Classic Boat — March 2018

NEXT MONTH: Memory 19

T

he Blackwater Sloop, named after the

river in Essex, has its roots between the

wars, but really flourished after the war,

in Britain’s third great age of yachting –

the post-war boom of home-built yachts

and yacht-cruising that lasted until, say,

1970, an era of huge popularity for this newly

democratised pastime. Most converts to sailing in this

period wanted affordable weekend sailing and many

British boatbuilders responded to that demand with a

broad range of small cruising yachts.

The Blackwater Sloop story starts around 1930, when

boatbuilder Dan Webb received an order for a two-berth

cruising sloop for an owner at Poole in Dorset who

wanted a capable coastal cruising yacht. The result was

an 18ft sloop of traditional appearance and build, good

freeboard, two settee berths, a place for a heads bucket

forward by the chain locker and a cooking shelf for a

primus stove close by the after bulkhead. There is some

confusion about Blackwater Sloops, as other builders

started offering similar boats of that name. Here, we are

talking about the 18-footer – the classic ‘2.5-tonner’

• built by the yard of Dan Webb (later Dan Webb and
  Feesey) in Maldon, Essex, unless otherwise stated.
  The design was by Webb, who taught himself boat
  design from books like Dixon Kemp’s Yacht
  Architecture. And it worked; there were many repeat
  orders, with scores (estimates range from 70 to 200) of
  boats built by the end, in the late 1960s. A centreboard
  version was introduced in 1932 and, in 1936, the
  ‘three-tonner’ appeared, a little longer at just over 20ft.
  Both boats came with gaff or bermudan sloop rig.
  An early devotee was sailor and author Francis B
  Cooke, who wrote a number of books detailing his
  experiences in the boat he had built for him in 1938, the
  gaff-rigged Iolanthe. Among those are Week-End Yachting
  (in tune with the zeitgeist of the era) and Pocket
  Cruisers. He relates that the gaffer beats bermudan-rigged
  variants “good and proper” to windward. The interior, he
  tells, is “not very large, but there was room for a Lloyd’s
  Yacht Register and a dozen Penguin books”.
  That changed after the war when the raised-topsides
  version (full-width cabin) was introduced, giving very
  good accommodation for a boat of the size, with proper
  sitting headroom (of 4ft 6in) under the deck beams. It

was a popular option, and these days, the raised-

topsides 18-footer is the defining boat of the genre,

and the most instantly recognised.

The pre-war boats were built of^5 / 8 in (16mm)

British Columbian pine on steamed oak frames of 1in

by^3 / 4 in (25mm by 19mm) in oak or American elm at

6in (15cm) centres. Upperworks were pine as

standard, but teak upperworks and/or pitch pine

plankings were offered as extras. The planking was

copper-clenched, with galvanised iron fastenings used

elsewhere. Stem, sternpost, deadwood, deck beams

and transom were oak and the keel elm. There was no

foredeck hatch, although many have been retrofitted.

Our columnist Adrian Morgan restored a 1965

Blackwater Sloop and described an “exceptionally

well constructed boat”. The splined mahogany

planking was flawless, and full length, the centreline

sound. Webb and Feesey eschewed steel floors in

favour of solid oak, a blessing to anyone attempting a

restoration. His only slight reservation concerns the

original framing, which is on the light side. Adrian

beefed up the scantlings here, but others had replaced

like with like, or even sistered. A few boats still sport

the original Stuart Turners, and apparently the

best-sailing ones are the lighter, engineless boats,

where a pair of long sweeps takes over the duties.

Three on the market

BLACKWATER

SLOOP^

DESIGNED

Dan Webb,

c1930

LOA

18ft 5in

(5.6m)

BEAM

6ft 6in (2m)

DRAUGHTT

3ft (0.9m)

SAIL AREA

193sq ft

(17.9m²) gaff

173sq ft/

(16.1m^2 )

bermudan

AN OWNER’S VIEW

“

Snipe of Maldon (1953) is one of

three, larger 23ft 6in (7.2m) sloops,

yet with the hallmark characteristics I

find so appealing. Raised topsides in

a small boat turn the cabin into a

proper little saloon so you can sit

back and relax rather than hunch up like a Mike Peyton

cartoon; plus it gives you a wide, flat working and

sunbathing surface rather than perilous, pretend

side-decks the depth of your big toe. It’s a winning

formula adopted by GRP boats like the Westerly 22.

Basically, you get a bigger boat in a small package.

”

Dave Selby also owns the 18ft Sailfish Marlin

£5,500 From dailyboats.com, lying in West

Sussex. Built in 1937, decked version,

2.5-tonner with diesel engine. Condition not

known but the price suggests a good boat.

SOLD Graylag, of 1938, was sold by Eastern

Yachts, 21ft, raised topsides, bermudan rig,

restored Stuart Turner, “lovingly maintained

and restored”, sale price unknown.

£3,250 Pimiento went through MJ Lewis

for an unknown sale price but she was on

at the price above. She is 18ft with raised

topsides, bermudan rig and built in 1961.