Rotten summer, weather-wise anyway. But some good things like one of the best years ever for the launch of new Memorys. And yours truly finally got a tarted up "Adrienne V" back in the water in September, ready for winter cruising. (Well, it couldn’t be worse than August, could it ?) As promised in the last edition, this one carries the pieces from Roy Hart and Nick Hillman, persuaded to dish out the how and why they keep winning races. And also the records of hefty chunks of work done by Fred Reid and Mike Hawthorne on keeping two of the equally competitive older Memorys pretty and in fighting order.

We now have 66 Memorys ‘on the books’ so to speak, ones we know about, which is a far cry from the 37 recorded in early 1998. A good number of the present fleet are older boats, recalled to life, and quite a few of them through the brokerage activities of Greg at Salterns, as people saw the publicity the boat has been given in recent years and realised they were worth saving. Possibly "Martha Knowles", left to pine in a Gloucestershire back garden for 25 years, may well be the last to be rediscovered. Who knows ?

For the record, to re-affirm, membership of the MOA is offered only to people who actually own a Memory, or some ex member-owners who want to keep up their interest in what’s afoot with Memory sailing. There have been one or two instances in the past where those who said they were actively seeking to buy a Memory were admitted to membership for a while, but that has now ceased – one of the conditions that members permit is that we exchange names, addresses and telephone numbers to allow members to keep in touch with each other as and when that might be helpful. It is that information which I think should not be spread beyond actual owners. OK ?

There are one or two owners I have never heard back from, despite sending over a number of years. Not everyone wants to ‘keep in touch’ – that’s understandable, so this time I shall not bother them with the Newsletter. But if anyone hears or comes across an owner who feels neglected in this way, please let me know.

Greg was particularly interested and you’ll see from this edition that it is a record of triumphs clearly worth keeping – so I will try to complete the record of all race and event winners, let’s say since the year 2000. The potential of the Memory class deserves it ! So I’ve included with this Newsletter a form to be returned to me please, listing any and all of the races, events, prizes which you and your boat might have gained. In this exercise, modesty is NOT and option ! At least if it’s meant to be a complete and authoritative record. The aim is to put the performance record together for, say, this time next year, available for anyone who wants a copy. So please reply – or fill one in as well for any pathologically shy friend……..(Ed.)

After a well attended get together of local Memory Owners at a Portsmouth pub, it was decided to hold a weekend rally of Memorys in Chichester Harbour on 3^rd and 4^th July. A number of the more westerly placed boats had a hankering to try to get eastwards (funny tides in the Solent) and over the Chichester Bar into some delightful pottering places. Friendly contacts were made with the Dell Quay Sailing Club and the Chichester based boats were to see that we came to no harm. You may not remember the weekend of 3^rd and 4^th July, like so many others in 2004 – it howled and it rained buckets. As with many other little incidents, it was hard enough to try to get a mainsail for "Sepia" held onto the ground for folding let alone attempting to pin it on the boat itself; but we did try. In the end it was so awful weather-wise the whole thing was called of – mobiles rather than proper VHF. As it turned out, in order to get as many as possible ‘available’ we had also chosen a weekend of high tides at midday, which wasn’t the best choice with boats coming distances from different directions. But it was a start of sorts. Next year…… ! (TC)

To underline the risks of doing a bit of ‘showing off’ of your working boat credentials………….. It was on the Friday evening before The Swale Match in Kent, I sailed "Greensleeves" right up to the club-house at the top of its creek for the Skippers Briefing, using her as a dinghy to also get ashore. The Club was filled with gnarled and knowing sailing barge and smack skippers. For them – everyone on this water was always doing something wrong ! After a few beers, it was time for the off; the tide was beginning to go and the wind had dropped to a gentle breeze. Away first and on-board, I hoisted the mainsail, moving slowly and oh so casually around the deck, knowing that all eyes were watching. Nonchalantly, I carried on with good boat practice, never turning my head. (I was once a mate on board a sailing barge for a very short time and knew well what the whispers would be about.) "I’ll show ‘em, how to ‘break out under sail !’ " I accomplished the movement with utter perfection and slowly sailed out into the creek. I thought that I’d really rub in my working seamanship credentials – and so I set my prawn trawl and bridle over the stern and proceeded to trawl for my supper under sail, into the sunset.

On rounding up to haul the trawl I found I had no steerage way as the trawl had taken total charge of "Greensleeves" – and unfortunately I ran aground right on top of the spit. A little later, when the tide was about 30 yards away and "Greensleeves" was high and dry around midnight, I could hear the barge skiffs coming down the creek with their search lights wandering. I blew out the oil lamp quickly and hid in the cabin – but there were grins and guffaws from ear to ear as they went passed. Anyway, I inwardly asserted, there was no chance of me dragging an anchor that night, so there !

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At last I’ve got down to bringing you up to date with the work on "Young Pretender". During the winter of 2001/02, on the suggestion of Greg at Salterns, I decided to fill in the skeg forward of the rudder. Greg made me an extension piece for the keel. It fitted neatly in place and it was bolted on in a bed of sealant.  To fill in the empty space above the keel extension I cut out two pieces of 7/8 inches marine plywood. I spent some time shaping the top of them to follow the line of the hull. After dry fitting, I screwed and both pieces in place with West Epoxy. 

