A classic wooden yawl might not seem the obvious choice for offshore racing, But Nic Compton finds this classic yacht is up for itPhotos: Nic ComptonThere\u2019s no shortage of stunning boats moored at Port Pendennis in Falmouth when I visit the marina in June, not least a couple of enormous, shiny superyachts being polished to death by their crews. But I haven\u2019t come to see them.
\nThe boat I\u2019ve come to see is tucked away at the far end of the outer jetty. With her glowing varnish, immaculately scrubbed decks and period fittings, Amokura looks every bit the timeless classic she is: a precious piece of maritime heritage to be nurtured and preserved and treated with the utmost respect and reverence. She\u2019s a concours d\u2019elegance winner; the lead boat in any parade of sail.
\nYet, as she motored out of the marina towards the open waters of the Carrick Roads, Amokura wasn\u2019t heading towards yet another classic boat festival, to compare baggywrinkle tying techniques with other aficionados \u2013 far from it.
\nAmokura\u2019s new \u2018classic\u2019 rig was designed by Ashley Butler for short-handed offshore sailing
\nThis 80-year-old classic was off to Ireland to race, tack for tack and gybe for gybe, against a fleet of modern racing yachts in the 270-mile Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race. Not only that, but she was being sailed two-handed, by owner Paul Moxon and friend Steve Jones \u2013 not bad going for a 50ft wooden boat with no electric winches or other fancy gizmos.
\nAnd the D2D was just the qualifier en route to a bigger goal: this year\u2019s Fastnet Race, in which Amokura was again competing in the two-handed division (sadly, she had to retire, facing a very windy forecast). It\u2019s an unlikely development for this old wooden boat with no previous history of racing (she entered the 1959 Fastnet, but also retired) and might be expected to be resting on her laurels, just happy to have survived so long.
\nBut her owner has clearly taken the old adage that \u2018ships and sailors rot in port\u2019 to heart and has ensured that both yacht and crew are race ready, regardless of age.
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Paul had relatively little yacht sailing experience when he bought Amokura in 2012. True, he spent more of his teens teaching dinghy sailing, first at Woolverstone Marina in Suffolk, then Mercury Marina on the Hamble and finally with the Island Cruising Club in Salcombe. He even bought a 21ft Pandora International centreboarder in his early 20s, and made a cross-Channel crossing on the Island Cruising Club\u2019s schooner, Hoshi.
\nHe did very little sailing, however, during his 20s and 30s, while he concentrated on his career (starting at PricewaterhouseCoopers and moving on to ABN AMRO) and having a family. When he finally decided to buy a boat as he approached his 40th year, he looked for something he could go long-distance cruising with his family.
\n\u201cI had been on day charters in modern boats and didn\u2019t like their tendency to broach in any sort of strong wind,\u201d he says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t particularly looking for a classic boat, but I wanted a boat with the ability to go offshore and go places. That\u2019s what pushed me towards the classics. When my wife and I saw Amokura, we liked her age and the heritage she embodied, and we figured: in for a penny, in for a pound.\u201d
\nPaul Moxon (left) and Steve Jones met on a crew finding website
\nPaul had no intention of racing at that stage. He spent the first season cruising with the family around Palma, before bringing the boat back to the UK for some badly-needed restoration at Cockwells Boatyard in Falmouth \u2013 including new decks.
\nThe lead keel was also dropped and rebedded and new garboard planks fitted in an effort to cure a persistent leak. He then sailed back to Palma, where Amokura was based for the next three years.
\n\u201cThe original plan had been to keep her in the UK,\u201d he says. \u201cBut after our first year in the Med, we liked it and decided to keep her there after the refit.\u201d
\nBack to original
\nAs the job list grew, however, Paul decided to bring the yacht back to UK rather than face the \u201cpunishing heat\u201d and equally punishing labour rates of refitting the boat in Palma.
\nApart from anything, he had long harboured a desire to return Amokura to her original rig \u2013 or something approaching it \u2013 rather than the reduced rig with aluminium spars fitted in 1969.
