Spirit at Speed

It wasn’t the first time I’d ridden on a speedboat at over 20 knots. As a yachting journalist, I’ve spent untold hours in RIBs chasing classic yachts around the course at regattas from Ajaccio to Langkawi. It’s at once exhilarating, often uncomfortable and occasionally scary. So when I was invited to ride on board the new electric foiler (Spirit 35 F) from Spirit Yachts, with its top speed of 32 knots, I was quite prepared for a thrilling white-knuckle ride across the Solent. After all, just a few days before she had beaten the speed record for an electric boat going around the Isle of Wight, slashing four hours off the previous record holder by completing the 51-mile course in just 1 hour 56 minutes. I had butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it.

What I got was actually surprisingly sedate. For a start, the 35ft Spirit foiler looks every bit like a vintage speedboat from the 1920s, with its long, pointy bow, its slipper launch-style stern, and its curvaceous hull and deck – all varnished to stunning effect. Inside the boat, the cockpit is luxuriously fitted out with cream upholstery, varnished trim and retro-looking analogue instruments. It’s also unnervingly quiet. There’s no deafening roar or clouds of smoke as we leave the dock; just the quiet whirr of an electric motor. 

Once out on the Medina River, the boat gathers speed, rises 3ft in the air and flies off across the Solent at over 20 knots. Sure, the water is rushing past in a blur, the wind fussing our hair, the hull vibrating and twitching slightly as the ‘flight control’ adjusts the angle of the boat to the shape of the waves. But aside from that, it’s smooth, comfortable and really quite unremarkable. The question that keeps popping into my head is: why aren’t all motor boats like this? The answer might have something to do with the boat’s £1.8m (ex VAT) price tag, but once the development costs have been recouped and boats like this can be produced at a reasonable cost, there’s no doubt in my mind that the majority of speed boats in the future will be just this: electric foilers. It just makes so much sense.

Sean McMillan & Spirit 35 (F)

Back at the Spirit Yacht offices, the boat’s designer (and company founder) Sean McMillan shows me a photo that makes the point succinctly, the way only a photo can: the new foiler is powering across Lake Como in Italy alongside a replica of her aesthetic inspiration, the 1920s runabout Baby Bootlegger. The photo shows the huge wash left behind by Baby Bootlegger, which is fitted with a traditional petrol engine and propeller drive, while the electric foiler leaves no wake at all. You don’t ned to be a naval architect to understand that it requires a huge expenditure of energy to create all that wash, while the electric foiler requires a fraction of the power. I later find out the actual figure is 15%: ie the foiler consumes 15% as much energy as a conventional speedboat going at the same speed. 

But perhaps the most important point about the Spirit 35 (F) is that it overturns all our preconceived ideas about electric boats. For decades, electric boats have struggled to provide the kind of performance most sailors really need, generally offering a range of 50 miles or so, at around 5 or 6 knots. That’s fine for pottering around inland waters but not nearly beefy enough for coastal passages. Technology has improved, but you still have to choose between speed and range. For example, the Optima e10 offers the best range, an impressive 200 miles, but at a measly 6 knots. The nearest equivalent to the Spirit 35EF is the all-carbon fibre Candela C8 foiler, which blasts along at 24 knots, but for a mere 51 miles. 

By contrast, the Spirit foiler will cruise at 20 knots for 100 miles on a single charge. That’s the distance from Cowes to Cherbourg (easily) or Dartmouth to Jersey (just), which suddenly sounds a whole lot more interesting. At a stroke, the Spirit foiler makes electric propulsion a seriously viable option. Not only that, but it does so while looking supremely classy. Only the Riva-style Boesch 750 comes near it for aesthetic appeal, and that only offers a range of 14 miles at 20 knots.

So, how did they do it? How did the builders of lightweight ‘modern classic’ sailboats (with a few displacement and semi- displacement motor boats thrown in for good measure) come to produce the best-performing electric boat currently on the market?

The idea for the Spirit 35 (F) came from one of the company’s most loyal customers: the man who loved his Spirit 52 so much that he commissioned an even bigger one: the 111ft Geist, the biggest boat built by the yard to date. The owner wanted a chase boat that was in keeping with the retro style of his sailing boats, was electric-powered (like his 111-footer), and yet would provide a fun, fast ride for all the family. It was a challenge that Sean took on with enthusiasm. After all, this is the man who has made a career out of designing ultra-lightweight sailing boats that look classic above the water while clocking up remarkable turns of speed. It was just a matter of applying this “visual joke” to a motor launch. 

Wood might not seem the obvious choice to build a lightweight hull, but Spirit Yachts are adept at doing just that. As Sean put it: “It was a slightly more extreme version of what we do on a daily basis.” Indeed, the yard used much the same approach as it does on all its boats, starting with a layer of 12mm douglas fir planking. The hull sides and deck were then stiffened with “judicious” use of carbon fibre, before being covered in a 6mm layer of sipo veneers, and then varnished to great effect. The bottom of the boat, which would be subject to the most pounding, was strengthened with a layer of hemp saturated in epoxy on the outside, and a layer of carbon fibre on the inside.

“The carbon fibre is there mainly just to stiffen the timber,” says Sean. “We find that if we take the timber scantlings down to where they’re absolutely strong enough, they then get a little too flexible, so we sandwich them with a little bit of carbon to stiffen everything.”

The finished bare hull of the Spirit 35, without any of the propulsion system or fit-out, weighed just 595kg.

Ben Ainslie Racing (BAR) Technologies

But, while Spirit Yachts had plenty of expertise building beautiful lightweight hulls, they weren’t so well qualified in the mechanics of how to make a boat fly. For that, they teamed up with BAR Technologies, the company created by Ben Ainslie for his America’s Cup bid in 2017 (BAR is an acronym for Ben Ainslie Racing). Thanks to this alchemy, the project benefitted instantly from years of research and development, which gave it a huge head start. And there’s little doubt that foiling was key to the project’s success.

“Foiling inherently reduces your engine requirements massively,” says Simon Schofield, chief technology officer at BAR Technologies. “Once the boat is up and flying, the engine requirements is about 85% less than a similar boat going at the same speed without foils. And getting there is not as hard as you might think. We use about same energy at take-off as we do at 30 knots foiling.”

Unlike a planing hull, which requires a large amount of energy to get it on the plane in the first place, it doesn’t take much effort to get a foiler to fly, providing the hull is at the correct ‘angle of attack’ (a phrase that comes up a lot when you’re talking about foilers). The other key factor is weight – especially on an electric boat.

“Batteries have very limited power so the challenge is getting range,” says Simon. “You can quickly get yourself into a negative spiral where you end up making something less efficient, which means need more batteries, which means it gets heavier. It’s a compounding problem. You’ve got to get that design spiral going in a positive direction and making things more efficient which means you get lighter so you can reduce batteries.”

To achieve that ”positive spiral”, BAR designed a stepped underwater hull optimised for foiling. Thus, while the above-water shape designed by Sean might be redolent of another era, the underwater shape is “as modern as you can get”, according to Simon. 

To make it fly, the Spirit 35 (F) has three retractable foils, all made from titanium. A T-foil rudder aft controls the pitch and yaw (or ‘angle of attack’) while the two forward foils are joined by a fixed bar with trim tabs at either end to control the roll. An ultra-compact 80kW electric motor, made by the pioneering British electrics company Equipmake, is imbedded in the bottom of the rudder to maximise drive. That in turn is powered by a custom-made 120kW battery pack. 

The whole emphasis is on keeping things compact, light and ultra-efficient to provide the maximum output for the least weight. The boat’s finished displacement, including coolbox and waterski attachment, comes to 2.4 tonnes – not bad for a 35-footer. 

But getting the Spirit 35 to fly is one thing; controlling it while it’s up is the really tricky bit.

“A boat that’s foiling is inherently unstable. It’s like an upside-down pendulum,” says Simon. “It’s like balancing a broom on your finger and you have to keep moving your hand to keep the broom up. That’s effectively what we have to do the whole time to make the boat fly. It doesn’t want to fly; it wants to fall over because the centre of gravity is all the way up in the air.”

To stop the boat ‘falling over’, BAR have developed a flight control system – its so-called Foil Optimization and Stability System (FOSS) – which can read the state of the sea and adjust the foils accordingly. Although this isn’t allowed in the America’s Cup, where the foils have to be controlled by the crew, the technology was originally developed for the British America’s Cup campaign for simulation and testing purposes.

