LOA: 45’0” / 13.72m – LOD: 45’0” / 13.72m – LWL: 32’5” / 15.50m – Beam: 10’0” / 3.06m – Draft: 6’7” / 2.05m – Displacement: 25,933lbs / 11,763kg – Ballast: – Hull material: Wood – Sail Area: – Designer: Robert Clark, plans with Maritime Museum of Tasmania – Built by: Vivian Innes – Year Launched: 1951, Port Cygnet, Tasmania – Current Name: Caprice of Huon – Original Owner: Charles Calvert – Official Number: 199191 – Club: Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA)
Historical:
Caprice of Huon is a Robert Clark design, 45ft in length, launched in 1951 from Port Cygnet on the Huon River. She was built by Vivian Innes for the Tasmanian orchardist Calvert family. Her build and early days are documented in Hedley Calvert’s book Always a Competitor.
Doug Paterson, left, and John Wigan on board Caprice of Huon, the original yacht they sailed on to win the 1967 Admiral’s Cup. Picture: John Feder
Caprice of Huon has a famous racing history under skippers Bill Northam, Gordon Ingate and Gordon Reynolds. Caprice is a 7 time winner of the RSYS Gascoigne Cup. She was a member of the Australia Admirals Cup team in 1965 and won 3 of the 4 races in the series. Caprice returned to Cowes with Mercedes III and Balandra to win the 1967 Admirals Cup.
Caprice was extensively restored in 1999, including new engine and mast, and enjoys an active schedule of cruising, club races and classic yacht events from her home at the CYCA. Over the past few years Caprice has cruised from Sydney to the Whitsundays, Lord Howe Island and Tasmania. In the 2006/2007 CYCA Short Haul Series Caprice won both the IRC and PHS point scores and again won the overall IRC in 09/10, 10/11 and 11/12.
In 2000 the UK’s Classic Boat magazine named Caprice of Huon as one of the world’s top 150 boats.
Provenance. (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):
Owner/Guardian: (1951-1958) – Charles Calvert Owner /Guardian: (1958-1962) – Bill Northam Owner/Guardian: (1962-1976) – Gordon Ingate Owner/Guardian: (1976-1983) – Gordon Earl Owner/Guardian: (1983-2000) – Robert Eltringham Owner/Guardian: (2000-2013) – David Champtaloup
LOA: 56’3″ / 17.14m – LWL: 40’0″ / 12.19m – Beam: 12’0″ / 3.65m – Draft: 8’3” / 2.51m – Design Number: 661 – Designer: Philip L. Rhodes – Original Owner: H. Irving Pratt (1961-63 Commodore, NYYC) – Current Owner: B. Hunt Lawrence – Yacht Club: Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club – Year Launched: 1957 – Built By: Thomas Knutson Shipbuilding, Halesite NY: Informational – Hull Material: Wood – Displacement: 37 Tons – Sail Area: 1,488 sq ft – Engine: Volvo 78 hp diesel – Documentation Number: 274269
Historical:
Built for Commodore Irving Pratt of the New York Yacht Club to the CCA Rule. Won silver in her first season offshore, in the 1957 Annapolis to Newport Race; Class 2nd in 1960 and Class 3rd in 1964 Bermuda Races. Greatest win, first in fleet of 102 in the 1958 Block Island race. Maintained by Wooden Boatworks and winters in-water.
Provenance. (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):
Owner/Guardian: (1957-1971) H. Irving Pratt Owner/Guardian: (1971-?) Maine Maritime Academy Owner/Guardian: B. Hunt Lawrence Quest Skipper: Dave Noyes Crew: John Wesley Relieve Helmsman: Bus Mosbacher Cadet: 1/c Rob Porter-field. Cadet: LT George Perrault Cadet: Academy Chemistry Instructor, Safety Officer.
