Immerse Yourself in the Essence of Luxury Sailing with Silver Sail

A luxury escape to the tranquil waters of Croatia awaits with Silver Sail. Whether you chose to go bareboat, with the assistance of a skipper, or with crew, their fleet of meticulously crafted sailing yachts offers an unparalleled experience. Combining the charm of the Adriatic Sea with elegance and comfort, their team offer an indulgent voyage of adventure.

Discover Unforgettable Destinations

Sail through breathtaking Croatian destinations, from the picturesque beaches of Hvar, to the island of Vis, a hidden gem with an unspoilt sailing experience. Stop over in Dubrovnik, known as the “Pearl of the Adriatic”, and soak in the heritage and remarkable architecture. With this company, exploring the Dalmatian coast’s hidden coves and charming coastal villages is made simple. You’ll voyage through Croatia’s history and nature with ease, and be inspired to return for more.

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The sixth race began with a spinnaker run to the start line and, perhaps not surprisingly, Lutine held back, crossing the line off the Royal Yacht Squadron last in her class. With two new crew on board, it took a while to get the spinnaker pulling properly, and all too soon we were rounding the East Brambling buoy at the east end of the Solent. Lutine is a big, powerful boat, and we soon made up ground on the windward leg in a freshening breeze. As we rounded the second mark off East Cowes, the crew cracked open the spinnaker again and this time the boat really found her groove. We were soon flying along at 7.5 knots over the ground – or close to 10 knots over the water. It was an exhilarating ride, and any lingering regrets about the day before were blown away with the spray.

But sailing fortunes sweep from high to low in the flash of a seagull’s wing, and we would soon have our own emergency on board to remind everyone of the powers at play, even when sailing a 71-year-old classic yacht.

Buying Lutine as a first boat

It was a chance encounter that led James (an orthopaedic surgeon) and Rachel (a fundraiser) to buy a classic yacht. A lifelong sailor, James had learned to sail dinghies as a child and later raced on Lasers. He and Rachel and their children had chartered boats in the Mediterranean and had owned a time share on a modern boat on the Solent. But everything changed when one of James’s patients, grateful to him for curing an ankle injury, invited the couple to sail on board his 75ft Sangermani cutter on the Italian Riviera. They were immediately smitten and decided to buy their own classic yacht, but events soon took on a momentum of their own.

“We put our names down for a mooring on the Hamble, expecting it to take a long time to come up,” says James. “But after three months they said, ‘Where’s your boat?’ So we were faced with the lovely problem of finding a suitable boat fairly quickly.” Part of the problem was that they had no idea how much it would cost to run a classic yacht.

“Most people say that if have to think about the money, then don’t bother doing it,” says James. “Which is not very encouraging, because you don’t have clue what the scale of ownership cost would be. I think that puts lot of people off dipping their toes into it. In fact, lots of people could afford to have relatively modest classic boat, as long you as get the right team to look after it.”

Lutine was a case in point. Originally advertised at £699,000, she was reduced to £330,000 by the time James and Rachel looked at her, and they eventually bought her for considerably less – though as we shall see, they ended up paying at least as much again in restoration costs alone.

Lutine was in many ways the perfect match for James and Rachel and their home-grown crew of four sons, Leo, Max, Marcus and Oscar. Designed by Laurent Giles and built by Camper & Nicholsons in 1952, the 58ft yawl was the first yacht commissioned by the Lloyd’s of London Yacht Club (LLYC) specifically for club sailing by the company’s employees. Her voluminous hull, designed to fit the Cruising Club of America, provided accommodation for 12 crew and a bosun. Her name was derived from HMS Lutine, a 600-ton frigate which sank off Holland with a large shipment of gold, whose bell was salvaged and displayed at the heart of the Lloyd’s building.

Over the years, hundreds of Lloyd’s employees sailed on board, competing in numerous ocean races, including winning her class in the Fastnet in 1953 and 1955, and the Channel Race in 1956. But by 1970, the boat was outdated and the LLYC commissioned a new Lutine: a 53ft 8in sloop designed by Raymond Wall and also built by Camper & Nicholsons – albeit in GRP this time. The new boat was the first of the successful Nicholson 55 (aka Nic 55) class, 12 of which were bought by the Royal Navy as training vessels. The LLYC hung on to the boat’s name and her sail number 809, however, as they have done with every subsequent LLYC boat (the club is currently on its fourth Lutine).

The old boat, renamed Lutin, was used for charter work in the Mediterranean for several years, until she was brought back to the UK in a sorry state in 1989. A major rebuild was started at Coombes Boatyard at Bosham, including dropping the lead keel and replacing much of the planking and frames. But for various reasons that project ground to a halt and Lutine went through a succession of owners until she was bought by Clive Emerson of Gweek Quay Boatyard in 1999. With a skilled workforce at his disposal, Clive was in a good position to bring the project to fruition, and in 2001 Lutine was duly relaunched – just in time for the America’s Cup Jubilee Regatta in Cowes. It was Clive who renamed her Lutine of Helford and changed her sail number to 908, to mirror the original 809.

Lutine’s troubles weren’t over yet, however. After a few years sailing the boat on the English Channel, including competing in several classic yacht regattas, Clive Emerson died suddenly in 2010. The boat was laid up, first afloat and then under cover at Gweek Quay, while the family worked out what to with her. She had been unused for nearly five years by the time James and Rachel bought her in January 2015 and they had to contend with having a new cutlass bearing fitted as well as hiring a 220-ton crane to lift her out of the yard before they could even think of sailing her home.

Since then, Lutine has been a regular fixture at British Classic Yacht Club events, starting slightly unfortunately with British Classic Week in 2015, when she went aground on Day 4 on the infamous Gurnard Ledge despite having a two-times Moth World Champion at the helm. Undaunted, James and Rachel have been back almost every year since, as well as regularly competing in the Hamble Classics, the Classic Channel Regatta and the Round the Island Race – her best result being 164^th out of 838 finishers in the 2023 Round the Island Race. As members of the LLYC, they’ve also competed in races such as the Lutine Limeslip Regatta on the Solent and the Lutine Bell Race to Cherbourg.