The Spirit 35 (F) is fitted with five sensors, which determine how high the hull is off the water, as well some monitoring equipment to calculate the boat’s inertia and acceleration. Between those sensors, the on-board computer develops a mathematical picture of what the boat is doing and what the sea surface is doing around it. From that information, it adjusts the foils to correct for roll and pitch movements according to the size of the waves. If it’s just a bit of chop, it just skips pass them, but if it’s a longer wave it will follow it.

What’s more, all that clever technology means that there’s only one control more than there would be on a non-foiling powerboat: the up and down lever. The rest is all done by the BAR program. Choosing how high to fly is a matter of judgement which is left to the driver.

“It’s a trade-off between efficiency and manoeuvrability,” says Simon. “The higher you fly, the less foil there is in the water so there’s less drag. But, if there are waves and you’re turning sharply, you’ve got less margin before that foil starts reaching the surface. So if it’s rougher or you’re doing lots of aggressive turning, you tend to fly a little deeper in the water. If it’s silky calm and you are going in a straight line, you can fly higher and minimise drag.”

An unexpected development when they were testing the Spirit 35 prototype was the discovery of what they call ‘skimming mode’. In really rough conditions (usually above a Force 6) when it’s too uncomfortable to fly, the foils are used to ‘lighten’ the boat, reducing its displacement to a minimum without actually rising out of the water. Thus the boat remains in displacement mode but just skims from crest to crest, without absorbing the full brunt of the waves.

Only once, right at the very beginning, when Simon accidentally tried to turn the boat too sharply, the system simply refused and dumped us back at sea level, before resuming what it considered a safe trajectory. As ever, human error is more likely to get you into trouble than the machine itself, something Simon is acutely aware of.

“This project was technically more complicated than an America’s Cup boats,” he says. “The flight control system is much more developed. The America’s Cup boats are driven by experts who know what they are getting into. If something goes wrong, they have engineers around to fix it. But this boat is being driven by general public, and you’ve got to keep them safe, so there are layers of safety added in.”

Despite the boisterous sea conditions, the prototype Sprit 35 (F) Moquai was in full flying mode when she set a new round-the-Isle-of-Wight record, yet she still proved more comfortable than the RIBs trying to keep up with her, which had to retire in ignominy. The main difference for this run was that the aft part of the cockpit was covered over with purpose-made wooden cowlings, to turn her into a two-person ‘spider’ mode. In family mode, the cowlings turn into seats and a table with seating for six people, thanks to some typical McMillan design ingenuity. 

It might seem a pointless exercise – or deliberately contrary – to build a boat with such a modern provenance out of wood, but Simon reckons it only added 15-20 per cent extra weight, something their highly-developed foiling system could accommodate quite easily. Certainly her owner would have it no other way, and nor would Sean. Not surprisingly, however, BAR Technologies are developing the idea for a more mainstream clientele, with a carbon composite hull, which will no doubt fly even faster. They are also applying the technology to commercial projects, such as a flying catamaran which will be used to service wind turbines in the North Sea. 

For make no mistake about it, the Spirit 35 F represents a quantum shift in the potential of electric boats – something which will eventually before the norm. The future starts here.

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The post Spirit Yachts New Electric Foiler: Ben Ainslie’s Tech in Spirit 35(F) appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

After my keelboat ownership began with a timber Nordic Folkboat in 1998, it was probably at the back of my mind for most of the next twenty years that I might have a Contessa 32 one day. Sure enough, when it came to it I didn’t consider anything else and I went to look at six of them. The most expensive of these was the 1990 Dart Dash which initially I told myself not to view as the asking price was above the budget I had set. As soon as I saw her, however, I knew she was the one so I bought her and renamed her Songbird. I haven’t had a moment’s regret since.  

Jeremy Rogers and the history of the Contessa 32

It was in 1971 that Jeremy Rogers started building the Contessa 32 which he had designed in collaboration with David Sadler. It proved so popular that at one stage the company was employing about 200 people and was producing two boats every week in five different factories in the Lymington area. But in the early ‘80s, the company found itself the casualty of a recession and went into receivership. That was when Mike Slack acquired the moulds and over the next few years built about twenty-five 32s in Lowestoft, including Dart Dash. In 1996, Jeremy bought back the moulds and went back into production, but this time on a more modest scale.  When he retired in 2012, his son Kit took over as managing director and began to run the company with his wife Jessie. The company has now built a total of about 650 Contessa 32s, and nowadays typically produces just one a year, each of them effectively custom built.

Kit and Jessie also have a Contessa 32 of their own, the 1972 Assent which was owned for many years by Willie Ker who took her on some extraordinarily adventurous voyages, and which was the only finisher in her class in the notorious 1979 Fastnet Race. While Assent is now often used for cruising, she also regularly races in the Solent area including Cowes Week (where the class has its own start), the Round the Island Race (which normally attracts more than thirty 32s) and, in 2023, the inaugural all-Contessa regatta for Contessas of all sizes. Furthermore, in 2019 she completed the Fastnet Race again, this time with Kit, his brother Simon and their two eldest children on board. 

A day out sailing on this one-design cruiser-racer

It was Kit and Jessie who took me sailing one glorious day in August on Gina, a red-topsides 32 which had been completed just a few weeks earlier. Gina was built for a highly experienced 80 year-old owner who was planning to sail singlehanded to Ushaia, the world’s southern-most city. There he will meet up with his son so that the two of them can sail westwards through the Beagle Channel, and then around Cape Horn (but from and to 52 degrees latitude, a distance of more than 3,000 miles, so they can qualify for membership of the International Association of Cape Horners).  

We met up on a glorious day in August at Gosport’s Royal Clarence Marina where Gina was moored. One of the first things we discussed was timber, specifically in the light of the extreme difficulties in acquiring teak these days. Myanmar (formerly Burma) has traditionally been the source of the best quality teak, but it is now illegal for it to be imported into Europe, although some less reputable companies are finding dubious ways around that. “You have got to be careful,” said Jessie, “but finding a good alternative is not easy and is an ongoing project for us.” So whereas the capping rails  and cockpit seats on Songbird (and, presumably, the vast majority of her sisterships) are teak, Gina’s are made from thermally treated maple. It is much harder than teak but doesn’t bend particularly well so, having tried unsuccessfully to steam the capping rails to cope with the transverse bend, they were laminated.

Left scrubbed the appearance is similar to that of teak which has been exposed to UV light for a while, and Kit told me that if it is varnished it appears “slightly darker than teak, more like mahogany”. The company has previously tried Kebony, another maple but differently modified and now no longer available; plantation teak, such as Java teak supplied by Sykes Timber, which is not as hard as Myanmar teak and only available in shorter lengths; and plastic, such as Flexiteek, which has works well in some cases like decking, but is not so good for capping rails and larger sections.

Kit started the engine – a 3-cylinder Beta 25HP diesel driving a three-bladed Darglow Featherstream propellor – and we set off from the marina and motored out through the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, hoisting the mainsail along the way. When we were lining up with the Swashway we turned to starboard, unfurled the headsail, turned the engine off and began sailing out into the Solent in a gentle south-easterly breeze. 

Soon after I bought Songbird,  someone said to me: “they are rather wet boats, aren’t they?” to which I replied “I dare say, but unlike the very wet boat I have had for twenty years, she has a sprayhood.” I mention that to Kit and Jessie and they expressed frustration that the 32s seem to have such a reputation, and I agreed wholeheartedly. I always leave Songbird’s sprayhood up when she is on her mooring to prevent rain water collecting in its folds, but I always put it down before casting off, mostly for better visibility when manoeuvring through the crowded Percuil River where I keep her. But the number of times that I have really found it necessary to put it up again when under way is probably still in single figures. And then I have found the tiller position so far forward in the cockpit to be a great advantage as it is possible to steer while sheltering under the sprayhood. Kit then talked about racing Assent two-handed with his brother Simon. “He is very competitive, and the first time he insisted that everything unnecessary, including the sprayhood, should be taken off the boat. We then had a very wet upwind leg when we both got very cold and miserable, and since then has has insisted that the sprayhood is left on!”

For many years Sanders Sails of Lymington has been the Contessa sailmaker of choice (“we wouldn’t want to use anyone else!” said Kit). I was keen to benefit from that invaluable  knowledge when I ordered a new headsail a couple of years ago. Songbird came with two Sanders headsails, both very tired, one that seemed too big (and with a low clew which gave poor visibility) and one too small. The new one is an excellent compromise which, as it happens, is pretty much exactly the same as Gina’s. Although we didn’t have time to try it, Gina also has an asymmetric spinnaker which is set on a top-down furler, a considerable improvement, by all accounts, on an old fashioned snuffer which is what Songbird has. 

