for himself and others, including a spell as an agent for North Sails, John set up Parker and Kay, today known as OneSails with fellow sailor Peter Kay, after a session in the pub. John set up shop where he is now, on the east coast, with Peter establishing his loft in Hamble on the Solent.

Sailmaking and Production

British boatbuilding was in decline in the 80s, as other countries developed their own marine industries, and sailmaking was then changing to complex laminate materials, and a production process that had moved from cutting panels of cloth and stitching them together to forming cloth and sail simultaneously. The number of sail ‘cloths’ available at the high-tech end these days is baffling, from the very first, which was essentially yarn trapped in layers of plastic film, to the broad array available today. We have a look at Forte, a fused polyethylene product make of 17 thin layers of different materials. This is a big part of OneSails’ business these days, and they’ve made cutting-edge sails for everyone, including Pip Hare on her recent round-the-world race. “And it just happens to be recyclable” John points out, giving me an ex-sailcloth pen to prove the point.

Recyclability has become more and more of a focus at OneSails, partly driven by owners of modern sails, who will soon be able to take them to a south coast recycling plant and partly driven by OneSails, who are recycling them into pellets which can be used, for instance, in the playpits at schools. In terms of classic yachts, the list of those powered by OneSails is long and illustrious, not least for every yacht built by immediate neighbour Spirit Yachts, from a 42-footer in 1993/4 to the present day. 6-M yachts include Erica, Scoundrel and Thistle. Then there are the 8s (Satir, Charm of Rhu) and the 12s like Flicka II and Italia and the S&S yachts Sunmaid IV, Sunstone and Illiria.

You might have guessed by this point that woven polyster cloth (Dacron is the best-known brand) is the cloth that most classics choose, and still big business. The design process is still the same, essentially computer modelling, and the panels are cut out by laser, but they are glued then stitched in the loft by hand. Maximum panel width has grown over the years with the technology – it’s about 1.4 metres these days – but John and team will still cut narrow panels for the period look. Along with the ‘classic’ Dacron output is OneSails’ ability to optimise for CIM, the rule used in the Mediterranean. They’ve done this for the Robert Clark yacht Cereste and most if not all of the 50 Loch Long ODs on the River Alde. At the other end of the scale is the 111ft Spirit Yachts’ Geist. As to how many sails the loft produces, there’s no firm consensus, but probably a sail a day on average.

To learn more about these cutting edge sails, visit the OneSails website.

Show Me More:

• How to Actually Make Money from Buying Wooden Boats
• ‘True’ Vs Technology: Adrian Morgan on Sailing Gadgets
• RNLI 200 years: History of Life Saving Boat Design

The post How Sailmaking is Changing: Cutting Edge Recyclable Sails appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

We visited seven boatyards and found wonders that included a 100ft Trumpy motor yacht in complete rebuild; original Herreshoff blocks being made in a home basement; brand-new catboats on a beautiful pond, stays whispering in a summer breeze; a ‘canvas guy’ who described what it was like to do ALL the canvas work on the 185ft schooner Adix; silent, dark warehouses stuffed full of yachts by Herreshoff, Burgess and more; a sail loft that makes parachutes for weather gear (and sails!); two perfect, just-launched Concordia yawls sitting on a river jetty with the world’s oceans ahead of them; an incredible sport fisher in rebuild… too much to list here!

The photo shows Dave Snediker, of Snediker Yacht Restorations, pictured at the WoodenBoat Show. The yard is in charge of the ongoing restoration to the 1905 gaff cutter Doris, the largest all-wooden vessel ever built at Herreshoff Mfg.

Dave looks remarkably cheerful and relaxed for a man with that sort of job on! But, as we discovered, there’s still plenty of the ‘can do’ attitude over on that side of the pond. And the sun was shining… Read more in a future issue of Classic Boat magazine.

The post WoodenBoat Show 2024: Exciting updates from New England yards appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Yes – it’s the Westerly Centaur 26, designed in 1969 by Laurent Giles, for build in the brave new material of GRP.

There’s no doubt about the others though – Arcangeli’s 1960s mahogany runabouts; the John Alden schooner Adventurer; and Eric Tabarly’s maxi Pen Duick VI, steered to victory in the recent Ocean Globe Race by his daughter Marie.’

We’re also in the Caribbean for the 2024 Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta and Mauritius to see the amazing microcosm of marine modelling there.

Closer to home, we publish our interview with the late Jim Radford, youngest known D-Day participant with a number-one chart hit in his recent past.

Plus we finish our two-part series detailing 200 years of the RNLI; and we take a look at a lovely wooden, clinker dinghy with an electric auxiliary.

