Above, from
left: On the
helm with
Uncle Jac in
his yacht Ha-Ja
in the 1950s;
beneath Berry
Head House in
Brixham; Uncle
George in his
tender in the
1920sSternpost
M
y earliest memories are of living in Son,
Norway, on the Oslo fjord, where my father
was Jac M Iversen’s boatbuilding partner
before the first war, and married his sister Kate. There
was a dinghy tethered to the mooring below our house
and the children were allowed to row in it. I must have
been about two or three and I was so excited. Mind you,
there were no lifejackets in those days.
Later we came back to England to spend our holidays
at Berry Head House, Brixham, which is now a hotel.
When the J-Class came sailing round the head we were
allowed to get down from our very formal and silent
dinner table to run and perch on a high window-sill to
watch the magnificent yachts sweeping past in front of
the house – I remember Shamrock and Westward, and of
course King George V’s yacht Britannia, and Astra and
Candida. They are still in my mind’s eye – the great
expanses of canvas, tremendous triangular topsails,
flying jibs and huge balloon foresails. We loved it.
I had two famous sailing uncles. The first was George
Martin, founder of the RORC, who was incredibly tall.
He always had to duck going through a door, and once
at a family dinner he sat on a chair and it collapsed
under him. We all roared with laughter. I remember him
picking us up from the rocks under Berry Head House in
a tender, and rowing three of us to see his new yacht
Jolie Brise, moored in Brixham’s outer harbour. He filled
the dinghy, which was only a little cockleshell, and I was
scared we would tip over; but Jolie Brise was lovely.
I remember asking how her wooden ribs had got bent,
which he thought was very funny. I must have been
about eight. Years later he showed me over his sailing
barge Memory. Uncle George was a bit of a legend by
then, because he had criss-crossed the Atlantic in his little
pilot cutter and won the Blue Water Medal. Once I was
invited by Royal Naval College friends to a dinner where
he was presiding as RORC Admiral. I thought nothing
of it but when my group discovered I was his niece they
were hugely impressed!My other sailing uncle, Jac Iversen, was a boat
designer, builder and racer. When I visited him in Sweden
I remember going into his office and seeing all the
designs and everything very neatly ordered. He always
sailed us to an island which he owned and often let me
take the helm, but when we passed one particular place
we weren’t allowed to talk in English because there was
“something secret” going on! He was clearly a very
natural sailor, after a lifetime on the water.
After the war I was newlywed in Egypt and learned to
sail properly in a Snipe. The instructor was an ex-
German POW. At last I had the freedom to sail. One
time in Port Said I hired a small boat and we sailed out
between huge merchant vessels to see the statue of De
Lesseps. Heading back we had to tack into the wind and
I thought I was going to break the bowsprit hitting the
sides of those great black ships.
In the 1950s I had my own dinghy on the Cheshire
meres but I had to sell her when work and child-rearing
responsibilities became too great. Our family summers
were spent at my parents’ house in Brixham where I
crewed for my father in his little yacht Pixie.
In the 60 years since then I have watched our
Brixham heritage fleet come back into its own, especially
Vigilance, in which three members of my family have a
share. I remember very clearly racing in the last Brixham
Trawler Challenge Cup before the war. We didn’t win!
My strongest sailing-linked memory took place on
land in 2013 when I unveiled a Blue Plaque to Uncle
George and Jolie Brise at the Berry Head Hotel, where
we had watched the J-Class so many decades ago. It was
one of the proudest moments of my life.
Now I am bedbound but love to watch the constant
comings and goings of Brixham harbour from my
window, especially the Heritage Festival boats and the
old smacks which I have known all my life. It is
wonderful to think that the traditions and some of the
original vessels are still surviving, just as I am, after 100
sea-going and sea-loving years.Looking back on 100 years
Sylvia Spice recalls two famous uncles and the golden days of yachting
“I had two
famous
uncles,
George
Martin
and Jac
Iversen”L-R: GEORGINA GUBBINS; THE AUTHOR; CLARE MCCOMB