LOA: 135′ 0″ / 41.14m – LOD: 111′ 0″ / 33.83m – LWL: 78′ 0″ / 23.77m – Beam: 20′ 5″ / 6.22m – Draft: 9′ 3″ / 2.81 – Displacement: 162 Tonnes – Sail Area: 8,270 sq ft – Hull material: Steel – Rig: Bermudan Cutter – Designer: William Fife III – Built by: William Fife & Son, Fairlie (no. 758) – Year Built: 1928 – Current Name: Cambria – Original Owner: Sir William Berry – Website: Sailing Vessel Cambria
Historical:
Forerunner of the J-Class Yachts
YachtCambria.Com – Launched in May 1928 Cambria was the first of a new generation of Big class cutters. Finally after years of racing a mixed class of yachts under an unsatisfactory handicap system there was an attempt to create a new harmonious Big Class. The years of austerity that followed World War I were over, the rating rules were well established and both Sir Mortimer Singer and Sir William Berry commissioned new cutters. Singer’s Astra was designed by Charles E. Nicholson and built by Camper & Nicholsons, Berry’s Cambria was designed and built by William Fife.
There could not have been a greater contrast between the owners of these two new cutters. Singer was an established yachtsman from a wealthy family trading up from the 12 Metre Class, Berry was a newcomer and as such relied on the advice of experts. First among these was Brooke Heckstall-Smith, secretary of the Yacht Racing Association and editor of Yachting World magazine, one of many titles in Berry’s media portfolio.
Sir William Berry’s rise to prominence is one of the greatest rags to riches stories in the media and it is all the more so since he was one of only a handful of 20th Century newspaper owner-editors. Leaving school at 13 he was apprenticed to a weekly newspaper in Merthyr, South Wales, six years later he moved to London. With a capital of 100 pounds he single-handedly edited, collected advertising and distributed his own magazine, within a few years he had secured a foothold in the publishing industry. In 1915 he borrowed money to buy the moribund Sunday Times and became its editor in chief. This was the start of phenomenally successful period of empire building. Within a few years he had acquired the Financial Times from Sir John Ellerman, The Hulton Press from Lord Rothermere and the Amalgamated Press (magazines) from the executors of Lord Northcliffe. These were followed by the purchase of the largest newsprint manufacturer and the ailing Daily Telegraph from Lord Burham by which time Berry had created the largest media empire of the time.
With business came a social position, – a baronetcy and later his elevation to the rank of viscount – and the formation of one of the great British collections. Berry had tremendous taste, he bought avidly and eclectically; Old Masters, British pictures and furniture, oriental carpets, porcelain, glass and silver. The world began to take notice in 1927 when he bought van Dyke’s Portrait of Abbe Scaglia, one of the artist’s finest works. In 1935 he bought Hackwood Park from Lord Bolton to house his collection and it remained there until dispersed on the death of his son, the 2nd Viscount Camrose, in 1998.
It was in the midst of this whirl of collecting that Berry ordered Cambria, famously asking his wife if she too might like a similar yacht, an offer she declined. Success in yachting would bring an altogether new prestige: King George V dominated the Big Class with his Britannia and to enter this peer group Berry needed to be prepared. Heckstall-Smith was ideally placed to advise him on the choice of designer but was far from impartial since he and Charles E. Nicholson had crossed swords several times over rating rules, Alfred Mylne would have been a gamble so Heckstall-Smith directed Berry to William Fife. Fife was a safe bet and eager to secure so prestigious an order. When contracts were exchanged on 1 August 1927 Fife was forced to write to Berry conceding, ‘that it is a term of the bargain that the specification is subject to such reasonable variations I may agree with Sir William Burton, acting on your behalf, without variation of price.’ Burton was another of Heckstall-Smith’s appointees, he considered him ‘the greatest master of sailing a plain level match’. Certainly Burton’s credentials were immaculate, he had dominated the 52 foot, 15 metre and 19 metre classes with his own yachts and helmed Shamrock IV in the 1920 America’s Cup.
With trials completed on schedule Cambria made her racing debut in Harwich at the first event of the 1928 season. It was a close race and she won setting the tone for what Berry would expect from then on. Cambria, like Astra, was built to the Second International Rule and had to rate between 21 and 24 metres and a time allowance to settle any differences. Had the class been limited to these modern Bermudan rigged yachts it would have worked. However, by necessity the class had to include the King’s Britannia, built in 1893 and still gaff rigged, the old rule 23 metre class yachts Shamrock and White Heather of 1908 and 1909, the one off cutter Lulworth and the schooner Westward. It was a rating officer’s nightmare and the racing was far from equitable.
