MARCH 2024
£5.50 US$12.75
T H E W O R L D’ S M O S T B E A U T I F U L B O A T S
STAYING POWER Staysail schooner restored in lockdown INSIDE OUT The king of cutaways
STEINBECK’S BOAT Rebuilt fisher
RACE TO THE FINISH Antifoul and varnish
ONE CENTURY YOUNG
BOATBUILDING HISTORY
SQUARE AND TRUE
The Sunbeams
First plywood yacht
Wood or steel?
www.classicboat.co.uk
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STAYING POWER After a long, hard life, the staysail schooner Orianda is newly restored and busy racing, cruising and chartering WORDS AND PHOTOS NIGEL SHARP
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WESTERN FLYER The fishing seiner Western Flyer underwent a monumental, seven-year rebuild, simply because of a six-week charter in her early years under a very famous novelist WORDS JAN HEIN
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SUNBEAMS
A CENTURY OF
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SUNBEAMS O One of the most loved keelboat classes in the world has reached the age of 100 – with the loss of only one boat! WORDS AND PHOTOS NIGEL SHARP
ne Thursday afternoon in June of last year, 35 Sunbeams – the most to ever take part in the same race – approached a start line just outside Chichester Harbour. This was the start of the last race of a regatta which celebrated the centenary of the Solent Sunbeam class which has been entirely based at Itchenor Sailing Club since the mid-1960s. It was at the newly-formed Hamble River SC that the first seven Sunbeams first sailed in 1923 after members of the club had asked Alfred Westmacott to produce “an improved Mermaid” which he had previously designed for Seaview YC. The result was a boat which many people, myself included, believe to be aesthetically peerless among small keelboats anywhere. It wasn’t long before these new boats came to the attention of members of the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club who decided to establish their own class in Falmouth. It was in May 1924 when seven new boats – which had been delivered by train – took part in their first race there, and so the Falmouth Sunbeam class will be holding its own centenary regatta later this year. The first 39 boats were built by Westmacott’s own company Woodnutts at St Helens on the Isle of Wight, the last of them in 1938; and nine more timber boats were built by various companies between 1976 and 2008. Although 31 boats were initially built for the Solent and 17 for Falmouth, there has inevitably been some migration between the two fleets and in recent years the numbers have been roughly even between them. One timber boat, Judy, sank with the loss of one hand while racing in strong winds in Cowes Week in 1939 but the other 47 all survive.
THE FLEET DIVIDES BY RIG For nearly 90 years, the only fundamental difference between the Solent and Falmouth Sunbeams was in the rig. Although both fleets initially used a system called the kitty gear for booming out the headsail and the Falmouth boats still have it today, in 1925 the Solent class abandoned it in favour of 155sq ft spinnakers. The kitty gear system consists of a pole permanently mounted to the forward face CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2024
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PAINT AND VARNISH
RACE TO THE There is a revolution afoot in the world of paint and varnish, particularly with antifoul, with everything from spiky wraps and ultrasound playing their part… Here is our yearly round-up by Nigel Sharp
ANTIFOUL
It is an inescapable fact that many paints and varnishes can have serious consequences for the environment and people’s health, during manufacture and application, and throughout their lifetime up to the point of disposal, and as time goes on new rules are implemented to keep us and our environment healthier and safer. At the same time those coatings need to be effective in protecting materials and, in the case of antifouling, minimising the fouling of underwater surfaces. It is in the interests of all boat owners that the underwater surfaces of their boats be as clean as possible. That will allow sailing boats to sail to their maximum potential (as important to most cruising sailors as it is to all racers), fuel consumption under power to be reduced, and the transfer of invasive species from one part of the world to another to be minimised. 56
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Although traditional antifoulings emit VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds which are present in solvents) into the atmosphere during their manufacture and application (as do all other solvent-based paints), and leach biocides into the water, the really harmful biocides such as arsenic, lead, mercury and tin have long been banned, and paint manufacturers’ chemists have managed to find ways of formulating antifoulings to be just as effective with a fraction of the copper content that they used to have. Nonetheless, many of those same chemists have also been working hard to develop completely different systems to minimise the fouling of underwater surfaces.
THE SILICONE APPROACH One avenue that several companies have explored is a foul release system which is essentially a biocide-free, inert silicone coating with a very low surface tension which stops fouling from adhering to it. International Yacht
FINISH Paints introduced their first silicone system – Intersleek 700 - into the commercial market as long ago as 1986. “But it was a more complicated system that required complete removal of the existing coating and a multistage application process with two-part products,” said International’s Tim Bannister. The company has now developed a more user-friendly single-pack silicone product called B-Free Explore. Although it is currently only available in mainland Europe, its distribution will be expanded in the near future. “For the initial launch, we have focused our efforts on areas that have additional legislative restrictions on traditional fouling control,” said Tim. Hempel launched their first silicone coating – Silic One, which is a brush and roller product – about ten years ago and have recently added to their range Hempasil Pro which is a sprayable version intended for larger yachts. For superyachts, Hempel also have a silicone-based product called Hempaguard X7 which, although copper free, does have “a small amount of boosting biocide just to hold off a little bit of slime,” said Hempel’s Chris Toole, “but the flipside of that is that it is a five-year system.” Very recently Ocean Coatings have brought out a new silicone-based coating system, F2 Eco which replaces their previous Defender system. “This is what all have
Above: Shenandoah of Sark showing off her varnish and topsides
being waiting for. It’s a game changer,” said Ocean Coatings’ Keith McGregor. “We guarantee a lifetime of five years plus, but the performance improves over time and the lifetime could possibly be 10 years or more.” Silic One, B-Free Explore and F2 Eco can all be applied to existing traditional antifoulings (provided they are in good condition and preferably haven’t been built up too much) by first applying a conversion coat (but if converting back the other way, any silicone coatings would have to be removed before applying a traditional antifouling). Chris Toole told me that if two coats of Silic One are initially applied, then there would be no need to do anything for two years before simply washing the bottom (probably not even pressure washing), letting it dry, and then applying one new coat of Silic One to give another two years of service. Irrespective of the relative performances in reducing fouling, Hempel have also done some comparative tests regarding speed and fuel consumption on a 30ft powerboat, first uncoated and then coated with Silic One, in both cases clean and with no fouling at all. It was found that with the silicone coating, the boat was 7 per cent faster at a given RPM, and fuel consumption was reduced by 5 per cent at a given speed. International have also reported similarly positive results with their B-Free Explore after a comprehensive survey carried out by Norwegian company Fjord Tech Solutions with which they have been partnering. But these silicone coatings do have disadvantages. Firstly, unless extreme care is taken, there is a risk of silicone contamination of other surfaces of the boat (or even neighbouring boats) during application which will seriously hinder subsequent application of other paints CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2024
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NIC COMPTON
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