Tag: yacht

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

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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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An appeal for information – what’s the background to the Solveig yacht design?

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Martin Cooper has written to ask for any information on the Solveig design; he’d like to contact owners and to learn about other examples of this strikingly good-looking double-ender.

Here’s what he says:

‘I have owned her for 19 years now but in this time I have only limited information of the design. I know she was built by George Durr in Switzerland, but despite visiting the yard and meeting with George and his son Philippe, I have only found out that they recall her as a Solveig design. We believe the designer was Maurice Amiet but this information and extensive surfing the web has not lead to any further information.’

If anyone can please shed some light on this boat, please contact me at gmatkin@gmail.com, and I’ll pass the information on.

There’s more on the Gadfly II story – but can anyone fill in the ‘missing years’?

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The Kent-built Gadfly II

Simon Papendick has written to give us an update to the earlier posts about the small cruising boat he’s currently restoring, Gadfly II, and to ask for help in finding more information. (For more on Gadfly II, click here.)

Here’s what he has to say:

Hi Gavin:

Thanks to Classic Boat, I now have some new information about my yacht Gadfly II.

It would appear that the boat was build in the 1930s in Whitstable, Kent for a local builder, and that she was the second of three boats he commissioned. I have information about her first years in Kent from the 1930s through to 1949, and then I have more details about her whereabouts in the early 1960s – but then the trail goes cold from 1964 until the early 2000’s when the last owner purchased bought her.

If anyone has any information about Gadfly II’s whereabouts in the missing years, could they please let me know?

During the World War II I gather she had a small mishap when she was almost destroyed by German bombs that where dropped near where she was being stored.

The original owner of the boat only passed away a few years ago, as did the foreman of the yard that build her.

If any of your readers can come up with more information about the boat it would be most helpful.

Regards

Simon

Have you got a story to share or is there some information that you seek?

It could be about an interesting boat you own or are repairing, or a boat-building or repairing skill, or an adventure in a traditional or traditional-style boat? Why not do it through intheboatshed.net? Contact me at gmatkin@gmail.com.