Tiernan Roe photographs Cork Harbour One Designs at Glandore 2011

Cork Harbour One Design yachts Elsie and Querida photographed by boat builder Tiernan Roe Cork Harbour One Design yachts Elsie and Querida photographed by boat builder Tiernan Roe Cork Harbour One Design yachts Elsie photographed by boat builder Tiernan Roe

Cork Harbour One Design Elsie, with CHOD Querida (yellow) behind photographed by Tiernan Roe (click on the thumbnails for bigger images)

County Cork boat builder Tiernan Roe sent in these photos of Fife-designed yachts including Cork Harbour One Designs at Glandore Classic Regatta last week.

(Regular readers may remember that last year Tiernan won a lot of praise for a John Atkin-designed Ninigret. )

Here’s what he says:

‘Glandore is one of the most picturesque and sheltered harbours on the West Cork coast, and every two years the Glandore Yacht Club hosts one of the best classic boat events in Ireland. In the intervening years they hold a classic boat summer school which is also very interesting.

‘This year the few days sailing started in glorious sunshine and almost summer like conditions but alas it degenerated into a typical Irish summer of gales and rains. Well apparently 40 per cent of our rain falls in the summer months. The Romans were right when they called the place Hibernia, meaning ‘wintry’.

‘The blue boat is Elsie a Fife-designed Cork Harbour One Design built in 1896, while the yellow boat is Querida another CHOD of same year. They are they only two currently left racing in Cork and they are beauties to look at and to sail.

‘I’m currently researching the possibility of building one if I can find a client. I’ve already secured the co-operation of Fairlie Restorations, the holders of the Fife archive.

‘As the CHOD is just over 30ft long she’ll fit in a 40ft shipping container, which allows for easy and secure transport to regattas far and wide. However, if the boat is to be effectively dry sailed in this way, it also raises the issue of whether a modern construction technique would suit better – hence the need for research.

‘The white boat Sian (below) is a Fife One Design from Wales designed in 1926. The Fife One Designs are like a smaller Dragon (Dragons were also sailing at the regatta) but much much prettier if that’s possible. They’re the standard club boat of the Royal Anglesea Yacht Club.

‘As I was supposed to be crewing (acting as ballast!) in one of the boats this year I had hoped to get some photos of the boats sailing but I ended up helming for them, so I didn’t get a chance – so I took these shots later from a small ply punt.

‘Regards, Tiernan’

It’s particularly interesting that Tiernan is working on the idea of building one or more CHODs. If the idea appeals to you, contact him via his website.

Fife One Design yacht Elsie photographed by Tiernan Roe Fife One Design yacht Elsie photographed by Tiernan Roe

Keble Chatterton on the early development of racing yachts, part IV

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Revolutionary 19th century racing yacht Jullanar from Keble Chatterton

Here’s another small slice from Keble Chatterton’s history Fore and Aft Craft. See the previous extracts here, here and here.

‘But it is when we come to study the ten years that are covered by the dates 1870 and 1880 that we begin to see still greater activity. It had been preceded by a fine fleet of cutter yachts that included the famous Oimara, built in 1867, and still used , but as a houseboat in Poole Harbour, above bridge. Her spars were all big, and her great topmast and lengthy bowsprit were characteristic of that period. The tonnage of this vessel is 135, The Aline and Egeria also belong to this period, the former being historic as having been the first yacht to discard the rake which was always given to the mast previously.

‘The ‘seventies saw a real awakening in yachting – a new birth as it were, There were big schooners, cutters, and yawls, and yacht building yards were busily employed. It was during this period that the famous forty-tonners came into being that numbered in their class among others the well-known Foxhound and Bloodhound. The last mentioned has attracted an increased amount of attention by her return to racing during this twentieth century. She was recently altered by Fife, and has done remarkably well in handicap races when we recollect her great age as compared with modern flyers. Under the new modification the Bloodhound was given a raised sail-plan, and the ballast was brought lower down. In addition to this, the forefoot was cut away, and she was thus made quicker in stays.

