30 CLASSIC BOAT NOVEMBER 20171963 ADMIRAL’S CUP
Facing page:
Outlaw racing at
Cannes.
Inset, from top
left: distinctive
coachroof;
looking aft, the
surviving
companionway
to the left, galley
to the right;
mainsheet track
with Tufnol
block; saloonOUTLAW
LOA
48ft 9ins
(14.85m)LWL
39ft (11.8m)
BEAM
13ft (3.9m)DRAUGHT
8ft 2in
(2.5m)DISP
15 tonnes“Outlaw is an extreme lightweight Class I ocean racer of
an advanced type,” Yachting Monthly reported in April- “She has so many unusual and well-thought-out
features that she could claim to be the Yacht of the
Year.” The 1in (25mm) thick hull was made up of eight
layers of Honduras mahogany veneer “criss-crossed in
various directions, only the outer layer being laid fore
and aft above the waterline and finished for varnishing,”
but the centreline components, floors, frames and deck
beams were also laminated. This was considered to be
fairly revolutionary at the time, with Yachting Monthly
declaring that she was “believed to be the biggest cold
moulded boat in the world”.
She had a Perkins 4107 36hp diesel engine with a
slightly offset two-bladed propeller which was,
apparently, “designed specially”. The two most striking
features of Outlaw’s appearance were (and still are) her
reverse sheer and the position of the steering wheel at the
forward end of the cockpit.
Yachting Monthly pointed out that this would allow
the helmsman to “have more shelter with less motion
and be able to speak through the bulkhead portlight to
either the navigator or skipper,” and that “the battery of
sheet winches and the team of heaving and view-spoiling
winch-winders which go with them will be able to heave
and wind with the minimum of social friction”.
REVOLUTIONARY DESIGN
But perhaps her most revolutionary feature was hidden
from view. It was thought, by Yachting Monthly at
least, that with her flat run aft and her short keel, she
might “start a violent yaw one way or the other” when
sailing downwind in a good breeze and sea. “To
counteract this the designers have introduced... a 6ft
9in laminated wooden centreboard in a trunk in the
middle of the counter.”
Fresh from her Admiral’s Cup success and also having
won the 1963 RORC Class 1 Championships, the
following January Outlaw was exhibited at the London
Boat Show – which was sponsored by Aitken’s Express
newspaper in its early days – and in May of that year she
was sold to the English Grains Company.
In the 1965 Fastnet Race she was dismasted when,
according to Yachting World, “a spinnaker guy parted,
allowing the boom to crash onto the forestay. She
partially broached and when the main sheet was let go to
the extent that the main boom came against the lower
shroud, the mast gave up the unequal struggle.”
The following year she was sold to GR Fuller, who
owned Deacon’s Boatyard on the Hamble, and there
followed two more Solent-based owners – Brigadier
Philip Wakeham OBE and Bernard Bullough – before
Bob and Ann Fewtrell bought her in 1975.
They took her to the Caribbean and back, but in
1978 they laid her up at Shepards Wharf in Cowes and
put her on the market.
In 1982, Mike Horsley – who had recently started
his own business selling leather goods in the UK – waskeen to buy a boat in which to go cruising. “What I
really wanted was an S&S yawl,” he told me, “but
even in those days they were expensive. Then I saw an
advertisement for this Class I ocean racer called
Outlaw. I didn’t really know anything about her but
when I looked into her I realised she had quite an
interesting past.”
Mike asked his father – who was the classic yacht
broker Malcolm Horsley – to survey Outlaw for him.
Having been virtually abandoned for a few years, she
wasn’t in great condition. Water had been allowed to lie
in various places on deck, partly because she had been
badly chocked up and also because scuppers and limber
holes were blocked by leaves. But Mike was confident
that she had been built with good quality materials and
his father was able to highlight all her problems to the
extent that Mike knew from the start what needed doing
(and has never had any unpleasant surprises regarding
her condition since).
So he put down a deposit on her and set to work to
get her back in good condition. “I was very lucky
because at Shepards Wharf there were some really
good craftsmen,” said Mike, “including an engineer
and an electrician, and a really good shipwright called
Adrian Stone – all the artisans I needed to do the
work.” The main job carried out by Stone was the
renewal of the coachroof – which Yachting Monthly
had described in 1963 as “like a broad, shallow edition
of one of Mr Souter’s moulded dinghies” – but to the
same design and so retaining the slightly strange-
looking spaces each side of its aft end, which were
originally for liferaft stowage but now provide surfaces
for instruments, vents and portlights. The Fewtrells
had painted her topsides red and, although Mike was
keen to restore the varnished finish, when they were
burnt off he found that “there were too many scars to
do that”, so she was painted white.EX-PAT LIFE
About 18 months after he first saw her, and after a
cross-Channel shake-down voyage in “quite nasty”
weather, Mike and a crew set off across the Bay of
Biscay. Over the next few years, while still running his
UK business, Mike kept Outlaw in Lisbon, Gibraltar and
the Balearics – making further improvements to her and
cruising her along the way – before arriving in Antibes in
October 1989 at which time he began to work for his
father. For a couple of years he was heavily involved
with both businesses but, soon after Malcolm died
suddenly in 1991, Mike took over the brokerage
business full time. Over the following years he began to
specialise in selling classic boats and still does so today,
although in 2005 he sold his business to Nick Edmiston,
for whom he has worked ever since.
Since he arrived in Antibes, Mike has used Outlaw
less and less for cruising, and more and more for racing:
in fact these days delivery voyages to and from regattas
are the nearest he gets to cruising. Until 2003 Outlaw’sOUTLAW
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