Índex per May 2026 a Classic Boat

Time to start shooting The always popular National Historic Ships UK Photography Competition is back for a 17th year. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the organisation, this year’s theme is ‘Time’. There are cash prizes of £250-£500 and unique handmade trophies to be won, as well as the chance to be featured in the 2027 NHS-UK Calendar and Historic Dockyard Chatham exhibition. The winning photographs will also be featured in Classic Boat magazine. Entries for the category of ‘Time’ should reflect the wide variety of historic craft, big and small, afloat and ashore, in UK waters and beyond. Photographers are welcome to interpret the theme in any way they choose, but here are some ideas. Families and friends spending time together enjoying our maritime heritage, a sailor keeping watch,…

In December 2017, a historic regatta took place on Sydney Harbour. It had been 50 years since Australia had first won the Admiral’s Cup and 21 Australian boats – all of which had a connection to the Cup – took part. The event’s chairman was David Champtaloup, the owner of Caprice of Huon, which had been part of the 1967 team. In keeping with the ethos of the event, he had invited previous owner, 91-year-old Gordon Ingate, to helm Caprice in two of the races. “Gordon was as sharp as can be,” said David. “We were out for a couple of hours before the first race, spinnaker gybing and so on, and he was absolutely in complete command of what was going on.” To back this up, the following month…

NORFOLK RANGE The Norfolk range that started life in 1989 under builder Charlie Ward is surely the superlative line of small, traditional GRP sailing boats in Britain, in terms of cost and build solidity. Neil and Richenda Thompson took over the company in 2008 from Charlie Ward and have been busy maintaining the existing fleet and building new boats since that time. The range has expended under Neil Thompson banner to include the Explorer (diesel launch version of the Oyster) and the Horizon, an honest little workboat with an outboard. The most popular boats remain the 17ft open day sailer the Oyster (149 built) and the superlative 20ft cabin trailer sailer the Gypsy (126 built). These are boats born on, and for, the Broads, creeks and coasts of Norfolk, with…

For such an ostensibly ubiquitous yacht class, the Dragons seem to hide themselves well. The 29ft 2in (8.9m) masthead bermudan racing sloop was designed by the Norwegian Johan Anker in 1929, and more than 1,300 of them are active in around 30 nations over five continents. We’ve not heard a whisper about them for years, until now. Penguin, a 1958 boat built by Lallows of Cowes, arrived at Rolts Boatyard about 18 months ago, having been out of the water for over 20 years. She was “a complete basket case” relates Mark Rolt, but is now under new and young ownership. About a third of the mahogany hull planking needed replacing, which was done in sapele. The hull was then splined above and below the waterline, which should take her…

I grew up on a dairy farm eight miles from the ocean in New Hampshire. We enjoyed the companionship of about 130 cows. My dad ensured that I developed a strong work ethic, and I became highly skilled at bovine defecation extraction and recycling. More usefully, I was also sent to the mechanic’s shop, which helped me to gain an understanding of how things work. But boats were always a part of life. We owned and raced several small boats around Portsmouth Harbor. I still remember feeling relieved when we moved to a fiberglass O’Day 17ft (5.2m) day sailer, which required no varnish, unlike the old Dutch-built Celebrity-class sloop. I liked sailing, not so much working on boats. This dislike did not trouble my father who bought a 36ft (11m)…

In a new occasional series, we celebrate the people who have helped shape classic yachting. From around the world, be they legends or the lesser known, from the past or present, we will explore their stories, charting the glories and travails of traditional boating culture. For the first article, we focus on a builder and two designers whose stories span a century and with separate features on the yachts they created, and that many others have preserved. Two of these greats, Nevins and Clark, might well claim to be the first exponents of production sailing yacht builds, with prodigious numbers for the times, while Buchanan’s output, though later, is no less extraordinary. Could a contemporary peer lay claim to some 2,000 designs? As well as underlining the importance of not…

SEACOCKS, HOSES AND CLIPS Seacocks are needlessly riddled with issues, starting with what to call them: skin fittings, through-hulls, hull valves and doubtless others. To clarify: by ‘seacock,’ I refer both to the through-hull fitting and the valve assembly and handle inside the boat. These commonly come in three flavours: DZR, Blakes and composite. Blakes seacocks are traditionally the Rolls Royce of seacocks, which is why they are often found doing the heavy lifting in the heads. Elsewhere, most yachts are fitted with cheaper ‘DZR’ seacocks, meaning ‘dezincification resistant bronze’, bronze, in this instance, actually meaning a brass alloy. These are required by RCD (applying to European-built boats) to have a lifespan of just five years. It’s a good idea to remove hoses and check the tails/spigots for corrosion as…

WOODBRIDGE, SUFFOLK Punts for the Cam Were one to make a list of things iconically, romantically English, punting in Cambridge or Oxford would surely be up there with strawberries and cream, umbrellas and Tower Bridge. You might be shocked to learn (we were) that Cambridge punt operators are increasingly switching to GRP hulls, often forgoing even wood trim, says Matt Lis of Woodbridge Boatyard, who have just built three for the Cambridge Punt Company (CPC). These are reassuringly wooden: African mahogany sides and ply bottoms, tied together with khaya knees, treads, laid decks and huffs (yes, punts have their own jargon, and the ‘huff’ is the slanting transom at the bow and the stern). Each punt carries 12 passengers and their multitasking guide up and down the River Cam from…

