As we continue our yard visits around the UK, we’ve also been looking around some top boatyards in Europe, and now in the northeastern US. It’s safe to say there’s plenty going on in the Maine boatyards…

Maine Boatyards: Lyman Morse

Founded in 1978, Lyman Morse acquired Wayfarer Marine in 2015 and so now has premises at Camden as well as Thomaston. Since 2016, the company has been hosting the Camden Classics Cup, a two-day regatta held each July.

Currently in build is a Hood 42 LM flybridge motor yacht. This is the third in the Hood series following the Hood 57 LM and Hood 35 previously built by the company (and, respectively, the recipients of a Classic Boat nomination and award). The hull below the chine is cold moulded with one layer of Douglas fir and three layers of western red cedar, all at 45 degrees; and the topsides are made up of strip planked tongue and groove Douglas fir overlaid with two layers of western red cedar veneers at 45 degrees; and the whole hull is then epoxy glassed. Powered by twin Volvo Penta D6 480 HP DPI stern drives, this yacht will have a comfortable cruising speed in the mid 30kt range.

The 79ft (24.07m) schooner Hindu, which was designed by William H Hand Jnr and built by Hodgdon Bros in East Boothbay, Maine in 1925, arrived at the yard in June. It was in 2020 that Hindu’s crew began a major restoration, and they have now brought her to Lyman Morse for help with its completion. This is partly to allow the project to benefit from the yard’s infrastructure (overhead cranes, insulated shed, machinery and so on) and also from its skilled labour force. The yard’s craftsmen are now working closely with Hindu’s crew on the renewal of the floors, bulkheads, ceiling planking, deck and deckhouse. Hindu’s owners also own Bloodhound, a 1990s replica of the 1874 William Fife II 70ft (21.4m) gaff cutter of the same name, for which Lyman Morse has recently built a new 67ft (20.42m) long Douglas fir mast.

Maine Boatyards: Artisan Boatworks

Artisan Boatworks was founded by Alec Brainerd in 2002. The company regularly carries out routine maintenance on about 80 wooden boats, and also has an active brokerage which typically sells about 20 wooden boats each year. Two new boats were launched in August and another is currently under construction, all of them in strip planked Alaskan cedar.

The first of these into the water was the largest boat yet built at Artisan. Wisp is a 39ft 6in (12.03m) Stephens Waring-designed Spirit of Tradition day sailer/weekender. She has a large cockpit with wheel steering, while down below she has a head and galley, saloon seating for four, and a queen-size berth forward. She was completed in just 11 months.

By complete contrast, launched barely a fortnight later was Risvold, a Ha’penny 20 (20ft/6.1m)) micro cruiser designed by Tom MacNaughton for an owner who plans to sail her around the world. With no cockpit, she has a pilot house with 6ft 6in (2.97m) of headroom, and a junk rig with a carbonfibre mast.

Still under construction but nearing completion is Whirlwind II, a replica of a 26ft 2in (7.98m) catboat built in the 19th century by Gil Smith, with updated design work by Ezra Smith and Matthew Smith; while Sardine, one of 23 20ft 9in (6.24m) Fish Class boats built by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in 1916, is currently having a comprehensive restoration. The company is also in possession of the 1903 Herreshoff Bar Harbor 31 Joker for which an owner is sought with a view to carrying out a full restoration.

Brooklin

Brooklin Boatyard was founded by Joel White in 1960. Early last year Brian Larkin, who has worked for the company since 1987, took over as president.

Recently launched was Syntax, a new Wheeler 55 luxury motor yacht. This is the second yacht produced by the company for Wheeler Yachts after Legend, a 38ft (11.6m)updated version of Hemingway’s famous Pilar. Syntax was built of cold moulded sapele veneers (six layers on the bottom, four on the topsides, all sheathed with epoxy glass) laid over laminated Douglas fir stringers and frames. Her twin Man 850hp diesels give her a cruising speed of 25kts.

Currently under construction is a Fitzgerald 56, a 56ft (18m) Bermudan cutter specifically designed for offshore cruising by Mark Fitzgerald who was previously Chuck Paine’s chief designer. Her hull is built of longitudinal Douglas fir strip planking, overlaid with three layers of cold moulded western red cedar veneers, and a final layer of Sipo mahogany strip planking which is sheathed with epoxy glass.

The company has also recently restored five Winter Harbor Knockabouts, three of them extensively. This is a class of nine 30ft (9.1m) gaff sloops – designed by Starling Burgess and first launched in 1907 – which are believed to be the oldest complete fleet of one-designs in the USA. Brooklin is due to start an extensive restoration of another one next year.

Rockport Marine

Rockport Marine was founded in 1962 by Luke Allen and has built a variety of timber boats, using both traditional and modern construction methods. In addition to regular service work on around 75 timber vessels, this winter the company is doing some major work to Mystic Seaport’s Brilliant, the 61ft (18.6m)schooner that was built by Henry B Nevins in New York in 1932. Brilliant had previously been to Rockport in 2006 when she had a new teak deck, and now several frame ends, floors, bottom planks and the deadwood are being replaced. To access these areas her Detroit diesel 353 and her cast bronze fuel tank are being removed, and the engine will then be replaced, probably with a 110hp Yanmar or a 100hp John Deere, aligning with the Museum’s Low Carbon Transformation initiative

Currently under construction is Ouzel, a new 95ft (29m) modern classic sloop designed by Langan Design Partners and due for completion in 2025. Ouzel’s hull construction consists of an internal layer of Douglas fir strip planking, overlayed with two diagonal veneers (western red cedar at the ends of the boat and Douglas fir amidships), followed by another longitudinal layer of Douglas fir strip planking. Within the layers are strategically placed carbonfibre laminates to help cope with the significant rig loads, and the outside is sheathed in epoxy glassfibre. Ouzel’s interior has been designed by Mark Whitely and she will have a Cummins 405hp diesel engine.

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The post Maine Boatyards: North American Classic Boat Projects appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

The yacht designer and builder George Wanhill will be relatively unknown to readers of this magazine. His grandfather, father and uncle had run a thriving company in Poole that designed and built ships and yachts, owned and operated ships, and traded in clay. But when George was a young adult in the late 1860s, huge losses on the ship-owning side drove the company into bankruptcy, and George focused on clay. But in 1889 – when Lloyd’s Register listed 38 yachts built by the family company, from the 18ft (5.5m) cutter Urchin to the 108ft (33m) schooner Shark – Thalia, probably one of just two yachts ever designed and built by George, was launched. George built Thalia for himself but sold her just two years later in 1891. She was then based in Cork and Waterford in Ireland for 21 years under six different owners. She was regularly raced during this period and had her share of success, starting with line honours at Monkstown Regatta within days of arriving in Ireland when, according to The Yachtsman, “a treacherous wind from the northwest with squalls prevailed during the day.” But in another race at Royal Munster YC about a month later, Thalia “came to grief by standing in too far on the bank, and grounded on the mud.”

In 1912 Thalia returned to England and stayed on the east coast for about 50 years, initially with several short-term owners. In 1933 she was bought by Fred Clay, a founder member of Benfleet YC and was raced keenly in the Thames Estuary until the war, winning “a lot of cups” according to Fred’s grandson Peter. Four of those, all from 1936, are now on display in Benfleet YC, while Thalia’s current owner has another, the BYC Commodore’s Cup from 1938.

Thalia spent the war deteriorating in a mud berth opposite Benfleet railway station. Although the Clay family kept her until 1963, they never sailed her after the war. “The upkeep was a struggle and she never went anywhere,” said Peter, “but we spent summer holidays and weekends on her.” Thalia was built engineless, but Peter remembers her “having an old Ford Prefect car engine,” but he never saw it running.

In 1963 Thalia was sold to AR Hale on England’s south coast then, in 1970, to Belsize Boatyard in Southampton, infamous for breaking up unwanted vessels, but Thalia was saved when she was bought by Mrs MT Tann in 1971. Her next owner, HKB Roberts, cruised Thalia in the Med and eastern Atlantic, before selling her in 1978 to Edward Willard, who brought her back to the UK. A big restoration began at Coombes Boatyard in the mid-80s but when the owners ran out of money she was abandoned without a deck.

The First Restoration

By 1993, with mounting unpaid bills, Thalia was on the verge of demolition. In the nick of time, Ivan and Fe Jefferis came to the rescue. Ivan was a boatbuilder who had served his time at Bowman Yachts and was without doubt the right man at the right time.
Over the next few years, Ivan rebuilt Thalia, replacing the stem, counter, about 80 per cent of the planking, many of the frames, and the deck. A striking aspect of Thalia’s original build that became apparent at an early stage, said Ivan, was that “great efforts had been made to build her light and strong.” While the frames were tapered towards their tops (a not uncommon practice), the planks too were tapered: the garboards, 2in-thick amidships, taper down to 1in at the stem and counter, and the higher planks are also thinner. “I’ve never seen or heard of it, on any other boat,” said Ivan, who took the trouble to replicate original scantlings throughout.

While he refitted all the original internal panels removed from the boat, he moved the galley from its original position forward of the mast (where the paid hand would have resided) to the “more practical” site by the companionway. Fe, an upholsterer, made the great contribution of all new cushions and mattresses. Ivan replaced the tiller – thought to be about 10ft (3.1m) long – with wheel steering, but later reinstated a tiller.

During this work, Ivan found evidence in the forward hull structure that Thalia may have originally had a clipper bow, and around the same time Fe found a photo that might back this up. One theory is that an early owner had a collision that necessitated rebuilding the bow, and she was given a straight stem, as clipper bows had fallen out of fashion.

After about four years’ work, Thalia was relaunched, although it was to be a while longer before she was finished. But in 2001 she was ready to sail in the spectacular America’s Cup Jubilee Regatta in the Solent – entirely apt, given that three yachts designed and built by Wanhill had competed in the 1851 £100 Cup race around the Isle of Wight from which the America’s Cup evolved. After a few years sailing along the English south coast, Ivan and Fe took Thalia to the Caribbean, taking part in the ARC along the way. They then spent a few more years sailing the Caribbean between the British Virgin Islands and Grenada. They took part in a couple of Antigua Classics regattas, at the first of which Thalia won the overall concourse d’Elegance prize. “That was quite a surprise,” said Ivan. “She wasn’t immaculate but she was as she should be, very authentic.” In 2010, they settled in Carriacou and put Thalia on the market. “We’d sailed Thalia a long way and we fancied doing something else,” said Ivan.

