CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2019^55become her next yacht: the classic 8-M Ilderim II (now named
Athena), a 1939 8-M from Tore Holm, one of the master
designers of the Universal Class. She had an engine and good
interior but turned out to need a substantial rebuild, and ended
up stripped out to race. “I now had two 8-Ms! One [Siris] had
my heart, the other was the better boat.” In fact, Siris was better
in light airs. She sailed through a Mediterranean storm in 2005,
making a steady six knots just under bare poles.
Around this time, Avia was keen to race harder and switched
down to the more popular 6-M class to learn lessons she could
take back to the 8s, as the 6-M class was actively developed
until later than the 8s. By 2007 she had sold Ilderim II (she
would hold onto Siris until 2018) and all her 6-Ms (bar one,
Tempest) to help fi nance a bold project. It is worth noting that
by this point, Avia had already won the coup d’Italia and the
coup de France, major yacht races contested in rotating classes,
including the 6-M and 8-M classes. But it was not enough: that
bold project, started in 2009, would be the commission, design
and build of a new 8-M yacht to be the
fastest in the world. By the time Miss U
was launched in 2014, there was not
much time for trials. “She fl ew upwind
but was a dog downwind” said Avia. By
2017, Miss U fulfi lled her brief and won
the worlds in Norway. She’ll race again
this year, then this winter, after exhaustive
research, have a new keel fi tted to make
her, Avia hopes, the fastest 8 in existence
at the 2020 Worlds in Holland.
That’s quite enough of the moderns for
these pages, and it seems Avia will have
had enough of them pretty soon as well:
her new 8-M project is a replica build of
the 1938 S&S yacht Prelude, the original
of which sank on her delivery trip near
San Diego, California.
“I kidnapped Olin Stephens when he
came to England” Avia reveals. She fi rst
met the great man (1908-2008) in 2001 in
Finland. “I already knew about Prelude,
so we got chatting and I persuaded him to sell me the rights to
build her anew. But there are lots of mysteries in the drawings,
so I really wanted to quiz Olin about them.” Not long after that,
Avia took her chance at an S&S meeting in England. “Ted
Heath [ex-British Prime Minister] was there, along with Olin,
among others. I got to meet them both. This was where I
kidnapped Olin and took him back to my house in Warsash for
three days. He became part of the family and played with the
kids. We talked about painting, his war and everything else
besides.” It’s worth mentioning that Avia fully endorsed Halsey
Herreshoff’s endorsement of Olin – “simply the best man there
ever was,” – and Avia got the answers she needed about the new
replica Prelude, for which she’s been collecting timber over the
years, with some of it built into various components, awaiting
for the build proper to begin. “My heart is in the classics. I’ll be
60 in 2021, and my plan is to swallow the anchor in the
moderns, sell Miss U [the modern 8-M] and spend my
retirement pottering on Prelude.” Sounds like a plan.
Avia made a particular request that we acknowledge in print
Theo Rye, late naval architect and CB technical editor, for all the
help he has given her over the years.W
hen people tell you they are “straightforward,”
be on your guard because it can sometimes mean
a brittle façade that hides an insensitive or
aggressive interior. In Avia’s case though, it
simply means she does not speak in lies or euphimism. She is well
known as the one of the world’s top metre boat sailors and, more
than that, a force within the International Class, particularly in
terms of the 8-Metres. She’s also the owner of Universal Marina
on the River Hamble near Southampton, which is where we have
met for a sandwich and a coffee. It’s the 8-Ms we’ve met to
discuss, what with the class having its worlds in Cowes this
20-27 July. Now, almost any other class sailor would jump at the
interview as a chance to evangelise, but Avia recognises the class’s
limited appeal – on paper at least. These are not the best boats
for racing, after all, particularly in Britain where entire fl eet of 8s
(modern and classic) can probably be counted on two hands.
Most of the moderns are on Canada’s Lake Ontario and the only
decent concentration of classic 8s is in Scandanivia – particularly
Finland. The fact they are racing yachts
means they are not particularly good for
cruising. Nor are they plentiful, or cheap.
And, as Avia herself (straightforward,
remember) puts it, “we’re at the end of an
era in this class. It’s hard to build a new one
when you have to ship it to Canada to race.”
So, the questions remains: why an 8?
“Mental obsession! When you race one, the
power and momentum feel very different to
a plastic fantastic. When modern,
competitive sailors try it, they don’t realise
- they think you can throw it around. You
have to do everything more calmly and
slowly to preserve momentum.” Much of
that will apply to any classic yacht of course,
but the reason Avia loves the 8s particularly
is the size. “6-Ms are too small. They are like
little ponies - they jump around. And 12-Ms
are huge. That’s a whole different level. The
8-M is on a human scale – the perfect size.
It’s like da Vinci’s man in a circle. They relate
to human form.”
Avia was brought up in Surrey and the Sussex coast and
started sailing dinghies at about 10, but never competed. By the
time she had gained her degree and become an architect, Avia
was more interested in racing cars than yachts. This is hardly
surprising when you consider that her father, John Willment of
JW Automotive, was one of the key players behind Ford’s
famous Le Mans 24-Hour victories in 1968 and ‘69. Avia raced
with some success in suped Austin 7s, Formula V and Sports
- After the birth of her two children, a friend got in touch to
say there was an “old classic yacht” on a pig farm in Norfolk. “I
had no idea what is was” said Avia, who bought it on sight. It
won’t surprise you to learn that it was an 8-M: Siris, a second
rule boat from Morgan Giles, built in 1925. In 1999, Siris
headed from pig farm to Fairlie Restorations and a year later
emerged as new, engineless and pure, to race in Italy and the
south of France in the fi rst season of her second life.
She was a beautiful boat – and the wrong boat. “I made a few
mistakes with Siris, thinking she would be good for family
cruising, but an engineless 8 is not ideal for that.” The next year,
campaigning Siris in Sweden, Avia came upon what was to
“I kidnapped
Olin Stephens
when he came
to England”JAMES ROBERTSON TAYLOR