Spring was in the air, and the hard at Birdham Pool Marina was alive with a gentle expectation of summer; one couple moved carefully around on the deck of their Westerly Oceanquest and called down a greeting; next to them was a bottle green Contessa 32 with matching fenders. Both were a happy reminder of the days of mass yacht building in Britain. Backing onto the water is the shed of boatbuilder Tim Gilmore, who we last visited in 2017. Of the three boats in the shed, two were stunning yachts of similar size from well-established British yards, one from just before the war, one from after. Both remain very original thanks to good, long-term owners who have been bringing them to Tim every winter for decades. The first of…

For someone whose very best school report read “sets himself a very low standard which he’s yet to attain,” I’m surprised I’ve achieved so much. For without the formative experiences and hardships of growing up in a family who didn’t own a single Fife yacht, or even a bath tub and a bar of soap, I would never have known the adversity of being the smelliest kid at school. Yet it is from such seeds that we scale the peaks and pinnacles of human endeavour, for what is a man if not himself, unless he’s a woman… I know that sounds like an acceptance speech, and it is indeed a fragment of the one I prepared when I attended my first Classic Boat Awards in the last millennium, and have…

Hiding behind the carbon, foils and go-fast glitz that fronted the RYA Dinghy and Watersports exhibition at Farnborough earlier this year were some significant classic boats, nearly all of them celebrating equally significant anniversaries. I am partial to birthday cake, but what I like most about this Show is the friendliness, comradeship and impromptu meetings with old sailing buddies from the past. The National 12 class was marking its 90th year, Merlin Rocket enthusiasts celebrated their 80th anniversary, GP14s their 75th, and the Scorpion sailors were clickety clicking in their 66th year all with wonderfully restored wooden examples of their class. The Grand Dame however, was an example of X Boat keelboat class first launched in 1909, in the form of X140 Lucrezia, owned by the late, great Olympian Adrian…

CHARLES MILLER LTD/BONHAMS Addicted to speed For Classic Boat readers whose greatness has not yet been acknowledged in our annual awards there’s still a chance to bag a magnificent solid silver trophy, including one awarded for “energy and nautical skill” in drug-running. Today that would likely be awarded to the owner of a high-speed RIB, but in the 19th century, as the Chinese got us addicted to tea, the Brits retaliated with opium, and to feed the immoral trade between India and China, we produced ever-faster narco clippers. The 255-ton Red Rover, considered the first true opium clipper, was launched in Calcutta in 1829. Just 29.5m (97ft) long and with a beam of 7m (24ft), Red Rover was built purely for speed, with the intention of making three highly profitable…

In the early 1960s, three boats were built by the Apollonio Shipyard in Trieste to Alan Buchanan designs. One of these, in 1964, was Crivizza, planked in mahogany planking on acacia frames on an oak keel with steel floors, decked in laid teak over a plywood subdeck, and rigged with spruce spars. Her first owner was Giorgio Genel who was a keen participant in two sports away from the world of sailing. Having been a keen footballer, he became a top-level referee, taking charge of 113 matches in Italy’s top-flight Serie A over a period of ten years, the latter part of which coincided with his ownership of Crivizza. He was also a competitive jockey and latterly he was associated with a stable named Scuderia Crivizza. Giorgio’s family was originally…

I must have been 11 or12 when I first read Sailing Alone Around the World by Captain Joshua Slocum. This book, together with one or two others, was ultimately responsible for my defection from the straight life onto the sea. The adventures and the sheer romance of it catapulted me from university into a technicolour life of insecurity, drudgery, danger and, ultimately, deep joy. It was only later when harsh reality bared its teeth that I started to wonder how the great pioneers I had been reading managed for money. At that early age my only budget concern was how much I could save out of the five shillings I was handed each Saturday morning to pay my bus fares to school. This release from care left me free to…

Easy does it Besides their obvious hazards of noise and dust, the squillions of vibrations generated by power tools cause irreversible damage to hands if used for long periods. For young entrants to the trade or anyone undertaking a lengthy project this is worth thinking about. Then again, people of my vintage may be feeling the stab of arthritis in hand and finger joints, while former keyboard workers are often troubled by repetitive strain injuries. Even hand tools impact upon vulnerable nerves, blood vessels and joints, but there are ways to minimise risk of further damage. Cushion the hands with leather gloves, for example. Some Sandvik saws (1) were designed to accommodate gloves while working outdoors through a Scandinavian winter. Larger handles may be less elegant but they are usually…

ALFRED, MEET WILLIAM Irina VII is that rarest of beasts, designed by Mylne and built by Fife. An utterly beautiful yacht, intended as a cruiser-racer back in 1934. CULTURAL PILOT-THE SOLENT The sound that lies between the Isle of Wight and the mainland has sheltered mariners since time began. Now a yachting metropolis, it still has secrets to share. DUBLIN BAY ODs We catch up with these restored wonders in their home waters. JUNE 2026 ISSUE ON SALE 12 May 2026 Or why not subscribe? 30 YEARS AGO MAY 1996, CB94 Almost extinct by the end of the war, Cornwall’s pilot gigs are enjoying a phenomenal revival, we reported in this issue, with a cover to match. It was no exaggeration: no fewer than thirty 32ft (9.8m) gigs convened for…