A New Lease of Life

At that time David Aisher – part of the Aisher family who have owned numerous boats named Yeoman over the years – was rear commodore yachting of the Royal Yacht Squadron and had a Rogers 46 and a J/109 that he raced keenly. But he was eager for something better suited to family cruising. One of his regular race crew started sending him details of boats for sale, one of which was Thalia. David told me that he had “always fancied old boats” and it’s hard to imagine he could have found one any older. After discovering she was in Carriacou, he arranged for a local surveyor to inspect her. “I just asked him if it was worth me going to look at her,” he said. “I wanted to know if the hull was good – anything else could be dealt with but I didn’t want to rebuild the hull.” The surveyor responded positively, so David went to Carriacou. After Ivan took him for a sail, David was sold, but then marooned in Carriacou for a fortnight after the Icelandic volcano eruption disrupted air travel. “I spent a lot of time drinking rum with the locals,” he said. “After a fortnight we all knew each other very well!”

David shipped Thalia across the Atlantic to the Elephant Boatyard on the Hamble River. All of the internal ballast was removed and the equivalent weight – just over a tonne – was added to the forward and aft ends of the external ballast keel. All plumbing was renewed, with new stainless-steel water and fuel tanks, calorifier and all seacocks. The wiring was replaced and the electrical systems upgraded. The Yanmar 30hp installed by Ivan was removed, serviced and refitted, and now drives an offset Kiwi feathering propeller. The rig was renewed with new Douglas fir spars by Bob Snow’s Maritime Enterprises in Yarmouth, rigging by Martin’s Rigging and sails by Ratsey & Lapthorn. More recently, the Elephant recaulked the deck, replaced some planks, and refastened all underwater planking with bronze screws.

During his ownership, David has frequently cruised and raced Thalia with family and friends, “but never enough”. From her berth at the Elephant Boatyard he has taken her on “lots of weekend trips in the Solent”, to the West Country, Isles of Scilly, Channel Islands and northern France including the Brest Festival (“it was amazing but I wouldn’t do it twice”). He has relished the chances Thalia has given him for “meeting interesting people” and he has enjoyed occasional races against other classic boats.

Racing Thalia

In June 2024, Thalia was the only 19th- century boat taking part in the second Richard Mille Cup (September issue). I was delighted to join the crew for the second inshore race in Falmouth. She had finished last in class the day before but spirits were nonetheless high among her crew, made up of David’s friends and relatives, including his cousin Caroline, whose husband Julian helmed. “I rarely drive when racing,” said David. “I know what all the bits of string do, so I can run around and keep my eye on things while someone else points the boat in the right direction.”

Whenever I race on a boat I’m writing about, I may be asked to keep out of the way or I may be given an active role. On Thalia I was pleased to be asked to help with the mainsheet and running backstays, making it a really enjoyable race. We were only able to improve on the previous result by one place, beating the 1904 pilot cutter Alpha, but again, the crew kept their good spirits.

Thalia had moments of glory later on in the regatta. She won the Falmouth to Dartmouth passage race by over 11 minutes on corrected; she may well have won the next passage race, from Dartmouth to Cowes, “if we hadn’t missed the outer distance mark at the finish,” said David. She also won the last inshore race in Cowes, a poignant victory as George Wanhill’s great, great grandson Michael Parker was crewing that day. For the bigger boats in the Black Group, the regatta continued with a race to Le Havre, but with bad weather coming, Thalia and the other smaller boats bowed out, meaning Thalia ended on a win.

Another cherished prize in 2021 was winning Centenarian of the Year in the CB Awards. In this, and other aspects of Thalia’s life, David thanks Ivan’s vital role. “He saved her,” he said. “I’ve just polished her and kept her going.”

Thalia 

design/build George Swanhill, 1889

LOD 45ft 8in (13.7m)

lwl 39ft (11.9m)

draught 6ft (1.8m)

disp 14.75 tonnes

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The post Unique Victorian Yacht Racing Again: Thalia’s Revival appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

It was in 1920 that Felix Tanguy – who had previously worked at the Keraudren Shipyard in Camaret – formed his own boatbuilding company on the Ile de Sein, separated from the French mainland by the notorious Raz de Sein. With many fishermen returning from war service and resuming their previous work, there was great demand for fishing boats to be built and repaired at that time. Following Felix into the business in 1954 were two of his five sons (Louis who took over the yard and Jean-Marie who set up another elsewhere on the island) and a decade later, both brothers moved their businesses to the mainland (Louis to Audierne and Jean-Marie to Douarnenez). Jean-Marie’s son Yves was born in 1960 and took his very first steps in his father’s Isle de Sein yard. “I was always very fascinated by boats,” Yves told me (through our interpreter, his nephew Noah who was born in the USA and had recently spent a few weeks working at the yard by way of taking a break from his “game development” studies in the south of France). Yves began an apprenticeship at the yard in 1976 and then, inevitably, took over the running of it in 1990. The company trades under the name Y&Y by using the first letter of Yves’ first name and the last letter of his last name, “and also to attract the British because it stands for Yachts & Yachting!” 

The yard has specialised in building new fishing boats to their own designs, almost 200 in total, the biggest 18.5 metres long and all of them of traditional construction with oak planking on oak frames (“the best wood for building boats”). But they haven’t built a new boat for about ten years and so more recently have been specialising in refits and restorations. At the time of my visit there were half a dozen fishing boats being stored and/or worked on at the yard, but the main project was elsewhere in Douarnenez. Many readers of this magazine will have cruised to Douarnenez and be familiar with the Port Rhu Basin which can be entered over a sill a couple of hours each side of high water. If you were to continue through the basin to the south, past all the berthing facilities and under a low bridge, you would find a slipway which is just across a road from the Y&Y yard. Normally boats are launched and recovered on this slipway but it wasn’t possible to slip the 16-metre fishing boat Clément Thomas Éléna there due to a combination of deep draft and the absence of a big tide at the right time. So instead she was brought ashore on Le Flimiou peninsular where there is a 300-tonne side lift operated by the Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Quimper. The work being carried out is typical of that done to several other fishing boats in recent years. She was built by Chantier Naval de Saint Guénolé in 1989 and like so many of her type, there are no drawings of her “and if there were, they would probably be wrong,” said naval architect Alain Hemon who works closely with Yves on such projects. About a year previously, Alain had scanned Clément Thomas Éléna’s lines (“with an accuracy better than 1mm”) in St Malo where she is based, and this allowed Y&Y to do a great deal of preparatory work while she was still fishing and so minimise the time she was out of commission. This preparatory work included making several new sawn oak frames to replace some which were in poor condition and also to give about half a metre more beam at the stern, and fabricating a new stainless-steel gantry, thus providing more deck space and allowing wider nets to be used. This is the sixth fishing boat whose stern has been widened in this way by Y&Y in recent years, and she is also the eighth boat to have a bulbous bow fitted. This latter modification is not to reduce drag in the way that below-waterline bulbous bows do on much larger vessels, but simply to increase waterline length and therefore also increase maximum speed or reduce fuel consumption.  

Y&Y has also worked on various sailing boats over the years. These include Khayyam (formerly Zwerver, designed by Sparkman & Stephens and built by de Vries Lentsch in Amsterdam in 1939) which has been to  the yard on several occasions. Yves’ passion for such boats is reflected in the fact that he himself owns three sailing boats which are currently in the yard. One of these is a gaff cutter called Ar Skleder which is lying outside alongside substantial stocks of oak boards. Built by Ernest Sibiril in Carantec in 1937, she was the first of a class of boat which played a significant role in helping Allied airmen escape to the UK in the Second World War. Yves is hoping to find a buyer who will agree to restore her at the yard. Yves’ other two sailing boats were both designed and built by Camper & Nicholsons. Rocquette was virtually unbeatable with Peter Nicholson at the helm in UK inshore and offshore races in her first season in 1964. Yves found her virtually abandoned in Greece in 2010 and brought her to Douarnenez to restore her, not least by giving her a new deck, coachroof and cockpit. He has since cruised her to the UK (where he invited Peter Nicholson aboard) and to Spain. But he would now like to sell her so that he can focus his attention on his second C&N boat, the 1968 Brambers which had been lying neglected in Perros Guiric before he bought her at the beginning of 2024. This one he plans to keep for himself once he has finished restoring her.

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The post Y&Y Yard Visit: Restorations and Rebuilds in Douarnenez appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Absolute, Lisbon and Setúbal, Portugal

After forming in 1997, Absolute Projects initially specialised in the restoration and refitting of 8-Metres. This led the company into the design and production of its own range of winches and other deck and spar hardware which it still produces today, for boats as diverse as the three-masted schooner Atlantic and the Irish Water Wags. Meanwhile the restoration, refit and new-build work spread to other types of classic boats, cruising and racing, sail and motor. Recent work has included a four-year restoration of the 1948 John Alden 66ft yawl Valhalla. This involved replacement of much of the centreline, 30% of the timber frames, 70% of the planking and all of the deck. She was relaunched recently and is now sailing and cruising out of Cascais, Portugal. The 1929 Charles Paine Q Class Falcon (originally Falcon II and later Jour de Fete) has also been restored and is now actively racing in the Mediterranean. Absolute have recently acquired two classic ocean racers with a view to restoring them while finding new owners to take them on: work is already under way on the 1934 Charles E Nicholson-designed 63ft Foxhound, while Astrape – designed by FA Richards and built by Berthon Boat Co in 1939 – is waiting in line. 

HCC Boatyard, Marstal, Denmark

There has been a boatyard under various guises at Marstal for well over a hundred years, but it was in 2013 that it was acquired by Monica Fabricius and renamed HCC Boatyard. A couple of years ago the company completed a three-year restoration of the 76ft ketch Talisman, which was designed and built in rivetted steel by Abeking & Rasmussen in 1920. HCC renewed about half of the hull plating, laid a new teak deck and fitted a new interior which incorporate electric under-floor heating. While putting an emphasis on hiding away modern technology, they also fitted a Torqueedo 100Kw engine which incorporates a hydro regenerator which can charge the 3 x 40Kw batteries while sailing. 

Currently under construction is a 9 metre Hugin – the company’s own brand to an in-house design – motor boat. Built of cold moulded mahogany, the underwater sections incorporate an air cushion system which will lift the boat by about 6 inches when travelling at the maximum speed of 14 knots and will give a fuel saving of about 30% – with an electric engine this will be particularly beneficial. Due to be launched in early 2025, the design can also be scaled up or down for different size boats. 

