W
6 CLASSIC BOAT FEBRUARY 2018VICTORIA
Above, l-r: new
mahogany
handmade
blocks; the
original helm
from 1918; new
sails by North on
new Oregon pine
mast
Below: family
outing on
Victoria off
Copenhagen in
summer 1937,
Vidar’s grand-
father at the
helmhen the so-called ‘gulasch
baron’ Valdemar Henckel
suffered his second major
bankruptcy in 1921, he almost
took the Danish town of
Kalundsborg down with him. His
shipyard there had grown to huge proportions, and the
local bank couldn’t sustain the loss. After a lengthy trial,
his assets were put up for auction to repay creditors, but
there were two critical omissions from the list of lots.
Neither of his two racing 7-Metre yachts were named –
they had quietly disappeared.
Victoria II was never found, but four years later in
1925, Victoria I showed up in the name of Henckel’s
son-in-law. The gulasch baron had found a way to keep
his gravy boat.
Victoria I had been built in a hurry at Henckel’s
shipyard, as a way to bring him into the orbit of King
Christian X, who raced his 10-M Rita very keenly. She
had no interior fi nishing at all and therefore no need for
a coachroof. This saved time in the yard, but also
reduced weight and made her more competitive.
The hiatus of the First World War had prevented the
main sailing nations from agreeing an extension of the
widely accepted International Rule. But the Scandinavian
countries, less embroiled in the confl ict, saw no reason
not to forge their own version of the rule to spur the
construction of more racing boats. Thus the
Scandinavian Metre Rule was established, and Victoria
was the fi fth 7-Metre S to be built,
following several by Johan Anker in
Norway. In total more than 20 were
built in a short time, and there was a
vigorous racing circuit in Denmark,
Sweden and Norway.
Victoria had a big rig for her size,
countered by the 2.7 tonnes of lead in her
keel. She had a short bowsprit and a
boom that extended 4ft over her elegant
counter stern. But when she resurfaced in1925 as the yacht of Henckel’s son-in-law, she had
undergone some changes. The rig was shorter and she
carried round 270sq ft (25m²) less sail. An elegant
coachroof with small oval portlights had sprouted, and
she had begun her transformation into a cruising boat.
Little is known about her during the following
decade, until she changed hands again, this time in the
joint ownership of a certain Gunner Svensson and Ole
Hansen – grandfather of the current owner, Vidar Illum.
Ole was a boatbuilder and kept her in good condition,
while Gunner had provided the funds to buy her.
Over four years of research Vidar has uncovered a
treasure-trove of material relating to the boat, starting
with the 1925 blueprints. There is everything from her
original certifi cates of conformity to black-and-white
photographs of her racing. One in particular caught my
attention as we sat in his offi ce-cum-boat-temple. It is a
shot from the stern, and shows a family outing, with six
soberly dressed adults and two children. The boat is
defi nitely in cruising mode. Vidar’s mother, now in her
80s, is one of the children in the picture, and she has
fond memories of cruising the boat. “She wept when she
heard that I had rediscovered the boat after all those
years,” says Vidar. But we’re skipping ahead.
Ole sailed the boat until he died in 1964, then Gunner
sailed on alone, the boat’s condition deteriorating
without the care of the old boatbuilder. “At some point
in the 1970s, the stern rotted and broke off when the
owner was standing on it,” Vidar says.
“He had to be pulled from the water.”
Around 5ft of the counter stern, with its
solid mahogany transom piece, had simply
fallen off. The stern was levelled off and
crudely planked to keep her sailing until- Gunner was 95, a ripe old sailing
age, when he sold the boat for a bottle of
whisky to a couple of retired boatbuilders
with grandiose plans of restoration. The
years of neglect had taken their toll, and
she had to be completely reframed.