Gina’s high quality deck and rig equipment include Selden aluminium spars, Harken blocks, Spinlock clutches (halyards and reef lines are led back to the cockpit) and Andersen self-tailing winches which are gratifyingly more powerful than Songbird’s smaller Lewmar winches. She also has a Quick electric windlass which was of particular interest to me as I plan to fit one, or similar, this winter (geometrically it doesn’t look as difficult as I had imagined). 

It was, of course, no surprise to find that Gina’s sailing performance is every bit as delightful as Songbird’s, the only real difference being that sitting on Gina’s coaming between the primary and secondary winches is significantly more comfortable in the absence of Songbird’s redundant cleats which I have so far failed to remove!

Contessa 32 Interior – Gina

Down below, Gina’s layout is almost exactly the same as Songbird’s and every other Contessa 32, but I did notice some improvements in the detail. In Songbird’s heads there is a GRP moulding which incorporates a small basin which I find virtually unusable, whereas Gina has a more practical basin which slides inboard from its stowed position below an outboard cupboard. Other improvements include more accessible heads and engine inlet seacocks, a clever bottle storage in the saloon table (designed by Jeremy himself), and a rounded chart table corner for easier access to the quarter berth. Rogers’ Contessas have always had stainless steel fuel tanks which were originally about 35 litres (about the size of Songbird’s plastic tank) and while the standard tank is now 55 litres, Gina’s is about 85 litres. Until about 25 years ago water tanks were GRP and built into the keel, and they are now stainless steel. 

Back in the day the favoured timber species for the interiors of Contessas (and many other makes of production boats) was teak. But here the current supply difficulties aren’t really an issue as durability is not as important and there are plenty of other species which more than suffice. While other recent Contessas have been fitted out with American walnut, maple and painted white joinery, Gina’s is cherry; the traditional teak and holly cabin sole has been superseded by maple, with the dark planks treated and the white stripes untreated; and the Corian galley worktop makes Songbird’s Formica seem somewhat dated.

In the early days of GRP boatbuilding, caution and lack of knowledge led most boatbuilding companies to produce lay-ups which were much thicker than they need have been, but that was not so much the case with Contessas, not least because Jeremy was a highly competitive racing sailor. “There was a proper laminating schedule which was thoroughly thought through,” said Kit, “and it’s the same one we use today which means that vintage Contessa 32s can still race competitively and fairly with new builds.” 

Jeremy Rogers today and beyond

In 2009, the company moved from a land-locked site in Milford-on-Sea to Lymington Yacht Haven. Up until then, small refit work was out of the question as the cost of moving boats from the sea to the factory was proportionally too high. But now the convenience of the Haven’s 60 tonne travelift is proving invaluable, and allows refits of any magnitude to be undertaken. Although the company is happy to refit other types of boats, major restorations on Contessas (including 26s, of which about 400 were built between the mid-‘60s and the mid-‘70s) are providing regular bread-and-butter work. The company typically carries out two or three of these each year, with Contessa 32 owners spending anything between £100,000 and £250,000. “The jobs lists tend to get longer when owners come into the yard and see what we are doing to other boats, and decide they should have that too,” said Kit. “And when they are finished, people often think they are new boats. But if anything they are better than new as the Awlgrip paint systems we use for the hull and deck have much better depth than gel coat.” 

But what of a new boat? The base price for a “standard” sail-away boat but with no electronics is £350,000 plus VAT and Kit told me that typically customers spend anything from £40,000 to £80,000 on extras. “We know it is a huge amount of money for a 32ft boat,” said Kit, “but it is a huge amount of work and we have to stay in business.” There are, of course, plenty of 32ft boats with much more internal room than the Contessa, but it has to be said that they don’t look as good or sail as well. For those discerning owners who are happy with such a compromise, there is clearly still a demand. And just to prove that, the company is just in the process of starting to build yet another. 

For more info on the Contessa 32 and Jeremy Rogers, visit their website.

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In fact, Tara still sails a Laser and remains seduced by the feeling of speed and immediacy that this classic one-man planing dinghy provides. Tara might be best-known for the family boat – the 247ft (75.3m), 1929-built Talitha, one of the biggest classic motor yachts in the world – and his more recent restoration of Malcolm Campbell’s 100ft (30.5m) motor yacht Blue Bird of 1938, but for his third project, it was time to return to his true passion of sailing.

Tara was not after a really big yacht this time, but something big enough for family cruising and racing in the Mediterranean regattas. After growing to admire the inboard yawls of Olin Stephens, particularly Stormy Weather, he found himself owner of Skylark at the tail end of 2010. The legend of the inboard yawls began with Dorade of course, in 1930, when she was launched to the design of the then 23-year-old Olin, who helmed her to victory the next year in the Transatlantic Race, followed by victory in two Fastnets and probably more ocean races than any other yacht in history. 

“Despite her triumphs, Olin Stephens immediately realised Dorade’s radical narrow beam needed some adjustment [she is said to roll horribly in a following sea],” writes Brendan Abbott, current chief designer at Sparkman & Stephens. “The next inboard yawl, Stormy Weather in 1934, solved the issue, and was equally illustrious, winning a transatlantic and Fastnet of her own, as well as the Miami-Nassau – five years in a row.” 

Before the outbreak of war, there followed Edlu, Santana, Avanti, Sonny, Zeerend, Atalanta, Blitzen and, of course, Skylark all, with some subtle changes, to the hull form of Stormy Weather. “When comparing hull lines to Stormy Weather, Skylark’s aft sections are slightly flatter and her forward sections are slightly fuller above the waterline. Below the waterline, the forward sections are finer and the aft sections are fuller. The result is a slight aft shift in centre of buoyancy, likely to offset engine weight. Skylark is most notably similar to Avanti and Blitzen with respect to hull shape. The most significant observation regards her general size. She is a hair smaller in all respects than the other designs in her league.”

S&S LINEAGE

These days, the S&S inboard yawls, whose lineage continued long after the war, are one of the most numerous of the classic yacht types seen at the smarter regattas: Dorade, Stormy Weather, Manitou, Argyll, Blitzen and many, many others now form a recognisable cadre at nearly any classic yacht regatta and even, these days, at ocean races, like the Newport Bermuda of 2013, which Dorade won overall, and the last Fastnet, in which Dorade and Stormy Weather placed very well indeed. Skylark was built in 1937, in the heyday of the inboard yawl story, at FF Pendleton in Wiscasset, Maine, of oak, teak, mahogany and bronze.

She was built for Judge Lawrence B Dunham who named the boat Vryling II after his wife and campaigned her modestly on the East Coast and Great Lakes, but it was after the war that her career really took off, when she was bought by Don Ayers and taken to southern California. Here she took on a breathless schedule of racing and cruising that would continue for 30 years. During that time she sailed in four Transpacs in which she took a third in class and sixth overall, at least three Ensenada Races in which she took two firsts, and many other races. In terms of cruising, she made a voyage to Hawaii and, in the early 70s, a San Francisco to San Francisco circumnavigation, a voyage in which she withstood two hurricanes and half-a-dozen gales. 

“A well-built wooden yacht can carry on sailing for an amazingly long time without getting major structural repairs,” writes J-Class restorer Elizabeth Meyer. “As long as they are constantly sailing, they seem to hold together. If they stop sailing, disaster can set in fast.” 

By 1982, Skylark’s 35-year career on the west coast had ended and she found herself in Elizabeth’s unvoiced second category, baking in the still heat of a Floridian canal, abandoned clothing and food rotting in her cabin. She didn’t have to wait long for a saviour, who arrived in the form of Thomas Reese, who got her sailing again, and owned her for the next 21 years. During that time, he “devoted an immense amount of time and care to Skylark”, writes Elizabeth.

Amid this work was the sistering of her frames and glassing the hull. “Although this allowed Reese to sail and enjoy Skylark, putting GRP over a punky wooden hull most often results in the complete destruction of the yacht,” continues Elizabeth. Instead, she was rescued again, this time in 2003.

