How Phil and Sue Russell found a bargain in a tired looking but otherwise sound South Coast One Design, and worked on her to bring her back as a tidy and well found yachty. This is the story of Aurigny… from the summer of 2016 that was featured in the August 2016 issue of Classic Sailor.
Restored. She never fails to delight
Aurigny never fails to delight, although getting to know her has given me one or two surprises. Within two hundred yards of our departure from Boating World, as it was then known, near Landrake in Cornwall, we were on the putty and getting her off proved quite emotional… but get her off we did with a little help from a passer-by in his dinghy. I have to admit that for a few nights after I had trouble getting to sleep thinking about what could have happened to 5 tons of boat in the soft mud of the River Lyhner if help had not arrived at such an opportune moment.
My wife and I had worked hard during the three months after her purchase getting the exterior of Aurigny up to some sort of acceptable standard and judging by the reaction of onlookers in the boatyard we did a good job. As we motored from the Lyhner into the Tamar, HMS Monmouth was berthing alongside with my son-in-law on board and we had the approval of the ship’s company as we passed – that gave me a warm feeling inside.
We eventually arrived at Plymouth Yacht Haven with no further problems and Aurigny looked so small in her berth but wow, she certainly stood out against the white plastic yachts and even after two seasons I still get an enormous sense of pride with all the nice things people continue to say about her. Of course, as well as being a beautiful “Classic”, she is a well proven design with her class still racing in the Solent.
Sailing Aurigny is great fun, she will sail on her side, railings awash and turn a good 7 knots giving any yacht of comparable size a run for its money and at times, even some bigger ones. We are now in our second season and continue to renovate her – a sort of restoration between sailing her. We had her ashore last summer for a couple of weeks to repair a small part of her keel and give her hull a coat of paint, this time with a secret ingredient to preserve the finish, and this year I am happy to say the repair is sound and so is the finish. Sue has completed the curtains which took a lot of thinking about as they needed to incorporate two differing ways to hang them, we have restored the inside to more resemble the original look and with LED lighting above the saloon seats she now has a cosy warm and snug feel. We have also added some nice touches that work well in order to make a couple of night stopovers comfortable without any dramas.
Aurigny is a real classic, built in 1956, very sound and able to sleep four comfortably, she is an affordable little yacht both for an older couple or a young family with a couple of children and if you don’t mind doing some of the work that she will demand she will always be a delight. Whatever you do with her you can be sure she will return the favour a thousand times.
This is the story we ran in the August 2016 edition of Classic Sailor:
In a graveyard of neglected yachts
Phil Russell spotted a South Coast One Design
that looked worth restoring – if the engine worked
Phil getting on with sanding off years of paint
I have painted and drawn boats of all sorts for my own pleasure and even sold a few. I have also owned a couple of boats. As a profession I photograph yachts and I have photographed war ships from end to end under contract, so I have more than a passing interest in the marine industry, but by far my love for boats lies in the classic wooden yacht.
I have been fortunate enough to have photographed the Pendennis Cup on a few occasions which is an event organized by the Pendennis shipyard in Falmouth for yachts that have either been restored or built by them and in 2001 I was invited to crew on Marigold, a Victorian gentleman’s gaff cutter, during the America’s Cup Jubilee. Marigold had been found in mud on the Isle of Wight and was salvaged by Greg Powlesland, rebuilt to her original spec and later passed on to be sold at Sotheby’s to be taken on by a new owner.
Over a period of time I came to realise that to preserve the marine heritage of the UK is vital. In Marigold’s case the preservation in all parts of the vessel is as close to the original as it could be.
I recently visited Boating World on the River Lynher which is a tributary off the River Tamar in Cornwall. This yard has been known locally as something of a graveyard for unwanted projects and there I found a number of yachts in need of TLC. Some need rather more work than others and a few need a minor miracle to recover and return to the sea, but sure enough among the glassfibre I found a real classic in need of some attention.
The unmistakable lines of a South One Coast Design sat in the middle of the yard, painted a delicate shade of muddy blue with her varnish work doing nothing to lift her appearance. On first inspection she didn’t look too bad and I thought she deserved a further look. As it happened, a boatbuilder friend was coming to stay so I roped him in to give her the once over. At this point I hadn’t told my wife anything, why give myself a problem? I thought this would be the best way forward although I had s
The engine was seized…
ort of mentioned it to her in passing at which point her reply had been: “In your dreams!”
John, my boatbuilder friend and I, spent the afternoon going through Aurigny, my intended purchase. The engine was seized and the keel bolts needed drawing sooner rather than later but the rest of her appeared to be sound, so with this information I felt able to make an offer on the proviso that the deal would be off if I could not get the engine running.
So, the yard owner and I came to an agreement, I would buy her for the storage fee that she owed the yard, with the owner’s permission of course, and I now knew that it was time to break the news to my wife. We had just returned from a life-changing trip to Australia and whilst there had both realized and agreed that we were drifting too easily into old age, a change of some sort was needed on our return home, but what sort of change had yet to be decided. I felt that I had now found the answer.
John and I discussed the boat openly over dinner and he said what a good buy she would be. As planned it stimulated my wife Sue’s interest and John’s reassurance about Aurigny’s state made the journey of getting her to the boatyard for a look a piece of cake. The next morning, after John had left, we drove to the yard and Sue was up Aurigny’s ladder before I could say: “The engine won’t turn over.” “WHAT?” was Sue’s reply. That was a bit of a stumbling block! I had to get it going or she would go off the idea like a bucket of prawns in the sun!