Along the way, they have met many people who used to sail on Lutine when she was a club boat and made many new friends. The highlight of this social life seems to have been sailing up from the Hamble to the Thames in the company of the LLYC’s current yacht, an X-55, to celebrate Lutine’s 70^th birthday. Once there, they moored up at St Katherine’s Dock, in the shadow of Tower Bridge, and were visited by the current CEO of Lloyd’s, Bruce Carnegie-Brown.

“It’s an amazing experience owning such a well-loved yacht,” says James. “We had no concept of how many people had sailed on her, raced on her, met their future wives on her. People always seem to know her or someone who sailed on her. At dinner parties, people say, yes, my parents met on your boat, coincidences like that. Because she’s a one-off with a very particular rig and shape, she’s immediately recognised. It’s been an amazing journey of ownership.”

But, while Lutine is imbued with history, she is also very much a family boat for James and Helen and their sons, who have grown up sailing on her. “They’ve each taken to it in their own way,” says Rachel. “Leo, the oldest, was keen to learn how to do it right from the start, Max likes being on the boat and reading, Marcus is a strong rugby player and likes to go on the winches to do the heavy work, Oscar was quite young to start with but has now emerged as an excellent helmsman.”

As for Rachel, her special skill has been to provide amazing on-board catering, including cooking slow-roasted lamb in the boat’s diesel oven, which was served up in wraps to a starving crew on the last leg of this year’s Round the Island Race. She has also used her time on the boat, and particularly the 70^th anniversary cruise, to raise money for the Cardinal Hume Centre, the charity she works for (see www.justgiving.com/fundraising/rachel-youngman).

Problems emerge

All the while, the steady graft of maintaining a classic yacht has continued, as Lutine’s story has “unfolded”, as Rachel says, and they discovered her “detailed provenance”. It started with refastening the hull, which was done in two phases by Duncan Walker and his team at Fairlie Restorations (as it was then). That was followed by an emergency rebuild of the rudder, after the shaft sheared while cruising in northern France and they had to be towed into Ouistreham, near Caen, by the local coastguard. Thanks to some quick detective work by French classic boat specialist Guy Ribadeau-Dumas, who spotted that the top of the blade had been cut back, they took the opportunity to return the rudder to its original shape.

Soon after, they discovered rot in the upper part of the mast and inside the boom, and had new spars built by Collars, as well as new standing rigging. While they were doing that, they also replaced the single backstay, which the boom was liable to catch on during a jibe, with a pair of twin backstays designed by Paul Spooner, as per the original drawings. The following year, Duncan supervised splining the hull, which was showing signs of movement.

But the really serious work started in 2022, when they spotted a patch of paint that kept peeling off by the starboard chainplates. That autumn, the boat was lifted out at the Elephant Boatyard on the Hamble and, in the way of old wooden boats, one thing led to another. The rot in the planking had spread to the beamshelf, which required a whole section of the hull to be removed to gain access. The rotten beamshelf was replaced, new frames scarfed into place and the hull planked up again. Meanwhile, the deck required extensive recaulked and the whole boat needed repainting and revarnishing – all with five coats of Epifanes Woodfinish.

Elsewhere, the old Yanmar 110hp engine was found to be beyond repair and replaced with a new Yanmar 110hp engine – albeit a smaller and more efficient model. They were able to keep the four-bladded feathering prop fitted two years earlier but had to replace the drive shaft. The deadwood around the propeller shaft was also found to have rotten patches and new sections had to be scarfed into place.

Cost of ownership

And thus a few flakes of peeling paint turned into a minor rebuild – the final job list from the Elephant Boatyard ran to 58 items. For James and Rachel, the past eight years have been a crash course in classic boat ownership, and they have learned the hard way what it takes to sail and maintain a classic boat. Although understandably reluctant to discuss costs, James felt it was important to shine a light on an often hidden aspect of boat ownership, and generously allowed me to share his figures.

The final cost of all the Elephant Boatyard rebuild was around £250,000 – on top of the £25,000 per year they had already spent on maintenance and refurbishment. That’s a long way from the oft-quoted figure of 10 per cent per year of a boat’s value for maintenance alone. (Based on a figure of £100,000 per ton for building a new boat, Lutine would be valued at £2.4m, which would suggest £240,000 per year for maintenance.) In reality, £25,000 per year (or c£55,000 per year if you include the latest restoration) is little more than the price of a new car which, while being well beyond the means of a humble boat scribe such as myself, is well within the means of a company CEO – or even an orthopaedic surgeon.

Back at this year’s British Classic Week, Lutine was justifying all that expenditure, flying along under spinnaker from East Cowes to the Mother Bank buoy off Ryde. It’s these moments of sublime synchronicity between the crew, the boat and the elements that we sailors live for and that make the hard work (and expense) of maintaining an old wooden boat worthwhile. I doubt there was a single person on board who didn’t feel a profound sense of happiness at that moment.

But storm clouds were gathering on the horizon, and sure enough as we rounded the mark, bowman Miles Hubbard, prompted by the aft guard, released the spinnaker too soon, and fell down with a thud onto the pulpit. The wind waits for no man, however, and even as Miles was huddled below with a suspected cracked rib, the spinnaker was quickly bagged up and the genoa set. Now facing the full brunt of the breeze under full sail, Lutine heeled dramatically and dipped her leeward rail under the waves. It’s the kind of conditions she was built for, and she lapped it up, while her crew hung on for dear life.

It was blowing more than 20 knots by the time we made it to the finish, eighth over the line and just two minutes after the much smaller Fife gaff cutter Mikado, which won the race on corrected time. Lutine placed eighth on handicap that day, out of ten boats in her class, and seventh overall in the series. It wasn’t her finest hour – one of those had come four days before, when she was first over the line in the NAB Tower race, completing the 30-mile course at an average of 8.5 knots – but it wasn’t her worse – one of those must have come in 1952 when she finished 16^th out of 58 starters in the Bermuda Race and dropped out of the Transatlantic Race due to a leaking stem.

Such are the highs and lows of owning a classic yacht. For Lutine, this was just one race among hundreds in her (hopefully) long life. All things being equal, she will probably outlive most of the crew who were on board that day and will take part in hundreds more races under subsequent owners. Some will go better than others, but she and her owners will live to race another day.

