Brightlingsea One Design

One of our highly trained under cover reporting team has just sent me the following snap shot demonstrating the excellent use our illustrious Fleet Captain Mr Richardson and his crew make of Panic during the winter season, when she becomes their official home brew bar. Certainly the boat looks very at home all snugged up on straw bails, and the aft deck has plenty of room to handle the beer barrel, glasses and obligatory snacks. It strikes us this could be the start of an occasional series featuring 101 uses for a BOD – all contributions (ideally with photographic evidence) to fiona.brown@fionabrown.com

It’s always lovely to find out how people came to be partnered with their BODs and the story of Richard Austin and C44 Janice is a particularly nice one.

Richard originally registered at the BOD website because he was researching the fate of C44.  The original owner Joe Overton was a good family friend and business associate of Richard’s father back in the early 1950s.  Richard learnt to sail in West Mersea in the late 50s with the Overton family and has been messing about in boats on and off ever since.

When Joe Overton moved up to racing bigger boats, Richard’s father purchased C44 and owned her for several years.  Richard lost track of her when he went off to sail Enterprises and later Hornets at Burnham.  But the lure of the BOD is strong and like so many of us he found himself wondering what had happened to that early love who had given him so much but then disappeared from his life.

It was when Rob Maloney asked us to place an advert announcing that C44 Janice was for sale for restoration that a match was made in heaven.  As soon as the news update bounced into his inbox Richard was on the phone to Rob and a deal was struck.  Restoration will start on the boat this summer and we can expect to see her out on the water for the 2015 season.

In the meantime Richard is very keen to do some crewing in BODs to familiarise himself with the boats, pick up a few tips for the refit and learn about our sailing area so he is ready to race next year.  If you are ever looking for crew do please give Richard a shout on r.austin144@btinternet.com.

We’ll keep you posted on the restoration once its underway and we look forward to welcoming Richard and C44 Janice to the fleet next year.

As part of our series tracking the construction of C54 for Alan Hicks, this week we’ve got an update from Mark White who has just completed the fairing and finishing of the centreboard for the new boat.  Mark has kindly sent us the following notes and photos to help us understand what goes into preparing a new board.

Pic No 1 shows the board as it arrived with an oxidising primer added after casting, the leading edge was a 1 cm flat in places on the leading edge, so I had to grind this to shape and coated the bare metal with vinyl ester resin.

Pic 2, I applied a 300g csm (chopped strand mat)around this so I could build up the edge and that also helps with future knocks that can be repaired easily.

Pic 3 Specialised vinyl ester coating applied as a natural coating, this helps identify low and hi areas of the board.

Pic 4 & 5 show vinyl ester putty that’s been applied and sanding & shaping that has been completed.

Pic 6 shows another layer of specialized vinyl ester coating that is applied to the board for final faring.

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This final series pictures shows the board in its finished state after a series of compounding to a smooth polished state.

Our roving reporter snuck into White’s on Monday to find that all the moulding work on C55 is now complete, her tanks have been fitted and she is now sitting in the mould ready for transportation to Simon Hipkin for the woodworking phase of construction to begin.

A quick catch up with owner James Anderson at the big lift in Wivenhoe confirmed that construction is well on schedule, all the fittings and gear have been specified and ordered and he still expects to be out on the water in good time for Pyefleet Week.

As soon as the boat is moved to Simon’s and out of the mould we will bring you some update pictures of her so stand by for more news in a couple of weeks.

We had a great turnout for the lifting operation to move Cormorant from the lower to upper workshop on Sunday so thanks to everyone who was able to come and help.  Malcolm got everyone briefed and organised and the lift went extremely well as you can see from the video below!

Now she is upstairs Malcom will be hard at work getting her painted and fitted out.  Next up in the downstairs workshop Rob is finishing a refit on a Wivenhoe One Design and then he will move onto the restoration of Janice.

The team pay close attention to Malcom’s briefing.

We need volunteers to help Malcolm and Rob lift Cormorant from the downstairs workshop to the upstairs workshop at their base in St John’s Road, Wivenhoe at 10.00am on Sunday 23rd February?  Its going to take a fair bit of manpower to achieve this so all volunteers much appreciated.

Fi will be there manning the tea urn and biscuit barrel and videoing the operation for posterity/the website so it should be an excuse for a bit of mid winter fun and a good catch up.

If you can help out please contact Rob Maloney on e-mail Robmaloney9@aol.com

Thanks everyone and hope to see plenty of you there – the more the merrier!

We’ve just received these fantastic archive photos of C3 Maida which was owned by Rupert Brown’s grandfather.   Rupert’s covering note says:

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I thought you might like to see the attached photos. My grandfather owned C3 (Maida) and these pictures were taken circa 1935.  They show my grandfather and my father crewing.

