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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Boyne Cit, Michigan, USA: Warp speed runabout

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

Southampton, Hampshire: One we missed at the boat show

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

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

Yard News from Ullapool, Scotland: New skiff in build

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

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

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 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.

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.

Berlin VI

The sea was centre stage at Cannes in 1956. In May, the Palme d’Or went to the documentary Le Monde du Silence by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and a few weeks later, the  very select Motor Yacht Club of the Côte d’Azur (MYCCA) hosted the 16th world championships there. These races were reserved for the different categories of two-seater runabouts recognised by the Union Internationale Motonautique and in particular the medium-displacement European class E2. A sparse but high-quality field at the start was made up of two German competitors, Jürgen Baginski from Berlin and Markus Glas from Lake Starnberg, challenging the French champions Machat and Van Praet. Glas was an authentic sportsman with an athletic physique who had started racing powerboats several years earlier with some success: in the 1950s powerboat racing was an activity reserved for professionals or the wealthy. Baginski was in the second category with a father at the helm of a successful company manufacturing, among other things, the most popular post-war aspirin tablets in his country. His co-pilot at the wheel of his Berlin VI was none other than the craft’s architect and builder, Kurt Gersch, who owned a boatyard in Mainz on the banks of the Rhine.

Berlin VI was a classic hydroplane runabout of its time, almost flat at the bottom and very fast in a straight line. Its wooden construction was as light and rigid as it was precise in its smallest details, thanks to the perfectionism of Gersch, also a raceboat driver with years of experience. Its engine was from the reigning brand of racing marine engines of its time, the unbeatable Italian BPM from Milan. Power, reliability and weight control were the main characteristics of these aluminium blocks cast in Lombardy’s capital and they were endowed with an unrivalled record of world-best performances and wins. 

The sun was shining at the end of August 1956 in Cannes but the wind raised a chop that made the surface of the water more difficult than photos of the time imply. The championship took place in three rounds, and the Baginski-Gersch crew came second twice at the chequered flag. For the third round it was imperative to find a tactic to make the final difference. 

Leave Rome for Young People

To lighten the boat as the sea calmed, and as the regulations allowed, Kurt Gersch gave up his place as ‘mechanic’ or co-driver to a charming young woman, none other than the daughter of one of the organisers, who seemed as intimidated as delighted by this unexpected opportunity, fashionably harnessed with helmet and glasses, but unaware that she was about to win a world championship title. But moments later, the chequered flag lowered as she and Baginski passed the finish line at the head of the race. 

Queen of a Day, Queen Always

Returning home, the German press enthusiastically reported the win, all the more so as the year 1956 was a splendid one for Berlin VI, with six national victories and a world title. But the real world soon closed in on Baginski and his playboy lifestyle: the paternal growing pharmaceutical business sucked him in and away from the water. Kurt Gersch’s boatyard mothballed the wining boat, Baginski’s last racer. Decades passed and Rolf Gersch succeeded his father at the head of the family yard and river marina. In the meantime, Berlin VI had been moved a few times to make space. Luckily it remained in the region of Mainz and Rolf eventually found it in a shed. 

Honor the Memory of His Father

Thanks to all the well preserved archives of his father, as well as the plans and numerous period pieces, Rolf decided to embark on a total restoration aboard the large Rhine river barge that houses his historic restoration yard. A perfectionist like his father, Rolf Gersch took his time to patiently restore life to the glorious steed. With no other wish than to honour his father’s memory by paying homage to his talents as an architect and world champion builder, he neglected none of the original details, including its gleaming 2.8-liter BPM four-cylinder engine, which today always starts at the first turn of key in a raucous, angry bellow.

Berlin VI Specs

Design/build Kurt Gercsh – Wiesbaden-Shierstein, 1956
Length 17ft 11in (5.45m)
Beam 5ft 8in (1.7m)
Weight 550 kg
Engine BPM 4-cyl inline 2.8L
Displacement 2,785cc
Power 150hp
Speed 56mph (90kmh)