Subscribe now or try a single issue

The post New July issue of Classic Boat: On Sale Now! appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

McGruer yawl

The McGruer-built yachts, like the 8-M cruiser-racers, are well known for their quality of build and versatility. This one is a bermudan yawl, built in 1959 (by McGruer of course, to a design by his own hand), and measures 43ft 4in (13.2m), which is enough to cruise with up to six berths.

The build is in mahogany and teak, and the commissioning owner back at the tail end of the 1950s, for added intrigue, was Archibald J Barr, grandson of the famous Charlie Barr, possibly… probably… the greatest yachtsman Britain has ever produced (he was Scottish).

Westward of Clynder was exhibited at the London Boat Show the year after her launch, to show the quality of her construction the pencil stroke of her architect.

The broker adds: “Very sturdy construction, easy to manoeuvre because of her split rigging; she is a good seaworthy in all weather conditions and at all speeds as well as very comfortable even in bad weather! Involved in many regattas, Westward of Clynder has always lived up to her reputation.

Lying: Hendaye, France
Asking price: €75,000
Contact: bernard-gallay.com

Chancegger

Fastest wooden 12-M?

Chancegger was built for French ballpoint pen and cigarette lighter magnate Baron Marcel Bich and, says the broker, was often referred to as the fastest timber-built 12-M ever, but unfortunately never raced in the America’s Cup. Bich commissioned American designer Britton Chance Jr to design the boat and had it built in Switzerland by renowned shipbuilder Herman Egger using imported French craftsmen. Such was interest in the challenge in France that the French Navy donated to Bich the Honduras mahogany used in the hull (she’s triple-planked in the stuff).

Chance’s design was for a yacht with 30sqft less wetted area than any previous design and for the lightest 12-Metre to date. It was also the first yacht of that type to have the distinctive knuckle bow that every 12-M designer from then on copied.

Since the 1970 America’s Cup (it was used as the trial horse to France), Chancegger has had several owners and ended up in Australia. The current owner has restored and raced her over many years and has now just completed her last refit in Argentina.

“Chancegger is superb and a true consideration for any owner looking to sail or properly race a true classic with pedigree” says the broker. With the biggest gathering of the 12-M class planned to take part in Barcelona this autumn to accompany the America’s Cup, the timing is pretty good too. Chancegger measures 62ft 9in (19.1m) on deck.

Lying: Brasil
Asking price: $525,000
Contact: bernard-gallay.com

ATTA BOY

Naval pinnace

“Atta Boy is a stunning and historic launch with an amazing naval history,” says broker Gillian Nahum. Hard to disagree. “I was impressed by the condition and beauty of this centenarian which has clearly been maintained in tip-top condition during its current ownership”, added Gillian. “It is not hard to imagine an Admiral being swept across a harbour at speed by a rating at the helm.”

The 30ft (9.1m) naval pinnace was built at the JW Brooke yard in Lowestoft in 1915 as one of a number of similar vessels ordered by the Admiralty. Her first duty was to serve Calliope at Chatham, then in 1919 she was sent to Rosyth as a tender to Royalist. According to the Brooke record she was sold in 1923.

A regular attendee at river events including the Thames Traditional Boat Festival, this remarkable launch also took its place at the Jubilee Pageant in 2012 and proudly flies the burgee which all participants were presented with prior to the event.

There is plenty of dry, below-decks stowage, but no sleeping arrangement that would be acceptable to a 21st-century owner. This is now purely a dayboat for the connoisseur. Gillian suggests that a canopy or pram hood would work well to provide all-weather boating.

Atta Boy has a “remarkable turn of speed” from her Rover V8 petrol engine, so could be suitable for use away from the temperate Thames. For a local owner she does have a current BSS (also required for the Norfolk Broads were she to return) as well as a current EA licence.

Lying: Upper Thames
Asking price: £89,500
Contact: hscboats.co.uk

MERITA

Canoe-sterned motor cruiser

“She was a beautiful design but a devil to build.” These were the words of 97-year-old Arthur Frazier when he stepped aboard a newly-restored Merita in 2019, a boat that he’d helped to build 83 years ago as an apprentice to the family boatyard… Frazier in 1936.

The 39ft (11m) Merita is built of pitch pine planks on oak frames as a private motor yacht, although much of the yard’s output was destined for the fishing industry. She’s notable for her pretty canoe stern, with a wheelhouse added in the 1960s.

The new millennium saw the addition of an external helm position, added during her thorough rebuild at Dennetts on the upper Thames, which has made her into a modern, comfortable vessel below decks. The hull, deck and cabin sides are still original.

She now sleeps six with one forward cabin, a master cabin at the stern, and a double berth and a spacious saloon with bunks. There is one heads with a shower. Everything on board is now electric thanks to a 4kVA generator and Merita comes with a new 74hp Sole diesel.