Chantier Naval Pasqui, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France

Having previously been based at two other Mediterranean locations, the European boatyard Chantier Naval Pasqui has traded out of the 18th century vaults at the Royal Port of the Darse, Villefranche-sur-Mer since 1994. Under the direction of proprietor Gilbert Pasqui, in addition to many classic boat restorations the company has built up a considerable reputation for constructing timber spars, having done so for Moonbeam III, Oriole, Eva, Viola, Mariska, Tuiga, Hispania, Varuna, Sumurun, Hallowe’en and Naema amongst many others. Significant restoration over the last few years include two Johan Anker Metre boats: the 1917 8-Metre Apache and the 1935 10-Metre Irene VIII, both of which have had a lot of work done to the hulls and new decks. The final details on Irene VIII are just being completed now. Eilidh is a 58ft Bermudan cutter designed by Alfred Mylne and built by Dickies of Bangor in 1931.  She has recently been having repairs to one topside having had a collision with another boat, as well as routine maintenance particularly with the deck brightwork and mast varnish. Beroe is a GL Watson design that was built by Jardines, Isle of Bute in 1887. She has had a long restoration which began about nine years ago at Traditional Shipwrights in Poole, continued at Candela in La Rochelle and is now being finished at Pasquis. The bare spars were made by Collars, and Pasquis have been installing the fittings to them, and are alos finalising deck fitting details as well as doing some painting and varnishing.

European Boatyard: Robbe & Berking, Flensburg, Germany

This year Robbe & Berking Classics has been celebrating its 15th anniversary, and 2025 will mark the 30th birthday of the Robbe & Berking Sterling Cup from which the company emerged.Recently completed was a significant refit on the 1928 Fife Bermudan cutter Cambria, which most notably included a new deck using teak what had been acquired some years ago. In the last year, three new L95s – 9.1m cold- moulded sailing boats designed by Klaus Röder of Carpe Diem Yacht Design – were built for Bootswerft Glas. Having become something of a specialist in restoring and building 12-Metres, the company is continuing in that vein in several diverse ways: a restoration of the 1936 Camper& Nicholsons’ 12-M Evaine is about to get underway, the 2025 12-Metre European Championships will be held in Flensburg as part of the Robbe & Berking Sterling Cup, and there has been an interesting collaboration with a leading German car manufacture. “Mercedes loves classic lines as much as we do,” said Oliver Berking, “and so they created a Maybach in the look of our first 12-M Sphinx.”

Royal Huisman, Vollenhove, Netherlands

Having first started trading in 1884, Huisman began to specialise in steel and then aluminium boats in the 1950s and ‘60s, and have been at their present location in Vollenhove since 1971. Having famously restored the J Class Endeavour for Elizabeth Meyer in the late 1980s, this European boatyard has since built several large modern classics including the J Class Hanuman (replica of Endeavour II) and the schooners Meteor, Borkumriff IV and Athena, the latter being three-masted with an overall length of 90 metres. Currently under construction are two giant sloops which are set to break records: one, designed by German Frers, will be the world’s longest sloop at 85 metres; and the other, by Malcolm McKeon, although a little shorter will be the world’s tallest sloop with a 93-metre mast. But of more interest to readers of this magazine will be Aquarius II, a 65-metre ketch with classic lines and an abundance of varnished timber deck houses and skylights. Designed by Dykstra Naval Architects she is being built for the owners of the slightly smaller ketch Aquarius, another Huisman/Dykstra collaboration which was launched in 2018. Aquarius II is due to the delivered by the end of 2024 and will be used for extensive cruising and occasional racing at superyacht regattas. 

Stockholms Båtsnickeri, Saltsjöbaden, Sweden

Stockholms Båtsnickeri was founded in 1996 and has been based in Saltsjöbaden since 2009. Currently under construction is an 8-metre double-ended clinker motor boat based on original 1934 drawings by Swedish naval architect CG Petterson. The company is deliberately using a combination of traditional and modern techniques to build this boat – for instance, after the lines were lofted digitally, the process of photometry allowed a CNC machine to produce the templates for the oak planking and for a third of the sawn oak frames, while the other frames were produced traditionally. When complete, this boat will be electrically powered. The company is also using CNC technology to produce new underwater planking for Gusten, a 55 Square Metre which was designed by August Plym and built by Stockholms Båtbyggeri in 1904. Recently completed was the restoration of the 95 Square Metre Gerdny which was designed by Erik Salander and built by Hasselstroms Warf in 1920. A new deck was laid with tapered Oregon pine planks and the cockpit was rebuilt to allow conversion from wheel steering to the original tiller steering. The 1930 12-Metre Princess Svanevit which was recently restored at the yard is now back again to have her original interior re-installed. 

Ventis, Enkhuizen, Netherlands

While the European boatyard Ventis has been restoring and building wooden boats since 1994, their sister company, specialist spar makers Brasker Masten, was founded in 1970. Currently under construction is the first of the 8.5 metre “modern classic day sailers” V850. The hull is built of Alaskan yellow cedar strip planking and laminated mahogany ring frames. While this first boat will be launched later this year, work on the second is already under way. Earlier this summer, the company completed a new rig for the 1916 New York 40 Rowdy. In 2022 Rowdy’s Bermudan rig, which she had had for about twenty years, was carried away while racing in Imperia. The decision was then made to build a new gaff rig in line with Herreshoff’s original plans for the New York 40 class. After considerable research which took into consideration modern requirements such as flying mast head asymmetric spinnakers, the new spars were made from Sitka spruce. Rowdy sailed with her new rig for the first time in August at Vela Clasica Menorca where she enjoyed very close racing against her 1925 gaff rigged sistership Chinook.

VMG, Enkhuizen, Netherlands

Having been originally founded around 45 years ago, this European boatyard has traded under the name VMG since 2015 and now has about 40 employees. Since relaunching the 1938 S&S yawl Baruna in 2021, two further classic boat restorations have been completed. Sally is a 1910 Dutch saloon boat (CB373) which is now owned by a Belgian who uses her as a luxury conference centre since her interior was rebuilt with authentic and original styling last winter. The 13 metre steel cutter Taeke Hadewych was originally owned by the famous Dutch sailing couple Eerde Beulakker and Hedwig van den Brink who took her on extensive voyages to high latitude regions. VMG stripped Taeke Hadewych’s interior back to the bare hull and then reconfigured it to suit her current owner who sailed as a young man with Beulakker and now plans to undertake similar voyages with his wife. Two other projects are just being started at this European boatyard. A few years ago VMG acquired the exclusive rights to build Puffins – straight stem, transom sterned cutters designed by Olivier van Meer and available in three sizes, 42ft, 50ft and 58ft – of which about sixty have previously been built. Five of these were produced by VMG who are now starting to build a Puffin 42 in aluminium. Meanwhile work is just begging to restore Simmerdream, a 1948 16.5m motor yacht which will have a completely new interior.

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• Martyn Mackrill Saves Fife-Built Cutter: OM Watts Design Restored

The post European Boatyards Guide: Top Restorations, Refits & New-Builds appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Built in 2010, Atlantic is a replica of the 1903 yacht of the same name. The original Atlantic was designed by William Gardner and built by Townsend & Downey shipyard, New York for New York Yacht Club member Wilson Marshall. Although she was fitted out luxuriously, it was also obvious from the start that she was fast. In 1905 she took part in the transatlantic race from Sandy Hook to the Lizard. Her captain was the legendary Scot Charlie Barr who had already successfully defended the America’s Cup three times at the helm of American yachts. He was well-known for racing hard and, sure enough, he and Atlantic won the race – and with it the Kaiser’s Cup – in a time of 12 days, 4 hours, 1 minute and 19 seconds. Astonishingly this race record wasn’t beaten until 1998 although it is important to distinguish it from a passage record whereby yachts can set off whenever the weather looks favourable rather than on a predetermined date.  Amongst her subsequent owners was Gerard Lambert who bought her to the UK in 1935 to act as mother ship for his J Class Yankee. Atlantic served in both World Wars: having been requisitioned in 1917 she joined a patrol force on the east coast of the USA before becoming a tender to a squadron of submarine chasers; and then in 1941 she was acquired by the US Coast Guard and used for cadet training. She never sailed again after that but was used at various times as a houseboat, a restaurant, a museum and a floating dock. Suffering from neglect she sank twice before being refloated, and was eventually broken up in Newport News Boat Harbor, Virginia in 1982.

A Serial Replica Builder

Dutchman Ed Kastelein is no stranger to classic boat ownership. Not only had he owned the 1936 Mylne-designed gaff ketch Thendara and the 1939 Camper & Nicholsons’ Bermudan ketch Aile Blanche, he had also commissioned three new schooners: Borkumriff IV, Zaca a te Moana and Eleonora. The latter two were replicas – of the 1930 Zaca and the 1910 Herreshoff Westward respectively – so it was perhaps no great surprise that he would take on an even more ambitious challenge: to build a replica of Atlantic. Using exactly the same hull lines, deck styling and sail plan, the new boat’s design was bought up to date by naval architect Doug Peterson, and she was built at the Van der Graaf BV shipyard and completed in June 2010.  

Having taken part in the inaugural Richard Mille Cup in 2023, Atlantic was back again this year. The format and venues were the same again: inshore races in Falmouth, the Solent and Le Havre; and three passage races. This time Atlantic and the only other boat in her class, Elena (another replica, of a 1911 Herreshoff yacht of the same name) would only take part in the passage races but would otherwise take guests out sailing and provide a magnificent spectacle while the smaller yachts were competing in the inshore races. 

The passage race from Falmouth to Dartmouth took place on 6 June, the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings which marked the beginning of the liberation of Europe in the Second World War. A couple of days earlier, Atlantic had motored up the River Fal and passed two sites where tens of thousands of American soldiers had boarded vessels bound for the Normandy beaches: Tolverne (where General Eisenhower had stayed during the preparations) and Turnaware Point. In the Carrick Roads early on the morning of the race, Atlantic and the other competing yachts motored slowly in a circle around a Targa motor boat from which the race officer Charles Hall-Thompson laid a wreath in the sea. All the crews had been asked to observe a minute’s silence, but on Atlantic there wasn’t a sound for at least three minutes. The emotion was tangible. 

Silence for D-Day – Then Action

But soon afterwards Atlantic’s Dutch captain Fosse Fortuin and his crew – twelve of whom are permanent with four extras for this regatta – set to work to get ready to race. Atlantic can set twelve sails at a time – a gaff sail and topsail on each of the masts, four headsails, and two fishermen each of which is set between a pair of masts, a total of 1,850 square metres – and it had already been decided that all of them would be hoisted for this race. 

