Classic Boat – August 2019

(^8) CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2019
VARG 8 METRE
about to fly home from a photography assignment, he
bought the book It’s Not About The Bike by the cyclist
Lance Armstrong who, at that time, had won three
consecutive Tours de France and whose drug offences
had not yet been exposed. “He wrote that, in life, about
half a dozen big chances come along,” said Kraig, “and
we rarely do anything about them as they seem too
difficult. But if we ever do, we have the ride of our lives
and it is the best thing we can possibly do. I knew then
what I had to do.” And so it was, in April 2002 and
less than a year after they had married, that Kraig and
Carolyn bought Norn, albeit for rather less money
than they had previously offered.
It was the surveyor who first suggested taking the
boat to Tasmania, and in particular to Wilsons at
Cygnet. “He said that the work would cost half as
much there as it would in Sydney,” said Kraig, “and
that is where the wood will come from anyway.”
The Wilson boatbuilding dynasty was started by
John Wilson, the son of a British convict transported
to Tasmania, who started building boats at Port Cygnet
in 1863. In the early years, the family firm specialised in
building trading ketches, but in the 1930s they turned
to pleasure craft. Warren Innes went to work at the yard
in the early 1970s and it was he and Michael Wilson –
John’s great grandson – who were running the company
when, in February 2003, Norn arrived by truck. But she
would have to be stored outside for some years before
any work could be done while construction of a new
L Francis Herreshoff design was completed. As a result
of various conversations during that time, not least with
Michael and Warren, Kraig decided to take the lines off
Norn, remove whatever could be salvaged (probably
just the ballast keel) and build a new boat.
But realising that it wasn’t simply a matter of taking
Norn’s lines, Kraig approached Portuguese naval
architect David Vieira, a world authority on 8-Metres,
and decided to go to Portugal to meet him. As a result
of this meeting, David then travelled to Norway to visit
the National Maritime Museum where Anker’s original
drawings are kept. He then produced 23 full-size
Opposite,
clockwise from
top: fitting one
of the 33 Celery
Top pine floors;
the Huon pine
hull planking;
laying the
teak deck
drawings from which the new boat could be built
without any lofting.
The design would use some of Tasmania’s magnificent
native timbers but it would take three years and much
persistence to acquire it all. In 2004, Kraig and Carolyn
bought a shed in Cygnet in which to store their timber
while they waited for construction to begin. Over the
next few years they frequently visited Tasmania from
their home in Sydney where they were growing tired of
the “terrible traffic congestion problems” and it wasn’t
long before they realised they would be much happier
living a more relaxed life on the island. And so, in July
2008, they moved to a house overlooking the creek in
Cygnet, just two miles from the yard where construction
of their new boat had, at last, begun three months earlier.
CENTRELINE WOOD
Celery-top pine was used for the centreline, and all the
steamed timbers are in blue gum, unlike the original
boat which had steel frames with pairs of intermediate
timbers. A total of 66 floors were fitted: half of them in
grown celery-top pine (nothing was laminated through
the boat’s construction) with the forward ones in bronze
to give more headroom. A varnish finish for the Huon
pine topsides was considered but, said Kraig, “because
the timber came from a number of different trees it
wouldn’t have looked good”. The bottom of the boat
was sheathed in epoxy/glass.
The original lead keel was fitted with 19 new keel
boats made from silicon bronze supplied by UK
company Davey and Co. It needed some attention,
however, to address the damage it had received when
Norn had hit the famous rocky Sow and Pigs Reef in
Sydney Harbour.
The beam shelf, clamp and deck beams are all in
celery top while the lodging knees are grown Huon pine.
The deck is in three layers: Huon pine planking laid over
the deck beams, then plywood with glass and epoxy on
top, and a swept teak laid deck on top. Huon pine is so
valuable and rare that it took the builder and owner two
years to convince the timber merchant that they had a
noble plan in place for it, rather than simply re-selling at
a profit! All the deck brightwork is Honduras mahogany,
a timber that these day is all but impossible to obtain –
this came from a now-defunct company in Queensland
about 18 years ago. Many of the deck fittings, including
the winches, were custom made by David Vieira, but the
bronze strap hinges for the forehatch were salvaged from
Norn, the only original items apart from the ballast keel
to be fitted to the new boat.
Norn had no rig when Kraig and Carolyn bought
her so there was no question about the need for a new
one. The spars were built by Denman Marine in nearby
Kettering from Alaskan Sitka spruce supplied by
Touchwood BV; the rigging came from a cancelled
French 8-Metre rig and was modified by Sydney sailor
and businessman Sean Langman (“at local rates”
according to Kraig); and the sails were produced by
Col Anderson at Doyles’ Melbourne loft.
Eager to try to speed things along and to immerse
himself further into the project, Kraig helped out in a
number of areas – he polished all 33 bronze floors, he
made the cabin sole panels (mahogany with silver ash
VARG
LOA
49ft 7in (15.1m)
LWL
29ft 9in (9.1m)
BEAM
8ft 7in (2.6m)
DRAFT
6ft 1in (1.9m)
DISPLACEMENT
7,920kg
SAIL AREA
906sq ft
(84.2m^2 )