T
here is a field in East Anglia where you can
pick your own classic boat. Propped up in a
few acres of maritime Suffolk sit the noble
bones of hulls drawn by some of the greatest
names in yacht design, including Fife, Payne and Anker.
“You are looking at £100,000 to get a 6-Metre
restored and back on the water, and upwards of that for
larger craft,” says Matthew Lingley of Demon Yachts as
we trudge through the rows of forgotten classic hulls,
which squat in the grassy acres behind the sea wall at the
Aldeburgh Boatyard.
It might sound a lot of money, but just think what a
potential buyer would end up with: a true classic,
invariably a one-off, a vintage vessel to call your own.
We stepped over dropped keels, discarded rudders
and weed-covered spars to bend down and inspect the
planks from which caulking cotton hung in feathery
loops like tarantulas’ webs. Stern posts held blistered
butt straps, old masts were grown green with neglect and
brambles pushed up through seams under rotting covers.
But all the hulls hold their elegant lines: testimony to
fine draughtsmanship, top quality build and the best
materials available at the turn of the last century.
They have been collected over the years by boatyard
proprietor, Peter Wilson, himself a shipwright, sometimes
as part payment for services rendered, sometimes as aproject, sometimes simply as an act of mercy to save a
boat becoming a bonfire. He it was who dubbed his
backyard ‘The Field of Dreams’.
Some of the boats have undergone piecemeal
restoration by struggling owners, others are abandoned.
We stroll beneath a long-ended beauty and Matthew tells
me she’s Amazone, a Johan Anker design from 1912 and
next on the list to be restored. At the outbreak of World
War I she was owned by Thor Dahl of the Norwegian
shipping firm. She was brought to Aldeburgh as part
payment for work carried out on a 6-Metre.
Next we take a look at Bryony, an International
8-Metre, of the First Rule, designed by RE Froude and
built in 1909 by Camper and Nicholson, at Gosport.
Clytie was built in Chester in 1908 and contemporary
photographs show she had a huge mainsail with an
overhanging boom and she was reputedly very fast.
Concha is a Dublin Bay 25, designed by William
Fife. “The F-word always has the most potential for
restoration,” asserts Matthew as he hauls off the
mildewed cover.
Then there’s the 33ft Houri, another First Rule classic,
but this time an International 6-Metre, the last such to be
designed by Arthur Payne Junior and built of mahogany
on American elm by Alexander McDonald of Woolston,
Southampton, in 1911. She is partly restored.AMAZONE
A First Rule
8-Metre. Johan
Anker designSIRENIA
Pre-war DragonNONA
Charles Sibbick-
built Orford
White WingJO
Second Rule
6-Metre. Gold
Medal winner at
Ostend
Olympics 1920CLYTIE
Built in Chester,
1908, along lines
of a Morecambe
Bay PrawnerBRYONY
First Rule 8-Metre.
Designed by
RE Froude