Lying: Thames
Asking: £69,500
Contact: hscboats.co.uk

PATNA

Nicholson time capsule

Stepping aboard the 55ft CE Nicholson yaw Patna for a chance nose around at the Barcelona Puig Regatta in 2015, courtesy of owner and restorer Greg Powlesland, was quite revealing: nothing else is quite like her, from the moment you descend into the cabin down a half-spiral companionway, the steps edged in intricate, original wrought iron.

The yacht is incredibly original inside and out, the subject of a five-year restoration between 2006 and 2010 under David Walkey and owners Greg and his wife Katie Fontana. She was even sporting cotton sails at that regatta.

Patna was built in 1920 of pitch pine planks on oak frames, and her entire history is known. She was conceived as a blend of racer and cruiser, and from 2014 to 2019, toured the regattas of the Mediterranean, winning the Concours d’Elegance at 2015’s Monaco Classic Week. She has been well looked after since her restoration.

Lying: UK
Asking price: £750,000
Contact: sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk

RUMMER

Holman’s original yawl

People will always associate the English post-war designer Kim Holman with his popular little cabin sloops in the sub-30ft range; yachts like the Stella and Twister that were built in their hundreds. Holman also drew a number of lovely bermudan yawls in the 35-50ft range, starting with Rummer, his third design in 1957, and first of these larger yawls.

She was built at Whisstock’s for Holman himself a year later, in pitch pine planks on oak and iroko frames, at 35ft 1in (10.7m). Early racing success and excellent press that praised her easy short-handed manners, ensured that at least eight more ‘Rummers’ were built over the next decade or so.

This first Rummer won a handful of races, proving herself storm-worthy as well as handy and, with the wider ‘American-style’ beam, quite commodious for her time – berths for six and 6ft 3in (1.9m) headroom below decks.

Rummer was very recently the recipient of a serious restoration at Harbour Marine Services that ended in 2022, with over £100,000 spent. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the owners are now compelled to sell, providing the chance to own a very well-specced, newly-rebuilt yacht with good historical provenance, easy manners and good accommodation.

Lying: UK
Asking price: £75,000
Contact: sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk

The post 6 of the best classic yachts for sale appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

And now the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) is now looking for five new shipwrights to bring the total team to 15, working under three lead shipwrights.

The work will be ongoing over the next decade, and based at the museum in Portsmouth, with the possibility of work on others in the NMRN collection, such as HMS Warrior and HMS M.33, as well as occasional travel to Gosport, Hartlepool and Belfast.

“The replanking work also includes replacing many rotten futtocks, internal knees and hull ceiling planks,” says lead shipwright Jimmy Green.

Anyone looking to apply should be qualified to Level 3 City & Guilds Boatbuilding (2463-03) or equivalent.

Applications are open on the National Museum of the Royal Navy website and close at midnight on 7 July.

The post Shipwrights needed for restoration of Lord Nelson’s HMS Victory appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Her meticulous restoration between 2017 and 2022 brought the yacht back to mint 1930 condition and appearance, but, says Charlotte Hellman, chair of the foundation that owns the boat, “She is not a museum piece. She was built for racing.

“Competing in races is a way to honour her history and showcase her and the cultural heritage she represents to a wider audience.”

The Raymarine 2 Star has been running since 2008 and is considered one of the most demanding ocean races in the Nordic region. The 300-mile course is sailed on the open sea with only two crewmembers permitted.

The two chosen for the mission were Gustaf Dyrssen and Anders Lewander, both experienced racing skippers (Anders has captained a Volvo Ocean Race campaign).

Photographer and ocean racer Malcolm Hanes was on board to capture the action and provide safety backup.

Princess Svanevit at 72ft (22m) in length, and weighing in at 27 tonnes, was no joke to sail with a two-man crew, but thankfully conditions were benign for the race.

The mast rises 83ft (25m) above the deck and she has an upwind sail area of almost 2,600sqft (240m2). 12-M yachts were designed for fleet racing and normally sail with a crew of 14.

“It’s a pretty crazy project,” admits Gustaf. “But safety came first. We were not going to expose a boat like this to unnecessary risks.”

Anders is a sailmaker at North Sails and was responsible for the development of Princess Svanevit’s sails. He has been part of the project for several years.

For the record, Princess Svanevit finished last in a fiercely modern fleet, but thanks to Raymarine, who laid on a special quay at every stopover, it was a great experience, and testament to the foundation’s ambition to treat her as a real boat.

“She’s a beautiful swan,” said Charlotte, “the boat everyone came to see. Our aim was to have fun and not damage the boat, or the sailors!”

The post Award-winning 12-M Princess Svanevit returns to racing in Raymarine 2 Star appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.