Most significant amongst the problems that afflicted the new yachts was a limitation imposed on mast height and Cambria, built to the upper size limits of the class, was particularly handicapped. Burton steered immaculately but, penalised by the rating, the prizes went disproportionately to yachts 10 to 25 years older than Cambria. The atmosphere on board deteriorated and whilst Berry may have retreated to the fully equipped wireless room he had had fitted on board for business purposes, Fife was left to lament that he knew all too well what was wrong.
For the 1929 season Fife designed a new gaff rig to circumvent the undue penalties applied to the Bermudan rig but a late alteration in the rules suddenly allowed a taller mast and the modern rig thus remained. Astra was withdrawn from racing following her owner’s death but the class was joined by a new Nicholson-designed cutter, Candida. The old gaffers still dominated on handicap but amongst the new yachts Cambria led what was in effect a class within a class.
In making his fifth and final challenge for the America’s Cup, Sir Thomas Lipton heralded in the era of the J Class yachts. His Shamrock V outpaced all existing Big Class cutters creating in effect a third class within the Big Class but with this newcomer soon preoccupied with racing in America, Cambria shared honours with the much improved Candida and both dominated Astra now racing under new ownership. However, the British Big Class could not survive in such a fragmented form, the J Class had arrived and finally the older yachts were forced to do what they could to adapt to the new rule or give up. Again King George V led the way converting Britannia to Bermudan rig for the 1931 season but other veterans soon gave up. Of the more recent cutters only the smaller Astra was able to convert successfully.
Sir William Berry had benefited from the advice of some of the most talented and most informed persons in yachting and campaigned his yacht in up to 50 races a year for three years but like many others his efforts fell victim to rule makers that dominated the organisation of the sport. His most enduring contribution was Cambria herself, the supremely beautiful cutter that has never wanted for admirers. By 1934 she had passed into the ownership of Sir Robert McAlpine who renamed her Lillias and on whose death in 1936 she was bought by H. F Giraud.
In Giraud’s ownership the great cutter became a cruiser based in Izmir, Turkey. Well maintained she made regular passages to Pireus for periodic Lloyds Register inspections and though she inevitably fell out of class during World War II Giraud had her reclassified. According to Giraud’s son Turkish Premier Ataturk was a guest on board and she remained in Turkish waters, mainly Cesme, until the early 1960’s. In 1963 she was briefly owned by Belgian, Andre J.M.Verbeck, who soon sold her on to his compatriot Georges Plouvier. In Plouvier’s ownership she began to voyage more extensively and came to the attention of American Michael Sears who acquired her in Marseille in 1972.
Sears embarked on a circumnavigation whose details remain sketchy, a dismasting off the Canaries is rumoured and it was he who re-rigged her as a ketch in 1975. By the time she reached Australian waters, Sears was forced to part company with her. Australian restaurateur Charlie Whitcombe took her over and mothballed her in Townsville near the Great Barrier Reef where she was eventually discovered by yachtsmen Iain Murray, Denis O’Neil and John David.
Cambria’s beauty seduced them, she had survived virtually intact, her deck structures and fittings were still pure Fife and below her original and elegant mahogany interior needed just polish to bring it alive again. In structural terms the mahogany planking on steel frame hull had partially degraded. In Brisbane 1995, after careful steel repairs and some planking renewed, Cambria was strong again and ready to sail. A new deck was laid over the original and with light new systems she was perfectly in keeping with a fast racing yacht.
John David became the sole owner in 2001 and shipped Cambria to Cowes where she was converted back to the Bermudan rig qualifying for the America’s Cup Jubilee. It was the first time she had raced back in Great Britain since the 1930’s. Mr David was very impressed with the classic yachting scene in Europe and decided to enter her in the Mediterranean Classic Yacht Circuit. She has been an active participant since that time and she was sold to continue a similar agenda in May of 2004. Under the new Ownership and responsible direction and supervision of the new captain and his crew Cambria has received a new mast of Spruce Pine and has undergone a careful refit in a specialized yard in Southampton. She has continued racing against the growing number of classic yachts, regularly outperforming her competitors in measured time, if not in terms of rating. Cambria crossing the finish line as the first boat with her challengers far behind has become a common picture in the Mediterranean contests. Her owner and his family enjoy Cambria, cruising the Mediterranean in between the busy racing schedule.
