A Modified Canoe Yawl from the late 1880’s

Back in 1991, then totally unfamiliar with computers, digitisers and C.A.D. programs - though totally at home with conventional designing and lofting - I commissioned Paul Fisher of Selway Fisher Design to digitise accurately the original lines of George Holmes’ canoe yawl ‘Ethel’ of 1888 to produce an exact copy of the hull, which was then faired to produce a seven plank a-side stitch-and-glue carvel hull instead of the original clinker.  The original lines were later stretched on computer to make the most of two scarfed 8 x 4 foot sheets of plywood, adding about 20 inches to the original length of 13 feet. [Holmes had decided on a mere 13 feet so that she could be transported easily by train in the guard's van to new cruising areas.]  Fisher reproduced the original’s deck, cockpit, low aspect centreboard and rudder arrangements, but altered the rig to a standing lug main and mizzen.  I produced my own deck and cockpit design together with a high aspect ratio semi-pivoting dagger board and lifting rudder, and reverted to a balanced lug main, putting battens in the mizzen to keep the sail quiet when hove-to and to ensure the sail draws when the main is pinned in for pointing high.

The boat was built in the late spring/early summer of 1992 and has been used summer and winter since - mostly for club racing until about the year 2000 - without being repainted or varnished, and has never been stored inside but always in a dinghy park.  The deck was originally intended to be painted cream, but was given a single temporary coat of varnish over the epoxy coating at the last moment as a friend suggested it would look better in a photo-shoot for the Boatman magazine, and the yawl has not been back in the workshop since to be finished.  Maybe next year... Or maybe not: it is fifteen years now and it's still looking good.

Campion Sail and Design                             February2000/2007