Classic Boat – July 2019

Craftsmanship

©^

EL

LE

N^ M

AS

SE

Y^ L

EO

NA

RD

Edited by Steff an Meyric Hughes: +44 (0)207 349 3758

Email: steff [email protected]

Yard News

For the past eight years, reconstruction of the fi rst ship built

by English colonists in North America has been under way

on the waterfront at Bath, reports Ellen Massey Leonard.

The 51ft (15.5m) pinnace Virginia is being built as closely as

possible to history and almost entirely by amateur volunteers.

The original Virginia was built from August to October 1607

by the settlers of Popham Colony at the mouth of Maine's

Kennebec river, probably founded as a source of shipbuilding

timber. By December 1608, the colony had failed and all the

colonists had returned to England, many of them aboard

the ship they'd just built. The crossing must have been

far from the proverbial picnic, undertaken in winter and

in a shallow-draft pinnace intended for coastal exploration.

When the non-profi t organisation Maine's First Ship

was formed to reconstruct Virginia, the fi rst step was to

determine her exact form. No line drawings exist but by

working from written accounts and a sketch of the colony

that included a pinnace-like vessel, two naval architects

were able to draw up plans. Since 2011, volunteers under

the leadership of historic shipbuilding expert Rob Stevens

have been raising frames, laying planks, shaping spars and

fabricating wooden blocks for the rigging. While there have

been some necessary nods to modernity and US Coast

Guard requirements, the ship remains as historic as possible,

from the rig to the wooden “trunnels” (treenails) used for

fasteners. She will be launched in June 2020. See mfship.org.

MAINE

Early 17th century ship

replica in build

NAPIER SEA LION ENGINE

Rare classic engine looking for boat design

During research into the 1920s hydroplane speed queen Marion

‘Joe’ Carstairs, an eccentric English petrolhead and powerboat

racer, naval architect Jack Giff ord came upon – and has now

secured – a rare and intact Napier Sea Lion engine. Napier was

a leading pre-war engine manufacturer whose W12-format Napier

Lion, designed in 1917, was for many years the most powerful petrol

engine in the world, and powered countless speed records on land,

sea and air, for Malcolm Campbell, Supermarine (the engine is the

predecessor of the Rolls Royce R, then Merlin, that powered the

Spitfi re), and others. With its aluminium block, it was the fi rst

lightweight engine in the world, its 22.3-litre capacity producing

an output of up to 1,375hp, from a weight of under 400kg. The

marinised Sea Lion variant is these days a very rare beast, so Jack

was keen to save the engine with the idea of basing a motorboat

project around it.

Contact jack@jackgiff ord.co.uk