Classic Boat – September 2019

C

C

raftsmanship

BE

KE

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Noryema II

racing in

1964

Work on Clarionet

at Traditional

Shipwright Services

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

Email: steff [email protected]

Yard News

On a sunny 8 July, one of

England’s well-known post-war

racing yachts rose into the air

above a canopy of thick Cornish

forest. She’s Noryema II, named

backwards after her famous

skipper Ron Amey. She was one

of the three British yachts on the

winning Admiral’s Cup team of

1963, the heyday of the race, and

a year in which Noryema II and

her fellow fl eet members (Outlaw

and Clarion of Wight), beat off

America, Holland, France, Sweden

and Germany to take the glory

home. The 44ft 10in (13.7m),

traditionally planked bermudan sloop was designed by Alan Buchanan in

1962, and bears all the designer’s hallmarks, and was built by William King of

Burnham on Crouch.

For new owner Gary West, Noryema II had an even more important owner

than Ron Amey: Gary’s father, who bought her shortly after that race, and

re-named her Rosheeba, as the name Noryema was obviously very particular

to Ron, who also needed to give subsequent yachts that name. She went

through many name changes and changes of roles between the 1960s and

now, most recently decades of stillness under a polytunnel in the Cornish woods.

Her brief airborne moment (thanks to a crane) ended, when she was put on

the back of a lorry and taken to Hayling Island Yacht Company for a complete

rebuild. When she emerges as good as new, she will once again sail with her

original name.

Legends of the solent to return

CLARIONET

NORYEMA II

The racing career of the 39ft 9in (12.1m) bermudan sloop

Clarionet must be one of the most consistently successful of

any yacht. She was designed by Sparkman and Stephens

and built by Lallows of Cowes, in traditional carvel, in 1966.

In her fi rst season alone, she won too much to list here,

including Cowes Week overall, and she’s been notching up

wins ever since, many of them in the Fastnet. Part of this is

attributable to her modern (for the time) underbody of

separate keel and rudder, part of it to her low displacement

(just 6.4 tonnes). Most noticeable of her race-winning

features though, is the raised deck area around the mast

which gives her an unusual appearance. She was built to

race in the One-Ton Class, but soon moved into IRC, whose

rule at the time included the measurement from the top of the

deck camber to the tip of the mast, so the deck was re-done

at Lallows to raise it, in order to lower that measurement

without shortening the mast. “It gave her an ugly deck

bulge, that, although part of her identity for many, is not

what Stephens ever intended,” said naval architect and

project manager Paul Spooner, “and it’s not in line with the

wishes of the new

owner, who wants to

race her in the

classics.” She will also

receive a wooden rig.

The work is being

done at Traditional

Shipwright Services.

Two of the most famous yachts of the 1960s, both of which made their names

racing on the Solent, are set to make big comebacks after restoration.