Classic Boat — January 2018

(^22) CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2018
TELL TALES
Recently elected
Commodore of the
Royal London Yacht
Club, David Gower has
succeeded Sir Richard
Ottaway as Chairman
of Cowes Classics
Week. Entries in Cowes
Classics Week, which is
looking forward to its
11th year in 2018, have
grown to almost 200 since 2008. The event is
managed by the Royal London Yacht Club with
support from the other Cowes Clubs for both on and
off-the-water organisation. Gill Smith, the first-ever
lady Rear Commodore of the Royal London since its
foundation in 1838, is PRO for the second year
running. She is supported by a team of around 80
dedicated volunteers.
David Gower said: “We are very grateful to our
sponsors Classic Boat magazine, Cowes Harbour
Commission, Kendalls Fine Art, Red Funnel, Haines
Boatyard, Harken, Henri Lloyd and Winkworth who
help make Cowes Classics Week such a successful
event. Charles Stanley Direct was the headline sponsor
for a three year term. Its involvement, although now
ended, has helped develop the event to its present
level. We are now in discussion with a small number
of potential new sponsors and hope to make an
announcement regarding 2018 and beyond soon.”
Cowes Classics Week will be held on
23–27 July, 2018.
The campaign to restore the Maid of the Loch to steam
has won the backing of actor Bill Paterson (Dad’s Army,
Criminal Justice) and top folk music duo Phil & Aly. The
trio have made a short film to appeal for the £125,000
needed for a new boiler to power the ship’s existing
engine. It is just one part of the c£5.5 million needed to
restore the ship, most of which (£3.8m) will come from a
2015 Heritage Lottery Fund Pledge. For the pledge to
become a grant, the charity Loch Lomond Steamship
Company needs to raise £1 million in matched funding.
Maid of the Loch is thought to be not only Britain’s last
paddle steamer, built in 1953, but the biggest ship ever
built for Britain’s inland waters, at 191ft (58.2m) and a rare
example of an ‘up and doon ship’, the term for a ship built
at a yard (A and J Inglis of Glasgow in this case),
dismantled for transportation and reassembled at its
operative base (Loch Lomond). You can watch the film
now at classicboat.co.uk. Just search ‘Maid of the Loch’.
Two British wooden boat
enthusiasts – Anthony Wheaton
(Aeolus) and Pelham Olive
(Kelpie) – have parted with
£20,000 of their own money to
buy 25 boats at the recent
EISCA auction, with the aim of
forming a new maritime centre
for Hartlepool and nearby
Middlesbrough. The boats are:
five working boats, 14 classic
dinghies including nine
International 14s, and six small
wooden craft. The first stage of
assembling these boats at
Teesside has been completed,
and six of them have now been
moved to Hartlepool Marina. To ensure the collection has a
sustainable future, Hartlepool Marina, Middlesbrough College and
local Teesside businesses have come on board to create employment
training schemes, a boatbuilding school and traditional sail-training
funded by a range of government sources. The first scheme will start
in December, which will generate funding for the collection. A further
£20,000 is sought to transport
more boats to Hartlepool and
Middlesbrough and to set up the
workshops for trainees to start
repairing them.
Hartlepool Marina is a centre of
maritime heritage with the Naval
Museum and HMS Trincomalee, the
oldest British warship still afloat;
the collection’s boats will be
shown to the public on the quay
and in the water, and some will be
sailed in the marina.
Middlesbrough College is in the
old docks and intends to locate
the boatbuilding school on the
quayside. The classic dinghy
collection will be maintained by the school and in the summer the
dinghy fleet will visit regattas in the UK to demonstrate and allow
sailors to experience classic dinghy sailing.
For more information and to make a donation, please contact
Anthony Wheaton, [email protected], 07803 389 676
NEW CHAIR OF COWES CLASSICS
David Gower
LOCH LOMOND, SCOTLAND
Save Britain’s ‘last steamer’
DURHAM
New maritime centre in Hartlepool
We have 20 free
tickets to give away
for the London
Boat Show, which
runs from 10-14
January at the
ExCel Centre in
London. To enter,
go to classicboat.co.
uk/boatshow2018
or type ‘Boat Show
2018’ into the search
box on our website.
FREE
LONDON
BOAT SHOW
TICKETS
Prince Philip’s
keelboat with
Britannia
The Flying Fifteen
Coweslip, given to
the Queen and
Prince Philip in 1949,
is now on show next
to the Royal Yacht
Britannia in Edinburgh.
She is a two-man,
20ft (6.1m) keelboat
designed by Uffa
Fox in 1947. Prince
Philip and Uffa sailed
Coweslip often, with
much racing success.