Northshore creditors meeting

[Tidewaiter2]

For me a major safety feature of swing keels is that if you hit something, they pop up. I don't really understand how striking an object with the Southerly keel could crack the grounding plate. Are we talking hitting something shallow at speed so that the keel suddenly retracts fully?

Not the grounding plate, the cracks occurred in the corners of the grp just fwd of the actual plate. That is the point where the impact occurred. Another half second and the plate, which is surrounded by mastic in the slot twixt grp and plate, would have taken it in its stride, just like an Anderson22
After all the plate is there to take the ground, sand, the odd small rock and all with 12+ tons sitting on it.
We were only doing 4kts when they took the canal water away. However the Kiel apparently contains "a few stones from the banks, the odd car, and a few British bombs" per one German sailor

 

[mrming]

Not the grounding plate, the cracks occurred in the corners of the grp just fwd of the actual plate. That is the point where the impact occurred. Another half second and the plate, which is surrounded by mastic in the slot twixt grp and plate, would have taken it in its stride, just like an Anderson22
After all the plate is there to take the ground, sand, the odd small rock and all with 12+ tons sitting on it.
We were only doing 4kts when they took the canal water away. However the Kiel apparently contains "a few stones from the banks, the odd car, and a few British bombs" per one German sailor

Ah - okay that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[grumpy_o_g]

For me a major safety feature of swing keels is that if you hit something, they pop up. I don't really understand how striking an object with the Southerly keel could crack the grounding plate. Are we talking hitting something shallow at speed so that the keel suddenly retracts fully?

That's true if you hit the tip of the keel of something such as shoaling ground but hitting the top of the centreboard near the pivot puts a hell of a load on the keel and the casing. I agree it's less likely to happen but things like marina cills and rocks can catch people out (or a 15 year old lad in a Heron dinghy might miss the mark for the end of the concrete slipway and sail straight into it nearly ripping the centreboard casing away from the hull only two weeks after he got the boat )

 

[mrming]

Got you - so if you run into something high up and close to the pivot then it's going to take a lot more force to swing the keel, and that force could easily stress whatever it is the pivot is mounted on first.

 

[Tidewaiter2]

Got you - so if you run into something high up and close to the pivot then it's going to take a lot more force to swing the keel, and that force could easily stress whatever it is the pivot is mounted on first.

Yep, but the keel trunnions are cannon scale, and the restraining straps are to match. The risk I think is to the grp and plate bolts being stressed/ cracked, not the keel, plate, trunnions and straps.

 

[CoVianna]

Jumbleduck

Northshore only moulded Victoria 34's under contract for Victoria Yachts as well as their other boats: the 26, 30 + Frances 26.

Vancouver was Northshore's own brand.....picked up when Pheon Yachts went pop in the 1980's

Seems no one wants the moulds for the Victoria 34 and 38.

http://www.topsail.co.uk/

 

[Daydream believer]

Seems no one wants the moulds for the Victoria 34 and 38.

http://www.topsail.co.uk/

Well let's face it -- who would .

 

[JumbleDuck]

Well let's face it -- who would .

Anyone who appreciates classic and beautiful designs from a master. Sniff.

 

[robmcg]

Well let's face it -- who would .

Oldvarnish!

 

[TimBennet]

Well let's face it -- who would .

Sadly, it puts paid to the idea that there is a big (or even significant) market for fast safe, nicely balanced, highly seaworthy boats, which (in the case of the 38), were built without liners to afford full access to the hull, etc, etc,

If you were to take all the ideas discussed in "Desirable Characteristics of an Offshore Yacht" or the YM series on the perfect bluewater yacht, you would end up with the Victoria 34 (or the 38 if you recognised that boats have 'got bigger' over time).

Sadly the qualities that make boats 'desirable' in books, scholarly magasine articles, aren't the same qualities buyers (and their wives) choose when actually writing the cheque.

 

[Daydream believer]

Sadly, it puts paid to the idea that there is a big (or even significant) market for fast safe, nicely balanced, highly seaworthy boats, which (in the case of the 38), were built without liners to afford full access to the hull, etc, etc,

If you were to take all the ideas discussed in "Desirable Characteristics of an Offshore Yacht" or the YM series on the perfect bluewater yacht, you would end up with the Victoria 34 (or the 38 if you recognised that boats have 'got bigger' over time).

Sadly the qualities that make boats 'desirable' in books, scholarly magasine articles, aren't the same qualities buyers (and their wives) choose when actually writing the cheque.

I am not so sure about the "fast" bit as having sailed in company with a 34 i got fed up of trying to go so slow.
However, the other adjectives may be correct but having never actually sailed one i cannot confirm or deny
But why the term "sadly" -- things have moved on & in spite of your sentimentality there are a lot better boats around than the Victoria. & when i say better i include fast safe easy to handle, seaworthy etc etc & now you can add more roomy as well i suspect, along with nicer looks ( that one will raise some hackles i bet!!) but it is a fact - that is why no one wants a new one except the dreamers who would not put their hand in their pocket to pay for one any way

 

[AndrewfromFal]

I am not so sure about the "fast" bit as having sailed in company with a 34 i got fed up of trying to go so slow.
However, the other adjectives may be correct but having never actually sailed one i cannot confirm or deny
But why the term "sadly" -- things have moved on & in spite of your sentimentality there are a lot better boats around than the Victoria. & when i say better i include fast safe easy to handle, seaworthy etc etc & now you can add more roomy as well i suspect, along with nicer looks ( that one will raise some hackles i bet!!) but it is a fact - that is why no one wants a new one except the dreamers who would not put their hand in their pocket to pay for one any way

Morris Yachts in the US built versions of both boats, but somehow managed to look a bit more attractive than the Victoria Yachts versions (they also built versions of the Chuck Paine designed Bowmans) although I think the Victoria is a better looking boat than the much-vaunted-by-some Vancouvers, which to my eyes are the sailing equivalent of a 1970s era Ford Granada.