Specifications

• Lutine of Helford
• Designed Laurent Giles
• Built Camper and Nicholsons 1952
• LOA 58ft 6in (17.8m)
• LWL 41ft 6in (12.6m)
• Beam 13ft 9in (4.2m)
• Draught 8ft 5in (2.6m)

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Sailors are itching to get chartering again and our up-to-date Charter Guide has everything you need to plot your next trip to the sun.

Destinations around the world are welcoming customers in a safe and seamanlike manner, so the time to plan is now.

There are new yachts, new charter bases and more options than ever before for beginners and the experienced – the choices for your dream holiday afloat are as mouth-watering as ever.

Our in-depth guide – produced by Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting and Classic Boat magazines, in association with Dream Yacht Charter – offers inspiration and practical advice.

You’ll find advice on everything from which countries will suit your timescale and your kind of sailing, how to get there (restrictions allowing), as well as detailed tips on where to anchor and plenty more inside knowledge – our guide is written by sailors who know the destinations and have sailed there themselves.

It’s essential reading for anyone in need of the holiday of a lifetime!

Planning your dream escape is easy – so download your 2021 Charter Guide now…

The post Charter Guide 2021 appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

The spritsail-rigged wooden coasting barge, boasting a sail area of 3,000 square feet, traded around the British coast and across the Channel.

Amongst Centaur’s last cargoes in 1954-55 were timber to Colchester and Maldon, sugar beet from Ipswich to Silvertown, ballast from Fingringhoe to London, cement from Halling to London, and 40-gallon oil drums from Grain to London.

She then became an unrigged lighter and in 1965 was sold to Richard Duke, who converted and re-rigged her for leisure charter work from Pin Mill and Maldon.

In 1974 the barge was sold to the Thames Barge Sailing Club, now the Thames Sailing Barge Trust.

Today she is on the register of Historic Ships and is one of two sailing barges owned by the Thames Sailing Barge Trust, available for day, charter, over weekends or longer.

During 2020 Centaur’s movements were curtailed but she was back in action in the late summer and is taking bookings for 2021.

Meanwhile the Trust’s second barge, Pudge, which will celebrate her 100-year birthday in 2022, has been receiving major repairs, partly thanks to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

www.bargetrust.org

Watch our video of Tom Cunliffe sailing Thames barge Cambria

The post Happy 125th birthday for barge Centaur appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

When it comes to messing about in boats, you probably still remember the first time you thought – I want to do this for the rest of my life. For countless Britons – they would have to number in the hundreds of thousands or even millions over the years – that magical moment took place on the Broads. The craze started after the First World War, really took off after the second, and peaked in the 1970s, when there were well over 1,000 cabin boats plying their trade under these big East Anglian skies. Today, you might wonder if the Broads holiday has passed into anachronism; everything has its time, after all. But it seems the experience has as firm a tenure in the English imagination as Marmite and allotments, and today there are 712 cabin boats and about 200 day boats for hire: it seemed most of them were out for the four sunny days in June, when I took my wife Lara and children Adam (5) and Theo (2) for a cruise. 

The company Herbert Woods, named after its famous boatbuilder founder, started in the mid-1920s, and expanded rapidly, building Woods’ ‘light’ boats (as opposed to the previous, heavy ex-workboats impressed to the hire trade) as early as 1927. A 1939 catalogue describes them as “1st Class MCs … truly modern cruisers, specially created to meet a popular demand… unquestionably a joy to the hirer”. It goes on to praise the ease of use and the comfortable interior which gives great privacy with separate forward and aft cabins.

Today, of those 712 cabin hire boats on the Broads, more than 120 of them belong to the Herbert Woods company, which was bought by a syndicate of five in 2010. One change was to revert to the Herbert Woods naming system, where every name has ‘light’ in it and throughout our time on the water, we spotted scores of others – modern, GRP boats with sliding white canopies, none as lovely as our Spark of Light.

Steve Thrower, who was a big part of the Spark of Light rebuild, gives me a quick lesson in boat-handling. Steve is a Broads man through and through and not only corrects the weather forecast (“ignore that – it’ll be sunny for all three days,” he says, and he is right, despite a volley of arguments from the Met concerning clouds and rain), but also imparts a useful trick for leaving the bank when you are being blown on (Spark of Light has a lot of top hamper). With all lines off, just drive the boat into the bank at tickover, with full lock towards it, and the stern starts moving out into the river. When the stern is far enough out, engage reverse and spin the wheel to the opposite lock. It’s a trick that got me out of a couple of tight fixes, and I was able, at Wroxham, to deploy it faultlessly for onlookers, who always materialise to watch when things are going wrong, which they often were, and who always bring a lively beam wind with them. All this Steve explained in a pure Norfolk accent, with its heavy use of glottal stops and long vowel sounds sculpted into a mountain range of highs and lows.

Navigation on the Broads could not be more simple. The tidal range is negligible, and there seemed to be sufficient depth for our 2ft (60cm) draught wherever we went. Sailing yachts are something to watch out for, particularly when tacking or on a dead run – and overtaking is glacial. Spark of Light, with her big rudder, reacts quickly even at tickover, making u-turns easy, a good quality when confronted with a low bridge. And she leaves nearly no wash.

On our first day, we made it to Horning, pulling up at the New Inn for an early supper of fish and chips with Adam and Theo both besides themselves with excitement, as they explored the boat’s interior.

Thankfully, Spark of Light’s interior includes a TV with built-in DVD player, although for the most part, a Broads holiday is an escape from connectivity; easy in a place where seemingly the entire county is devoid of mobile phone reception. Most exciting for the boys was the boat itself, particularly for Adam, who loved nothing more than everyday tasks like filling the water tanks, checking the engine header tank, turning the old Perkins diesel on and off. This is the engine the boat had in her 1950s seagoing days, and sounds, when running, like arguing Spaniards. For periods, Adam steered the boat, waving to the hen parties, who cooed and waved back.

Amanda Walker, one of a group of five who bought and revamped the Herbert Woods company in 2010, thinks this is part of the enduring appeal of the Broads holiday – it’s a chance to slow down. And the speed limit, which varies between 4 and 6mph, is a big help there too. While making passage, the Broads are a bird-watcher’s heaven. It’s also fun to tick off specimen examples from the great English zoo: solitary, sour-looking man with fishing rod; hen party; rampage of young men with lager and pirate costumes (today’s answer to Ransome’s Hullabaloos); couple arguing; fat bloke with sunburn; and, of course, lots of families like us.

