LETTER OF THE MONTH
SUPPORTED BY OLD PULTENEY WHISKYLetters
I would like to lend my support to Jane Coombs of Antigua Classic Yacht
Regatta (February issue), who says that the regatta is not allowing entries
from elderly and what some might call ‘classic’ glassfi bre yachts. I am very
glad she has taken this decision. Call it what you will, but I am simply not
interested in boat design past the introduction of glassfi bre yachts.
That the classic car rally I went to recently featured several Ford Capris
is not relevant. The move away from wooden build in yachting was far
bigger than just a move to a diff erent material. It was the end of an epoch.
I am so pleased that bodies such as Antigua Classics and indeed Classic
Boat are championing the cause of boats built in timber.
Stuart Smith, via emailPlease relay my thanks to Tom Cunliff e for his ‘How to Read Lines Plans’
(November issue). For much of the current century I have been trying to grasp
this subject, including dog-earing Ted Brewer’s Understanding Boat Design.
Tom’s article is classic elegance, with – aha! – graphics.
Then, in Bosun’s Bag, he also provides a pithy explanation of why my Carl
Alberg-designed Corinthian 19 has a mind of its own in reverse.
Bruce Young, Corinthian 19 Lola, Elephant Butte Lake, New MexicoNo to GRP
Lines plans and how to read them
POW design
This photograph is of Alan Mills and Duncan
Campbell’s sloop Release. She is defi nitely the sloop
mentioned in the letter from Jim Hazel last month.
She was fi ttingly called Release upon their release
from POW camp.
She was 27ft LWL and was owned by my parents
between 1973 and 1988. I grew up on this beautiful
yacht, being born in 1963, and I learned so much
about sailing, cruising, life and growing up. Without
doubt, Release was the making of me.
Duncan Mills sailed with my family on one
occasion, with the ease that had placed her in many
podium places when campaigned in regattas of the
early 1950s. He wasn’t going to relinquish the helm
for one minute.
Release was sailed out of the River Dart by my
family. We always cruised during the summer, usually
the French coast and on occasion the northern coast
of Spain. Marinas hardly existed so we were expert
at anchoring or leaning against harbour walls. With
her long keel, Release took the ground very
comfortably. I walk along the same quay walls today,
remembering holidays, festivals and regattas, a time
when you moored in town amongst it all, not miles
out in a soulless marina. That long keel was also
partly responsible for us getting stuck, on a falling
tide, on the cill of St Peter Port inner harbour marina.
As Jim says, boy, she did look right, and she
defi nitely was right.
Sarah Stevens, Dartmouth.60 CLASSIC BOAT FEBRUARY 2018 61of vintage boats in Antigua Sailing Week was dwindling due to classes being mixed in with more modern, easier-to-manouevre Antigua Classics came out of a realisation that the number
yachts. They needed their own event. Yacht skipper Uli Pruesse and Julian Gildersleeve, of Antigua Yacht Club, were key in getting the idea going and it wasn’t long before eight boats
became 50 and the community began to see the benefit too.difference,” says Jane. “All we did was on instinct but it turned “It brought people to the island and we were making a
out to have quite a following. It has come to have a great affection in people’s hearts. When you totally commit to something and have a passion for it, people get swept along
and all sorts of magic starts to happen.”furnishings – she’d trained in design at college in the UK – In 1991 Jane went ashore to start a business in soft
joining Kenny over the summers as cook on his charter yachts. “It was a nice mix,” she says. The shop was busy, doing yacht
and villa interiors, canvaswork and alterations. The regatta was established, they had built a home and life was good. Then out of the blue Kenny fell ill and died just weeks later in October- His death was greeted with an outpouring of emotion from friends and admirers across the world and many could not imagine the regatta without him.
this needs,” says Jane. “He was very open “Kenny was exactly what a regatta like
and amicable, he’d always find the time to sit down and talk with people and he had an amazing memory for names. You have to
be positive and say that Antigua was lucky to have him for nearly 30 years.
really saddened by the naysayers in the local community, although I understood on “It was a difficult first two years and I felt
some level. But this was Kenny’s life’s work and I wanted to keep it going as a legacy for him. I encouraged new people to get
involved and bring new energy. Nothing is forever. This is a new chapter.”
film-maker Alexis Andrews (director of says has been a “huge asset” along with race co-ordinator She is now regatta co-chair with local photographer and Vanishing Sail), who she
Clare Cupples. After a fruitful 12-year run with Panerai as main sponsor, a title sponsor is now sought, but the regatta’s future looks assured with key support from the Herreshoff Marine
Museum, Mount Gay and Newport Shipyard. “The biggest problem is having the amount of money you
need without becoming too commercial. It’s difficult to balance that,” says Jane. “There is pressure now to bring in old fibreglass boats to the regatta, but if you do that you change
the look of things on the water and the pure classics become a minority. We’re still choosing to be an elite, smaller regatta and
there is still much to tap into. We have a fascinating Spirit of Tradition fleet that is growing and we always welcome new traditionally built boats. And people are still finding plenty of
old boats to restore.”CoraWhen time allows, you’ll find Jane out on the water sailing along the south shore of Antigua. And meanwhile, she still
ships out as chef on transatlantic deliveries, as she did in her twenties. “It’s still my preferred mode of travel,” she says.
Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta takes place 18-24 April.
CLASSIC BOAT FEBRUARY 2018
The co-chair of Antigua Classics is looking to
the future, with the past in mindA new
chapterJANE COOMBSL
ooking around the owner’s party at the 30th anniversary of Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta last year, Jane Coombs allowed herself a quiet moment of
prestigious Clarence House, in the Historic Naval Dockyard, attended by the great and the good of Antigua as well as the reflection. The party was taking place at the island’s
owners of many of the great classic yachts of our time, each of whom was toasting the regatta’s extraordinary success since it was launched in 1987. “I just wished Kenny could have seen it,”
Jane says of her late husband, with whom she founded the event. “The setting was so incredibly perfect, it was really moving. He would have loved it.”
hands? There was a moment Jane says she’ll remember for the rest of her life, sailing her 26ft Harrison Butler When do you know you’ve got a successful regatta on your Cora (pictured
left) in the regatta with two J-Class yachts roaring up on either side. “It was so tempting to look round and completely lose it
in the following sea!” she recalls.naval architects began to contact the regatta on behalf of An achievment with long-term significance came when top
clients who wanted a yacht specifically for Antigua’s fast-growing Spirit of Tradition class. Antigua was the first to embrace the Spirit of Tradition concept in
1986 with a dedicated modern classics category. “I was proud of Kenny for
having some influence on yacht design,” says Jane. “People wanted to make sure their new yacht would be accepted.”
officer, social secretary, creative director, In the early days Jane was press
accountant (“on one A4 piece of paper”). “I loved working in the background and cooking up ideas, the embellishments
around the regatta, part of what made it more of a festival. Being the focus of attention was never my natural forte, but
that’s okay, you have to learn new tricks. Kenny felt the same in the early days.”
event, to ensure its longevity even when Kenny and the original team had moved on. The hard work has always been as good At the outset, they made the regatta an Antigua Yacht Club
as voluntary, something not many people realised.you, rather than you running it,” laughs Jane. “We all have a “It’s been a hobby all these years, but it does begin to run
chance in life to do something useful that isn’t to do with lining your own pockets. You can say ‘I’m too busy’, or you can roll
with it. We were a good deal younger when it all began, with boundless energy!”She and Kenny met in Ibiza in 1980. Jane was a deckhand in
her twenties, he was a yacht skipper, both with a passion for wooden boats. Jane’s father had built wooden boats in their
back garden and she had grown up sailing the family Contessa 26, and then a Contessa 32, in Chichester Harbour on the UK south coast. Aged 18 she joined tall ship Sir Winston Churchill
for the USA bicentenary voyage in 1976. “That was it, really. I was hooked.” She joined various boats as crew and ended up sailing with a Hillyard to the Med, where eventually she wound
up in Ibiza. She and Kenny sailed to Antigua in 1983, running charter boats – classic ones when they could – including the
75ft (23m) Herreshoff schooner yawl Lucia and 85ft (25m) Fife schooner Vixen II, the 61ft (18m) Alden Adventuress.“When you commit to
something and have a passion
for it, people get swept along and
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60 CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2017 CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 2017 61
A practised glance at the waterlines, sections and buttocks can tell us much
about a yacht’s character
WORDS TOM CUNLIFFE
HOW TO READ
LINES PLANS
S
eeing a yacht in the flesh and sailing her in a wide variety of conditions is enough to tell an
photo and a lines plan, things can be very different. experienced mariner a lot about her character. When the only information available is a
The image gives a general impression, but it’s the plan that really dishes the dirt.
disuse for most amateurs. The reason is simple. In contrast to the average craft designed before These days, the classic lines plan has fallen into
World War II, the hull shapes of today’s production cruising yachts are unsophisticated, delivering good performance in fair weather by virtue of a
relatively low wetted area, a clean run, a deep fin keel and a spade rudder.
compared with the drawings of the deep-bodied, The lines plan of such a boat is of scant interest
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