CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2016 7SIESTA 12-M
Above, l-r: the owners celebrate Siesta’s launch with Robbe &
Berking owner Oliver Berking (left); split cockpit in 6-Metre styleW
itnessing the building of a new
classic yacht in the traditional
plank on frame manner is an
exciting experience. But they
are often built upside down and
it is only after the hull is
completed and turned over that their true beauty reveals
itself. So to witness one being built upright on its own
keel, as this boat was, is special. Given that it was a 70ft
(21.3m), nearly 80-year-old Johan Anker-designed
International 12-M, being built for the very first time, the
experience was unique and truly magical.
Design number 434 was drawn by Johan Anker in
1939, but never built as Anker died just one year later.
She was meant to be the culmination of over 30 years’
experience designing and building metre class yachts and
the ‘master of lines’, as the Norwegians so proudly call
him, undoubtedly felt she would be his most successful
design in this class to date.
The partially unfinished plans have been patiently
waiting in a drawer of the Maritime Museum in Oslo for
many years until they once more saw daylight when the
Robbe & Berking Classics Boatyard in Flensburg found
a client willing to embark on this incredible journey.
That man was one of the world’s leading radar experts,
Erik Tingleff Larsen, from Denmark.
Siesta, as the boat is called, is the first new 12-M built
since 2006 (Kate, built to a century-old Mylne design by
Philip Walwyn) and only the second classic, wooden 12
since 1939. There were several wooden 12s built right up
to 1970 such as Mariner and Hissar but these were empty,
pure racing yachts built specifically for the America’s
Cup and not, like the pre-war 12s, to be cruiser-racers
with a proper interior as the International Rule specified.
Some would put the date with Intrepid, the
revolutionary 12 that was built in 1967 and winner of
the America’s Cup in that year as well as in 1970.
Although she had a very modern separated keel and
rudder, outwardly she was still very much a wooden
classic strongly influenced by Vim that was also
designed by Olin Stephens in 1939. After 1970 all 12s
were built in aluminium and later even in polyester.
In the Baltic, all the Metre Classes and the 12-Metres inparticular are experiencing a renaissance of
extraordinary proportions. Every year one or two yachts
join the growing fleet of 12s. Newport and Antibes/
Cannes were once the centres of activity for the class but
the momentum has now definitely moved to the Baltic.
Last year the Robbe & Berking Sterling Cup attracted 14
classic 12-Ms. This past winter no fewer than eight 12s
were in storage at the Robbe & Berking yard and this
summer it is expected that up to 20 will attend the
various 12-M events being held in the Baltic.
Robbe & Berking yard manager Sönke Stich recalls
how the project came about through a conversation
during a regatta in Copenhagen, sailing with the client
on the 12-M Sphinx, which Robbe & Berking had
restored in 2005-2008. “He was a 6-M sailor so we
talked about that and in the end built three of them for
him. Two S&S designs and one by Bjarne Aas,” says
Stich. “But parallel to this we also discussed the
possibility of building a 12-M.”
When the idea was mooted to build design 434, for
which Robbe & Berking knew the plans existed in the
Maritime Museum in Oslo, things got more serious and
the yard started work in 2010, setting the project aside at
times while they worked on one of the client’s 6-Ms.
“We had the lines plan and a plan for the rig and mast
but no plans for the deck layout or the interior. We kept
it as close as possible to what we feel Anker would have
drawn, by incorporating ideas from other yachts from
that period that we know personally. Our deck layout
was not the same – we would have done a tiller, not a
wheel and probably not the split 6-M-style cockpit she
now has. The owner had specific ideas on how he felt the
layout should be, based on his 6-M experiences. The
final result is a mix between our ideas and his.”
Initially the plan was also to have an interior to
correspond with the Rule – bunks, pipe cots, locker
space, a galley – but during the build the owner decided
against this and she was finished without one.BUILDING BEGINS
The first step of building a wooden yacht like this
immediately catches your imagination. The long,
laminated keel curves gracefully down from the bow toINA STEINHUSENINA STEINHUSEN