Tag: racing

The effort to take Victorian racing cutter Leila back to sea needs money and help

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great yarmouth, leila, racing, repair, restoration, smack, southwold, victorian yacht, wooden boat, yacht

great yarmouth, leila, racing, repair, restoration, smack, southwold, victorian yacht, wooden boat, yacht great yarmouth, leila, racing, repair, restoration, smack, southwold, victorian yacht, wooden boat, yacht

Leila needs more repair work than expected

A group caring for a rare National Historic Ships Register-listed 42ft Victorian racing cutter at Southwold are urgently appealing for more manpower and financial help.

Leila was built at Charlton, London in 1892. She’s a striking and unusual yacht: above the waterline she looks very much like a smack, but below the waterline she’s clearly a racing yacht with an impressive 8ft deep keel.

In her early years sailed with the Royal Temple Yacht Club at Ramsgate, and won the Round Britain Race in 1904. From 1961 until a few years ago she was kept at Fisher’s Quay, Great Yarmouth.

When restored and brought up to the relevant Coastguard standards, she will be used for sail training local youngsters, and will again operate from Fisher’s Quay. I hope to visit this weekend and take some more photos.

The Leila Trust has so far raised £50,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund, £2000 from the National Maritime Museum and £40,000 from private donations – but are now having to appeal for an extra £30,000 after finding unexpected areas of rot in the hull that have been caused by leaks around iron fittings around the forward beam shelves.

To find out more, and to offer help etc, contact the Leila Trust via their website: http://leila2c.org.

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The incomplete tale of a Norfolk racing launch

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Rocinante at Reedham

Keith Johnston has kindly written in with some photos and the story of a boat that’s often moored at Reedham on the Norfolk Broads. It’s an intriguing boat that looks like a Thames slipper launch, but which nevertheless has a completely different background. I’ll let Keith tell the story:

We were approaching Reedham on the Norfolk Broads when I noticed a boat which looked rather like a slipper launch and, as I had just finished building one, I decided to make enquiries because this appeared to be a boat out of its normal habitat.

There are two boat yards at Reedham so it didn’t take a lot of searching to find the background to this good looking vessel. I found Steve Sanderson at Hall’s Old Boatyard and he was kind enough to tell me the story of this particular boat.

Rocinante as her reincarnation is called, is not a slipper launch at all but a 23ft Norfolk racing launch, the original of which Steve found on a Yarmouth demolition site in an extreme state of dereliction – and about to be burnt.

However, being a proper wooden boat enthusiast he decided that the boat should be restored or at least saved. He brought the remains to his boatyard in Reedham and he began talking to his friends and neighbours about the boat in general.

On the way back to Wroxham I found the other hull, now fully fitted and moored in Horning. From the river and with a cover on she looks virtually identical to Rocinante – however, I am told that she has been fitted with an American marine diesel engine of 4.8 litres, which should put this launch very definitely back in the racing category!

I did some research and found that launch racing started on Thursday 23rd August 1903; the inaugural race was during Oulton Broad Sailing Regatta Week that year organised by the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club under the auspices of the Norfolk Automobile and Launch Club. Six boats competed in a single heat, and the race was won by a steam launch named Monarch – but by 1910 there were big changes. There’s an interesting club history on the website http://www.lobmbc.co.uk.

For more on this no much more complete story, click here.

Britannia Rules – a super half hour film about the Big Class and the J Class eras

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Brittania Rules

Britannia Rules – a cracking little programme now available from Channel Four’s on-demand 4OD gizmo

Don’t miss out on this – if you haven’t already done so, find half an hour in your programme to sit down and watch this cracking little half-hour documentary about Britannia, the Big Class and finally the J Class.

If you’re outside the UK, I fear you may not be able to see it, but it really is a super half hour of telly even if it is on a computer screen. There are several programmes here that seem to be worth watching, and I’ll report further at some point.

Britannia Rules: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/classic-ships/4od#2928477

For more intheboatshed.net posts about Brittannia, click here.