BPM and Cistitalia

The Compania Industriale Sportive Italiana (Cisitalia) was founded in 1944, by Piero Dusio, a textile magnate, a great sportsman and owner of the famous Turin’s Juventus football club, keen to follow in the footsteps of Senator Agnelli, the founder of FIAT, and produce a small Gran Turismo car. Dusio contacts one of FIAT’s most prolific engineers, Dante Giacosa to design the specifications. Giacosa remained at FIAT while accepting the mission with the FIAT’s blessings, and brining Giovanni Savonuzzi onto the team as technical director. Several prototypes, some of which take part in competition with mixed success, culminated in September 1947 with the official presentation of the famous Cisistalia Berlinetta 202 with a Fiat 1100 engine and a body designed Pinin Farina. The vehicle made a sensation with its elegant compactness and immediately became an international design icon. The new car was considered as the prototype of the modern sports car and the bridge between everything that went before, and everything that came after. Shortly before the end of its production run, Cisistalia launched a very rare version powered by a more powerful engine coming from raceboats, a first time in the industry. It was the French racing driver Charles Pozzi who suggested sourcing this engine from BPM (Botta Puricelli Milano), founded in 1932 and already the holder of countless world records and victories in racing. It was their four-cylinder Sport 2.8-litre developing 160hp that was chosen for the car, and then entered in the Mille Miglia a few weeks later by the Dusio father-and-son duo. Their Berlinetta Pinin Farina No 621 ran well before they had to abandon the race, after damage to the clutch which was badly prepared to take on the formidable torque of the robust BPM marine block designed to run at full speed for hours. Out of a total of five 202Ds (BPM-powered Berlinettas) produced, there are only two today. BPM still operates near Verona in Italy and continues, through its manufacture and restoration of engines and special transmissions, a unique tradition of success at the highest level that has now lasted nearly nine decades.

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There are those who, as the saying goes, have a girl in every port and those, like Rahmi M Koç CBE, who have a boat in every city they live in. The honourary chairman of Koç Holding has dozens of yachts and many mansions, mostly built on the water or at least very near the sea. Although he’s originally from Turkey’s landlocked capital Ankara, he feels much more at ease when he is near what he calls “the most beautiful among the elements”.

Istanbul is his home, but every year he spends a few weeks in Miami, London, Lesbos, Provence and on a tiny island off the coast of Tuzla (Istanbul), the city that is home to his own RMK Marine shipyard, where the restorations of most of his floating jewels are carried out. Classic Boat has devoted articles to two boats that belong to the Turkish magnate: Lady Edith, a 1925 William Fife III 12-M yacht, and T/T Vedette, a tender that belonged to the Vanderbilt family. The latter is one of the 16,000 items on display at the Istanbul museum founded by Mr Koç and named after him.

In addition to the one in Tuzla, ‘Rahmi Bey,’ as people refer to him in Turkey, also owns the Merrill Stevens shipyard in Miami, which he took over in 2013 and renamed RMK Merrill-Stevens. “I spend at least three weeks in Miami every autumn, to swim, play golf and fish,” says Koç. “Sailing along Miami’s channels, especially in the afternoons, is great fun. After seeing several classic boats there that I liked a lot, I resolved to acquire one for myself. And after conducting much research we sourced a beautiful gentlemen’s cruiser named Cielito in Seattle; we agreed to buy her and brought her over to Miami. She underwent a thorough overhaul at my shipyard, RMK Merrill Stevens. Sadly, due to a trivial miscalculation, Cielito cannot sail under a bridge and therefore she can’t be moored outside my house; instead, we use the quay opposite, the one used during the Miami Boat Show, and we have to drive to the boat.”

Cielito: A fascinating history

Cielito is a 42ft (13m) triple-cabin, raised-deck wooden motor yacht built in 1930 by Stephens Bros of Stockton, California, a very well known builder in the United States that had started out in 1902. At the time Cielito was launched (with hull number #526), Stephens Bros was specialised in workboats and custom craft, and was soon to become known among sailors in the San Francisco Bay Area for its Farallone Clippers, with 19 examples built.

Cielito’s deck layout consists of an aft cockpit, flush side decks, and a raised flush foredeck, which is equipped with an anchor windlass. The foredeck and cabin tops are constructed with a plywood substrate installed over the original deck planking. The side decks have a solid teak plank overlay. The hull is planked with Port Orford cedar, bronze-fastened on steam-bent oak timbers. For internal reinforcement, the vessel relies upon plywood bulkheads. The decks, bridge cabin, and boat deck are teak throughout. The interior accommodations are laid out in three cabins. The forward cabin has pilot berths to port and starboard and a private head forward; the pilothouse contains the helm station and side doors port and starboard. The aft cabin is home to a galley to port and a private head to starboard.

