Adrian Morgan
CRAFTSMANSHIP
W
ho owns Sally, or for that matter any boat
of a certain age and pedigree that we like
to call a classic (a term which has too many
interpretations to delve into now, except to suggest that
we know one when we see one)?
It has been put forward by those paid to protect our
heritage that our boats are only ours in the sense that we
bought and paid for them; they actually belong in part to
the nation, as historical artefacts, worthy of
conservation. An entirely laudable notion. However,
until such time as the nation formally acquires the boat,
or the owner agrees a sum that recognises the nation’s
interest in the boat, any alterations, modifications,
reconstructing and restoring, I argue, are up to the owner
until such time as they hand over the responsibility.
This will not in some cases be the best for the boat, as
owners are often more concerned about making hermore comfortable by stripping out a pokey pilot berth
than sticking to originality. And that is surely their
prerogative. They took the financial hit when they
bought the ageing vessel, and poured a fortune into her
bilges, sistering frames, ditching the wooden mast for an
aluminium one, and even – whisper it – jettisoning the
gaff rig that went with it.
For as a boatbuilder will tell you, anything can be put
back. The skills, from reading these pages, are still
abundantly alive. The schools are turning out competent
boatbuilders by the score, each one set on either setting
up in business or taking on an ambitious restoration
project that, although unlikely to make them any money,
will serve as a fine shop window.
In the hands of some national body the chances are
the rack will go to ruin, so why should it suggest that an
owner has no right to simply keep the boat in a
seaworthy condition and for the time being ignore that
monstrous plywood and Perspex doghouse?
All we should ask owners of noteworthy boats is that
they take photos, both inside and out, in case one day
someone with a more authentic turn of mind wants to
recreate a certain era.
So what are we? Owners? Guardians, some say,
which smacks of that pretentious watch advert where a
good-looking, Swiss probably, well-groomed, silver-
haired father stands beside his equally good-looking son
along with a line that suggests he’s only wearing it to
hand down. Of course, what the company wants is for
him to buy another one for his son, but that’s by and by.
Having no son, or daughter, to hand Sally down to,
even if they did want to take on the responsibility, she
will no doubt appear one day in these pages with a line
about her owner (sadly) no longer being in a position to
look after her. She will have a
reduced price tag to reflect the need
to dispose of her quickly to free funds
to see her owner through another
year at Sunnydays Nursing Home.
All I can hope for is that the new
owner will take care of her as I tried to. But if by then
she has been officially classed as a national treasure, like
some Titian in private hands, threatened with a foreign
sale, then would the nation look after her any better?
When George V died his beloved Britannia fell to his
son, the short-reigned king, Edward VIII. Apart from
using her fabulous counter as a tee-off to shoot golf balls
in the direction of Osborne House, he had no use for her.
Now she would have been a prime candidate for
national ownership, and the idea was indeed put
forward. Would she have survived? Would she have
survived the coming war, for that matter? And if anyone
needs an example of how yachts can be altered, re-
rigged, cut down, given higher bulwarks, reballasted,
even remodelled to conform to a new rating, then look
no further than Britannia. About as original as that axe
with two new heads and three new handles.If you own a classic, can you do what you like to it?
“All I can
hope is that
the new
owner will
take care of
her as I
tried to”CHARLOTTE WATTERS
Where to draw the line