1001 Boats

Swan 38 - The Definitive Cruiser/Racer

2012-02-03T08:52:00.005Z

Readers of novels are willing to believe the most outrageous and tortuous plots - in the case of my, as yet, unfinished novel it's about unethical journalism, civil service corruption and murderous politicians - but only if the small, familiar details are correct. Since the central character in the tale I am currently writing, has to sail through, and survive, a terrifyingly violent storm, and later prevail in a fight with one of the chief villains, while navigating the overfalls of a treacherous tiderace, in a wind-over-tide gale, (guess who goes overboard!) my choice of boat was an easy one. Just as James Bond would not be credible without his Walther pistol and his Aston Martin, my story's hero, so my theory goes, could not be sent into stormy waters in an inadequate boat. If the detail is wrong, the plot will sink without trace.

The above, I hope, helps explain two things; why I have been too occupied to write here for a couple of months, and why I'm now writing about a Finnish boat instead of a French one.

The Swan 38 is one of my two or three favourite ever boats, and the only one I could choose for my fictional hero. If I wanted a boat I could trust to last me for the rest of my life, and to take me anywhere I desired to sail, the Sparkman and Stephens designed Swan 38 would be number one on my list. In terms of quality of build, design pedigree, strength, longevity and looks, this boat can stand comparison with any other yacht produced anywhere, at any time. But what makes the Swan 38 better, to my mind, than any other yacht of its size, is its ability to make open sea passages in all weathers, while keeping its crew comfortable, confident, and rested.

The design was commissioned from the legendary New York architects Sparkman and Stephens by the Finnish yachtbuilders Oy Nautor Ab in 1974. Nautor had already had considerable commercial success with a series of S&S designed Swans ranging from 36 to 65 ft LOA. The Swan 38 was designed as a more compact version of their outstandingly successful 1967 Swan 43 design, which had proved to be a fast boat at every level of racing competition, even winning a place in the 3 boat British Admiral's Cup team of 1969.

At the time of its introduction, Nautor had recently undergone a change of management, but the new owners were as determined as the founder, Pekka Koskenkylä, to build yachts of the highest quality. The 38 is no exception. It's backbone is a massive stainless steel girder, solidly glassed into the bottom of the hull. This rigid base carries the loads of the mast and of the 7000lb keel and endows the GRP hull with enormous strength and stiffness. Most of the boats were built with a teak deck beautifully laid on top of the GRP top moulding. This deck, though lovely to look at, will inevitably need replacing one day at considerable cost, and for the keen racer, its weight must be considered unnecessary. But, if you're thinking of becoming the owner of a Swan, you will probably be prepared to put up with the extra expense, every quarter-century or so, in order to be able to walk those teak planks.

No doubt experts will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the 38 was the first of the Swans to sport the signature, low, slope-sided, coachroof wedge which seems to grow out of the deck and merge into the cockpit coaming, and which, for a time, became a characteristic feature of the marque, until it was copied by many other designers. This feature makes the decks appear wider and allows excellent forward visibility from the cockpit.

Down below the joinery is immaculately made and polished to a cabinetmaker's finish. The Swan 38 was considered a roomy yacht in its day, and although it can't now compare for spaciousness with modern yachts of similar overall length, the hull's deep sections and relatively substantial displacement give it plenty of volume, so storage space is generous and useful.

Unlike the larger 43 of the same era, the main saloon is abaft the through-deck mast, so the social space is unobstructed. There are good seagoing pilot berths outboard of the settee berths so that the off-watch crew can sleep securely in bad weather.

The forward facing chart table to port allows the navigator to work on a large flat area, with bulkhead space for instruments, under-desk storage for charts, and, on some boats, a useful shelf for pilot books, without disturbing any resting crew. It is separated from the decent size galley opposite by the engine box and companionway steps. Behind the navigator there is a good size oilskin locker.

Further aft there is a usefully private, if slightly cramped, aft cabin under the cockpit. It is reached by a short passage on the port side, and it offers a double berth for when you get lucky in harbour, as well as a single quarter berth to port. There's not much headroom here, but the space gives the owner or skipper some privacy, and allows him, or her, while lying in the starboard double berth, to communicate with the crew through an opening hatch to the saloon, or through a small opening port into the cockpit.

Forward of the mast there is an adequately roomy WC/shower compartment to port with hanging locker and drawer space to starboard. Further forward still, the forecabin is dominated by bin stowage for the wardrobe of racing sails that a yacht of this type would have been expected to carry. Pipecots fold down over the bins when needed for harbour use. Many of the boats have now been adapted, for cruising or charter, by having this space converted into a proper cabin for two with a permanent 'V' berth.

The cockpit is comfortable but not overlarge, as in inshore racing situations most of the crew would be on deck, either perched on the weather rail or operating halyards, downhauls and winches grouped on a flat working area of the cabin roof abaft the mast. When racing or cruising offshore, only half the crew could be expected to be in the cockpit at once; the rest would be below for much of the time. There is a liferaft stowage locker to port, and a bridge deck which, together with a single shallow hatch slide, prevents water from a flooded cockpit entering the cabin.

The Swan 38 is an easy boat to sail. Her wide decks enable rapid and safe crew movement for sailhandling and harbour manoeuvres, and the simple, single-spreader rig enables her to be sailed shorthanded. Being a pedigree S&S design, she handles beautifully on all points of sailing, especially to windward, when she can be trimmed to balance perfectly with just enough weather helm for feel. Like most IOR inspired yachts of her day she can sometimes be a handful when sailing fully-powered dead downwind.

Production of the Swan 38 ended in 1979 with 116 hulls built. Today most examples will have been fitted with headsail roller reefing gear and modern electronic navigation aids. The best examples will have been professionally maintained by a top quality yard and may have new teak decks and an upgraded modern diesel. If you want one you will probably have to spend £70-100,000, but this could turn out to be an excellent investment, as prices are unlikely ever to fall below today's.

The Swan 38, in my opinion, is the best cruiser/racer ever. She may not be as fast downwind in smooth water as a some other boats of her size. She may not be as roomy as most more modern 38 footers. She won't plane on a reach at 15 knots in a 12 knot breeze like some of today's ultra-lightweight scaled-up dinghies. She is, however, one of a very few great sailing boats that can win races, cross oceans, go weekend family cruising or shorthanded passage making and can be absolutely relied on to make ground to windward in gale force wind and heavy seas when your life depends on it. As a bonus, she is strongly built and finished to immaculate standards by Nautor of Finland, a marque which, for yachtsmen of my age, carries the same exclusive cachet and promise of quality, as the Rolls-Royce brand once did for motorists.

Swan 38

Designer: Sparkman & Stephens
Builder: Oy Nautor Ab (now called Nautor's Swan)

LOA 38'-0"
LWL 28'-9"
Beam 11'-7"
Draft 6'-4"
Displacement 16,120 lbs
Ballast 7,050 lbs
Sail Area 682 sq ft

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to James Bull of Swan Yacht Charter for permission to use the images shown here. More photos and details of the Swan 38 "Cimaroon", available for charter, can be found at the Swan Yacht Charter website

Further links:
Article at Boats.com
Sparkman & Stephens (to view drawings and plans)

Slacktide

2011-12-23T13:31:00.015Z

Here’s something very different from Dave Zeiger of TriloBoats which are a family of barge/scow hulls that have been adapted for fast and easy construction in plywood. Dave and his family have what might appear an alternative and enviable lifestyle living aboard their 26 foot Trilo - Slacktide among the islands of Southeast Alaska's Alexander Archipelago.

If you think of Dave and family in terms of Ralph Waldo Emerson then perhaps Slacktide is analogous to Walden Pond. At 26' x 7' x 1' Slacktide is engine-free, a junk ketch-rigged sailing barge “not one of those curvaceous barge-babes, either, but a four-square and unrepentant box barge”

Slacktide is wind and human powered so sailing, sculling, drifting and idling are important pastimes. When the wind is fair and the tide a'rising, she will skim the shorelines or thread tiny passages between islets. When at anchor or waiting on the next tide Dave and family are afforded the perfect location from which to while away the day, drawing (boats from Dave, plants and animals from Anke), making music and exploring realms of the senses.

Compared to many of the boats featured on 1001 Boats “Slacktide” might be described as plain or even odd, but that’s to miss the point and a long history of slab sided working boats such as the sharpie, scow and barge. Reference England’s east coast barge trade, square section barges of 80 to 90 feet carrying immense cargos of up to 100 tons under sail through the shoal rivers and right into the port of London, often crewed by just a skipper and mate speak of an efficiency and fitness for purpose. In her way Slacktide draws many parallels, her form is a direct consequence of her intended function and owners purpose.

That’s not to say that Dave’s aesthetic is constrained by straight lines functionality, as he comments on his blog,

“.. don't get me wrong! I love curvaceous beauties, gleaming golden in every lissom line! The glint of brass and stalwart patina of bronze. Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!”

If I had a magic wand… sweet and curvy would suit me just fine. She'd be cold-moulded and dynel sheathed. Copper plated, from the boot-stripe down in strips hand-spilled and hammer fit by masters. She'd be tricked out with bronze hardware and copper running lights. Teak decks and resin plus gel-coat in lieu of paint. For easy maintenance, you know. A custom, welded stove would warm her, reminiscent of the old Shipmates, right down to the embossed anchors on the face.”

But I think of our box barges as the Least Common Denominator in boats. They are, quite literally, the least possible effort you can expend and still have a capable cruiser. KISS, even by barge standards. By almost any performance criterion, it's uphill from there. They are the lowest of the low. The bottom of the barrel.

But that's kind of empowering, don't you think? Look at how well they do... look at all the fun you can have on one! Their virtue is that their bang-for-the-buck ratio is through the roof. If any dreamboat is in reach, it's this kind, and it just gets better. And they do have sort of work-a-day good looks to them... don't they? Anyone?”

The answer to which is “yes they do.”

For further proof point of Slacktide’s fitness for purpose we should perhaps look at Dave’s previous boats. The first was a 19 foot Phil Bolger built Micro called Zoon, despite her small size the family proved to themselves that such a sailboat, even a small one “might be a good place to live.”

Zoon was followed by Luna, described as 31foot and “Bolgeresque” a slightly larger interpretation of Phil Boger’s Advanced Sharpie AS29.

With Luna sold and lessons learned, Dave and family used their unique experience when they embarked on the design and build of Slacktide, as the next generation vessel which incorporates several features ranging from unusual to outright experimental.

Sea trials were aimed to answer questions about the viability of the following:

Slacktide is a box barge – while there are several examples of sailing box barges, few if any sail as general cruisers in anywhere near the range of conditions found in SE Alaska, in particular, could she make good in moderate gale conditions?

The bottom is a trampoline structure, there are no internal stiffeners over the large and dead flat cabin sole (the inside of the hull). It's designed to flex. As a result the copper bottom plates were glued, not fastened to avoid barnacle-like nail-heads

The large, side-windows are little more than a foot above the waterline.

The low foredeck is just over two feet above the waterline in order to maximize the forward windows and allow good steering visibility from a sitting position, inside the cabin.

Her centre boards are arranged on cable travellers to allow them to stow aft providing a clear and unrestricted view while at anchor.

The mizzen mast is off-center – displaced over one foot to port.

The junk topsail cut is unusual – inspired by Polynesian crab-claw rig.

A SeaCycle ® Drive Unit has been fitted for windless propulsion – this is like an outboard, but with rotary pedals (like a bicyle's) in place of the motor

SLACKTIDE was intended for year-round, live-aboard cruising, since Dave and family have been living continuously aboard now, through two and a half seasons sailing about 428 nautical miles, they have had good opportunity to test her suitability. Details of those extended sea trials are available on their web site, in the sense that Slacktide is a boat that gets you where you want to be, the photos suggest that she does the job well

Luna

Slacktide

Blog

Foxer Dinghy

2011-12-18T06:43:00.001Z

Members of the Hamble River Sailing Club Foxer Fleet can be seen sailing every weekend, out on the water all year around summer and winter alike.

Designed by David Thomas (who also designed the Sigma 33) as a versatile sailing dinghy and yacht tender, the Foxer attracts some very experience helms and the fleet is characterised by close and competitive racing.

Length: 3.25m (10' 8")
Sail Area (Mono): 6.3m² (68 sq ft)
Beam: 1.37m (4' 6")
Weight: 78 kg (172 lbs)

The FOXER is a boat you sail IN rather than on. The exceptional stability and simple to control rig means there is no need to perch on the sides or hang overboard when sailing to windward - helms aged 8 to 80 with any degree of physical fitness can sail within their limits, while enjoying outstanding sailing qualities and safety.

The distinctive red, black and white Foxer sails have become and integral part of the Hamble weekend waterfront.

Nicholson 48

2011-12-14T09:17:00.001Z

I’m not really a fan of centre cockpit yachts, but the exception proves the rule as they say. The first time we went aboard a Nicholson 48 was in Scotland Bay, Trinidad. Growler monkeys could be heard among the steep and thickly wooded shore as we rowed over to swap some books, our conversation led to an early evening beer and on to a dram from the ships supply of single malt.

Our hosts proudly showed us around their boat and what we discovered was a strongly built and hugely practical long distance cruiser. Designed in the 1970’s for serious offshore cruising the Nicholson has a full, encapsulated keel, comfortable motion and well planned accommodation. With a sail area to displacement of 12.07 the Nic is perhaps a little under canvassed but the ketch rig, with everything in board, is easy to work with a small crew. The deep centre cockpit with permanent cover works equally well offering protection and security from the in the blazing Caribbean heat or the cold, wet waters of the Western Isles.

Although the styling places the Nicholson firmly in the 1970s – touches such as the venetian blinds seen on many examples, the design has a timeless quality and an image which speaks of quality and fitness for purpose which has aged well.

LOA 47' 6"
LWL 34' 3"
Beam 12'
Draft 7' or 5'5" (shoal draft version)
Displacement 31,300lbs
SA/Dis 12.07
Bal/Dis .32

Joshua

2011-12-07T19:16:00.006Z

Bernard Moitessier will always be remembered as the strange Frenchman who might have beaten Robin Knox-Johnston to be the first man to sail singlehanded non-stop around the world. Instead, on the last leg of his journey, when heading North in the South Atlantic towards the finish, he put the helm over and headed back into the roaring forties on a second lap of the globe.

At the time, in March 1968, he had been closing rapidly on Knox-Johnston, who was sailing a much slower boat but had started ten weeks before Moitessier.

Moitessier's powerful 39' ketch "Joshua" - named in honour of the first solo circumnavigator, Captain Joshua Slocum - was built in steel in France in 1962 to a design by Jean Knocker. Her immensely strong double-ended hull, welded, with minimum framing, in thick gauge steel plate, is clearly heavily influenced by Colin Archer's famously seaworthy norwegian yacht and lifeboat designs. By coincidence, Knox-Johnston's 32' "Suhaili" was also based on a Colin Archer design.

Joshua was not built specifically for the Sunday Times Golden Globe Challenge, the competition won by Knox-Johnston for the first non-stop solo circumnavigation. She was conceived and built, however, with shorthanded long ocean voyages in mind. Moitessier had already made a number of ocean crossings in home-built boats of his own design. As both his previous oceanic adventures had ended in shipwreck, he was no doubt keen to make sure that Joshua would be built as strongly as possible. Her construction was financed by the royalties from the book he wrote about his previous voyages, and by the time of the Golden Globe race, Moitessier had already tested her thoroughly, in ocean voyages from France to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, across the Pacific to Tahiti, and back to France by way of Cape Horn.

After these voyages Moitessier wrote another book and many magazine articles about his experiences.

Although he became renowned as France's most intrepid ocean voyager, and financially comfortable as an author, Bernard Moitessier was a quiet man, never comfortable with his celebrity. It seems it was the anticipation of the public and press hullabaloo that would result if, or more likely, when he won, that persuaded him to abandon the race and continue sailing, just at the moment when victory began to look probable.

"I am continuing, without stopping, towards the islands of the Pacific," he wrote, "because I am happy at sea, and also, perhaps, so that I don't lose my soul". He sailed on as far as Tahiti, then spent many years living and sailing in the South Pacific, earning his living writing about his voyages.

Joshua became another of Moitessier's shipwrecks, when, ten years after his famous one-and-a-half times round-the-world solo voyage, he accidentally piled her up on the shore in Mexico. This strange man then gave the boat away to a couple of young men who helped to recover her. Later she was purchased and restored by the Maritime Museum of La Rochelle, where she remains afloat and active to this day.

Moitessier died in 1994 and is buried in Brittany.

Images: Wikipaedia

Links to more information about Joshua and Bernard Moitessier:

La Mer en Livres

Bluemoment.com

Elizabeth - Copper Ore Barge

2011-11-05T09:33:00.005Z

An unusual although no less deserving and interesting boat, sadly neglected was brought to my attention by Tedd Gregg, who kindly sent in these photos and history.

Ted writes, "Lying on the shore of Lake Windermere ajacent to the Steamboat Museum is the Barge Elizabeth . Though now a ruin she is surely worth a mention.

Elizabeth was built in 1839 at Windermere by a local boat builder. She was built for the Coniston Copper Mines Company to transport Copper Ore down the six miles of Lake Coniston. There she would be off loaded and the Ore carted to the nearby estuary to be loaded onto Sailing Ships for the ore refinery in South Wales.

Alas her duties as an ore carryer were short lived, with the coming of the Railway in 1849 Elizabeth became redundant and she lay unused for the next thirty years, until she was purchased and taken back to Lake Windermere in 1880 and put to use as a Sand and Gravel Barge for a number of years .

Elizabeth was beached many years ago and is now in a very sorry state but quite unique, she is double ended, of 50 feet in length, with a beam of 12 feet.

The photos were taken by myself and are being used in my endeavours to build a model lookalike on behalf of the Steamboat Museum.

Even in her dilapidated state Elizabeth shows her fine lines and the interesting juxtaposition between the details of her construction and the ravages of nature moving inexorably to reclaim her.

We look forward to seeing Ted's model (a follow up post perhaps)

Muscadet - the French "peoples' boat"

2011-11-01T11:55:00.013Z

Philipe Harlé's Muscadet is a French legend. In the early 1960s the Muscadet helped “democratise” the sport of sailing, making ownership of a real coastal cruiser affordable for the ordinary working man. There were, of course, other designs, many from the drawing board of J-J Herbulot, that were as affordable and as capable, but it is the Muscadet, with its instantly recognizable profile, its startlingly good offshore performance, its sheer numbers and its longevity that must take the honours as the real French “peoples' boat”.

What is most surprising about the boxy little Muscadet is that, as well as being a capable and roomy small family cruiser, it turned out to be an exceptional mini ocean racer. Its outstanding successes in this field could be compared to a VW Beetle winning the Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Heures Du Mans. (Yes, I know about Herbie, but that was Disney comedy, the Muscadet is a real life champion!).

To start at the beginning, Philippe Harlé was working at the Glénans Sailing School where he was in charge of boat maintenance. A new motor supply shuttle was needed for the cash-strapped, island-based school, so Harlé designed it and oversaw its construction himself. Naturally he was then the obvious choice to manage the construction of the school's new offshore training yacht, Glénan, designed by the great John Illingworth.

