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Tag: yacht
Troy number 28 Red Beryl built by Marcus Lewis is launched at Fowey
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The launch of Troy number 28 at Fowey
Red Beryl is a new Troy class yacht, built at Fowey in Cornwall by Marcus Lewis for a customer on the other side of the river in Polruan.
Marcus has been boatbuilding in Fowey since he left school 25 years ago, and has been working in his own own workshop for six years, during which time he has built four Troys – hull numbers 23, 25, 27, and now number 28 has been named Red Beryl.
The 18ft Troys are an important part of local sailing in Fowey, and this year they celebrate their 80th anniversary as a class. There’s a nice gallery of photos by Phil Egerton at the foweyphotos.com website, and also a history of the boats. It seems the first Troys were built for racing on Fowey Harbour in the very late 1920s and that most of the early boats are still kept in racing condition. I gather also that Troys can often be seen racing on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons in the season.
The Troy name comes from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s Troy Town series of novels, which are based on Fowey. Built using traditional carvel construction, they have 30ft masts supporting nearly 300sqft of sail intended to catch light winds on the estuary, which is surrounding by sheltering hills. They must to be built on the estuary in order to conform to class rules.
Marcus Lewis is based at Fowey and can be contacted on 07973 420 568.
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F B Cooke on Single Handed Cruising
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The mystery of Gadfly II’s origins and her link with the Blackwater sloops reminded me of yachting author F B Cooke, who I seem to remember owned a Blackwater sloop in the 1920s.
He had strong views on the size and type of yachts that should be used for cruising, for as he says:
‘To be dependent upon the assistance of friends, who may leave one in the lurch at the eleventh hour, is a miserable business that can only be avoided by having a yacht which one is capable of handling alone… The ideal arrangement is to have a vessel of sufficient size to accommodate one or two guests and yet not too large to be sailed single-handed at a pinch.’
I’d go further, and say that even with friends and family aboard, it’s safer and better if all the basic sailing tasks can be carried out by a single pair of hands.
I thought readers might be interested to see what he had to say about what size and type of small yacht seemed most desirable in those far-off days.