At Horning, the boat received some praise from Gus who, with his younger assistant Connor, helps people like me moor stern-to at the New Inn. With his tattoos and missing teeth, he had something of the Hell’s Angel about him and described his job as “sorting out the boats – and anything else that needs sorting out around here”. We talked boats – apparently the chef Jamie Oliver has a lovely old classic here – and then it was finally time for the two boys to spend their first night aboard a boat.

Our second stop was Wroxham, the self-styled capital of the Broads, with plenty of action, as hireboats braved the very low bridge and milled around looking for places to moor. Thankfully we found a side-on mooring for the night, then returned the next day, via the peaceful and beautiful Salhouse Broad. Here we hired a canoe and promptly capsized it, before drying out in the sun with a barbecue. By the time we left Salhouse three hours later, we were marinated in the magic of the Broads, arriving reluctantly back at Potter Heigham, where the boys handed their explorer’s logbooks back to the friendly staff in exchange for certificates. Before leaving, Adam burst into tears and hugged the boat, wanting to hold on forever – “we could sell our house and buy Spark of Light…” Perhaps, like countless others before him, he had had his Damascene moment. Or, if you like, saw the ‘light’.

Five name changes and 90 years: Spark of Light’s history

1927–1955: On the Broads

B53 was built by Herbert Woods in 1927 in a boatshed, now long gone, near Potter Heigham Bridge. The hull is Siberian redwood below the waterline and Russian Archangel pine above, on oak frames with mahogany upperworks, four single berths and a four-cylinder, 14hp Thornycroft petrol engine. Some newly unearthed 16mm home cine film footage shows Spark of Light in 1932 with no windscreen or wheelhouse, just a solid folding roof with canvas screens to all four sides. Shortly after, Woods changed the name to Spot of Light in reaction – so the story goes – to a small galley fire. Like most of the Herbert Woods hire fleet, she spent the war rafted up on Hickling Broad to prevent German flying boats landing. After the war, she was refitted and renamed Shimmer of Light. Around 1951 she was given a patented Herbert Woods ‘Broads Haven’ retractable wheelhouse that became a unique feature of the ‘light cruisers’.

1955–2011: On the ocean wave

Woods died in 1954 and in 1955 Mr Lindsay Cutler became the new company chairman. Cutler took ‘B53’ from the hire fleet and had her refitted for his own use. She was given a 44hp Perkins P4 diesel and the retractable wheelhouse was fixed in place. Stanchions, davits for a tender, a manual winch, radio aerial and twin sea anchors were also fitted on deck, and she gained extra fuel tanks and an emergency manual tiller. She was given a set of code flags and courtesy flags, distress flares and charts of the east and south coasts. Cutler spent summers cruising as far as the Isle of Wight.

In 1956 the name of the boat was changed to Cherrie. Lindsay Cutler died and his executors put Cherrie up for sale. She was bought in June 1971 by John Whitaker of Hertfordshire, father of Michael Whitaker, one of the current Partners of Herbert Woods boatyard. She was much used and loved by the extended family, who only once took her to sea where she rolled uncomfortably in calm seas. The ocean-going gear was removed but the unusually tall mahogany mast on the forward coach roof and equally tall flagpole on the aft deck, between which a horizontal aerial had been strung, are still there.

In 1999, after 28 years of ownership, John and Daphne Whitaker sold the boat to Norfolk man Andy Edwards who renamed her Shimmer of Light. In 2011, she returned to the fold, when Michael Whitaker and partners, new owners of Herbert Woods, took her back to Potter Heigham.

2011 to now: Full circle

In 2011, Spark’s restoration began at the Fairmile Shed at Herbert Woods. Hull and superstructure were stripped bare, decks scraped back to bare brown ‘battleship’ lino and coachroofs scraped back to Trakmark. The work was undertaken by some of Herbert Woods’ best craftsmen, notably Mick Whitton, Dennis George, Mike Lown and Derek Knowles. One short piece of planking under the forward heads had rotted from the inside out as a result of water dripping from a plumbing fitting. It is the only length of planking that has had to be replaced since 1971, perhaps ever. The Siberian redwood sourced by Woods was so slow growing in the cold that it has remained outstandingly resilient. The big challenge was the internal work. When she arrived back at Herbert Woods in 2011 the interior of the boat was clearly a ’work in progress’.These days, she’s period perfect, with two cabins, each with a head and two berths, and a good-sized galley.

Ends

This article is reproduced in full from our September 2017 issue (CB351). Subscribe to Classic Boat here.

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Article from July issue (CB301). Photos by Emily Harris. August issue on sale now. Subscribe here.

The thought of diving into crystal blue water in early May was a deciding factor, plus the offer of a boat from which to do it. We would be sailing Mallorca’s iron-bound northern coast – most often cruised, at a dash it would seem, in one hit by yachtsmen keen to get around the northeastern headland of Formentor.

The north coast has a forbidding look, steep wooded mountains plunge from heights of 4,590ft (1,400m) into the wine dark sea; in a blow, which will mostly arrive from the north or north-west, the coast becomes a potentially dangerous lee shore with many of its anchorages exposed. The winds, called the Tramontana can famously blow for days and can arrive with little warning – though we found local forecasting was spot on. But such gales are unusual in summer and the coast offers sights and scenes that are unspoilt and rare compared to the rest of the island. There are many little bays, or calas, offering good anchorages and the beautiful area, as part of the Tramuntana mountain range, was awarded Unesco’s World Heritage status in 2011, which protects it from the kind of building boom that has affected some of the rest of the island.

Most sailing in Mallorca, the largest of Spain’s Balearic Islands, happens out of the port of Palma, a large natural harbour on the south-west coast. From there it would take a day at least to sail around to the first spectacular anchorage of the north coast. The peninsula of Foradada is an amazing looking, boot- shaped promontory with a gorgeous natural bay and landing stage. This is close to Son Marroig – the house, and now museum, of Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria (1847-1915) who bought it after falling for the beauty of the local scenery.

