Sommaire pour May 2023 de Classic Boat

The HSS Classic Yacht Symposium is back after a three-year gap. Held at the Helsinki Music Centre, the 10th event attracted over 300 delegates from 11 countries, including boat owners and crew, boat builders, naval architects, and enthusiasts. Organised by Helsingfors Segelsallskap, the symposium featured presentations from well known classic yacht experts on the theme of Design & Desire. Hosted by Samppa Vilkuna and John Lammerts van Bueren the keynote speakers covered many aspects of classic Yachting. Juliane Hempel, naval architect, and Dr Rudiger Stihl who commissioned the 8-Metre from American designer Starling Burgess, discussed the process of creating and designing a new classic 8-Metre merging tradition with innovation. Based on Dr Stihl’s experience of his previous 8-Metres, and Juliane Hempel’s in-depth mathematical comparisons of many different 8-Metres and their…

SILVER BAR ACCESSORIES The winner of the Centenarian of the Year category in the Classic Boat Awards takes home a silver Champagne flute made by top German silversmith Robbe & Berking, known for its widespread support of the classic boat world. The Alta Champagne Flute itself is available to buy in sterling silver for €2,030. We also like these silver-plated bar accessories, part of the brand’s Belvedere collection. Bottle opener €137, Long drinks spoon €389, Cocktail strainer €199 robbeberking.com CLASSIC MARINE BRONZE CHAIN PIPE The trophies for the Classic Boat Awards are made by Classic Marine with Suffolk Yacht Harbour, based on England’s east coast. On the Classic Marine website, you can buy all manner of attractive and essential classic yacht kit, including this handsome bronze chain pipe. From £129…

When Henri Jeanneau began building wooden outboard boats in 1957, he had no idea that his name would one day be at the top of the world’s boating industry charts. It was probably equally unimaginable at the time that, more than 60 years after the release of one of his earliest models, Jeanneau owners would still be in love with their boat. The 1950s were often the scene of great individual ventures, driven by a desire for freedom and speed, leading to some exceptional careers. The context of the creation of the today world famous Les Herbiers yard in the Vendée region of France was narrated as a comic strip in the style of Michel Vaillant – the young and daring fictional French racing driver who captured the imagination of…

“The only other fifth generation businesses you’ll find in Australia are funeral directors and wine makers.” Those were the words of Greg Blunt whose great great grandfather Clement Blunt first set up as a boatbuilder in Geelong in 1849, soon after emigrating from London’s Shadwell district. He and his wife Sarah – who he had met on the ship out to Australia – had six sons, five of whom followed him into the boatbuilding trade, and the eldest of which was another Clement who moved further up Port Phillip Bay to set up shop in Williamstown where he was able to benefit from Melbourne’s prosperity and rapid expansion. In 1898 he moved to a bigger yard at Clark’s Slip, now the site of Williamstown’s police station but, when that was…

In 1969, Lloyds Yacht Club approached Camper & Nicholsons with a view to commissioning a new yacht to replace Lutine, the Laurent Giles-designed yawl which the company had built in 1952. The result was the in-house designed GRP Nicholson 55, of which the new Lutine was the first of 26 sister ships which were built with various rigs and deck layouts over the next decade. The third of these was Quailo III which was built in 1971 for Donald Parr, who would later become commodore then admiral of the Royal Ocean Racing Club. Parr was a loyal client of Camper & Nicholsons – his first Quailo was a one-tonner that had been designed and built as Yeoman XIV by the company in 1966, and Quailo II was a 1969 Nicholson…

CASABLANCA Restored slipper launch Here’s an example of one of the boats being sold by the reinvigorated Andrews, based on the upper Thames (see Yard News on p70 in this issue). This one is a 1936 model, built by the original Andrews Boathouses in 1936, hull number 151, 25ft (7.6m) long and to their popular ‘greyhound’ design. She’s been completely restored and now has a striped sapele and mahogany decking, the sharp contrast known as ‘strawberries and cream’ in the slipper world. Casablanca, as she’s known, also features the original, rebuilt, BMC Vedette 950cc petrol engine, and inside she offers bench seating in burgundy marine leather. Casablanca comes with all sorts of niceties, including two Andrews umbrellas stored in stainless steel holders, Rolls Royce style, an Andrews picnic hamper with…

