Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2017 i Classic Boat

Two titans battled it out near the regatta finish: the 1930 John Alden schooner Puritan, 135ft with a new and partly novice crew being expertly bossed about by Malcolm Banks, former mate on Herreshoff schooner Elena; and 1947 Glaramara, a 50ft (15.25m) Frederick Shepherd design, owned and raced by Stratis Andreadis, once ranked 29th in world match racing. Stratis had noticed that the finish line was skewed to the direction of the light winds and was pushing down Puritan. Glaramara was ahead, then almost abeam, then ahead again, and as the line was crossed a cheer went up from Glaramara while the Puritan crew clapped in admiration, appreciating the drama even if losing the placing. Refreshingly, this was not the usual haunt of classic regattas, we were not in Atlantic…

Of all the stories to emerge from the 1968 Golden Globe race, that of Nigel Tetley is one of the most remarkable, and poignant. Tetley managed to sail a 40ft (12.2m) plywood ‘Victress’ class trimaran, designed by the American Arthur Piver, to within 1,300 miles of his finishing line at Plymouth. He had nursed his battered vessel through the feared Southern Ocean, and had technically completed the fastest circumnavigation on record, before she finally foundered northeast of the Azores. He was pushing hard to keep ahead of his rival, Donald Crowhurst, also in a Victress trimaran, who unknown to Tetley (and to the world at that point) had never left the Atlantic, and was contemplating a fraud. Crowhurst had timed his run in to finish just after Tetley. With Tetley’s…

AC winner NORYEMA IV There aren’t many classic yachts whose silver haul includes the Admiral’s Cup, but that’s just what Noryema IV won the year she was launched, in 1965. She was designed by Peter Nicholson for yachtsman Ron Amey (the yacht’s name is his two names run backwards) and built in double-planked mahogany by Camper and Nicholson. She was taken to Chantier Guip, one of the best restoration boatyards in France, for a complete re-work in 2003, and further improved by a subsequent owner who bought the boat in 2006. She’s a healthy size at 45ft (13.8m), bermudan sloop rigged and comes with a 42hp Vetus diesel (2003), with all other gear in date, including some recent sails. Asking €220,000, Lying Saint Maxime, yachts-classiques.com Griff’s ‘Three Men in a…

BOATBUILDER’S SECRET It’s surprising how much friction develops between steel tools and timber, increasing the work load and significantly hampering progress on a long job like planing a spar or ripping a board. Just how much friction exists comes to light when you reduce it by wiping a piece of wax along the sole of the plane or both sides of the saw – it’s like you’ve been sailing with a lump of seaweed around the rudder, as the tool suddenly feels light and eager. To be faithful to historical precedent use tallow, otherwise paraffin candle wax such as a tea light is cheap and convenient, but as a supporter of all things apian I prefer beeswax – a 30g stick from the DIY store costs about £2 and lasts…

A psychologist wouldn’t know where to begin with the lot of us, though soap could be a good start. The crews of superyachts have asked us if we’d been sentenced to a bizarre form of community service. The life we ‘professional crew’ lead on classic yachts isn’t always the same as that projected through the glitz and the glamour you see at a Med regatta. The part of classic yachting most viewed by the world is the one that occupies the least number of days in our year! Countless photos of coiled lines, polished brass and glowing varnish... What about the many days, weeks, and months in between? How do you live and work so closely with others around the clock and remain sane? The short answer is, you don’t!…

With his long and bushy beard, Rolf Gersch looks like a gold digger from a Jack London novel. Even wilder in appearance is his hydroplane Berlin III which, compared with the BMW 328 Roadster sitting next to it on the banks of the River Rhine in Mainz, looks like a coffin built to house an engine. The car still looks modern, homogenous from every angle, while the boat is an unthinkable dragster powered by the same two-litre unit, short pipes firing at the sky from an engine lying nose-up like a vintage fighter plane on the runway. Rolf delivers a few memories as a warning, memories that stretch back to a meeting with the boat’s first owner, pharmaceutical heir Jürgen Baginski, who commissioned the boat in 1950: “It’s not an…

When the little sloop Pioneer slid down the ways in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania in the early spring of 1885, she joined a national fleet of work boats essential to America’s booming industrialisation. Their wakes washed the shores of the Delaware River, where the sloop had been built at the behest of the Pioneer Iron Foundry for hauling sand out of the Delaware Bay. The crucial difference between Pioneer and those other schooners, barges, and tugs was that while they were made of wood – a death sentence for most work vessels of that age – Pioneer was forged of iron. Her builders gave her a shallow draught, a mostly flat bottom and a wide beam. The men would beach her to fill the hold with sand at low water and…

