I have once again been very lucky, and got myself another canoe, for racing within the CVRDA, and I was wondering, if anyone has any information on her. She is either K89 or K133 (although I would be a little surprised if she was), and of an obscure heritage, that may involve some parts of Europe, but I am very unsure of her background, so if anyone has some knowledge of her, it would all be gratefully received!
Many thanks,
Max
PS - Rob Michael, sorry for not getting back to you about the speed grip, I simply forgot, and am now on holiday, so it is quite tricky to contact you at the moment regarding the speed grip, so I apologise for that...
Wow that bow view looks interesting, slightly rounded bow line with a concave flow aft & a long aft chine running forwards if the picture is not distorting with shadows. If so then it's certainly not K133 which was the famous IC 'Tern' built in 1971 by Ken Davis & owned by Eric Twinham, a very famous IC sailor.
No history on K89 only that she must have been built around 1967, a Nethercot named 'Desafiado'. Sail numbers are not a guarantee of the boats number as many sails are sold on over the years & new owners sometimes leave the old numbers on.
It would be interesting to see more pictures of the hull from the bow looking aft if you could turn her over. You might have a one off there!
Sorry cant be of any more help yet, cheers, Rob M.
I sailed with Ken Davis at Harwich Town SC (in fact my first Canoe was Shrimp, K116 from memory, which was Ken's previous boat, built short to reduce wetted surface for a Worlds which Ken anticipated would be a light air event). I agree this is not Tern (K133) as I knew her. As Rob points out, both the bow profile and chine are 'wrong' for Tern. But has the chine been created by building out from the original hull?
Rob, when I get back I shall put her on her side, and take a photo, I agree it would be interesting to see her from that view, and no from what the picture looks like and the real thing, it is not distorted by shadows from what I can tell. Thanks for the very swift reply...
Perham, again, thanks for the reply. The chine from what I can see hasn't been built out from the original hull, looking from inside the hatches, it looks all original, so it is either that it has been built out very professionally, or, and as I would suspect, all original, as per the original build.
A very interesting boat! The hull shape is not clear from the photos. The chine looks very high in the photos, and I wonder if the boat satisfied the rise of floor rule. If not she would never have been registered, and may have just been an experiment. Sail numbers are a remarkable unreliable tool for identification. Unfortunately the picture of Eric Twiname sailing Tern in my book ( A History of Canoe Sailing in Britain.) is of poor quality and I no longer have copies of the original photo that I used in the book, but concur with other commentator that your is not K133. Is the boat ply, or fibreglass? looks like it should be ply, but Jack Holt was, I think, the only professional designer to design ply canoes. This suggests that it could well be an amateur design experiment.
It was suggested at some point, I should contact you, with your fantastic knowledge of the canoe class, so many thanks for the reply.
If it is any help, I think she is a plywood hull, but of course the decks are nothing to go by, and the inside of the hull is painted! But I would have thought she is a plywood boat (mostly because of the concave chine).
Unfortunately when I went to Draycote last Sunday, I found that the camera I took to take photos of her ran out of battery! But I have now got the mast up, and she is sitting in a berth, so (I am off on holiday soon, but after then) if there are any photos of her I can take (Rob Michael suggested I turn her on her side, to take a photo) for help of identification, I would be very happy to oblige!
Well, I seem to have ended up with an interesting one!
Max showed me his new boat at Draycote on Sunday after I came in from racing GBR 326. It has a rotating mast with no spreaders which I helped step with Max and his Dad, Liam. Max was speculating the boat may have been built about 1961. That year I was 18 and almost the same age as Max is now, so may be I was looking at what was a sate of the art IC when I was the age he is now! (Where have those 50+ years gone?!) If it is K89, according to the class list of boats (dated September 2001) it was named 'Desafinado' and the last known owner was 'M Hocking'. Where might he be now? No other details of the boat, such as its design or build date are recorded.
When I first started sailing in 1974 I bought 'The Boat World Guide to Sailing Dinghies' published at that date. The page showing an International Canoe (which had the lowest PY of any other dinghies in the book) has a picture of K81 ('Avalon') with an eight batten main sail, a boom extending about 18 inches beyond the foot of the sail to a 'transom'-led main sheet. The mast has no spreaders as far as can be seen in the photo which was taken by Peter Wells.
I wonder if Peter is still around as he may have moved after losing Joy who was the first IC sailor to adopt a fully battened main, with which she went on to win! (So all the men, including Peter, went to fully battened sails as well to avoid letting the women have all the fun and speed advantage!). Peter was class treasurer for many years. There is just a chance if anyone still has his contact details that he might know a bit more about the boat Max has bought? If Max were to contact our new class secretary, Tony Marsden (who has himself been in the class longer than almost anyone else) he might know something about this boat or have a contact for Peter. I wonder if Peter himself still owns 'Greensleeves, K74 listed as a 'Chippendale/Proctor', of which some five others of this design/make were made about at that time.
