Sail Number: 3
Type: Original Gaff Yawl – Current Gaff Schooner
LOA: 96’9” / 29.49m – LOD: 80’5” / 24.51m – LWL: 61’2” / 18.64m – Beam: 15’9” / 4.80m – Draft: 11’0” / 3.35m – Designer: Fred Shepherd – Design Number: – Original Name: Bamba III – Original Owner: Dr. J. MacMahon, Cork, Ireland – Current Owner: – Year Built: 1902 – Built by: White Brothers, Southampton, UK – Hull material: 2 inch thick Rangoon teak planks laid over 5 inch square English oak frames with bronze fastenings. – Displacement: 68 tonnes – Engine: 200 HP Volvo turbo diesel
Historical:
CORAL OF COWES. Launched in 1902, was originally a gaff rigged yawl and was commissioned for Dr. MacMahon of Cork, Ireland as ‘BAMBA III’. A sleek and eye catching sailing machine of her era, she successfully won prestigious races such as the Kings Cup in the 1920’s and the Queens cup in ‘30’s.
Spent her first 40 years of her life racing in Cowes, and many time competing against King George V’s yacht, winning numerous times.
She had been built by White Brothers of Southampton in 1902 to Lloyds 100 A1 + standards. Not only were the finest materials used but every design detail checked against those stringent requirements at all stages of construction. Her massive construction was indeed unusual for a yacht designed – originally as a yawl – to be raced in the Solent. Nevertheless that very high standard and resultant strength have undoubtedly contributed to her remarkable state of preservation as much that pre war she was routinely dry docked for the winter.
During the 2nd World War she was laid up so that her 25 ton lead keel could be removed for the metal so essential to the war effort. Since then she has been lived on and cared for at Souter’s boatyard in Cowes – and then her owner of the last 18 years who had her rebuilt in Cape Town in 2005.
After the war the yacht sat for 50-60 years without masts and keel serving as a house boat. Then the owner of a Coca Cola franchise in South Africa bought the yacht spending millions of dollars in her restoration. The present owner has continued on with additional restoration and then the Coral of Cowes will be heading back to England for the first time since World War !!
Provenance (The Wall of Remembrance – The Owners, Crew & Notable Guest):
- Owner/Guardian: (1902-1907) – Dr. J. MacMahon, Cork, Ireland
- Owner Guardian: (1907-1924) – Sir Henry Drummond Bart – Renamed CORAL
- Owner Guardian: (1924) – Frank Chaplin, Cumberland Gate
- Owner Guardian: (1965) – Len & Doll Souter, Cowes boatbuilder, used as a houseboat
- Owner Guardian: (1991) – Robin Reed
- Owner Guardian: (2011) – Richard Oswald, renamed Coral of Cowes.
- Owner Guardian: Hugh Kerr Bradley Roberts, Souda Bay, Crete
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