Edited by Steffan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758 Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk IPSWICH, SUFFOLK Spirit Yachts doubles in strength Spirit-of-Tradition boatbuilder Spirit Yachts unveiled its new, energye .cient facility on 21 December in Ipswich adjacent to its current premises, at the same time as announcing a 100 per cent year-onyear growth in its sales figures. To match the extra build space, the company has hired 10 new employees and will soon recruit two finishers and additional boatbuilders. Managing director Nigel Stuart said: “We have enjoyed a successful 12 months and intend to sustain our current growth with continued investment. Following a turbulent few years for the marine industry, it is key for British boatbuilders to adapt to the market. We are responding to consumer demands by offering a wider range of…

If the coping saw were a boat it would be a slalom kayak: light, agile and precise, yet demanding constant vigilance. Essentially it is a small frame saw with a narrow blade tensioned between rotating spigots turned by levers, so the blade can be set at any angle to the frame. This example is a 50-year-old Eclipse 7CP, a simple well-balanced tool with chromed steel frame and beech handle that has long been a favourite of amateurs and professionals alike. The blade can be mounted with teeth facing forwards or backwards, cutting on the push or pull stroke according to preference, and requires only light pressure to be effective. Since the 0.02 inch (0.5mm) thick blade can slip into the narrow kerf left by a dovetail saw, then execute a…

BONHAMS, USA Like Sir Ben Ainslie, fellow Brit skipper Charlie Barr did rather well in America. In an outstanding career the diminutive Scot, born in 1864, won the America’s Cup three times in a row – for America – and was the go-to man for American millionaires battling for yachting pride. Now two celebrated episodes from the glittering career of this uncompromising but honourable competitor from a family of racing skippers are brought back to life in paintings recently sold at auction in America. In the 1901 Cup, Barr skippered JP Morgan’s Herreshoff-designed Columbia against Sir Thomas Lipton’s larger GL Watson Shamrock II, which pundits considered had the measure of the American defender. What Shamrock II lacked was Barr and his well-honed crew. The better-sailed Columbia won 3-0. In 1903…

It is the middle of the night, but the full moon casts shadows on the deck, and highlights whitecaps to port and to starboard. We are heeled at an obscene angle, and above my head a ridiculous expanse of sail stretches into the sky. Over three masts we are flying nine sails – three lowers, three topsails and three headsails. The three varnished booms (four, including the staysail boom) are almost parallel, although the sheeting angle gets slightly tighter as you look aft from the foremast to the mizzen mast. They are all under massive load and the long mizzen boom is bowed towards the deck to a worrying degree. Up aloft, the three gaffs stand in salute, holding the peaks of the lowers up and the clews of the…

They first appeared on the horizon, through the rain, as a bunch of sinister black tulips standing on stalks in the grey-green sea. As we got closer the stalks became long splayed legs supporting what looked like giant black lice with beady eyes, ready to walk towards us. This grotesque metamorphosis ended with a crunch as the swell rolled the hull of our 62ft (18.9m) pilot boat, X-Pilot, against one of the reinforced concrete legs, and suddenly bug transformed into fortress. We were alongside one of the seven towers at Redsand, the War of the Worlds-like series of wartime lookouts that dominates the entrance to the Thames Estuary. Pilot boat crewmen Bob Vine and Steve Groves hastily hooked a ladder over a steel grill some 15 feet over our heads.…

CONTESSA 32 IT’S RATHER HARD TO JUSTIFY going off to ‘test sail’ a Contessa 32 nowadays, in the sense that it has already been tested at least… well… once or twice. This is the yacht that, alone in Class Five, weathered the infamous 1979 Fastnet that claimed 18 lives. The yacht that, under Willy Ker, sailed far into the frozen poles, long before it became de rigueur to do so, and the yacht that has triumphed year after year in IRC racing. If you’re getting the sense that the Co32 is an all-rounder, you’d be dead right. She’ll take you around the cans, around the island, out feathering for mackerel with the kids for a day, or around the world with equal aplomb; all the while looking distinctive and beautiful,…

On the upper reaches of Stage Harbor in Chatham, Massachusetts, two hours south of Boston and on the site of famed yacht designer and builder Spaulding Dunbar’s Mill Pond Boatyard, has stood Pease Boatworks and Marine Railway (PBW) since it was founded by brothers, Mike and Brad Pease, in 1982. This spring, however, sees a change of ownership and name. After 35 years of business, the Pease brothers are passing on the company to general manager, Woody Metzger, and master builder, James Donovan, both Cape Cod natives and accomplished sailors. The yard will now be called First Light Boatworks & Marine Railway Inc. Metzger and Donovan both started boatbuilding in their teens. Before the age of 20, Metzger had his own boat repair business. At the same age, Donovan began…