**ducks behind sofa**

 

[Sybarite]

Sadly, it puts paid to the idea that there is a big (or even significant) market for fast safe, nicely balanced, highly seaworthy boats, which (in the case of the 38), were built without liners to afford full access to the hull, etc, etc,

If you were to take all the ideas discussed in "Desirable Characteristics of an Offshore Yacht" or the YM series on the perfect bluewater yacht, you would end up with the Victoria 34 (or the 38 if you recognised that boats have 'got bigger' over time).

Sadly the qualities that make boats 'desirable' in books, scholarly magasine articles, aren't the same qualities buyers (and their wives) choose when actually writing the cheque.

I have never sailed the Victoria 34 but I met up with some UK Army?/Navy? sailing club members who were on them. They were absolutely scathing about them.

 

[charles_reed]

Thank you....a lot has changed since the 70s and 80s with glass fibre. All boats leak a little and old boats leak more. Can he fix it?

It has, I believe, been fixed, by Yainnis in Kalamata. In fact the boat was nowhere near "sinking". Just an annoying trickle. Lets face it the boat was 1/3 of a century old.
Having tried to sail in company with Southerlys, which is very difficult due to their inability to point, reach or run, I'm of the opinion that they're for those who have particular requirements.
To answer the query of how much more a lift keel costs than a fixed, on my particular boat opting for the fixed keel gave an overall benefit of 18%. However of a total production run of about 76 I believe inly 3 fixed-keel versions were sold.
The market for "traditional" boats like the other Northshore models is minute - the volume so small that it would be impossible to obtain any economies of scale.
I'm afraid the UK Sail Yachtbuilding industry has been smothered out of existence by German and French AWB manufacturers, who are addressing a large, avid market, for easy-sail, marina-comfy, weekend retreats.

 

[JumbleDuck]

But why the term "sadly" -- things have moved on & in spite of your sentimentality there are a lot better boats around than the Victoria. & when i say better i include fast safe easy to handle, seaworthy etc etc & now you can add more roomy as well i suspect, along with nicer looks ( that one will raise some hackles i bet!!) but it is a fact - that is why no one wants a new one except the dreamers who would not put their hand in their pocket to pay for one any way

Things which by the same token were rubbish: the Jaguar E-Type, Stradivarius violins, Chippendale furniture, the Leica M3, Fabergé eggs.

Things which by the same token are the acme of quality: the Kia Picanto, penny whistles, IKEA Billy bookcases, Lomo cameras, Kinder Surprise.

I have never sailed the Victoria 34 but I met up with some UK Army?/Navy? sailing club members who were on them. They were absolutely scathing about them.

Of course they were. Of course they were. I expect they found French boats much better.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Can't work out if you're dissing the Billy bookcase or not. If you are it'll be pistols at dawn. Well, water pistols maybe.

 

[TimBennet]

I have never sailed the Victoria 34 but I met up with some UK Army?/Navy? sailing club members who were on them. They were absolutely scathing about them.

They probably were. Sail training for six to eight blokes was never their target market. Can't imagine anything more cramped and uncomfortable. Hardly reflects on their attributes as a sailing boat in the recreational couple / family market.

I have no sentimentality about boats like the Victoria. I fully recognise their limitations.

But the demise of boats like the Victorias and Vancouvers wasn't just because they are 'out dated'. It' was also because that 'style' of boat was built and marketed as a premium product, loaded with teak joinery/decks, etc. Their ludicrously high price being justified by their 'market position'. But a lot of the cost was because they were built with little regard to production costs, even at the design stage; On the Vancouver 34 each of the chainplates for the upper and both lower shrouds is a different design of complex stainless fabrication. The design for the aft lower is entirely satisfactory, is the cheapest to produce and would have been perfect for all three. Loads of money could be stripped from their production by rationalising that one feature alone. Also, the headlining is fitted to a complex jigsaw of 'packing pieces' which all had to be fitted in a long winded way, taking as long (and as much money) on the 70th boat as it did on the first.

If the price differential between an AWB and boats more akin to the Vic/Vancouvers in style had been much much less, then more people might have chosen that sort of design. But to be required to pay such a high premium severely restricted the market. The US market's enthusiasm for more traditional designs has been sustained because they have had a choice of these boats for many years, produced at Taiwan / Far East prices.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Can't work out if you're dissing the Billy bookcase or not. If you are it'll be pistols at dawn. Well, water pistols maybe.

I have eleven of the buggers myself. Effective and cheap, but a tad JenBenBav in construction.

 

[Twister_Ken]

I have eleven of the buggers myself. Effective and cheap, but a tad JenBenBav in construction.

Yes, I believe IKEA developed the Billy Bookcase with an eye on the Mediterranean charter market.

 

[robmcg]

From Southerley going bust to the Billy bookcase, surely a future classic in the forum game of six degrees of thread separation?