Virtue Fidelis, seen here, is a very special boat. She was commissioned by Stanley Glanfield in 1951 just when a committee of experts were looking for special exhibits for the forthcoming Festival of Britain in London. Her builders, Stebbings, of Burnham on Crouch, must have been delighted when she was chosen to be one of those outstanding exhibits to illustrate the best of British craftsmanship. She was launched as Festival Vertue. Since then, she has had very few owners, and is now based in Dartmouth where she has been racing in Start Bay…Read more

I am delighted to report that WoodenBoat Magazine have just published a completely new article about The Vertues in their July/August 2020 issue Number 275. Their commission last autumn enabled me to spend some serious time going back over my years of archives, and extending them to improve our understanding of how these tough little yachts developed. I have also spent time researching the context of their evolution and putting forward what influences Jack Laurent Giles might have been aware of when the first boats of the class were conceived. I'm tempted to…Read more

Stelda running south towards Barbados. Just about now, half a century ago, when all the razzmatazz and the media sensationalism of the Golden Globe Race was more or less dying away, Peter Woolass was completing final preparations for his own singled-handed voyage.  It was not around the world, nor was it a race, but along with a growing number of competent, determined amateur yachtsmen, Peter wanted to see if he could sail across the Atlantic Ocean himself.  The book that resulted from the experience is described elsewhere on this website, and is a…Read more

Above: Andrillot Sail Plan as redrawn by Uffa Fox. This little gaff cutter Andrillot was launched at the Swanwick yard of Moody Bros. for Richard Kinnersley in the spring of 1936. Although she was later to become known as the first of the Vertue class, her rig was very similar to that of her first rival, Eric Hiscock’s Wanderer II. When the two boats raced each other, and later sailed in company, Andrillot was found to be slightly faster to windward, with her slightly longer waterline length and fuller sections. Eric also explained…Read more

Above: Northam Vertue in California. Here is a sight to gladden the eye of any Vertue enthusiast! Out of the blue I get an email from Scot Copeland on the West Coast saying that he has just bought this boat. He writes: “Hello Roger, I’m glad you replied so swiftly. So, the story goes like this: I’ve always known and respected the Vertue class, to the extent that as a young boatbuilder I enquired with Giles Ltd. about obtaining plans. Nearly 20 years ago I came across this exact boat. She was slipped…Read more

Above: Sally II in Scotland It’s sometimes said that if you collected any half a dozen Vertues together that no two of them would be the same. Well, thanks to some of the many kind people who have been sending in photos and stories to the website while we’ve been on our travels, here’s half a dozen collected Vertues to prove it. Adrian Morgan, boatbuilder, philosopher, historian and muse par excellence, recently sent some new photos of his lovely Sally, ‘vertue’ number 2, and I have to start with this one. Here is…Read more

The thing about a Newsletter is that sometimes there isn’t much news. My VertueYachts inbox has been strangely quiet for the past few weeks which only goes to show that even Vertue enthusiasts have another life around Christmas time, perhaps quite separate from their boats. Of course, for some of us, the search for enlightenment continues, largely unabated, through the winter, and for me this was recently rewarded with the revelation of a proverbial ‘thousand words’ worth of information about Gay Vertue. This rather grubby cover image appeared amid a pile of old…Read more

(Above: Bettina racing in the Trieste Barcolana regatta) When Edwin Mazzanti first told me about the group of Vertues that occasionally sail together around Venice and Trieste I had no idea that the ‘Adriatic Fleet’ represented the most spirited collection of classic Vertues in the world! They not only cruise in company but every year they race together as part of the wonderful Trieste Barcolana regatta, and award a beautiful silver plate to their own champion. This is a great example to those of us who would like to sail together in the…Read more