Harrison Butler – intheboatshed.net

Harrison Butler Z4 looking for a new home

Boatbuilder Kyle Abingdon is looking for a new home for his Harrison Butler Z4, having decided that there’s no sense in paying storage fees for a project he has no hope of being able to start in the near future.

He’s happy to negotiate terms but I’m pretty sure that it could be free to someone he is confident will make a good job of fixing her up and will look after her well – and thinks that could be someone who reads Intheboatshed.net .

Kyle says there is no rot on her and that her keel bolts have been done – but there is a lot of work to do, as she needs a deck, cockpit and internals.

Kyle is I am happy to advise anyone thinking of taking her on.

She comes with her mast, boom and sails all in good order, but no other rigging. Her mooring fees are up to date and she is stored under a tent at Faversham, Kent.

Contact Kyle at tel 07737 868421 and email kyleabingdon@yahoo.co.uk .

F B Cooke falls a little in love

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Drawings of T Harrison Butler’s single-handed cruiser

Like many of us, F B Cooke was clearly a bit of a boat dreamer, and in the early 1920s seems to have fallen very much under the spell of T Harrison Butler’s pretty Single-Handed Cruiser.

‘I, like many other sailing men, have long searched in vain for the ideal small single-hander, but I think I have found her, or rather her lines… She is a perfect love of a boat, and when my ship comes home I shall be tempted to have her built.’

The boat is just 18ft 6in in length. ‘The underwater lines suggest weatherliness, and with a good length of keel she should be very steady on her helm.’

Again: ‘She strikes me as just the thing for knocking about in the estuaries and creeks of the East Coast at week-ends, whilst a trip up to Lowestoft would be quite within her capabilities in any ordinary summer weather. Dr Butler has given the boat a very snug sail plan, but in that I think he is right, for it is a mistake to over-canvas a boat intended for single-handed work.’

I should explain that the boat in these drawings looks significantly bigger than 18ft 6in because H-B has drawn her with a Laws lifting cabin roof.

Did the Single-Handed Cruiser ever catch on? I’d very much like to know. And I can’t help thinking that an inexpensive small boat along these classic lines and as pretty as this one might be an interesting proposition for a boatbuilder to offer in wood or plastic in times like these.