SUMMER NEWSLETTER AUGUST 2024
Here is the lovely Vertue Sumara in Salcombe this summer, on her way down Channel.
Welcome to the latest Newsletter. Once again, I am delighted to be able to bring you a variety of Vertual News from across the Globe. Our little fleet of diminutive vessels continues to entrance and amaze those of us who admire their feats and the dedication with which some of their owners keep them going. From the very last of the grp Vertues, via some quite remarkable examples of craftsmanship to restore two of the finest Ocean Vertues in England and California, to the re-commissioning of a celebrated South African boat we continue to cover the continents, to bring you more stories of these rugged little cruising boats. I’m also especially pleased to present the fifth instalment of the wider story of the Vertue Class by taking a brief look at another of the Jack Laurent Giles designs with close connections to our boats. The Normandy Class was developed out of the Vertue, and now a small Anglo-French group of owners and enthusiasts are celebrating something of a rennaissance in the fortunes of these good looking yachts.
I am very grateful to everyone who has contributed so much to this Newsletter: to both Hugh Davies and Geoffrey Purcell for the photos of their very different but equally beautiful seagoing boats. To Tony Holt and Scot Copeland, I can only say that I’m blown away by their skill and tenacity, and to Kieran Moore, Mike Holland and the gang of ‘Normandy‘ enthusiasts in the ‘coques en bois‘, I hope we will be able to support each other again in the future. Meanwhile, to all our growing number of loyal followers, I hope you enjoy another edition of the VertueYachts Newsletter.
New readers might like to know that a comprehensive data base of all known Vertues can be found by typing the name of any boat into one of the ‘Search’ boxes which can be found on every page.
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I have a very high regard for the grp Vertues. They may not be quite ‘right’ in some people’s traditional eyes, perhaps because they’re not wooden built, but their strength and ability at sea were proven once and for all when Daniel Hayes and his father David doubled the Horn in 1985 aboard the Sparrow. The last of these boats moulded by Bossoms, around the turn of the century, has recently been sailed single-handed to the Azores, along with other enthusiastic entrants in this year’s ‘Jester’ Challenge from Plymouth. She certainly looks ‘right’ to me and has just proved herself to be a serioulsy capable offshore cruising boat.
The last grp Vertue to be moulded, Eden Marindin.
Hugh Davies aboard his workmanlike Vertue, Eden Marindin which he sailed to the Azores and back this summer.
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ICE BIRD’S DEEP REFIT CONTINUES
With Tony Holt
Last summer I was able to make a ‘road trip’ east, accross the three counties of Devon, Dorset and Hampshire, to visit three venerable Vertues that were all undergoing what might be termed ‘Deep Refits’. One of them, Tony Holt’s Ice Bird, had been designed in 1951 as a direct result of Humphrey Barton’s infamous transatlantic passage with Kevin O’Riorden aboard the ‘conventional’ Vertue, to be forever known as Vertue xxxv. Ice Bird‘s amazingly skilled new owner has very kindly just sent a progress report showing the outstanding work he is doing.
Tony Writes “When you visited us last year I had removed the rotten sternpost assembly and keel deadwoods and was starting to make the replacement transom fashion pieces :
The lower part of the transom had suffered from electrolytic damage and the edges were broken away due to previous re-fastening efforts so had to be replaced.
As there was a considerable gap between the planks and transom, I made two formers to hold them in the correct position before I removed the the damaged piece………
… and fitted the new section.
Next came ‘the big one’: making the new sternpost and knee.
First a pattern for the changing bevel
Then on to the shaping
The completed assembly, seen here, below, lying on it’s back, so the table represents the transom with the knee that bolts to the keel to the right of picture.
“Then the saga continues……..
The sternpost in place with new floors and the fashion pieces fitted.
With the structure now secure it was time to tackle the broken frames/ribs.
As you may remember, most of the ribs cracked on Ice Bird’s maiden voyage or soon after. This was apparently caused by the very dry mahogany planking swelling and placing a great strain on the ribs.
She was returned to the builders, Aeromarine, who fitted doublers and, possibly, the brass strapping although this may have been added later.
All of them aft of the main bulkhead were found to be cracked in several places as were the doublers.
As they are notched into the keel and run behind the beam shelf I decided to replace them using laminated Iroko rather than steam bent oak, as they could then be fitted in two parts and joined with a long glued scarf joint once in position on the boat.
Each part of each frame comprised of 7 to 9 laminations so over 250 strips in total!
I had to devise a means of applying pressure to the laminates around the reverse curve of the tuck when completed.
Two new planks can be seen in the above picture, these were replaced due to being compromised by the number of refastening holes, as shown below.
The outer part of the sternpost and keel deadwood were now made and fitted using bronze bolts throughout..
A removable worm shoe was attached with bronze screws to the underside of the deadwood to cover the ends of the bolts.
There have, of course, been many other tasks along the way but the above pics tell the main story.”
(To read more about Ice Bird‘s history, just type Ice Bird into the Boat Search box on any page of this website.)
