Brightlingsea One Design

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

Alongside Cormorant, on which we report below, Malcolm Goodwin and Rob Maloney have several more BODs in stock awaiting restoration.  Rob has just placed an advertisement for C44 Janice, built in 1955, which you can find out more about by clicking here.

Also ready and waiting to be rehomed and brought back to life is C23 Black Shadow.  Built in 1952 for John Glanfield she has been out of commission for some years.  Kate Button (daughter of John who now sails with Fi and Ginny in Grethe) well remembers sailing the boat as a youngster and kindly sent us the photo below.  It shows Black Shadow in the foreground along with C15 Merlin, C7 Mildred/Edwina and we think C5 Sybil/Tiller Girl/Oxbird – all with the original rig and bowsprits.  

We’ve been trying to decide where the photo was taken and our current thinking is that its at Burnham as we think that is the Pile House Line start box in the background and we know that the fleet went to several Burnham Weeks in the 1950s.  But if anyone else can shed more light on the photo’s background do e-mail Fi on fiona.brown@fionabrown.com with your info.

Over the Christmas break our roving reporter called into Rob Maloney’s yard in Wivenhoe where, under the watchful eye of Malcolm Goodwin, the restoration of C4 Cormorant is in full swing.  Rob reports that the majority of the planking was in excellent condition and only a few repairs and replacements were needed.  The boat has been pushed back into shape and new ribs fitted and the deck frames are now almost completed.  The next step is to put the deck back on and then it will be over to Malcolm for coatings and fittings.  Check out our photo gallery below to see how she is looking.

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The plan is to have Cormorant back in the water for next summer and up to speed in time for Pyefleet Week 2014.  Cormorant was something of a wonder boat in her day.  Launched around 1930 (exact date not known) and originally owned by Robbie Stone himself, Cormorant’s most successful years came in the ownership of Ralph Sutton who sailed her from 1934 until 1979 and whose name can be found on just about every one of the BOD Trophies, often on multiple occasions.

Barry Newman owned her after Ralph (also very successfully) and in a nice twist to the tale we understand that, while Malcolm will sail Cormorant in Pyefleet Week 2014, Barry will be taking Malcolm’s other boat C1 Jean for the week.  It will be interesting to see who gets the upper hand!

We’ll bring you more news of Cormorant in due course.

The Minutes of the 2013 AGM, held on Sunday 8 December at the Colne Yacht Club, are now available to view online by clicking here.  Our thanks to all members who were able to attend the meeting which was extremely productive.

The 2014 BOD Racing Programme is now available online so go check it out and get your diary marked up!

In particular please put the evening of Saturday May 10 in your diaries as this will be the BOD Dinner at Brightlingsea Sailing Club.  Full details will be published shortly but save the date right now as it promises to be a great evening.

We’re expecting good turnouts at all the events next year, but as always the highlight of the year will be Pyefleet Week which runs from 9 to 16 August with the President’s Trophy on Sunday 10 August.

After Pyefleet Week 2013, when we had 20 boats on the water for the President’s Trophy, Malcolm Goodwin joked that we’d have to aim for 25 boats in 2014.  At the time he thought he was being a bit ambitious, but with 2 new fibreglass boats due to launch in the spring, Grethe (the first glass boat) now back in Brightlingsea, plus several boats in restoration or being brought back into commission for racing in 2014, this is now a very achievable goal.  Let’s all work really hard to make it 25 boats for the President’s Trophy.  In turn that will mean we should see 20+ boats racing the whole of Pyefleet Week – bring it on!

Our roving reporter snuck into the White Formula shed yesterday and found that James Anderson’s C55 had just started construction.  As you can see from the pics below the white gelcoat for her bottom had been applied and the lovely stormy blue grey of the topsides was applied to port and soon to be added to starboard (the green colour is the colour of the mould).  So exciting to have two brand new boats in construction for the 2014 season!