Soon afterwards, the race was started from a committee boat just south of St Anthony’s Lighthouse. The smaller boats started first – the gaff cutters Thalia, Ayesha, Cynthia and Alpha, and the gaff yawl Patna – and they were followed half an hour later by the bigger gaff cutters Moonbeam IV, Moonbeam and Mariquita, and the Bermudan staysail schooner Viveka. Then it was our turn. 

With the sun shining, the wind was off the land and initially forward of the beam, and was varying in strength from about 6 to 12 knots. We had a short burst of 13.3 knots boat speed soon after the start and while we could see Elena – which had a better start than us – pulling away, we reckoned that with the time she had to allow us we were probably about even. Somewhere south of Fowey we began to overtake the small cutters and had passed all of them by the time we reached the Eddystone Lighthouse. But by then the wind had backed significantly and while all the other boats were setting downwind sails, we didn’t have any – in fact we dropped two of the headsails as they were hanging uselessly in the shadow of the others – and we were soon suffering. We never really pulled any further away from the small class and we could see all the other big boats stretching their lead over us. 

Taking the Wheel of a Giant

I was delighted when Fosse let me have a spell on the wheel. It seemed a little daunting at first with the enormity of Atlantic’s deck stretching away in front of me, but with her long keel giving her great directional stability and with the gentle land breeze not kicking up anything of a sea, it didn’t seem particularly difficult to steer her. 

The wind had backed enough to necessitate a couple of gybes to ensure we cleared the south Devon headland, and about half way between the Eddystone Lighthouse and Bolt Head we did so for the first time. When gybing or tacking, the mizzen topsail can remain hoisted (it merely presses against the peak halyard spans on one tack or billows away from them on the other) but the triatic stays between the masts require the two other topsails to be dropped and then rehoisted with different halyards on the new leeward side. That used to also be the case with the fishermen but Fosse has recently developed a system whereby each of them has two peak halyards, one each side of the triatic stays, so that the peak can just be transferred from one to the other, just as the clew is with the sheets (although this does mean, just as with the mizzen topsail, the fishermen are pressed against the peak halyard spans on one gybe). 

All Sails Up and 14.5 Knots

About four miles south of Salcombe we gybed again and headed for Start Point. But then we saw, to seaward of us, a vessel which didn’t look quite right. It was too far away to make out exactly what the situation was but when Fosse looked through the binoculars he could see that it was Kelpie and that she had been dismasted. He made contact on the VHF to establish that the crew were safe and that she wasn’t making water, and then we turned round as quickly as we could and headed towards them. While Fosse and his crew were preparing to launch Atlantic’s RIB to go to their aid, we soon saw that one of the regatta’s official RIBs was doing so, but it was clear that Kelpie’s crew were grateful for the moral support that our contact and presence had given them.

We then headed back on course towards Dartmouth and as we came closer to the wind we had all twelve sails up again and we briefly touched 14.5 knots. As he did several times during the race, Fosse briefly left the wheel to go forward to help resolve some issue, confident that Atlantic would steer herself for a brief period. But I took the opportunity to greedily take the wheel again. It was just glorious sailing and seemingly effortless, although that shouldn’t take anything away from the crew who had made great efforts in setting this vast spread of canvas. 

Our diversion towards Kelpie had allowed Ayesha and Cynthia to catch us up and they were then able to go across the shallows just past Start Point while our greater draft determined that we should go wider. So while they were able to fetch to the finish just south of the entrance to river Dart, we had to put in two short tacks. Elena had finished just over two hours before us, and even though we were given an hour’s redress for going back to Kelpie, this wasn’t enough to beat her on corrected time. But that didn’t seem to matter particularly to me or to anyone else on board – it had simply been a wonderful sail in a magnificent yacht, the memory of which will stay with me for some time to come. 

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  • Martyn Mackrill Saves Fife-Built Cutter: OM Watts Design Restored

The post How to Race a Three-Masted Schooner: Sailing Atlantic Replica appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Martyn Mackrill will be well known to the readers of this magazine as an accomplished marine artist who is the Honorary Painter to the Royal Yacht Squadron and the Royal Thames Yacht Club. Just before he and his wife Bryony, who is a teacher, got married in 1985, they bought a 31ft LOD gaff cutter called Nightfall, which had been designed by HH Lidstone and built as Nautilus by F Miller & Co at Oulton Broad in 1910, and had been owned Maurice Griffiths for four years in the 1930s. In 2017, the Mackrills took Nightfall from her Yarmouth mooring to the West Country, intending to go on to the Scillies. They got as far as St Mawes but were then faced with some bad weather. “We didn’t think Nightfall was up to it,” said Martyn. “And it was then that we realised we had grown out of her and that it was time to get a proper offshore cruising boat.” During several years of internet trawling, the only boat that they thought might have been suitable was Little Tern, the Claud Worth-inspired gaff cutter built by Peter Nash in 2005, but they decided she was too expensive. Then eventually they found the 1936 Peregrine. 

Peregrine’s first owner was Hugh FB Sharp who commissioned OM Watts Ltd to produce a design, stipulating that the result should be a boat “fit to face any weather which might be encountered during her wanderings, possess an easy motion in a seaway and capable of being handled by a crew of two,” wrote HHR Etheridge in a later Yachting Monthly article. It is thought that OM Watts probably subcontracted the design to Thomas C Letcher who later became the proprietor of CH Gale and Co at the Medina shipyard in Cowes.

Sharp lived near Dundee and perhaps that was a contributory factor when selecting William Fife in relatively nearby Fairlie as the builder, as well as the requirement that “the construction and finish of the new yacht were to be as near perfect as possible,” according to Etheridge. Peregrine was built with a keel, stringers, beam shelf, planking and decks in teak (the total material cost of which was £122 3s 11 1/2d); sawn frames, stem, stern post and deck beams in oak; Quebec rock elm timbers; and interior joinery in Austrian oak. She had a Kelvin Ricardo E4 paraffin engine (which cost £204 5s) with an offset feathering propeller, and a Reids double acting rachet type windlass. “She can best be described as a good-looking, healthy and comfortable offshore cruiser,” wrote Etheridge, “a vessel which does credit to both British yacht building and naval architecture, and a yacht which it would be a joy to own.”

Peregrine was launched in 1936 and during her maiden voyage to Cowes that July she performed admirably in a strong gale in the Irish Sea. Sharp had previously cruised extensively in larger yachts – one of which was presumably Fedoa, a 1927 58ft Mylne ketch which he had previously owned – and he had plans to take Peregrine from her home port on the Clyde through the Western Isles  and to the Baltic. It was not to be, however, because he was tragically killed, along with 34 others, in the Castlecary rail disaster when a signalling error resulted in an Edinburgh to Glasgow express ploughing into a stationary train during a  snowstorm in December 1937. 

Sharp’s executors sold Peregrine to Captain PN Melitus. Yet again, Peregrine was caught in severe weather in the Irish Sea and in the Bristol Channel (this time on her way from the Clyde to her new home port of Brightlingsea) and again she was reported as having behaved well. Soon after the war, Peregrine was purchased by AP Costain who then sailed her to the Hamble River and to her new mooring opposite the Royal Southern YC. His crew on that voyage and several subsequent ones consisted of his wife and his two young children, Sue and Peter, and the paid hand Arthur Cant. “Mum has very happy memories of cruising down the coast to the West Country, particularly Dartmouth, Salcombe and Newton Ferris,” Sue’s daughter Sally O’Leary told me recently. “The family spent most of the summer on board.” However, Costain only owned Peregrine for about a year, simply because she was too small to accommodate him and his family as well as Arthur Cant (who remained with the family on their subsequent boats: “I still remember him being very much a part of our family,” said Sally) and his wife who did the cooking on board.

Peregrine was then sold to EG Hocquard who owned her for over thirty years. He kept her in Lymington and on the Beaulieu River and during his ownership he made a number of alterations to her. He converted her to masthead rig, shortening the boom and lengthening the bowsprit in the process; he fitted a new Saab 2-cylinder 22HP diesel engine; and he fitted a somewhat unsightly doghouse on her. He eventually sold Peregrine In 1979 (and, incidentally, his wife Joan then lived to the age of 112 and was Britain’s oldest person when she passed away in 2020).  

Peregrine’s next owners were Graham Jelley who in 1987 took on John Rowley as a co-owner, David Loomes from 1993, Gillian & Peter Phillips  from 1995, and Peter Brownsell from 1999.

Brownsell had a great deal of work done to Peregrine including the installation of a new teak deck by Traditional Sail in Salcombe in 2004, and a new engine and stern gear. After sailing her to the Caribbean in 2013, he had her shipped back to the UK and then put her on the market, but it would be some years before he was able to sell her.

When the Mackrills found her, she was lying on a swinging mooring in Portsmouth Harbour but had been pretty much neglected for about six or seven years. “She was full of detritus,” said Martyn. “She had been filling with rainwater, the smell in her was abominable and everything was broken.” “And there was a bird’s nest in the loo,” added Bryony. But somehow, not only did they manage to see past all that, but they were also able to establish that the hull itself was in remarkably good condition. On 20 October 2021, they bought her. 

Just before doing so, they contacted Attrill & Sons at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight – where Nightfall had regularly been laid up – to see if it would be possible to put Peregrine in a shed where they could work on her themselves. Attrills generously agreed and so, as soon as the purchase went through, they motored her – somewhat cautiously, with the neglected engine not inspiring great confidence – across the Solent to Bembridge. “I was just very happy to get her out of the water and hide her away in the shed,” said Martyn. “I didn’t want people to see her.” 

Martyn and Bryony then spent the next 18 months commuting the 25 miles from their home in Middleton, Freshwater to and from Bembridge, about 25 miles and almost an hour each way, typically four days a week while they worked at their respective jobs on the other three days.

