The Yachting Year 2018

2013 DESTINATIONS

66 | THE YACHTING YEAR 2018

Bird, 64, from Gloucestershire, were among those

watching as the champagne smashed on the stem of a

replica Blue Mermaid, built and launched in Polruan,

Cornwall.  e new barge will be rigged this year and will

begin operation under the auspices of the Sea-Change

Sailing Trust as the  rst working  ames sailing barge to

be built since 1930. She will be crewed by disadvantaged

and socially excluded youngsters interested in learning

traditional seamanship for a career a oat.

Hilary Halajko, chair of the trustees of the Sea-Change

Sailing Trust, said: “Percy Bird and George Lucas le us a

legacy and we are hopefully going to learn their skills, to

celebrate the memory of those two brave men.”

J-CLASS ACTION

If you haven’t already, take a look top right on p65. It was

taken last summer by top yachting photographer Ingrid

Abery at one of the biggest ever gatherings of J-Class

yachts in the class’ 80-year history.  e J-Class  eet in full

 ight beneath Newport Harbour Bridge – hell of a sight.

Created by the Universal Rule at the start of the last

century, the J-Class’ big moment was during the 1930s,

when these mammoth yachts competed for the America’s

Cup.  e greatest naval architecture brains in north

America and Europe came up with 20 di erent J-Class

designs. Ten were built (and a few other yachts converted

to the class), before World War Two and a reality check on

how much the big beasts cost caused their fall from grace.

 ey languished in relative obscurity until the class – and

the entire classic boat movement – was invigorated by one

of the greatest restorations ever undertaken – Elizabeth

Meyer’s rescue of the J-Class Endeavour in the 1980s.  is

astonishing project brought back to life one of the Js that

competed for the America’s Cup in 1934.

Other J-Class projects followed and today no less than

ten Js exist, most of them new builds in the last 15 years.

As per class rules, all of the yachts racing are original

J-Class designs, but they are allowed to utilise the most

advanced boat building and equipment technology

available.  e teams of pro sailors on board race as

aggressively as if they were on a TP52 yacht. Many Js, for

instance, now use North Sails’ 3Di RAW, billed as the

lightest, highest performance sail on the market and

hardly classic.

 e extraordinary rise and rise of the class came to a

peak in 2017 with two events. First, in June we enjoyed the

inclusion in the America’s Cup of a dedicated J-Class

M Y N L E B O O K

Y A C H T I N G

H E R I T A G E

C E N T R E

regatta, the biggest ever gathering of Js, nine in all.

Two months later the J  eet had moved up the coast to

Newport, in many ways the class’ spiritual home, since the

America’s Cup was raced from Newport for so many years.

To see the Js racing en masse under Newport harbour

bridge in 2017 was a moment in yachting history.

And there’s no reason to suggest things won’t carry on in

the same vein. 2018 will see more spectacular regattas,

more great stories from the race course and it could well

see the build of an addition to the  eet.

MYNLE BOOK

One of the most enjoyable nautical books to be published

in recent years is a collection of the drawings of Alfred

Mylne.  e book was published by Amberley and put

together by Ian Nicolson, who worked with the great

designer for many years. Ian’s pithy notes accompanying

each reproduction of Mylne’s lines plans, each a veritable

work of art, come highly recommended.

If you enjoyed it, then 2018 is set to bring something

else, as a group of Mylne scholars, among them Classic

Boat’s yachting historian Clare McComb, have been busy

putting together a lavish history of his work.

Mylne was one of the great designers when yacht design

was at its peak. His contemporaries were Fife, Nicholson,

Stephens and other great names against whom he had to

compete for work. Many of his designs are still a oat today

and the book is bound to be a dead cert for any lover of

yachting history and the quintessential era in yacht design.

You can pre-order the book, by way of purchasing some

rather smart Mylne cu inks. mylne.com

YACHTING HERITAGE CENTRE

Where do you go to research yachting history?  ere are

places in the USA, notably MIT, and there are smaller

archives dotted around, but now Europe has something

major for itself.  e new Yachting Heritage Centre in

Flensburg has been built by family company Robbe &

Berking, at whose helm sits Oliver Berking, a serious

classic boat enthusiast. Mr Berking’s day job is running the

family silversmiths, but luckily for us, he has meanwhile

founded a classic yacht boatyard, he puts on the biggest

dedicated Metre yacht regatta in the world and through a

sustained input over decades, his corner of the Baltic,

Flensburg, has become a byword for classic boating in all

its guises – big boats, small boats, cruising yachts, racing

yachts.

LEFT Mylne cu inks

and book to come

RIGHT Robbe &

Berking’s new

Yachting Heritage

Centre in Germany

“

The rise

of the J-Class

continues

and we may

see more

additions to

the fl eet

”

TYY4 Year ahead Classic Boat.indd 66 04/12/2017 15:29