Classic Boat – May 2018

Craftsmanship

1914 Herreshof

Newport 29 yacht Dolphin

1921 Fife gaf sloop Clio

Edited by Stefan Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758

Email: [email protected]

Yard News

There are ‘before and after’ pics, then there’s this. Igor Bzik,

formerly a motorboat man, went to sailing school in 1990 and

“found out that silence is beautiful”. He had to wait “some

time” before owning a sailing yacht. Fuelled by inspiration

provided by Classic Boat, Igor eventually made the plunge in

2008 and bought the wreck of a 1953 Dragon, built in Split. “I

could practically see through it,” remembers Igor, but even

with a limited budget, the desire to own a boat of that shape

was greater than the chance of failure, and Igor had the boat

taken to a shed near Zagreb, where he set up shop with

carpenter friend Mario Grgec. The only salvageable item was

the iron keel, so the two friends built a new boat in its entirety,

from lofting to finished item, in mahogany planks on

laminated oak frames. This is a cruising Dragon, with a very

high level of sophistication, including a new cockpit galley and

shower, 3-cylinder diesel with saildrive and fuel cell generator

for the electrics. In the end, even the original iron keel was

replaced with a leaden one, so the original boat served only

as inspiration for the new one.

SPLIT, CROATIA

Here be Dragons

GREENPORT, LONG ISLAND

Make them last another 97 years, please, Donn

Thirty five years ago, Donn Costanzo performed a complete

restoration on the 1921 Fife gaf sloop Clio in Italy. Clio is similar

to an 8-M in size (she’s 46ft/14m), but more heavily built and

intended as a cruiser-racer for an amateur crew. Fife himself

owned the yacht for six years. That rebuild was carried out in

Italy, but today, Clio is in Donn’s Wooden Boatworks shop in

Greenport, where a nor’easter was giving everything a good

rattle when we phoned. “The stuf we did all those years ago is

still good,” Donn was pleased to report, including the teak deck

glued onto the ply subdeck (no screw holes to let water in to

rot the teak out). It was an idea Donn questioned at the time.

Not any more. The boat’s centreline is still solid, so the team at

the yard are busy with what Donn calls “extensive repairs”. The

brief from owner Hunt Lawrence is to make her last another 97

years. That has involved, so far, some frame end replacements

and removal of the mast step to make good some keelson rot

by scarphing good wood in. A dozen planks have come of

each side for access, and the cockpit has come out, revealing

Donn’s own pencil marks from 1983.

Next winter, the work will conclude, with new cabin trunk,

hatch, skylights and coamings. Also in the shop is the

Herreshof Newport 29 yacht Dolphin, of 1914. She is in with the

same brief – repairs to keep her going for the next century.

Both boats belong to collector Hunt Lawrence, whom we

interviewed for last month’s issue (Defender article).