Craftsmanship
CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2016 85SECTION HEAD
SUB SECTIONEdited by Steffan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758
Email: [email protected]
Yard NewsOur recent story on the 8-M replica Invader
(May issue) was of interest to CB reader
Nicole Shrimpton, owner of another 8 with
extraordinary provenance and undergoing
a transformation. Defiance is, Nicole tells
us, the first Aussie-designed and built 8,
put together in Melbourne in 1935 by “a
visionary shipwright” named Ernest Digby.
Digby designed, built and raced
Defiance, building the boat in his backyard
in the middle of a depression with a large
family to support. He went on to build a
second 8, Frances, with which he won the
Sayonara Cup and in an egalitarian spirit
steered the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria
through the Olympics as its commodore.Nicole has chosen Colin Beashel of
Beashels to restore Defiance. Colin sounds
like a chip off the Digby block being, as he
is, a third-generation boatbuilder, as well as
mainsheet man for the successful 1983
Aussie challenge for the America’s Cup- “a real metre man” as Nicole puts is.
Nicole is now in the process of finding a
mast builder. She is looking for someone
with a lot of experience in this area and has
made a long visit to Britain to meet
prospective builders. Her current mast
dates from 1952 and powered the boat
through three of her five Sydney-Hobarts.
“Imagine doing a Hobart on an 8-M!” as
Nicole puts it.
“Seeing Invader has only fanned the
flames I’m afraid. It [CB] is very dangerous
reading! We have a handful of 8s still in
Australia, including the utterly gorgeous
Varg. We recently lost Erica J (now Erica) to
a lucky owner in the UK and of course
Saskia back to her old stomping ground in
the care of Murdoch McKillop. So the
re-launch of Defiance is exciting.
"Defiance's star-studded crew includes
Roger Hickman, our beloved Sydney to
Hobart man who grew up sailing Bass
Straight on an 8; my frequent helmsman
and Prince Philip Cup winner Gordon Ingate
and our Olympian/Dragon sailor Carl Ryves,
a noted wooden boatbuilder himself."JASON PARKESHUGH HAMILTON PHOTOGRAPHYLUDHAM, NORFOLK
The boat that dad built
Jeff Parkes spent his professional life engaged in the design and
construction of colossal structures from cranes to oil rig platforms. “Every
now and then dad would say he wished he’d been a carpenter like me,”
relates his son Jason. “Weird, considering the importance of his world
compared to little ol’ me in my works van covered in dust all the time!”
Weird or not, in retirement, Jeff’s dream has come true. He has converted
two outhouses at his home into workshops and has now nearly finished
building a 12ft (3.7m) clinker dinghy in oak planks on mahogany frames,
copper riveted with ashen oars. It’s an adaptation of the one in Richard
Kolin’s book, Building Heidi – a 12ft Skiff for Sail and Oar. The idea is for a
novice to build a boat in traditional materials using, as did Jeff, hand tools.SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Historic 8 returns to life