DAWN
invites me along but I’ve seen the weather forecast and
when he too sees those narrowing isobars heading for
Biscay he decides to delay his trip.
Andrew Massey, who led the restoration, doesn’t
blame him. “I’m not sure I’d be up for a long sea voyage
in such an old yacht,” he says. Massey has come to
know every inch of her since stripping away the first
stern plankings in January and realising the job would be
bigger than anyone had thought.
“She came in needing a few planks replacing, or so we
thought, but we soon discovered that wasn’t the case.
The top half of the stern post had to be replaced due to
extensive rot as a result of water leaking through the
deck. When I took it apart I found that Dawn is on her
third stern post now.”
And that was just the start. Many of the hood ends- the ends of the planks that fit to the stern post – were
also rotten. Since Dawn is planked in long lengths of
pitch pine, these were repaired by scarfing new ends on
to them rather than replacing the whole plank.
“The hull itself – pitch pine on an oak frame – was in
pretty good condition. But there were many localised
Below: The
interior, looking
forwardsrestorations. “We take on apprentices but it’s hard to
keep them,” says Boarer. We talk of boats and the price
of wood and the passion of yacht restoration that can
never be about enrichment. Enrichment in classic boats is
the work of restoration, not profit in your pocket.
Money and work go one way – in to the boat. But it’s
more than that. It’s money, work and love.
“I love to be working on the boat,” says Reid.
“Working on her is as satisfying as sailing her.”
It’s mid afternoon before we finally reach the boat and
the wind has got up, gusting over 20kts. I can’t see her at
first and, when I do, she doesn’t look much on the
pontoon a few hundred yards up from the clutch of
marinas in West Cowes. Paddling over, all we can see is
the bowsprit and a couple of stubby masts poking clear
of the blue awning on the cabin cruiser moored
alongside. Yet, coming up close, there’s something
reassuring about the profile and rig of Dawn, a canoe
yawl built in 1905 at the Falmouth yard of WE Thomas.
Canoe yawls have a special place in the history of
leisure yachting on both sides of the Atlantic, but they’re
rare sights, even among classic boats. Most canoe yawls
are relatively small yachts, owing much to the doyen of
this design, Albert Strange, who developed the class from
earlier designs of George Holmes.
Dawn was designed by a pupil of Strange,
Tynemouth-born Gilbert Umvreville Laws, who worked
out of Burnham-on-Sea for most of his life, even finding
time to compete and win gold for Great Britain in the
1908 London Olympic Games, helming his own-
designed 6-M yacht, Dormy, off Ryde. Laws died in
1918 at the age of 48 after being taken ill while serving in
the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in the Mediterranean
during the Great War. He designed two yachts called
Dawn. Dawn II, the smaller of the two is bermudan
rigged. The first, Dawn – the one I’m stepping on to now
- is back on the water after a restoration earlier this year
at Gweek Boat Yard in Helston, Cornwall.
“She sails well and she’s sturdy,” says Reid, who plans
to take her down to Spain where he has a house. He