The Yachting Year 2018

THE YACHTING YEAR 2018 | 81

Maxi 72 Bella Mente

starts the haul-out

process on one

of Sevenstar’s

Bermuda services

For two glorious summers before WW1, the

four new boats of the 19-M class – Mariquita

(1911) and Corona (both Fife), Octavia

(Mylne) and Norada (C&N) – dazzled British

sailors. These big – c95ft (29m) – elegant

cutters were cheered by spectators ashore

as their captains and crews fought for line

honours and big prize money. Then, as soon

as they had arrived, they were gone,

“subsumed into handicap racing and eventual

obscurity” as John Leather put it.

But one, Mariquita, came to lie in the

Suˆolk mud for 60 years. Three days before

war swept the globe for a second time in 1939,

she was sold to Arthur Hempstead who owned

houseboats in West Mersea, Essex. Her 96ft

6in (29.4m) Oregon pine mast was sawn oˆ

and she was floated to a mud berth, lead

removed and bottom tarred. She suˆered a

very long fall from grace, spending most of

the 20th century as a houseboat at

Tollesbury and later Pin Mill.

She was found in 1987 by Albert Obrist

(Altair, left), who had the wherewithal and

vision to procure, salvage her, and bring the

boat to Fairlie Restorations on the Hamble

in 1991, to be stored for a full restoration.

Work began in 2001 and in the summer

of 2004, she was re-launched. Today, she is

probably the most photographed classic

yacht in the world and one of a very

glamorous fleet of similar ‘houseboats’,

which includes Merry Maid and Hispania.

It’s hard to gauge the importance of restoring Endeavour, the J-Class

sloop designed by Charles Nicholson and launched in 1934 for British

aviation entrepreneur Thomas Sopwith to mount a challenge to win the

America’s Cup. Her 1989 restoration from rusting hulk re-ignited the J

Class – and look how well that’s going these days. The woman behind

it, Elizabeth Meyer, also went on to restore Shamrock V, built in 1930

for the tireless British optimist Sir Thomas Lipton. The two boats racing

together really got pulses racing: “We held a series of regattas in 1989

and 1990 that were heavily televised in the US and got a lot of

attention outside the sailing world,” remembers Elizabeth, who teamed

up with Gary Jobson, Ted Turner and Buddy Melges to make it happen.

The spectator fleet at the first regatta in Newport RI was as large or

larger than the AC spectator fleets, according to Jobson and Turner.

One fan who came alongside in a Riva was Donald Trump, “whining

to come aboard. Donald, Ivana and ‘young Donnie’ all toured the boat

with me”. When Endeavour returned to land after racing, the crush of

people wanting a taste of the J magic was such that the pontoon broke

apart and sank. Whatever you think of them, the Js have forever

epitomised the pinnacle of glamour in yacht sailing since then. And

Trump’s career has really taken oˆ too...

MARIQUITA

ENDEAVOUR

CB ARCHIVE

BEN WOOD

TYY4 Top Ten restorations.indd 81 04/12/2017 15:55