By the time the Fife-built cutter, Peregrine, was ashore in Bembridge, Martyn had acquired some original drawings from William Collier who now looks after the Fife archive, and a 1948 photograph of her taken before the doghouse was fitted. “She looked fantastic without it,” he said. “I knew it had to go and the only way we were going to do it was to brutally attack it. I just hit it with an adze and then just sawed it off.” But there were two things for which to be thankful in the way the doghouse had been fitted: one was that a steel girder had been fitted to compensate for the lack of structure when an original main beam had been cut through; and the other was that the original companionway sliding hatch was still in place, in its open position and buried under several layers of plywood, and after some work was reusable. It was also possible to salvage most of the teak from the doghouse and reuse it in the reconstruction of the bridge deck and for some interior doors. Several original Fife fittings such as the mooring bollards, fairleads, cleats and spar fittings had survived –  “it’s fantastic to go on the internet and look at boats like Altair and Halloween that have got the same fittings,” said Bryony – and their  various chrome, galvanised or painted coatings were then removed by MJG Grits before they were either re-chromed by Hampshire Electroplating or re-galvanised by Wessex Galvanizers. Some proprietary new deck fittings were supplied by Davey & Co and Toplicht; East Coast Metal Works custom-made other fitting such as deck eyes, track sliders and a mainsheet horse; and Colin Frake cast new eyebolts having also made the patterns. West system resin with 207 hardener was used to create crystal clear epoxy to fill several hairline cracks in the original timber work, using ordinary bathroom sealant to form a dam below them in vertical surfaces; and all the brightwork was coated with four coats of International Original and then two coats of Epifanes Clear varnish. 

At no stage of the restoration was anything found to refute Martyn’s pre-purchase assessment of the hull. “Structurally she was perfect and had completely held her shape,” he said. “The mark of a Fife.” There was one particularly welcome finding, however, which was discovered by Martyn and Bryony’s son Charlie when he was rubbing down the outside of the hull.  “There was no sign of a carved Fife dragon at the ends of the cove line,” said Martyn. “We wondered if it had been filled in and I asked Charlie to look for signs of it. Within five minutes he said ‘dad, come and look at this’!” Sure enough the dragon carvings had been filled in, and they were now reinstated. With regard to the cove line itself, Martyn and Bryony’s decision to use gold tape nearly resulted in a refusal from painter James Ensor to paint the topsides because he favoured gold leaf. But after Force 4 Bright Gold Cove Line Tape was applied, James (and others) declared that it was a good decision.  

With regard to the interior, Martyn and Bryony took home “anything that would unscrew” for varnishing, and also to repair various broken door locks. Small changes were made to the original layout, such as building a book shelf at the forward end of the saloon where there had been a wardrobe, and removing a dressing table in the focsle to make room for a double berth. Throughout the interior there were pieces of plywood which had actually been manufactured by Fifes, lining lockers and as a ceiling on the insides of frames. The back of one piece revealed signatures from a handful of the people who had built Peregrine scratched into the paint. Although almost all of this plywood was “in a shocking state, like tissue paper” due to the inferior glues used at the time, it was possible to save the quarter berth ceiling. “We took it home, dried it and then we buttered it with epoxy, put it between two massive planks of polythene and hardboard and clamped it together, and re-laminated it,” said Martyn. 

Having revarnished the interior joinery with International Original and Epifanes Clear varnish, and painted the deckheads and tongue and groove bulkheads with Farrow and Ball Lime White eggshell paint, the interior was beautifully finished off with leather seating – with buttoned backrests – made by Giacomelli Upholsterers. “We had leather on Nightfall and the dirtier it got the better it looked,” said Bryony. 

Although the Volvo Penta 55HP engine was only installed in 2004, it had suffered from seven years lack of use and needed a fair bit of refurbishment. There was a great deal of obsolete wiring throughout the boat and Martyn followed Attrills’ advice with regard to this, firstly to remove all of it –  “we filled the back of the Land Rover with it” – and secondly not to employ a professional electrician to do the rewiring but to do it all himself. “It wasn’t that difficult,” he said. A new electrical panel was made by Dragon Marine in Plymouth, “with large writing so we can read it without our glasses on.” The original Blakes Minor toilet was completely dismantled to allow every chromed component to be re-chromed by Hampshire Electroplating, and a new Tek Tanks plastic holding tank was installed. The original rivetted galvanised steel water and fuel tanks were retained. 

Martyn and Bryony were keen to reinstate the fractional rig with the hounds for both the jib and the staysail at the same height, but using the original mast and fittings. In doing so, however, some rot was found around the top spreaders, and so Lallows of Cowes scarfed in a new top section and also made a new boom. “We would have been lost without Lallows,” said Martyn. “They also supplied us with various pieces of timber for other parts of the boat.” Ratsey & Lapthorn made a new mainsail, jib and staysail; and new blocks were supplied by Ordings. The masthead has been left gloriously free of any electronics so that the burgee of the Royal Cruising Club – “I have just been made a member and am very proud of that,” said Martyn – can be flown from a 7ft bamboo staff.

Relaunching this 1936 Fife-built Cutter

Peregrine was eventually relaunched in the May 2023 and taken round to her new mooring in Yarmouth. The work still wasn’t quite finished, however – but it was relatively easy to continue with it now that she was considerably nearer to the Mackrills’ home – and it wasn’t until April 2024 that they were, at last, able to sail her. 

The amount of hard work and dedication that Martyn and Bryony have put into Peregrine’s restoration cannot be overestimated. “But there was always this fear that we would start to slow down and we’d lose interest,” said Martyn, although clearly no such thing ever happened. During the course of the work they developed a practical mantra: “the acceptance of compromise,” partly driven by financial constraints but also the desire to start enjoying the fruits of their labours sooner rather than later. “There has to be a cut-off point,” said Martyn; “or you end up varnishing your coffee cup holder when you should be out sailing,” added Bryony. 

Although the Mackrills hoped to take Peregrine to the 2024 Brest festival, bad weather and their unfamiliarity with the boat dissuaded them. But they did at least manage to get to Dartmouth, and while they were there retired yacht broker Peter Gregson presented them with a clock and barometer which had been taken off Peregrine when he sold her about half a century ago. 

In future seasons, they plan to take Peregrine on extended cruises for several months at a time, and to live on board as independently as possible. “On Nightfall it felt like camping and after a couple of weeks on board I wanted to go home,” said Bryony. “But on this boat I really feel we can live on her in comfort.” “Peregrine is perfect,” said Martyn. “Not too big but big enough.” 

Specs

LOA 39ft 4”

LWL 30ft 8”

Beam 9ft 8”

Draught 6ft 3”

TM 13 tons

SA 767 sq ft

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The post Martyn Mackrill Saves Fife-Built Cutter: OM Watts Design Restored appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

It is now 20 years since Stones Boatyard became established on a new site at Yalton on the east side of the Salcombe Estuary. At the time of my visit in February (2024), the 6,800sqft purpose-built shed was full with 60 boats inside, 40 of which were Salcombe Yawls. This class developed from the working boats of a bygone era that used to sail out of the Estuary and over Salcombe Bar under main, mizzen and jib, then drop the main while they fished with long lines. Nowadays they are restricted (rather than one-design) boats of clinker construction with African mahogany or Sitka spruce planking which are keenly-raced on the Estuary. 

Most of the remainder of the boats stored were clinker motor launches which also have their roots in Salcombe’s history: typically around 18ft long and seaworthy enough for locals to take paying guests bass fishing beyond the Bar. These included Lola, which Tristan’s father Jim helped build during his apprenticeship and which was recently restored at the yard; Tempest, designed by Ian Howlett after a local boat and built at Stones about 12 years ago; and Seatype, originally built for Sir William Lyons, the co-founder of Jaguar. 

Since Tempest, Tristan has realised that it is no longer realistic to build such a boat for a price that a customer would think reasonable, so the yard has concentrated on maintenance, repair, storage and launching. At the back of the shed there are three climate-controlled spray booths, each of which can accommodate a Yawl or an 18ft launch. Over the years Tristan and his team have experimented with different paints at different temperatures – “we’ve tried everything” – and they now almost exclusively use Epifanes varnish and Awlgrip paints. In particular they find that Epifanes Clear Gloss varnish is most effective in slowing the rate at which African mahogany loses its rich red colour and “yellows”; and while some say that two-pack paints don’t allow for the movement of the planking in a clinker-built boat, Tristan has found that not only is Awlgrip flexible enough to do so, the frequency with which it needs reapplying is significantly less than with single packs. 

One of the Salcombe Yawls’ class rules states that they have to have timber masts. Soon after opening the yard, Tristan was having great difficulty sourcing Sitka spruce for new masts, so Jim – now married to a Canadian and living on Vancouver Island – visited a Canadian mill and chose some for him. When Cornish gig builder Andrew Nancarrow heard about this, he asked Tristan to supply some spruce for oars, then other companies such as J Sutton and Collars also ordered some. Tristan and Jim soon had a flourishing timber business and formed a new company, Stones Marine Timber. Jim continues to hand-pick timber – not just Sitka spruce but also Douglas fir and yellow cedar – from North American mills, while Tristan also sells African species such as utile, khaya and iroko. 

Although the establishment of Stones Timber allowed the Salcombe Yawls to maintain a fundamental tradition – Tristan thinks the class was in danger of having to allow aluminium or carbon masts – the timber masts have become significantly more sophisticated over the years. Whereas they used to be made from just two laminations – whose qualities almost inevitably differed, often resulting in better performance on one tack than the other – they are now made (by Noble Masts) from six laminations, each of them carefully selected with tight grain; and the fittings, too, have improved with, for instance, carbon fibre wrap-around spreader brackets resulting in far fewer breakages than traditional screwed-on stainless steel ones. Tristan also has an association with Batt Sails, near Chichester, who tailor the cut of their sails to the precise bend characteristics of each mast.  

During covid, about 20 Salcombe Yawls were sold. That in itself wasn’t a problem but, under Salcombe Estuary rules, the moorings these boats had occupied couldn’t be transferred to the new owners but were snapped up by owners of various other boats that had been on a waiting list. The yard’s own 20 swinging moorings were occupied, so the only solution for the stranded boats was for Tristan and team to launch and recover each one every time its new owner wanted to race, a hugely time-consuming exercise (about seven hours per boat per race) and considerably restricted by tides. The solution came last year when the Salcombe Harbourmaster allowed Tristan to transform one side of  a pontoon in The Bag into a floating dock to accommodate 18 yawls clear of the water. This has resulted in racing turnouts returning to the levels of some years ago with as many as 17 taking part on Wednesday evenings and up to 60 (in two or three separate fleets) in regatta week. “I think the class may have died out if it wasn’t for the pontoon,” said Tristan. 

Covid difficulties also led Stones Boatyard to branch out into a new area, becoming an agent for Yeti products, particularly the high-quality coolers, which are perfect for owners of the launches and Yawls when picnicking. The company is also an agent for Torqueedo electric outboard motors. 