Your archive list of boats suggests she was taken to Westcliff on Sea but lost at sea. That is not quite correct . Yes she was taken to Westcliff (where my family lived)  and kept on a mooring at the Westcliff Yacht Club, but she was  then sold to a new owner in Emsworth  as my grandfather moved to the local class of Thames Estuary One designs.

I can clearly remember my Dad so often talking about Maida with the very fondest memories. He used to drive over from Westcliff every weekend to  Brightlingsea to race her ! No driving under the influence to worry about in those days !

I do hope you and your fellow members will find these pictures of interest.

With kind regards
Rupert Brown
Burnham on Crouch

Huge thanks to Rupert for the images and the information about C3.  If anyone has any information about what happened to her after she went to Emsworth do please let us know.

Rob Maloney has been in touch with the latest update and some more photos of Cormorant’s refit.

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All the thwarts and shelf/drawer have been made. The inside has now been epoxy coated and he has made the polystyrene buoyancy.  The deck has now been fitted and now that has been done the mast hole can be cut out (chocks made etc), coamings fitted then washboards and finally the rubbing bands. All will then get epoxy coated.

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Rob and Malcolm are planning to move her into the upstairs workshop sometime mid February to be finished off and Rob mentions that they may well need a few extra hands to get her moved so stand by for a request for assistance!

Our roving reporter couldn’t resist sneaking up to Thorpe last week and taking a look at C54 in person, and what a wonderful sight she is.  Simon Hipkin is doing a fantastic job of the joinery and finishing work and we can now see that the new moulded tanks are perfectly proportioned and make a great addition to the boat, as well as speeding up the production process.

During our visit the second coat of epoxy was being applied by Simon and his assistant (its a two man job to work fast enough to ensure a good finish before it cures) and she was really starting to look more like a BOD and less like a work in progress.

The attention to detail is stunning with every piece of timber perfectly matched and finished, even down to the addition of a pair of elegant inlaid pale sycamore detail lines to set off the rich mahogany of the cockpit combing.

The various plinths for cleats and fittings have been added, the floorboards are cut and were also being epoxied at the same time as the hull (all in Simon’s temperature controlled paint shop which ensures a great cure every time),

Shortly after our visit the bare fibreglass surfaces inside the boat were flowcoated and as you can see from the series of pictures below (thanks Alan for the extra photos) the interior of the boat is now starting to look very beautiful indeed.  These photos also really help to show off the lovely job that Simon and Rob did of creating the mouldings for the tanks.

Next up will be deck paint and varnish and within days she should be back in Brightlingsea ready for Alan to start screwing on fittings.  As soon as C54 goes out of the door C55 will be sent over to Simon so he can get her joinery and finishing completed too.

Alan has set himself a launch date of Easter so stand by for an invitation to the launch event soon!

Alan has kindly sent us another update and more pics to bring us up to date on C54s construction.  

In this first group of shots you can see the buoyancy templates being built by Simon, the boat then goes back to Brightlingsea for them to be taken out and the tanks made and glassed in by Rob.

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In the second batch of pics the tanks have been made and fitted and the boat has gone back to Simon who has made the deck beams, ready to be epoxied.

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With this next group you can see the centreplate cladding has been made and the supports for the floorboards are in place. Note the fixed floorboards forward of the side buoyancy tanks up to the bow tank. Two of the pictures show the main floorboards are also ready. Now the thwarts are made and ready to be fixed. 

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Here you can see the decks cut and ready to fit:

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This final batch are from 2/01/14, the decks are now fitted, I have gone for the jib sheet cleats to be on swivels that Simon has let into the decks to get the best angle from the block fairlead. This is so that both the middle crew and me when sailing solo can easily cleat the jib from any position. He has rebated each of the joins of the deck so as to allow him to epoxy tape over the joins to prevent any cracks occuring. The centreplate winch has been fitted and the plinths for the mainsheet, kicker and centreplate are in place.

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On non build items the mast and boom are ready for delivery from Sailspar, I have confirmed the order for the sails to be loose footed main and also for the boom height to be 75mm above the standard measurement. The floorboards have been lowered by about 25mm to follow the line of the hull rather than be horizontal across the boat thus gaining another small element of headroom for my rather non supple frame.

I intend to go with option of the battery whale pumps and although I tried to think of ways so that the water exit could be lipped into the centreboard case, the plate winch seems to prevent this option so it looks as though I will have to bring the pipes to exit just underneath the rubbing strakes. I  will still have the holes in the floorboards for manual pumping as required. 

Simon seems confident of getting the boat to me by mid Jan and Rob thinks that he will need less than a couple of days to finish the hull off. That leaves me with the task of fitting it out and experience of my own and others suggest that what could be done in a week by a professional is likely to be months as I dither before drilling the necessary holes.

More later. 
Alan