George Coats’ 1903 Kelpie against Cintra, his brother Andrew’s
First Rule 12,” he explains. “Fife versus Mylne. It seemed the
right thing to do.” They had some exciting contests in the best
Corinthian spirit, with Kelpie coming out top again.
Their voyage from Dartmouth to Sandefjord had been
extraordinary; Pelham remembers it as “close hauled to Kiel”
because the wind was easterly all the way to Ramsgate,
including tacking against both tide and wind in the Solent,
and for the passage from Ramsgate to IJmuiden the Easterly
changed to NE, so Kelpie still had the wind dead on her nose.
“We tacked through the night with fi rst two reefs and then one
reef down, in about 20 knots. I was helming largely by feel in
the darkness, checking the instruments now and again, with
water whooshing along the side deck,” he says, adding Kelpie
felt “very fast and at one with the sea”.
About an hour out of IJmuiden, the wind freed very slightly;
Kelpie went immediately from 6.5 knots straight to 8.5 knots.
“She was showing what she could do, huge great bow wave
curling away – absolutely fl ying,” says
Pelham. To make Ramsgate to IJmuiden
in 23.5 hours in a north easterly is good
sailing even in a modern yacht. Pelham
says for an old gaff er it was amazing.
Stories fl owed thick and fast, and time
was shortening, so I asked about what
was to be his last-ever race. “In 2018,
we prioritised fi ne tuning and weight
reduction measures, including a new
lighter mast, reducing windage by taking
the standing rigging diameter down
by 2mm, downsizing the blocks, along
with many other small (and expensive!)
adjustments,” he describes. These
measures, combined with doubled
practice time, enabled Kelpie to
compete for places against the top
boats (including the once-unbeatable
Chinook) in a very highly tuned class.
After winning at Cannes, followed
by the fi rst three races at Saint Tropez,
Kelpie’s fi nal race of 2018 is probably Pelham’s most special
memory from his 10 years of ownership. He explains: “My son
Colin was at the helm, fi ghting off every attempt to pass from
Spartan and Chips, 10-metre Marga and even Rowdy from
a diff erent class – all extremely fast. The crew were working
like Trojans to trim her perfectly, cheering on Colin who, in
light winds and a lumpy sea, was nursing gaff -rigged Kelpie
to point as high as Bermudan Rowdy!”
As they rounded the last mark Colin was determined
not allow the others with their asymmetrics to pass Kelpie
to windward. “He kept luffi ng and luffi ng, and just pipped
both Spartan and Rowdy to the line. It was thrilling.”
Kelpie had won comfortably on handicap, but had
snatched line honours too, with Colin at the helm. Pelham
says “remembering all these beautiful big yachts, fully
powered up, in close proximity, being sailed skilfully to
the limit of their capacity, thundering to the fi nish” was
a wonderful memory, and one he will never forget.Kelpie is available for charter this year. Contact Lucy Jones:
[email protected]C
hatting to Pelham Olive about his best memories from
10 years with Kelpie (Mylne 1903), I learned what it
takes, and what it feels like, to bring one of the truly
thoroughbred classics back to her competitive best.
His memories of that fi rst season, especially the 2009
Mylne Regatta up in Scotland, are vivid and clear. “She was
very heavy, but we had one marvellous race, sailing dead
downwind.” Apparently grey skies had unleashed a torrent of
rain, verging on hail at one point, killing the breeze, but Pelham
describes the beautiful calm sunshine that followed. “There
was the mainsail up, and the topsail, and her spinnaker out
on the opposite side, and a huge foresail behind the mainsail
fi lled with the draft from the spinnaker – three large sails, all
fi lled, as we drifted very gently away from the fl eet.”
They won by more than an hour – a portent of things to
come. Andy Cully, of classicyachtinfo.com, was trimming
every aspect of Kelpie’s rig, assisted by Fairlie’s Duncan
Walker, marine architect Paul Spooner, and Mark Butler
of Jimmy Lawrence – a fi ne and
professional crew with the competitive
determination (and salty vocabulary)
of seasoned seafarers. Quite a moment.
Later, down south at the BCYC, in much
stronger winds, it was obvious that Kelpie
needed a complete overhaul. “Coming back
up through the Needles, very fast, in a
strong south westerly, with that vast tiller,
it took two, or even three of us, at times to
hold her,” says Pelham. He has a fi lm of the
stern disappearing underwater for up to
a minute at a time. “Kelpie the submarine”
had to be rid of that extra weight; two steel
watertanks, the tiled heads, and endless
other remnants of her cruising days, were
stripped out over the next three years of
winter refi ts.
Pelham then took Kelpie to the Med.
After she had won her fi rst four races at the
Conde de Barcelona, they scooped the next
three regattas, and it was obvious her 222
allowance was too generous for sporting competition. “I must
be one of the very few who have written to CIM suggesting
their boat’s rating needed adjustment because it was too
good!” says Pelham. Once it was reduced to 189, a rival crew
member commented gleefully “now we will beat you”, but at
Cannes, Pelham used this for a Henry V style speech, when
Kelpie was lying second overall in the rankings, and quite far
behind in the vital fi nal race. “Once more unto the breach”
they went, speeding home to win yet again.
The fi rst year in the Med was very successful, where the
crew were licked into shape by the veteran Mike Ingles. They
were also famous for the hospitality of the “Kelpie bucket”
into which went bottles of spirits contributed by thoughtful
crew members, and from whence “liberal portions of curious
cocktails” were served to all visitors. Between 2010 and 2013
Kelpie won some, lost some, but was generally placed. The
small gaff er class became more and more competitive until,
towards the end of the period, Chinook, owned by Graham
Walker, joined the circuit and proved unbeatable.
In 2014, Pelham took Kelpie to Norway for Europe Week
and gave himself a new challenge. “I changed classes to pit“I must be one of
very few to ask CIM
for a worse rating”Kelpie
under sail