Handle restoration Boatbuilders looking to use tools in keeping with the traditions of their craft often prefer vintage hand saws because their steel permits sharpening with a file and they have shapely wooden handles. Today’s hand saws mostly have hard-point teeth, which cannot be sharpened, and garish plastic handles; once dull they are landfill-fodder. A common problem with old saws is that the elegant horns contributing to a handle’s efficiency and comfort are prone to damage, especially if dropped. But whereas the blade and handle of a modern saw are typically welded together, the saw nuts used on a vintage saw allow it to be dismantled and restored. The technique used is transferable to other situations, for example repairing broken fiddles in the galley or the damaged breakwater on a…

SWEDISH BEAUTY The unusual Salander-designed 61 Sqm skerry yacht Plym, built engineless in 1948, is now turning heads in Australia after a restoration HALF AND HALF Motor sailers are probably underrated these days, and Tulli is a perfect post-war example at 50ft, built in mahogany by Sangermani in 1960. 18FT OF MADNESS We’re in Sydney, watching the spectacular fleet of historic 18-footers battle it out in the harbour PLUS… Meet Michael Dennett, king of the river boats; the stunning classic superyacht Marala; Old Mill Creek Boatyard through history; and more JUNE 2023 ISSUE ON SALE Friday 12 May, 2023 Or why not subscribe? SAILING TODAY WITH YACHTS & YACHTING IN THE MAY ISSUE • How to find the perfect cruising catamaran • Lagoon 51 and Catana Ocean Class on test…

Australia Day commemorates the anniversary of the date – 26 January 1788 – when Arthur Philip and the First Fleet arrived in what subsequently became known as Sydney Harbour. A sailing regatta has been held on the harbour to mark this occassion every single year since 1837 – albeit not always on the exact anniversary – and so is considered to be the oldest continuously conducted annual sailing regatta in the world. The regatta is by no means just one event, and this year more than 20 clubs across New South Wales ran various races including everything from an offshore race from Sydney to Botany Bay and back, to races for radio controlled model yachts. These photos show a race – organised by the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron on Sydney…

The National Historic Ships UK Photography Competition is back for a 14th year, in partnership with Classic Boat magazine, with a new theme of “In All Weathers”. With bigger and better prizes, plus a chance for shortlisted entries to be displayed at Chatham Historic Dockyard as part of an accompanying exhibition, we’re excited to see what images this season will bring. How you interpret the theme is entirely up to you. You could capture an operational vessel on the still waters of Britain’s canals, lakes, rivers and estuaries, or out at sea on a rough passage. Your photograph might depict a lifeboat built to withstand any conditions, or a pleasure yacht on its summer cruise. You could showcase a museum ship sparkling in the sun, or a static vessel suffering…

Making yacht cabinetry usually requires ends of boards to be planed accurately perpendicular to their edges and faces. Attempting to do this with the board gripped vertically in a vice is fraught with potential errors. The relatively broad plane is prone to tipping sideways on a narrow surface and there is also a tendency to pitch the plane up at the beginning and down at the end of each pass, creating a hump in the middle of the work. Both faults may be corrected through visual checks and adjustments but it is far easier and more reliable to use the jig designed for the job: a shooting board. Even the most basic of proprietary boards costs upwards of £50 but you can make an effective one at little cost using…

Astro navigation can tell you where you are if GPS fails. It can even tell you the time. Sailors don’t need reminding that if problems occur, the solution usually starts with looking up. Look up to the heavens they did, and measured their Greenwich Mean Time by the celestial clock – the Moon being one hand and a star usually the other. My attempts to compute GMT by lunar distance employ two tools. The first is a 1970s ex-MoD stock Henry Hughes sextant (reputedly bought by the MoD at £4,000 apiece, now offered on eBay for around the £500 mark.) It gets handled with the respect an amateur should afford to the Royal Naval officers who used it in anger. The second tool is Bruce Stark’s Tables for Clearing the…