My Classic Boat. West Solent 1930

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] this tooth device was useful for the original is that your own idea it was on one of the other ways so let's yeah and it wasn't original even on that but somebody did thought of it and it's actually most quite well just just it could have a few more pigs in it but just to fine-tune it there's all Heath Robinson self theory yes well you miss them both just Kevi new porter 26 years ago yes why did you buy a boat like this it's a gentleman's racing else's and it is yes two of my friends I had had westerlyns here on the river black water and although I had a fast racing hook to my owner gap kapha called Sheena who which was extremely fast especially in light winds I thought it'd be a good idea to give the West Solon so I could actually sell with these friends devices being on basically Easter Bachir to go a long way to buy I didn't do yeah I saw an advert in classic web magazine for mischeif 2001 and I Denis in the spring of then went back in May after negotiating a price and then into the water running we had we found that of the ever met me she wasn't long enough and ended up stem heading the harbor wall because this is the main she but just wasn't long enough and we hadn't checked and then we got a quarter of a mile out of the harbor just us main pier heads and I went out below and noticed the boat was full of water no nearly up to the cockpit level and realize obviously something was wrong and just discovered it was coming in behind the engine initially we didn't know what the problem was so we go because a hand pump of the electric pump bailing her and turned around a cell the back of the harbor and it was actually the property had never been fixed by the previous owner would put a new engine in this Briggs & Stratton normal engine ugly and it just unscrewed itself would come out at the back of the ward back of the boat through the quarter where it was went through and we managed to put it against the harbor wall in in Calais and empty the rest of the water bangor a wooden plug it in the hole and sell it back the next day took it to Ramsgate was a lot of wind and then I went down a week or so later and brought it back to the Blackwater s tree work where she's been ever since so what is it what is it about this boat that is special ah they're they're easy to sell they're like selling a big dinghy they're very responsive and although you've got a huge sail area which you've got a 24 foot boom they they do handle well and they they're good fun a really are good fun they layover and just go really great great boats I remember the first time it Aysel there on my own after having my previous yacht which is a 2008 Ford a freak boat oh I thought oh what have I done massive it was different I thought it was gonna be different there handled there but actually over the last 20 odd years it it's very easy to handle quite happy my own if I have on my own I if I race I was raised with three or four others yeah three other spirit ready if we're gonna use a speck of it anymore it's just too busy in the cockpit so so you can sell it between one and four people it is a boys toilet isn't it oh yeah doesn't have a toilet is a bucket and chocolate job and all the girls still come on board then they they don't usually state to look it's not very lady friendly at all is it no originally when they started the class in the 1920s there was a rule brought out that they all had to have toilets and I believe what toilets were fitted in the whole class but most of those had disappeared and that there wasn't one on this boat when I bought it and I are I've seen photographs of yachts in in salient Birnam on Crouch with women at the helm in the 1930s so you know that the did you step come on board my wife's reluctant sailor she she does come sailing but she prefers the warmth well not too windy weather so yours is pretty much in an original state isn't it so you've got no engine no toilet this is almost original yeah it is it's been restored back to its original specs basic basically you know the the accommodations slightly different to what it would have been originally they were designed to have one paid crew and the crew crew what would live up up forward there and their job was to move the boat from locality to locality usually between Torbay so London and Berlin so the owner could come under sail the boat of the weekends the first owner of this boat was Sir Francis Dent quite and Arden Yasmani he owned i only owned it for about a year in half and but he doomed the new bone nearly every two years I think in the fifties it was called fee day that was when the noise registers disallowed votes with the same name more than one vote with the same name to be in their register Lee became feed over for a few years but it's reverted back to mischief you're you're the chairman of the West Solon class aren't you that nice race but the W Boat Association yes but it's it's sort of vanishing sorry I I've written written well Parliament Leonel opponents have sold and partly goodness I mean the back the only person that's particularly interested in the history and of the classes everybody's sort of just disappeared basically in there I've got the records of the Association from 1924 onwards and they went up to 1953 I think it was and then the class was disbanded for many years until we started to get it in the early 1990s it's been a class with an association up till the present but um I'm about the only active member left now unfortunately you're the last man standing then just about yeah but why do you think this is I mean this is a beautiful button ya know so why is white people losing interest in it well they've moved as a racing class you can only race it's everybody's together and they've some separated and the couple have gone down to France come on down to the south coast and there's a couple which need restoring again and it's just lack of interest at the time being I'm sure substage in the future somebody will resurrect the class would assume that the better how many of the original ones are lectures in just a handful from one to three I suppose is about nine or ten of them like that but some that have been sold on from the East Coast if like one went down to France last year I know she's had an engine inserted in her as of several others that have disappeared from the East Coast and the advantage of an engine is of course you can get in and out of arenas which is difficult with the up but right I use a bracket which I I fit on the of the pencil sheet track and put an outboard on that and when the way up boards working it manages for the few times that I need it to go into the into a marina the local canal or if there's absolutely zero with otherwise the cells more than enough to Weaver around the first West so Lance were just built and designed and built by birth and boat company they were they were designed by Hg may it is so first name is it somebody Jacobs and the first one was launched in 1921 arrow in the next nine years 30 a total of 31 we're so let's work on pollute were launched initially sailed mostly on the south coast based out of cows and Livington in the thirties classes were some of that those boats were moved up to burn them where they were called the Royal burn one design and then there was a class down until in Torbay that their 34 foot six and a half seven six wide there were 45 masters about day in the 50s people wanted cruises they didn't have the money for racing and we're sellers were ideal for converting into cruising yachts but most the class got converted into cruisers they had shortened pools a chef built on deck extensions but round and rails and that's some of them even had a big cut off the stern just to make them a more ideal so how many of the class are there left in the UK don't you know about um I'd say in Europe there's about I think about fourteen of the original 31 there were originally five or other westerlyns which were built and shipped to Argentina to Buenos Aires Yacht Club the they called them the lost India's class and thus three of those left in various stages of restoration so what did she cost you when you when you first bought her and how much have you spent on the restoration I I worked out buyer in France was not Laurie after the coasting and they're putting her in the water it was 14400 M ninety-one then over the next about four years the restoration but the total cost up to about sixty thousand that's a rough figure off the top of my head but it is it was about that and although it's walkable that property the boats worth that's the same with all those boats never worth what you put into them as everybody knows [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: My Classic Boat

Views: 217,919

Rating: 4.8954363 out of 5

Keywords: West solent one design, west solent, classic yacht, kevin fuller, maldon, essex, my classic boat, classic boat, bob aylott

Id: rtSqhbSy2VI

Length: 15min 16sec (916 seconds)

Published: Tue May 01 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/rowman_urn]

I like the cut of your jib! 😉

[u/Niaaal]

What a beauty! And that 24ft boom, wow! Love seeing how happy he is sailing her.

[u/_jenni4]

One day... I'll still be wishing I had a boat that beautiful.

[u/LoudMusic]

Boats should not have lifelines. That boat is beautiful.