THE BIG RESTORATION

Brian McKenna trucked her to Rhode Island, and undertook the long, complicated and expensive process of a proper, full restoration at Loughborough Marine Interests. “I want to go on record here about what this means,” says Elizabeth. “In order to qualify as a restoration, a yacht must not be dismantled into separate component parts. The boat herself must be there, stem to stern, keelson to sheerstrake, all the way through the restoration. In sections, much, or even all of the hull material will be repaired or replaced, but this must be done piecemeal. The yacht, three-dimensional and recognisable as herself, must be there in the shop.” And that’s exactly how Bob Loughborough’s team at LMI did it, in around 15,000 man hours over three-and-a-half years. After removing the cabin trunks, deck planking and ballast, the hull was cajoled back into shape. With most of the old planks, frames and deck beams still in place, her centreline was repaired, and new frames, a few pairs at a time to preserve shape, were put in, and new stringers, shelf and clamps were installed. Only after all that work was the hull planking replaced and the original interior reinstalled.  

Part of Elizabeth’s reason for asserting that this is the only way to restore a yacht is that it preserves the shape of the original, which was not always true to the lines plan, making that an unreliable source of identity. “It was on the loft floor that the lines of a classic yacht were finally faired and that tricky interface of transom and hull finally worked out,” she says. The other, secondary reason, is to do with continuity of identity. 

After all this, by 2006, the money had run dry and Brian put her on the market, where she was found by the fourth owner, Joe Dockery, who had the job completed nearby at East Passage Boatwrights. He had already had Sonny, another well-known S&S inboard yawl, restored there, and when he re-launched Skylark in 2010, he campaigned both yachts for the summer season! That autumn, fifth and present owner Tara Getty bought her and had her shipped home to the Med in May 2011, in time to bed in for the hometown regatta in October – Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez, no less.

“We have a really strong crew, yet none of us is professional: friends, friends of friends and my family,” says Tara. “I don’t want to do a full professional thing. It’s not what we’re gunning for.” That first regatta was a success in terms of enjoyment, though not in sailing results, getting off to a great start – but in the wrong class! Skipper Tony Morse later said: “I don’t know who was more scared – Tara or me!”

Team Skylark’s next date was a duel against comedian Griff Rhys Jones aboard his own S&S yawl Argyll, in a new occasional challenge devised by Tara called the Blue Bird Cup, an art deco silver trophy for the quicker S&S yawl in a duel. Victory on this occasion went to Griff, but Skylark went on to win in class and overall at Régates Impériales in Corsica, one of Tara’s favourite corners of the world, the next year. “I helmed the whole thing and it was the first time I’d ever won anything,” says Tara, the boy who started in a dinghy. Skylark has been campaigning, racing and family cruising since then, often with Blue Bird of 1938 in tow, the two boats built only a year apart creating a pleasing sight together when cruising in company or moored together quayside at regattas.

INTERIOR DESIGN

During that time, Tara and wife Jessica have reverted the interior to that of a proper cruising yacht. “Joe Dockery had made it into more of a day racer,” says Tara. “I wanted to convert the boat to a proper cruising boat – proper bathroom, galley, comfortable mattresses, hot shower, electric windlass, all that sort of stuff – which actually meant returning it more to its original configuration.” 

The existing heads, galley and small crew cabin were revamped without needing structural alteration, and on deck, the new racing tiller was replaced with wheel steering, as she had originally. “We have preserved her little fireplace and kept most of the original fittings,” says Jessica. “A lot of white tongue and groove and lots of beautiful highly polished Honduras mahogany. We wanted to work with that to keep her age-appropriate and to keep her East Coast heritage in mind.”

 These days, Tara is stepping up in size a bit, as what he most enjoys is cruising with a sizeable coterie of family and friends. “I love Skylark, but she’s quite small for the complement, and slow under power – about 6.5 knots. The crew complain she can’t hold enough water! And that the bunks could be more comfortable!” 

The solution is another S&S yawl that Tara first saw while looking for Skylark, a yacht that had an unrealistic price tag for her condition when he first saw her. That yacht is Baruna, at 72ft (22m) one of the largest S&S inboard yawls. She’s now being restored at Robbe and Berking in Flensburg, Germany, as reported in Yard News (CB350). Baruna won’t be ready for two years, so there are still some good times ahead to enjoy on Skylark.

Selling Skylark is not going to be easy, so Tara’s in no hurry. And he’ll surely be keeping Skylark’s tender, a 14ft (4.3m) Iain Oughtred-designed Tammie Norrie clinker sailing and rowing tender. “I absolutely love that boat,” he enthuses. “It’ll take four of us fishing all day long.” Early memories of small-boat sailing never leave you, however ‘well boated’ you might find yourself in this life.

This article has been abridged from the book Skylark 1937 edited by Kos Evans and Chris Savage

The post S&S yawl Skylark appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

It is hard to think of another boat so indelibly linked to its designer as Maurice Griffiths is to his Eventide. It was not his only significant design, as the later and larger Waterwitch and Golden Hind, both based on the Eventide, would demonstrate but, alongside his famous books like Magic of the Swatchways and his four-decade-long editorship at Yachting Monthly, during which he played a huge role in the democratisation of yacht sailing in Britain, it is the Eventide that most will remember Griffiths by. It was by some margin his most popular design and is today strongly emblematic of a particular attitude and a particular era; the home-build boom of the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

Griffiths started work on the design for the Eventide in 1956 and a 1:12 model was shown at the London Boat Show the following year. In this, its original and purest iteration, it was a 24ft, shoal-draught, bermudan cutter yacht, with decent accommodation for four. Its single-chine, vee-bottom hull form would make it a relatively easy proposition for amateur home-builders, which was the intention. These days, very few amateurs will take on the build of a yacht this size, and even then, Griffiths thought a 19-footer more realistic, in line with other popular home-builds of the time, like the Yachting Monthly Senior and the Silhouette, both micro-cruisers around 16ft (4.9m) and both hugely popular. Griffiths’ first idea was for a 19-footer, then a 21, but his colleagues at Yachting Monthly persuaded him to go to 23 then 24. As it turned out, this was still not enough, with many builders stretching the design, leading Griffiths to draw the Eventide 26 in 1963, after which both were available.

The 1970s was the Eventide’s heyday. It must have then seemed as though every back garden or garage near the sea had one in build. This was a nation that, although comfortably within living memory, sounds foreign now; a place of Seagull outboards, Mirror dinghies and practical men comfortable wielding a chisel. GRP yachts like the new Westerly Centaur were seen as expensive and exotic. It was, in fact, an era closer to the adventures of the Walkers and Blacketts than to the world today, and in that benign crucible, around 1,000 were built, mostly in back gardens. Very few – maybe 50 – were built professionally.

Hulls were in traditional carvel, plywood or strip-planking, a few are glass, and there is a popular Dutch variant in steel called the Kasteloo. But most are in ply. The rig, as specified, is bermudan cutter, but some are gaff, a few junk. Engine is usually an inboard diesel – 8hp will suffice for the 24, while the 26 will need 12hp for anything more than marina use.

There is huge variation in style in the Eventide fleet. Maurice Griffiths himself said that the design could be stretched by up to 10 per cent without loss of integrity, and owners have taken similar liberties with the accommodation, making the range of available Eventides bewildering. The stepped sheer, raised deck and distinctive cabin trunk do, however, make them unmistakable, as well as providing unheard of interior space in a design of the size and era. Expect a proper four-berth layout and up to 5ft 8in (1.7m) of standing headroom below decks.

Under sail, the Eventide was originally unweatherly and underballasted, as proved by the voyage of Bora Bee, a Singapore-built Eventide that sailed for England in 1959 with the then-specified ballast of 590lb (267lb)  and a great quantity of tinned food. The boat became increasingly unstable as the crew ate their way through their supplies. The ballast was subsequently increased to 800lb, then 1,000. These days, 2,000 is considered about right which, along with the usual modern refinements internally, add about 5in (125mm) to the draught and a smidge to the waterline. Other common modifications these days include a slightly deeper and/or longer stub keel for better windward performance, an extra 5in of length in the hull, bowsprit (to reduce the tendency to excessive weather helm), and the steel bilge keels moved aft a station (for the same reason).

These days, a well-sorted Eventide offers an inherently stable, shoal-draught yacht whose 20⁰ deadrise vee hull (and that extra ballast!) make for a yacht that can cross oceans even better than Bora Bee demonstrated. Recently, our featured owner John Williams sailed his E26 Fiddler’s Green around Britain and it’s worth noting that the Eventides’ successor – the Golden Hind – is thought to hold the record for the most transatlantic crossings of any class. There aren’t many other yachts that will suit creek-crawling and blue-water sailing with accommodation for the whole family that can be had for less than £3,000. There is a caveat of course, which applies to any home-built class of boat where quality is so variable, so as always, the advice is to get a survey before buying. The upside is the possibility of a real bargain.

