My Classic Boat. Camper & Nicholson 35ft sloop 1966

Tell me all about your boat. Well A Day at the Races has a pedigree and it was built in 1966 by Camper Nicholson's to drawings by Peter Nicholson for the first owner who was Sir Onasia and it was to the one-ton cut rule and the idea was that it would be it would compete for that one of the three boats representing Britain in the one-ton Cup in 1967 in Copenhagen. Sir Onasia who is also a longtime president of the Little Ship Club had the boat designed and built by Peter Nicholson who sailed her in the in the one-ton Cup in Copenhagen and when I caught him over breakfast to ask him how the boat performed in that series of races he said in the first race he got to the first mark first and was absolutely delighted only to find that boats overtook as soon as they started going downwind mainly because of the the new hull configurations which are coming in at that time which is fin and skeg which had so much less wetted surface area than long keelboats and this is so this is one of the last of the long keelboats and boats here today will be a mixture of fin and skeg and long keel. How long have you owned her? I bought her in 2001 and sailed her for the first season and then had a major refit for nearly two years and and then she was almost better than new when that was finished and we've enjoyed her ever since then and done two or three minor refits like the electronics and since. And what were you doing this morning? You took her out? We had a mini scrub yes it's been a year since she was antifouled and in that time we developed a bit of a grass skirt so we were just removing it this morning. And she's normally moored in Cowes? No she's normally in the Beaulieu River. We have a permit mooring 200 meters upstream from Ginns and she's been there for quite a while so she's quite a fixture in there in the Beaulieu River. In fact there's a story that the sightseeing boat that goes down the Beaulieu River has which which they tell all the over the loud speaker as they go past the red boat they say oh we know how that boat got its name don't we? But it's not true it's not for that reason. It's actually named after the Marx Brothers films but it's history was originally that it was Yeoman 14 and as O'Nasha O'Nasha called all his boats Yeoman and for a period of time he didn't allow other boats to continue on with the Yeoman name but now that's relaxed we might go back to Yeoman 14 at some point. And what's the dimensions? It's 35 foot long 26 and a half on the waterline and rates according to the one-ton rule 29 feet or so which was the rule at the time 10 foot beam and it's very very heavy it has a very large ballast keel just almost not quite two meters down and so it's very stable and maybe over ballasted. So besides the little doggy what is so special about this boat? Well to me the overriding thing which attracted me to her was the fact that she's made of teak and in not just teak up to the waterline but teak right the way up to the to the deck which was unusual in those days to save weight on racing boats they sometimes made teak up to the waterline and then mahogany from the waterline to the deck but this is teak all the way through and it has been as you know teak is a very stable wood and it doesn't expand and contract very much so it doesn't have plank lines and I don't have to paint her every year I probably do the painting once every six or seven years and it has been many people have remarked it looks she looks like a fiberglass boat which she isn't when I had to we had did the major refurb I had to scrape back the outside paint coverings to get to the teak underneath and it looked like a piano that was beautifully each of the seams were beautifully splined with mahogany and it looked absolutely super and it's a shame to cover it all over with paint and anti-fouling but you see the beautiful teak planking on the inside all the time because it's not covered and left the interior very much as it was originally because when she was out the water it's quite amazing how large she is underneath I mean she's a very large underwater surface area and that is a big drag a big hindrance and and we we do race a lot against modern boats and it's quite noticeable that when you're sailing with the tide our keel catches the tide much more than the modern very thin keels with ballast bulbs at the end and when we're sailing against the tide we've got a severe handicap and in fact on on most runs we have to sail straight into the tide regardless of what the wind is doing did you buy it as a cruiser or as a cruiser no cruiser racer and that was that has been its heritage the previous owner had it primarily for cruising but I've been doing a mix of racing and cruising and I've got a fairly full schedule of races coming up this summer which is gonna be great fun we do it for the enjoyment not to win but to have fun yes well nearly all not all and there are some others which we don't have time to do but we've got a mixture of city sailing series round the island possibly cows week at Panerai and maybe the Tatanger regatta which is always fun down the western end of the Solent so quite a full program this year but interspersed with a bit of cruising as well and any tips for people who want to take their dogs on board yes try it out see what happens it's worth it it was a surprise to me that the Rumpole has taken to to the water so well because he's not a fortunately he's not a dog that likes swimming and going into the water wherever he sees it so that's a big plus and is he your best crewmate oh absolutely he's he's very very important member of the crew yeah Rumpole comes first yeah he's a good hot water bottle and he's very good at much of a lap dog so he's he's happy as long as he's got a nice warm lap to sit on Rumpole of Battersea sometimes known as Lord Rumpole of Battersea he's he's got his Abel Siemens ticket he seems to like boating which is good he's two years old a Coton de Tulliar otherwise known as the Royal Dog Madagascar