Classic Boat – June 2019

(Marcin) #1

6 CLASSIC BOAT JUNE 2019


FARIDA


Above left: tiller


rises out of the


king plank on the


aft deck; owner


John Richardson;


a new ash block


T


he effect that Farida has when you first see


her is hard to explain. Even at her mooring


in Gosport’s Haslar Marina on a hot day


early last summer, there was a buoyancy


and purpose and... oh, forgive me, god of


clichés... elegance to Farida that compelled the eye to


return over and over again. The mysterious allure of this


yacht is made all the harder to understand when you


consider her designer, Jack Laurent Giles (1901-1969).


Now, Laurent Giles was, without any serious doubt, one


of the most innovative British naval architects of all time,


a designer who, in his heyday of post-war Britain, knew


for many years what it was to stand on the shoulders of


the world. His technical brilliance is well documented,


and its effects are still with us today. Among his


(debatable) firsts were the coachroof-stepped mast, and


doghouses for smaller yachts (as on the 30ft/9.1m LWL


Etain drawn in 1931).


The names of some of his light, fast racing yachts are


household names these days – in the right households of


course. Among them are Myth of Malham (with John


Illingworth), Gulvain, Sopranino and Lutine. Despite


this slew of radical yachts, he is remembered these days


mostly for the stout, traditional little Vertue Class, much


as NG Herreshoff is most remembered for his H12.


dinghy; never has Norman Skeen’s great, if terribly sober,


truism “originality is rarely the key to success” seemed


so true. As much as anything though, Laurent Giles is


known today as a designer who pushed the edge of


aesthetic sensibilities – many of his designs are divisive.


Whooper, for instance, the 37ft (11.3m) Bermudan


sloop of 1939 that has arguably won more races than


any other yacht in the classic yacht revival of today


(she’d have to share that imaginary podium spot with


Dorade), is imbued with a clarity of purpose, but is not


picture-postcard pretty. The little Sopranino, while a


startling boat of innovative gestation (a dinghy with a lid


to ride the great waves of the ocean blue, essentially)


fulfilled her brief brilliantly, but these days is poignantly


dated, her reverse sheer and curvy lines a portrait of the


misplaced optimism of a now-forgotten future.


Farida is different from anything else out there. Her


near-plumb sawn-off counter, tumblehome at the stern


and lovely doghouse (Laurent Giles certainly knew how


to draw doghouses that didn’t look like Thomas the


Tank Engine) work together to form an arresting,


handsome silhouette. Her name describes her well. It’s


an Arabic word that appears in its native language as


a lovely calligraphic squiggle that must reach its English


translation through some sort of cultural, as well as


linguistic, transliteration because no two definitions


are the same. But the words that crop up most often are


‘unique’, ‘precious’ and ‘beautiful’. Farida is all three.


I hopped on, careful and shoeless, and tried to look


proprietorial, while waiting for the real owner, John


Richardson and photographer Lester McArthy to arrive.


This was to be one of her first shakedown sails after a


comprehensive, six-year restoration. Farida was built,


optimistically you might think, the same year as


Whooper, and launched at the start of World War Two


in 1939 by RA Newman and Sons of Poole in Dorset,


possibly for Mr Newman himself. He is registered as


the owner from launch until 1948, but whether it was


for personal use or perhaps built speculatively in yard


downtime, is not known. Mr Newman’s address at the


time – 76 Chesterfield House, London W1, an elegant


apartment block in Mayfair – suggests either was


possible. After 1948, Farida went through the usual


succession of owners and cropped up in two Beken


photos in 1951 and 1952, in the Solent, swooshing along


in black and white, with an old-fashioned symmetrical


spinnaker flying from the mast. She was owned, at that


point, by a Cecil E Donne, of Cowes, Isle of Wight.


FARIDA AND THE GULF WAR


Half a century after she was launched, Farida had not


changed much but warfare had. You will remember, no


doubt, the endless footage of green lights strobing the


sky as one Iraqi Scud missile after another was chased


and downed by American Patriot missiles, the footage


of bombs being laser-guided through air vents in the tops


of buildings, General Schwarzkopf (“it’s hammer time”)


those wide, low American Humvees, stealth bombers


and Saddam Hussein’s moustache. Of course, war


is never trivial, but the iconography of that conflict


is so powerful because this was the first war that was


broadcast live to the world. And out there in the desert,


covering it all for ITV, was Michael Nicholson. “I covered


that war with an old wooden boat to savour in the few


quiet moments between shelling and it was the thought


of her and what I was going to do with her when I got


back that kept me sane,” Michael told CB years later.


Michael had bought Farida on a very rainy New Year’s


Day in 1991, the day before he left for the Middle East.

Free download pdf