Ultimate Classic Yachts: 20 of the World's Most Beautiful Classic Yachts

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PARTRIDGE (1885)

This Victorian gaff cutter set a new standard for classic yacht restorations after a British enthusiast spent 18 years rebuilding her

MARIAN (1889)

The restored Bristol Channel pilot cutter once owned by the laziest skipper in the Western Approaches

BONA FIDE (1899)

The French racing yacht’s radical fin keel was 70 years ahead of its time, and ensured she won Gold in the first Olympic yachting event in Paris

STAVANGER (1901)

It was the last voyage of Norway’s most original rescue boat: 1,000 miles from above the Arctic Circle to her new home in Oslo’s maritime museum

CORAL OF COWES (1902)

The ‘giant-slayer’ of the legendary Big Class disappeared for 70 years, before being restored in South Africa and sailed back to the Solent

RAWENE (1908)

Owned by the same family for 90 years, the New Zealand kauri classic is a floating time capsule. Watch her smile

THE LADY ANNE (1912)

This Scottish classic was banned from racing in the Med because of some carbon fibre in her topmast. She came back without it and won everything anyway

LULWORTH (1920)

The largest cutter in the world, built in Southampton and meticulously restored by a ‘pop-up’ yard in Italy

BRILLIANT (1932)

Designed by Olin Stephens when he was just 26, this Atlantic record-breaking schooner is now used by Mystic Seaport for sail training youngsters

STORMY WEATHER (1934)

The legendary US-built Fastnet Race winner which became Italy’s best-loved classic

BLOODHOUND (1936)

One of the most successful racers of her day, Bloodhound became a British national icon when she was bought by Prince Philip and became a Royal Yacht

VANITY V (1936)

The exquisite racing yacht meticulously restored by a pair of French vintage-car enthusiasts who showed the experts how it should be done

SOLWAY MAID (1938)

She was the last boat launched by William Fife and has survived remarkably intact, thanks to two periods of ‘suspended animation’

FANEROMENI (1945)

The classic yacht revival reaches Greece with the restoration of Aegean schooners such as this immaculate Perama caique

INWARD BOUND (1962)

How did a 35-foot cruising yacht built in Argentina using salvaged timber from the infamous General Belgrano end up in the Great Lakes?

BLUE SALUKI (1964)

With her long keel and wooden hull, she was the last of a dying breed and was soundly beaten in the first Round Britain Race. But Blue Saluki is turning heads again now

MADOC (1990)

A much-loved 24-foot cruising yacht built on a beach in Tasmania using local timbers and no power tools, to better ‘enjoy the process’. Perfection

SAVANNAH (1997)

The modern American classic which combined the best of tradition with a fin keel, and took the Mediterranean classic boat circuit by storm

ELEONORA (2000)

Built to the lines of the American schooner Westward, the 136-foot Eleonora is one man’s vision of an ocean-worthy classic yacht

INTEGRITY (2012)

A brand-new Victorian cutter, built in a barn in Devon, which holds her own against the ‘real’ 100-year-old Victorian cutters

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

One of the fun things about studying journalism at City University in London was seeing what all your classmates got up to afterwards. Every year, a magazine was sent to the course alumni with updates of people’s careers – and the university boasts a high rate of success. In my year alone, one student went on to become head of current affairs at the BBC, another became a news anchor with BBC South, while several joined the Guardian and other major newspapers. By contrast, I got a job with Classic Boat, a specialist boating magazine based in landlocked Croydon.

But although my career didn’t appear as glamorous or well paid as my course mates’, there were definite compensations. While most of them were tapping away at computers in the bowels of Broadcasting House or scurrying around meeting daily deadlines, my specialist knowledge meant that I was soon reporting on classic boat events around the world – especially once I left the office and went freelance in 2000. Before long, I was being paid (or at least getting expenses) to attend events such as the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Tasmania, the Raja Muda Selangor Regatta in Malaysia, the Régates Impériales in Ajaccio and other regattas in places as varied as New Zealand, Antigua, Hong Kong, Maine, Scotland, the South of France and Scandinavia.