As for me, I am much more interested in my new boat than the oldie ones, but it is nice sailing in a class with a longer history than any other dinghy. This is something to brag about when strangers see my boat and say 'whatever is that?'
After posting the above, I thought others might be interested in the 1974 account of the International Canoe in the 'Boat World Guide to Sailing Dinghies' I mention in the post above. I quote the 'class secretary's comments' in 1974:
'With nearly 100 years of development behind it the modern International 10 Square Meter Canoe is a sophisticated yet robust craft which provides the ultimate form of racing under sail. As from 1st January '71 the canoe hull became governed by a one- design rule which will remain effective for the next five years. As a direct result a g.r.p. canoe has been produced which is available in various stages of construction. This low cost hull is making the class most attractive to single-handers. An 8 sq.m. rig with a shorter mast is under development for juniors.'
At the time I was still teaching myself to sail in a Mirror Dinghy! Fearful boats like the International Canoe were things one only read about! At that time I had never even seen one, let alone dreamt I would sail one in later life. Max is starting at the best age to do so.
Max, Thanks for the compliment. Unfortunately my knowledge isn't encyclopaedic, I returned all the source data, which I collected for the history, to the class archive. If your boat is 1961, then it is likely to be an earlier number than 89. If it is K89 then it is likely to be about 1964/5. This guess is based on the average rate at which boats were being built at that time, from Alan Emus's "Shrike" K67 (1959) to John Biddle's "Dicey" K101 (1967). I think I'm right on these numbers and dates, but the class records could confirm them. I've e-mailed Peter Wells to ask him if he has any recollection of a boat like your, and will let you know if he has anything useful to add.
Andrew E wrote: K67 (1959) to John Biddle's "Dicey" K101 (1967).
K76 was at the 1961 worlds and very new (just transcribed a YY report and put it on the International website) and the boat list I have says K91 was 1967, but K94 1966! The dates on my list are very odd because it claims K96 was 1969, and K100 1966. It agrees with K101 as 1967 though.
My presumption always was that this happens when a boat is registered and given a number before it is actually finished??
Reckon Max's boat is a strange one though.
Just a wild thought......could this canoe of been a german boat that was brought back to the UK from germany when a brit boat was imported there and needed another canoe to return to keep the paperwork correct?
Am really looking forwards to seeing some more photos which show hull shape more clearly.
I also have wondered if any of the 'Proctor/Chippendale' canoes have survived. Would be a nice boat to have and sail in classic events.
But then would also love to find another Holt canoe to the Conquest design. Conquest is of course still going strong, but it would be lovely to find another. We knew of one, but that was very bent and then scrapped. I wonder if there are any others.
cheers
eib
Ed Bremner
GBR314 - Silver Surfer
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Lowly forum moderator
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I think that Ed is quite correct, that on various occasions boats were given number out of sequence, or right at the start of a build that took longer than originally intended, so ending up out of sequence, with the dates recording when the boat hit the water. Having said that the discrepancies which Jim sees in the records look too big to be accounted for by this effect, and is probably just errors in housekeeping which were too difficult to clear up.
Peter Wells immediate reaction was that the boat in the photo looks as if it would fail to measure, and he doesn't remember any boats that looked like this one. May be a perspective problem in the photo, however, and some real measurements are probably needed. Interesting idea of Jim's that it may have come to the UK from Germany (presumably after the 1965 Worlds). In such a case the sail numbers would be meaningless, unless it was re-registered and would make it even more difficult to get information about.
I have heard from Peter Wells, who said that K89 Desafinado was one of a pair built on a modified Proctor 2 mould acquired from Jack Chippendale, So Max's boat does not appear to be that one.
Many thanks for thje interesting persective you have provided on the whereabouts of the boats history, and apologies for the long delay in my reply (I have just been off racing a 35 footer to La Rochelle, so I couldn't reply particularly easily...).
Anyway, regarding being a German boat, I am a little unsure on that, because, mistakingly I had put something along those lines, on the CVRDA forum, but Andrew Dron, the previous owner, said he had only bought the boat from a German trade show, and the owner before him, had said it was definitely an English boat. Although, where he got this knowledge from, I am not sure.
But, if anything can help you with the history of her, the sail which says K89 on, and (to confuse things more!) K133 on the other side (if memory serves me correctly - you see I haven't had a look at either main since late June, but shall have a look as soon as I have the opportunity), looks very much like a Greg Gregory semi-fully battened sail, if you see what I mean (like on the Ghost, or his Cherub designs).
Although, I have no idea if this was a common sail to use within the class at the time. The forestay also leads right to the very front of the bow (again, not sure if this was in common use at the time either), which, to me seems a little odd, compared to how they do it now at least.
I shall try and get more pictures as soon as I can.