The first owners of Cielito were the Hollywood director William A Seiter (1890-1964) and his wife, the silent movie star Laura La Plante (1904-96), who bought the yacht for $12,420 and stationed her in Los Angeles. Before the couple divorced in 1934, the yacht was sold to Wesley D Smith, owner of Sea-Dog Hardware, who subsequently ordered a 55ft (16.8m) Stephens, which he named Sea Dog.

Cielito had several owners who sailed her mostly in southern California. Eventually the name was changed to Tara and the craft had new engines installed in 1952: two Chrysler six-cylinder petrol engines. Some 30 years later, after more than half a century in the south, Tara returned to the north of the Golden State and was bought by two staunch cruising enthusiasts, Mont and Cynthia McMillen, who restored the original Cielito name and re-engined the boat in 1989 with the engines she still has today. These are two in-line, four-cylinder 4-236M Perkins diesels, providing 85hp each at 2,500 rpm. They were securely installed on wooden stringers, with the use of steel brackets, through-bolted to the stringers.

In 1997 the McMillens took Cielito to the Pacific Northwest region and cruised the Inland Passage for three months. There’s no doubt that the yacht was looked after beautifully in the McMillens’ hands: not by coincidence did Cielito win the “Best Overall Power” award the same year at the renowned Victoria Classic Yacht Festival, held annually on Vancouver Island every weekend before Labor Day.

In 1999, Cielito was loaded onto a lorry and taken to Lake Michigan for a one-year circumnavigation of the eastern United States via the so-called ‘Great Loop’. The trip took the yacht across Lake Michigan, then the Georgian Bay and Trent Severn Waterway. In August, Cielito was again acknowledged for her beauty and excellent state of conservation: she was awarded ‘Best Power Boat’ at the Antique & Classic Boat Society (ACBS) Clayton Boat Show in New York, before continuing her voyage along the St Lawrence River, down the Chambly Canal to Lake Chaplain and thence the Hudson River and the Inter Coastal Waterway to Florida, the state that would eventually become her new home. She wintered there in the Sunshine State before motoring around Florida’s west coast and up the canals and rivers to Lake Michigan again.

Excepting the long trip to the eastern states, in the McMillen era, Cielito continued to ply the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento River delta regions of California.

Back in Florida

A condition and value survey of the craft, compiled in 2012 in Seattle, stated: “Overall, Cielito has been well maintained and is in excellent condition for her age. Her current owner (Mont McMillen) is conscientious and very knowledgeable of the vessel’s systems and operation.”

Cielito’s condition was still good in 2016, when Koç commissioned a pre-purchase survey; the renovation by RMK Merrill-Stevens was to better fulfill the new owner’s needs. The refit included structural repairs, transom replacement, drive refurbishment, engine maintenance, electrical and electronics upgrades, generator replacement, the installation of air-conditioning and various interior and exterior refinishing jobs. The overhaul duly won the shipyard the Vintage Weekend 2018 award for ‘Best Restoration’, which is hardly newsworthy, because for this owner, perfection is a lifelong habit.

CIELITO

Built: Stephens Bros, California), 1930

LOA: 42ft 9in (13m)

Beam: 10ft 6in (3.2m)

Draft: 3ft 4in (1m)

Displacement: 10 tonnes

Power: 2 x 85 hp @2500 rpm

Merrill-Stevens Shipyard: Rahmi M Koç’s Renovation

After losing a fortune in the American Civil War, Captain James G Merrill moved to Jacksonville, Florida in 1866, where he established a marine blacksmith and ironwork shop, the foundation of the Merrill-Stevens shipyard, which started to grow during the American-Spanish war in Cuba (1898). In the Great Jacksonville Fire of 1901, the Merrill-Stevens wharf was completely consumed by flames, but the owners quickly built a new facility and began to focus on shipbuilding. During World War One, Merrill-Stevens Co was bought by the Emergency Fleet Corporation, created by the Shipping Board to bolster the American Merchant Marine. In 1921, the company was sold back and two years later a facility in Miami, the Pilkington Boatyard on the north bank of the Miami River, was acquired. Miami was undergoing one of the greatest real estate booms in history, making the boatyard a prime opportunity for someone with experience and knowledge in the marine industry to turn the business around. The company achieved early success thanks to the prohibition.

