Vertue 11. Web site

1

1937rogerdon

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 Jun 2006
Messages
460
Location
Barry, South Wales
Visit site
Calling owners of Glass Fibre and Strip a Plank Vertue 11's. There is currently no web site or information available on these wonderful cruising boats.
I have a Vertue 11 which is No 9 and would like to contact owners to record their boats and set up a Web Site. I believe around 35 have been built by various companies including Blossoms, Westerly and Armadillo Plastics.
Looking forward to developing and recording the information.
 
I had 'Padlock'

VII No 29 built in 1992 by Bossoms.

Kept in Shotley Marina most of her life. I had her in Beaumaris.

Navy Blue woven rove hull with white 'rubbing strake'. Cutter rig with bowsprit, tan sails.

Fab boat.

Sold to a Scottish chap on the Clyde in 2001. Don't think I have any details of him now.


Not keen on the name at first, then I researched it.

Derived from a poem by Mathew Prior (1664 - 1721):

"Be to her virtues very kinds
Be to her faults a little blind
Let all her ways be unconfined
But clap your padlock - on her mind!"
 
1937rogerdon said:
Correction on name. Check out book My Old Man and the Sea by David Hays and Daniel Hays they bought a hull from Westerly.
Armadillo moulded my hull.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info: out of curiosity where were Armadillo based and what year was your hull? Once the one we are selling is sold, we will have an archive page for the design, and the more information I have the better. Interestingly, Bossoms claim they are the only licensed builder for the Vertue II, which implies there may be another set of unlicensed moulds somewhere.

I had seen previously the reference to some hulls moulded by Westerly, but discounted it as an error. Only this week someone asked us to advertise a boat they had bought as and thus believed to be a Westerly Seamaster, which turned out to have nothing to do with any Westerly, but was a Seamaster.

I wonder if this "Westerly" is an entirely different company to the Westerly we all know: in the 1960s/70s Westerly were very focussed on their own designs, first Rayner boats and later Butler/Giles etc., all built on a production basis. Even the early 60s GRP Westerlys sold in quite large numbers, as did their plywood predecessors built before the foundation of the original Westerly GRP company in 1963.
 
Further - the first reference I can find to a Vertue II on Laurent Giles's design archive is no 736, built by Seaglass/Rossiter in 1963. there is then a large gap until in 1984 another is shown as built by Bossoms. There is thus a 20 year gap when there was presumably a set of moulds kicking around somewhere.
 
Armadillo Plastics were based in Nottinham and as I understand moulded some hulls for Bossom but also sold some for home completion. My boat No 9 was sold as a hull for home completion in 1983 and registered as completed in 1986.
In the book I referred to David Hays who bought hull No 5 "Sparrow" from Westerly when they went bust,it was then shipped to the a States where they completed the boat and subsequently sailed around the world. I have also heard that Rossiters built or had moulded some of the Vertur 11's.
 
1937rogerdon said:
Calling owners of Glass Fibre and Strip a Plank Vertue 11's. There is currently no web site or information available on these wonderful cruising boats.
I have a Vertue 11 which is No 9 and would like to contact owners to record their boats and set up a Web Site. I believe around 35 have been built by various companies including Blossoms, Westerly and Armadillo Plastics.
Looking forward to developing and recording the information.
Click to expand...

There used to be a web site for Vertue owners run by a member of the West Mersea Yacht Club who owned the Vertue 'Owendo'. I was with him on Sunday morning and he was telling me that after having parted with Owendo, he passed on the Web Site to someone else but it had withered away. If you pm me some contact details, I will ring Mike and suggest he speaks to you. As incidental information, 'Tiller Girl' was built immediately after a Vertue (details unknown) by Seacraft of Leigh-on-Sea in 1964. The guy who commissioned TG wanted a larger yacht but asked for the bow, knuckle and doghouse profile of a Vertue to be scaled up.
 
There was a boatbuilder called Westerly ( no connection to the well known makers of Centaurs etc ) at Rock, Cornwall but as far as I know they specialised in nicely built wooden racing dinghies.
 
Forbes Boat Care in Scotland sold a Vertue 25 Mk2 last year which was made by Westerley. You can see details at www.forbesboatcare.co.uk/denali.html

Also a CB mag article on Vertue Yachts over 3 issues stated that a subsidiary of Westerley built the moulds and the first yacht Vertue Voyager built to Lloyds 100 A1 which was fitted out by Tim Bungay at a cost of £22k. A second was built by Rossiters and three more by Westerley. It then says a subsequent re-design to a more realistic specification to Lloyds specification not classification was made by Barry Van Geffen of Laurent Giles. Bossoms then made the prototype.

In the third issue of the series it says that the Lymington Sea Boat Co made the mould used by Bossoms for the first one in 1976.

Perhaps that helps or confuses further.
 
If anyone knows or hears of a Vertue Mk 2 for sale at max. £25k let me know as would be interested. Love the one that JWilson is advertising on Yachtsnet, looks a wee cracker, but just too much for me.
 
Vertue 11.
It certainly seems very confusing trying to sort out all the various builders or moulders of the V 11. Can we assume that the moulds are still at the back of some shed or yard. The new Vertue Web site is long overdue,it will be nice to be able to put all the various elements of these lovely boats in one place.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top