BRITISH CLASSIC YACHT CLUB^
Entries open for Panerai
British Classic Week
This year's event will run from 16-23 July and see
classic motorboats welcomed to the fleet. There is
space for up to 10, and entries will be considered
individually. Last year a record 79 yachts attended,
with many big-name classics coming from the USA
and Med, partly to attend the Royal Yacht Squadron’s
Bicentenary Regatta the following week. This year the
event is unlikely to match those numbers but
expressions of interest suggest there will be more
than 50 yachts, with first-time participants from
France and further afield. Racing will once again be
organised by Royal Yacht Squadron Racing.
CB is sponsoring the Long Inshore Race, a testing
windward/leeward course over 28 miles in the Solent.
The Around the Island Race, sponsored by EFG
International, will take place on Monday 18 July. Enter
via the BCYC website britishclassicyachtclub.org.
See page 52 for our events guide.12 CLASSIC BOAT APRIL 2016Tell Tales
Photographers Beken of Cowes have done sterling work
listing the vessels lost in the big fire at the Medina Yard on
25 January. The list now stands as follows: five Dragons
(Rapier, The Old Bailey, Virago, Aimee and Excite); five
XODs (Anitra, Delight, Sapphire, Xin Bai and Leading
Wind); 16 Etchells yachts; Espada (Bruce Farr Quarter-
Tonner, 1978); Fedoa of Bute (58ft/17.7m Mylne ketch,
1927); Kariat (35ft/10.7m steam launch, 1897); Witch
(36ft/11m Charles Sibbick yacht, nearly restored, 1902);
Cornucopia (23ft/7m Christina powerboat, 1960s vintage)
and Vere (40ft/12.2m Admiralty Naval pinnace, 1905). It
seems that early reports about the loss of many GRP
production yachts were erroneous.Dunkirk Little Ship Vere
The conversion of Vere from a 1905 Admiralty Naval
pinnace to a 40ft (12.2m)-long teak-hulled cabin cruiser
featured in the October 1925 issue of The Motor Boat,
writes Andrew Rosthorn. Captain BG Fray installed two
engines and added a foresail, a gaff-rigged mainsail and a
small mizzen. She broke down twice on her way to Dunkirk
in 1940 to partake in the famous Operation Dynamo
evacuation but rescued 346 men from the beaches.
One of her later owners, a schoolmaster named
Perfect, found two German machinegun bullets in her
solid oak frames. She burned out in the Medina fire not far
from her probable birthplace at the J Samuel White
Shipyard, where Barnes Wallis, designer of the geodesic-
framed Wellington bomber and the bouncing bomb
worked as an apprentice draughtsman.
(There is also inconclusive evidence that she may have
served as tender to HMS Dreadnought in World War I - ed)EMILY HARRISEAST COWES, IOW
After the fire
Photo comp
This year’s National
Historic Ships (NHS)
Photography Competition
opens for entries in April.
Keep an eye in these
pages for more details,
or at the NHS website,
nationalhistoricships.org.uk.
The photo above - Gerry
the Boat Gypsy by Chrissie
Westgate - won last year's
'Faces of the Sea' category.PETER MUMFORD/BEKEN OF COWESBEKEN OF COWESC/O ADLSCHRISSIE WESTGATEClockwise from top: Dunkirk Little Ship Vere: the 1897 steam
launch Kariat; aftermath of the fire; and Mylne ketch Fedoa of ButeDAVID STODDART-SCOTT