HUFF OF ARKLOW
galvanised steel strap floors. Huff was stern heavy, partly
because Chris Allen had used wood from a disused
Welsh chapel to build a much less Spartan interior, but
largely because of the inboard engine – now a Beta 28hp
diesel – for which she had never been designed. An
ingenious solution was at hand. It so happened that Huff
had a list to starboard which, Bridgman thinks, was a
legacy of a repair carried out following an earlier
grounding, which somehow resulted in more weight and
less buoyancy on that side. So Bridgman took the
opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, by moving
the engine forward and re-fitting it on the port side of
the saloon, and installing a hydraulic unit to drive the
new Bruntons Varifold prop. Meanwhile the yacht’s
wheel was replaced with a tiller, for the second time in
Huff’s life.
Barbara managed to secure Heritage Lottery Funding,
as well as grants from National Historic Ships and the
Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, specifically to pay
for the hydraulic drive, the hull restoration and new
rigging, and in the late summer of 2014 HLF Trustees
were among a number of guests who attended an
emotional re-launch party. At that time her interior was
still virtually empty, but she sailed for a month or so
before she was laid up again. “This helped us to work
out what we wanted to do with the interior,” said
Bridgman. “In the end, putting it back to how it was
originally became the obvious thing to do.” Over last
winter her new five-berth interior was completed.
Huff’s first significant post-restoration voyage, in July
2015, was to the Tall Ships’ Race start in Belfast and
then to Arklow and Dublin Bay. She arrived there just in
time to compete in the Dun Laoghaire Volvo Racing
week, where once again she impressed by winning her
class. The crew met a number of people with close
connections to Huff including Douglas Heard’s
widow Ruth, John Tyrrell’s son Jimmy, and Bill
Murray, who had been an apprentice at Tyrrell’s
when Huff was built.Above left: A
platform for RYA
courses and
classic regatta
charters.
Right: The
five-berth interior
was refitted
largely as it was
originally
Below: The engine
was re-sited to
correct a listWhen he died in 1999, Huff lay abandoned on a
mooring in Cowes for a year, while the harbourmaster
and other locals kept an eye on her. In 2000 she was
saved again, this time by Andrew Thornhill, an Uffa Fox
enthusiast and chairman of the Eyemouth International
Sailing Craft Association (EISCA), a charity that owns
about 400 historic boats and which bought her from
Allen’s widow. The boat was used in the Hebrides, then
taken to Clifton and run for the EISCA by husband and
wife team Dominic and Barbara Bridgman for RYA
courses and sail training. When Thornhill bought
Mashfords boatyard in Cremyll, opposite Plymouth’s
Mayflower Marina, in 2004, Huff moved again, and she
has been based there ever since.
As the years of sail training took their toll, it became
clear that Huff needed some work. The chance to start it
arose in 2010, with the birth of the Bridgmans’ son
Leonardo. “When he arrived I couldn’t carry on with sail
training and be away all the time,” said Dominic.
Huff was laid up in the Mashfords shed “to have a
look”, whereupon it became apparent that a great deal
more work was needed than first anticipated, a situation
with which countless boat restorers will be familiar. To
gain access to the inside of the hull, it was decided to
strip the interior joinery out completely, which would
also provide the opportunity to replace the varnished
mahogany and buttoned fake leather interior with
something along the lines of the original, minimalist style
of joinery. But more hands were needed. Through a
government scheme called the Future Jobs Fund, four
trainees and boatbuilding teacher John Habgood were
taken on for six months, and work got underway. As
luck would have it, Habgood’s involvement continued
when he went to work for Falmouth Marine School,
which provided two apprentices to carry out further
work, and this relationship has developed further, and
beyond the Huff project, as Mashfords is now a
subsidiary of the school.
Although the hull planking was mostly in good
condition, it needed complete refastening with
copper nails and roves. “Two per plank per frame,
a total of 8,000,” Bridgman recalled with some
angst. Meanwhile the iron floors were replaced with