These two projects provided Harlé with such fulfillment and excitement, that he recognised his future lay in yacht design. At the end of the proving voyages of Glénan, trials which involved taking part very successfully in a couple of RORC races (9th and 2nd places – in spite of the boat starting its first race two hours late, its fit-out still unfinished, and the boat so underprovisioned the crew all lost 7 or 8 pounds in weight), Harlé bumped into Louis Blouet, a businessman and enthusiastic offshore racer. Blouet mentioned that he was about to commission Illingworth to design a new ocean racer, and the young Philippe impulsively offered to design the boat himself. Blouet, rather surprisingly, agreed. This was 1962 and Philippe Harlé was now a naval architect!

In spite of this encouragement, Philippe was still working at the Glenans when the prototype of his next design, the Muscadet, was launched at the Aubin yard in Nantes during February 1963. Built in plywood with a single hard edged chine, its reverse sheer and high slabby topsides unrelieved by ports or other features, she must have looked unusual to say the least. Claude Harlé, Philippe's wife, thought it ugly, and taking a tin of anchovies from her larder as a template, she traced three oblong porthole openings on the Muscadet plans. With these windows and a broad contrast stripe painted under the sheerline, the Muscadet's looks were marginally improved, and the boat sailed, with little further preparation, across the Bay of Biscay from Nantes in heavy weather, to take part in a One-Of-A-Kind Rally organised by a yachting magazine at La Rochelle.

The crews of the competing yachts may have laughed at the little "soap box” as they called the Muscadet, but they stopped laughing when she outsailed bigger and much more expensive boats and left them all with a good view of her most boxy feature – her almost square transom. That year two further Muscadets sailed to the Glénans, where they were trialled by many of the staff and trainees and excellent reviews were published in the Glénans journal. Muscadet's performance both on and off the wind, especially in a choppy sea, was judged outstanding, and her fine seakeeping and sailing qualities, together with her low cost, soon led to a very full order book for the builders, Aubin, and to Philippe giving up his job and setting up shop as a Naval Architect in his Paris apartment.

You have to like a man who names most of his work after alcoholic drinks. Philippe Harlé started this sequence in 1963 with the Muscadet. By the time of his untimely death in 1991, more than 50 of his designs were named in this fashion, including Armagnac, Cognac, Scotch, Aquavit, Gros Plant, Cabernet, Sancerre, Pineau, Sauvignon and Sangria.

At any time in the 1960s or 70s, a yachtsman visiting France would have noticed the proliferation of the Muscadet class. it was taken up by individuals and clubs all over France, and its amazing ability to make fast passages in rough water, often with 4, or even more, on board (the French love to sail in company) impressed the crews of larger, more traditional British cruising yachts who would find Muscadets turning up in the Channel Isles, the Scillies, the English south coast ports, and even the south-west of Ireland.

The combination of good performance and low initial cost was unstoppable. Young people could afford to buy boats that were equally as capable of winning races and of making offshore passages as the larger boats that had hitherto been thought the minimum requirement. In 1977 when already around 750 Muscadets were afloat, the first Mini-Transat singlehanded race for yachts of 6.5 metres overall length was announced. This race, though conceived and organised in Britain, attracted a large number of young French entrants, and 6 out of the 26 starters were sailing Muscadets, even though the design was already 14 years old.

5 Muscadets finished the gruelling race from Penzance to Antigua in the West Indies. The first 3 of them finished 4th, 6th and 11th. The last of them was in 16th place. Muscadets were still well represented in the 1979 race in which Philippe Harlé himself came fourth, sailing a Gros Plant, a slightly modified and modernised version of the Muscadet design. Another Gros Plant finished 2nd, while the lowest placed Muscadet was in 17th place out of 32 starters.

Although the Muscadet continued to prove its ability in offshore races throughout the 1980s (there was at least one Muscadet in every Mini-Transat up until 1991), the new generation of Mini 6.50 offshore racers, including designs by Harlé, eventually made it uncompetitive. However, the class remains, to this day, highly popular in French waters as a family cruiser and one-design regatta racer.

The strict one-design class rules include two unusual stipulations. First, the crew must be good company and willing to take part in parties and social events organised by the regatta committee. Second, the boat must have at least one full bottle of Muscadet on board at the start of the race, and one full bottle on crossing the finish line.

Muscadet designed by Philippe Harlé
Built 1963 - 1979, over 750 produced by Aubin, 1000+ examples in total.
LOA 6.4 m
LWL 5.6 m
Beam 2.26 m
Draft 1.12 or 0.75/1.25
Displacement 1200 kg
Ballast 520 kg
Sail Area 25.05 m2

Sources, Photo Acknowledgements and Links:

All Boats Avenue, Association des Propriétaires de Muscadet, Ouest-France, A & P Aubin Brochure, and the official biography "Muscadet, Armagnac, Sangria... : Philippe Harlé, architecte naval", by Claude Harlé and Dominique Lebrun.

St Michel II - Jules Verne's yacht returns!

2011-10-15T08:42:00.034+01:00

The happy band of sailing men seen in the picture here are volunteers from the "Cale 2 l'Ile" association based in the French port of Nantes. The association aims to save some of France's nautical heritage by restoring and maintaining old boats.

The boat they're sitting on is one they all helped build - the St Michel II - a replica of Jules Verne's second yacht in which he enjoyed escaping from land to cruise and write his novels in peace. (The reason they're all sitting on the rail, by the way, is that they're helping the boat's designer, Francois Vivier, to measure the boat's stability.)

The 6 year project to build St Michel II was completed earlier this year and she was launched at Nantes where Jules Verne was born in 1828.

Jules Verne was, from an early age, an enthusiast for all things to do with ships and the sea. In 1865, with his books selling well, and his fortune increasing, he bought a small fishing vessel of around 25 ft at the small port of Le Crotoy at the mouth of the river Somme, and had it converted into a capable sailing yacht. Verne made many extended cruises in his little boat, becoming familiar with many ports in Northern France, the Channel Islands and parts of the English south coast. He even sailed up the Thames to London. It was on board this yacht, the St Michel, while cruising with his crewman Alexandre Delong, that Verne wrote his “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”.

In 1875 after having been elected to membership of France's premier yacht club, Verne ordered a larger 13m yacht from the Cherbourg yard of Abel Lemarchand. Although he took pleasure in working with the builder on the yacht's plans, she retained the lines and character of a traditional northern French pilot vessel. The new boat was named St Michel II and launched in 1876. Once again Verne undertook a full programme of extended cruising, along the coasts of northern france, the south of England, Brittany, and even across the Bay of Biscay to Bordeaux and back. He loved the peace and solitude he found on board his boats, and was able to write very productively while at sea, unburdened by everyday social and family matters.

After only a couple of seasons, however, the St Michel II was replaced by a magnificent steam motor-sailer of 31 metres length, the St Michel III, a vessel befitting the world's most famous author of tales of travel and adventure. This new boat required a crew of 10 men, and Verne's cruises became even longer and more extended, reaching as far as the Baltic, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, North Africa, Malta and Italy.

The original St Michel II was sold to the St Nazaire Pilot station where she served for many years. Later she became the supply ship for the prison on the island of Belle-Ile, off the Brittany coast. The St Michel II was eventually scrapped in 1911.

The new replica St Michel II has already taken part in a number of sailing events for classic and historic vessels around the coast of France. Her first public outing was at the famous "Semaine du Golfe de Morbihan" (Morbihan Week), a biennial boatfest which attracts hundreds of vessels of all shapes and sizes. I'm hoping to take part in the 2013 event with my own boat - if my own restoration project is complete by then.

St Michel II

LOA: 13.27m
Beam: 3.52m
Draft: 2.25m

Acknowledgements and links:

Association La Cale 2 l'Ile

Images and story sources: La Cale 2 l'Ile and Francois Vivier

Additional images: Ouest-France, Mer et Marine.com

Fowey River Class

2011-09-30T04:22:00.000+01:00

The Fowey River Class is a 14 foot traditional dinghy which is actively sailed in the Cornish harbour town.

Based on a knockabout day boat by Reg Freeman in the late 1940’s, the design of which was published in Yachting World. In the early 1950’s a local dentist commissioned a boat to be built by Hunkins Boatyard across the river at Polruan, after that the fleet quickly grew and by the mid 1960’s had reached 36 boats.

Inevitably with the introduction of modern plastic boats the class declined throughout the 1960’s and 70’s, but there has been a resurgence of interest in the class and several new boats have been built including those by local wooden boat builder Marcus Lewis.

Racing on a evening in the summer, the Fowey River Class make a wonderful sight, their distinctive coloured sails and bright finished hulls look spectacular sailing in the steep wooded estuary. The current popularity of the Fowey River Class can be seen all along the town’s water front where well kept examples swing to their moorings when not sailing.

This boat was interesting, it seems to be a FR and certainly the coloured sails and sail number reflect that, but the boat is painted rather than varnished. The planking is also different to other examples, having fewer and broader topside planks and a more pronounced sheer. Whatever her origin she’s certainly a pretty boat.

Maïca and her sisters - a classic Illingworth design

2011-09-26T09:34:00.025+01:00

There are not many ocean racing characters whose exploits and achievements rival those of Captain John Illingworth. He was already a well-known and successful yacht racer before the war, but it was in the 1940s and '50s that he virtually dominated the British ocean racing scene, as well as being hugely influential in the development of the sport in other countries, especially France and Australia. (photo: Mandragore, a transom stern Maïca class)

His most famous yacht, Myth of Malham, was nominally designed by Laurent Giles, but it is no secret that Illingworth himself conceived the general outline of the boat, with its abruptly short ends, relatively light displacement and, above all, its groundbreaking rig with big masthead foretriangle and high aspect ratio mainsail. Jack Laurent Giles begged to be allowed to draw longer overhangs, but was firmly overruled. He complained that the proposed mainsail was too short on the foot and looked more like a flag than a sail, but Illingworth insisted, and Myth of Malham went on to be one of the most successful ocean racing boats of all time.

In 1950 Illingworth opened his own yacht design business, in partnership with Angus Primrose. Together they created some of the most attractive and weatherly boats of the era. Illingworth's role was to conceive the design in general, the rig, and the details of deck and interior layouts, while Primrose gave the hulls their sweet and efficient lines for speed, good seakeeping and beauty. (photo: Saba, a superb example of a counter stern Maïca)

Many of the firm's early clients were French. Illingworth spoke fluent French and loved the country. He encouraged and assisted in the founding of the enormously influential Glenans sailing school, where hundreds of young Frenchmen learned to sail – and to become instructors themselves. He was commissioned to design a yacht for the Glenans school, the building of which was put under the supervision of Philippe Harle who worked at the Glenans at the time. This experience so stimulated Harle that he immediately gave up his job at the school and set up as a yacht designer himself.

The first of what became known as the Maïca class was commissioned by French yachtsman Henri Rouault who had admired Illingworth's earlier successful racer “Belmore” and asked for a smaller version. She was built by Burnes of Bosham and launched at Easter 1960. At the suggestion of Rouault's sister, a nun, the boat was named after her convent's former Mother Superior, a decorated heroine of the wartime resistance, who was known by the nickname “Maïca”. (image: drawings for the transom stern Maïca)

The original Maïca, like the Belmore design, had a transom stern. She was so admired and so successful, winning the RORC Class III championship in 1962 that soon further examples were built in Britain and in France, but when Illingworth sold the plans for the Maïca to Constructions Mécaniques de Normandie at Cherbourg, Felix Amiot, the owner of the yard, insisted that the design should be modified with a counter stem. Apparently this was because M. Amiot wanted a Maïca for his own personal use and he preferred the elegant look of a counter stern.

So Illingworth and Primrose produced plans for a “Maïca à voûte” (counter stern) and in 1963 CMN started to build this version employing a novel method of construction that made series production viable - cold moulded mahogany. (image: drawings for the counter stern Maïca class) A first lightweight layer of 1cm planks was laid longitudinally over formers, then two diagonal layers, each 4cm thick, at right angles to each other. When the glue had cured the hull was simply lifted off the formers and turned right way up for decking and fitting out.

CMN built 38 Maïca class yachts, about half of which are known to be still sailing and in superb condition. (photo: Maïcas awaiting delivery at the CMN yard in Cherbourg) The CMN Maïcas were mostly sold to French clients, (one was ordered by the Greek ambassasor to Paris), but many went to customers from Britain and other countries. Some of these boats were among the most famous offshore racers of their day - and many were scoring notable wins even ten years after the introduction of the class

With so many international racing successes and long voyages, the class also made a name for itself in Mediterranean waters and it was not long before a couple of Italian yards obtained licences to build slightly modified versions. One Italian version, of which I believe over a hundred examples were built, was in GRP with a modified fin keel and skeg underwater profile.

Maïca class by Illingworth and Primrose

LOA: 10.08m (transom), 11.06 (counter)
LWL: 7.32m
Beam: 2.74
Draft: 1.74
Displacement: 5300Kg (approx)

(photo: The elegant stern of one of the counter stern Maïcas, recently sold by Sandeman Yacht Co.)

Links:

Class Maïca (Acknowledgements to this French website for much of the history and most of the above photos)

Saba - a French owned Maïca.

If you want to sail a Maïca, see Saba's cruising and regatta programme

Lacoste 42 - handsome yacht - but a marketing fiasco

2011-09-19T09:13:00.007+01:00

I usually contribute posts about French boats to this blog, but when I heard last week that Sparkman and Stephens, the most illustrious yacht design firm of the 20th century, had moved, after more than 80 years on Madison Avenue, NY, to new premises on the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound, I thought I would feature an S&S design in this post to mark the historic occasion. Cunningly, though, I managed to find an interesting S&S boat with a very French story.

The fashion brand Lacoste is so well known all over the world that it's easy to forget its French origins. Rene Lacoste was a French tennis champion, winner of 7 grand slam titles in the 1920s and '30s, whose nickname, "the alligator", was the inspiration for the logo on his tennis shirt - the first of many products marketed under the now famous Lacoste name. In 1985, the house of Lacoste, by then a global byword for sporty fashion goods, took the bold step of extending their brand into yachts - not just any yacht, of course - Lacoste yachts were to exemplify style, performance, and comfort, so naturally they went to the world's most respected yacht architects for the designs.

Sparkman and Stephens designed at least two boats for Lacoste. One, a motor yacht, never went into production. Another, the Lacoste 42, a fast cruiser/racer, was built and marketed for Lacoste by the Dufour yard at La Rochelle. Though a very handsome, stylish and capable vessel it was not a great success in sales terms - only 12 were ever built

Looking at the photographs and drawings of the Lacoste 42, I think I can guess why sales were disappointingly slow. The boat suffers from a seriously split personality. On the outside it is a very high performance racing yacht, with a tall, narrow, complicated rig, a race-crew oriented deck layout and an aggressively honed, IOR-rating-tweaked, short fin and vestigial skeg underwater profile; inside it's a de luxe holiday home with 3 double bedrooms, (each with ensuite facilities), a large galley and a spacious and comfortable saloon.

I imagine most of the marina posing types, who could have been attracted to the stylish and comfortable interior, would run a mile from the race-bred rig with its three-spreader mast, running backstays, hydraulically tensioned standing backstay and 2 inner forestays (one is detachable to ease tacking - the two guys on the foredeck in the publicity shot below are leaning against it).

Conversely, few of the hard-core racing crews capable of handling the big rig with its huge headsails and spinnakers would be likely to appreciate all the comforts of the double beds and triplicated shower and heads compartments.

Aside from that, the marketing and management suits at Lacoste probably knew little about the unglamorous wet, cold and bruising side of yacht racing, and the salt-stained welly-boot boat jockeys at Dufour equally little about fashion marketing - in short, a perfect recipe for a marketing flop. None were built after 1992, even though the Lacoste name was dropped and the yacht was rebranded as the Dufour 42.

A pity, really, because according to the accounts of owners and crews that you can find on internet forums, the Lacoste 42 made an excellent, long-legged cruising yacht. Even now, it seems that when they do come on the market they tend to sell for very good prices.

Lacoste/Dufour 42

LOA: 42'-2"
LWL: 35'-9"
Beam: 13'-0"
Draft: 7'-6"
Displacement: 16,538 lbs
Ballast: 7,124 lbs
Sail Area: 748 sq ft

Colour image right: a very handsome Lacoste 42 recently sold by Ancasta International Boat Sales.

Plans and drawings: Sparkman and Stephens

Golif - the first all-plastic sailing yacht?

2011-09-12T08:19:00.016+01:00

The 23ft Golif was built from 1962 by the Jouët works at Sartrouville. Jouët claim she was the first production small offshore cruiser to be entirely built in GRP, and she caused a stir on her introduction at the first Paris Boatshow in January 1962.

The unusual name comes from a famously ruthless, daring, and reportedly amorous 17th century French pirate, Louis Adhémar Timothée Le Golif, also known as “Borgnefesse”. Since his nickname means something like "one-eyed-arse", you would probably have been wise to address him, at least until you got to know him well, as Captain Golif.

Golif was designed by Jouet with one eye on the American market, where the management believed they could sell a lot of boats. They had probably been helped considerably in their objective by the earlier successful transatlantic voyages of Jean Lacombe, in a plywood Jouet Cap-Horn. Apparently the company's market research suggested that the Americans favoured rather more interior comfort than the European market was used to, and that stiffness under sail and transportability by road would be important qualities for US buyers. Some of the Golif's characteristic features, such as its panoramic cabin window, shoal draft, relatively light displacement and high ballast ratio, stem directly from these market-related requirements.

Even today, Golif's looks seem rather quirky, though the underwater hull shape and the rig appear conventional. At the time, however, Golif's rig was considered rather tall and narrow, and the aluminium mast was in those days quite an innovation on a small cruising yacht. The odd pinched shape of the coach roof seems to have been intended to maximise the width of the side decks, but without sacrificing headroom in the places below where you might want to stand. Thus, with perfect French logic, there is low headroom over bunks and seats, where you sit or lie down, but there is plenty of headroom over the central passage and galley area, where you stand or walk. As the Jouët company said, this deck was designed from the inside!

Unusually for such a small boat, Golif had a decent chart table at which you could comfortably sit and work while facing the direction of travel, as you might in a much larger yacht. This was achieved by making the chart table swing down from the cabin deckhead right in the centre of the boat. Another innovation was a hinged and sliding hatch (visible in the colour photo of a Golif recently for sale in France)

Some versions of the Golif were delivered with an optional deeper keel for racing performance. These boats were excellent performers in offshore races and won many prizes, but it was a perfectly standard Golif that achieved the greatest fame for the class. In 1964, Jean Lacombe who had been France's sole entrant in the 1960 Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic Race (OSTAR), returned to repeat the feat in a Golif, once again the smallest boat in the competition. This was the year of Eric Tabarly's first triumph, so Lacombe's achievement was rather overshadowed by the acclaim and fanfares garnered by the winner. Nevertheless, Lacombe's Golif took joint pride of place, alongside Tabarly's Pen Duick II at the centre of the 1965 Paris Boat show. (see photo)

There are varying estimates of the total number of Golifs built by Jouet and also by the Dubigeon yard in Normandy. The total number certainly comes to over 1000.