Tristan occasionally gets the chance to race a yawl with friends but not as often as he would like and he is trying to address that; and he has his own launch which he uses to take his family on camping and fishing trips. His children – Lily (9) and James (7) – are a bit too young to be showing any interest in following their forebears into the boating business. “But you never know,” he said.

Visit Stones Boatyard Website for more info.

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The post Yard Visit: Stones Boatyard, Salcombe appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Phil Cotton first dipped his toe into the world of classic boats in 2019 when he bought an 8-ton Gauntlet called Nausikaa which had been built by Berthon Boat Co in 1939. Having started sailing as a child, he soon developed a taste for racing fast dinghies such as 505s, and then multihulls including Dart 18s when he married his wife Miranda, a Formula 18 twin-wire catamaran, a Sea Cart 30 carbon fibre trimaran, and a Diam 24 trimaran (a French boat which he helped to establish as a one-design class on the Hamble River). He had always “enjoyed the look of a classic boat” but, even though he realised that Nausikaa would be “totally the other end of the spectrum” to his previous boats, he soon found that she was “too slow and too small” for the cruising and classic boat regattas that he had planned to do. 

He also found that the cost of Nausikaa’s maintenance was “a bit prohibitive” and so he decided to look for a boat that looked classic but was built of GRP, particularly bearing in mind that classic boat regattas are increasingly welcoming such boats. Then, towards the end of 2021 he saw a Cal 40 called Breeze – at that time owned by Robbie Boulter – advertised in Seahorse magazine. 

Cal 40s were built by the Jensen Marine Corporation in Costa Mesa, California. The company had been founded in 1954 by an engineer called Jack Jensen who began to work with the yacht designer Charles William “Bill” Lapworth. Their first collaboration was the Cal 24, a centreboard sloop, and this was followed by the Cal 30 and Cal 28. The first Cal 40s were built in 1963 and they soon established an impressive record in ocean races, including overall wins in two SORCs and three Transpac Races, and five of the first six places in their class in the 1966 Bermuda Race. “No great performer in light air,” according to the Encyclopaedia of Yacht Designers, “she was powerful in medium winds and unbeatable in heavy air downwind, owing to her ability to surf for long periods of time.” About 120 Cal 40s were built in total – “Cals were the Westerlys of the USA,” said Robbie – and amongst well known sailors who owned and raced them were Stan and Sally Honey, Ted Turner and Dennis Connor. 

The Honeys bought their Cal 40, Illusion, second-hand in 1988. They initially intended to go cruising “but old habits die hard so we mostly raced,” said Stan. They amassed an impressive series of results including setting the singlehanded Transpac record in 1994 (Stan), the Pacific Cup overall in 1996 (Stan and Sally sailing doublehanded), and 2nd in class in the 2005 Transpac (Sally with an all-female crew). “We’ve found that Illusion is a terrific boat to race shorthanded, mostly because the Cal 40 has such ‘nice manners’,” said Stan. After an intense period of racing (including racing to Hawaii five times) they eventually went cruising in 2014 and over the next few years they visited the Sea of Cortez, mainland Mexico, Central America, the Western Caribbean and Florida. In 2022, after taking part in the Newport Bermuda Race, they sold Illusion to Stan’s nephew. “We’re delighted that Illusion remains in our family,” he said. 

Breeze was built in 1967. Her first owners were Frank and Virginia Bedford who trucked her from her builders over to their home in Chesapeake; next, from 1971, came brothers Crosby and John Hitchcock who sailed her from Marblehead for 25 years; and her last American owners were John and Marianne Barsomian who kept her in South Bristol, Maine to which they had retired. 

Robbie (from Fareham in Hampshire) had first become aware of the Cal 40 when he took part in the Bermuda Race in 2006 and was impressed when one of them finished not far behind the Swan 46 on which he was sailing. A few years later he decided to look for one with a view to a purchase. After finding one in Greece (“a bit of a wreck”) and another in the USA (“I think she had fallen off her cradle”), he came across Breeze. He flew to the USA to look at her and found that “she was largely presented in original condition” and “a big plus was she had always been an east coast boat and hadn’t ‘baked’ in the Californian sun or indeed in the Mediterranean.” 

In June 2012, he purchased her. Concerns about her rudder bearings dissuaded him from sailing her across the Atlantic and so after he and two friends took her to Newport via the Cape Cod Canal, she was shipped to Sheerness and then sailed to the Hamble. 

Almost immediately, Robbie took Breeze to David Heritage in Cowes for an extensive refit (David had previously built a new Mills 37 for Robbie so they knew each other well). Work included significant upgrades to the deck equipment such as new Andersen stainless steel winches, Spinlock deck controls and clutches, Schaefer jib tracks and cars, Harken mainsail track and car, and Lewmar portlights and hatches. Furthermore, Breeze benefitted from a new Eurospars aluminium mast (with an increased height of about half a metre for IRC optimisation), boom, spinnaker pole and jockey pole; the deck and coachroof were repainted, and the worrisome rudder bearings were replaced by new Jefa needle bearings along with a new carbon rudder and stock. Four years later she had a new Beta 35hp engine and Maxprop. 

During his ownership Robbie raced Breeze occasionally including two Fastnet Races (a class win in 2013, and 6th in class in the windy 2019 race when she also won the RORC’s ‘Iolaire Block’ Trophy for being the oldest yacht to finish); third places in two other RORC races, to Dieppe and Guernsey; and a class victory and winner of the Concours d’Elegance for the Best Presented GRP Yacht at the inaugural Hamble Classics regatta in 2016. Robbie also regularly cruised her along the English south coast and visited the west coast of Ireland in 2015. 

Since retiring as a chartered accountant at the age of 57 in 2015, Phil Cotton has taken on various voluntary roles, including, for the past eight years, that of World Sailing’s audit committee chairman (“I get to meet my heroes,” he said). But with more time on his hands it clearly made sense for him to have another boat, after Nausikaa, that could be cruised as well as raced, so after he saw the Breeze advertisement in 2021, he agreed to buy her from Robbie. It wasn’t long before he realised that she “ticked all the boxes” not least because she “sails beautifully, is well balanced, and is a rocket ship downwind.”

Phil lives in Poole and so he used local company Traditional Shipwrights Services to do the maintenance work on Nausikaa, and he now takes Breeze there too. “I’m not sure if they look after many GRP boats,” said Phil, “but I think there is enough wood on her to keep them interested. They do a cracking job.” So far they have only really needed to carry out cosmetic work such as the hull paint and the brightwork, but a new Brookes & Gatehouse Zeus 3 system has also been installed. 

Phil has raced Breeze with various friends in the Round the Island race and several classic boat regattas including Cowes Spring Classics and Hamble Classics, and at some point in the future they hope to make their way further west to take part in similar events in Dartmouth, Fowey and Falmouth. At Cowes Spring Classics this year Breeze put in an inauspicious performance. After essential work on the rig in Poole took longer than expected she arrived too late to take part in either of the races on Saturday, and she retired from the Sunday morning race in a dying breeze when Phil decided that exiting the Needles Channel with a favourable tide to allow a more enjoyable return to Poole was a priority. 

But with the British Classic Yacht Club now welcoming selected GRP boats to its regatta, Breeze was back in Cowes again in July. Although her results were, again unspectacular, Phil and his crew had a great time. After breaking their spinnaker pole in the second race they received several offers of help from fellow competitors and were up and running the next day. “It was an amazing experience to be amongst such beautiful and cherished yachts both on the race course and on the dock for the various pontoon parties,” said Phil. “The racing was close and competitive but ashore there is tremendous camaraderie and support. If the BCYC continue to invite classic GRP yachts we’ll definitely be back next year.”

Stats

LOA 39ft 4”

LWL 30ft 4”

Beam 11ft

Draft 5ft 7”

Displacement 7 tonnes 

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The post Finding a Low Maintenance Classic Boat: Phil Cotton’s Cal 40 appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

The first of the big yacht replicas

In April 1903, two almost identical new yachts were launched on consecutive days: Evelyn having been built by Ramage & Ferguson in Leith, and Adela by Fay & Co in Southampton. They had been designed by WC Storey; both were of composite construction with English elm keels, 3½in (89mm)- thick yellow pine decking, and most other major components – including the 3¼in-thick (82mm) hull planking, stem, sternpost, rudder, stanchions and bulwarks – in teak; and neither had an engine. 

Adela had been commissioned by Claud Cayley – who was rear commodore of the Royal London YC and would later become vice commodore and eventually commodore – and was named after his oldest daughter. Although Adela was built primarily for cruising, Cayley regularly raced her around the coast of British Isles as well as on the continent. In 1904 she came second in a race from Kiel to Eckernforde for which she was awarded a trophy which, it is thought, was presented to Cayley by Kaiser Wilhelm II on board the 117m (382ft) imperial royal yacht Hohenzollern. While it is known that Cayley cruised Adela as far afield as Sweden, it is also possible that she visited the Mediterranean and crossed the Atlantic to Canada where Cayley had spent some of his early years.

At the end of 1913, Adela was sold to AFB Cresswell, who had little chance to use her before war broke out the following year. In 1916 she was requisitioned by the Royal Navy who used her for mine-hunting off the south coast of England, then soon after the war she was bought by Sven Hansen, a Welsh ship owner and builder. It was Hansen who had Adela’s first engine installed in her, a Bergen petrol paraffin motor.

Her next owner, from 1924, was Sir Henry Seymour King MP who made a number of changes. He renamed her Heartsease; he significantly modified her rig by reducing the sail plan from around 13,000sqft to about 9,000 for ease of handling, and converted her to a topsail schooner by adding a square sail to the foremast; he replaced her dark mahogany saloon joinery with the much lighter timber sycamore, combined with fabric panelling; a few years later he replaced the petrol paraffin engine with an 87hp Gardner diesel. He spent the remaining years of his life cruising on Heartsease, often with his niece as his companion, visiting the Mediterranean and also Norway several times.

After Seymour King died in 1933, Heartsease was bought by Viscount Eyres Monsell, the First Lord of the Admiralty. He frequently cruised between the naval ports of Plymouth and Portsmouth, and each time he departed from either port, a six-gun salute was fired from the shore; and he often arranged for a destroyer to escort Heartsease to allow messages to be relayed to and from the Admiralty. 

It was probably in 1936 that Heartsease sailed for the very last time because soon after then, Monsell sold her, and with her next four owners she was laid up in various east coast mud berths and mostly used as a houseboat, and at some point during that period her rig and ballast keel were removed. In 1971, by which time she was in Lowestoft, she was bought by Australians Wing Commander Waller and his wife. They moved on board and soon began the work which they hoped would allow them to get Heartsease back into commission, with a view to sailing her back to Australia. 

