Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
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Victory Class keelboats
This super little Victory Class keelboat ideal for racing and daysailing is available for restoration – and from the class website it seems there may be one or two others available on a similar basis.
These photographs were taken on a recent trip to Portsmouth by Julie, who knows a nice boat when she sees one. Thanks Julie! My spies are everywhere…
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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.
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King Charles II’s yacht Mary. Progress in the developments of yachts remained slow until after Waterloo
‘I’m still reading Keble Chatterton’s entertaining if possibly dodgy history Fore and Aft Craft, and I thought intheboatshed.net readers might be entertained by his account of yacht racing’s development during the 19th century. It comes, of course, from an early 20th century perspective.
‘Among the famous yachts of the ‘twenties must be mentioned the Pearl, the Arrow and the Alarm. These were all built as cutters. The Pearl was launched in 1820 at Wyvenhoe and was of 95 tonnes. The Arrow was 84 tonnes. She was altered and rebuilt many times since she first appeared in 1822. The Alarm, which came out in 1830, was only seven tons short of two hundred, and was one of the very largest cutters ever built. What a gybe must have been like round a mark-boat in a smart breeze we can well wonder. Her origin is not without interest, for she was designed from the lines of a celebrated smuggler that was captured off the Isle of Wight.
‘It was owing to the fact that no time allowance was granted that the development of size in yachts had gone on unchecked: otherwise such a monstrosity as the Alarm would not have appeared. Right away as far back as Charles II the English yachts had been ballasted with shot. It was suggested to Christopher Pett that stones should be used for this purpose, but he wisely declined to entertain such an idea on the ground that it took up too much room. In this respect, Pett was more ahead of his time than might appear, for the ocean-going ships had for centuries had a considerable amount of their valuable internal space taken up by gravel ballast, which left but little room for the ship’s stores.
‘In some of the early nineteenth century yachts gravel or stone blocks were still used, just as one still finds to this day in the case of some of the open fishing craft which go out from the shore to their lobster pots. After that, iron blocks were introduced, and finally a reversion to the idea of lead. Bags of shot were employed in the last century so that they could easily be moved up to windward at each tack. In 1846 lead pigs were used, and finally, ten years later, in spite of the frownings of pessimists, the lead, instead of being used as inside ballast was transferred to the keel outside.’
‘After the battle of Waterloo the sport of yachting and so the development of yacht architecture and everything connected with the yacht from ballast to running gear, received the advantage of an enthusiasm which had never previously been granted: and both immediately before and after the Crimean War this enthusiasm and interest had been increased tenfold. It was because there had been so little personal interest on the part of the owner, such scant encouragement given to the builder, such universal ignorance in regard to problems of naval design, such infrequent races for testing certain types of hull and rigs, that the progress since the introduction of the first Mary into our country had been slow.’
And then:
‘But now all this was changed. The Victorian sovreignty had brought about peace and contentment, and the effects of the great industrial revival of the previous century had already caused so much increased wealth to our countrymen that there was an unprecedented army of rich sportsmen from whose ranks to draw a large band of yachtsmen. Here then was the needful force of encouragement to builders. This was intensified by the formation of powerful yach clubs having for their object, as the preamble to almost every yacht and sailing club reads, “the improvement of yacht building and the encouragement of yacht sailing”, “giving the greatest latitude in the construction, rigging and sailing of vessels, consistent with their aptitude to yachting.’
To be continued…
Amazon has original hardback copies of an earlier edition of Keble Chatterton’s book, Fore And Aft, The Story Of The Fore & Aft Rig From The Earliest Times To The Present Day, and also scanned copies of Fore & Aft Craft and Their Story; another relevant book that looks particularly interesting in this connection is Lennarth Petersson’s book Rigging: Period Fore-And-Aft Craft, which describes the rigging of three 18th century vessels in detail – an American schooner, an English cutter and a three-masted French lugger, and includes some 200 diagrams.