The house also hosts the Deià International Music Festival in May. Deià is the local village frequented by musicians and artists who come for the scenery and a completely different kind of Mallorcan holiday. But you can only get to Foradada by boat or by foot, so it’s even more off the beaten track. There is a paella restaurant here where the dish is cooked over open fires. The local prawns – said to be the pinkest in the Mediterranean – are a local foodie treat. When some smart trousered Americans pass through we learn it was Diandra, Michael Douglas’ ex-wife, who still shares a property with the actor on the cliff nearby.

A grave of graves
There are anchorages on either side of Foradada, the eastern being Cala Deià where there is good holding in sand and rock in 4m–6m of water. From here a small beach and landing stage lead up to Deià (or Deya to us English) and there are restaurants near the water. A good little climb from here would be through the village and up to the 15th century Church of Sant Joan Baptista, where the writer Robert Graves was buried in 1985.

We can’t work out why his wife Beryl was buried on the opposite side of the churchyard… but the views from here are spectacular. The main port on this coast, and the berth place for the boats of Old Salt Classic Sailing Charters, is Sóller. A largish natural harbour with marina and moorings, it’s also the main city on this coast, although the city proper is set back from the port, originally to protect itself from pirate raids, and charmingly connected by an ancient tram service dating from 1913 – The Orange Express, about 10 minutes into the hinterland through orange and lemon groves. There is also a train from here to Palma dating from a year earlier, which runs through the mountains. But since a toll tunnel was built a few years ago the connection to Palma Airport was reduced to 25 minutes or so and avoids the more scenic route over the mountain road with its 57 hairpin bends!

It’s well worth spending some time in Sóller and some of its surrounding villages are captivating. Six kilometres (3½ miles) to the east, Fornalutx sits at the head of the valley and is one of those Spanish hill villages that time has not touched. The area is popular for hiking and we meet groups of retirement-age Germans taking a late spring break. The sight of Germans in boots walking with purpose across the landscape seems vaguely familiar…

But it’s time to get back to the ship and to start heading east. Our next anchorage – we spent a whole week on the hook and did not pay any marina fees – is a charming spot called Ens Sa Costera, where there is a small waterfall, two actually, with shelter from the north-west behind Punta Cala Rotja. This is the site of an old hydroelectricity power station and we swam in the holding pool, which is still full of fresh clear water just a few feet climb from the landing stage. We take big fenders for the dinghy though – even in a slight swell the   concrete stage is a little bumpy. There is a hermit here in the one house, the place is backed by the mountain but he wasn’t home. It feels like it does not get many visitors.

Bouldering in a land of boulders
The two next calas, Tuent and Calobra have habitation and there are restaurants. Calobra is the more spectacular of the two with a huge gully, the Torrente De Pareis, running down to a sandy beach. There is good holding in 5m to 10m over sand and stones. The wide gully leads inland into the mountains and there are water torrents during winter months. There is a freshwater lagoon near the beach – full of frogs when we were there. Climbers will love the bouldering in this area. Swimming is excellent, though we were on the watch for jellyfish. These purple and pink parasol-like creatures are beautiful to see but not too good to swim into. Luckily the water is clear and you can see them, but it makes a fast crawl to the shore a dodgy undertaking, since they have two-metre-long trailing translucent stinging tentacles!

We don’t stop at the next cala – Codolar, two miles to the east of Calobra; the next part of the coast is quite barren, though there are caves a mile east of Codolar, which you can row a dinghy into (ideal for a cool down on a hot day apparently). Our next stop is Cala Castell with a beach of white pebbles and a track up to Castillo del Rey, a fortress built on a rocky outcrop 1,608ft (490m) above sea level and site of a 14th-century seige when the last king of Mallorca, Jaime III, was ousted by Peter IV of Aragon. This is a deserted anchorage with holding over rock (or sand closer to the beach) in 3m of water.

There is one house at the beach and a winding track inland. With a good breeze we explored it in the dinghy and swimming (no jellies!) from the beach. There is more happening at the next anchorage, Cala de San Vicente, which is backed by holiday apartments, restaurants and cafés. We anchor in 9m of crystal clear water – we can see the anchor chain running out all the way to the anchor (in sand) and dive into the cool azure sea. There are local fish here, a type of bream called oblada, which seem fairly abundant. A friend told me we should troll for fish if we were going offshore, tuna and bonito being a good catch. But we stay a bit too coastal to really try for that.

The two remaining calas on this north coast are the deserted Vall de Boca with a stony beach and track over the hills to the town of Pollença; Figuera is just 1.6nM west of Cap de Formentor, again with a little beach.

With any east in the wind all these calas are exposed but they do offer some protection from a northwesterly wind, and sea breezes don’t create enough swell to disrupt their anchorage. Protection from northerlies occurs just around the headland of Formentor, and into the bays of Pollença and Alcudia. Happily this and other headlands are benign features due to lack of tide.

Pollença is a harbour and marina protected by the Punta de Avanzada. It offers a huge anchorage that you share with the fire-busting seaplanes whose base is on the western side of the Avanzada peninsula. There’s a house here, La Fortaleza, which is said to be Spain’s most expensive property, owned by a British banker (naturally).

Pollença has supermarkets and restaurants and there is good holding in 7m to 10m five cables from the jetty. We left the dinghy there without locking anything up, among other tenders and the boats of local friendly boatmen.

The marina, built out into the bay, looked quite busy even this eagerly into the season – there are 375 berths according to the pilot book but it is quite shallow with just 2.1m in the entrance.

The calas on the south of the jutting headland of Formentor are again in clear water and the two near the cape are deserted. We anchored for a night in Cala Murta in 5m over sand. The practice is to always pick up a mooring when staying at a cala – but in early May we found none had been put down yet. If you do anchor it’s a good idea to jill around for a while to find a good spot over sand – you can see what you are doing because the water is so clear. Drop the hook on sand rather than the darker patches of weed. This is likely to be the slow-growing posidonia – a type of seagrass that is vital to the ecosystem but which is
also under threat of anchoring.

In Cala Murta we witness some jellyfish spawning, which is a very rare sight and has a slightly electrifying effect on the air. However, it means no swimming even though by next morning the water looks clear. Some hikers appear in the trees and there are paths around the coast and through the woods here.