Jouët Golif
LOA: 6.50m
LWL: 5.92m
Beam: 2.22m
Draft: 0.96m
Displacement: 1200Kg
Ballast: 480Kg (cast iron)
Sail area: 23.2sqm

Many thanks to the French Golif owners website for all the b&w images and much of the information used in preparing this post. Colour photo of a Golif recently for sale in France from an advertisement on www.leboncoin.fr

A scanned copy of the original 1963 Jouet Golif sales brochure is available in .pdf format from Yacht Brochures.co.uk

Stone Horse 23

2011-09-05T05:10:00.011+01:00

The Stone Horse 23, cutter-rigged pocket cruiser.
Sam Crocker designed the Stone Horse 23 in 1931 after the tradition of the small working vessels that evolved along the New England coast during the days of sail. In 1968, Edey & Duff adapted it to fiberglass but retained both the performance and beauty of the original with classic lines, a generous nature and quick response to a light touch.

A sloop with two headsails, the Stone Horse, with its large mainsail, moves in the merest whisper of a breeze while the long keel holds it on course and facilitates self-steering. The boat is safe, responsive and a sheer delight even in high-wind conditions that leave other boats at their moorings. The 8-foot cockpit welcomes guests and stays dry.

The mahogany-trimmed cabin has sitting headroom and enough space for an afternoon nap, or for several days of cruising.

There are no winches, various blocks and purchases provide mechanical advantage.
Her classic lines, wooden spars, bowsprit, and boomkin are fittingly eye-catching.

I had the pleasure of sailing in company with the two Stone Horse pictured here, in the Salish Sea this summer.

Impressive vessels indeed.

"A" ~ the spectacular mega yacht designed by Philippe Starck

2011-09-03T09:18:00.012+01:00

The French designer, Philippe Starck is best known for his furniture and kitchen gadget designs, including his iconic lemon juicer. He is not, as far as I know, a naval architect, yet the most exciting and, to my mind, most beautiful of the world's billionaire mega-yachts has its origin on Starck's drawing board.

Starck, whose work ranges from designing boutique hotels, the Virgin Galactic “spaceport” as well as that stylish juicer, claims to have come up with the idea for “A”, as the yacht is called, in 3½ hours. Naval architects, including Britain’s Martin Francis, and Blohm and Voss, the German shipbuilders, then took over and adapted the design project.

Starck always insists that form must follow function – in other words the purpose for which an object is designed should dictate its shape. This 5,900 ton, 390 ft. yacht's shape is reminiscent of a battleship crossed with a submarine. Evidently Starck appreciated that a yacht is, in essence, a big boy's toy, and that for this big boy, Russian billionaire owner Andrey Melnichenko, 36, only the biggest, “baddest” looking toy battleship on the boating pond would do.

Apart from sheer stylish looks, the clean lines of the exterior answer another function – that of security. The lack of any external features such as rails, handholds, or openings makes it very difficult for pirates or other undesired visitors to board the ship. For the same reason, the helicopter pad on the bow is easily rendered unusable by extending a telescopic mast through the deck. Clamshell doors hide all the access points, including the garage for the 2 launches, extending harbour gangways and even the anchor cable fairleads.

The yachts twin engines deliver 24,000 hp for a 24 knot cruising speed and a 6,500 mile range. Accommodation includes a palatial (quite literally) owners suite, 6 luxurious double guest cabins, and quarters for 37 crew plus 5 of the owners personal staff, secretaries, assistants, etc.

The yacht is variously said to have cost $200 to $300 million. Crew salaries, maintenance and running costs are unlikely to be less than another 5 to 10 million a year. So, it's not enough to be very rich indeed - Wayne Rooney rich, for instance - to own this yacht. You need to be able to spend twice Wayne's annual salary, every year, just to run it. Fortunately for Mr. Melnichenko, whose wealth is conservatively estimated at $2-3 billion, he can.

Obviously the interior décor is super palatial. I won't even try to describe it. You can find more details in the Wall Street Journal video and on the sites to which I have linked below. But the accessory I really like, and which makes me warm greatly to the scarily rich Mr. Melnichenko, is the uncompromising design of the yacht's twin 30 ft. motor-launch tenders. He could easily have bought a couple of off-the-shelf plastic speedboats, and in spite of the fact that each one of these beauties probably cost as much as a very nice house in Torremolinos, he clearly would have nothing that was not rare and spectacular for his yacht. This, for Mr Melnichenko was probably no more of an extravagance than my purchase of a pair of shiny bronze rowlocks, instead of perfectly serviceable plain galvanised, for my 10 ft rowing dinghy.

As another great designer once said, “God is in the detail”.

Links:

Italian saint-andres blog story

Sunday Times Article

The Jouet "Cap-Horn", designed by Jean Jacques Herbulot

2011-08-27T08:18:00.047+01:00

When stories are told about the early days of short and single-handed long distance ocean racing, the names of Chichester, Hasler and the French hero Eric Tabarly are the most easily remembered. It's often forgotten that only one Frenchman took part in the first Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic race - and it wasn't Tabarly.

The lone Frenchman, Jean Lacombe, sailing the smallest boat in the race, the tiny plywood “Cap-Horn,” was, in fact, probably already the most experienced single hander among the 5 men who took part in the first OSTAR. Although up against more famous adventurers like Francis Chichester and Blondie Hasler, by the time the race started Lacombe had already sailed the Atlantic single-handed from East to West and back again, as well as cruising a great deal of the Eastern seaboard of the USA. He had done all this in his simple 21 ft centreboarder, Cap-Horn, designed by J-J. Herbulot as a low cost weekend cruiser.

(photo: Jean Lacombe's Cap-Horn after the 1960 OSTAR - still with race number - Jouet Cap Horn brochure)

Lacombe had actually been in New York with his boat when he heard of the race. He entered late and set sail for for the start line 3000 miles away at Plymouth to arrive 4 days after the others had departed. His participation went, therefore, almost unnoticed by the British and foreign press who had been in Plymouth covering the race preparations but had already left the scene.

Staying only long enough to fill his water tanks and buy a few provisions for the return voyage, Lacombe calmly set sail into the prevailing wind for another 3000 mile Atlantic crossing.

Lacombe's “Cap-Horn” was a compact weekend family cruiser of 21ft overall, built by Jouet, a well established boat building firm in Sartrouville, on the River Seine. It was a design that, though simple, was rather more sophisticated than the type of basic small cruising boat that was becoming popular in France in the 1950s, when the influential Glenans Sailing School began to turn out a few dozen enthusiastic young sailors every summer.

The yacht's designer, Jean Jacques Herbulot, had designed most of the Glenans school boats, so this new breed of French sailor was already programmed by training and experience to appreciate the simple rather “boxy” plywood hulls he had produced previously. The Cap-Horn, however, was not hard-chine ply-over-frame construction like most of his earlier boats. It had a nicely rounded cold moulded hull, though it retained the typically Herbulot wide, clear decks and minimal raised coachroof. The Cap-Horn is now quite a rare boat, and it's difficult to find much information about it, but, at the time it must have seemed a more sophisticated design than most others in its class.

The plywood Herbulot designs of the day, simple, compact, practical and inexpensive, were emblematic of French sailing in the '50s and early '60s. Just a year after the first OSTAR, however, France's first all-GRP production cruising boat emerged from the Jouet factory, and Cap-Horn's strong and lightweight cold moulded construction suddenly seemed old fashioned and labour intensive compared with the new high-tech material. (colour photo: the varnished hull of this 1964 Cap-Horn, recently for sale in France, has been well maintained and preserved.)

Jean Lacombe did complete that first OSTAR, finishing in last position after 74 days. He went on to take part again in the 1964 race (Tabarly's first win) in another Jouet-built boat, the Golif, a landmark (seamark?) design in French yachting history which I'll write about in another post soon

Cap-Horn built by P. Jouet & Cie, designed J. J. Herbulot

LOA 6.50m - (20.90 ft)

LWL 6.00m - (19.67 ft)

Beam 2.16m - (7.08 ft)

Draft (max) 1.20m - (3.94 ft)

Draft (min) 0.70m - (2.30 ft)

Displacement 907kg - (2000 lbs)

Love-Love, by Julien Berthier

2011-08-25T11:01:00.006+01:00

French artist Julien Berthier created this boat. According to him, "Love love is the permanent and mobile image of a wrecked ship that has become a functional and safe leisure object".

I'm not sure the Health and Safety Executive would agree with him about the last part.

Here's what the gallery that displayed it said.

"For this piece he adapted an abandoned 6.5 meter yacht so that it appears to be perpetually sinking. To create this, the vessel was split and a new keel was constructed allowing it to be sailed by Berthier at a 45 degree angle off the coast of Normandy. Love-Love, like much of his oeuvre, is impressive, poetic and humorous.

In this project, the artist invests his energies and resources into creating an art of fiasco, aiming in his words to “fix an object at the moment of its deregulation.” The image, and metaphor of the sinking ship is an iconic one – it signifies death, lost hope and sinking dreams. Berthier’s Love-Love freezes those sentiments permanently both celebrating and overturning them. On display in the gallery will be the boat itself as well as a series of accompanying photographs and documentary video showing the performance in Normandy."

Mr Berthier knows something most of us don't, though - how to make money out of old boats. He is reported to have sold this one for £50,000.

Love Love from julien berthier on Vimeo.

La Recouvrance of Brest

2011-08-20T08:45:00.017+01:00

La Recouvrance is named after the historic port area of the naval city of Brest. I'm not sure if the word derives from the French verb recouvrir which might imply the place of safe return of sailors to their families, or recouvrer which can mean to lap planks, as in shiplap boarded houses or in clinker boat building. Either way, the name of this ship tells of its roots in the city to which it literally belongs, and its connection to the seagoing people of the town.

The project was first proposed in 1991 and enthusiastically taken up by the people of the city, who contributed from their own pockets a large part of the cost of building the ship. The rest came from the city council, the Département, the Regional council and from business sponsorship.

In 1991 Chantier du Guip set up a special building yard in Brest, making it as accessible to the public as possible, so that citizens could visit and watch the construction of their ship. The Mayor of Brest symbolically laid the keel on a specially declared “Jour de Fete”. Throughout the build the people of Brest took a keen interest, hundreds visiting the yard to watch the skeleton of timber grow and her 15m long oak planks nailed into place. La Recouvrance was launched, during Brest 92, the city's annual maritime festival week, with great ceremony, a cacophony of ship's foghorns and sirens, cannon fire, and the cheers and whoops of a huge audience of thousands of spectators.

La Recouvrance is a replica “Aviso-goelette”, a fast topsail schooner designed to carry despatches and orders from the mainland to the French fleet.

(photo: Figurehead of La Recouvrance by Hervé Cozanet)

The Avisos, of which 5 were originally built to the designs of Ingénieur Jean-Baptiste Hubert (1781- 1845), also carried out escort and protection duties for commercial shipping along the coasts of West Africa and in the West Indies. Each vessel had a crew of 50 to 60 men and was armed with 6 or 8 carronades as well as a number of swivel guns.

Rigging and exterior fitting-out was completed in 1993, and the interior finished in the spring of 1996.

La Recouvrance is Brest's own ambassador ship, testifying both to the maritime tradition and to the present-day dynamism of Brest as centre of modern seafaring know-how. She participates in major maritime events on the Biscay and Channel coasts of France, and as far away from home as the North Sea.

Although La Recouvrance is a Brest ship through and through, and will always belong to the people of Brest, you don't have to be a “Brestois” to enjoy the experience. Anyone can ship aboard La Recouvrance and take part as volunteer crew on one of her voyages. There is a full annual program of cruises and events, even day-sailing opportunities, that are open to applicants who want to learn how these historic ships were sailed and manouevred by the muscle power of their crew.

Better know your drisses from your écoutes before you set foot on the deck, though, or it'll mean a flogging, for sure!

La Recouvrance

LOA 41.60 m

LOD 24.90 m

Beam 6.40 m

Draft 3.22 m

Sail Area 430 m2

(photo: Stern of La Recouvrance by Hervé Cozanet)

Links:

La Recouvrance Official Website

La Recouvrance Drawings 1 (.pdf file)

La Recouvrance Drawings 2 (.pdf file)

La Recouvrance Drawings 3 (.pdf file)

Sgoth Niseach

2011-08-13T20:56:00.003+01:00

The Dutch three-masted schooner Oosterschelde on a visit to Stornoway for Sail Hebrides. She is being escorted out of the harbour by two traditional Hebridean fishing vessels, Jubilee in front and An Sulaire behind. These two boats were participating in a race as part of the Sail Hebrides Maritime Festival.

courtesy Donald Macleod

Jubilee arrives at the Old School site in Lionel, Ness where she remained until repairs were carried out in 2005

courtesy Falmadair

Jubilee makes a welcome return to Port of Ness, where she was originally launched in 1935

courtesy Falmadair

Stressful sailing. Onboard Jubilee

courtesy Franzi Richter

An Sulaire

courtesy sulaire

An Sulaire and crew in the inner harbour.

courtesy Donald Macleod

Aboard An Sulaire

courtesy Franzi Richter

An Sulaire

courtesy Franzi Richter

The crew hauling Mayflower up the slipway at Skigersta pier in the early 1950s. Read more about Mayflower here.

courtesy Falmadair

The 20 foot keel length Pride of Lionel was owned by Norman Campbell (Tabaidh), 6 Lionel, and registered as SY 455 on 25 May 1918.

courtesy Falmadair

Mairi MacLeod's Runag...

courtesy Mairi MacLeod

build underway...

courtesy Mairi MacLeod

at the Lyme Regis Boat Building Academy in 2009.

courtesy Mairi MacLeod

Mairi chose to build a half-size Sgoth Niseach. Full size boats were just over 30', the boat that Mairi built is 16' 6". The translation of Sgoth Niseach is 'Ness-type skiff', Ness being the northernmost part of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides where the boats were used for fishing. 'Runag', Gaelic for 'little sweetheart', was planked in Alaskan yellow cedar on oak, the planks and ribs fastened with traditional rose head copper nails.

courtesy Mairi MacLeod

Sgoth Niseach translates into English as Ness Skiff, at type of small fishing vessels which evolved in the region of Ness, northernmost part of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. They are double ended like their Norwegian ... but have a distinctive large dipping lug rig which some have likened to a lateen sail. I asked Iain Oughtred about his view of the evolution of this boat type and especially that big sail. Iain's reply:

"I think the evolutionary process went from the faerings etc, with short horizontal yards, to some later Nordlandsboats, which exended the luff far forward, still with a short yard. Up to about 10-oared boats. Then the Shetland Sixareens and Yoals, which peaked up the yard – though still calling it a square sail, but by now very asymmetric. Very efficient sail, especially in the racing yoals. In Lewis, the yard got even longer, and the sail as large as could be contained within the length of the boat, which was different in being big, beamy, heavy. That yard was really a handful. They must have been giants."

These boats had nearly died out completely by mid 20th century, but some worthy restorations and new builds are keeping their heritage alive.

Jubilee was built in 1935 by John F. Macleod. By 1978 she was in need of restoration, was purchased by a group on behalf of the Ness community, funds were secured and work begun. She was re- launched in1980 at Ness Harbour. Further repairs were undertaken in 1995 to coincide with the building of a new Sgoth, An Sulaire. The 28' Jubilee is currently the ward of Falmadair, the North Lewis Maritime Society.

An Sulaire is a 'new' 30ft. sgoth, commissiond by the An Sulaire Trust, built by John Murdo Macleod, assisted by Angus Smith. Macleod is the son of John F. who built Jubilee. He is regarded as a master boatbuilder and the BBC produced a documentary of the build. She is currently in Ullapool on the Scottish mainland for some repair work.

In 2009 Mairi Macleod of Stonaway was completing her course at the Lyme Regis Boatbuilding Academy. She chose to build a half size sgoth as her final project and was helped by John Murdo Macleod. It's a beautiful boat as you can see in the above photos. After graduating other concerns intervened and the boat is still unfinished, but it back in Stornaway, awaiting Mairi's finishing touches, planned for next summer.

There's a Facebook page for these boats here.

Finally, here's a link to some closely related boats I've written about previously.

A big thanks to Iain Oughtred for his insight.

Original post Thomas Armstrong @ 70.8%

Sylphe – by André Mauric - Sunk before Launching!

2011-08-13T09:44:00.025+01:00

André Mauric was the most prolific and best known of France's 20th century yacht designers. His career started in the 1920s with radical designs for racing yachts to the International Metre Rule in the days when the bermudan rig was still considered new-fangled and fragile, and carried on well into the 1980s when, among other winners he designed the the highly successful Atlantic crossing record breaker Kriter VIII. In between he designed dozens of great boats, including Pen Duick VI for Eric Tabarly, the 1972 Half Ton Cup winner Impensable, the popular and successful First 30, and Sylphe, a classic yacht hidden for 5 years underwater.

(photos: Sylphe racing at St Tropez: www.sail-in-style.com)

Sylphe (originally Ariel) was commissioned by Paul Blanchet, an owner who wanted a yacht to win races under the British RORC rating rule. His timing was not good – it was 1939 when Mauric started designing the boat, and she was still unfinished on the slipway at Chantier Pharo, her builders in Marseille, when the Germans invaded France. In the days of uncertainty and chaos after France's surrender, believing that the Germans would steal the yacht's ballast keel – a 13 ton lead casting (imagine the price of that today!) - Mauric ordered the yard to sink the unfinished hull in a deep part of the harbour.

So it was that Sylphe spent 5 years in hiding under water before she was even launched. Many of the Marseilles shipyard and dock workers knew the secret, but no-one breathed a word, and Sylphe remained safely concealed with all her ballast until the war was over.

After the war Sylphe was recovered and completed. Her long submersion had done no harm – indeed it may have further improved the seasoning of her timbers and made them less liable to distort, crack, or split in later age. She was finally launched in 1947, and though Mauric had designed her with one of his trademark tall bermudan cutter rigs supported on a slender mast, her sailplan was modified in 1953 to give her a larger and taller foretriangle, its foot extended by a short bowsprit. These modifications were no doubt intended to keep her competitive with the latest offshore racing boats which, encouraged by the allowances in the old RORC rating rule, had begun to sport big overlapping genoas and high aspect mainsails.

During the next 50 years or so Sylphe was sailed and raced in the Mediterranean. It seems she was well maintained, with Mauric himself advising on a number of alterations and small repairs. Her original mast was replaced with a new hollow wood mast in the 1980s, and an engine was fitted at some time (she had been designed and launched without one). The teak deck was also renewed during this period. So when she came up for sale in the south of France in 1999 her new owners found her to be in reasonably good structural order, but scruffy, dated, and in need of a lot of attention.

Her new Dutch owners sailed her to Turkey and set about a 7-month total overhaul to make her more suitable for Mediterranean charter use. Although the interior had mostly to be stripped out and rebuilt to provide more comfortable charter accommodation, the original hull timbers and planking, having endured such a long submersion so many years ago, were found to be in excellent order. Only a couple of rot-infected frames had to be replaced. Her owners are proud to claim that Sylphe still has none of the steel bracing and reinforcement that many other yachts of her day now need to keep them in sailing order. They are equally proud that she retains her original mast winches and her unique, custom made, cockpit sheet winches.