Although business was booming, disaster struck Merrill-Stevens. In 1926, the plant was devastated by the ‘Great Hurricane’ that hit Florida in September. As the yard was in full readiness for a flood of business, hard times struck once again. Leading up to the great depression of 1929, staff at the company decreased quickly from 150 employees to 15, and work was hard to come by. Then, thanks to the dredging of the Miami River, completed in 1933, the business managed to recover once again. Larger yachts and commercial vessels now visited Miami through the inland waters, providing Merrill-Stevens with new work.

During World War Two, 3,500 military-related projects were completed at the Merrill-Stevens facilities. Among these was the conversion of recreational yachts into naval support vessels. The post-war history of the yard is little known, but it is certain that, over the years, it has gradually lost allure, prestige and, most importantly, profitability. All these caused the yard to fall victim to an unstoppable decline, with the last wooden craft built in 1974.

When Rahmi M Koç acquired the shipyard in 2013, he vowed to restore the company to its former glory, and to make Miami once again a great destination for yachts and superyachts from around the world. RMK Merrill-Stevens is composed of two yards straddling the Miami River, and are now known as the North Yard and the South Yard. An investment of over $23 million was made into the complete renovation of both facilities. Each yard provides refit services, maintenance and repair to vessels of up to 230ft (70m).

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The post Rahmi M Koç’s Wooden Motor Yacht: Merrill-Stevens Shipyard appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

Cariad: The Last of the Giants

“Let’s build back better.” Although that slogan has been used and paraphrased by several political groups and individuals – perhaps most notably Joe Biden – it was also recently adopted by the team that found itself restoring the 1896 ketch Cariad for the second time, barely thirteen years after doing so previously. “But,” said Des Kearns who was joint project manager for both restorations, “we think the slogan was more appropriate for us than for Biden.”

Cariad was designed by Arthur Payne and built by Summers & Payne, the Southampton company which had been formed when he went into partnership with William Summers in 1890 after his own yard, AR Payne & Sons, had been destroyed by fire. She was built for Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, the 4th Earl of Dunraven who had recently twice challenged for the America’s Cup: in 1893 with Valkyrie II and in 1895 – amidst no little controversy – with Valkyrie III, both of which were beaten 3-0. Having been built in just five months – of composite construction with teak and American elm planking on steel frames – Cariad was launched in January 1896 when she was “sent off the ways, on the top of a fine tide, in the presence of a numerous gathering,” according to The Yachtsman magazine.  

During Dunraven’s five-year ownership, he occasionally raced Cariad, without distinction, in the Solent; he twice entered her for the Dover to Heligoland race without actually taking part; and he cruised her in the English Channel and to Ireland (on one occasion with GL Watson, the designer of both Valkyries, onboard as a guest). “The vessel has a roving commission,” reported The Yachtsman about one such cruise. “The noble earl, who is proceeding to sea for health as well as pleasure, having decided to go just where the wind will take him.” In February 1897, Cariad left the Solent bound for the Mediterranean before damage to her steering gear forced her into Plymouth and then back to Southampton for repairs. But the following year Cariad had a more fruitful voyage south, to the Cascures Regatta in Lisbon where – representing the Royal Yacht Squadron – she won the Vasco da Gama Cup which marked the 400th anniversary of the famous explorer’s first voyage to India. 

Cariad for Sale

Soon afterwards Dunraven’s interest in Cariad seems to have waned because later that summer, and again in 1900, he chartered her to the theatrical impresario Richard D’Oyley Carte. In April 1900 it was reported that Cariad was for sale with “Lord Dunraven apparently having decided to abandon the sport of yachting entirely.” While the first part of that was true, the second certainly wasn’t, because soon afterwards he commissioned Summers & Payne to produce a new, bigger Cariad which he would own until 1922. 

The first Cariad (from now occasionally referred to as Cariad I) was then purchased by JB Millar. After Luke Bros on the Hamble River carried out “extensive alterations and improvements” to her “she now looks one of the smartest cruisers afloat,” according to The Yachtsman. Millar seems to have kept her in Essex and Kent during part of his short period of ownership, but he may also have taken her to the Mediterranean. In 1903 he sold her to Captain CF Dixon-Johnson, a member of the Royal Yorkshire YC where he won a few trophies in occasional races. In September 1909 Cariad took part in the Cowes to St Malo race in which she finished just 13 seconds in front of the only other competing boat, the Nicholson schooner Lista, but won easily on handicap.  