In many ways, the Eventide is the Morris Minor of English yachts and holds as firm a tenure on sailors as ‘the moggie’ does over motorists. The Eventide Owners’ Group, whose website started in 1992, is very active and will sell you a set of plans to build a new one, if you are brave enough, for £5.50 inc P&P. Otherwise, there are plenty of used examples around, so you should be able to get just what you are after.

ONE OWNER’S VIEW

“Think of the Eventide as the sort of boat you can make to be what you need, either a shoestring boat for day sails or, as I chose, a modern wood epoxy composite yacht, fully kitted out for serious sailing, as well as comfortable day sails. She is sea kindly and steady under sail or motor, stands up to her canvas well and as many have noted, is no slouch. Fiddler’s Green, with 5ft 8in (1.72m) head room, has five berths, holding tank for the heads, water filter for the galley, decent cooker with oven, heater, fridge with freezer, LCD lights, decent motor (Beta 17), good, well maintained tan sails… all the mod cons. She is a boat I am proud of and I know will take me anywhere. She’s no greyhound but under sail can do over 6.5k. Cruising speed under motor is 5 knots, top speed 6.”

John Williams, owner of E26 Fiddler’s Green, president Eventide Owner’s Group

CB would like to thank John for his expertise in writing this article. See eventides.org.uk to learn more about the class

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Affordable Classics 10 – the Finesse yachts

Affordable Classics 9 – the Dauntless yachts

Affordable classics 8 – the clinker dinghy

Affordable Classics 7 – the Folkboat

Affordable Classics 6 – the SCOD

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Affordable Classic 2 – the Blackwater Sloop

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The post Affordable Classics 12 – the Eventide appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

We reported recently on the race around the Isle of Wight by nine Osprey dinghies, to mark the centenary of the birth of the boats’ designer, Ian Proctor. Proctor’s designs, not to mention his importance in the field of aluminium spars, include two of the best-known of all dinghies, the Topper and the Wayfarer, the latter being a byword for the large, multi-purpose family dinghy, while the former was the world’s first truly mass-produced boat of any sort. The Osprey is not as well known as either of those, but as a large, powerful dinghy, it fits the ‘all-rounder’ description as well as the famous Wayfarer.

The first Osprey was built in 1952 for Olympic trials to select a new, two-handed, high-performance dinghy class. In the event, The Flying Dutchman won the accolade, making its first appearance at the 1960 Olympics in Naples. Undeterred, Osprey No 1, sailed by Ian Proctor, John Oakley and Cliff Norbury, raced in the Coronation Round the Isle of Wight Race the next year and beat 200 other dinghies to take first place. The Osprey has remained popular ever since, both for cruising and racing, with a turnout of 44 boats at the UK National Championships in the summer.

The first boat was built in solid-timber clinker, with a plywood foredeck, stern deck and rolled side decks. Around this time, Bell Woodworking was developing a business supplying amateur boatbuilders with plywood kits to build chined boats – everything from rowing dinghies to small motor cruisers. The company thought there might be a market for something larger and faster than the GP14, which it also offered at the time, and the Osprey fitted the bill. The production Osprey – the
Mark II – became available in 1956, with the clinker hull changed to a four-plank plywood hull with broad top and garboard planks and two narrower bilge planks. The two upper planks were overlapped, giving a four-plank clinker appearance. Buoyancy tanks were built in under the foredeck, stern deck and side decks, unusual for the time, and meaning that no inflatable buoyancy bags were needed in the boat. The Mark 2 was very popular, but the ample buoyancy meant the boat floated high in the water when capsized. The Mark 3, introduced in the early 1970s, featured the same hull but a revised deck layout to cure the fault. Many of the top Ospreys today are to the Mark 3 design.

By the turn of the millennium, the rising cost of new wooden boats had stopped Osprey building. Hartley Boats took on the copyright and with famous dinghy designer Phil Morrison developed the Mark 4 for build in GRP. The hull and deck layout were slightly altered but the four-plank clinker appearance was kept.

The Mk 5, in all-epoxy FRP, followed in 2016, keeping the Mk 4 hull form but with a revised, modern deck layout.

Lightning fast

For a 66-year-old design, the Osprey is lightning fast. The current Portsmouth Yardstick of 928 means it is faster than Uffa Fox’s earlier National 18, not to mention the Fireball, Dragon and Merlin Rocket and many dinghies of the current age like the RS400 and Laser Vortex.

This is partly attributable to its 17ft 6in (5.3m) length, which puts the boat at the large end of the dinghy spectrum, with the simple result of great speed under displacement, as well as good planing ability. Those who race them today appreciate them for their ability on all points of sail, being as they are from an era before boats got too specialised for all-round sailing and racing.

Upwind performance is reinforced by the Osprey’s large over-lapping genoa, while off the wind the boat flies along with the large spinnaker emerging from the chute. The boat will also run straight happily, in contrast to modern asymmetrical classes that need to tack downwind for boat speed. Those who race Ospreys enjoy this option, not least for the added tactical intrigue. By today’s standards, it’s heavy, at 133kg, meaning it is more accommodating of crew weight. Ospreys used to be raced by three crewmembers, but the optimal number these days is two, with the helm hiking out and the crew on a trapeze. Because the shape and weight of the boats has remained constant, this is not a class in which you can buy your way to victory. A 1975 boat finished second in the last nationals and in the one before that, a 1956 boat beat many new Mark 5s.

There are many fast, classic dinghies left in the world, but the Osprey, with its size and good manners, has all the makings of a great family cruising dinghy in addition to its race credentials. In the recent round-the-island race, the boats completed the course in around 8hrs 30m, an average speed of about 6.5 knots. 

These days, you can pay upwards of £500 for a working Osprey. They are still in build and available new exclusively from Hartley Boats (hartleyboats.com) for £13,995 (inc VAT).

AN OWNER’S VIEW

“I started crewing Ospreys as a skinny teenager in 1973 and bought my first Osprey, 793 Wanderin’ Star, a Mark 2, in 1975, first of a number over the years. They are such satisfying and capable boats to sail and the class is so friendly that 45 years later I still get a thrill from the Osprey.”
Oscar Chess, owner of the Mk4 Osprey Jammy Dodger (1348), which he sails with wife Lisa

See the class association site at ospreysailing.org.uk. Thanks to Alan Henderson for his help with research for this article.

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Affordable Classics 14 – Beetle Cat

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Affordable Classics 12 – the Eventide

Affordable Classics 11 – the Osprey

Affordable Classics 10 – the Finesse yachts

Affordable Classics 9 – the Dauntless yachts

Affordable classics 8 – the clinker dinghy

Affordable Classics 7 – the Folkboat

Affordable Classics 6 – the SCOD

Affordable Classics 5 – Z4

Affordable Classics 4 – Contessa 26

Affordable Classics 3 – Memory 19

Affordable Classic 2 – the Blackwater Sloop

Affordable Classic 1 – the Stella

The post Affordable Classics 11 – the Osprey appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

That a popular line of wooden, clinker-built cruising yachts came to be built at the dawn of the GRP age is something of a surprising success story, but that’s precisely what happened in the example of the Finesse 21 and 24. There is, in fact, little mystery to it, their popularity due at least partly to cost. We see, from early examples of Classic Boat that still carry ads for these yachts, that a new 21 cost just £12,500 (inc VAT) in 1990, little more than a new Ford Sierra at around £11,000. Today, a new Mondeo, the Sierra’s successor, costs about £22,000; try ordering a newly-built 21ft wooden yacht for that price!

You might imagine then, that the Finesse was a cheap and cheerful “rowing boat with a lid” like last month’s Dauntless. Although the two are superficially similar in appearance and intention, the Finesses were real yachts of a quality the name suggests, and have held their value well.

The story starts in 1961, when boatbuilder Alan Platt, who’d recently set up a rudimentary yard in Thundersley, Essex, built a 21ft clinker cabin yacht with a centreboard, to a design by Laurie Harbottell, for cruising the Thames Estuary, or ‘East Coast’. This was effectively the first Finesse 21 (the name was chosen by Alan’s wife Shirley) and a total of 80 were built over four decades.

The early boats were built of mahogany planks on oak or rock elm steamed timbers, and later, iroko on oak or danta, as the supply of high-quality mahogany dried up. The 21 was offered with two, three or four berths. There was a generous 4ft 8in (1.4m) of sitting headroom, with the long sliding companion giving the possibility, in good weather, of standing headroom in the galley.