We also visit the calas of Engossaubas, just south of the cape, deserted and beautiful with high cliffs all around, and en Feliu, a tiny cala with a deserted beach. You can have too much of deserted calas though, so in search of ice cream we anchor in the Cala Formentor where there are a couple of beach restaurants and one of Mallorca’s oldest hotels – the Barceló Formentor, built in 1929. Sadly it’s not open to non-residents, which just makes us want to diss it. The beach here is sandy though and walking inland reveals pretty forest scenery. The north coast, just a mile on the other side of this rocky peninsula seems so different to this more lush setting with its protected feel. We relax on board reading books or gazing at goats clinging to rock faces. We learn how local fishermen would shoot one down to pick it out of the water as a welcome change of diet.

Getting back in one hop
All too soon the time has flown by and it’s time to return to Sóller. Because we’ve taken our time getting along the coast and exploring the calas by boat and on foot it feels odd to look at the chart and realise it’s just 30nM or so home. Our last day dawns calm with a latent swell of the easterly F5 from the day before. So it’s on with the engine. Off Punta Beca we see our first dolphin, who stays with us a few minutes; it often seems symbolic when this happens, as if he’s saying goodbye; good luck.

THE CHARTER FLEET

Mallorca-based Classic Charter
Old Salt is the new name of a recently established fleet of wooden charter yachts operating out of Sóller, the only port on the north coast. The fleet ranges in size from the magnificent schooner So Fong to the four-berth Ifarra, and includes the Riva-esque powerboat Freya, which can act as a taxi to the entire fleet. Old Salt was set up by Bruno Entrecanales (pictured below) a venture capitalist with a passion for his organic olive oil farm as well as sailing and restoring wooden boats. CB sailed with the ketch Kilena of Corsica with crew skipper Raimundo ‘Mumo’ Torres and wife Sonia, who both hail from Barcelona.

So Fong, 1937
One of Olin Stephens’ schooners, built out of teak by the AH King Slipway in Hong Kong and arrested as a spy vessel by the Vietnamese in the 1970s. Rescued in a delapidated state by Roger Sandiford and restored at St Tropez between 2000 and 2003. Also a Rolex Trophy winner at Les Voiles de St Tropez in 2006.

LOA: 70ft 3in (21.4m)
LWL: 54ft (16.5m)
Beam: 16ft 1in (4.9m)
Draught: 9ft 9in (3m)
Fully crewed with a chef. Berths for seven guests. Prices from €1,950 to €2,300 per day.

Kilena of Corsica,  1934
Oak-on-oak, Swedish-built ketch designed by Jac Iverson with some (posthumous) Colin Archer influence.
Won her class at Antigua Sailing Week in 1996.
LOA: 57ft (17.4m)
Beam: 14ft (4.2m)
Draught: 9ft 7in (3m)
Berths for nine guests with three crew.
Prices from €1,500 to €1,850 per day.

Ifarra,  1947
Restored double-ended Colin Archer gaff-rig type with standing headroom and four berths (saloon converts to double) and roomy, comfy galley.
She can be bareboat chartered with an ICC (certificate of competence).
LOA: 28ft (8.5m)
Beam: 8ft 6in (2.6m)
Draught: 4ft 7in (1.4m)
Prices from €525 to €700 per day

Freya, 1996
Danish Brandt-Møller Diva Royal design speedboat for day-cruising, waterskiing and exploring. Space for five guests with skipper.
LOA: 24ft 8in (7.6m)
Beam: 7ft 11in (2.4m)
2 x 250hp Volva Penta engines.
Five guests with skipper. Prices from €495 to €650 per day (without fuel)

Delfino, 1939
John Alden six-berth ketch recently brought into the fleet.
LOS: 56ft (17.1m)
Beam: 11ft 9in (3.6m)
Draught: 7ft 11in (2.4m)

www.oldsaltsailing.com
Tel: +34 971 612 541 (ext 103)
Tel: +34 696 076 700

LOCAL INFORMATION

Local charts and pilotage
Paper charts  
Imray: Islas Baleares (M3 series) 1:350,000 scale covering Ibiza, Formentera, Mallorca and Menorca with larger scales (1:10,000) for ports. On Imray’s good plasticised waterproof paper. Good value at £16.
UKHO: The Admiralty Chart 1703 is a slightly larger scale at
1:300,000 but consequently shows only the eastern tip of Ibiza. Standard chart £22.45

Pilot books/guides
The Admiralty Mediterranean Pilot Volume 1 (NP45) is comprehensive but rare; we used Imray’s excellent Islas Baleares by Graham Hutt under the auspices of the RCC Pilotage Foundation. It’s clear, well produced and has a lot of good general information in its 23-page frontispiece. Chartlets are really good with lots of depth information and there are good aerial photos too. £32.50. www.imray.com

Digital charts
Navionics: Marine Europe for smartphones: £19.46

Sóller Marina
Tel: +34 971 63 13 26

Pollença
Tel: +34 971 86 46 35/VHF Ch9

Weather (Mallorca)
VHF Ch10 (announced first on Ch16) 0835, 1135, 1635, 2135.
Various websites offer weather and searching ‘weather Med’ brings many options and
www.metoffice.gov.uk gives the latest synoptic chart. Wind Guru seems good as does www.weatheronline.co.uk. Locals also use www.eltiempo.es, which is
a site with good graphics

Water and showers
We bought all drinking water bottled on local advice, and otherwise used ship’s supply. Water is not normally free and the etiquette is to be sparing. For boats with a watermaker the problem disappears. Most marinas have showers – free to berth-holders or for a small fee.

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Win a weekend onboard the Amelie Rose, enter our exclusive competition

There’s a guided tour of the ship, then the safety briefing. “Sailing is safe…(pause)… statistically,” begins Nick. It’s relaxed, commonsense, and suitably disrespectful about the MCA’s wilder health-and-safety obsessions, such as the guard wires, aka trip hazards, atop the perfectly adequate bulwarks. Actually, these later on prove excellent mountings for the little banners reading ‘Topsail-adventures.co.uk’. I express the hope these will come off when the photo boats are around. Melisa gives me one of her straight looks. “We are a business, Peter,” she says in mock(?) reproof.