Now equipped with all the modern trappings of a top-quality charter yacht, including satnav, full B&G sailing instrumentation, water-maker, autopilot, etc., Sylphe is currently believed to be available for charter in the Mediterranean. She is also occasionally to be seen taking part in classic yacht regattas at St Tropez, Cannes, and at other glamorous yacht harbours.

Sylphe - a classic Andre Mauric design:

LOA: 18.50m
LOD: 17.25m
LWL: 12.68m
Beam: 3.95m
Draft: 2.50m
Air draft: about 23m, masthead 21m above deck
Sail area: Main 84 m2, Yankee 29 m2, Genoa 78 m2, Spinnaker 205 m2, Reacher 105 m2

Link to Sylphe Charter site

Opera Class

2011-08-11T04:51:00.001+01:00

To the south west of Liverpool, the Wirral peninsular forms the northern shore of the estuary to the River Dee. The unique geography created a deep water sea-lake, the Hoyle Lake around which were established fishing communities and safe havens in the protected waters was far back as Roman times.

The Hoylake Sailing Club was established in 1887, in response to the silting up of the river and channel at the turn of the twentieth century the members decided to adopt a shallow draft boat which was suitable for the area. The boat they chose became the Opera Class, a 16 foot gaff rigged clinker boat, based on a design by club member Captain Winchester and built locally by another club member and boat builder Alex Latta.

The first race of the Opera Class took place in 1902 and boat numbers quickly grew to 17. The class celebrated it's centenary in 2002 with 14 of the original boats still racing at Holylake Sailing Club, another boat "La Poupee" is on display at the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

In 1909 one of the class "Orchid" made a voyage to Ardrossan, in Ayrshire, Scotland and then acros the Irish sea to Ballycastle in Northern Ireland, a remarkable voyage for a 16 foot open boat.

All the photographs are kindly provided by John Hughes who sails his Opera Class Iolanthe, named after the operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Opera Class boats at Hoylake Sailing Club

1: Fidelio
2: Aida
4: Valkyrie
5: Country Girl
6: La Poupee
7: Princess Ida
8: Geisha
9: Carmen
10: Orchid
11: La Boheme
12: Betty
13: La Tosca
14: Silvana
16: Iolanthe
17: La Gioconda

Jean Marie Finot's "Ecume De Mer"

2011-08-06T09:54:00.008+01:00

In 1967 Jean-Marie Finot, who had recently married, decided to give up the idea of becoming a yacht designer so that he could concentrate on earning a reasonable living. As he is now one of the top half-dozen yacht designers in the world, this was very nearly the biggest mistake of his life.

As a sailing instructor at the Iles de Glénan school - “the only place in France you could really learn to sail, at the time” according to Finot - he got to know Philippe Harlé, the chief instructor, who was leaving to set up a yacht design practice. Jean-Marie, too. wanted to learn about yacht design, so he took a lowly position as Harlé 's assistant in order to pick up some experience.

The apprentice Finot did actually design a couple of boats for the Harlé practice, but as a recently married man he wanted a career that would support a family, so he gave up his yacht design ambitions and left Harlé . However, as a favour to a friend, he agreed to design one last boat, Ecume De Mer, a small cruiser/racer of which it was intended only two would ever be built – one for the friend and one for Jean-Marie himself. This would be, he decided, his last design.

The pair looked around for a French yard to build the hard-chine plywood boats, but none seemed interested. Finally a Dutch builder, Walter Huisman, heard of their project and, impressed by the young designer, offered to build one boat at a reasonable price, provided they would campaign it in a number of races, including the International Quarter Ton Cup competition. Although this entailed modifying the plans to create a slightly larger boat, agreement was reached.

In the Spring of 1968 Huisman delivered a bare painted hull. Finot and his friend went to Holland, and spent some time fitting her out with deck gear and rigging, before launching just in time to enter, as agreed, the Quarter Ton Cup. (photo: Huisman prototype Ecume De Mer in hard chine plywood) With such a lack of preparation and tuning they couldn't hope to win there, but later, with a fully sorted boat, they won the important Delta Race. Their success attracted an Australian, Eric Bradley, who took home modified designs for the boat with slightly reduced freeboard and a coachroof, retaining however the plywood hard chine hull. Several were built in Australia to this specification.

The following season, back in France the prototype boat won race after race, and even returned briefly to Holland to win the Delta race again. Soon this phenomenon caught the attention of the French boatbuilder, Mallard, who contracted to build a series of boats to the design, in GRP. Once again the drawings were modified. Away went the chines to be replaced by a rounded hull shape. The stepped sheerline and flush deck were replaced by a conventional sheer and a short coachroof. Though the efficient racing deck layout was retained, with halyards and controls led aft to the cockpit, on the inside the accomodation was re-designed for comfort in harbour rather than racing. There would now be standing headroom, a dinette, a toilet, and a separate forecabin.

The production Ecume De Mer (colour photo from Mallard 1969 brochure) was a sales success from the start and remained in production, unchanged until 1975 . A 100% standard production boat won the Quarter Ton Cup in 1970 against strong international competition, and a modified, but nevertheless series-produced regatta version with a flush deck won again in 1972. Hundreds of owners had countless successes in offshore and club racing, while hundreds more enjoyed family cruising in a robust and capable boat.

Further modifications were made to re-style accommodation and coachroof, giving more headroom in the heads in 1975. This version won the 1977 Boat of the Year title and was chosen for the 1978 "Tour De France" race. It continued in production until 1980.

Eventually 1385 boats were built to the Ecume De Mer design. Examples of this fine boat, that was supposed to be Finot's farewell to yacht design and of which there should only ever have been two, can still be seen in almost any marina in France as well as in many other parts of the world. This great boat - that launched a lasting career for its designer - has itself lasted pretty well.

Ecume De Mer (Mallard, 1969 version)

LOA: 7.90 m
Beam: 2.65 m
Draft: 1.25 m
Ballast: 720 kg
Displacement: 1.800 kg
Max Headroom 1.72 m

The Berck Flobart, "Marianne Toute Seule"

2011-07-29T09:03:00.001+01:00

Marianne Toute Seule is an open, inshore fishing boat of a type which is typical to the Cote d'Opale, the long sandy coast of the Pas De Calais region of France. These hand-lining boats are known as “flobarts”. A flobart is a shallow draft boat designed for beach launching. Thanks to the Marianne Toute Seule's flat bottom and lifting daggerboard she could be easily sailed up onto the beach at Berck and left to dry out on the tide, an essential feature, as, like other seaside settlements on the Cote d'Opale, the town has no harbour.

(photo above : www.berckpatrimoine.info)

Modern versions of the traditional flobart design can still be seen in these parts, even though few boats are now launched and landed from the beach in this way, and, of course, the modern versions are now usually built in GRP. The design has been adapted, too, to suit propulsion by modern reliable diesel motors, so it is only tradition, and not the need for sails, oars, daggerboards and rowing benches that now dictates the look of the region's open inshore fishing vessels.

As the old sailing flobarts were rapidly disappearing, the town of Berck decided in 1992 to rebuild this old "flobart Berckois" (boats varied slightly in design from one town to another) and to make her available for demonstration cruises and for use as a symbol of the town's maritime history and tradition. That same year the restored Marianne Toute Seule was awarded first prize in the “French Coastal Boats” division at the Brest International Festival of the Sea.

Marianne Toute Seule is clinker built with elm planking traditionally fastened with clenched nails. Although only 5.70m on deck, her long bowsprit and bumpkin enable her to carry an impressive 40m² cloud of sail, divided between her standing lug main and mizzen sails, and the jib flown from her long bowsprit. The bowsprit and bumpkin can be withdrawn and stowed inside the boat when not in use.

(photo www.berck-leblog.com/)

Alternative propulsion was by 4 oars which were poked through ports in her topsides – but Marianne does now have a diesel!

Marianne Toute Seule has recently returned from another major refurbishment, and can normally be seen at her berth at the tiny port of La Madelon, near Berck, on the River Authie estuary. From here she makes a number of demonstration outings during the months of May June, July and August each year, taking groups of up to 8 tourists, students, birdwatchers or wildlife enthusiasts out into the Authie Bay for a close-up view of the birdlife, seal colonies and shifting sandbanks.

The boat's curious name comes from a famous character in 19th century Berck, who was instrumental in the town's development as a centre for medical treatment and convalescence. In the 1850's a grieving widow, Marianne, offered sick children a chance of a seaside cure in the fishing port of Berck. Her husband, a local doctor, and 4 children had died in a cholera epidemic, hence the soubriquet “Toute Seule” ("Marianne all alone"). Soon it was noticed that children sent to Berck seemed to recover more quickly - especially those with bone diseases like rickets.

Encouraged by the results, doctors began to prescribe the sea air and sea-bathing of Berck for all sorts of other sickness and disability. In 1869, Napoleon III's wife, Empress Eugénie, opened the big Maritime Hospital which is still a landmark on the Berck seafront. Other medical institutes followed, and the town expanded from 2,000 inhabitants to 11,600 by 1911. It had trams, a theatre, running water, electricity and telephones - all the facilities of a thriving seaside resort.

Links:

Berck Patrimoine

Berck-leblog

To book a trip on Marianne Toute Seule, call Nicole Froissart (who speaks perfect English) on 0033 (0)3 21 81 11 02

Westerly 22, 'Young Tiger'

2011-07-26T08:41:00.004+01:00

CMDR Denys Rayner 1943

Loch Nevis 7 August 1904
This image is from C.C.Lynam's 'The Log of the Blue Dragon' 1892-1904, London: A. H. Bullen 1907. The photo was taken in 1904 by Lynam of his family sailing in Loch Nevis - which is heaven in Gaelic. My seafaring mentor Denys Rayner, who read the book when at school, wrote that it infected him with "the sailing canker"
Denys Rayner shared Lynam’s preference for yachts in which the skipper removes ‘grease off a plate covered by the cold gravy of the mutton-chop’, keeps a cabin tidy and scrapes ice from its roof before dawn. Lynam was among the first to enjoy a kind of yachting that did not include much larger boats than the 'Blue Dragon' - 25 foot, 2.2 tonnes - and did not rely on paid hands or wearing blazers and caps and racing. He pre-dated by 20 years Kenneth Graham's 1917 remark through Rattie about the pleasures of messing about in boats in 'The Wind in the Willows'. I respect people who race around the world in sailing boats, but I find the idea of circumnavigating without stopping the opposite of how a small boat should be enjoyed. I have sailed across the Atlantic in a 22 footer but one of the tests of seamanship is finding and getting in and out of a multitude of different harbours and anchorages. Just as Lynam enthused Rayner, so Rayner infused me with the joys of visiting lots of places in small boats

25 August 1997 on the River Orwell at Sea Reach near Harwich on the UK east coast, of Rayner's first design Robinetta launched in May 1937

Westerly 22

The 22 was offered with either a Bermudian or Gunter rig, but Rayner was a champion of the Gunter rig, citing both it's ease of handling and what he felt were superior sailing characteristics.

Rayner's friend Jack Hargreaves noted British Broadcaster, was an enthusiastic supporter of postwar family sailing and the boats then being designed in Britain for 'everyman". Here he is aboard Young Tiger.

Young Tiger setting out for the America's

Here she is in Bequia, having been safely sailed across the Atlantic by two relatively inexperienced sailors, Simon Baddeley (Hargeaves stepson) and Sue Pulford. They first landed in Barbados, the crossing taking 29 days.

Years later Simon Baddelly was able to track down his beloved Young Tiger in 2007.

Denys Rayner had a rather distinguished career a Naval officer in the RNVR, fighting throughout the Battle of the Atlantic in WW2. But he is likely to be more for his achievements as a yacht designer. His life and service are well worth reading about and I found especially poignant the care he and his took of less fortunate souls after the war. Read the wiki.
His father was a racing yachtsman but at an early age Deny's realized that he was more interested in cruising, his imagination fired by C. C. Lyman's 'The Log of the Blue Dragon'. After a succession of small boats and cruises therein, Rayner in 1937 was able to design his own boat, Robinetta, and cruise the Western Highlands as had Lyman.
After the war Denys was able to return to his experiments with yacht design and adding manufacture. Like others in postwar Britain, he turned his attention to plywood and the design and building of small, trailerable craft with accommodations for a small family. Along with other designers, notably Robert Tucker, he helped enable a boom in small boat sailing which democratized the once elite sport by making it more accessible to the growing middle class. He also experiment with twin or bilge keels, allowing very shoal draft boats, a system discovered by Arthur Balfour.
In 1963 Rayner founded Westerly Marine and began building in GRP or fiberglass. The firm's first design was the Westerly 22, based on his earlier 'Westcoaster'. In 1965 a scheme was hatched. Young Simon Badderly, a family friend, and a companion, Sue Pulford, would sail a 22 to America, where Simon was to take a position after finishing his schooling. The boat was Young Tiger, the voyage a successful one which earned Simon the RCC Challenge Cup for a cruise in a small boat. Simon and Sue made the remarkably uneventful passage in 29 days, confirming Denys Rayner's conviction that these were very seaworthy boats, indeed. There is a full account of that cruise, as reported in the pages of the Royal Cruising Club's Journal for 1966 at 70.8%.
Westerly Marine went on to become at one time the largest boat building firms in Britain and have a very active owners group. The 22's continue to be quite popular, and can still be found in the UK and US, and probably further afield. A later Jack Laurent Giles design, the 26' Centaur, became the companies best selling model.

Much thanks to Simon Baddelly for the use of his material. Simon is soon off to Corfu!

Pen Duick II and The French Sailing Revolution

2011-07-23T05:47:00.007+01:00

Back in the early 1960s France was still recovering from a war which had left many of its cities in ruins, its businesses broke and its economy on the rocks. To make matters worse there were deep divisions in French politics and the overthrow of the government in a military coup d'etat seemed a possibility at times.

In this climate it's not surprising that yachting was regarded as a minority activity. There were, anyway, few facilities for yachts except in places where foreign-owned boats came to visit. The idea of owning and sailing a yacht for pleasure would have seemed elitist, expensive, and impractical for the ordinary French man or woman.

If you sailed to any French harbour in the late 1950s or early '60s you would have seen no more than a handful of private yachts, most of them old and somewhat tatty. In Britain, yachting and offshore yacht racing was already booming, and British designers like Laurent Giles, Robert Clark, Peter Brett, Arthur Robb and C E Nicholson had become world famous for their robust and capable ocean racers and cruisers.

Then a Frenchman with a French boat won a famous French victory – and everything changed.

In 1964 Eric Tabarly with his remarkable ketch Pen Duick II (thanks to Remi Jouan for the above image) laid the foundations for the extraordinary boom in French yachting which has resulted, more than 40 years later, in France having a 37% share of the global market for sailing yachts, most of the world's biggest yacht building businesses, many of the world's most famous and successful yacht designers, a domestic leisure boat market of 8 million users - the second largest leisure boat market in the world after the USA - and a virtual monopoly on long-distance short-handed ocean racing superstars.

Eric Tabarly was a tough, handsome sailor, an officer in the French Navy, who was passionate about sailing and utterly determined to win the Singlehanded Transatlantic Race. Nowadays we think of “Le Transat” and other long distance races as French, but the original race in 1962 was an all-British idea, conceived by a British eccentric, Blondie Hasler, organised by the Royal Western Yacht Club, and sponsored by the Observer newspaper.

Francis Chichester had won the first race in 1960, and was favourite to win again. His yacht was a 40 foot Robert Clark ocean racer, solidly built and carrying a big cutter rig. Tabarly, an unknown in international yachting circles at the time, conceived a 44 foot purpose-built, light displacement ketch. She was built, simply but strongly in plywood with a double chined hull, and her rig was designed for power combined with good helm balance and ease of sail handling. However, no one had raced singlehanded in such a big boat before and most experts gave him little chance of finishing.

Tabarly stamped his authority on the race at an early stage. His determination to win was evident from the moment he launched an 900 sq ft spinnaker soon after the start (to the surprise of all who thought you needed a full crew for that kind of sail) and opened a huge lead over the rest of the fleet in the first couple of days.

He was handicapped by a number of gear failures. His self-steering gear jammed, forcing him to steer the boat by hand for many more hours than he had expected, his cheap alarm clock stopped working, making it difficult for him to keep to a sensible rest schedule, and his log rotor was bitten off by a dolphin. In mid-Atlantic his jib halyard block broke and he had to climb the mast to replace it. Nevertheless, Pen Duick II crossed the finishing line first in a record time of 27 days 3 hours, almost a full 3 days ahead of the pre-race favourite, Francis Chichester. Another Frenchman, Jean Lacombe finished in 9th place in his tiny GRP “Golif”. (More on this boat in a forthcoming post). (photo: Pen Duick II nears the finish line of the 1964 OSTAR: AFP/Getty Images)

France cheered the new hero. He was immediately awarded the Legion d'Honneur and returned home with Lacombe to a rapturous reception. Suddenly the French media and the French people took an unprecedented interest in yachting, new small yacht designs appeared from new French designers and new factories, money was found to build sailing schools and marinas, and France set a course towards domination of the European yachting industry.

In the next Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic race, in 1968, there were no less than 9 French entries, then 13 in 1972 and 31 in 1976. In 1984 out of the top 10 finishers, 8 were French. These days the “Transat”, as the race is now called, is dominated by French sailors, French boats, and French sponsors.

After the 1964 victory, Pen Duick had a busy and wearing life as an ocean racer taking part in many fully crewed races, during which Tabarly trained a formidable number of apprentices such as Alain Colas, Marc Pajot, Olivier de Kersauson, and others. These graduates of his informal sailing college became the next generation of great French ocean yachtsmen. Eventually Pen Duick was sold to the Ecole Nationale de la Voile at Quiberon, but after a short time, and a serious grounding, she was taken out of service and laid up ashore at the school gates. It wasn't until 1993 that a campaign to restore this famous boat was mounted, and with financial support from the government, the French Navy, the regional council of Brittany and others, she was restored to perfect condition. (colour photo above with permission of Remi Jouan)

Pen Duick II is now based at Quiberon and is used as a busy training vessel during the summer months and an occasional exhibit at the Cite de la Voile Eric Tabarly centre at Lorient in Brittany.

Pen Duick II

Designer : Gilles Costantini, Eric Tabarly

Built 1964 by Costantini at La Trinité, Brittany.

LOA : 13 m 60

LWL : 10 m

Displacement : 6.5 Tons

Beam : 3 m 40

Draft : 2 m 20

Rig : Ketch

Sail area : 60 m2

Construction : Hard chine plywood

Endurance 35

2011-07-21T07:33:00.000+01:00

When Naval Architect Peter Ibold launched his Endurance 35 design in response to a competition in 1970, it caused something of a stir, here was a full keel, heavy displacement cruiser, designed and built to go anywhere with a highly practical pilot house and flush deck. The design has been built in many countries, in many different materials and has been stretched over the years to 50 feet or more.

Angelina - Stratimar Endurance 35 in Western Solent

In the UK the design is associated with ferro cement construction, a number of Endurance 35’s were built using this method by Windboats in Norfolk during the 1970’s as were a number of amateur built examples. The endurance has also been built in GRP (fibre glass) including foam cored construction, wood, steel and even aluminium.

Our endurance Angelina was GRP by a French Yard Stratimar who built the design on the Canal de Midi in the south of France. Sadly the Stratimar yard is long closed, but in Spain the Endurance design was built by the Belure yard for many years and in Canada Spencer Yachts also built the 35.

