Classic_Boat_2016-03

The 72ft (22m) Silvers motor yacht

that has been on the slipway at

Stirling and Son for some time now,

has now been structurally re-built

and is awaiting the last flourishes

before re-launch. Life Aquatic (ex

Thelma VI) has become, according

to the yard “a compact and stylish

superyacht with all modern

comforts including a bath and ice

maker [not be used together!]”.

Dubois Naval Architecture has

worked with Parisian interior

designers India Mahdavi Design on

the superstructure and interior.

A more recent, but even bigger

project, is the rebuild of the

Norwegian search-and-rescue

ice-class vessel JM Johansen. She

was built just before the war as

Rednigsselskapet 53 to support

fishing fleets of Greenland, and

saved 100 lives.

At 160 tons she is the largest

vessel recovered by Stirling and

Son at the No 1 Covered Slip to

date. Her construction, says Stirling

and Son, is enormous “with more

framing than room and space; she

C/O STIRLING AND SON

NIGEL SHARP

DEVON

A busy slipway at Stirling and Son

FALMOUTH, CORNWALL

Ayesha set

for restoration

Richard Bond is a serial restorer of classic boats –

five 6-Ms, the S&S yawl Tomahawk and the Fowey

Troy Solitaire are among those he has owned to date

• and, to use his own words, he is now “doing it again”.
  He has recently purchased Ayesha, a 46ft (14m) LOA
  gaff cutter built in 1922 by Aldous Ltd of Brightlingsea and
  possibly the only yacht ever designed by the company’s
  managing director Arthur Boyes.
  She is at Penpol Boatyard, near Falmouth in Cornwall. Her
  deck was originally pine on oak beams and at some point in her
  life this was overlaid with plywood and glass cloth. By Christmas
  this had mostly been removed – although the deckhouse was
  carefully taken off so that it can be restored and re-fitted – and this
  will now be replaced with a ply sub-deck overlaid with swept teak.
  Richard hopes to restrict the initial work to this, and the
  replacement of the 20hp diesel engine with an electric equivalent, as
  he is eager to get Ayesha sailing again in spring. After that he may
  consider rig modifications to reinstate a sail plan closer to the
  larger original one. – Nigel Sharp

has all the attributes of a little

ship”. She is being rebuilt to MCA

Category 0 for cruising in

Greenland and Svalbard.

At the other end of the scale,

four new dinghies are following

each other in build, one for India,

one for Chile and two for the

domestic market, bringing the

Stirling dinghy tally to a pretty

impressive 33 new builds. Smaller

still is a new 16ft (4.9m) cedar strip

Canadian canoe for a client in the

northwest of England. The yard

itself recently benefited from new

railway wheels for additional

slipway cradles from the Devon-

based company which rebuilt the

Flying Scotsman; it is important to

have good rolling stock after all.

JM Johansen

(left) and Life

Aquatic on the

historic slip