It’s actually an easy enough point to forget. Nick and Melisa have got the people side of this venture down wonderfully well: friendly, involving, getting everyone to participate. As to sailing the boat, they’re still finding out how to get the best out of her, but they’ve certainly got the basics nailed, and can manage her themselves if need be. “After the sea trials, we threw everybody off the boat and sailed her home from Cornwall, just the two of us,” says Nick.

Now though we’ve got a full crew, seven ‘guests’ including the winner of the CB competition, a young engineer from North Norfolk called Quintus – who everyone quickly starts calling Q – whose experience is mostly in dinghy and Broads sailing. He quickly takes to the offshore and pilot cutter ways of doing things.

A leisurely sail over to the Solent shows off Amelie Rose’s mettle – 9 knots through the water in a Force 3 – and allows time for a few practice tacks and gybes.

In the race itself, the crew seems to automatically sort itself into two teams, port and starboard, with the two most experienced bods in the ‘pit’ tending the mainsheet. Nick, who proves to have a big voice, urges everyone on, not forgetting a “well done” once the manoeuvre is completed. I’m thinking Amelie Rose has a great future in the team-building side of the charter business.

Our main object is to wipe the eye of Amelie Rose’s great rival, Polly Agatha, and eventually we do, at least on handicap, steadily reeling her in over nearly 14 hours. Not quite such a triumph as the Pilot Cutter Championships, third overall, or Yogaff, second, but it’ll do.

Afterwards, in the pub, we talk of the two ‘crews’, and Nick points out it’s a Navy tradition. “We want to connect people to their history, to those old values,” he says. We drink to that. And I recall Ken Boullier’s blessing. “May everyone who sails in her be renewed in spirit.”

www.topsail-adventures.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)7831 710946

The post Round the Island on Pilot Cutter Amelie Rose appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

1. Check that the vessel you have in mind is a bona fide charter boat: that means MCA registered, with all the safety equipment and checks that go with it.

2. Find out what you need to bring: most charter boats provide foul-weather gear and lifejackets – but do check. And find out what’s included, IE meals etc. Take more cash than you think you need: you’ll stop in places where there are no cash machines, and it always catches out at least one passenger on every charter trip, who has to ask someone he barely knows if he can borrow £50!

3. Have a good idea of the proposed itinerary – and be prepared to go somewhere completely different: sailing is, after all, weather dependent. Ask the skipper to show you where are and where you are heading on a chart, every day. And finally – unless you have a very firm idea what you want out of the trip, go with the skipper’s advice. He knows the area better than you.

4. Have an alternative plan for your time away: sailing is sometimes cancelled due to adverse weather conditions. Don’t be disappointed if your trip away doesn’t happen or is postponed; but do have an understanding with the operator about what happens in the vent of trip cancellation.

5. Pack light and in a soft bag: nobody likes a rigid bag that can’t be stuffed away in a corner while under way. And a pillow is a godsend. Swallow your pride and take one, along with a torch.

6. Seasickness: unless you are a very experienced sailor, you won’t know if you suffer or not. Boats generally carry pills, but fresh ginger, sliced and steeped like tea, also works a dream, and stays fresh out of the fridge for as long as any charter voyage. Stugeron works well too, but it does make you drowsy. Take any medication in advance or you’ll struggle to keep it down.

7. Speak to the skipper first on the phone and trust your instincts. If you don’t like the skipper, you won’t enjoy the trip. Having said that, the vast majority of charter skippers are very likeable. It’s why they do it after all.

8. Bring an edible treat for the crew and fellow passengers (if there are any). It breaks the ice and makes you instantly popular.

9. Bear in mind that sensitive electronic equipment, like cameras, do not mix well with salt water and take sensible precautions. Another great thing to have on a charter boat is a small, zippable bag so you don’t have to run down every time you want your suncream/glasses/camera/knife.

10. Know at least one good story and learn to tell it well! And if you have a good time, which you will, consider tipping the crew. There’s no hard and fast rule here and it’s certainly not obligatory.

The post How to Charter a Yacht: Beginners guide to Boat Hire appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

1. Learn to sail

Almost all charter boats will take guests of any ability, and you can learn as much or as little as you wish. Usually you can choose between complete relaxation, becoming an ipso facto crew member – or anything in between.

2. Go sailing without the stress

The difficult decisions about navigation and weather will be taken off your hands, leaving you on an even footing with your friends or fellow charter guests.

3. Sail new boats

Learn more about different vessels. Some charter guests are trying a boat type out before they buy.

4. Meet new people

Bonds formed at sea last forever.

5. Relax with friends

Alternatively, charter the whole boat for your and some friends and have the trip of a lifetime.

6. Learn new skills

You can learn to handle gaff rig, night sailing, racing, or just mile-building for RYA courses. Some, like SCIC in Turkey, also offer astronomy, cookery and many other non-sailing courses while afloat. Others, in Britain, offer bird-watching, painting and more.

7. Discover new sea areas

Simply for the joy of it – or perhaps because you want to sail your own boat there one day.

8.Support a historic vessel

Most traditional charter vessels are owned by enthusiasts who are usually the skippers too. This makes the traditional charter not only more personal – but it usually means you are helping to pay for the upkeep of a historic boat

9. Avoid varnishing

Classic Sailing Club offers a small selection of classic yachts skippered or bareboat, on Suffolk’s River Orwell. And without all that upkeep!

10.Save money

Try this sum if you dare: cost of ownership in a year, divided by number of days sailing in that year! Charter might suddenly look very cheap…

The post Boat Hiring – 10 reasons to Charter a Yacht appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

It was at the launch party, just as the tide rose and the water kissed Amelie Rose’s keel for the first time, that her owners Nick and Melisa suddenly realised they’d bought a real boat, not a dream.

It was a good party, laid on at builder Luke Powell’s Gweek Quay workshop, with some 80 friends, barrels of beer, a fine spread of food and a really inspirational dedication from Ken Boullier, Vicar of St Just and St Mawes and a sailing nut himself. “Unfurl yourself into the grace of a beginning that is at one with your life’s desire, awaken your spirit of adventure, hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk.” (You can see the whole thing on their website).

“It was a hell of a moment when I saw her floating. She’d been in the mud but suddenly she moved. Suddenly she was not a wooden thing any longer but a living structure, a moment new life is created,” Nick told me a few days later, when the reality of what they’d done had fully sunk in.