In 1969, Alan launched the Finesse 24 to his own design (the usual controversy exists around this), a similar craft but, at 3ft longer, a real four-berth cruiser. You can tell by looking at the 24 that the cabin space is gargantuan for a boat this length and you’d not be wrong. Like the later 21s, the 24 was built with a long, external cast-iron ballast keel. Headroom is 5ft 8in or 5ft 10in (1.7m or 1.8m), a lot for a beamy, shallow draught boat like this, and with the penalty of a slightly top-heavy look to pay for it.

The surprise is that the 24 has a pretty good cockpit too, at 6ft (1.8m) long: plenty of space for her crew of four to sit in the fresh air without getting in each other’s way. Various hull configurations were offered on the F24: most had centreboards with stub bilge keels to allow boats to safely dry out; some had centreboards with full-depth bilge keels; and others still had bilge keels alone, removing the centreboard box from the cabin, creating even more space. The success story of the 21 was repeated: 70 were built.

They came with a choice of three rigs: bermudan sloop, bermudan cutter or gaff cutter. Performance across the three rigs is almost identical, so the choice was based on handling or aesthetics. Alan Platt stretched the 24 to create a 27-footer, then he asked Maurice Griffiths to re-draw the boat as a 28, but neither came close to the popularity of the 21 and 24.

You don’t buy a Finesse 24 for racing. These are not the quickest boats, although they have regularly averaged 4.5 knots on passage and 7 knots on occasion. But with their huge, and very cosy, ship-like accommodation, bags of headroom, an easy nature, the fairly seaworthy shape with the weight to punch through typical Thames Estuary conditions (they are popular elsewhere too), and the fact that most are kept in very good condition, mean they attract fierce owner loyalty. They change hands very seldom, so examples don’t often come to the market but when they do, they are sometimes single-owner boats. Decent 21s run from £3,000 to £7,000 while good 24s run from about £3,500 to £13,000, occasionally a little more.

There are no particular vices on the Finesse boats to report because they are relatively young and because, in the words of builder Alan Platt, they were “intended to last a lifetime”. That said, they don’t like being out of the water for long periods. Properly looked after, there is no reason a Finesse should not last longer than a lifetime. The Finesse boats benefit from an owner’s association and annual rallies. See finesse-owners-association-association.co.uk.

AN OWNER’S VIEW

“Standing headroom and a flushing loo,” my wife Christobel said when visiting Alan’s yard in the spring of 1983. We were immediately smitten. Whimbrel was ordered in August and launched in April 1984. Christobel ‘monitored’ her build. Our single child grew up with her. The forward cabin was his den. Now, with two aboard, she has served every desire for 35 years impeccably and is used throughout the year. She’s balanced on the wind and can be spun in a narrow creek under sail, dinghy fashion. She’s a perfect cruiser – only we could let her down.”

Nick and Christobel Ardley of Whimbrel. Nick has written various books featuring Whimbrel. His latest is Rochester to Richmond: a Thames Estuary Sailor’s View

With thanks to Nick Ardley for his help and expertise in the Finesse story.

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Affordable Classics 3 – Memory 19

Affordable Classic 2 – the Blackwater Sloop

Affordable Classic 1 – the Stella

ends

The post Affordable Classics 10 – the Finesse appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Bounty’s End was much closer to the line than Bligh’s Tribute as I counted down to the start over the VHF. On each boat the sails were hoisted and hanging limply, but the oars were out and soon they were sweeping through the water in unison. Immediately a call came through on the radio. “I thought we agreed we would have a maximum of six rowers,” said Reuben Thompson, Bligh’s Tribute’s skipper. I responded that we hadn’t, but not without some discomfort. In this inaugural race of two replicas of William Bligh’s famous open boat, I then watched the eight-oared Bounty’s End pull away from the six-oared Bligh’s Tribute in what would be a somewhat one-sided contest.

It was in 1787 that HMS Bounty left England under the command of William Bligh, bound for Tahiti from where it was planned to collect breadfruit plants and transport them to the West Indies. During the five months that the crew spent in Tahiti, indiscipline and Bligh’s seemingly harsh way of dealing with it caused friction between him and his men. Three weeks after they set sail again, Fletcher Christian led a mutiny as a result of which Bligh and eighteen men loyal to him were cast adrift in a 23-foot open boat. Their chances of survival were almost non-existent and yet, with the loss of just one man who was killed by natives on one of the islands where they stopped to seek food and water, Bligh managed to safely navigate more than 3,500 miles to a Dutch settlement on Timor.

It isn’t clear how many replicas of Bligh’s boat there have been – but three Hollywood films about the mutiny have been produced and at least that many re-enactments of Bligh’s small boat voyage have been undertaken – but two have been built in the past couple of years: Bounty’s End by Mark Edwards at Richard Bridge Boathouses for a re-enactment voyage to be filmed for the Channel 4 documentary Mutiny; and Bligh’s Tribute by a team of staff and volunteers at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall (NMMC) led by experienced pilot gig builder Andrew Nancarrow for the in-house Captain Bligh: Myth, Man and Mutiny exhibition.

Both boats were built from the same lines drawing which is in the public domain – at the National Maritime Museum Greenwich and also in Bligh’s journal – but one is clinker and the other is carvel: no one really knows which the original boat was and, after extensive research (including from some common sources), the builders of each boat drew different conclusions. The NMMC team believe it would have been carvel, not least because of the evidence in the book The Shipwright’s Vade Mecum, published in 1805. “There is a clear statement that ships’ boats up to cutter rig, about 30ft, were carvel and above that were clinker,” said the NMMC’s Mike Selwood. “And there is a logic to that as they would want the larger boats to be as light as possible for ease of handling.”

But according to Mark, folklore has it that when Bounty was taken over by the navy (she had previously been a collier) and was being prepared for her voyage to Tahiti, she already had a ship’s boat but Bligh didn’t like it. It was dropped (possibly deliberately) by a crane and severely damaged, and this allowed Bligh to commission an Isle of Wight boatbuilder to quickly produce a shallow draft lightweight clinker replacement which, he thought, would be more suitable for landing in Tahiti and loading up with cargos of breadfruit plants. For this and other considerations, Mark concluded that there was “90% good reason” to think the original boat was clinker, but he also argued in favour of clinker as he knew it would be easier and quicker for him to build (he wasn’t given much time to do so) and that clinker would better withstand its planned voyage as deck cargo through the heat of the tropics to the Pacific starting point of the re-enactment.

The only other significant difference between the boats was that Bounty’s End, in order to comply with MCA stability requirements for its ocean voyage, was given about 6” more beam and 8” more freeboard.

Bounty’s End was built with a utile keel, and oak and sweet chestnut sawn frames; while for Bligh’s Tribute, oak was used for all the frames and the centreline. In both cases the choice of planking material was influenced by real concerns that it would dry out considerably but for very different reasons: Mark used ½” thick plywood (but traditionally clenched) as he didn’t have enough time to obtain a suitable seasoned solid timber which would withstand that long tropical ship voyage; and the NMMC selected ¾” thick Siberian larch which had been air dried for about five years – “very expensive but super stable stuff with a very fine grain,” said Mike – to allow Bligh’s Tribute to be exhibited indoors for the best part of a year. Both boats have the same two-masted dipping lug rig which, after further extensive research, was initially drawn by Mark and then developed by lugger expert Chris Rees who also made the spars (hollow to help the boat’s stability and in joinery grade redwood) for Bounty’s End. The NMMC decided to copy the sail plan although Bligh’s Tribute’s solid Douglas fir masts were subsequently shortened while retaining the same sail area. The sails for both boats were made by Sailtech in Falmouth, both in Duradon polyester sail cloth with traditional looking construction although Bounty’s End’s have Dyneema bolt ropes, while Bligh’s Tribute’s are polyester and have several features – no pressed rings, for instance – faithful to the naval standards of the time.

Bounty’s End was completed in the spring of 2016 and, as it turned out, was then flown out to the Pacific to begin her voyage; while Bligh’s Tribute was finished in something of a rush just in time for the exhibition in March 2017. “The paint was nearly dry when it opened!” said Mike.

The Bounty’s End voyage was led by former SAS soldier Ant Middleton with three-times circumnavigator Conrad Humphreys variously described as his “second in command”, “sailing master” and “skipper”. Nine men started the voyage (and never was there any reference in the Channel 4 series to the fact that Bligh had twice that many in the same size boat) but two were taken off by the escorting mother ship – one, ironically, for insubordination, and the other with badly infected hands. When they were becalmed for several days towards the end of the voyage the remaining crew were forced to take fresh water from the mother ship but, other than that, the voyage was unsupported, and they safely reached Timor after 4,000 miles and 60 days.