Cariad’s next owner was Philip de Vilmorin, the president of the Society des Regates Cannoises, who kept her in the Mediterranean. In 1913 he sold her to Frank Chaplin who changed her name to Fidra and installed a Bergius 4-cylinder paraffin motor which gave her a speed of over 7 knots. He took part in a couple of races in Cowes Week in 1913, and the following year was able to enjoy some cruising before the outbreak of war curtailed yachting activities. 

Soon after the war ended Fidra was purchased for £4,800 by brothers Sune and Sebastian Tamm, both Swedish naval officers who, in September 1920, set off from Karlskrona in Sweden with ten other servicemen on a world circumnavigation. After a delay in Cowes having been run into by a barge which damaged her stem, she sailed via Madeira to South America, through the Magellan Strait, across the Pacific to Japan and Hong Kong, and then via Singapore to the Suez Canal, through the Mediterranean, and back to Karlskrona via the Kiel Canal. When she arrived, in September 1922, she had quite a welcome: she was towed by a destroyer into Karlskrona between two lines of anchored yachts dressed with bunting and followed by countless more; and once they got ashore, the crew took part in a march through the town before attending a banquet, while a great firework display illuminated the harbour.  

In May 1924, according to The Yachtsman, Fidra “failed to find a buyer when offered by auction recently” but then just two months later the same magazine reported that a Mr Butcher had bought her “at the recent auction sale in London” and that she had then been sold again at another auction organised by Marvins of the Cowes Yacht Agency. Her new owner was Henry J Wenborn who soon commissioned Whites Shipyard in Southampton to carry out several modifications which included a new teak deck, some new spars and “various alterations …to accommodation and crews’ space”. It was reported that this work was being done in readiness for a long cruise to the South Pacific but whether anything came of this is in some doubt. Wenborn did, however, take her to Cape Town – probably in 1927 – where he kept her for the remainder of his ownership, and for a couple of years he had a co-owner, HE Evans. In 1933 he changed her name to Cariad I and at around the same time installed a Deutz Cologne diesel engine. 

Cariad remained in South Africa with her next three owners, the first of whom, from 1947, was AW Flitton. He completed two world circumnavigations in her between 1949 and 1954, both of them starting and finishing in Cape Town, and each time via the Panama Canal and to the north of Australia.  On the first voyage he very nearly lost Cariad on a lee shore in Cook Bay, Easter Island, “not once but twice,” according to his great nephew, Trevor Richards; and in a 1954 article entitled “Cariad battered by Agulhas storm” a local newspaper reported that she arrived home “with her forward bulwarks carried away on starboard side, one of her lifeboats missing, and her mizzen gaff smashed.” At some point Flitton reduced the sail area from 5,480 square feet to 4,500 square feet although exactly when that was isn’t certain. 

Cariad’s home port became Durban when Loring CM Rattray bought her in 1962, and she remained there after he sold her to Krasni Sutic eight years later.

She eventually left South Africa in 1976 when she was purchased by Seymour and Pamela Marvin, who lived in Rio de Janeiro. They took her to the West Indies and chartered her for several years before deciding to restore her. As part of this restoration, the newly-formed company Southampton Yacht Services was contracted to provide a complete new interior. This involved company director and joinery specialist Bob Parsons initially going out to Antigua where Cariad had been hauled up in a mangrove swamp with her interior completely gutted. Bob and the captain produced a design for a new general arrangement for the Marvins to approve, and Bob then returned to Southampton where he designed every detail of the new joinery. This was then built in SYS’s workshops, shipped out in flat packs and installed by Antiguan boatbuilders supervised by a small number of SYS craftsmen. 

Cariad returned to England in 1983 and took part in Cowes Week before going to Turkey to do a charter season there. She suffered from various issues, partly caused by bad weather, on a horrendous passage to Malta, and was then based in Palma de Mallorca before being sold to a Japanese corporation in 1987. She was taken via the Suez Canal to Yokosuka where she had some work done at Sagami Dockyard, and in 1989 she took part in the Yokohama Exposition YES and then sailed to Singapore. Sometime after that she was abandoned when her owners experienced financial difficulties, before she was saved by the Japan Charter Yacht Association which used her as a flagship to promote charter sailing and ocean leisure in Tokyo. 

Derelict in Bangkok

In 2005 Cariad was purchased by British businessman Stuart Williamson after he found her in a derelict state near Bangkok. He took her to Phithak Sinchai Shipyard and Services (PSS), a small shipyard in Southern Thailand where she was extensively restored. The work was jointly project-managed by Australian Des Kearns and Thai Kanchala ‘Ked’ Krissadaraksa whose company Popeye Marine Services employed up to fifty-five predominantly Thai people to work on Cariad. 