Angelina - Stratimar Endurance 35 on her mooring

Although the basic design is instantly recognisable, there are many differences, both ketch and schooner rig was popular, although I had some correspondence with Peter Ibold the designer who admitted his favorite was the cutter rig as fitted to Angelina.

In England many were built as motor sailors, with an inside steering position in the raised pilot house, while this was practical for cold weather I believe it distracted from the design which was first and foremost a yacht. With heavy displacement/waterline of over 400 the Endurance isn’t especially fast, but in bad weather they will sail to weather in a gale of wind in some comfort, or rather as comfortable as is possible in those conditions.

Ketch rigged Endurance

Endurance 40 - the boat scaled well and was good looking

If you need proof of the capability of the Endurance, look no further than Unicornio a Stratimar built Endurance 35 which operated as a charter boat in Patagonia, South Georgia and the Antarctic.

Unicorno - anchored in Patagonia

Mary Mouse

2011-07-14T08:29:00.000+01:00

Outside the marina at Haslar opposite Portsmouth is Light Vessel number One AKA Mary Mouse 2. She was the first light vessel to be commissioned by Trinity House after the Second World War, built by Phillips and Son Ltd in Dartmouth at a cost of £50,392. She was posted to various sites along the English Channel. Light vessels are not typically self-propelled so she was always towed to location regardless of weather.

She was manned with a Master and six crew on rotating shifts of four weeks on, two weeks off, and the crew would spend spare time radioing back weather reports to the Met Office and doing basic maintenance. Crew changes were by boat but later a helicopter pad was added to make crew replacement safer and easier.

In 1983 she was fully automated so was unmanned until her retirement as lightships were replaced by LANBY buoys.

Sold by Trinity House in 1993, John Dean and Richard Reddyhoff saved her from the scrap yard and had the vessel towed to Poole Quay for a head scratch and a think. Major modifications were carried out, including: a new lower deck amidships; addition of portholes, doors and windows; installation of shower cubicles; addition of bar, restaurant, galley, etc; marquee, and a colour change. Large pile guides were also added to anchor the vessel pontoon style on piles to the sea bed. LV1 was then renamed ‘Mary Mouse 2’ (after Mary Reddyhoff and Joanna ‘Mouse’ Dean)

Following the refit Mary Mouse 2 entered service at the Dean & Reddyhoff Haslar marina.

Length overall: 137,25 feet (ca. 41,80 m)

Length: 119 feet (ca. 36,30 m)
Beam: 25 feet (ca. 7,60 m)
Draught: 15 feet (ca. 4,50 m)
Displacement: 450 t

Authorities: Trinity House, London
Year of construction: 1946

Shipyard: Philip & Son Ltd., Dartmouth, England

Yard No.: 1133
Contract price: 50,392 GBP
Material: Steel

04.1945 Ordered by Trinity House, London

04.10.1946 Handed over

11/1946-12/1948 Royal Sovereign station

02/1949-05/1956 Tongue station

08/1956-06/1959 Outer Gabbard station

10/1959-01/1963 Tongue station

06/1963-06/1966 Smith´s Knoll station

09/1966-04/1967 Shambles station

08/1967-12/1967 Seven Stones station

03/1968-07/1968 Smith´s Knoll station

11/1968-03/1969 Shipwash station

05/1969-08/1969 Humber station

06/1970-10/1970 Royal Sovereign station

10/1970-03/1971 Galloper station

03/1971-08/1971 Owers station

11/1971-03/1972 Varne station

08/1972-11/1972 Shipwash station

05/1974-09/1974 Cross Sand station

09/1974-01/1975 Dudgeon station

02/1975-06/1975 Humber station

06/1975-11/1975 Outer Gabbard station

11/1975-03/1976 Tongue station

06/1976-04/1983 East Goodwin station

04/1985-04/1988 Tongue station

06/1989-10/1991 Dowsing station

1993 decommissioned

Navigator - John Welsford design

2011-07-07T01:44:00.000+01:00

Fellow blogger Robert Ditterich has reminded me to include one of my favourite open boats the Navigator, designed by John Welsford this pretty and traditional looking boat has proven to be a highly successful, fast and capable open cruiser.

The words and pictures are of Robert's own Navigator Annie, the build log of which is chronicled on flickr.

LOA 4.5m 14ft 9in
Beam 1.8m 5ft 10in
Weight 140kg 309lbs
Sails 12.6sqm 136 sqft

Robert explains - Available as a sloop or yawl rig the latter seems to find favour with builders and sailors due to it's flexibility and frankly it is a very handsome rig.

Annie is one of hundreds of Navigators dotted around the globe, and while not all of them spend endless days cruising placid bays, and camping on impossibly beautiful beaches, plenty have done that, and all are capable of making many of our boating fantasies real.

Mine was launched towards the end of our good weather, so experiences are limited and action shots are scarce. But I have to say that I was surprised and very pleased with Annie's manners since I first took her out. The most surprising thing was her initial stability. When the first gusts caught me, I was amazed to be still within the cockpit, and not making use of the tiller extension. I don't mind 'sitting out', but it is wonderful to have a choice about these things in a dinghy.

Building a Navigator has the distinct disadvantage though, of making it harder to justify building another boat, because it is attractive and practical and flexible, and it gets you 'cred' with the stink boat people at the ramps. Every outing will create at least one good conversation with a total stranger. So another boat often seems to be just a gratuitous, superfluous thought. A pity, if you like building as much as sailing. Some of you might see me wriggle and squirm as I try to rationalise my way out of that one.

JW got something very right when he drew Navigator, and for my money the most important thing he got right was to make it possible for so many people to be able to build such a good boat themselves. All strength to anyone who empowers ordinary un-skilled people to get away from the TV, into the shed and to make something wholesome and exciting and capable of bringing people to-gether in a natural setting.

Robert a who also makes violins professionally has built Annie to an incredible standard, the pictures which show the plank stringers and the planked up hull above has an almost sculptural quality about them. I also agree with Robert's comment about encouraging others to build, while not many of us can build to his exacting standards we can all be encouraged by his enthusiasm and enjoyment of building.

Robert is also author of a book "Something About Navigator" which is available as a download and thankfully for those of us who still prefer a volume we can brush with our fingers as we work along the book shelf a printed version.

Tai Mo Shan

2011-06-30T06:17:00.001+01:00

Thanks to Patrick for providing details of what might be one of the most recognisable yachts around.

The oldest star in the Hollywood film version of “Mamma Mia!” was a beautiful yacht, already in her 70s at the time of filming. And it has to be said that, unlike Pierce Brosnan whose singing was questionable, she never put a foot wrong in the part.

Tai Mo Shan was built in Hong Kong for a group of 5 young Royal Navy officers who had the idea of sailing all the way home to the UK. Her designer H.S. Rouse was the Vice-Commodore of the local sailing club and an enthusiastic amateur naval architect. Only a few yachts are known to have been built to his designs, one of the others being the even more famous “Tzu Hang” in which Miles and Beryl Smeeton sailed around the world.

To save money Tai Mo Shan's first owners economised on a couple of items that would these days be considered indispensable – a motor and a heads. However, they did not stint on quality materials and the Whampoa Dock builders used the finest they could get; teak planking, frames of rare Ipil wood, a yacal keelson, a camphor wood stem, steel floors and a lead keel made her both tough and beautiful. When surveyed many years later she was described as having being built to twice the normal Lloyds yacht scantlings.

Although keen to save on unnecesary items, naturally these officers wanted to be properly outfitted for a long ocean voyage, and so all of them made sure to take their dinner jackets with them. These turned out to be useful as they were entertained lavishly in many of the ports where they stopped en-route, including in Japan, where, with encouragement of the Admiralty, they attempted to spy on the Japanese navy.

Tai Mo Shan made it back to Britain and has had a succession of caring owners over the past 75 years. Her first owners went on to have distinguished careers, between them winning many wartime medals and honours, including a VC.

Follow the links below to read much more about this great yacht's history and see lots of interior and exterior photos.

http://classicboatindex.com/boat_details.php?textfield2=9

http://lintonsview.blogspot.com/2009/11/abbasubmariners-and-spying.html

http://www.coburgbrokers.com/tai2.html

http://www.coburgbrokers.com/tai3.html

For information on the service careers and later lives of the original owners see http://lintonsview.blogspot.com/2009/11/abba-submarinersand-spying-2.html

Pilot Cutters

2011-06-26T05:40:00.001+01:00

We're fortunate to have several Pilot Cutters based locally, but it's rare to see them out together so it was great to receive these pictures from Keith Allso (fellow Solent Old Gaffer member - Keith has a great collection of classic boat photographs on flickr). He explains that they were taken around the Isle of Wight during an event for the TOE IN THE WATER charity for injured service men and women.

I recognise a couple of them Polly Agatha identified by the PA on the mainsail, it looks like Westerman is among them and Annabel J. It must have been fantastic to see these magnificent boats racing out in the Solent

Much is written about Pilot Cutters and their performance and legendary sea keeping qualities but this time please just enjoy the pictures.

XOD - X One Design

2011-06-21T02:24:00.000+01:00

Every time I go past the local fleet of XOD's I can't help but admire these handsome keel boats, which are (I believe) the only fleet of wooden keel boats on the Hamble River. Although I'm not a dedicated racer, one of these would be just the thing for a summer afternoon sail and picnic.

Hamble division racing is run principally under the Hamble River Sailing Club on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Every month there is Sunday racing under the Royal Southern YC regatta series. The season is between mid April and mid to late October, 22 boats are in the water in any one year, 12 boats race regularly, the remaining 10 are less active.

2011 will be the 83rd year of XOD racing at Hamble River Sailing Club.

Racing crews from the he Lymington and Yarmouth fleets will be decked out in the fashions of 1911 when they mark the Centenary of what has become the UK's largest keelboat racing fleet, with a celebratory race at Lymington on Friday 3rd June.

1911 was the year when seven XODs raced as a fleet for the first time, that race was won by a Portsmouth brewer named Harry Brickwood competing against such gracefully named Xs as Mistletoe, Mayfly, Mischief, and Merrymaid. One of them, X5 Madcap, survives and still races actively today.

The X One Design was designed by Alfred Westmacott, who was Managing Director of Woodnutts Boatyard at St Helens on the Isle of Wight. He specialised in building small day racing boats and these included the Seaview Mermaid, Solent Sunbeam and Victory.

Although the XOD was designed by Alfred Westmacott in 1909, the first race did not take place until 1911 and so it has been decided to celebrate the 100th anniversary in 2011.

The X Class is unique in having six active fleets around the Solent area, between Chichester Harbour in the East and Poole Harbour in the West. In each of the locations a well established local Club manages the racing.

Mingming

2011-06-18T22:29:00.013+01:00

Mingming 2008

Mingming, then called Phaedra, as I first found her at Woodbridge.

A rapid-fire ten day rebuild to make her ocean-proof

A good sea-worthy hatch!

First sea trials - in the not-so-bleak mid-winter.

Roger and Mingming in Praia da Vitoria, Azores, Azores Challenge 2008

photo Tony Head

Approaching Jan Mayen

Jan Mayen Island

Whales! Roger was accompanied by a very large group of Pilot whales twice on this voyage, he estimates there were about 400 whales in this pod

all photos courtesy Roger Taylor

Mingming is a very small yacht, a 21' Corribee MKII, Junk rigged w/small jib and extensively modified by her owner Roger Taylor. She and Roger have had some very ambitious and adventurous cruses. After a lifetime of sailing and building boats for himself, Roger has formed some very firm ideas about what he wants in a cruising boat. Mingming is the culmination and result of his philosophy of cruising, his experiences and his experimentation. She was originally concieved as a vessel to compete in the Jester Challenge, a rather demanding undertaking, but lately he has moved on to pursue what may be considered even more ambitious undertakings, cruises above the arctic circle.
Rogers modifications allow him to stay in the cabin while cruising in almost all conditions, as well making the little boat very seaworthy indeed. I thought the other day that it was about time for his annual cruise so wrote him to see what he's up to, here's his reply:

"Hi Thomas
Just caught me in time! I leave with Mingming for Scotland, by road, on Sunday, bound once more for Whitehills on the Moray Firth. Another northern voyage this year, the target being 80°N, to the north-west of Spitsbergen. On the way I intend to visit Jan Mayen once again, with the hope that I might be able to catch the island in clear weather and get a proper view of the 7000’ volcano Mt Beerenberg. If things go well I should have plenty of time in hand, and may also nose around the islands of south-east Svalbard and stick my nose into the Barents Sea.

The other main news is that both my books are coming out soon in Russian. Voyages of a Simple Sailor is now at the printers, and the Russian translation of the second book is almost complete. I’ve had great fun working with the translator, a retired Russian merchant master mariner (fortunately I am reasonably fluent in Russian). Looks too as if both books will be published in French before long.

Have a good summer (I should be back mid-August)."

So, Mingming is both Junk rigged and a twin or bilge keel boat which should go some way toward answering questions about either of these design element's suitability for long distance cruising. I will hopefully be writing about their cruise upon their return in August on 70.8%.

Rushton Princess

2011-06-14T03:59:00.000+01:00

Described as "A paddleable sailing canoe for use by one or two people, based on J.H Rushton's Princess model, built using modern timber construction" suggests that builder John Floutier is perhaps a master of understatement. She is a beautiful example of a canoe yawl.

Sailing and exploring in these small craft was popularised during Victorian times, perhaps the most famous being John "Rob Roy" Mac Gregor who voyaged across Europe, the Baltic and even the river Jordan aboard a small sailing canoe.

On his web pages John echo's the sentiment that many of us have with larger boats, that is the loss of freedom and the plain simplicity of enjoyment that small boats can provide, allowing us to sail to places that our larger boats simply cannot go.

LOA : 15' 8"

Beam: 32"

Sail area: 45+20= 65 sq ft

Hull weight : 80 lb approx

Built in 4mm ply with mahogany keel, stern and stem post and ash rails, coaming and trim, the detail and finish is simply superb.

If you read John's account of cruising the Western Isles you will see that Rushton Princess is no pampered show boat.

Kestrel

2011-06-11T03:01:00.002+01:00

An intriguing boat from the post war yachting boom, the Kestrel 22 was designed in 1955 by J Francis Jones at Woodbridg in Suffolk. Jones had been a pupil of Kim Holman and perhaps his situation among the shoal waters of the east coast rivers helped shape the design. It was described as a cruising boat with the responsiveness of a dinghy.

The first Kestrel was built in the same year by Ernie Nunn of Wadringfield in Suffolk at a cost of £375. Originally the hull was of clinker (lap strake) construction which was light weight. Later examples were built in carvel and a glass fibre version was also produced in the late 1960’s.

With a stub keel and lifting centre plate Kestrels can take the ground with a draft of 2’ 4” when the plate is up. The centre plate is contained in the stub keel and together with the mast deck stepped the design takes maximum advantage of interior space for accommodation.

LOA 21 ft 8in
LWL 19ft 8in
Beam 7ft 1in
Draft 2ft 4in Plate up
4ft 4in Plate down
Sail Area 205sqft

But for all its practical qualities it is the aesthetics of the Kestrel which stands it apart. The clinker construction shows of the fine and modern hull lines, while the sleek and forward sloping windows and low slung coach roof imply 1950's speed and modernity, a style which was also represented by some of the super cars of the day – an early Maserati or perhaps the famous Facel Vega.

Alert

2011-06-06T16:02:00.000+01:00

Another fantastic boat built by Will Sterling and his team down in Tavistock the West country lugger Alert.

Will explains "Alert is a Westcountry Smuggling lugger of circa 1835. At 15 tons she was our first heavy displacement new build. She was drawn after a part time MA in Maritime History at Exeter University during which the principal area of study was the design and construction of Revenue Cutters between 1770 and 1850".

Will's initial interest in maritime history came through Admiral Sir Robert Barlow of Plymouth, a very great Grandfather, who during his early naval career ccampaigned against the Westcountry smugglers with success. His daughter married William Nelson, Horatio's elder brother.

Alert sailed on her maiden voyage to Iceland with Will and crew before returning to Plymouth where she is moored having been sold to a local man. The Alert build received an award from the South West Maritime History Society for 'exceptional boatbuilding and research.

BETH Sailing Canoe

2011-05-31T06:22:00.000+01:00

Robert Hoffman in Poland is a 1001 Boats follower and having read his own blog I asked if we could feature his delightful Sailing Canoe "Beth".

Designed by Michael Storer

Robert tells the story as follows, "Even before 2000, my brother found on the internet an interesting and simple in construction, sailing canoe modeled on traditional sailing canoes from 1870, American sharpies and famous American boat designer Phil Bolger's influences. A boat so pleased him that soon he made contact with the Australian designer Michael Storer and bought the plans. He was going to build it, but life turned out differently. Ever since my brother showed me BETH's building plans, she liked at first sight to me also - with its elegance and simplicity, as well as the expected features of the sailing.

A few years later my brother gave me BETH's plans to build. In April 2009, build began my sailing canoe in my tiny garage. The whole time I was by Internet in contact with Michael Storer, who on his forum and private gave me some useful advices. The boat was a really inexpensive and simple to build. Building was possible singlehanded and using a very modest set of tools. After several months, just before the onset of cold weather definitive construction was interrupted for the winter, and then resumed in April 2010.

My BETH Sailing canoe was launched May 28, 2010 in Gdansk (Gorki Zachodnie), where it took part in the Raid Poland 2010. She obtained the name "YuanFen" (Chinese - a force that brings people together) but the variable and uncertain weather and the experience and common sense meant that BETH “YuanFen” did not emerge over the Gulf of Gdansk.

From June 2010 to the end of August I'have tested it on a little lake (Jezioro Dziekanowskie) near my house. She proved a fast boat and pleasant sailing. Is the boat for the experienced sailor, but the hull is relatively more stable than the other canoe hulls. She is easy to maneuver on land it singlehanded and easy for trailering and roofracking. She draws attention to its characteristic appearance and speed - she is the attraction of the waters which she will be on.

I am grateful to the designer Michael Strorer for such a beautiful design and for his advice and comments, which I gladly gave during construction, as well as my brother, for showing me BETH and transmission plans, including the right to build her.

I have serious plans to continue to use my sailing canoe BETH "YuanFen" - I intend to test it to a larger water body, and prepare for the trip (in 2012) from the Poland to Danish island Bornholm - about 70 nm open Baltic Sea. This requires preparation and common sense - good and stable weather is essential. I believe this is possible, but always keep in mind that this is just a tiny canoe."

Beth has a delightful simplicity and elegance, a perfect boat for getting out and enjoying being on the water, equally as many intrepid Victorian sailors were to demonstrate these small craft can make remarkable voyages. We look forward to hearing more on Robert's open water voyage on the Baltic.

Solent Scow

2011-05-26T04:41:00.001+01:00

The Solent Scow dates back to around Edwardian times, the story goes that local Lymington sailor Captain Nicholson found that his west country built pram dinghy wasn't suited to the choppy conditions of the Solent and around 1912 asked local boat builder Dan Bran to build what is in effect a sharp nosed pram dinghy.

The boat gained popularity in the 1920's and 30's becoming known as the Scow with clubs racing the boats in nearby Yarmouth, Beaulieu and further a field Hamble and Portsmouth each fleet with minor variations.