Which is where the material for this book comes from. Over the past 20 years, I have sailed on dozens of classic yachts in at least 20 countries. I’ve sailed on no-expense-spared restorations such as the exquisite Fife 15-Metre The Lady Anne, massively ambitious replicas such as the 136-foot (41.5-metre) Herreshoff schooner Eleonora, and more humble home-built craft such as the delightful 24-foot (7.3-metre) Madoc. What has struck me each time is that these boats all have a story to tell. Even if they haven’t made epic journeys (which many of them have) or won major races (ditto), there are usually stories in their designs or their making – or simply in their ability to survive (viz Rawene and Solway Maid, mothballed for 20 and 14 years, respectively). For these are not just boats; they are personalities.

There’s no doubt the classic yacht movement has come a long way since my first article was published in Classic Boat in 1991. I recently sailed on a 37-foot yacht built in 1962 by a relatively unknown designer, which someone had just spent £280,000 restoring – a sum that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago for a boat that size, even for one of the big ‘names’ such as Fife and Herreshoff. The owner knows he’ll get his money back, and more, when he sells, because of the prestige value of owning a genuine classic yacht.

But there’s danger in spending too much on an old wooden boat – replacing and rebuilding rather than mending and restoring. It’s all very well creating a beautiful yacht, but if that means losing the original fabric of the vessel for the sake of looking good on the quay at St Tropez, then we really are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Which is why you’ll see a lot of emphasis on originality in these pages, especially in restorations such as Lulworth. I’d rather see a boat that carries the scars of its past with pride than a boat rebuilt ‘in the spirit’ of the past but which is essentially new.

PARTRIDGE (1885)

Partridge enjoys a breeze off Cannes, after her 75-year hibernation. INSET: Details of the floor construction drawn for Lloyd’s in 1885.

SPECIFICATIONS

LOD: 49ft 2in (14.9m)

LWL: 41ft 7in (12.7m)

Beam: 10ft 5in (3.2m)

Draft: 8ft 5in (2.6m)

Displacement: 28 tons

Sail area: 2,690sq ft (250m²)

SETTING THE STANDARD

Was it nostalgia for the past, or fear of the future? As the end of the 20th century approached, the obsession with all things vintage grew – whether it be cars, clothes, houses or boats. So much so, that there was soon a shortage of old vessels to restore, as the fleet of shiny classic yachts steadily grew. Not all were adored in equal measure, however, and some inevitably stood out from the crowd. In 1993, it was the William Fife-designed cutter Tuiga that wowed the crowds when she appeared at the Nioulargue Regatta in St Tropez, fresh from a comprehensive rebuild on the Hamble. A year later, it was the turn of the 1896 Camper & Nicholsons cutter Avel to dazzle, with her unusual clipper bow and acres of varnish.

As the millennium came to a close, another British yacht became the focus of attention: a 49-foot (14.9-metre) gaff cutter called Partridge, newly arrived on the circuit after an astonishing 18-year restoration. Anyone who attended the Mediterranean classic yacht regattas in 1999 could not fail to notice the new arrival, with her distinctive plumb (ie vertical) bow, her long counter stern and her slightly austere manner. She looked like a vessel that had sailed across time from another era, which is exactly what she was.

Not only that, but she was surprisingly fast. From the moment Partridge beat Avel in the Conde de Barcelona Regatta in Mallorca, the races became a battle between these two iconic yachts, with the new kid on the block invariably finishing first. By the end of the season, Partridge had accumulated an embarrassing number of trophies, including overall first at Monaco and first in her class at Mallorca and St Tropez. But what made the yacht truly outstanding was not her undoubted beauty nor her unexpected speed, but the story behind her painstaking restoration.

Alex Laird was 19 and working as an apprentice at the Fairey Marine boatyard in East Cowes when he got a letter from his uncle Peter Saxby saying, ‘I wonder whether you would be interested in the following proposition: we buy an old boat, you do it up.’ It was an irresistible offer for a young man fascinated by wooden boats and yacht construction, and he immediately set out to find a suitable candidate. It would have been easy enough to find any old gaff cutter and do it up, but Alex had his eyes set on something more substantial. ‘I was looking for a hull with special lines, with a special shape that would need considerable work to restore, and with lots of potential,’ he said.

A few weeks later he headed for the east coast of England where, he had been told, there were still a number of old hulls lying in the sand and mud, left prey to the elements. And indeed a large chunk of British maritime culture lay in those muddy creeks, often converted into houseboats. Priceless historic yachts such as Avel, Mariquita and Hispania were all dug out of the mud there and given extravagant restorations, before joining the classic yacht circuit.

