PETER LUCAS
A
t Dartmouth’s Old Mill Creek, tucked away
in a deep wooded dip, upriver behind the
Naval College, you’ll find a haven of vintage
craft and craftsmanship under the
ownership of Peter Lucas. CB readers may remember
‘Peter the Beard’ triumphing in last year’s Sailing Beards
Hall of Fame and the rumour that he hasn’t shaved since
he was 17 may well be true. Beards apart, the yard is a
collection of sheds and alleyways, with classic gems
round every corner, and the man himself a goldmine of
information and anecdote.
I was told the place is “organic” – tasks done depend
on the weather, mood, who or what is available... things
“happen”, which lead to other things, contacts, events...
life is allowed to flow, alongside the river. Peter believes
work should be like that, which is why many clients have
become friends as well, over the years.
He says that financially the yard owes him
nothing – “it washes its face”. Miles away a
storage facility clocks in the money, hour by
hour, so Old Mill Creek is the fun part; it’s not
‘playing’ because serious restoration is ongoing
to a handful of classic yachts; but it’s not dull
grind either, because Peter has been there, done
that. Now he wants a more peaceful life whose
hardest decisions may be which legendary yacht
to repair, and which to sell onward.
He seems to have encyclopedic knowledge of
most things nautical. We spent fifteen minutes
comparing modern leadline used for crab pots
to the composition ropes used by Devon
fishermen pre-World War I, and another 30
discussing his work for Chay Blyth’s Challenge
Business, where he reckons he set up more than
160 rigs over the four Round the World
Challenge races. I mention ground tackle and
out flows a stream of types and terms – what,
where and how to use every form of anchoring
device, past and present.
There are four vintage lifeboats currently
moored at the yard, including his own: a 52ft
(15.8m) Barnett Class Mark I built by Groves
and Guttridge of Cowes in 1960, which saw 27
years of service off the Lizard and Trevose Head, saving
93 lives. Peter bought her for family holidays as a very
safe motoring boat, because she was beautifully put
together. He really appreciates quality in design and build.
After installing six berths he has cruised in her as far as the
Scillies, and once even to Gothenburg in a round voyage
of 2,500 miles. Her original twin engines allow only 900
revs per minute but need driving hard to make best use of
them – she rolls a bit and 7.5 knots is a good average –
once you’ve got the hang of things she’s great.
Talk turns to Peter’s three main yachts at Old Mill
Creek, and of course there are others I only glimpsed,
both his own and other people’s. Ripple is famous, as a
highly competitive Old Gaffer at the south coast
regattas. He has owned her for 45 years, ever since
paying over his life savings of £400 plus a bartering
arrangement of four days of labour a week – in returnfor £10, bed, board and the shed in which he stored
her, enabling him to work on her the other three days.
She was built in 1902 by Charles Sibbick (of Saunterer
fame) as a Solent dayboat for the Orr-Ewings; she’s a gaff
cutter, centreboarder, 24ft LOA, 21ft LWL, drawing about
2ft 6in, and has never had an engine. Ripple is beautifully
constructed – what Peter calls “real yacht quality”. He
remembers the responsibility of sailing her properly for the
first time, navigating new bits of coast, and calculating the
weather window – vital decisions when taking what was
really an open boat, out to sea. At the time she was
coming up to 70 years old and pretty much as she was
built, with cotton sails and canvas decks. Since then he
feels it’s been a case of keeping her going rather than
restoring her: the sails are modern now, corroded iron
floors have been replaced in bronze; there is a new deck,
(teak on ply), a new hog and centreboard case, and a
shelter to cover the front of the large open cockpit
which leaves her “more usable... more seaworthy”.
After Ripple came Rogue, a 1934 auxiliary cutter,
pitch pine on oak frames, built by the Ponsharden
Shipyard in Falmouth, and a National Historic Ship
to boot. She is much larger at 37ft plus LOA and he
bought her because she was almost identical in size
and characteristics to a yacht design he had
commissioned: it seemed better to buy his dream
boat than build her, since she already existed! But
then he saw Cynthia advertised in Classic Boat, a
yacht he had admired almost as long as he could
remember. He was allowed to buy her.
So Cynthia is the main work of the yard today;
Ripple and Rogue, and even the lifeboat, may well
pass on to new owners in the foreseeable future.
She was launched in 1910 by T Jackett of
Falmouth as a “10-tonner”, 41ft 6in LOA and
30ft waterline, and for the first half century was a
“familiar name in handicap racing” with her
distinctive green hull. Apparently her underwater
profile was revolutionary from the start, but the
ever-changing rig (gaff cutter 1910/bermudan
cutter 1937/bermudan sloop 1939)was cause for
comment, even confusion by the 1940s.
Notwithstanding her age, she famously came
within three minutes of beating Illingworth’s victorious
Maid of Malham in the 440-mile (708km) 1950 RORC
Santander race. 1953 saw her sporting a topsail and
gaff mainsail without altering the rest of the rig!
Peter is returning Cynthia to as near her original
design as possible. Commissioned as a racer, she was
created only for speed – to “go through water rather
than over it”. Peter thinks she was one of the fastest
afloat in 1910 and has survived only “because people
fell in love with her and kept her right”.
However, no 105-year-old racer was designed for a
powerful modern rig: where old cotton sails will blow
out like safety valves, terylene is much less forgiving
and he needs to ensure that the hull will take the
strain. Age has brought weakness: after a century of
scraping he reckons planks may now be less than 1in
thick rather than their original 1¼in and anyRipple has
“real yacht
quality” – Peter
remembers the
responsibility of
sailing her for
the first time