8 CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2018
GLENDHU
with snow on the ground. Despite the freezing conditions
in the Nissan hut, we did our best to repair her,
notwithstanding the sustained disapproval of his wife!”
Despite this inauspicious start, Royston was clearly
smitten and, when Glendhu’s owner decided to emigrate
to Cyprus in autumn 2010, he jumped at the chance to
buy the boat for a modest £2,200. But Royston wasn’t
planning a straightforward restoration. Although he
admired the boat’s pretty lines, he couldn’t get the image
of that endless Fife sheer – evident in a scaled-down form
in his previous boat Whimbrel – out his mind. And so,
over the next 15 months, he reshaped the boat, removing
the old (and rotten) transom and using battens to stretch
out the counter. Once he was happy with the shape, he
extended the horn timber, fitted new frames, and scarfed
the new planking onto the old. By the time he had
finished, the boat was 2ft 6in longer, an addition which
he hoped would not only improve her appearance but
also improve her performance.
In fact, Glendhu’s new dimensions were now much
nearer those of a Dragon – although the latter still had a
slightly longer waterline and overhangs.
As part of his ‘reimagining’ of the boat, Royston
removed the slightly boxy cabin trunk and built a new,
more low-profile version, more in keeping with Glendhu’s
new look. He also increased her sail area by a spectacular
35 per cent from 267 to 360 sqft (now a fifth more than a
Dragon), with a new rig designed by classic yacht
specialist Peter Crockford of SailTech in Falmouth. Noble
Masts supplied the lofty new spar. And Royston fitted an
inboard engine: a 20hp Nanni diesel, bolted to a pair of
hefty oak bearers and offset slightly to starboard as the
sternpost was too slender to take a propeller shaft.
By the time the boat was launched in August 2012, she
was unrecognisable as the daysailer designed by Mylne
and looked more like a 100-year-old classic yacht.
Royston had effectively recreated the love of his life –
although at 28ft long, Glendhu was a good deal more
manageable than the 37ft Whimbrel.
“Alfred Mylne’s superb lines lend themselves very
readily to extending the transom into a graceful counter
stern,” he says. “In my opinion she looks every inch like a
small Fife, which was my original intention, but of courseBelow: First
supper on board.
Henry and
Isabelle enjoy fish
and chips
moored off St
MawesOpposite top l-r:
old keel bolts
removed; first
layer of diagonal
strips; new
doarade boxes
Second row l-r:
hull sheathed
with fibreglass
and epoxy (son
Henry below);
new deck laid
and sealed with
Sikaflex;
feathering prop
with beefed-up
casing
Third row: new
deck cleaned off;
that awesome
counter; the
original
chainplates
cleaned up
Bottom l-r: new
mast step; new
fore hatch before
the forepeak
bunk was built;
the day of
reckoning!none were built this small. Many in the Glen class may
disapprove of this modification, but it was the fulfillment
of my dream boat.”
There was, however, a snag. Although Royston and
the previous owner had fixed the damage from her fall,
and although he had spent 15 months reshaping his
beloved boat, Glendhu leaked. Over the next two years,
her garboard planks were repeatedly caulked and
recaulked, but nothing could stop the flow of water,
which reached up to 3 gallons a day. After a couple of
close scares, Royston finally had to admit defeat and
“with a heavy heart” put her up for sale at “a price which
reflected her underlying problems”. In October 2014 he
placed his “broken heart forces sale” advert in Classic
Boat, with the boat priced at £4,999.
Now, most people who were told a boat leaked several
gallons per hour would probably run a mile. But, as we
all know, the heart moves in mysterious ways, so it’s
perhaps not so surprising that Ian Wilkinson ignored all
the warnings and bought the boat anyway. What’s more
surprising are the lengths he went to in order to fix the
problem and consolidate the changes his predecessor had
made.
In fact, although Glendhu’s problems proved far more
deep-rooted than anyone had suspected, Ian Wilkinson
was uniquely well-placed to deal with the situation. A
lifelong sailor who had crewed in numerous RORC races,
his previous boat was a St Mawes One Design, which
had issues enough of its own to have introduced Ian to
most of the wooden boatbuilding fraternity in his home
town of Bristol. Crucially, in 1999 he was co-opted onto
the board of the Underfall Yard and in 2010 became its
chairman, a position he has occupied ever since.
After buying Glendhu, Ian’s first move was to hand
her over to Tim Loftus, the Underfall Yard’s resident
boatbuilder, to fix her mystery leak. Tim started by fitting
a new sternpost and deadwoods and laminated floors
(with a lower profile to give more headroom below
decks). It wasn’t until he started removing some planking
that the full extent of the problem became evident: some
of the planking had been sanded back to half of its
original thickness. No amount of caulking was going to
fix that. The choice was stark: replank her completely,
sheathe over the hull, or scrap her. In the end, as a
complete rebuild would have been too expensive, Ian and
Tim took the Curlew Option – named in honour of Tim
and Pauline Carr’s 1905 Falmouth Quay Punt, which was
cold-moulded in the 1980s midway through a
circumnavigation and went on to sail better than ever.
Glendhu’s hull was likewise sealed with three thin layers
of the African hardwood utile, bonded with epoxy to
create a tough and leak-proof skin. In the process of
fairing the lines, the counter became slightly more slender
and a few inches longer.
It wasn’t a decision either of them took lightly, and
Tim acknowledges that not everyone would approve of
the approach. “I accept any criticism we might get for
this,” he says. “But I will say that she sails on, giving
pleasure to her owner, and retains vastly more of her
original material than could have been possible
otherwise.”
Tim also fitted a new deck (teak on ply this time, as
Ian likes to sail barefoot), along with a new forehatch,