Around 125,000 people visited the Bligh exhibition before it closed in February 2018, by which time Conrad had acquired Bounty’s End with a view to providing life-enhancing sailing opportunities for young people with special needs. The idea of organising a race between the two boats was gathering interest but there could hardly have been a greater contrast between the seagoing experiences of the two boats. Bligh’s Tribute still hadn’t touched the water and, before she could do so, more work was needed: for instance, the steel deck fittings had to be taken off to be galvanised (there hadn’t been time to do this before the exhibition opened) and her display rig had to be altered to one that would actually function. She was eventually launched on 24 May, exactly a month before the race – for which I had (been!) volunteered as “race officer” – which would take place immediately after the Small Boat’s Parade which marks the end of Falmouth Classics regatta.

I am not alone in having a vague recollection of discussing the number of oars that should be allowed, but nothing was ever agreed. We had originally anticipated that it would be predominately a sailing race but on the day the wind was very light and so rowing (even with only six oars) would prove to be much faster than sailing. But both skippers had anticipated that it would be essential to have experienced rowers and so members of Salcombe Gig Club had been recruited for Bounty’s End and Devoran Gig Club for Bligh’s Tribute.

The race started and would finish off Falmouth’s Custom House Quay and included two triangles around the inner part of Falmouth Harbour. On the first round, each boat had to go ashore at a beach near Flushing to collect a bottle of beer from its sponsor – St Austell Brewery for Bligh’s Tribute and Sharp’s (no relation!) for Bounty’s End. Bounty’s End’s extra freeboard clearly provided a couple of extra difficulties: for the rowers who needed to raise their oar handles higher in order to properly immerse the blades, and at the beach stop where things looked a little uncomfortable for the beer collector as he scrambled back aboard. However, her eight rowers managed to get away from the beach about a minute and a half before Bligh’s Tribute and from then on gradually stretched their lead until, after just under an hour of racing, they finished more than seven minutes ahead.

The exhausted rowers then put their oars away and the two boats enjoyed a gentle sail together – not for long but perhaps long enough to suggest that, at least in those conditions, Bligh’s Tribute is a faster sailing boat. Back ashore, everyone agreed that there should be a rematch next year on Conrad’s home waters in Plymouth and with slightly tighter rules. Conrad himself, as he was presented with the trophy, a half model of a Bligh ship’s boat made by an NMMC volunteer – carvel, ironically – suggested that there should be another, previously undiscussed rule. “Both boats must have done a 4,000-mile qualifying voyage,” he said.

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Mutiny on Channel Four
Interview with Conrad Humphreys of Channel Four’s Mutiny

ends

The post Captain Bligh replicas head to head appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

No one would ever claim that a Dauntless is a superlative in the history of yacht design or construction. These are boats lightly built to a crude design, but their importance in getting British sailors afloat cheaply after the war inspires great affection in those who know them.

Much recorded history of the Dauntlesses has been lost in the sands of time. This is surprising, because it’s thought that at least 400 of them were built between the end of the Second World War and the early 1970s.

The Dauntless’ chief attraction was its price. The Dauntless Boat Company of Leigh-on-Sea in Essex had previously built dinghies (for Butlins holiday camps among others), small launches and dayboats, and moved to Wales in the war to build small craft for the Admiralty. One of those was a broad, clinker 16ft (4.9m) ‘cutter’ – a power launch in this case. After the war, the firm relocated to Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary, where it speculatively put a basic cabin over one of those hulls, and gave it a gaff rig.

It sold immediately to a local customer, who took it apart and started building a series, to a class he named the “Chesford 16” and much to the vexation of the Dauntless Company, who responded by offering a 20ft (6m) version. This rapidly evolved into the standard 22ft (6.7m) boat, with gaff or bermudan rig. Everything about it was simple and low-key, built to a price, side-by-side, by a team of 22 apprentices managed by two boatbuilders.

Two of them would do nothing but cut planks from template, while another two would, for instance, do nothing but clench, so despite their lowly status, these apprentices were highly skilled in niche areas. There was little in the way of longitudinal stiffening – two bulkheads and a single beamshelf – and the ‘keel’, such as it was, had a parallel run; fine yachts have boat-shaped keelsons.

Ballast was all internal, and the centreboard and rudder were simply cut out of sheet steel. The centreboard pivot was through the keel (only 2.5in/5cm, wide) with the result that many of them have now broken their centreboards. Sailing performance was as you might expect, leading most owners to later add a bowsprit for better performance. But the low price (a brochure from the late 1940s quotes £491 – about £15,000 today) put a whole generation of sailors on the waters of England’s east coast after the war; and the motorboat origins meant a very usable beam. They were marketed in the Army and Navy Stores chain of shops around the country.

They sold by the hundred: where else could you get a beamy, commodious little cabin yacht, with a Stuart Turner engine as standard? The first boats (the Mk 1s, if you like) had an attractive, timeless appearance. Later versions extended the cabin sides to the gunwale and had an extra plank of freeboard for sitting headroom, swapping some of the boat’s good looks for better usability. A number were built at 23ft and 24ft, and some motor launches on the same hull. Early boats were planked in larch or spruce, later ones in mahogany, then iroko. They were, says boatbuilder and class devotee Alan Staley, who has fixed up many over the years, “one step up from a rowing boat”.

There is, to this day, some controversy about the design. Lloyd’s Register credits Sid Lattimer, while others hold that Reg Patten should receive the credit. Given that the boat evolved from an Admiralty launch of fairly standard form, the argument seems moot. It is safe to say that the design is in-house from the builder. Reg Patten of the Dauntless Company left in 1958 to build the improved Sea King yachts in Leigh-on-Sea, which continued production into the 1990s. And indirectly, the legacy of the small, clinker cruising yacht continued with the Finesse 21 and 24, built by Alan Platt from the 1960s onwards.

In sailing terms, the Dauntless has great form stability, takes the ground level and can sail in very thin water. They are reputed to slam in a seaway and are not designed for offshore work, but well-ballasted Dauntlesses have voyaged to the Baltic and beyond.

CONDITION AND COST

The three main areas to look at are the broad-planked cabin sides, which sometimes shrink and let water in through the portholes; the keel, which might be broken and jury-rigged; and the centreplate, which was insufficiently braced to withstand the test of time. If you are willing to do some work, the Dauntless is great for lo-fi thrills in a characterful, light, handy classic that is perfectly suited to the flat waters of the Thames Estuary. Expect to pay £0-£5,000. 

Thanks to (unofficial) class restorer Alan Staley and class record keeper Robert Gray for their knowledge of the class

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Affordable Classics 10 – the Finesse yachts

Affordable Classics 9 – the Dauntless yachts

Affordable classics 8 – the clinker dinghy

Affordable Classics 7 – the Folkboat

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Affordable Classic 2 – the Blackwater Sloop

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The post Affordable Classics 9 – the Dauntless appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

One of the entries listed in the recent BBC and British Museum’s ‘History of the World in Objects’ starts with this sentence: “Boats are the single most important objects in the history of the world.” The photo they chose to back up this grand and true statement was one of a bright-finished, clinker, wooden rowing dinghy, an implication that this sort of vessel has come, at least in the western mind, to embody the word ‘boat’. The clinker planking recalls the most pivotal moments in waterborne history, from the Vikings to the first International Class dinghy in the world (the 1913-designed International 12) while the simple form, with its open interior, perhaps a small foredeck, wooden thwarts or benches, a pair of bronze oarlocks and a simple sailing rig, is instantly recognisable to all. A two-horse on the transom (preferably a Seagull or similar guts-on-show old-style outboard), and you have a light, strong craft that can be propelled by three means (four if you use a scull through a transom cut-out) and capable of traversing lake, river, estuary or coast. The delight of these sorts of boats lies not just in their timeless good style, but in their comfort. They are, as they say, boats you sit “in” rather than “on” and the sound of a clinker dinghy splashing through waves, accompanied by the creaking of wooden mast, boom and tiller, has to be experienced to be understood.

These are very usable boats: a typical 12ft (3.7m) example will weigh around 100kg (220lb), so they are a bit much for two to handle out of the water, but very easy on a trolley and towable by any car. The 12-footer will comfortably accommodate two adults and a child or two. For a full-sized family of four, a 14-footer (4.3m) should do the job nicely. These are boats for pottering, picnicking and perhaps a bit of fishing for mackerel, when the shoals come close to the land in summer. Will Stirling, who has built an amazing 41 clinker dinghies in the last 15 years, favours the balanced lug rig, requiring as it does only a single halyard and single sheet, leaving the other hand to “hold onto the picnic – or the child!”. It’s also the rig most redolent of a gentler age – it powered the adventures of the Walkers and Blacketts in the Swallows and Amazons books, for instance. Will also favours the centerboard over the daggerboard for its ease of use and ability to kick up, even if it does take more space in the boat. Both, however, have their pros, the daggerboard taking up less space and having simplicity on its side.