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Northam Vertue
Meanwhile, in the dry hinterlands of southern California, another Ocean Vertue is undergoing another ‘deep’ refit. Scot Copeland has recently sent some photos of the steady progress he is making. This is another example of awe-inspiring craftsmanship being lavished on one these outstanding boats.
Hello Roger! Good to hear from you. I am mid way through building a new rudder. I also needed to through rivet the laminated bulwarks. And a cockpit sole. I’ll attach photos for you. The rudder mahogany seasoned for a couple years up here in the high desert of California. I drilled and used two drifts in addition to gluing up with resorcinol.
Kindly,
Scot
Rudder template for the boat down the garden!
Shaping up the new rudder.
Much beautiful joinery work has also been completed by Scot down below, in Northam Vertue’s interior.
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THE VERTUE DESIGN DYNASTY PART V
THE NORMANDY CLASS
The Normandy Class Calluna pictured visiting the River Dart recently.
By 1958 the Laurent Giles design practice had already produced a number of ‘stock’ designs, as well as updating the evergreen Vertue, and many celebrated one-off commissions. However, demand for their latest ‘class’ yacht, the RNSA 24, was tailing off, so the Partners decided to create a new ‘line’.
‘Series Production’ wooden cruising yachts were not a new idea. For instance, T. Harrison Butler had seen 48 of his ‘Z 4 tonners’ built by 1939. There were the Maxwell Blake ‘Deben 4 tonners’, the Deben ‘Cherubs’ and, incredibly, Dan Webb had built 70 ‘Blackwater Sloops’ to their own design, in Maldon at the head of the Blackwater River in Essex. There were also Yachting Monthly ‘5 Tonners’, Yachting World ‘5 Tonners’ and another boatyard on the South coast Hamble River produced their own ‘Luke ‘5 Tonners’. Perhaps the attractive 18′ ‘Lymington L’ class yachts, that Giles had developed into Andrillot and Wanderer II in the winter of 1934, could also be said to belong to this range of handy inshore cruising yachts?
Other, larger cruising yacht designs had emerged from the little design office on Quay Hill in the quaint waterside market town of Lymington. The original Brittany now had 20 sister-ships, the Channel Class numbered 7 boats, and the early ‘motor-sailer’ Peter Duck design was heading well into the forties. However, the Wanderer Class had yet to be conceived, and I will be revisiting their origins in another article, and the grp hulled Vertues were still over 20 years away.
But in 1958 ‘The Partners’ now saw a potential demand for a slightly larger development of the Vertue, and Jack Giles wrote about some of their thought processes in an article in the March edition of Yachting World. The new boat would be ‘sensibly bigger’ than her older cousin; longer and with more beam. She was to have a counter stern and more freeboard, but she would also have less displacement. This was partly achieved by reducing the scantlings, but with the same waterline length of 21’6” these boats give the impression of floating rather more lightly ‘on’ the water, rather than ‘in’ it. This was certainly the impression I took away with me when Kieran Moore very kindly agreed to show me aboard his beautiful Normandy Calluna, here in Devon, recently.
Kieran in Calluna‘s saloon
Saloon looking forward
Normandy Class study drawings.
In the article, Jack Giles went on to say that ‘it is difficult to write of the Normandy without comparison with the Vertue’. With series production in mind the designers came up with three accommodation layout variations, all limited by the fixed set of bulkhead positions and all with the much larger cockpit than the Vertue.
One of these shows a conventional layout with the galley aft and heads forward in the focsle. Another similar layout varies the position of the galley to show it at the forward end of the saloon, abaft the deck-stepped mast, with the heads forward again. Incredibly, the third option suggested that it might be acceptable to provide two full-length berths in the focsle, and install the heads underneath the cook’s seat, in the saloon! I wonder if anyone ever took up this extraordinary design ‘option’?
Moving swiftly on to the design of the rig, this followed the general approach that these boats might “lead a less strenuous life than the tougher Vertue”. It was decided to opt for the much simpler and smaller three-quarter bermudan rig with jumper-struts and a single backstay to the end of the counter, thereby eliminating the need for runners of any kind. There was also clearly no need for any inner forestay. This is also the rig used aboard the RNSA 24 class, although they, as an ostensibly ‘racing’ class were provided with running backstays to stiffen the foretriangle.
It will be noticed that in profile the hull design was following the trend of cutting away the forefoot forward of the ballast keel, just like the RNSA 24’, and of course the famous Myth of Malham herself, presumably to reduce wetted surface area and therefore drag.
With greater freeboard, and a larger, longer cockpit, a typical Giles ‘sawn-off’ counter stern and the large doghouse, there is the feeling of being aboard a much larger yacht than the Vertue. It seems unbelievable that the two boats have the same waterline length. Down below, the illusion is further developed with light flooding into the main saloon from the four, large, doghouse windows, and pair of forward-facing lights to keep an eye on the foredeck and heads’ls. However, apart from having ‘Vertual genes’ in their dna, there are also clear similarities in hull profile between these boats and stunningly elegant Brittany class from the late 1930’s.