After looking at about 15 abandoned boats in various stages of dereliction, Alex spotted a black hull in a small tributary of the Blackwater River in Essex, propped up by a few wooden posts. He knew at once by the shape of the boat and by the way the frames and deck beams had been fitted, that it was something out of the ordinary. The current owner warned him the restoration would take at least three years – but then, he didn’t know he was dealing with a perfectionist. Peter and Alex paid £400 for the hull, and another £1,000 to have it transported to the backyard of Alex’s parents’ house in Shalfleet, on the Isle of Wight. He built a roof above it, and went back to his job at Fairey Marine.

It was several years before Alex could get started on the project in earnest but in the meantime he worked at weekends and holidays on the hull, helped by friends and family. The technical college at Newport on the Isle of Wight happened to be launching an intensive one-year boatbuilding course, and the bosses at Fairey Marine agreed to sponsor him on that, followed by a three-year yacht design course at Southampton.

Meanwhile, he started researching the history of the ghost of a boat he had bought. The only clues he had were that, according to the previous owner, she had once been called Tanagra and an inscription had been found on an old deck beam, saying: ‘Harry, 1885’.

Sailing off the Isle of Wight soon after being restored.

As Alex found her, on the Blackwater River in Essex.

As he searched through Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, Alex found a yacht called Tanagra with more or less the same dimensions as his hull, registered in 1923. The list of earlier names took him back to Pollie, Rupee and, at last, Partridge of 1885 – the same year in which a certain Harry, no doubt one of the workers at the yard, carved his name on a deck beam. To his (and Peter Saxby’s) relief, the registration proved the boat was indeed something out of the ordinary. Partridge was designed by J Beavor-Webb, who the same year drew the lines of the America’s Cup challenger Galatea, and was built by the famous Camper & Nicholsons yard in Gosport. Peter and Alex had stumbled on their own chapter of maritime history.

As Alex later wrote: ‘Instinct had led us to a vessel put together by people who knew what they were doing and had an eye for the perfect line.’

Further research revealed fragments of the yacht’s past. Between 1885 and 1924, she had 14 owners, a turnover rate which was quite normal at that time, when owners often had a boat for just one season before trying out another. Thus it was that her original name, Partridge, was changed to Rupee after just one year. On 17 July 1886, she competed in a regatta at the Royal Torbay Yacht Club, but no special triumphs are recorded. Her last trace was in the 1923 Lloyd’s Register, which stated she had been sold to a Belgian who had converted her into a houseboat – not an unusual end for a wooden yacht after a 38-year career.

When Alex found the derelict hull in August 1980, there was nothing left of the interior, rig, deck or lead keel. But the teak and pitch pine hull planking was practically intact, and most of the framework had survived and had helped retain her shape over the years. Alex was still studying naval architecture when he started measuring the hull. He drafted the deck layout and sail plan and made more than 25 drawings of the yacht’s deck gear and other details. ‘It was very useful to have this period of reflection to think about what lay ahead,’ he said. ‘It meant that, when I did start the work, I was able to do everything in the right order, with a clear view of what needed to be done.’

ABOVE LEFT: The finished hull gets a lick of paint. TOP RIGHT: Pouring molten lead into the ballast keel mould. CENTRE: Carving the tiller end. BOTTOM RIGHT : A vintage capstan was mounted on the foredeck.

With no original drawings or photos available, designing the myriad details of the deck and rig was a matter of detailed research – and an element of guesswork. Alex was also able to refer to and cross-reference with Avel and Marigold, two Nicholson cutters being restored at about the same time. Coincidentally, one of Partridge’s owners during the 19th century had also owned Marigold. In turn, Alex played a significant role in Marigold’s life by persuading her restorer, Greg Powlesland, to enter his yacht into a special auction at Sotheby’s, where she found new owners who would fund her entire restoration.

Alex not only made detailed drawings of Partridge’s anatomy, he also made a 1: 15 scale model. The idea was to have a project to keep him going through any low points in the restoration, but it also allowed him to optimise details of the deck and rigging. His plan was to lay the deck planks full length, from bow to stern, tapering them to match the deck’s elliptical shape. It was a tricky task which he thought he’d best try on a model first.

Alex, aided by his ever-growing team of helpers, did a large part of the physical work himself too, from casting the nine-ton keel (4.75 tons heavier than the original, to replace the internal ballast he had removed so as to make way