Although the American elm keel was found to be in good condition, virtually all of the rest of the hull was rebuilt. The frames were all renewed, one at a time to ensure the hull shape wasn’t compromised; and all of the planking, apart from the garboards, was replaced. The new planking was Takhian Thong (sometimes spelt Thakian or Takian), a naturally oily timber which is harder than teak. A great deal of work was also done to the decks, rig and interior but in 2008 when she was “pretty well a perfect boat but not quite finished,” according to Des, Stuart was badly hit by the world financial crisis and had to put her on the market.   

Cariad was then purchased by a Singapore/Chinese national who kept her in Raffles Marina in Singapore. But for the next thirteen years she was never used, never lifted out of the water and barely maintained. Although she had a Filipino caretaker, she gradually deteriorated from the outside in (her underwater planking was eaten away by teredo worms), and from the inside out (a combination of the unforgiving hot, humid climate and the lack of internal ventilation resulted in condensation pouring down the inside of the planking). She even sank on no fewer than three occasions albeit, thanks to the limited depth of the marina, only by about a metre. “It was neglect, coupled with indifference,” said Des.

Then, in 2021, along came Tim Hartnoll, chairman of shipping company X-Press Feeders. He had previously considered buying Cariad when he had seen her in Tokyo about twenty years earlier, and now he did so, and immediately commissioned another restoration. Once again this was carried out at PSS – to which she was towed from Singapore – and with the same management team of Ked and Des, along with around fifty Thai workers, almost all of whom had contributed to the previous restoration. An invaluable addition to the team this time was British naval architect Paul Spooner. 

Another Restoration

Although the steelwork wasn’t as bad as first feared, it still took nine people ten months to replace about 7% of it, and repair and repaint the remainder. The stern post and stem were replaced, both in Takhian Thong with the latter laminated from four pieces. Almost half of the planking – including the garboards – was renewed, again with Takhian Thong, and she was caulked with oakum supplied by Davey & Co. As all of the joinery had to be removed to carry out this work, the opportunity was taken to reconfigure the layout aft to incorporate an additional guest cabin and day head. The new interior is comprised of teak panels and Takhian Thong framing, varnished with Epifanes and Awlwood; semi-gloss white painted overheads; teak soles; Corian worktops in the galley and heads compartments; and Italian leather upholstery. The gimballing saloon table, thought to be original, has been retained. The teak deck laid during the previous restoration had survived but was recaulked with Sikaflex 290DC. Many of the stainless-steel deck fittings were replaced with bronze ones which were designed by Paul Spooner and made by various UK companies; and new bronze winches were supplied by the Classic Winch Company. Cariad was originally built with a tiller but, not surprisingly, within a few months it was found necessary to replace it with wheel steering. That steering gear has now been extensively refurbished and no longer has any slack in it, and a Jefa autopilot has been installed. 

All eleven spars also suffered from neglect. The mizzen mast actually fell down during the tow from Singapore, and it was then found that only the main mast would be reusable, and even then only after extensive repairs. The blocks were made by Ording in Holland; the standing rigging by Spencer Rigging and the running rigging (all in three-strand rope supplied by English Braids) by Marine Results, both in the UK; and the narrow-panelled sails by Rolly Tasker Sailmakers in Phuket. 

The Gardner 8LXB diesel engine had somehow survived its three sinkings and ran beautifully once again after it had been thoroughly cleaned up. But otherwise new machinery and systems were fitted throughout including a Kohler generator, Frigomar air-conditioning, a Raritan sewage treatment system, and an Aquamiser watermaker. The whole boat had to be rewired, partly due to water damage but also because the new layout determined that the main distribution board had to be relocated.

It is hard to image how soul destroying it must have been for this dedicated team of crafts men and women to see Cariad’s appalling state when she came back to PSS the second time, knowing they would have to go through it all again. “At first they were angry and disappointed,” said Des, “and we knew it was going to be very difficult to motivate them. But then they just knuckled down and got on with it. As time went on we got the spirits right up to the normal levels. And the ‘build back better’ slogan wasn’t just empty words. Apart from anything else they all had thirteen years more experience and were better at what they were doing.” 

