maurice griffiths sailing trip from Seychelles between '46 and '56

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sea pie

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Hi, I am wondering if Maurice Griffiths ever wrote about this trip in a teak Solani class ketch, probably called Zoraya at the time , in an edition of yachting Monthly. Does any one with back copies or any Maurice Griffiths fan know?
thanks
 
Don't think so. He had little to do with that boat other than mentioning it in a couple of his books. It was built in India and eventually ended up in UK. I went aboard it in Cobbs Quay in Poole about 25 years ago. Seems to remember the then owner was planning a long cruise having just sold a Peter Duck. Not sure what happened to her after that.
 
Last I heard (2012), she had been re-named "India". Her then owner use her in Portugal for a few years, but had brought her back to UK for sale.
 
seychelles maurice griffiths thread

thanks for replying
do you know which of his books it was mentioned in?
thanks
 
There is a description of the Solani design in Sixty Years a Yacht Designer pp66-8 giving its origin and drawings of construction in profile and layout. there were 4 built. The best known is Malwen, the second boat that was built in a garden in West Mersea and was kept there for many years, sometime being used as a sailing school. Think it is still on the east Coast somewhere. The first, Black Jack, was built by Thornycroft on the Thames but I don't have any recent knowledge of its whereabouts.

The other two were built abroad. Zoraya, as you know of teak in the Mazagon shipyard in Bombay and Sheelin in Sierra Leone. I looked at Sheelin a few years ago but she was in a sorry state and last I heard was that she ended up in N Ireland on offer at a giveaway price as she needed a complete rebuild. There was a long thread on the old Classic Boat forum at the time. Seem to remember somebody did take her on but have not heard anything since.
 
dombuckley said:
I don't think he mentioned it in any of his own books. But if memory serves right, Dick Durham wrote of it in his biography of MG, "Magician of the Swatchways".
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See my post above. I have my copy in front of me. I give the page number with the reference. Not much, but the background to the design is an interesting read.

You are right, there is a bit more in the Durham book, p140 to quote

"That same year (I think 1948) Maurice performed another rescue operation on one of his designs. Zoraya, a 14 ton bermudian ketch, had been built in Bombay in 1946, but before her launch in 1947 her owner had a heart attack and was advised to give up sailing.

Zoraya was shipped home from India and deposited at Johnson & Jago's yard in Leigh-on-Sea. She was built entirely of teak, even down to the locker sides and drawers, and as a result she was found to be too heavy for Maurice and Coppie (his new wife), so she was sold."

That description ties in with my memory when I went on her. The interior was very heavy looking and gloomy, but no doubt all that teak would have helped her survival.
 
Poecheng said:
Malwen lies on the pontoons at Brightlingsea (certainly in the summer anyway) and is still the same red as the day I first saw her.
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Good to hear. MG put her long life down to the fact that the builder (who was a house builder by trade) had used steel for the ring frames leading to a very stiff boat with little plank movement. Interestingly the first stem that he made was not quite right, so he recycled it as part of a door frame in a house he subsequently built for himself. I saw a photo of it a few years ago and i think it is still part of the house.
 
Re Malwen,
Yes she looks strong. I have never seen her pristine (sorry if the owner reads this) but equally she doesn't seem to suffer from being a bit shabby chic !! I haven't noticed her seams or anything untoward and yet she never seems remotely pampered.
Cheers
 
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