DAWN
J
ulian Reid extends a welcoming hand as I
come off the Red Jet in Cowes. He’s taller and
older than I’d expected, Knox-Johnston
vintage I’d say, and I dare say just as hardy.
When a man can shimmy to the spreader and
paddle against the draining Medina tide
without breaking sweat, age is immaterial.
“We could doss down on the boat or stay at the
squadron,” he’d said in his note.
My kind of sailor, not least since he tells me he has
booked us in to the Royal Yacht Squadron after all. I
hadn’t brought a tie but it didn’t matter to Christopher
Sharples, the commodore over breakfast, dressed, as he
must, in double-breasted black blazer and black tie,
worn in mourning for Admiral Nelson.
The commodore was clutching a wad of press cuttings
from the squadron’s 200th anniversary celebrations, all of
which were positive. The squadron has tried hard in
recent years, he says, to rid itself of a stuffy image that
has never been deserved. True, there are strong
traditions and plenty of quirks, but that makes the old
castle all the more endearing to its members. They
stand on ceremony, but not on much else.
We watch the racing a while from an airy lounge –
two hectic starts, all jostling on the water, close shaves
and penalty turns under the noses of the squadron’s
black-capped officials whose expertise has quietly
pioneered sail racing disciplines for 200 years.
It was the squadron that came up with the sensible
rule that says port tack must give-way to starboard.
Imagine racing without it.
But we’re not here to race. I’ve come to Cowes to
look over Reid’s latest venture, the restoration of a
canoe yawl, one of two projects he embarked upon to
commemorate the squadron’s anniversary. The first
was a book, compiling all the information he could
find on the squadron’s original membership.
One of Reid’s hobbies is genealogy and the book took
him in to some rich archives, researching original
members such as the Earl of Uxbridge, the colourful
cavalry commander who lost his leg to a cannonball at
Waterloo when seated near Wellington on his horse.
The limb’s removal was so sudden that he exclaimed:
“By God Sir, I’ve lost my leg!” Wellington, ever the
phlegmatic commander, looked down and said:
“By God Sir, so you have!”
A fascinating read with some rare illustrations, but
I’ve come to see the yawl. We could take a water taxi but
choose instead to walk through West Cowes, bobbing in
briefly to the Max Aitken museum – not so briefly, as it
turns out. If you haven’t been there, make sure you go,
when next in Cowes. It’s an old sail loft, converted to
house Aitken’s collection of sailing memorabilia,
including the gaff of Britannia, George V’s yacht that
was scuttled in line with his wishes after his death.
Across the lane from the museum, we chat over coffee
and Portuguese custards, then stop by Lallow’s yard for
a nosey and chinwag with its owner Laurie Boarer. For
those who love wooden boats, Lallow’s at season’s end is
a store of treasures. Up on chocks is Ted Heath’s former
yacht, Morning Cloud II, now renamed Opposition.
She’s a regular at the classic boat regattas and looks as
majestic out of the water as she does in it.
I can’t help noticing a clinker-built corribee, Corribee
II, that looks a little gem. It was a corribee that Dame
Ellen McArthur sailed around Britain at the start of her
illustrious sailing career. Across the workshop is an
unusual Fife, Peregrine, that looks quite different from
other Fifes – more broad beamed. She needs a bit of
work outside and in, but once restored, she’ll make a fine
cruiser for someone when the current owner is ready to
part with her, which may be quite soon, I’m told.
The UK needs experienced boatyards like this if it is
to consolidate a growing reputation for classic yachtJulian Reid at the
helm of Dawn
and, below, the
rudder stock
head