\n\u201cIt was quite clear sailing in the Med that she was underpowered,\u201d says Paul. \u201cThe rig looked stubby and not quite right, and she wouldn\u2019t sail through any chop in anything less than ten knots.\u201d
\nThe boom crutch. Amokura is named after a Pacific seabird
\nThe boat was still leaking too, particularly when the rig was put under pressure. So, in late 2015, Paul sailed Amokura back across Biscay to Ashley Butler\u2019s new yard in Penpol, just outside Falmouth.
\nAshley made another attempt at curing the persistent leak that had eluded previous shipwrights, this time removing the old wooden keel and replacing it with a new one carved out of a single, two-tonne piece of iroko.
\nMeanwhile, Paul spent several months with naval architect Theo Rye (now sadly deceased) experimenting with different sail configurations.
\n\u201cWe were trying to find the right balance between what was original and what works now,\u201d he says. \u201cWe tested the rudder balance at various points of sail, and superimposed practical tests on the theoretical.\u201d
\nAmokura was designed by Fred Shepherd and launched in 1939. Credit: Andy Nickerson
\nThe result was a fractional yawl rig with wooden spars, no bowsprit and a large yankee (i.e. staysail), which resembles much more closely the rig shown in the iconic photos taken by Beken of Cowes in 1947 \u2013 although the new version sports white rather than tan sails. The spars were duly made by Butler & Co, while the sails were made by Peter Crockford at SailTech in Penryn.
\nBy then Paul had teamed up with classic boat enthusiast Steve Jones, who himself owns a wooden Folkboat. Most of his long-distance sailing was done two-handed, with his wife and children joining the boat once they had arrived at their chosen cruising destination. The new rig was therefore geared for that kind of sailing.
\n\u201cWhen we re-rigged the boat, we focused on making her easy to sail short-handed \u2013 or even single-handed with an autopilot. We\u2019ve run all the lines to the bottom of the mast rather than run them back to the cockpit, which means they\u2019re easier to pull because there\u2019s less friction and there aren\u2019t any lines on deck to trip you up.
\n\u201cIt also means you just have one place to go to adjust almost everything. Because she\u2019s a heavy boat, the deck provides a stable platform and going forward to the mast even in foul weather is not as intensely dangerous and stressful as it would be on a lighter, more flighty boat.
\n\u201cTo hoist the main, for example, the halyard has a 2:1 purchase, to the top of the mast straight down to the deck, and because there aren\u2019t any turning blocks, you have a straight pull. You use your weight to hoist the sail most of the way and put the halyard around the winch to sweat the last four or five feet.
\n\u201cYou only use the winch handle right at the very end, to tension the luff. We thought about how each job can be done short-handed for a Biscay crossing, so while one person is sleeping down below the other can reef the main single-handedly.\u201d
\nAshley Butler proved just the man to oversee the work; having himself sailed many miles short and single-handed, first on his restored Morecambe Bay prawner Ziska and then on an East Coast bawley he built himself (the 32ft Sally B), clocking up two Atlantic crossings in the process.
\nThe interior was rebuilt at the International Boatbuilding Training College in Lowestoft
\nHe therefore knows all about the demands of sailing traditional boats with small crews, though he says, \u201cas it turns out the simplicity of working the rig has led to it being really practical to race Amokura short-handed.\u201d
\nAnd so Amokura set off with her new rig in 2016 to join the party at the Brest and Douarnenez festivals, winning her class at Douarnenez through the simple expedient of being the only boat in that class.
\nPaul and family also took the boat to the Gulf du Morbihan, where her most famous owner, George Millar, cruised on the yacht in the early 1960s, an adventure described in his book Oyster River.
\nGeorge Millar bought Amokura in 1954
\nPaul even managed to trace the descendant of the same family who welcomed Millar all those years ago and swung from the same mooring Amokura had occupied then \u2013 even if the River Auray is now a long way from the verdant idyll Millar describes in his book, being as packed with moorings as the Hamble.