Adela Enters the Modern World

American couple George and Frayda Lindemann had owned the 92ft yawl Gitana IV – designed and built by Sangermani in Italy in 1962 – since 1987. It wasn’t long before the Lindemanns starting discussing with Gitana’s captain Steve Carson the possibility of acquiring a bigger boat. After considering various large classic yachts such as Lulworth, Mariette, Cambria and Candida, Steve heard that the Wallers had abandoned their plans for Heartsease and put her on the market, so he went to look at her. Two years later, the deal was done. Steve and the Lindemanns had formed a fruitful relationship with Pendennis Shipyard in Falmouth, where they had taken Gitana IV for a couple of refits, so in December 1992 Heartsease was towed there – with 27 air bags inside her to ensure she remained afloat – with a view to restoring her. 

However, as the dismantling of the hull progressed, it became increasingly apparent that not only was the steel framework in appalling condition and would pretty much all need replacing, very little of the teak planking would be reusable. So, amid no little controversy – much of it expressed in the pages of this magazine, perhaps in part by people who could not have been aware of the true condition of the hull – it was decided to build a new boat with an all-steel hull, incorporating as much as could be saved from the old boat. The Dutch naval architect Gerard Dykstra was asked to produce designs for the new boat which would be known as K2 during her construction.

An absolute priority for K2 was that she should have the same styling as the original boat, maintaining, in particular, the appearance of the profile, the sheer line and the deck furniture. Gerard was all too aware that he would have to allow for the weight and space of a great deal of machinery and equipment which would never have been fitted on an early-20th-century yacht but which, in the modern era, was now considered essential. So, using the original lines plan as a starting point, he gave K2 rounder bilges, a metre more beam (primarily to provide buoyancy to compensate for the machinery weight, but also for additional stability) and replaced the long keel and keel-hung rudder with a more modern fin-and-skeg profile. 

Throughout the boat, the style of the original joinery – the panelling, deck beams, overheads, even down to the detail of the pin rails, dado rails and the curved bulkhead sections in the passageway at the bottom of the stairs, was replicated. While almost all of the interior was built with new Brazilian mahogany and utile, some of the original joinery from various parts of the old boat was reused in the port aft guest cabin, although memories vary as to just how much. Fittings such as door handles and door knobs, drawer pulls, hinges and overhead glass-domed lights were replicated from original or existing items and nickel silver-plated. The 5.5m (18ft) long trail-boards each side of the bow at the sheer, and the stanchions and capping rail around the fluted stern were all saved from the original boat and reused. Thirty-five new Lewmar winches – 17 of them hydraulically powered – were fitted, along with two Muir hydraulic windlasses, and much of the deck hardware was made by Ian Terry Engineering. A Lugger 640hp diesel engine was fitted, driving a Hundested variable pitch, four-blade propellor, while other mechanical equipment included two Northern Lights generators, an HEM watermaker, Marine Air Systems air-conditioning, and Hein & Hopman refrigeration.

While acknowledging that, in an ideal world, it would have been wonderful for the original rig to be replicated on K2, Steve felt that it just wasn’t practical, at least certainly not with the 10 permanent crew planned. So it was decided that K2 would have a bermudan rig, but with masts significantly higher than those of the original. The new spars were built by Carbospars in carbon fibre, and the main mast was, at the time, easily the longest spar yet to be built in that material. The sails were supplied by North Sails UK, the upwind sails from the company’s own Gatorback Spectra-785TX cloth which had a Spectra content significantly stronger than any previously produced by the company. The 471 m2 (5,070 sft) mainsail, according to North’s own newsletter, was “one of largest triangular mainsails ever built by North, if not the largest”.

Adela on Fire

In October 1994, about a month before K2 was due to be launched, a devastating fire swept through the shed in which she was being built. While two other boats – one aluminium, the other GRP composite – were destroyed, K2’s steel hull saved her. But she was catastrophically damaged, and an enormous amount of work lay ahead to put everything right. Among other things, all of the exterior hull paint and filler had to be removed and reapplied; virtually all of the exterior timber work had to be replaced (the timber work from the original boat which had been fitted around the stern was too badly damaged to be reused, but happily the original trail-boards survived); all of the interior joinery work had to be carefully removed so that it could be refinished and also to allow replacement of the hull insulation (not least for fear of a lingering smell); and the engine and generators were sent back to the manufacturers in the USA to be thoroughly inspected to ensure the warranty conditions would be honoured. Thanks to the extraordinary hard work and positive attitude of all the Pendennis staff, as well as the support and understanding of their contractors and suppliers, somehow they managed to launch the new boat the following April. She was christened Adela and a few weeks later she was on her way to the Mediterranean.   

Sailing Once Again

This marked the beginning of an ambitious programme of world-wide cruising and racing for the Lindemanns. During their ownership Adela cruised extensively in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean as well as the Baltic, Alaska and east coast of the USA. In October 1997 she began a circumnavigation which took her from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, to San Francisco and then via various islands across the Pacific, to Darwin, Singapore and then across the Indian Ocean and via the Suez Canal back into the Mediterranean. On the race course she had her share of success in regattas throughout the Caribbean and Mediterranean, in San Francisco, New England and Cowes, and she also won line honours in the 1997 Transatlantic race from New York to the Lizard. While she didn’t easily fit into the format of classic boat regattas initially, she was at the forefront of the creation of Spirit of Tradition classes which have been included in such regattas ever since. Although a relatively casual attitude was taken to racing in the early years (for instance the tenders were left on deck, and she was often raced by barely more than the permanent crew and using just “white sails”), as time went by it was taken more seriously with increasing numbers of professional race crew and with the acquisition of specialist North 3Di racing sails, including a square top mainsail and foresail. 

Adela has returned to Pendennis Shipyard many times for refits and modifications, the biggest of which was in 2000 when she was literally cut in half to allow her length to be extended by 3.6 metres, primarily to provide better crew quarters but that did, of course, improve her sailing performance by increasing the waterline length and by separating the rigs. Other significant modifications have included two keel modifications, the second of which also incorporated a daggerboard; a retractable bow thruster to replace the tunnel thruster, and the addition of a stern thruster; and a Caterpillar 873 HP C18 engine replacing the Lugger. 

Tony Blair and Eric Clapton Come Aboard Adela

During the Lindemanns’ ownership, a number of well-known people came aboard Adela at various times. These included Tony Blair when he visited Pendennis Shipyard as the UK’s Leader of The Opposition while K2 was being constructed, Prince Philip soon after she was launched, the King of Spain and the Aga Kahn in Porto Cervo, Gianni Agnelli in Corsica, Leonardo de Caprio and some of the production crew from the Hollywood film The Beach in Phuket, Eric Clapton at the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta, and the America’s Cup sailor Dennis Connor who took Adela’s helm in several regattas. 

After 14 years as Adela’s captain, Steve retired in 2009, but his successor was an obvious choice. Greg Perkins had briefly been Gitana IV’s captain when Steve’s attention initially switched to Adela, and was then Adela’s mate for a couple of years. He took over when Steve retired and is still on board today. 

Aboard Adela in the Caribbean

In June 2018, George Lindemann died, and the following year Adela was sold to Brazilian Benjamin Steinbruch who had never previously owned a boat of any kind. Since then, he and his family and friends have spent about three months on board each year. They have continued the Lindemanns’ tradition of cruising in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean and have also spent time on the west coast of Scotland, in Northern Ireland and Norway.  

Benajmin’s first racing experience had to wait a bit longer, however. After covid scuppered plans to take part in the Antigua Superyacht Challenge in 2020, he and Adela at last did so in 2024 when I was lucky enough to be on board myself. Things didn’t initially go entirely to plan, however. On the first of two crew practice days, the racing mainsail showed signs of damage and had to be replaced by the cruising mainsail (all of the racing sails were ageing and had been spent the last five years in an inhospitably hot container in Antigua); the next day the 1,000m2 Code 4 asymmetric “big red” spinnaker was severely damage as a result of a less than perfect hoist (in fact, part of it was left in the sea and when we returned to it, a crew member had to take a swim to help retrieve it); and just before the start of the first race the No 1 jib, with no warning at all, ripped itself from leach to luff (any debate as to its repairability would have been futile). The race results weren’t too impressive either, with the might ketch Hetairos – the only other boat in our class – consistently getting the better of us. But none of that takes anything away from the fact that the whole crew – about 30 of us in total – got an enormous amount of pleasure out of the whole event; and most importantly, so did Benjamin.

For me, it was some of the most wonderful sailing of my life. And just for good measure, Adela was awarded the prestigious Gosnell Trophy which is presented to the yacht which competes “in the spirit of the regatta, both afloat and ashore”, as voted – unanimously in this case – by each competing boat and each member of the race committee.

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The post Yacht Replica that Inspired Spirit of Tradition: Adela’s Steel Rebuild appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Spirit Yachts, Ipswich

Spirit Yachts have recently announced that they have been commissioned to build a replica of a Q Class yacht called Falcon. The original boat was designed by Burgess, Swasey & Paine and built by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in 1926 and she has recently been restored in the USA. It her owner who has commissioned the new boat. Using the original lines and sail plan, the design has been updated by Dykstra Naval Architects to allow for strip planked construction and modern deck hardware and rigging systems. She will be completed in 2026 to coincide with the original boat’s centenary. 

With regard to other new-builds, a Spirit C72 (the third 72 to be completed in three years) was handed over to her owner in June, in time for her to come third in class in the company’s own regatta in Guernsey; the fifth Spirit 52 is currently being commissioned prior to her departure to Italy; and the first P50 powerboat is due for completion towards the end of next year.

This British boatyard has also been busy refitting various boats previously built there. These include two 2007 boats – the Spirit 56 Free Spirit and Spirit 52 Flight of Durgan (formerly Flight of Ufford when she was owned by company co-founder Sean McMillan) – which have now had new teak decks, using teak that was purchased prior to 2020. Free Spirit has now returned to the Mediterranean while Flight of Durgan is still at the yard and is also benefitting from a new keel and engine, interior upgrades and revarnish throughout. Fjaella, a 2020 P70 motor yacht, has recently left the yard having had a reconfiguration of the aft cabins and a superstructure respray. 