There is nothing particularly to commend a boat like this on a practical level. As Will points out, there is nothing one of these will do that a GP14, for instance, won’t do. The pleasure is all in the quality and aesthetic of the experience. Here’s a boat that looks as modestly beautiful inside as it does out, a boat that harks all the way back to the Vikings and probably beyond. So having a clinker dinghy is not just a very nice way to get out on the water, it’s an unimpeachable style statement that will please everyone who sees it. 

The clinker dinghy is built of planks of (typically) mahogany, larch or pine, copper riveted to a basket of thin, steamed-oak timbers. All of this is prone to rot, as on any boat, and a clinker plank is not easy to replace, a job for the boatbuilder rather than the amateur. The inside of the boat also takes a bit of effort to keep clean as dirt and debris has plenty of hiding places between ribs and lands. On the plus side, everything is visible and accessible – these small issues are the price you pay for such authentic appeal.

PRICE

This is the first boat on our list that you can buy new for our self-imposed £10,000 limit. But budget a fifth of that, and you could be driving away with a good, used example on a combi trailer: imagine driving home next weekend looking at one of these gems in your rearview mirror. The clinker dinghy is such a ubiquitous article that it is hard to suggest particular builders or models. There are more than a few builders who will build you one today, or might have a very recent used example for a bargain. We found serviceable dinghies complete with road trailers starting at about £1,000, although good examples were typically £2-5,000.

AN OWNER’S VIEW

I take a small boat out to sea to encounter the nautical environment in all its untamed sensuousness, the boat beneath me rising lithely to the seas like a lover. A larger yacht, with its maintenance regime and complex systems, muddies the experience. Sailing a small open boat is much more real and immediate, like a wild seabird skimming over the waves. The best dinghies are traditional ones. Modern dinghies are fine for the racecourse. But if you want a craft that is safe and sure-footed at sea, robust enough to anchor overnight or lie along a quay wall, pick a traditional design, honed to perfection by longshoremen down the ages. There are reasons they are the way they are: they just work.

Roger Barnes, owner of Avel Dro, a 14ft 8in (4.5m) Ilur design by Francois Vivier and author of The Dinghy Cruising Companion

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Affordable classics 8 – the clinker dinghy

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Affordable Classics 4 – Contessa 26

Affordable Classics 3 – Memory 19

Affordable Classic 2 – the Blackwater Sloop

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The post Affordable Classics 8 – clinker dinghy appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

It has been described as a nautical Volkswagen Beetle. It has been hailed as a rare example of a good thing designed by a committee. But it’s more: the Folkboat is the most popular, successful and influential sailing yacht of all time. It comes in various guises and has spawned several derivatives, but the Nordic Folkboat is the original.

The Folkboat story started life in 1941 in neutral Sweden when the Scandinavian Sailing Federation launched a design competition for a cheaply built boat that would be easy to sail. No single entry satisfied the judging committee, who nevertheless saw admirable traits in six different entries, and commissioned the yacht designer Tord Sunden to draw these elements into a unified whole. The result was a clinker-built fractional sloop with a simple rig (two shrouds each side, jibstay and backstay) and a small, low-profile cabin, on a lively sheer with a raked transom stern.

The yacht was the first choice of our late technical editor Theo Rye for his series of articles on yacht design. He described the Folkboat as “approaching perfection” and what he went on to say bears repeating here: “The sections show a flare to the topsides for their whole length; a difficult trick to marry to a nice sheer, but achieved here. The freeboard looks perilously low but the boat is remarkably dry even when pushed hard. The flare in the sections means the waterline beam when upright is modest enough for decent light-airs speed, but as the hull heels it rapidly gains stability; aided by a very healthy ballast ratio, her stiffness is perfectly judged. She is also tolerant of added weight; a good attribute in a pocket cruiser, especially one capable of crossing the Atlantic or even more, so even quite reasonably equipped boats look and sail perfectly well.

“The firm tuck of the bilges leading into nice, slim keel sections help generate good lift (in relative terms) from the long keel, which is a key to good sailing performance. The shape owes precious little to rating rules, only hydrodynamics; you pay for that bold forward overhang in accommodation or waterline length, maybe, but driving into any sort of sea you’ll be glad of that bargain. The slope of the transom stern tucks the rudder deep under the hull and the angle of the stern post, while typically Scandinavian, looks old-fashioned, even exaggerated; but time at the helm tells you exactly why they stuck with it. The fractional sail plan is equally well judged; with her relatively modest displacement and wetted surface area (for the type), she can slip along just fine, but will carry her canvas well as the wind comes up. She has seakindly manners that punch far above her modest weight, and her deep cockpit and nicely balanced feel on the helm all add up to a simple but satisfying boat to really sail.

“Anyone brought up on modern, beamy boats who can overcome their probable prejudice against a long keel and lack of double berths (and, to be fair, standing headroom in most versions), is in for a revelation. The design of the Folkboat is an object lesson.”

The main appeal to those lacking Theo’s analytical skills is the boat’s suitability to almost any role. It offers one of the best one-design racing classes, with active fleets everywhere from San Francisco’s blustery bay to mainland Europe and the Solent, where Folkboats have won the Gold Roman Bowl in the Round the Island Race more than any other type of boat – 11 wins spread over nearly every decade since the 1940s.

But they are equally suited to the ascetic who wants to sail to far-flung places with the minimum boat, as Ann Gash did when she took hers around the world solo from 1975-77. The two-berth interior, with its low headroom, is akin to camping, and most examples are equipped with an outboard motor rather than a diesel.

When Colonel Blondie Hasler initiated the first singlehanded ocean race – the 1960 OSTAR – he chose a Folkboat (albeit junk-rig modified) and so did fellow competitor Val Howells. Others have found them to be ideal for coastal cruising or as family dayboats. Anyone can sail a Folkboat, but they are tunable enough to keep the most ardent racer satisfied.

Variants followed thick and fast. British Folkboats, IF or ‘Marieholm’ Folkboats and, in the 1970s, mock-clinker GRP Folkboats all appeared on the scene, all aiming to preserve that wonderful hull but add more accommodation. Near variants include the Stella and Contessa 26. Today, there are an estimated 4,000+ Nordic Folkboats in the world.

Buying a Folkboat can be very confusing. Prices fluctuate wildly between £1 and £25,000. Generally speaking, a good wooden Nordic will be had for around the £10,000 mark, with nice GRP examples fetching about the same. Cracked ribs and rot are the usual things to look out for in wooden examples.

Nomenclature is all over the place, and you’ll see all kinds of Folkboat monikers (25, 26, IF, International, Marieholm, Nordic), some authentic, some outmoded and some made up. However, the true Nordic is easy to spot for its clinker hull (or clinker GRP hull) and small cabin trunk.

AN OWNER’S VIEW

Orzel was built in Szczecin, Poland in 1963. I bought her in 1998 – I am her fifth owner, all of us based on the south coast of England – when she was three-quarters of the way through a thorough restoration that I completed myself. I kept her in Portsmouth Harbour for 10 years and then we both moved to St Mawes in Cornwall. Sometimes I think I would like a bigger boat but I would probably miss the satisfaction of being able to easily sail her on and off the mooring, and in and out of a crowded river, often singlehanded.

Nigel Sharp, owner of Orzel, and regular contributor to Classic Boat

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Affordable Classics 12 – the Eventide

Affordable Classics 11 – the Osprey

Affordable Classics 10 – the Finesse yachts

Affordable Classics 9 – the Dauntless yachts

Affordable classics 8 – the clinker dinghy

Affordable Classics 7 – the Folkboat

Affordable Classics 6 – the SCOD

Affordable Classics 5 – Z4

Affordable Classics 4 – Contessa 26

Affordable Classics 3 – Memory 19

Affordable Classic 2 – the Blackwater Sloop

Affordable Classic 1 – the Stella

RELATED FOLKBOAT ARTICLES AND INFO

Nordic Folkboat Asosciation

Great yacht designs 2 – the Folkboat

Folkboat to Antigua

The pros and cons of junk rig

ends

The post Affordable Classics 7 – the Nordic Folkboat appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.