Several builders offered the Scow including the Berthon Yard in Lymington which built hundreds.

During the 1950's Scows were still being raced and used as yacht tenders, but as clinker boat building became less cost effective the design was revived in GRP.

Up until 1985 the Scow was used for junior racing in Lymington, but by that time the moulds weren't up to scratch, so local builder John Claridge was asked to build a revised Scow making it a better all around dinghy for racing and training.

The Scow today is also built by Flight Marine and there are fleets at boths end of the Solent sailing from Chichester, Bembride, Yarmouth, Lymington and Keyhaven.

Pictures here are the Yarmouth fleet sailing on the upper reaches of the River Yar on the Isle of Wight.

LOA 11' 4"

Beam 4'11"

Sail Area

Main 84 Sq ft

Jib 12 Sq ft

Weight 220lbs

The Cruising Rowboat

2011-05-21T09:40:00.009+01:00

Some boats just grab your imagination and keeps it working overtime. The Camper Rowboat from Angus Rowboats is just such a boat. I'm up way past my bedtime and can't stop dreaming of the adventures awaiting me if I only build this boat!

To understand the boat you need to know a little about the designer. Colin Angus and his wife, Julie, have collectively rowed more than 40,000 kilometers in a variety of oar-powered craft on oceans, rivers and lakes. Julie Angus made history by becoming the first woman to row across the Atlantic Ocean from mainland to mainland. Colin is the first to row across the Bering Sea from Alaska to Siberia, and he has also voyaged by oar down the length of the Amazon and Yenisey Rivers.

They live on Vancouver Island. Maybe I should say they are based on Vancouver Island, from which they launch their adventures. Outside Magazine listed Colin as one of the top 25 "bold visionaries with world-changing dreams" for his work in promoting lifestyle changes to help the environment.

This new boat looks similar to the one the duo used to row and bike 7,200 kilometers from Scotland to Syria. That boat, the Expedition, is a sliding-seat rowboat built for the open ocean with the capacity to store a bicycle and the boat's trailer in the main water-tight compartment, making the rower/biker amphibious.

At 19 feet and 175 pounds fully rigged, the Camper is about a foot longer. Instead of stowing a bike, the main compartment is now a bedroom. Other innovations include two small pontoons that attach to the outboard ends of the rowing outrigers while at anchor to make the boat a stable platform for lounging, cooking and sleeping.

Angus says the hull shape of the Expedition and the Camper boat are quite different. The Camper is made from eight panels with a V-bottom. The Expedition is made from five panels and has a flat bottom. Both are beautiful boats and look like they would be a blast to row.

(Note to Colin: Please come up with a better name than "Camper." It congers up visions of eating baloney while seated on the tailgate of a Buick Roadmonster stationwagon. Or, worse, elderly RVers driving a half the speed limit.)

The plans for the Expedition are available now from Angus Rowboats, but we will have to wait until fall for the Camper plans.

This summer Colin will attempt to beat the current circumnavigation record of Vancouver Island, which is just over sixteen days (done in a kayak). He will use an Expedition and figures he will need to cover about 75 kilometers a day in a range of conditions.

My optimum use of the Camper, should I ever build one, would be to row a leasurely dozen or so miles between anchorages in, say, Washington state's San Juan Islands. Meantime, the Anguses are planning a non-stop double circumnavigation of Vancouver Island next year with two people in the boat, each taking turns rowing 12 hours a day. (Can't you guys give it a rest; You make me tired.)

Maybe you should rename the boat the Circumnavigator Express. Yah, that's more like it!

the Whaleboat

2011-05-20T02:50:00.005+01:00

Artwork from the logbook of the ship Iris while on its voyage from 1843-1847. The painting depicts a sperm whale upending one of the whaleboats chasing it.

Courtesy Girl on a Whaleship

This detailed painting of the killing of a whale by a whaleboat crew was done on the inside cover of a logbook. The logbook covers two voyages; the ship Alexander Barclay, 1837-1840 and Charles W. Morgan, 1841-1842.

Courtesy Girl on a Whaleship

Diagram ({{Information |Description={{en|1=Side and interior plan of whale-boat equipped with apparatus of capture, &c. Noted on the drawing as Plate 192. sec 5 v ii pp241, 252. not clear why the file name says fig 193.}} |Source=NOAA Photolibrary Image ID: figb01)

Courtesy NOAA

Azorean whaleboat racing

C0urtesy Azorean Whaleboats

The Queen's Ranger's whaleboat after its trip from Crown Point to Fort Ticonderoga
(courtesy David Michlovitz)

Courtesy Fort Ticonderoga Brigade

The past--a district Missionary's whaleboat

In early days the work of the "Southern Cross" was supplemented by the district missionaries in their whaleboats, but in recent year these have been replaced by launches and schooners

Courtesy Anglican History Oceania 1849-1949

from 'Into the Deep', a documentary by Ric Burns
The history of the American whaling industry from its 17th-century origins in drift and shore whaling off the coast of New England and Cape Cod, through the golden age of deep ocean whaling, and on to its demise in the decades following the American Civil War.
Find here, and here.

I just happened to catch the airing of this documentary on PBS, I rarely watch TV so it was extremely fortuitous. I was deeply moved and impressed by this work.
Ric Burns is without doubt a most discerning and articulate documentry filmaker. I recommend this film highly. It focuses acutely on the wreck of the Essex, an American whaleship and more generally on American whaling. The wreck of the Essex is reputed to be one of the inspirations for Moby Dick, and the documentary focuses quite a bit on Melville's celebrated work. Do not miss this!

Courtesy Ric Burns, PBS, and Mystic Seaport

Aquatic Mammals
Caption: Darting Harpoon into Sperm Whale
Image Date 1926
Subject Whaleboats
Whaling
Harpoons
Sperm whale
Image Source Author Cook, John A.
Image Source Title Pursuing the Whale : a Quarter-Century of Whaling in the Arctic
Pub. Info. Boston, MA : Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926
Page No./Plate No. Facing page 8
Digital collection Freshwater and Marine Image Bank
Repository Most materials are located in the University of Washington Libraries. Images were scanned by staff of the UW Fisheries-Oceanography Library
Copyright Materials in the Freshwater and Marine Image Bank are in the public domain. No copyright permissions are needed. Acknowledgement of the Freshwater and Marine Image Bank as a source for borrowed images is requested.
Ordering Information The University of Washington Libraries does not provide reproductions of this image. This record contains a citation for this image. If you want to use the scanned image, acknowledgement of the Freshwater and Marine Image Bank as a source for borrowed images is requested.
Type Image

Courtesy University of Washington Libraries

A whaleboat chasing its prey

Courtesy Girl on a Whaleship

From the introduction to ' The Whaleboat A study of Design, Construction and Use from 1850 to 1970 by Willits D. Ansel, published by the Mystic Seaport Museum:

The term "whaleboat" properly describes boats used for hunting whales, lthough it has also been applied to other boats having similar features, generally sharp ends. Whaleboats ere used by the thousands aboard American whaleships in the middle of the nineteenth century and, in lesser numbers, aboard the vessels of toher nations and at shore stations around the world. The whaleboat was a double ended, light, open boat with a length at that time of between twenty-seven and thirty-one feet and a beam of slightly more than one-fifth the length. It was pulled by oars and sailed. It was a fine sea boat, not only adapted to its function but also handsome. Though there were variations in size, lines, and construction, the general characteristics were well defined.
The whaleboat was once the most widespread of all small craft. In the late 1800s it was known in the Pacific in such widely separated places as Easter Island, Tasmania, the Bonin Islands and the Aleutians. In the Atlantic, it appeared in the north off Greenland, in the Azores, the Grenadines, and south to Tristan da Cunha and still farther south to Antarctica. In the Indian Ocean it was seen in the Mozambique Channel, Kerguelen Island and Cocos. It was used in the Arctic Ocean at Herschel Island on one side and Spitsbergen on the other. Whaleboats were seen in the most remote places in the sea.
The last voyage of a whaleship that carried whaleboats was in the 1920s. At a few far scattered places the boats continued to be used for shore whaling, as at Tong and Norfolk Island in the Pacific and at Bequia and the Portuguese Islands in the Atlantic. Two whaleboats are still maintained at Bequia and whaling on Pico and Madeira.* In 1969 there was whaling at Fiji. Elsewhere on remote islands the type survived for carrying cargo and passengers.
In the United States, where the whaleboat was carried to its final stage of development and where the boats were build by the thousands, very few remain outside of museums, although an undermined number survive in Alaska.
Much has been written in praise of whaleboats:
Their shape "ensures great swiftness as well as qualities of an excellent seaboat." 1
The boats were dry and rode "as gracefully as an albatross...for lightness and form, for carrying capacity compared with its weight and sea-going qualities, for speed andfacility of movement at the word of command, for theplacing of menat the best advantage in the exercise of their power, by the nicest adaptation of the varying length of the oar to its position in the boat, and lastly, for a simpicity of construction which renders repairs practicable on ships, the whaleboat is simply as perfect as the combined skill" of generations of boatbuilders could make it. 2

As surf boats the whaleboats were "without rival, better than a lifeboat which is a compromise because it has to carry a larger number of people...The whaleboat was the best seaboat that man could devise with no limits to size, weight, or model. "3 A whaleboat type, locally called a longboat, was adapted on Tristan da Cunha around 1886, after fifteen men were lost in a lifeboat. The longboat coxswains conider their light, canvas covered boats fine surf boats. 4
Howard Chapelle cites the whaleboat's reputation for good performance under oars and sail under all conditions.5 Others noted their maneuverability and speed and, last but not least, the cheapness of their construction.
Such praise was deserved. However, the whaleboat was the product of compromises, and was excelled in some functions by specialized boats. There were faster pulling boats, such a certain ones used in nineteenth-century smuggling in southern England, and certainly some lifesaving boats were safer in surf or a breaking sea. In terms of all-around performance, however, the whaleboat rated very high.

1. Charles M. Scammon, The Maritime Mammels of the Northewest coast of North America and the Whale Fishery, rev. ed. (Riverside: Manessier Publishing Co., 1969), p.224.

2. William Davis, Nimrods of the Sea, rev. ed. (North Quincy: The Christopher Publishing House, 1972), pp157-58.

3. Clifford W. Ashley, The Yankee Whaler, (Garden City: Halcyon House, 1942), p.59.

4. Notes on the Tristan da Cunha boats were provided by the island's administrator, J. I. H. Fleming, in 1973.

5. Howard I. Chapelle, The National Watercraft Collection, (Washington, D.C., Goverment Printing Office. 1960), p. 262

* Whaling was banned in the Azores in either 1986 or 1987, even though other small groups of shore based whaling, such as the Inuit and the Bequian whalers were allowed to continue as their whaling is considered 'indigenous'. It's my belief that the Azoreans should also be allowed to take whales based on their long standing practice. (ed.)

While not meant to condone the wholesale industrial slaughter of whales by, in particular, Japan and Norway, I do feel the history and development of the whaleboat a legitimate area of inquiry.

Currently I am writing a weblog about the construction of two whaleboats being built to fit out the restoration of the Charles W Morgan underway at Mystic Seaport. The boats are being built to historic standards at both the Independence Seaport Museum's boatshop in Philadelphia, PA and at Rocking the Boat in Brooklyn, NY.

Folkboats

2011-05-17T01:30:00.000+01:00

Patrick Hay a regular reader wrote reminding us of the Folkboat, clearly a yacht we were not going to miss off 1001 Boats

Patrick writes - "Love the 1001 Boats site and have a look almost every day to see if there's anything new.

One of the first keelboats I sailed was a Folkboat, and if it hadn't been such a great boat I might have stayed a dinghy sailor all my life. This boat has surely earned a top place in the 1001 boats list.

Maybe you could use this piece in praise of one of my all-time favourites. I have no photos of my own, but I found these excellent pics on the Nederlands Folkboot Club site."

I don't know if it's just me but that last one looks like it may be sailing past the Golden Gate Bridge, whatever the case our thanks to Nederlands Folkboot Club for the use of their great photo's.

Patrick -

"Back in the '60s I used to crew aboard an early Folkboat sailing around the Irish Sea. It was one of the original, pretty, Scandinavian clinker-built boats, with cramped accommodation, low headroom and no heads. There were two settee berths in the saloon, and a pipe cot under the foredeck that was a tight squeeze for an adult. An outboard motor was sometimes used to get us into difficult harbours, but more often than not we couldn't be bothered, as it was dreadfully hard work to mount and start it, and it was appallingly unreliable, anyway.

It was a delightful boat to sail in any weather. The long tiller remained light and the helm responsive however hard the conditions, and the boat could stand up to her sail well. The Folkboat's ability to take strong winds and rough weather in it's stride has made it one of the great boats of our time, with many epic ocean voyages and thousands of victories in both offshore and coastal races.

A strange fact about the Folkboat. The design originated as a result of a competition to create an affordable one-design weekend cruiser/racer – but nobody won the prize!

Instead, naval architect Tord Sunden was asked by the Swedish Yachting Federation to amalgamate elements from 2 of the best design entries, together with some of the committee's own ideas, to create the type of boat they really wanted. As a result Tord Sunden's name goes down in history and everyone has forgotten the designers whose boats didn't quite fill the bill.

The first Folkboat was built in 1942 during World War II – which makes the “People's” boat almost an exact contemporary of the Volkswagen “People's” car, and though the two concepts came from very different political and social cultures they have a great deal in common – affordable, reliable, and simple yet offering good performance. Although the boat's design is now almost 70 years old, it is so beautiful it will never date, and an old pitch-pine planked clinker Folkboat can still compete with much more modern boats, especially if kept up to date with modern spars, sails and rigging. Of course, there are also official GRP Folkboats but these are made from moulds that comply exactly with the original design.

Over the years there have been many different versions of the original boat, some calling themselves “Folkboats” even though not complying fully with the one-design rules, and others, though clearly Folkboat based, going under other names. Some very successful boats, such as the Contessa 26 and the Stella class have been developed by designers who tweaked the classic Folkboat shape, but nobody has bettered the original package – which is why there are literally thousands of them sailing all over the world."

Indeed there are Patrick and more than a few here in the Solent, but having searched the hard disk, I too am short of Folkboat pictures so I went out on Sunday and snapped a couple of local boats.

This first one is in fact a Marieholm Folkboat, an updated version of the original by designer Tord Sundén for fiberglass construction which first appeared in Europe durng 1969.

This one however is all wood, varnished and beautifully maintained and being a Folkboat she's going to sail as well as she looks.

Lanteen

2011-05-14T01:56:00.001+01:00

To most of us in England, the boats of the Mediterranean are characterised by the Lanteen sail with it's huge spar and a sail something in shape like a 30/60 triangle. Studies have shown it to be a very aerodynamic rig with good upwind performance, which sets a large amount of sail area on a relatively low mast.

Thanks to Jaume Escanellas in Mallorca who blogs at La Mar (Google Chrome will automatically translate for you as best it can from Catalan to English) for sending these pictures. Jaume originally posted comments on the recent post about a Greek Fishing Boat regarding the Mallorca Lanteen Association which has some great photographs of these boats. There are clear differences in boat type between a "bot" and a "lute" which are referred to on the site, bot refers to a transom stern boat as in the post on Capitan Valdes, so I'm guessing a lute is a double ender, perhaps someone more knowledgeable could confirm.

Below are a collection of traditional boats in the Mediterranean port of Sete in the south of France with many similarities to Jaume's Balearic boats, the flush deck to the bulwarks would have made a very effective platform for both fishing and sailing, the small hatches providing access below and a very secure way of keeping water out without the complication and potential weakness of cabin construction.

And of course there are those lovely long lanteen spars.

HMS Victory - Yawl Boat

2011-05-11T05:49:00.000+01:00

Will Sterling from Tavistock in Devon, kindly sent details of this ship's boat which his company built for Nelson's flagship HMS Victory. Victory although kept in dry dock in Portsmouth naval base is still a serving ship in the British Navy.

Will explains "Having studying the ship's documents the Curator of HMS Victory realised that a 26' yawl had been part of the 1805 ship's complement of boats. In 2008 he determined to have a yawl built."

"Stirling and Son won the tender and built a yawl under MOD contract. The boat was built to a draught of 1797 from Greenwich Maritime Museum."

"She is built of full length planking copper and bronze fastened and is now on display in Portsmouth, alongside HMS Victory, the flagship of the Royal Navy."

If you're visiting England then it's really worthwhile to take the time to see HMS Victory (and her neighbouring historic ships Warrior and Mary Rose), and not least Will's fantastic yawl.

Ocean Pearl

2011-05-06T14:43:00.003+01:00

Graham from Port-Na-Storm kindly sent these pictures of Ocean Pearl a relatively local boat based in Chichseter. Originally a motor zulu/fifie, the 42 footer fished from Peterhead in Scotland until the 1960's when she came south for restoration. She was acquired by local boat builder Nick Gates around 10 years ago and has undergone significant restoration and being rigged as a lugger.

There was some debate over the rake of her stern and whether she was a Zulu or a Fifie which you can read on Gavin Atkin's In the Boatshed. Whatever the outcome she's a fine looking vessel and credit to Nick's skill and determination.

Graham explains "I was at the Dinghy Cruising Association Summer Camp at Cobnor, Chichester Harbour last August and while out for a sail with Chris Waite in Tit Willow we took a detour up Thorney Channel where we saw Ocean Pearl riding at her moorings.

She was built in Scotland as a motor fishing vessel and restored and converted to sail by Nick Gates. She is nearly a Zulu, apparently a true Zulu would have had an even more raked stern post but with the advent of engines, stern gear, propellers etc the designers and builders had to make them less rakish. She still looks pretty amazing to me.

Chris and I saw her a month later when we were all taking part in an Old Gaffers race in the Solent. Ocean Pearl creamed past us and looked magnificent under full canvas."