\nGetting serious
\nBack in the UK, Amokura attended the 2018 Sea Salts & Sail festival at Mousehole and took part in a light-hearted race around Mount\u2019s Bay. But it was at the Hamble Classics that year that Paul really got a taste for competitive sailing. \u201cIt was the first time we\u2019d done some proper racing, and I really enjoyed it. We got a good feel for it.\u201d
\nNever a man to do things by halves, on the back of that success, Paul decided to enter Amokura in the 2019 Rolex Fastnet Race, simply \u201cbecause it was there\u201d. First, however, he had to get his ship in order.
\nThe lovely traditional wheel. Steering is via a worm gear
\n\u201cThe racing has certainly upped the pressure,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re sailing the boat harder than before, which puts a strain on the hull, which means she leaks more. We replaced another plank last winter, which has helped, but to be honest at the moment I\u2019m more focused on bilge pumps than leaks!\u201d
\nBefore she could compete in the Fastnet, however, Amokura had to comply with the RORC safety rules \u2013 which were clearly not written with an 80-year-old classic yacht in mind. Credit where credit\u2019s due, the RORC proved open to the idea, and Paul found them generally \u201cpragmatic\u201d, \u201crisk-focused\u201d and \u201cnot box-ticking\u201d.
\n\u201cWe had a sensible conversation with the RORC to work out what the regulations really meant and how we could sensibly comply. Amokura is essentially a very safe boat, but how do we reconcile that with a set of rules design to make modern boats safe to race?
\n\u201cFor example, the rules require you to carry an emergency tiller, but Amokura has wheel steering with old-fashioned gear linkage, so it\u2019s not possible to fit an emergency tiller. Instead, we came up with a plan, if the steering fails, to use a sea anchor trailed over stern to alter course.\u201d
\nModern safety gear
\nIn the end, the main modification was to alter the forehatch fittings to ensure it could be opened from both inside and outside, and it could be locked properly. Amokura also had to be fitted with modern safety gear, as evidenced by the rash of white plastic boxes, which have sprouted around her aft deck.
\nOther changes were made not for compliance but to upgrade the boat \u201cfrom a cruising to a basic racing set-up\u201d, including fitting new wind and speed sensors because, as Paul says, \u201cif you haven\u2019t got reliable sensors, you can\u2019t work out an accurate wind angle. It\u2019s a luxury we haven\u2019t had before and has made a big difference.\u201d
\nHandles to open hatches from both sides had to be fitted
\nAnd then there was the small matter of a spinnaker. \u201cI was warned off having a spinnaker, because people thought it might be a stretch too far for short-handed sailing. But I decided to try it anyway, and I\u2019ve never looked back,\u201d he says.
\n\u201cThe brief to Gavin Watson at Penrose Sails was to make a sail that was more forgiving to cope with short-handed sailing, so we\u2019ve had to trade off some power for ease of handling. The shape is narrower at the shoulder, but it sets easily and you can just leave it and go off and make a cup of tea. If you don\u2019t like the look of something, you can shield the spinnaker behind the main and snuff it down.\u201d
\nCharging full speed ahead
\nIt\u2019s a credit to Paul\u2019s sympathetic approach that he has managed to make the yacht \u2018race ready\u2019 without indulging in the shiny bling that blights so many other racing classics. If it wasn\u2019t for all the safety gear attached to the guardrails aft, you\u2019d never know.
\nAmokura has been sympathetically restored to her former glory
\nOut on Falmouth Bay, the wind picks up to a brisk Force 5, and Amokura laps it up. With her 20 tons of displacement it takes a lot of wind to worry her, and in these conditions she just charges full speed ahead, several times achieving hull speed judging by the hollowed out wave amidship.
\nHer two-man crew give a bravura performance, holding on to full sail for the photos, despite the breezy conditions. Swooping and leaping over the waves, she really does look like the Pacific Ocean seabird after which she is named.
\nAmokura might be 80 years old, but she sails like a yacht in her prime. Paul\u2019s ambitious campaign has breathed new life into her tired timbers and, whatever the results on the race circuit, has ensured she is in a fit state to sail for another 80 years.
