This yacht “is in substantially original condition externally. Below decks she has been completely rebuilt, bulkheads and all, with a different layout, but in a similar style to the original. This was necessitated by extensive repairs following damage in the October 1987 storm in the East of England.
She was a wedding present for her first owner, E.P Allen. When Philip got married his in-laws offered to pay for the building of his design as a wedding present. Philip asked William Maxwell Blake to check the design, and this resulted in a number of changes, notably the alteration to cutter rig and the balancing of the hull lines according to rear-Admiral Turner’s ‘metacentric shelf theory’.
Allen owned the boat through to 1951 and was the first editor of the RCC Atlantic Crossing Guide. The intention was to carry out a transatlantic cruise, and while this never came to fruition, she was built with this in mind hence the reason why her scantlings are slightly over spec.Solitary racing success – first in class, North Sea Race, 1956.
The boat is unusual in having had only three owners in seventy years and having been kept on the same river throughout that time”.
Information courtesy of Andrew Craig-Bennett
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