Knud Reimers' 'Tumlare' or 'Tumlaren'

2011-05-03T04:39:00.004+01:00

unattributed

Gokstad Faering

courtesy Vikingskip og norske trebåter

Knud Reimers

courtesy Swedesail

An original Reimers drawing of 'Tumlare'

unattributed

unattributed

At 10,000 pounds of Nordic pitchpine and steam bent oak frames, Egret shows some power in a breeze. This photo was taken on Clear Lake in Northern California where she served as the testing boat for Penofin's Marine Oil Finish.

courtesy Penofin

Courtesy Knockabout Sloops

A great photo of her unique double cockpit arrangement that puts the helmsman aft at the tiller, the two jib winches are the only winches on the boat as sails were hauled aloft on their halyards by hand. Beside the winches are the running back stays. See the original compass on the strong back between the two cockpits. A single-cylinder diesel was added in the 1980's. Hidden appropriately under the cockpit and which greatly improved her handiness in tight docking situations.

courtesy Penofin

Courtesy Knockabout Sloops

History: Built over a five year period beginning in 1947 by Bob Stevens in his backyard ZEFIR (Swedish for Zephyr) was built as Knud Reimers designed with hot zinc galvanised frames and floors, with well seasoned Jarrah garboards and Queensland Kauri topsides. Three years later after Bob returned from Europe and the USA he found the hull structure in perfect condition to continue ribbing with hot steamed bent intermediate laminated Karri timbers, Spruce deck-beams and cabin and cockpit structures.

courtesy Classic Yacht Association of Austrailia

She was raced successfully in Port Adelaide by Bob until the early sixties and one other Adelaide owner then sold to Howard Fox in Melbourne in 1975 when her name was changed to ZEPHYR. As a “cruising” Tumlaren, much heavier than the majority of Tumlaren built in Melbourne and raced from Royal St Kilda Yacht Club (now Royal Victorian Yacht Squadron) Zephyr didn’t feature on the winners list in the very active racing regime of the Tumlaren Association. She was purchased by Kevin Read in 1993 after coming ashore at St Kilda and had two major restorations that replaced the galvanised ribs and floors and completely refurbished the hull and cabin and finished with a laid teak deck. She is now owned and raced by Anne and Karen Batson and is penned at the RYCV Williamstown.

courtesy Classic Yacht Association of Austrailia

A Tumlaren at the Hobart Wooden boat Festival

courtesy Dan Gadd

Arguably Knud Reimers' 'Tumlare' falls into the very narrowest selection of the most beautiful objects ever designed by the hand of man. Certainly she is the equal of the little Gokstad Faering pictured above (and of which she is undoubtedly a descendant), at least in elegance and seaworthiness, if not in simplicity. Reimers designed her in 1934 as a 20 square meter sloop for racing and cruising. Below are some thoughts on the boat from a couple of admirers.

From the sadly now defunct weblog Knockabout Sloops:

I have been rereading Lin and Larry Pardey's "Seraffyn's European Adventure" and I came across this description of one of Larry's early boats, a Knud Reimers' Tumlaren, that he raced and cruised when he lived in Vancouver.
When Larry was nineteen he'd fallen in love with a twenty-seven foot Tumlaren class sloop designed by Knud Reimers and called Annalisa. She'd been built by the Kungsor yard near Stockholm in 1948 for the crown prince of Denmark. By taking a bank loan, countersigned by his father, Larry had been able to buy the completely varnished sloop and for five years he raced and cruised her around Vancouver. From the time I met him, two years after he sold Annalisa, Larry had raved about his magnificent sloop. I'd almost grown jealous for Seraffyn as he described the extreme lightweight, scientific construction of the narrow, delicate Tumlaren. Seraffyn is twenty four feet four inches long with a beam of nine feet, and weighs close to eleven thousand pounds. Annalisa, at twenty seven feet on deck, was only six feet and displaced only thirty eight hundred pounds. As we cruised north through Sweden's multitude of islands I came to appreciate the ideas behind the Tumlaren's design. She, like the much better know Folkboat class, had been created for families who had protected waters to sail in. From a hundred fifty miles south of Stockolm north to Finland and east to Helsinki, a stretch of over six hundred miles, there are so many islands and anchorages that there is never a need to be more than four or five miles from land. The islands keep the seas flat with only occasional chop. Tiny villages dot the archipelagos so a family cruiser need carry only a few day's worth of supplies. But the intricate passages around the rocks and islands require boats that are handy to tack and close winded, boats that accelerate quickly to use each puff of wind that whispers around the points and trees. These boats are built light to save money since they can only be used three or four months out of the year. We saw hundreds of them throughout Sweden and Denmark, and many are sailed without engines.

From Classic Yachting:
Tumlaren was once called “The most advanced type of cruiser in the world” by another famous yacht designer, Uffa Fox!
Tumlaren was designed by Knud H Reimers in an attempt to marry the characteristics of a “koster”, longish and narrow, with those of the faster Square Meter Yachts that where very popular in Scandinavia at the time.
Tumlarens characteristics are very easy for, aft and water lines. And the yacht was like so many of Reimers designs designed on diagonals, all on diagonals, all of which cut the sections squarely a technique that makes it easier for the boat builder to do the laying down and fairing up.
The yacht has a sharp bow and a rounded stern that founded the British expression “Tumlaren stern” and other similar nautical expressions.
Tumlaren has an aft cockpit with just enough room to hold a helmsman. The main sheet is attached to a traveler on a wooden strong-back that separates the aft cockpit from the main cockpit. The interior accommodations are very Spartan with full length settee berths port and starboard and a v-berth forward the mast. In total allowing her to sleep four but this is very cramped with today’s measurements of yachts. Aft the port settee is normally equipped with a small alcohol stove and storage lockers. Additional storage lockers are found to starboard.
Tumlaren was also designed and built in a bigger version, the Stor Tumlaren (meaning “Large Tumlaren”) and in total there where more then 600 Tumlaren built.
Knud Reimers Tumlaren can today be found on all the worlds’ continents and in at least 24 countries. In Australia it early became a one design racing class and the building and measurement where adopted to locally availble wood types.
Today Tumlaren are very sought after classic yachts and prices vary from a couple of 100 USD for renovation projects to 30 000USD+ for nice examples.
New built Tumlaren are still available and among others a there is a Finish company named “M-Yachts” who still build them in wood.

More on Knud Reimers here.

Symphony

2011-05-02T07:38:00.000+01:00

This interesting and unusual yacht was lying on a mooring in Fowey recently.

The hull is constructed in clinker like planks, although that top plank is uncharacteristically wide and a bit of a odd shape.

The basic hull shape has quite fine ends and reminded me of a Van de Stadt designed Warshipp , were it not for the reverse sheer line. Not sure about the raised full width coach roof, but it would give good interior space in what is a small volume yacht.

With roller reefing on both jib and stay sail Symphony looks like she has done some serious offshore sailing. It would be nice to know more about her.

A Trip on The Adventuress Schooner

2011-04-27T02:28:00.000+01:00

Dick Thies lives on the US West coast and is interested in wooden boats, I discovered him on flickr where he is a member of the Solent Old Gaffers group and has posted some great pictures of traditional boats, many of which were taken at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival and make a welcome change to our familiar local gaffers.

We were delighted to get this account of a voyage Dick made on the schooner Adventuress.

Adventuress is a 133-foot gaff-rigged schooner launched in 1913 in East Boothbay, Maine. She was built as a luxury schooner for John Borden II who promptly sailed her to the tip of South America, through the Straits of Magellan and on up to Arctic waters near Alaska. The goal was to bring back a bowhead whale skeleton for the New York Natural History Museum. They brought back some useful items but no bowhead skeleton. In 1914, Adventuress was sold to San Franciso Bar Pilot’s Association. Her topmasts were removed and modifications were made to make her more suited for use as a pilot vessel, but made her a lot less beautiful. In 1951, she was replaced and then neglected until 1960 when she was brought to Seattle. Eventually she was restored to her former looks and put to work by Sound Experience. They use Adventuress to let folks experience what it was like in the old days of sail and to learn about such sailing and about the natural history and ecology of the Salish Sea (Puget Sound).

I first discovered Adventuress at Port Townsend’s Wooden Boat Festival. I was overwhelmed by this gaff topsail two-masted schooner with a rig height of 110 ft. and 5,478 sq. ft. of sail. So I took a 2-hr. cruise at the festival that was a great way to see other festival boats on the water. They also let us try our hands at some of the rope handling and coiling.

Last summer, I decided to try one of their 4-day trips in the San Juan Islands north of Seattle. The price seemed quite reasonable and they let you know that this was not a fancy-meal and luxury-private-cabin sort of trip. The meals were vegetarian, and I found them very good. Adventuress sailed into a quiet bay each night so it was steady for sleeping. The guests and most of the crew slept on foam bunks that were comfortable enough for me. I don’t think I would have done so well in the hammocks used in the old days. I had not slept in one room with others in fifty years. I discovered that the earplugs they suggested were very helpful. We all had a chance to do some night watch duty, which was very interesting. On mine, we could hear a blowing sound that we guessed was a whale or seal. The sunrise was gorgeous.

They asked why we came on the trip. I wanted to sing some sea shanties with work being done to the shanty rhythm. They let me take over quite a bit of the shanty man’s role. The first thing I learned is the shanty man sets the pace but he has to watch the work to see what pace is feasible. The Adventuress has a huge mainsail with boom and gaff the size of telephone poles. The gaff is raised with one crew on the head halliard and another crew on the peak halliard. The halliard shanty has to go with the hand-over-hand pulling. I found that the pace has to slow down as the gaff is raised, because it gets heavier as more canvas is raised from the boom. The foresail is much lighter and I had sing much faster to give a good pace for pulling those halliards.

The first two days were sunny, light breeze days so we put up all plain sail (no topsails for this trip due to Coast Guard rules). It was pleasant sailing around San Juan, Stewart, Orchas and Shaw islands. The third day started with light wind, but we were soon going very fast with just a reefed Mainsail and one jib. I think they called it a light gale. It was great fun, but some of us felt a bit queasy after a while. The captain decided to take her into a sheltered bay with the comment “We don’t want to risk this 100 year old schooner”.

The paying guests were treated like the crew in many ways, except most of us had much less schooner seamanship, so we learned on the job. Some tasks needed to be done by the real crew, but others were done bythe three groupings that each had some real crew mixed with us guests. The groupings were also good for fun things like skits and songs.

The educational pert of the trip gave us some options on what extra things we might want to learn about. I chose basic navigation and geology of the Salish Sea islands. Both were well presented. The “engineers report” was another way to learn. He kept track of our energy usage (there is some use of the diesel), waste generation (we were better than the teen-agers on the last trip), mpg (quite good since we sailed most of the time).

The last day, we took some time to climb the rigging if we so desired. I did not think I cared to do that at age 69, but the captain nicely pointed out that it is all with a safety harness, and it is a special feeling to be up there. So I did the climb up the main ratlines which put me about 56 ft off the deck. I would not like it in a storm, but anchored in a quiet bay it was fine. The folks below looked like wee ants. I felt a bit nervous doing it, but overall it was enjoyable and memorable.

for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventuress_(schooner)
http://schooneradventuress.com/default.aspx

Thanks to Dick for letting us share in a great trip on a fantastic boat.

The Cortez Melonseed

2011-04-23T06:06:00.017+01:00

Max told you of the Melonseed Nancy Lee from Indiana. There is a development of this diminutive 13 foot duck boat in Florida designed by Roger Allen. It is called the 16 footer, but is actually 15.5 feet long, over-all.

Mick Wick, who is the publisher of the quarterly journal of the Traditional Small Craft Association and an avid Melonseed fan, sent me some photos of himself defeating all comers in a recent race celebrating the sixth Great Florida Gulf Coast Small Craft Festival in a borrowed Melonseed, YeeHaw.

Mike is busy building his own Melonseed, so we've invited him to check in when he's done.

The next set of photos are of the Marshcat Comfort belonging to Doug Oeller, a friend of Mike's, also entered in the same "race".

A bit larger, it is another modern adaptation of the traditional shallow draft hunting and fishing designs from the Delaware River Basin, just south of New York City.

If you'd like to know more about these historic gaff rigged "duck boats" please visit the Traditional Small Craft of New Jersey and the Delaware River Basin.

Greek fishing boat in Skopelos Town Harbour

2011-04-22T07:45:00.003+01:00

This is just what 1001 Boats is all about, Graham of Port -Na-Storm blog send me an email with a couple of pictures of a small fishing boat he's spotted while on holiday in Greece.

In Graham's own words

" I saw this little Greek fishing boat in Skopelos Town Harbour last year and fell in love.

I don’t know how typical she is or what the type is called.

She seemed different from all the other local boats because instead of the usual double end shape which look almost Nordic, she has this plumb stem flared midships and counter stern, really lovely. I reckon she must have been around 18-20 feet in length.

I’m guessing the rig is Lateen judging by the length of that yard, I’d love to see her sailing."

She certainly is lovely, we have some followers who are much more familiar with traditional Mediterranean boats than Graham and I, so maybe they might be able to comment on the design?

And as a final thought if you have a favorite boat or just one that you like, please send us some details, 1001 Boats don't have to be historic, or expensive, just boats that you like - don't be shy.

We're expecting to feature Graham's beautiful Coot dinghy very soon.

Harrac

2011-04-19T09:51:00.002+01:00

The first time I saw Harrac must have been the summer of 2007 or it might have been 2006, she was backing off of the fuel berth at Moody's marina on the Hamble and she irresistibly caught my eye in the same way that you can't help noticing pretty girl.

She was designed by lan Pape as a Yawl and built by Curtis and Pape at Looe in Cornwall in 1981 with single skin carvel construction of iroko on oak, teak decks and cockpit.

LOA: 13.7m (45' 0")
LWL: 10.0m (33' 0")
Beam: 3.86m (12' 9")
Draft: 2.06m (6' 9")
Displacement: 14.145 tonnes

In 2007/8 Harrac's skipper, Angus Cater set out to sail from UK to Smith Island, Antarctica. The objective was to make the trip in memory of Simon Richardson and Bill Tilman, both had died attempting an expedition in 1977 to climb Mount Foster on Smith Island.

The journey was 18,500 nautical mile, and took her down to the Cape Verde islands, across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, and then down the west coast of South America to the Magellan Straights.

Sadly, due to delays, problems with the boat including a near sinking, the narrow window for getting to Antarctica in the brief summer season was lost, but Harroc returned safely visiting Brazil and the Azores.

Bell Woodworking Seagull and Seamew

2011-04-10T04:16:00.007+01:00

Two rare birds 'Sabine' and 'Steffi' (alas no longer with us)

rafted up, Scottish West Coast May 1991

Sabine dried out Piel Is Aug 1992 An attempt to show hull profile

courtesy Edwin Dewhirst

Sabine sailing in Caernarvon Bay with Snowdonia as a backdrop Aug 2007

courtesy Edwin Dewhirst

Jerry English and his Bell Seagull at Milford Haven, Wales

courtesy Wikipedia

C. Fetz Seagull first sail

courtesy Chris Fetz

It was love at first sight for me with these boats. The slight reverse sheer and angular hull just all seem to hang together so well, and they have a reputation for speed and seaworthiness. The picture of the Chris Fetz boat above is of particular personal interest because this boat resides close to me and has recently become available. I am trying to figure out the $ and logistics.

From Edwin Dewhirst,
In the mid 1950s the Bell Woodworking commissioned Ian Proctor to design a small sailing cruiser suitable for coastal,estuary and inland water cruising that could be supplied in kit form for home completion by anyone with reasonable woodworking ability. He used the same 4 planks a side form of construction that he had used for the successful 16ft Osprey racing dinghy.. The result was the Seagull which is 18ft 6in in length, 6ft 9in beam and 1ft 5 in draft with the keel up and 3ft 8in with it down.There are 2 berths in the cabin with room for 2 children to be accommodated under a boom tent in the cockpit. (See specification pages for details of both Gull and Mew). The first boat was launched in 1956 and proved to be both fast and seaworthy and kits and completed boats sold in numbers.

Following the success of the Seagull, Bells then commissioned Proctor to design a larger sailing cruiser to cater for the demand for a boat with more facilities for families. The result was the Seamew which is of the same construction as the Seagull but at 22ft in length she could be fitted with a small inboard engine, 4 or 5 berths and a marine toilet. The first boat was launched in 1962 and again proved to be fast and seaworthy. She went into production in 1963, again selling in numbers.

There was a thriving Bell Seagull and Seamew Association but due to competition from, and the availablity of larger fibreglass cruisers in the 1970s the numbers fell and the asociation was wound up in 1983 through lack of interest. Now it is just one man banging his drum to try to rouse interest in keeping these grand little cruisers sailing.

My own involvement with the Seagull began in 1980 when looking for something a bit bigger than my 14ft Tarpon camping/cruising dinghy. After looking at several other small yachts I came upon Seagull no 145. She had been badly neglected in the 70s but the current owner had had her fitted with new decks and coachroof by a boat builder, then decided to sell. She was sat on a 4 wheel trailer and the hull had been given a coat of paint, but there was a lot of work to do. I took one look at her lines and decided that she was the boat for me and after a bit of haggling over the price she was mine.

My first task was to remove a rusty old Coventry Victor inboard engine and replace the bulkhead into the cabin that had been cut away to accommodate it, but which allowed all the water getting into the cockpit to have a free run through the cabin. The cockpit locker sides and most of the lids needed replacing and while I was at it I built a 'bridge deck' locker against the new cabin bulkhead ...

Over the years I have refurbished the keel which now gets a regular overhaul, re built the lower part of the keel case and scarphed in a new section of deadwood, re fitted the cockpit and made it self draining with 3in. coamings for the locker lids and built a pick a back trailer to my own design.

At the same time I have been cruising twice a year(mostly single handed) and have now logged in excess of 18000 miles, sailing most of the South coast with 2 trips to Scilly,. All the West coast from Lands End to Cape Wrath, cruising the Inner Hebrides many times with 5 crossings of the Minch have sailed all the East coast of the Outer Hebrides from Barra to Stornoway . I have trailed to the Moray Firth twice, sailing to Orkney each time. Further south I have been across to the I.o.M about 15 times and across to Ireland 5, sailing all the East coast and the South coast as far as Kinsale. During that time I have met some pretty rough conditions but never doubted the seakeeping qualities of my little Seagull.

Meanwhile I had only ever seen 2 Seagulls and 2 Seamews afloat and a few laid up, most in varying degrees of dilapidation, which led me to decide to try to find out how many of the 400 or so that were built are actually surviving. In the autumn of 2000 I wrote to the boating magazines asking for a letter to be published in which I invited Gull and Mew owners to contact me, the result was that I was able to compile a list of the owners of 18 Gulls and 12 Mews. Since then I have produced an annual newsletter which I have sent to all the owners on my list, some of whom have kept in touch with me.

. I can be contacted by phone on 01254 830678 or by email at dewhirste@supanet.com or e.dewhirst@yahoo.com

Edwin hosts a website about these boats here. It's worthy of your attention, and note especially the logs of his annual cuises in Sabine, a window into the capabilities of these small gems.

Wiki is here.

I wrote a piece on these boats for 70.8% here.

Tosher

2011-04-07T21:32:00.003+01:00

Well at least I think that this delightful open, half decked cutter is a Tosher.

Tosher's were I believe a common Mevagissey fishing boat, certainly I've seen pictures of similar boats which were built by master boatbuilder Percy Mitchell of Portmellon, but it could equally be a Polperro Gaffer or Falmouth working boat.

I spotted this one lying to a mooring off Bodinnick Boatyard across the river from Fowey in Cornwall. On the left of the picture below is another Percy Mitchell Tosher "Dolphin" with the white hull, she was restored by Peter Williams of Bodinnick boatyard a few years ago and appeared in Classic Boat magazine.

An original 1930's Percy Mitchell Tosher was offered for sale last year by another Fowey boat builder Marcus Lewis, which in it's unrestored form had a similar colour scheme, so this may be the same boat now restored, if anyone has any information please drop me an email.

Lewis
Apologies for the poor quality photographs, they were taken on a misty morning with the strong sunlight breaking through, that's my excuse, but it was a glorious spring morning.

Capitán Valdés

2011-04-01T09:07:00.007+01:00

We received a great email from Xavier Corredor in Catalunya, a region in North East of Spain on the Mediterranean coast which has a distinct culture and regional language. Barcelona is the regional capital. The area is a particular favorite of mine, having been fortunate to spend quite a lot of time there through work, trying not to turn this into a travel guide I'd recommend it as an area well worth visiting.

