Category: History

Stirling & Son makes progress with beautiful Victorian gentleman’s sailing yacht Integrity

Stirling and Son Victorian racing yacht Integrity Bow

Stirling and Son Victorian racing yacht Integrity  Stirling and Son Victorian racing yacht Integrity Port Quarter

These delicious shots of the Victorian-style racing yacht under construction by Stirling and Son have been sent over by Will Stirling, a man who really should be called a photographer, as well as a boat builder, designer and historian.

Here’s what he says:

‘We are fitting her out at the moment in oak panelling. The detail has been taken from photographs of Victorian yacht interiors, with lots of morticing and tenoning to make up the frames, then the different fielded and flat panels, and then the beading.

‘This gives the bulkheads an interesting 3D effect.

‘We have made up patterns for all of the deck fittings and are having them cast in bronze by Ian Major of Major Castings (tel 07897 924 005).

‘Russian hats came out in force last week during the cold snap, which particularly affected John in the yard, as he was fitting the metal work to the spars in a long and drafty shed.

‘Integrity will be launched in mid-May by the Mayflower Marina in Plymouth.

‘Best wishes, Will’

I’m looking forward to seeing photos of her afloat. Stirling and Son is at Tavistock and can be reached via its website, or by phone on 01822 614259. Will doesn’t mention whether Integrity has a buyer, but if you’re in the market for a boat of this kind I guess it wouldn’t do any harm to enquire.

For earlier posts about Stirlings’ projects and plans, click here and follow the ‘Older posts’ links – there have been quite a few over recent years.

PS – I wonder how the Victorian racing yacht Leila’s getting on over by Southwold Harbour? Does anyone know?

PPS – Donan Raven (see comment below) has been in touch to point out that there are some good clips of Will’s workshop included in a YouTube video about the America’s Cup. It seems the directors thought it would be fun to film a traditional boat builder sailing one of the AC speed machines, and Will agreed…

Testing prototypes for the world’s largest Viking ship

The Dragon Harald Fairhair project sounds wonderful – and even these little prototypes are clearly great fun.

You may have heard that square-sailed craft without deep keels don’t go well to windward and have to be rowed, but from what I can see, these little boats do remarkably well on that point of sailing, even if we can’t see enough to tell whether they match up to a modern racing yacht.

My thinking is that the Norsemen made the journey to our islands in numbers on a regular basis, and did it in such numbers that most of the villages and features in the area where I grew up were named by them. In making their journeys, they must have sailed towards the prevailing wind on most occasions.

It will therefore be very interested to hear how the new Dragon performs when she’s complete. Read all about her here and here.

My thanks to John  Lockwood for pointing this out.

Pathé newsreels: the London Boat Show of 1967, and Blyth and Ridgway row the Atlantic

Boat Show London 1967

Two hugely nostalgic Pathé newsreels caught my eye today – at least, they are for me. Lots of other folks might think they’re interesting historical documents!

The first is about the London Boat Show of 1967 and the then-fashionable hobby of sailing dinghies, which were often home-built. I have a hazy memory of my father attending the show about that time, and it wasn’t long before I was up to my armpits in ply and goop building our own Mirror paid for on the then-new hire purchase system.

The second celebrates Chay Blyth and John Ridgway arriving in Ireland in 1966 after rowing the Atlantic.

Enthusiasm for rowing oceans in adapted dories does not seem to have gone away in the intervening decades – but where did all the sailors of little dinghies go?