Known Restoration History:
2004 – Southampton – Refit and new mast of Spruce Pine 2001 – Spencer Rigging Limited – Converted back to the Bermudan rig qualifying for the America’s Cup Jubilee. 1994-1995 – Norman R. Wright & Son’s, Brisbane, Queensland – refit 1984 – New Zealand refit 1974 – New Mast – Mainmast 119 ‘8″ Mizzen 75’. Spencer rigging re-rigged to ketch
Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):
Owner/Guardian: (1928–1934) – Sir William Berry Owner/Guardian: (1934–1936) – Robert McAlpine Owner/Guardian: (1936–1962) – Harold Giraud – Port of Chios, Turkey Owner/Guardian: (1962–1964) – Belgian Consulate, Andre’ J.M. Verbeke Owner/Guardian: (1964–1973) – Georges Plouvier – Home port Pireaus Owner/Guardian: (1973–1986) – Michael Sears – American Owner/Guardian: (1986–1995) – Charlie Whitcombe – New Zealander Owner/Guardian: (1995–2001) – Denis O’Neil and John David Owner/Guardian: (2001–2004 ) – John David Owner/Guardian: (2004) – Cambria Yachts Limited
LOA: 122’ 5” / 37.30m – LOD: 115’6” / 35.20m – Beam:17’11” / 5.45m – LWL: 94’0” / 28.65m – Draft: 9’1” / 2.78m – Displacement: 187 / Gross 137 / Net 41 – Hull material: Steel – Power: 255 HP,Twin, 2015, Inboard, Diesel, Gardiner, 8L3B, – Economical Range: 3250 nautical miles – Generator(s): 2 x Northern Lights M445T 50kW – Tankage:12,000 litres fuel, 3,500 litres water – Speed: Max 12 knots / Cruise 10 knots (7 knots under sail) – Spars & Rigging: Spencer Rigging, Cowes, England. – Built by: Phillip and Sons of Dartmouth, UK. – Year Launched: 1930
Historical:
Designed by English Naval Architect Alfred Mylne (the designer of the original Royal Yacht Britannia) and launched in 1930 by Philip and Sons at Dartmouth, CALETA (currently Atlantide) has been in continuous commission to this day.
CALETA was built for Sir William Parker Burton, K.B.E., a distinguished yachtsman who made his fortune in the sugar and tea trade. He became partner and later friend of Sir Thomas Lipton with whom he shared the passion for yacht racing. During the 1930 America’s Cup races, as sailing master on Lipton’s Shamrock, he nearly beat the the American defender, Resolute three races to two.
Sir William Burton went on to sail and race on more than a thousand boats, and over 600 times on his own vessel. In British waters he won a total of 235 first place prizes and 140 lesser finishes. During the races, CALETA was tender to his William Fife designed 12-Meter Iyruna (built 1927), Alfred Mylne designed 12-Meter Marina (built 1934) and Jenetta, another Mylne design 12-Meter (built 1939). For a decade CALETA followed the racing fleet around the coast of England serving as Burton’s summer floating home and tender to his racing yachts.
In 1939 Caleta was requisitioned into the Royal Navy and in 1940 based at Sheerness as a Harbour Defense Vessel, she was armed with guns and patrolled the Thames Estuary. She joined the fleet of Little Ships to evacuate the Allied forces from Dunkirk harbour and the surrounding beaches. CALETA was an active participant, setting out for Dunkirk on May 31st in the company with the yachts Glala and Amulree. She operated under intense enemy shell-fire and dive bomber attacks over seven days during which time she assisted various vessels and embarked 35 troops from a disabled landing craft that she then took in tow. She is among the privileged few honored to fly St. George’s Cross
After the war she was bought by a Greek ship-owner who changed her name from Caleta to Ariane. Later she was renamed Corisande and based in Antibes. In the late 1980’s she was purchased by Count Nicolo delle Rose who gave her the present name of Atlantide.
