A wooden dream boat

[Zing]

Around an upturned zinc bath for a table with lattes from their state of the art coffee machine proudly occupying most of the galley worktop.

It‘s a work of art and of staggering craftsmanship you philistine. You have missed the point. Those very features you disparage are what makes it special. That’s why I like it. Rather, love it. I’m not at all sure I could live with it though.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

It‘s a work of art and of staggering craftsmanship you philistine. You have missed the point. Those very features you disparage are what makes it special. That’s why I like it. Rather, love it. I’m not at all sure I could live with it though.

Yes it looks the part and if it had a saloon table then I would have no objection to eating my breakfast of the upturned zinc bath. However cooking is a little compromised by the space that the coffee maker takes up and I think something a little smaller would be more appropriate after all it's supposed to be a yacht not a coffee bar in the kings road set up for a Harpers photo shoot.
Then again I am or used to be a sailor not a marina poseur.

 

[Bouba]

I don’t think the price is unreasonable at all.....not for me, but a thing of beauty.
If I have time I will check to see if any of the contributors are on the electric vehicle thread and believe anything lithium will spontaneously combust.
If I was going to sail...I would do it on this

 

[14K478]

I think she is a pretty boat in the Spirit Yachts house style. I notice that she does not have space for a paid hand and that surprises me because the sheer quantity of electric equipment, varnish, and so on will presumably call for someone to be on hand full time.

 

[Wansworth]

The video I saw of it being delivered to Southampton from the east coat the poor helmsmen got a right soaking,but I suppose with a paid crew that’s what they are paid for?Bit impractical except on a nice summers day

 

[SaltyC]

I regularly sail out of Ipswich where Spirit are based, there yachts are regularly in the marina awaiting completion and commissioning, all have beautiful lines, the craftsmanship is exquisite and watching the smallest sailing on the Orwell made me envious of tge style and ease it slipped through the water.
Would I like one? I would like to be able to afford one and pay people to maintain it In the condition they deserve, I wouldn't have the time/ patience or ability to get the finish on the varnish work.
Afraid the costs are way beyond me, I would like to be able to afford (thoile) half a dozen of their fender hangers fir my bulwark, a work of art in themselves.

 

[Stemar]

That’s why I like it. Rather, love it. I’m not at all sure I could live with it though.

I met a few women like that before I found one who could live with me

 

[Snowgoose-1]

I regularly sail out of Ipswich where Spirit are based, there yachts are regularly in the marina awaiting completion and commissioning, all have beautiful lines, the craftsmanship is exquisite and watching the smallest sailing on the Orwell made me envious of tge style and ease it slipped through the water.
Would I like one? I would like to be able to afford one and pay people to maintain it In the condition they deserve, I wouldn't have the time/ patience or ability to get the finish on the varnish work.
Afraid the costs are way beyond me, I would like to be able to afford (thoile) half a dozen of their fender hangers fir my bulwark, a work of art in themselves.

Yes. Spirit make exceedingly good yachts.
Apart from the gawp factor, they sail like a dream.
One day on the Orwell there were two on the wind sailing against the tide making excellent progress. It's not fair !

 

[dunedin]

I think she is a pretty boat in the Spirit Yachts house style. I notice that she does not have space for a paid hand and that surprises me because the sheer quantity of electric equipment, varnish, and so on will presumably call for someone to be on hand full time.

I suspect in this case the professional support crew would be shore based - or in a support “tender” (like Bystander was to the J Class).

 

[14K478]

I suspect in this case the professional support crew would be shore based - or in a support “tender” (like Bystander was to the J Class).

(I should stick my hand up and say that I’m writing this in the cabin of my boat in Ipswich.)

I think you are right. This may be a return to an earlier way of “yachting”. There are plenty of people who have the skills and would be happy to do some 9 to 5 boat maintenance and live at home.

In 1919 my uncle Eric was demobbed from the RN. He looked for a boat and he bought the John Howard smack “Alanna” from her former paid hand, to whom her late owner, killed on the Western Front, had left her. As an adjunct to this transaction, my uncle agreed with the seller, who had been a fisherman and then a yacht hand at Burnham on Crouch, that for 2s9d a week the seller would:
on Saturday:
- meet the London train and carry the bags
- have the dinghy afloat at the hard
- have the covers off, the brass polished and smeared with butter, the water tank and Primus tanks filled, and, in season, the coal stove made up and lit, and the boat stored with fresh food, etc.
on Sunday:
meet the boat with the dinghy, take the owner and crew to the station, clean and tidy up, etc.

For rather more money, the laying up and fitting out got done, too.

I thought this was a fantastic tale until I first visited Hong Kong, crewed for a friend on his Impala on a mid-week evening race and on returning to the typhoon shelter found the buoy rope held up for me from a sampan by the boat keeper’s wife.

 

[Poignard]

[...]
I thought this was a fantastic tale until I first visited Hong Kong, crewed for a friend on his Impala on a mid-week evening race and on returning to the typhoon shelter found the buoy rope held up for me from a sampan by the boat keeper’s wife.

Reminds me of when I lived in Hong Kong. That was the service you got in return for a weekly payment.

The first boat I had there, the first boat I ever owned, was an old clinker-built day sailer (a L-class).

Unbeknown to me, she leaked badly. I did not realise this because the boatwoman bailed her out so frequently and, speaking no English, she couldn't tell me.

For some reason, I sacked the boatwoman only to receive a phone call from the RHKYC secretary to tell me my boat was sinking.

I re-engaged her immediately!

 

[14K478]

Off topic… the boat people of that typhoon shelter hid two English nuns from the Japanese from Christmas Day 1942 to the 15th August 1945.

 

[Poignard]

Off topic… the boat people of that typhoon shelter hid two English nuns from the Japanese from Christmas Day 1942 to the 15th August 1945.

What incredible bravery. They would have been severely punished [probably by death] if the Japs had found out.

 

[14K478]

What incredible bravery. They would have been severely punished [probably by death] if the Japs had found out.

Yes, indeed. The two nuns never stepped ashore, and a generation of Tanka children grew up speaking fluent English and stepped into good careers.

 

[Bouba]

Look...I don’t wish to be controversial....but.....couldn’t they have a few portholes ?

 

[Baggywrinkle]

Is "wooden dream boat" not an oxymoron?

 

[Stemar]

Until I'm Spirit Yacht rich, it's "wooden nightmare boat"

I love a well-found wooden boat, but I'm far too old and lazy to keep one at the standard they need. Plastic boats have owners, wooden boats have staff.

 

[Snowgoose-1]

There are some lovely wooden boats about.
Unfortunately, most are covered up so you can't fully appreciate them. Even in the summer. Perhaps the owners could have "Open Days" now and then.

 

[boomerangben]

I think she’s lovely and would if I won big on the lottery. Yes a lot to up keep but the asking price is only the entrance fee. I suspect I would be returning her to Spirit yachts at the end of the season for a mini refit each year and have someone to look after her during the season. I dread to think why those upkeep costs would be but I guess all part of the responsibility of owning such a yacht

I think strip planked yachts are wonderful having done many miles in one. Somehow cosier and quieter than GRP. Would be my preferred choice of material

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Until I'm Spirit Yacht rich, it's "wooden nightmare boat"

I love a well-found wooden boat, but I'm far too old and lazy to keep one at the standard they need. Plastic boats have owners, wooden boats have staff.

As the owner of a mere 20ft traditional wooden boat, I’d have to agree. If you need to check the state of your bank balance before saying yes, don’t do it. Even our little baby can make a serious dent.