I have little doubt that these Normandys do indeed sail as quickly as Giles hoped, and I will try and persuade some current owners to tell us more about this in due course. But there is no doubt at all in my mind that Jack Giles succeeded in designing “As handsome a little yacht as we know how to make her!”
Laurent Giles Normandy Class Yachts
by Mike Holland
“Apart from what we have read in the Yachting World article of 1958, very little else seems to have been published about the class. However, for about the last 8-10 years an association in Pornic, which has been in posession of NY15 Anelor (ex ‘Normandy’) since 2008, has been researching the history and present status of these boats. Information has been taken from Lee & Philpott, the Laurent Giles Archives,(courtesy of the late Barry Van Geffen,) Lloyds Register of Yachts plus multiple sources on the internet such as sale adverts, club reports etc.
The full results of this research can be seen on the website in English and French https://coquesenbois.com/anelor/ where you can scroll to the bottom of the page to view five files of information.
The Normandy yachts Anelor ahead of Arvele in Pornic, southwest France, in 2018.
Anelor is the first boat donated to the association. She is an 8.60m wooden sloop launched at the Ernest Sibiril shipyard in Carantec on September 10, 1961.
There were about 26 Normandies built between 1956 and 1968. This was when GRP was radically changing the situation, but the Normandies were only ever produced in wood. Interestingly, the first owner of NY15 in France had the mast made of Aluminium, another ‘new’ development in yacht construction.
In the UK the boats were mostly built by small yards in the Solent and Chichester Harbour area, usually just one offs. Several were built in the Antipodes, one in Denmark and one in Italy. There may be others.
Two boatyards produced several Normandies. From 1960 – ’64 Alan Coombes of Bembridge built six. Ben Coombes says his grandfather was originally going to build Folkboats, but decided he could make more money from Normandies.
The yard of Ernest Sibiril of Carantec, Brittany, built at least three or maybe four. The first of which was NY15 in 1961, and the last was NY26 in 1968. There is no evidence of any Normandies being built after this date.
One of the French boats, NY19 Les Six Marie is the only shoal draft version found so far.
The standard rig specified by Giles was fractional, but he did draw up plans in 1962 for a masthead rig for les Six Marie and NY 21 Irene in Australia.
In the end the former settled for fractional rig (would this be linked to the fact that she was shoal draft?) but the plans were used for NY26, also built by Sibiril, in 1968. These are the only two boats thus fitted as far as is known to date.
Traces have been found of over half the fleet and several have managed to get together, but there is still along way to go. As the famous saying goes ʺ If anyone has information which may be useful….. ʺ they are welcome to get in touch via the ʺ formulaire de contact ʺ with the subject ʺ Normandy Sisterships ʺ or via Roger.”
Calluna on the posts for a scrub.
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Vertue Carina in South Africa
When we literally ‘dropped in’ on Vertue Carina in Simons Town earlier this year, we did so because we had heard that she had recently changed hands. I was keen to meet her new owner, Geoffrey Purcell, and to see the boat herself. After all she was the heroine of one of the few books written about a brave ocean voyage in a Vertue.
Unknown to me, she had not been used for a while, and looked a bit shabby, and much to Geoffrey’s dismay I proceeded to record the occasion which included the introduction of John and Karen Cross to their old boat, and her new owner. Geoffrey was making arrangements to have the boat slipped in order to give her the refit she clearly needed, but as we were only in Simons Town for one morning I felt I had to grab the opportunity and ‘snap away’!
But now Geoffrey has very kindly sent through some delightful up to date pictures of the original ‘Baby Boat’ of the 1970’s, and doesn’t she look smart again!
The refitted Vertue Carina gleaming in the South African winter sunshine.
Vertue Carina
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We are already working on future stories and news about Vertue Yachts and (after a decade!) we have now connected with a growing band of owners and supporters. In particular we are keen to show as many stories entitled ‘Me and My Boat’ as possible, as this will illustrate how differently we all relate to our boats, and also how different each one of this amazing ‘Class’ really are. One or two of you have asked for ‘guidelines’ but actually I’m leaving it up to you: the diversity will illustrate part of the attraction that these diminutive little cruising boats have. What is it that you find attractive about them? Is it the clearly expressed ‘working boat’ nature of their design, or the fact that, at only 25′ 3″ in length, they are cheaper to moor than most of their rivals? Is it the feeling of security at sea, underwritten by the tens of thousands of miles that their sister-ships have safely covered in the last 94 years, or is it the pleasing sheerline that greets you, and the cosiness of that snug little cabin that contains everything you need, almost within reach? 100 words or 1000 will do, but don’t be shy and please keep them coming!
Finally, we have been asked by a number of owners to ‘list’ when their boats become for sale, so please have a look at those that are currently on the market by clicking Vertues for Sale on the top bar on the home page. You can find your very own Vertue right here!
Fair winds and following seas!
Roger
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