Ben Harris & Co, Gweek

In April Ben Harris and his team completed a second 23ft 1” gaff cutter to Ed Burnett’s design number 110. Following Panacea in 2019, Galateia differs in only minor ways, with a slightly longer coachroof, a lifting bowsprit for economical mooring in marinas, and a more comprehensive galley fit-out. The two boats are now based just a mile or so apart, in St Just-in-Roseland and Mylor. Ben has also been working on a couple of restorations. Galene is a Teal design built by Luke Brothers in 1935 which has now benefited from recaulking of both the hull and deck, a rebuilt coachroof, and new paint and varnish; while Phelia – a 26ft sloop similar to a Twister, designed by Kim Holman and built by Uphams in Brixham in the 1960s – has had a more comprehensive scope of work including replacement of several hull planks and deck beams, re-sheathing of the deck, an engine overhaul, renewal of some of the plumbing and electrics and new rigging. On top of this he has been maintaining the paint and varnish on the 36ft Buchanan-designed Blue Saluki as well as on three gaff cutters that he previously built: Panacea, Constance and Alva. 

Furthermore he has recently been asked to make a new mast for Saoirse, a Harrison Butler Bogle design which broke hers in the recent Falmouth Classics regatta; he is currently training an apprentice from New Zealand who, as well as helping with the yard’s main body of work, is building his own Ian Oughtred-designed Auk 7ft 8” dinghy; and due at the yard soon is San Domenica, an 18ft 1960s outboard runabout for hull repairs.

Elephant Boatyard, Bursledon

The Elephant Boatyard currently has two projects which they are working on in conjunction with their owners. Aline is a 1909 Alfred Mylne-designed gaff cutter which has recently been acquired by a New Zealand owner. This British boatyard has been doing repair work to the stem, frames and deck. She needs a fair amount of additional work and this will be shared between the owner and the yard.

Merica III is a 5-ton gaff cutter which was designed by GU Laws and built by J Jarvis in Burnham-on-Crouch in 1908. She has been out of the water for about 40 years during which time all her steamed oak ribs have been replaced along with her stem and stern post. Although her New Zealand kauri planking is in good condition, a great deal of work is now needed to get her hull watertight. That is currently the priority before the next stage of the project – a new deck and so on – is tackled, again with the owners and the yard working together. 

Also in the yard are Whispering Spirit, A Spirit 37 which is having repairs to the aft deck; and Becca, a Shearwater 45 sloop – designed by Dudley Dix and built Acheson Yachts in South Africa – which is having her teak deck refurbished and her topsides painted. 

Pendennis Shipyard, Falmouth

At the beginning of this year, the 127ft motor yacht Amazone arrived at Pendennis Shipyard. Amazone was designed and built by John I Thorneycroft in Southampton in 1936 for Commandant L Hemeleers-Shenley, a Belgian naval attaché based in London. In the early 1950s she was owned by Sidney Cotton who cruised extensively in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and used her as a base from which to negotiate oil contracts. She was later renamed Welsh Liberty and did charter work. She was probably last in commission in the early ‘90s, and from 2000 was used as a house boat on the River Seine. 

After being transported to Falmouth on a heavy lift ship, she was lifted out of the water at Pendennis so that her hull could be scanned and a lines plan produced. Her interior has now been almost stripped back to bare steel. Meanwhile the design process for a proposed restoration has been ongoing – GL Watson are producing new plans for her interior and exterior layout and styling, and Pendennis is collaborating with Lateral Naval Architects on the technical specifications – and this is expected to be completed in August. “Then the serious work will begin,” said William Collier of GL Watson.

Harbour Marine Services, Ipswich and Southwold

Harbour Marine Services have recently been carrying out a great variety of refit and restoration work at their two yards. Several of the projects involve twin screw motor yachts including Chinda, a Silver Leaf 46 designed by John Bain and built by Andersen RIgden & Perkins in Whitstable in 1946, which has had a new stem and apron, replacement of some planking and realignment of the A-brackets and shafts; a general refit and stripping or varnish on the 46ft Liseta, designed by Guthrie Penman and built by Itchenor Shipyard 1957; the 1950 McGruer 41 Jorvik which won the award for best restoration and presentation at the Thames Traditional Boat Festival following her rebuild; the 1969 Bates 45 Amoreena which has had a refurbishment of her teak deck as well as extensive paint and varnish work; replacement planking and frames on Lady Kathryn which was built by Enterprise Small Craft Company in Rock Ferry in 1929; and the 1959 Bates 40 Karinda which has had repairs to her damaged gunwale. Magyar, which was built by Saunders Shipyard in Cowes in 1939 and was rebuilt at Harbour Marine Services six years ago, is back again for refurbishment of her tanks and Beta engines, repairs to broken timbers, and painting and varnishing. 

Other current or recent projects in this British Boatyard include a complete rebuild of Grillet, a historic 36ft German naval launch built in 1932; Josephine, an Andre Hoek Truly Classic 51 which has had a new Nanni engine and drive systems, repairs to leaking chain plates and a new set of sails by One Sails; a mini refit on the Yachting World 5-tonner Dynamene; and new joinery, wiring, wheelhouse roof, tanks and systems on Tara, a 42ft Humber trading barge. 

Amongst the vessels lined up for refit work in the near future are the 1960 Bates 33 Hippocampus; the Bates 45 Sunstar; and the McGruer 42 yawl Gigi.

Suffolk Yacht Harbour, Levington

As Kim Holman was a founding director when Suffolk Yacht Harbour was built in 1967, it is poignant that the yard has become something of a “rescue centre” (as MD Josh Major puts it) for one of his iconic designs, the Stella. The third and fourth of these – Star Shell (which belonged to Kim Holman himself) and Munter, built in 1959 and 1962 respectively – are currently being redecked and having their hulls sheathed in glass and epoxy. To carry out the latter work, the boats are turned upside down, the ballast keels removed, and then West G Flex epoxy is poured between the lands, before the hull is sheathed in triaxial glass and epoxy. 

The British boatyard has also found itself specialising in restoring classic Fairey motor yachts. They have worked on five Huntsman 28s (one of which belongs to Josh himself) which have had varying amounts of work including new engines, tanks, wiring and decks as well as cosmetic paint and varnish work. Speculative work is about to begin on another Huntsman 28, Huntsman of Wight. Initially the hull and deck will be repaired and renewed as necessary to create a “blank canvas” to allow a potential owner to specify their own engines, interior and so on. 

Another project currently under way in this British Boatyard is the refit of Mouse, a 1972 Swan 43 which is having a refurbished teak deck (in which the fastening holes and seams are being deepened to allow for the wear that has taken place), new iroko toerails, new wiring and electronics and the reinstatement  of a trim tab which had previously been glassed into a fixed position. 

A & R Way, Argyll

The British boatyard, A&R’s, current major project is the restoration of Camellia of Rhu, a McGruer 8-Metre cruiser/racer built in 1959. The boat had suffered from ingress of water around the chainplates and from damage to the frames previously caused by iron floors (although these had already been replaced by bronze ones) and so about half of the frames have been replaced with new laminated ones and repairs have been caried out to almost all the others. About 70% of the planking has also been renewed along with the decks and the cockpit. A new Beta 25HP diesel engine has been installed along with new systems, and the boat is due to be relaunched in August. 

Also in the shed at the moment is Hatasoo, designed and built by William Fife III in 1894 as one of the Clyde 17/19ft class (referring to waterline and overall lengths respectively). She was highly successful, winning 100 prizes in her first three seasons. She is in very original condition but needs a lot of work, and is currently the subject of much debate as to whether she should be restored or taken to a museum, in which case it is possible that a replica may be built. 

Another boat of about 19ft, this one clinker, is Isabella is being repaired. She belongs to the Tiree Maritime Trust whose aim is to preserve boats with historical connections to the island of Tiree. And a new 12ft dinghy was recently completed for a family who own an uninhabited island near Crinan.

Due in for winter work are another 8-Metre cruiser/racer for frame repairs, and a Frans Maas 41 for some deck work.

Berthon, Lymington

Berthon has recently secured the contract to work on a third World War Two military vessel. For the last ten years the company has been carrying out annual service work on two British boats, both built by the British Powerboat Company: the 1936 HSL102 (a Dunkirk Little Ship) and the 1942 MGB81 (which took part in the D-Day landings). These have now been joined by an American so-called crash boat, P-619 which was built in 1943 by the Miami Shipbuilding Corporation and spent the remainder of the war serving with the USAAF in the Pacific rescuing downed (yes downed not drowned!) airmen. She had a long journey to get to Berthon, from Vancouver to Fort Lauderdale by lorry and then by ship to Southampton. After a number of structural repairs have been carried out, she is expected to remain in UK waters. 

Meanwhile work continues on Sardonyx, the 40ft sloop designed by Fred Parker and built by AH Moody & Sons in 1958. Almost 50% of the planking has been renewed in iroko; all the frames have been replaced with new ones in laminated oak; and the coachroof has been disassembled to allow renewal of deck beams and refastening of the carlines. The work is expected to be completed by the end of the year. 

This plethora of traditional work has a downside in that progress on the West Solent One Design Ripple, which was built at the yard in 1926, has come to a temporary halt. Her restoration began in 2012 and has been used as a training programme for the yard’s apprentices at various times, and will be again as soon as time allows. 

David Heritage Racing Yachts, Cowes

David Heritage and his team specialise in small keelboats, both GRP and timber. They have built 70 Etchells 22s and 10 Victorys, all in GRP and have restored a number of timber XODs. A couple of years ago the company completed the restoration of the Dragon Bluebottle which was built by Camper & Nicholsons in 1947 as a wedding present from the members of Island Sailing Club to the then Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip. The work involved temporary removal of all the planking, renewal of many of the frames, wood keel and deck, and a new rig. Soon after her restoration she came very close to winning the Edinburgh Cup (the class’s UK national championship) and she recently won the French Dragon championships 75 years after doing so the first time. 

The company has also recently restored another royal yacht, the Flying Fifteen Coweslip which is now a visitor attraction along with Britannia in Edinburgh. 

Another restoration recently completed was to the 1926 West Solent One Design Harlequin. This is David’s own boat so he did most of the work himself in evenings and weekend over a period of about six years. The bottom four planks and all the frames and timbers were renewed, along with the stern post, outer stem, beam shelf and deck. With David at the helm, Harlequin was the overall winner at the Cowes Spring Classics regatta in May, and at the BCYC regatta in July she was the overall winner of the “Je Ne Sais Quoi” prize as voted by all other other competitors. 

The company is currently restoring a Fairey Huntsman which is structurally sound, but will benefit from a great deal of TLC. 

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The post Boatbuilding in Britain: Guide to Great British Boatyards appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.