Clockwise from top left: plenty of room in Clarion’s cockpit; saloon; backstay tensioner; owner Thierry at the chart table36 CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 20171963 ADMIRAL’S CUP
satisfi ed Jane that Clarion would make a great cruising
boat. The deal was done.
But later, he had further words with Thierry:
“Barney told me that I would have a problem with the
boat. This got me worried and I thought I would have
liked to know this before I signed, but then he told me
what the problem would be. He said that wherever I
took her, it was likely that someone would tell me that
they knew her, that they had sailed against her, or even
on her.” Sure enough Barney’s words proved to be true
right from the start: initially in Brighton (Thierry’s very
fi rst port of call on Clarion) where a man on a nearby
boat knew her; and then at Kamaret Yacht Services in
Camaret where Thierry planned to get all necessary
work done on her, where the proprietor, Yves
Lecouteur, told him that he had raced against Clarion
on his father’s boat many years ago. “He is as much in
love with Clarion as I am, except he is doing the work
and I am paying his bills,” said Thierry.
Clarion effectively has two home ports – Plymouth
and Les Sables-d’Olonne – not least because Thierry
currently works in England and Jane is British, and they
cruise with their three children when their jobs allow
them to. “Jane likes the boat very much and she likes to
steer as well, which she never did with our other boats.”
says Thierry. “She fi nds Clarion very balanced and very
easy to steer.” Although Jane isn’t herself interested inracing, Thierry says she is “very supportive” of him
when he races. In 2015 when Clarion was on her way to
Dartmouth for the start of the Classic Channel Regatta
(a race to Paimpol via St Peter Port), the Perkins diesel
engine broke down and she called in to Camaret. The
engine had been installed in 1968 when it replaced the
original Coventry Victor 2-cylinder 14hp petrol engine
and “it had done its time and decided to stop,” said
Thierry, “and the guy from Perkins who came to look at
it said it was never going to start again.” So Thierry had
a new Volvo 40hp engine installed, but Clarion was in
such good condition when he bought her that he has had
to do very little else to her.
I enjoyed a cracking sail with Thierry and his crew
on Clarion in the second race at Dartmouth Classics in
July. There was a fresh southwesterly breeze and the
15-boat fl eet included another winning British
Admiral’s Cupper, the 1971 Cervantes IV. We fi nished
6th but were 5th on handicap, one better than they’d
had in the morning race, and the following day Clarion
was 4th, and fi nished the regatta 5th overall. A couple
of days later Clarion started the Plymouth-La Rochelle
race in which she came 3rd overall, and Thierry was
particularly pleased to tell me later about the Classique
des Sables race at the end of the month. “We were fi rst
by less than a minute on corrected time,” he said.
“My fi rst win with the boat.”CLARION
OF WIGHT
LOA
43ft 6in
(13.26m)LWL
30ft 0in
(9.1m)
BEAM
10ft 11in
(3.33m)DRAUGHT
6ft 9in
(2.57m)DISP
10 tonnesNIGEL SHARPCB353 Clarion/Outlaw.indd 36 26/09/2017 13:19