away, disillusioned after uncovering more and more rot.
But I was hooked. I parted with the money in a
moment of elation and budgeted to spend £6,000
restoring her. Two years...and 24,000 Notes later, Sea
Jay was relaunched in a fully restored state, and 17 years
on, I’m just as much in love with her as I was the day I
found her in 1999.
The dream that kept us going through those two
years, devoting most evenings and every weekend to the
task, was to get Sea Jay ready to compete in the
JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race.
It’s known as the race for cruising sailors, attracting
16,000 yachtsmen from around the world. To have the
event on my doorstep was simply too much to ignore. To
race a classic wooden yacht, one so beautiful as Sea Jay,
well, it just had to be done.
Sea Jay was one of five Rhodes 6-tonners built in
1965 by John Swinburne & Co in South Shields to a
Some of the huge Round
the Island Race fleet
rounds The Needles in
calm conditionsmasthead-rigged design from Paul H Rhodes MRINA.
We have since tracked down all the others in this class,
together with one built from plans in Ireland after her
owner spotted a picture of Sea Jay in Classic Boat and
wrote in asking for more information. The original sales
leaflet describes the R6 as a custom-built quality yacht of
traditional timbers and probably the smallest in which
four adults or a family can cruise in comfort. I couldn’t
describe her better!
The hull is carvel constructed with splined Brazilian
mahogany planking over elm timbers and an Iroko
backbone. Her traditional long-keeled hull and cut-away
forefoot gives her remarkable directional stability
forwards, but going astern, like most long keelers, she
has a mind of her own. Hopefully there’d be no going
backwards in our Round the Island experiences.Turn over for Sea Jay’s restoration >
JOE MCCARTHY