To justify the purchase and in anticipation of the problem I had had the batteries put on charge and they were fine so with a bit of gentle persuasion I eventually got the engine to turn over and soon I had her thumping away, she was pumping water and sounded sweet so I reported to the yard owner that the deal was on.
When I returned, Sue was already getting busy with the scrubbing brush, cooing like a dove and making all the right noises. Done deal then, there was nothing more to be said so best get on with it.
Floors and straps showing some signs of rust but in fact were quite sound on inspection.
It will be advisable to draw some fastenings the next time she is out the water.
Rust looks awful from this perspective but once you clean it off and treat it with something tough (like Coovar) then it’s often surprising how much strength is still there
It was shortly after this I became aware of a chap who was working on a wooden restoration across the yard from where we were standing looking at Aurigny. “You bought this then? I hope you didn’t pay much for it, you could have bought a load of trouble, the previous owner was not a boatbuilder and did a lot of work on her.”
This of course was true, but it was also true John and I had been right through her and were aware of some minor problems. I looked at him and asked if the previous owner had replaced any timbers in her and that she was sound as far as we could tell. He made a sort of grunting noise and padded off back to his project.
Over the next month we grafted on Aurigny at every moment we had spare. Gradually she shook off her dowdy coat of muddy blue and like the ugly duckling began to show us her true worth.
I must say that Mr Nicholson was a master of his craft if you’ll excuse the pun; the shape of her is a piece of art, the lines of her curves above and below the water are sheer inspiration, it’s no wonder SCODs had such a reputation during the fifties and sixties. These are the sort of boats I used to look at in yachting magazines when I was a child and dream of one day owning one. Well it’s been a long time but the day has arrived, so yes, you could say I am pleased.
On a break from sanding and painting I looked around the yard and was saddened to see a number of neglected yachts whose owners had lost interest or possibly through misfortune had abandoned their assets to the breaker and I have to ask why there are so many?
A Hurley 18 fin keel, a lovely little boat in fair condition for around £700, a Hurley 22 for £1750 in need of some cosmetic attention but otherwise sound, but to my mind, the saddest case is a Rustler 30 that is not for sale and has been just left to the weather. Everything aboard is neat and tidy but covered in green mould and decay. As I understand it, this fabulous yacht has suffered the loss of her owner and his widow can’t bear the thought of parting with her, such a shame as her fees are paid and she just sits there year in year out.
Comfy cabin – there is room for improvement!
Sue Russell
There are several choices to be had here and for very little money you could get you and your family sailing and enjoying the delights of owning your own boat.
Our three children grew up on all three of the boats we have owned in the past, my wife learned to sail and navigate, how to splice rope and the rules of the road.
The experiences we have had with the children are remembered in later life and we hope that some time in the future they will take up sailing again, but for now it is just my wife and I who are looking to the future and new horizons with Aurigny. As it happens she is a similar age to us, I just hope she is not so grumpy!
Hoping to have her in the water in early August we need a 5.5m tide to get her away from the yard. The narrow channel proves something of a challenge and although I have done it once before in Finesse, our Ecume de Mer, it was two decades ago and I hope I can remember the way over the mud.
Sanding back the hatches to new wood…
Of course Aurigny is timber and being out of the water for so long has not been healthy for her, so the sooner she is back in the better. The weather could be better too but I am not really sorry about that because it will keep her damp.
As we started to make progress on Aurigny it began to emerge that we might be doing something right, the odd few people who were busy on their own projects had begun to notice that things had taken an upturn for Aurigny and the occasional smile began to be cast in our direction. Whether it was in admiration or sympathy I was not yet sure.
We have recently had a few days of fine weather and made some real progress painting the topsides. She had been flattened and filled with a surface filler, four coats of undercoat rubbed down between each coat and the first topcoat applied which caused some emotional issues between my wife and me. She wanted cream, I preferred an off-white so eventually we chose a colour in between the two from a colour chart. When we opened the tin and started to apply it to the pure white undercoat we couldn’t see any difference in the colour and it was at this stage that the toys came out of the pram!
“That’s not the colour we chose, I don’t like it, I’m not having that, you’ll have to take it back,” said my wife. Having spent fifty-odd quid on the now opened tin of paint I was not about to cave in on this one, but somehow I had to avoid the ensuing mutiny. We scoured the shelves and eventually found a small tin of yellow and after gradually adding small amounts ended up with the exact colour Sue wanted in the first place – mutiny was averted and, as usual, my wife was right all along, it’s the perfect colour, though I can never admit that to her!
Looking a whole lot better!
All the undercoats were applied with a roller but I like to use a paint pad when applying the topcoat and it was at this point that people began stopping and making comments. Of course, like all paint jobs it’s all in the preparation, the base has to be flat otherwise every mark and pimple will be exaggerated in the final coat.
She has now had three topcoats and with the green boot top applied we are now stopping traffic! The varnished coach roof makes her glow in the sunlight and it is now difficult to get on with the jobs we still have to do as everyone wants to know how we have achieved such an amazing finish. She does look fantastic even though I say so myself. When the yard critic who had warned me that I may have taken on a load of trouble appeared, quizzing me on how I managed to get such a good finish, I explained and said, with tongue in cheek, that of course, it takes years of experience. With nodding approval and a smile, he returned to his project, and I took that as a huge compliment.
So here we are finally, almost where we had planned to be before we launch. There is still the interior to get to grips with but we will use her as she is for the season in order to know what has to be done to suit our needs and of course, whatever we do will have to be in traditional style.
Please click on images to expand them.