But not only did the whole team feel a great deal of private satisfaction from getting the project finished – and this time seeing Cariad sail for the first time for 30 years – their efforts were also publicly recognised when she won the Classic Rebuilt Yachts category at the World Superyacht Awards. “I am absolutely delighted,” said Tim who was in Venice, along with Paul, to receive the award in May, “but mostly for Des, Ked and everyone who worked on the boat.” Later this year, Cariad will race in the King’s Cup Regatta in Phuket; she will then come to UK to take part in the Royal Thames YC’s 250th anniversary regatta in the Solent next year; and from then on she will be based in the Mediterranean where she will compete in some of the classic boat regattas. “I think that is where she belongs,” said Tim. 

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The post Summers & Payne Ketch Restored: Cariad’s Remarkable Rebuilds appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.

The Legacy of Toba, the West Solent One Design

Toba is one of the five West Solent Class commissioned by the Argentina Yacht Club and ordered in 1924.

According to the brochure published in 1926 by the builder and designer, Mr. Harry G. May at Berthon Boat Company Limited, they were advertised as the “Lymington Racing Cruisers”, then became known as the “W” boats and finally classed as the “West Solent Restricted One-Design Class” that lead to the acronym WSOD.

The first five boats were built in 1924 for members of the Lymington Yacht Club at a cost of £600. In the same year, five boats were built under Lloyds supervision and sent to Argentina. According to the same brochure the owners were very happy with the boats and their performance.

The Argentinian boats were all named after native tribes, these being: Querandí, Toba, Ona, Timbú and Yagan, and for this reason they were known as “Los Indios”.

Of the five boats that arrived in Argentina, only Toba is operational and competing in the Argentinian Classic Boats circuit in the Vintage category.

Querandí is in the process of restoration, Ona is in the port of La Paloma in Uruguay and has been converted into a cruising boat and there is no information about Yagan and Timbú.

A total of 36 boats were built, half of which are still sailing in the UK, France, Spain and now Argentina. 

A Providential Destiny

Fate has curious ways of manifesting itself. Juan Pablo Fregonese, Marcelo Baltzer and Carlos Criado, the partners of the project, discovered this dream boat in almost mystical circumstances. 

After finishing the last day of regattas of the J70 European Championship held in Vigo, Spain, in June 2018, we wondered how much longer we could withstand the rigors of the J70 and raised the idea of looking for a classic boat as the next phase of our passion for competitive sailing, but we did not set a date.

Three years later we were chatting about classic boats while having lunch at the Yacht Club Argentino with Carlos (Pacho) Criado, and by chance we encountered Toba for the first time.

An acquaintance from the club came over and, as if revealing a hidden treasure, she said, I have the boat for you! She showed us pictures of Toba. She was a jewel that demanded a major restoration, but her charm and historical relevance were undeniable. A few Google searches and an immediate visit to the Yacht Club San Isidro to see it in person, sealed the deal. Marcelo, who lives in Spain, was convinced by his wife Tatei to join the project, despite initial concerns about distance. And so, in April 2021, Toba was under new command.

The Rebirth of Toba

The process of conservation, restoration and enhancement of Toba was based on the conservation principles established by the National Historic Ships UK (NHS-UK) in the guidance manual Conserving Historic Vessels.

West Solent One Design: Objectives

Firstly, we pictured three possible scenarios for the restoration of Toba. Would we restore the boat for a museum exhibition, without nautical requirements? Make her sail again without other demands than the current safety regulations? Alternatively, could we make a much greater effort and intervene with all the necessary procedures as indicated by the NHS-UK, for her to sail and participate in regattas?

After very enjoyable and long conversations, we went for the last option and embraced a restoration project that would keep us very busy during the subsequent 18 months.

Juan Pablo began working in Buenos Aires, at the shipyard of the YCA headquarters San Fernando, and looking for the best local artisans. Meanwhile, Marcelo visited Berthon Boat Company at The Shipyard in Lymington, England, where all but one of the WSOD fleet were built and met Brian May, MD of the company, and great-grandson of the original designer Harry G May, who kindly showed and explained to us his ongoing restoration of the West Solent W8 Ripple, ex Dinah, by young apprentices. Brian also gave us access to the original drawings, PR and sail plans. In addition, Marcelo visited Kevin Fuller, owner of the W29 Mischief and Chris Preston, owner of the W2 Suvretta, both enjoying sailing today on the English coast. They all showed great enthusiasm and shared very valuable information with us.

Assessment and State of Conservation

A technical diagnosis and detailed analysis of each component of the boat was carried out by Juan Pablo and his team to determine the materials and technology used for its construction 100 years ago. 

