I
t’s quite possible that readers may never have heard
of this yacht, nor would they be able to pick her out
in a crowded marina or anchorage due to her
diminutive size. Nonetheless, she is one of the greats,
and has done big things.
Trekka was preceded by five years by her famous
cousin Sopranino and pioneering owner Patrick Ellam,
whose 1951 transatlantic feat was achieved with only
18ft (5.5m) of boat and two daring Englishmen. While
Sir Edmund Hillary was busy assessing the world’s tallest
mountain for his famous 1953 ascent, Patrick Ellam and
Colin Mudie were engaged in proving the capabilities of
small yachts by crossing oceans, long before the Mini
Transat was a notion held by (Cornishman) Bob Salmon
in the late 1970s.
Fast forward four years and, inspired by the exploits
of Ellam, John Guzzwell, a resourceful young Brit living
in British Columbia contacted Jack Laurent Giles to
uprate his design of Sopranino and create a boat that he
could go even further in. The little yawl Trekka was
conceived with the goal of reaching Hawaii from
Guzzwell’s home on Vancouver Island and with only two
extra feet (61cm) in length, Giles used the same principles
as those that proved successful in Sopranino, no doubt
learning from the experiences of Ellam and Mudie.
Many writers (myself included) use the word
“purposeful” to describe the lines of a boat, but no
better word could be used to elaborate on the shapes
deployed by Laurent Giles. Standing back and digesting
the striking lines of his more famous designs, you can see
his thought process and you can understand why. Many
of his designs and thinking therein are laid bare for all to
see. The reverse sheer, held in such disdain by many, is
not wasteful; the exaggerated deck camber is hugely
efficient at shedding green water; and the generous
tumblehome affords direct, unhindered progress through
the worst swell and chop. He was a master at the
‘ultra-light displacement’ hull form before it was widely
acknowledged, and made full use of emergent build
techniques and materials to drive a transformation in
hull shape towards the now common fin keel and spaderudder. I momentarily digress from
Trekka but her bigger sisters such as
Myth of Malham, Cetwayo and the
progressive Gulvain, show a man on a
mission whose ideas on hull form and
knack for rig design proved highly
successful.
Paying Giles £50 for the design,
Guzzwell took 9 months to build
Trekka in his spare time out the back
of Johnny Bells fish and chip shop in
Victoria BC. Launched in 1954
sporting what might be considered an
odd choice of rig for such a small
boat, Trekka’s compact yawl sail plan
gave Guzzwell options in all weathers, from piling on the
sail in light wind to reefing right down in the worst of it.
Guzwell and Trekka built on the legacy of Sopranino
illustrating that it was no fluke, small boats really were
as capable as their larger counterparts.
Uffa Fox too was a great exponent of the abilities of
smaller, lighter craft and un-fazed, Jack Laurent Giles
rose to the challenge and designed a series of “proper
yachts” to take on open water. Were it not for the scale
of the drawings you could be forgiven for thinking you
were looking at the plans for one of Giles’s much larger
vessels. Inspired construction details, ventilation cowls,
watertight hatches, bulkheads, galley’s and chart tables;
these were no dinghies. All his knowledge and experience
in larger yachts was shoe-horned into a snug but well
executed packaged that whilst far from comfortable was
quite feasible to bare for the 33,00nm of Guzzwell’s
1955 circumnavigation.
Trekka’s legacy lives on today in the form of the
Mini-Transat and it’s no exaggeration to say that
through his work in the 1950s, Jack Laurent Giles
changed the course of yacht design for good. With
some of his designs It’s true that beauty is in the eye
of the beholder, but with Trekka in particular it’s
equally as true that sometimes, great things come in
small packages.Jack Laurent
Giles designed
Trekka in 1952TREKKA
LOA
20ft 6in
(6.2m)BEAM
6ft 6in
(2m)DRAUGHT
4ft 6in
(1.4m)Like the earlier Sopranino, Trekka was
a dinghy with a lid to cross oceans
BY JACK GIFFORD
Trekka
Design by Laurent Giles
CLASSIC DESIGN