Xavier explains -

Capitán Valdés is a “bot”, a traditional small boat of the East Mediterranean sea characterized by having a transom stern. The hull is made of polyester reinforced with fiberglass, and is a modern copy of a Mallorcan design of the first half of the twentieth century. Its main dimensions are as follows:

LWL: 4.3 meters (14’ 1”) BEAM:1.72 meters (5’ 8”) DRAFT: 0.8 meters (2’ 7”)

The sail plan is called “de vela mística i floc”, that means a four-sided mainsail (truncated triangle shape) and a jib. The vertical mast is placed in the first third of length and there is also a bowsprit for the jib. This rig, which is a variant of the standard lateen rig, is typical of the Balearic Islands and, by its simplicity and ease of handling, is especially suitable for learning the lateen rig sailing.

Since 2008, I sail Capitán Valdés summer and winter with my young crew (my son and my daughter) in the Palamós bay and nearby coves. We enjoy our boat and the superb landscapes of the Costa Brava (Catalonia).

I realize that Capitán Valdés is not a traditional boat in the strict sense, since it is built whit modern materials. Easy and inexpensive maintenance was a very important factor when I acquired it. However, the rig itself is in the spirit of tradition and learn to manage it is my small contribution to the preservation of the maritime heritage of my country.

Xavier raises the ongoing question of GRP v's traditional wooden boat construction, but the fact is Capitán Valdés is in every way a traditional boat and one can also see connections to working boats in many other parts of the world. He is also very fortunate to be able to sail in such a great part of the world.

Pacific Northwest Fishing Fleet

2011-03-26T04:49:00.015Z

Many of the world's oceans were colonized by European explorers as long as five centuries ago but the rugged, storm infested shores of the northeastern Pacific remained the domain of mostly land-based indigenous people until the introduction of the internal combustion engine.

Many of the harbors on the Oregon coast, on the northwestern seaboard of the US, are so inundated with on-shore weather that a fishing fleet requires real horsepower to reach fishing grounds. The older fleet of boats were of course made of wood and today seem quaint alongside the massive ships that dominate the industry.

Just two and three decades ago, family owned fishing vessels were the norm, but have been fast replaced by the huge steel behemoths that have redefined fishing as a factory endeavor. The tragic story of a dying way of life is told in the local papers as one after another of these old workhorses are put out to pasture or sink at their moorings.

The two closest harbors to my home are in Newport and Depoe Bay, Oregon. Neither of these ports were accessible by ships until breakwaters were built and the entrances dredged. In just three generations, we have witnessed the rise and fall of the fishing industry in this area due to inept management and greed, which makes many of us nostalgic for the days of the family fishing tradition and the hand built boats which made an honest life possible in this inhospitable climate.

photos by Jim Haron

Misty Moonbeam

2011-03-23T06:46:00.002Z

Misty Moonbeam a unique yacht which was designed and built by the late Michael Corbin.

For many years Misty Moonbeam was a familiar sight on the Medina River in Cowes.

A previous owner writes "If you would like to see more of the interior of Misty Moonbeam - here's the link to an Album created April 2010 - which can be viewed page by page without purchase. This was where she was berthed under her new ownership from 2007 to 2010 Chivenor, near Barnstable at the time. It was a pity the tide was out - but you can't have everything, it was a beautiful day. I was fortunate enough to be invited to spend a day on board, with a photographer friend who created the Album. That's me on board in red"

"Misty Moonbeam was sold in 2007 and indeed has been recently sold on again. I would also refer you to a YACHT MARKET site, where Misty was advertised prior to the latter sale. This gives all her statistics and will give you a true figure of the amount of winches on board. This site will be undoubtedly removed soon as she is under new ownership as at October 2010."

"If you remember, she was originally a Wishbone Schooner - but the first buyer didn't know how to make use of the wishbone, whereby it was removed, re-rigged with a complete new set of sails."

"Here is the one and only picture of Misty Moonbeam under sail in the beauty of her original rig for which Mike had designed her It is not easy to get a photo of your own boat under sail - unless you are racing and surrounded by press photographers. Fortunately I alerted some friends she was in the West Country, and the rest is history. That's Mike on the raised poop - with daughter and son-in-law on deck."

"May Misty Moonbeam continue to sail the seas. She was designed for world cruising and may she be admired the world over and live on in the memories of all who appreciate her individual beauty."

Sjogin

2011-03-20T06:22:00.001Z

Russ Manheimer wrote with details of Sjogin and shame on me for not writing to Russ asking if we could include Sjogin earlier, having been a keen follower of his blog Hove to Off Swan Point.

Russ writes - Sjogin is a 22 foot Koster boat near as I can tell. I started bloging in 2005 in an effort to discover Sjogin's roots. Nothing definite yet but a great journey. And you meet the most interesting people along the way.

I sail on the upper reaches of Barnegat Bay, NJ, keeping Sjogin in commission year round with the help of a much loved wood stove and late summer refits. All you could want to know about Sjogin and my adventures with her stewardship can be found on my Blog, Hove to off Swan Point.

For the past year there's been a demand by certain members of the WoodenBoat Forum for building plans for a copy of Sjogin. As a result Paul Gartside is developing plans for traditional construction as well as a glued ply lapstrake version. Details can be found on this thread on the Wooden Boat Forum .

Below is Paul Gartside's drawing of the original sail plan, he has also drawn a gaff cutter and a yawl rig.

Atkin's enduring Ingrid

2011-03-18T16:57:00.016Z

Of all the designers inspired by Colin Archer's seaworthy double-enders, William Atkin seemed to get it just right. And of all the boats he designed in that tradition, his Ingrid seems to inspire blue-water sailors and wannabes the most.

Of the design he said: "She has all the characteristics usually associated with seagoing ability. She is the kind of boat that behaves in rough water. She can be depended upon to sail herself. She is ableness personified. And equal to any situation."

Since the design appeared, boatbuilders have made Ingrids of wood, fiberglass and even ferro cement. Spiritus is as beautiful an example as you are going to find. She's made of fiberglass, most likely by one of the several boatyards who produced Ingrid hulls.

Many of these builders would sell to any stage of completion. For every well-found yacht like Spiritus, there is probably at least one unfinished boat in a field or boatyard whose owner ran out of money, time or enthusiasm. In one boatyard I visited, there were three Ingrid hulls lined up - two of fiberglass and one of ferro cement - the boats were decades old, yet never finished. A sad fate for a lady made for the sea.

LOD:37' 6"
LWL: 30'
Beam: 11' 4"
Draft: 5' 6"
Displacement: 25,000 pounds
Sail area: 816 square feet

Originally designed as a ketch, later Ingrids also had a cutter rig, like this Alajuela 38.

Thistle Racing Class

2011-03-18T07:11:00.007Z

Designed by Sandy Douglas, the Thistle debuted in 1945. The sail plan consists of a marconi main, small jib, and a spinnaker. The boat planes easily in 10-12 knots of breeze and will glide effortlessly in light air.
Sandy Douglas was mentored by the superlative Uffa Fox and the racing canoe influence is readily apparent in the nimble Thistle.

One of my favorite boats, hull number sixteen, was manufactured in 1946. The Thistle Class Association has no record of this boat, so it is speculated that it was a "kit" boat, possibly assembled by it's owner and probably never raced.

The original wood thistles were built by a "hot molding" method. All of the wood hulls up through the 1960's were taken from a single mold in a plywood factory, where the double diagonal mahogany strips were fastened to the mold with bronze staples and glue, then heated under pressure in the factory's drying kiln. The resulting laminate is amazingly resilient even though it is only 5/16"(79.4mm) thick. A finished hull, with lead centerboard, thwart, seats, mast partner and rudder weighs in at 500 lbs (US). The bare hulls, along with all of the wood parts were sold as a kit, so many of these old boats were finished at home by the racers themselves.

The Thistle Class migrated to fiberglass boats in the 1960's and as such are still manufactured today.

One-design rules dictate that the boats be held to strict specifications in order to be raced. There is no reason this 63 year-old wood boat would not be competitive with a modern Thistle. In fact modern racers believe the antique wood hulls to be stiffer than a fiberglass hull just a few years old. Retired wood hulls from all over the US are being restored and pressed back into service. Hull number 16 is no exception and following her restoration in my shop on the west coast of the US has moved cross-country to be raced in the Delaware area by her new owner.

Melon Seed - Nancy Lee

2011-03-18T05:57:00.001Z

Roger Rodibaugh of Lafayette, Indiana kindly sent us pictures of his delightful Melon Seed skiff Nancy Lee named after Roger's wife. The Mellon Seed has been a favourite ever since I first discovered the lines in Howard Chappelle's book American Small Craft.

Roger tells the story - In the 1880s, in the bays and backwaters of New Jersey (USA), there developed a shapely gunning skiff called a Melon Seed. H.I. Chapelle imortalized the type in his American Small Sailing Craft. He and other historians suggest that the Melon Seed was a developmental improvement on the Sneakbox, better able to handle the open, choppy waters of the Jersey Bays by virtue of its more complex shape. Others argue that the Sneakbox, being easier to build, and therefore less costly, came after the Melon Seed. Whichever the case, it remains indisputable that this little skiff is a right virtuous craft, suitable today for easy singlehanding or a crew of two and a picnic.

Roger Crawford builds a version of the Chapelle skiff in fiberglass and teak in his two-man shop. Largely thanks to him and the over 450 boats he has built, the type has become more widely known. http://www.melonseed.com/ There are also a number of professional and amateur builders who have built carvel, plywood lapstrake, and strip plank boats to various plans.

I have sailed a Crawford Melonseed for nearly 20 years and can attest to her virtues. I live 50 miles from my sailing waters, so easy trailering and quick rigging are important to me. The 235 pound boat is effortless to trailer, and the sprit rig sets up instantly. She relishes a breeze, but takes well to the oars in a calm. Her diminutive size belies her toughness -- she's very capable, and seems to know just how to step through a chop -- and the side decks keep the green water out. All this, and pretty, too, with her hollow bow and saucy sheer.

Melonseed particulars:

length overall: 13'8"
beam 4'3"
draft 6" to 2'6"
displacement 235 lbs.
sail area 62 sq. ft.

Itchen Ferry

2011-03-17T03:07:00.002Z

Up until the 1970's there was a ferry crossing connecting Southampton to Woolston over the Itchen river, the small village on the banks of the river became known as Itchen Ferry as did the inshore fishing boats which were built there in the later 19th century and fished the waters of the Solent.

Typically transom stern gaff cutters of around 20 feet, characterised by a broad beam as much as eight feet. Despite their beam the boats had fair lines and were known for their speed and the ability to run straight in difficult sea conditions.

Several local boat builders were making this type of fishing boat around the 1850's and 1860's but perhaps the most famous was Dan Hatcher of which SU120 Wonder is a surviving example of his work.

Several other builders including Luke, Alfred Payne, Stockham & Pickett and Fay's built boats of the type which probably more correctly should be called Solent Fishing Cutter's.

A good few other examples survive to this day, although recognisable as an Itchen Ferry, this grey boat was spotted a long way from her home waters, in the east coast town of Woodbridge.

Tammy Norrie - Beth

2011-03-14T01:10:00.000Z

Our thanks for bringing this boat to our attention go to Robert Ditterich, who featured her on this Page Three Boat Blog.

Thanks also to builder Paul who describes the thinking process behind the boat and building of "Beth" the yawl rigged sail boat - on his blog Licensed 2 Tinker, as well as sending us these great photos.

Beth is a 15.5ft sailing boat designed by Iain Oughtred. She was launched in 2007 after a two year build. Iain Oughtred's original "Tammie Norrie" design was a 13.5ft boat with the option of a lug yawl or sloop rig. Paul scaled the boat up 10% from the original design and changed the rig to a gaff yawl instead of lug sail. Paul was also keen on a boat which was small and light enough to row home when the afternoon wind fails.

Iain Oughtred designed Tammie Norrie as an open boat with a yawl rigged lugsail. Paul wasn’t keen on the lugsail and he knew Iain had another, bigger, design for a gaff rigged yawl. Iain was also working on a version of the Tammie Norrie design that had been scaled up 10%, so Paul went ahead and bought the Tammie Norrie plans and then proceeded to scale them up 10% and modify the mainsail to a gaff himself.

In addition to the technical challenges involved in scaling up the design Paul had to test recoverability after capsize and deal with ballasting the larger boat. Whatever the challenges they were well worth it, Beth looks fantastic.

The seaworthy Chamberlain dory

2011-03-13T15:01:00.006Z

One of my favorite boats was a 13-foot-5-inch Chamberlain dory. It was designed by John Gardner based on dory-builder William Chamberlain's legendary boats. Gardner said of the boat, “For a rowing sea boat, you can't do much better within the 13-foot limit.” I put that to the test many times in the 12 years I owned her and she took care of me every time.

For several years I would row eight miles with the boat loaded with camping and archery equipment to bow hunt elk on an island on the Washington coast. I once rowed into some of the steepest wind chop I've ever seen and she didn't ship a teaspoon of water. I also entered a 11-mile rowing race and and did well even though my boat was the shortest in the race.

In the first few years I owned her I did a lot of tinkering: I lowered the rowing thwart and the stern seat and reinforced the front thwart to serve double duty as a mast partner. I also added a mast step and made a mast and sprit so I could sail her. I think the best change I made to the boat was to add a carved back rest for the stern seat. It made it more comfortable for the passenger and gave the boat a somewhat more refined look. My wife called it the "princess seat."

The spritsail rig worked well and I decided that rather than complicate a wonderfully simple boat by adding a centerboard and rudder I would sail her peapod style by trailing the lee oar and shifting my weight to steer. It worked well thanks to a shallow, full-length keel that terminated in a generous skeg. The rig even allowed her to go to windward pretty well.

The boat works well with one or two adults and a couple of kids, was OK with three adults and could even accommodate three adults and two small kids.

The odd thing about my Chamberlain dory was this: of all my boats, she is the only one that went nameless. It wasn't because I didn't love her, I did, it's just that she didn't come with a name and one never occurred to me. She was always "the Chamberlain dory."

Onawind Blue

2011-03-10T03:13:00.001Z

Onawind Blue is a 15 foot Light Trow designed by Gavin Atkin and fellow blogger of In The Boatshed. The Trow was in part inspired by a traditional working boat from a very unusual stretch of protected water on the Dorset coast known as the Fleet, which is enclosed behind the gravel banks at Chesil Beach.

The traditional Trow was a heavily built, flat bottomed boat, Gavin has bought the design up to date with much lighter ply construction adding some influence from Dory designs and providing a sailing rig. The result is the Light Trow.

Based on the Mediterranean coast of Spain Ben Crawshaw has documented the build of his Light Trow - Onawind Blue and then followed up with his sailing and rowing exploits on his blog The Invisible Workshop

What's very interesting about The Invisible Workshop is how Ben involves his readers rowing and sailing Onawind Blue in very different waters to those from which the design originated. It is fascinating to watch as Ben develops his skills and experience with the boat, pushing the boundaries of her capability.

Ben's voyages demonstrate that you don't need a mega yacht to go sailing, even in the open ocean. His crossing to Ibiza takes courage, skill and a well found boat which he clearly has in Onawind Blue. His sailing also interweaves with the strong regional Catalan culture in which food plays an important role. Cooking on an open boat can be a challenge, but sailing out in the early morning to enjoy breakfast on the clear and sunny Mediterranean is clearly something special.

Grace

2011-03-09T07:43:00.000Z

The Norske 35 design is a tough, double ended design very much in the style of Colin Archer and billed as an ocean cruiser by Harley Boats for construction in ferro cement.

Dimensions are 35' LOD, beam of 11' and a relatively shallow draft of 5'3". Hartley describe her as "traditional relatively cheap and easy to construct craft, for general cruising or ocean wandering. The rig is easily within the limits of the loner." The sail plan shows either a gaff cutter or ketch rig.

Windboats in Wroxham, Norfolk better known for construction of the Endurance 35, also built a number of Norske 35's using their "SeaCrete" method of ferro cement during the 1970's. Despite a poor reputation with insurer's, yacht surveyors and for resale value, there are a number of well built examples around which are doing well even after 30 odd years.

Grace is a Windboat built Norske she is normally based on the Hamble, but currently taking a sabbatical on the west coast of France.

Bursledon Gig

2011-03-08T03:35:00.000Z

The Bursledon Gig is actually an adopted boat, built in fiber glass from a mould taken from a west country punt, the original boat probably dredging for oysters and doing other inshore work in Carrick Roads, Falmouth.

At 15’” LOA with a wide bean of 5'4", the Bursledon Gig is a stable rowing platform as was adopted by the Hamble Sea Scouts and others along the Hampshire River as a safe and versatile boat which can be rowed with up to four crew plus a cox.
With approaching 20 gigs on the river they became a regular fixture at Bursledon Regatta competing for the Sheave Trophy.

In 2010 Hamble River Rowing was formed to promote rowing on the river, the club now has two new gigs in build and another on order.

Concordia Sloopboat, Feather

2011-03-04T19:49:00.000Z

Glenn Woodbury is skipper of this little sloop which was designed in the mid-1960's by Captain R.D. "Pete" Culler when he was working at the Concordia Company in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, USA.

Feather was built by John Graham in Sausalito, California in 1983 and now resides on Marrowstone Island in Washington state.

Glenn describes his fine vessel:

"She is clinker built, 17'-8" long, 5 feet wide, and draws 18 inches with the centerboard up and 3 feet with it down. She is rigged as a gaff knockabout sloop with 172 square feet of sail, 127sq ft main and 45sq ft in the jib. There is no standing rigging and the jib is set flying. She displaces 1240 pounds with rig and anchor and carries as many as six adults. She has two sets of reef cringles in the mainsail, allowing her to sail to weather in 35 knots of wind with both reefs in and the jib set"

I have sailed in company with Feather and she is as fine a small boat as you will ever find.

doryman

Concordia Yawl

2011-03-04T17:51:00.000Z

While we are talking about Waldo Howland's Concordia Company, we might take a look at the most famous design to come out of that shop in Massachusetts.

The Concordia yawl was designed in 1938 by naval architect C. Raymond Hunt for Llewellyn Howland and built by Llewellyn's son Waldo.

I found this Concordia yawl preparing to hoist anchor while cruising in the San Juan Islands near the western extreme of the Canadian border with the US.

Concordia Yawl Design Specifications:
Length Over All 39'-10"
Length Waterline 28'-6"
Beam (Extreme) 10'-3"
Draft 5'-8"
Ballast (Iron Keel) 7700 Lbs.
Displacement 18000 Lbs.
Sail Area 690 Sq. Ft.
(Fore Triangle, Mainsail and Mizzen)

Construction - Oak keel, steam bent laminated oak frames, African mahogany planking, bright mahogany deck trim, canvas covered main deck and house top, bronze plank fastenings, galvanized iron keel bolts.

Rig - Hollow spars, including spinnaker pole, stainless steel rigging, galvanized tangs, bronze fittings and winches.

The Concordia yawl has won numerous prestigious races including the Newport/Bermuda Race (1954 & 1978), the Annapolis Race (1955), Cowes Week (1955) and the Marblehead-to-Halifax Race (1955 & 1997); Proving that a cruising boat can also be competitive.