\nAmokura specification
\nLOA:\u00a015.32m (50ft 3in)LWL:\u00a011.58m (38ft)Beam:\u00a03.66m (12ft)Draught:\u00a02.13m (7ft)Displacement:\u00a020 tonnes
\nExtracts from George Millar\u2019s article for the 1954 Royal Cruising Club journal
\n\u201c[Amokura] will eat up to windward with the best of them, which is the only true insurance policy afloat; further, with her yawl rig and reasonable length of keel she is a good one for self-steering both on and off the wind.
\n1 June 1954
\nOn June 1st we took 18 shirts, 12 towels, and 14 linen sheets (I do not hold with sleeping in blankets) to the 24-hour laundry, which has an Italianate name, and that morning we entered the docks to fill our two 20-gallon tanks with gasoil.
\nThe engine, burning only \u00bd gallon an hour, will give us 5 knots in a calm; so our range is about 400 miles under power. We also took paraffin (8 gallons), fresh water (125 gallons), distilled water, lubricating oil, linseed oil, and turpentine.
\n3 June 1954
\nAll went well (especially Amokura) until 0930, when we were over the Kaiser-i-hind Bank, some 60 miles SW of Ushant, and the wind headed us. I experimented until she sailed herself closehauled, the boomed foresail sheeted in very hard, the mizzen rather free, the main trimmed for efficiency.
\nShe needed one and a half spokes to hold her off, and thus she seemed to travel better than with my tired self fussing over her. That day, the next, and the intervening night, we touched the wheel no more, except when putting about.\u201d
\nAmokura on sea trials in Southampton Water in 1939
\nThe many lives of Amokura
\n1939 \u2013 Designed by Fred Shepherd and built by AH Moody & Son, Swanwick, on the Hamble for Major (later Sir) Ernest Harston. She was named after the Maori word for the red-tailed tropicbird, a seabird native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
\nHer original sail plans show a small staysail set on inner forestay, and later photos by Beken of Cowes show her setting a large yankee on the outer, fractionally rigged forestay. The hull was painted black.
\n1946 \u2013 Described as a \u201cmost marvellous ocean racer\u201d by Uffa Fox, in a private letter to Fred Shepherd
\n1953 \u2013 Bought by Manchester builder EA Crosby.
\n1954 \u2013 Bought by George Millar, who was awarded a DSO and a L\u00e9gion d\u2019Honneur for his wartime exploits.
\nMillar sailed widely on Amokura, including trips to the Mediterranean, and wrote about her in his book \u2018Oyster River\u2019. Entered the 1959 Fastnet Race, but retired.
\n1960 \u2013 Bought by Horace Morgan, based at Corpach, near Fort William, Scotland
\n1969 \u2013 Bought by Richard Carr MBE, of Carr biscuits, a friend of George Millar who was in the same POW camp. Carr reduced her rig and fitted aluminium spars.
\nAmokura moored in Montfalcone, Italy in the 1970s
\n1979 \u2013 Under American ownership, sailed to the Caribbean, the East Coast of America and back to the Med. Hull painted white.
\n1981 \u2013 Described as \u201cseaworthy family cruiser\u201d in Cruising Under Sail by Eric Hiscock
\n1990 \u2013 Seized by Spanish authorities for drug smuggling and sold to Peter Guan, who kept her in Vilamoura, Spain
\nAmokura\u00a0was refitted in 2013
\n1996 \u2013 Bought by \u2018serial classic boat enthusiast\u2019 David Japp and restored at the International Boatbuilding Training College in Lowestoft.
\n2004 \u2013 Bought by Jane Scrinar & Anthony Harwood, based in the UK.
\n2006 \u2013 Bought by Peter & Gillian Phillips, and was based in Valencia, Spain, then Cogolin, France.
\n2012 \u2013 Bought by Paul Moxon. Redecked in 2013; rerigged with wooden spars in 2016; hull painted dark blue in 2019.
\nArticle first published in the October 2019 issue of Yachting World.
\nThe post Amokura: The classic yacht celebrating her 80th anniversary on the racing circuit appeared first on Yachting World.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A classic wooden yawl might not seem the obvious choice for offshore racing, But Nic Compton finds this classic yacht is up for itPhotos: Nic ComptonThere\u2019s no shortage of stunning boats moored at Port Pendennis in Falmouth when I visit … <\/p>\n