‘But besides these celebrated forty-tonners we must call attention to the equally famous Jullanar, which was representative not of a class but as a special and original creation. The Jullanar, which we have here reproduced in Fig. 51 [see above], from a model in the South Kensington Museum, is indeed a milestone on the road which begins in the late sixteenth century and reaches on the the present day. Perhaps there was no designer of the fore-and-aft rig of our own time that did so much for this development as the late Mr G L Watson. His name was associated with a fleet of crack yachts that is too numerous to give here. And when it is remembered that Mr Watson frankly admitted that he himself was considerably influenced by the lines of the Jullanar, we have every right to regard this vessel as one of the highest importance. To some extent the excellent illustration here will speak for itself, and the fewest words will suffice to demonstrate her special features. Her birthplace was in Essex, that county which has brought forth so many famous craft and equally famous sailor-men.

‘Designed by a Mr E H Benthall, the Jullanar, of 126 tons, was built in the year 1875. In this model the old-fashioned straight stem and the old-time stern have vanished altogether. There is not a trace – in detail at least – of the former Dutch influence. Her bow, however, shows some connection with the prevailing schooner of that period, and so with the clipper ships which were then fast coming to the end of their limit of usefulness. This yacht showed herself such a success, and possessed of so great a speed, that Mr Watson based his design for the famous Thistle on the lessons to be learned from the Essex craft, although the Thistle did not actually appear until the year 1887.’

The last time I looked, Amazon had just a few copies of Fore and Aft Craft.

Will Stirling’s latest news – a classic cutter, an Arctic circumnavigation and popular dinghies

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Classic cutter Integrity's hull framing Stirling & Son

Walrus photographed in the Arctic by Will Stirling Stirling & Son General Purpose Dinghy

Cutter Integrity being framed, walrus photographed by Will Stirling in the Arctic, and the bows of a Stirling & Son general purpose dinghy.

The latest Stirling & Son newsletter makes it clear that the yard is as busy as ever.

Will writes that his building shed is dominated by Integrity, a replica 43ft gentleman’s cutter of circa 1880. A cruising racer, she’s a classic English cutter, and here design takes references from Fife’s Bloodhound, Nicholson’s Marigold, Beavor-Webb’s Partridge, Watson’s Vanduara and Dixon Kemp’s Zoraida.

The shape is now defined with all oak the frames up and three planks wrapped around each side. She is a speculative build, so if anyone out there wants to buy a newly built classic, Integrity offers an opportunity that doesn’t come by every day.

The Stirling & Son 9ft general purposes dinghies seem popular – three have been built this year – and the range has been extended with a 12ft version designed and being built to commission.

The company’s range of plans has been significantly expanded this year with six boats now available. Details of each plan pack are on the website.

John Gallagher who built the 12ft sailing dinghy Frolic on our first dinghy building course received an award at the Plymouth Classic Rally for the best new build of 2010.

On their 25th anniversary the South West Maritime History Society awarded four prizes in recognition of significant contribution to maritime history. Will was honoured to be selected for his ‘exceptional research and boatbuilding’ during the Alert and HMS Victory yawl projects.

The National Historic Ships photography competition has shortlisted a Stirling & Son photograph of the interior of the 17ft Tamar salmon boat completed in January of this year. Those shortlisted are to be judged on the 6th of October.

Despite all this activity, Will has also found time to go sailing – and has recently returned from his fourth Arctic voyage. This year, aboard the pilot cutter Dolphin, Roger Capps led a team of three including Will to the far east of Svalbard, making a landing on the particularly remote Storoya, before sailing north west to 80 51N, which is 550 miles from the North Pole. Unlike last year, there was little ice this year. We were able to visit small islands that in 2009 had been visible from a distance of 50 miles, refracted above the pack ice that surrounded them.

The lack of ice may explain the large number of polar bears seen in the area in comparison to the previous year. A circumnavigation was completed by passing through the Hinlopen Straights. We crossed the Barents Sea at an average speed of 3 knts, permanently close hauled, trying to make southing without going too far east, in order to avoid Russia. This resulted in the crew working to windward in F8 winds with waves to suit. They were pleased to reach Hammerfest and the dramatic fjords of the northern coast of Norway.

The next adventure will begin on the 10th of September when Will goes to Galway, Ireland in order to collect a Falmouth quay punt built before the Great War. The boat will receive working repairs before being sailed back to Plymouth where she will be hauled out for a more thorough restoration – she’s destined to become the Stirling family boat for estuary and coastal sailing.

Stirling & Son are based at Tavistock, Cornwall, and can be reached via their website or by phone on 01822 614259.