Abu was designed by Johan Anker for his personal use and built by Anker & Jensen in 1931. In her he won the Scandinavian Gold Cup at Gothenberg, Sweden. For 1932 he sold her to the great helmsman Magnus Konow, who the same year won both the Gold Cup and the One Ton Cup. In 1933 she was brought to Cowes and sold to A.E. “Daddy” Lees who raced her at Burnham-on-Crouch for two years, before selling her.
In about 1935 she was converted to a cruiser with an engine and much of her life thereafter was spent based on the Hamble, where she entered many handicap and offshore races with the sail number 483. In 1991 she was seen by Tim Street in the Brighton Marina and more than a decade later, in 2003 on a picnic in Essex, he found her again looking very forlorn indeed on the side of the road near Tollesbury. He took pity on her and purchased her, having her restored at Peter Wilson’s yard. In order to keep her weight down she was given a Spruce deck, so that when measured and floated she came exactly to her original Flotation Marks. She was taken to the Europeans at Brunnen, where she came 8th in the Classics, winning the August Ringvold Trophy for Second-Rule boats. In 2011 she was bought by Christian Teichmann who took her to the Worlds at Flensburg.
Information kindly supplied by Fiona Brown/Tim Street and the 6 Metre Archive
