Category: Sailing cruisers

Sailing yachts used for cruising, or as cruiser-racers.

Three of the NMMC’s exhibits are on the water – and please vote to support the museum

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Andy Wyke onboard Curlew at the NMMC, aileen, pipkin, curlew, nmmc, national maritime museum, cornwall, national maritime museum cornwall, falmouth quay punt, falmouth regatta, catboat, cape cod catboat, yacht racing aileen, pipkin, curlew, nmmc, national maritime museum, cornwall, national maritime museum cornwall, falmouth quay punt, falmouth regatta, catboat, cape cod catboat, yacht racing

Pipkin, Curlew and Aileen

The pontoon at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall is busy again, now that summer is here: after a winter in the museum workshop Curlew, Aileen and Pipkin are all in the water. All three can be seen sailing up and down the river Fal throughout the summer.

Curlew is the oldest boat returning to the pontoon. A Falmouth quay punt that has travelled the world as a yacht, her career is one of the most varied, as it ranges from fishing boat to leisure cruiser to race winner.

Aileen is the very first St Mawes One Design. She was designed by Frank Peters after he was defeated in races off St Mawes, and was built for speed. She won three Falmouth Town Regatta Class races.

Pipkin is based on the design of the Cape Cod catboats and is used by the volunteers to hone their sailing skills.

On the subject of the NMMC, I’ve been asked to ask a favour of intheboatshed.net readers. It seems that the Our lighthouses: life on the rocks exhibition has made it to the semi-finals in the Best heritage project category of The National Lottery Awards, and needs your votes to make it through to the final.

Just 10 Lottery-funded projects are in contention. Voting is now open now and ends at midday on Friday 18 June.

To vote call 0844 686 7951 (calls cost 5p from a BT landline) or log on to www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards (which is free).

Stunning Norfolk wherry Solace and her pretty marshman’s punt

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marshman's punt

Norfolk wherry Solace and her marshman’s punt

Still on the Norfolk Broads, my grateful thanks go to Nigel Royall for taking me down the river from Hoveton to see Solace, a stunning pleasure wherry built in 1903, and which has been in use every year since that date.

The Royall’s business makes much of its income from hiring Broads motor cruisers and dinghies, but also does a fair amount of restoration and maintenance work, as well as the occasional small build – of which more later. The jewel of this side of the business is caring for Solace for the Rudd family, who have owned Solace since the 1940s and are only the third family to do so.

So we set off to Wroxham Broad in Nigel’s gun punt Shoveler, and while Nigel and his colleague Steve got to work putting up a shelter on  the bows of the boat, I took some shots of both Solace’s stunning exterior – it’s wonderful to see a grand old boat that is so clearly loved by its owners and carers over so many years – and one of the bows of the family’s Brown Boat or Broads One Design called Redshank.

I also took quite a few shots of the little 16ft marshman’s punt tied to her stern. Royall’s recently made this little boat for the Rudds, and Nigel and Steve describe this as their favourite small boat at the moment.

Moulded in GRP from a traditionally-built marshman’s punt Nigel built some years ago, they say that it’s a superb rower, and looking at it on the water I have no doubt that it is – and I also have little doubt there will be some others in the area who would be interested in having a similar little boat, perhaps to tow behind a Broads cruiser or tie to a dock in their garden. Would Royall’s be willing to make further examples of this pretty little boat to order? I think they might be persuaded…

There’s more on Norfolk wherries here and here (there’s quite a lot here so you’ll  need to scroll down and use the links to go back through previous pages), and more on Royall’s yard and Nigel’s small boat projects here.

Round the Island Race, 19th June 2010

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Round the Island yachts racing off the Needles (thanks to Onedition), the 43ft Fred Shepherd designed Maybird, and Ocean Pearl (Vanessa Bird)

This year’s Round the Island Race is coming up on the 19th June, so this seems like a good time to draw attention to this amazing annual spectacle of getting on for 2000 boats all sailing in the same direction for most of a day – if you don’t count the spectators and sight-seers.

Among that huge number there are bound to be quite a number of older and traditional craft, and the photos above are of two that took part last year. My thanks go to Peta Stuart-Hunt for her help in providing intheboatshed.net with its special needs!

Maybird is a Fred Shepherd 43ft (52ft LOA) gaff-rigged ketch that will be competing in her first race since being restored at Saxon Wharf when she comes to the start line on 19th June. She was designed for Lt Col WCW Hawkes DSO, Indian Army (retired) and built by Jack Tyrell at Arklow, Co Wicklow in 1937. She’s had quite a history – in her time, she has been a gentleman’s auxillary yacht, an ocean passage maker and a Greenpeace protest vessel, and now she’s available for charter.

Also a contender last year in the traditional gaffer class, Ocean Pearl was built in 1933 by Nobles of Fraserburgh and registered at Peterhead in Aberdeenshire. At 37ft 6in LWL, she was just under the 40ft length restrictions, which meant that she could fish within the three-mile limit of shore, and between 1933 and 1939 she was worked with nets and lines out of Peterhead. Between 1939 and 1945 she was requisitioned by the Navy and served as a supply vessel in Scapa Flow, before returning to the fishing industry after the end of the war.

She then fished until 1967 before selling her to Joseph Anthony Moore Phillips, father of Captain Mark Phillips, the first husband of HRH Princess Anne, who based her at Whitby, North Yorkshire. In 1981, three owners later, she was taken to Staines in Middlesex to be restored, but was eventually abandoned in a disused tarmac works, where she lay for 15 years before being taken to Combes Boatyard in West Sussex.

Nick Gates took over ownership in 1999 and over the past 10 years has rebuilt her, converting her from motor to sail. She is rigged as a Manx nobby, with standing lug main and mizzen, and sets 1600 sq ft of canvas. Ocean Pearl has been mentioned several times at intheboatshed.net – for earlier intheboatshed.net posts relating to her, click here.