In 1998 she was acquired by Thomas Perkins of San Francisco, and she underwent a complete rebuild. Her hull was reconstructed at the Manoel Island Shipyard of Malta and the new superstructure and interior was provided by Camper & Nicholson. Overall external and interior design was undertaken by Ken Freivokh Design. At the time it was rumoured to be the world’s most expensive refit per metre, estimated to be worth 18-20 million dollars.
Perkins had brought her back to her original designed purpose as a motor sailer and tender to a racing yacht.
From 1999 through 2005, Atlantide had the enviable roll as support vessel to her owner’s 1915 classic Herreshoff racing schooner Mariette…just when you thought it doesn’t get any better than this, in 2006, Tom Perkins launched the remarkable 289’ Maltese Falcon. Atlantide and “The Falcon” were show stoppers in every port the pair dropped anchor. On her own, Atlantide also cruised to distant points on the globe including the Caribbean, Canada’s East and West coasts and Norway’s high arctic.
In 2020 Jim and Kristy Hinze Clark purchased Atlantide and was shipped from Newport, USA, to the Netherlands, arriving at Royal Huisman’s headquarters in Vollenhove the first week of 2021.
Following the successful 2020-refit by Huisfit of Jim and Kristy Clark’s famous J-Class yacht Hanuman, and with three newbuild orders already completed by Royal Huisman in recent decades (Hyperion in 1998, Athena in 2004, and Hanuman in 2009), Dr. Jim Clark decided the same craftsmen and women are best suited to take on this new project – rebuilding Atlantide at the quality level Royal Huisman is known for.
Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):
Owner/Guardian: (1930) – Sir William Parker Burton, K.B.E.
Disposition: (1939-1940s) – Transferred to the Royal Navy (Operation Dynamo)
Owner/Guardian: (1948) – Pandelis B Pandelis Greece, Cannes. Renamed Ariane.
Owner/Guardian: (1980s late) – Count Nicolo delle Rose, renamed Atlantide
Owner/Guardian: (1998) – Thomas Perkins of San Francisco
Owner/Guardian: (2013) – Richard and Leslie Fairbanks, East Blue Hill, Maine
Owner/Guardian: (2020 – current) Dr. Jim and Kristy Hinze Clark
Resources
Freedom Marine
Classic Studio
Photo credit: Sir William Parker Burton, KBE (1864-1942), Joint-Master of the Essex and Suffolk Foxhounds; President of the Yacht-Racing Association (America Scoop)
Royal Huisman
Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository
Classic Studio
The Corisande, formally Caleta, on the French Riviera, in the 1962 film, Tender is the Night.
Artisan Boatworks – Launching of the recreated Buzzards Bay 18 – Alex Brainerd talks about the Herreshoff design from an except of his blog. “The Buzzards Bay 18 is yet another design, of which no original example survives. Herreshoff designed the 18 in 1903, just a few years after the Buzzards Bay 15. She is 29’ on deck, 18’ on the waterline, displaces 4430 lbs, and has 472 square feet of sail. Similarly to the Belfast Lough One Design, the Buzzards Bay 18 captures the spirit of the “Big Boats” in a captivating way. She would be a good intermediate boat between the Buzzards Bay 15 and larger Buzzards Bay 25, and I would be tempted to lower the ballast keel and eliminate the centerboard in the same way Herreshoff did with the Buzzards Bay 15 when designing Flicker.
The Buzzards Bay 18 is one of the smallest designs of this type that have ample cabin space for occasional overnight use, and adequate displacement to accommodate either diesel or electric propulsion. She is very similar in size and shape to Sparkman and Stephens Dark Harbor 20, but her increased beam adds considerably to the available interior and cockpit space.
To me, the Buzzards Bay 18 is one of the most beautiful of all the Herreshoff designs, and she intrigues me because here is an opportunity to reintroduce the world to something that has been otherwise lost forever. I’m not even aware of any photos of original Buzzards Bay 18’s. To build a new replica of Herreshoff’s Buzzards Bay 18 would be a truly noble endeavor, and one that would have considerable lasting value to both the classic yachting community, and those who revere the Herreshoff legacy.