We were powerfully struck by the minimalist design and elegant arrangement of the internal structure of the stringers that were kept visible in the original design. When a plank was dismantled, the discovery of bronze nails with a square section, used in the attachment of planks to the hull frames, gave us a favourable picture of the general solidity and good state of preservation of the hull. Likewise, the lodging knees of frames, beams, metal plate floors and reinforcements were found in a very good state of conservation, allowing us to plan the tasks to be carried out during the restoration process. 

In parallel, several consultations were made with technical specialists to validate our initial findings and to perform a state-of-the-art scan of the original mast and boom to rule out fissures and confirm the solidity of the Oregon pine wood.

Historical archives were searched for graphic and photographic backgrounds to support technical and design decisions.

The process was supported by videos and pictures to create a project portfolio with drawings, sail plans and written documents.

Conservation, Intervention and Updating

We decided to respect the designer’s original idea and worked towards rebuilding an agile and simple racing boat, emphasising on performance in regatta sailing. 

Throughout the process, it was a priority to preserve as many of the original elements as possible in their current state, restoring them when required. 

We carried out the following main works

Mast and boom: complete cleaning and sanding (to zero), repair and filling of cavities and perforations caused by previous screws and fittings, and application of nine layers of marine varnish with anti-UV protection. As the boom and mast were original, we installed the mast according to the 1924 plan, we cut the boom based on the 2019 sail plan and kept it height position based on the existing location of the fittings on the mast. With the boat and sails being more rigid, the loss of mainsail area is easily bettered by less weather helm, especially in heavier wind.  

Rigging: we based the rigging design on the 2019 sail plan provided by Berthon and we added a lower shroud to gain mast stability. We relocated the closed shroud turnbuckles below deck, designing special bushings and chainplates that absorbed the change of direction stress from the low shrouds, resulting in a clean and stylish deck. 

Hull: replacement of the necessary planks with semi-hard Bolivian cedar wood, which has a density almost identical to that of the original mahogany.

Deck structure: adaptation, relocation, and addition of horizontal and vertical reinforcements, to support the fittings of the new deck layout.

Keel and rudder: replacement of the original Admiralty bronze keel bolts with stainless steel replicas and a full hydraulic sealing was used to fix the ballast to the keel. A complete reconstruction of the rudder shaft and blade was made.

Deck: a classic solution was chosen, with a caulked, flush deck, supported and fixed directly to the beams. Petiribí, a local hardwood, was used.  The height of the skylight butterfly hatch and coaming was reduced by 3in (75mm), to improve and emphasize the sheer and proportion of the hull.

Cockpit: the original closing hatch was modified and made removable to accommodate an additional crew member position in the cockpit area. 

Fittings: we respected the original position of main halyard and headsail winches on the mast, avoiding the use of organisers and stoppers on deck. In the cockpit, the original sheet winches were reused. All new fittings and deck rails were bought from special classic boat vendors like Davey & Co, Toplicht or Wilmex.

Toba Today

As expected, the launch that took place in the Yacht Club Argentino San Fernando in June 2022 has been a great success and the first test for this reborn boat. 

Furthermore, she exceeded our expectations in the first regatta and continued to do so in subsequent competitions, winning in 2023 the gold medal of the Argentinian Yacht Club in the Vintage class and the 2023 Grand Prix of Classics in category B of the Vintage class. 

In addition, Toba has sailed 800 nautical miles in El Rio de la Plata to compete in Uruguay in the last two years during which she responded excellently in heavy seas and 30 knots of wind.

Far from being a transition to a more relaxed life, as we initially thought, sailing this West Solent One Design has proven to be an experience full of technical and emotional challenges, but hugely rewarding and giving us a blast from the past.

Today, with Toba back on the water and the recognition of the Argentinian nautical community, the project partners feel they have achieved something monumental, the recovery of one of the most significant boats in the history of classic Argentinian sailing.

Toba Specifications

Designer Harry G May

Build Berthon Boat Company, 1924

LOA 35 ft 1 in / 10,7 m

LWL 23 ft 11 in / 7,3 m

BEAM 7 ft 7 in / 2,3 m

Draught 5 ft 3 in / 1,6 m

DISP 4,25 tons

SAIL AREA 575 sqft / 53,4 m2

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The post West Solent One Design Restored & Racing: Toba in Argentina appeared first on Classic Boat Magazine.