They both have a background of working in IT in City financial institutions. To most people that probably means earning bucketfuls of money whilst leading the country into rack and ruin. “That wasn’t our environment though we could see what was happening,” said Nick, “but long before the first signs of recession loomed over the horizon, we were set on a path that today brings us here.”

At this moment ‘here’ was the Chain Locker, the well known watering hole by Customs Quay in Falmouth, and the mood was one of exhilaration following five hours sailing and photographing the new boat.

She is what is now regarded as being of the ‘normal’ Luke Powell pedigree, modelled on an early-1800s pilot cutter from the Scillies, square in the forefoot, deep and upright in the sternpost, with a long sloping keel and a high rise of bilge, all of which help her stand up in a strong wind yet produce a good turn of speed. And what a show she’d put on for us in the photo-dinghy as we sat back and admired her speed, her power and beauty in the Force 4 winds that simply are a tease for this type of craft.

As she sailed by, feet away from where we gazed, the power of the boat was audible. A slow whish turns into a gush as wind pushes sea apart. It’s a formidable sight and one that drives home the splendour and strength of the vessel. Amelie Rose, Luke Powell’s seventh Scillonian-inspired pilot cutter, is a mirror of his fifth boat, Ezra, and built for the same purpose, charter work. She’s the basis of Nick and Melisa’s new livelihood, Topsail Adventures.

So what makes a couple give up their secure IT jobs in the City and beat a retreat to sea via a route that involves buying a £300,000 boat? Okay, for that money they certainly get a good deal of boat, and it’s a sum comparable to any plastic boat of a similar quality. But two things became clear talking to them: firstly, they had done their homework before they committed to the project and, secondly, they were very aware of the impact any boat has on the environment. They’ve set out to strive for the smallest carbon footprint both during construction and in use.

They certainly aren’t new to sailing even if this boat is a huge step up from their past experience. Both had sailed from an early age, Nick on dinghies, Melisa with her dad on larger boats. Together they had owned a Westerly GK29 – still do, though it’s for sale – on which they’d done some charter work. But they were aware that there’s a massive leap between that boat and a Scillonian pilot cutter.

They tentatively stepped into this course five years ago when they realised they were becoming trapped in the nine-to-five world and decided they were not up for another 20 years of sitting in offices staring at screens. They read ‘sell up and sail’ books, and they decided to buy a big boat.

This brought them to a series of decisions, the first about the type of boat they’d choose. “Gaff rig is the essential rig of interest,” according to Nick, “and is simple to repair.”

“Allegedly!” commented Melisa.

“Then pilot cutters came up,” Nick continued. “Space, a tested boat, solid.” All the usual reasons in fact. “Found Luke Powell on the web whilst browsing. We’d planned to sail to the West Country that year so we looked him up when we got there. Found Agnes alongside, talked to Luke and had a sail aboard her.”

“Had you looked at other boats?” I asked. Surprisingly for a couple so thorough in their planning, the answer was no. But before they made their final decision to commission Luke they spoke to other owners, especially Debbie and Adam Purser, whose Classic Sailing operation is based on Eve of St Mawes, Luke’s first pilot cutter, and Sam and Ingrid Brooke, who run Sail Ezra up on the west coast of Scotland. “The feedback was good and so we signed up with Luke in November 2006. The timber arrived in June 2007.”

Their next decision centred on how they were going to finance the project. They obviously continued working during the build process – right up to the day before the launch. At some point they moved to Poole, which they had decided to make their home port. Charter seemed the obvious direction. “We’ve only known computers and didn’t know any other work. Had to still make a living so chartering seemed the only option,” Nick said.

She’ll be coded for 12, though has berths only for 11 – two double quarter-berths right aft, four bunks in the forepeak, one pilot berth in the saloon and two settees. They aren’t intending to have so many aboard – six guests is optimum.

The style down below is simple painted wood – very traditional and enhanced by a huge oil lamp hanging in the skylight. There’s a spacious galley to port and a wood burner for’ard of the starboard settee. A neat angled bulkhead to the shower room gives a passage forward on both sides of the saloon table.

We talked about their charter plans. Nick is a first level RYA instructor so they can offer Day Skipper, Competent Crew and Start Sailing courses. “But why Poole?” I asked. “Dorset is good for food,” he replied. “We really did put thought into sustainability. So using local produce to feed the guests was obvious. We like food and both cook. Then there’s Poole’s geographical location – the Solent to the east, the West Country and Scillies west and the Channel Islands due south. In southwest winds they are in a good direction for trips there and back. Brittany and Normandy are also relatively nearby. We can be flexible, watch the weather and just go.”

While Luke went to the bar to refurbish the glasses, Nick continued, “We really were impressed with Luke’s work. Several times I thought: ‘Are we doing the right thing?’ I remember seeing the boat with the garboards in and a few planks. Said to Luke, ‘she’s a bit big, isn’t she?’ It was quite a shock really. However, sailing aboard Agnes she seemed really big on the first day but after three or four days aboard, the whole thing becomes do-able. We’ve a couple of months to gain experience before the first charters start.”

Watch the Maiden Voyage of Pilot Cutter Amelie Rose

What’s on board Amelie Rose?

• Timber is opepe with oak planking above the waterline and larch below. Traditional features include the barrel windlass, tiller thwart and lute stern.

• A clinker tender (Mary Rose, built by Chris Rees) is carried upright on deck (providing useful storage for fenders, warps etc).

• Sails by Patrick Selman are 16oz Clipper Canvas (lighter than the 22oz used on earlier builds). Rigging by John Albright.

• Engine is a 75hp Betamarine diesel.

• Heating (four radiators) and hot water are supplied by a wood-burning stove (Morso Squirrel with back-boiler) or the engine calorifier.

• Power uses three deep-cycle AGM Lifeline batteries (plus another for the engine start), fed by a hydrogen fuel cell by EFOY which ‘cracks’ methanol and has smart auto-recharge – it stops charging at 13.8v or if another source (engine or solar panels) kicks in.

• Galley includes a serious gas cooker (Levante by GN Espace) with fitted catering trays that lock into their racks. There’s a custom-built 75-litre fridge, using specially-moulded insulated polyurethane tanks with compressor and keel-mounted cooling system by Frigoboat.

www.topsail-adventures.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)7831 710946

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