 After a number of coats of pink primer I then covered the whole surface in West Epoxy, followed by a covering of International Fillers to fair off with the hull and the keel. I had to spend some time filling and sanding until I had an invisible joint. With a couple of coats of anti fouling you would not know that there had been any extension made to the keel. I feel now that this has made a distinct improvement to the flow of water over the rudder blade. Then, during the winter of 2002/3, I decided to cover the boat’s deck with Teck Deck – from an advertisement seen in ‘Classic Boat’ magazine. This is a rubber type composite, which looks fantastic and feels like real teak, with a superb non-slip surface even when wet. It also requires no oiling or varnishing. The Teak-Deck came in 2.5 metre tongue and groove strips with a dark ‘caulking’ edge down on edge. The strips are 5 mm thick. First job then was to remove all the deck fittings and then give the deck surface a good sanding to remove any loose particles. The next stage was to dry fit all the margins and king planks., making good mitre joints at the corners. It also helped to lay out all the strips flat overnight prior to cutting. Once I was satisfied with the dry fitting of the margins, I drew a line along the outer edge of the margins with a pencil. I then covered, along the edge of the pencil line, with masking tape. This ensured that only the width of the margin was covered with adhesive. I next dry fitted about 2 square metres on one half of the forward deck section at the bow, notching into the king plank using a good Stanley knife. The reason for this was that the two part epoxy goes off in about 40 minutes. One I was satisfied with the fitting, the next step was to glue the tongue and groove sections together. When dry, the section was rolled onto the adhesive covered deck, rolling down firmly with a wooden roller. I covered the section with weights to ensure a good contact. I gradually worked my way around the deck in a similar fashion. Once the deck was completely covered, I trimmed all the joints to the same width as the caulking strips. The next stage was to cover the edges of the joints with masking tape. This was a bit difficult as it was hard to get the tape to stick to the surface. I then had to fill in the joints with caulking sealant, excess spilling over on the masking tape. The trick was to remove the tape immediately; I learned to my cost leaving the tape in place until the caulking was dry. When I first went to remove the tape, the whole caulking came away with it !

I must say that I was quite pleased with the finished effect. Apart from a few teething problems with cutting out the joints in the king planks, the whole job went quite well. Despite the fact that it was a bit costly (around £ 700 which included VAT and carriage) I am more than pleased with the impressive look of this material; it really sets the boat off. I have had quite a few admirers thinking it was a real teak deck.

We continue to lift quite a bit of silver-ware at the Bangor Traditional Sail event each year. Last year, there were two classes at the event. Class 1included all the classic Bermudan boats, and class 2 for all the gaff rigged boats alone, and we were of course one of the smaller gaffers. All boats started together; it was blowing mightily and we took off like the proverbial clapper. By the first mark we were up amongst the leading Bermudan yachts. This event requires two laps of the course, each just over a mile, and going round the gybe mark proved particularly hairy in these conditions. The first time I managed to get the mainsheet caught around the top of the outboard – taking some time to get the thing released. And coming up to the last mark before the finish one of the larger gaffers was steaming down on us. However we managed to gain water over him at the mark; and stood on until we were able to make the finish line still keeping this bigger gaffer just below us. By tacking at the last minute we were well on the way to cross the line before the bigger boat managed to get his tack in. So we finished the first gaffer on the water and then, much to my surprise, we also collected the silverware for Class 1, all boats – on corrected time ! This year though "Young Pretender" is still alongside the house, following a knee replacement job I had to have in April. So most of this season I’ve been hobbling around on crutches – but finally got round to a bit more work, like anti-fouling and repainting the hull topsides in dark blue. After 3 years, the mast will need re-varnishing, plus the annual re-varnish of all the other wooden bits. So – I’ll not be launching her this year…. But with more time for all these little jobs, next year she will be gleaming again, feeling good and going even a little bit faster – maybe.

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Books

From time to time one seems to ‘acquire’ bits of gaffer law from the famed and emphatic Tom Cunliffe, but I’d never actually owned my own copy of his book "Hand, Reef and Steer". Its focus is on the sailing skills and rig of traditional boats and starts very much from beginner upwards. This year I did at last get a personal copy, and in my view, it is a very worthwhile, straight up and no messin’ reference, very useful to have around. Retails at about £18 and published by Thomas Reed Publications. (TC)

You will often see in publications like ‘Classic Boat’ adverts for skippered cruises on the ‘Eda Frandsen’, out of Mallaig, Invernesshire. The boat, a 56 foot, 1930s ex MFV Danish working boat was lovingly rebuilt as a sailing sloop by Jamie Robinson, who now manages and skippers the boat as a charter business. This year I spent a week with the boat and nine other guests cum crew sailing around the Outer Hebrides, which I’d decided I was unlikely ever to reach with a Memory…….. An unbelievable sailing ground, with accompanying seals, dolphins and basking sharks, a good atmosphere and standard of on-board home cooking which I’ve seldom seen come out of a good hotel let alone a small ships galley ! Weather up this neck of the woods varies of course; ours was superb. A rather magnificent way of seeing the empty parts of Western Scotland other tourists never reach. Costs about £500 all found for six nights: well worth it and thoroughly recommended. (TC)

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A quest of the proprietor of Salterns, sadly still going to the head as ‘twere. (see Jan 2004 Newsletter ! - The Mark 1 version found that diameter of keel stepped mast somewhat larger than average horse’s fetlock). Mark 2 is a nicely tailored, Velcro - ed cover, with ties, which fits over the gap between mast and foredeck aperture – but – must first have a bit of waterproof canvass underneath, fixed to cover the gap, with a turn or two of good self-adhesive tape onto the mast. So it’s cosmetic, but looks good. To stop rainwater getting to the foot of the mast - a very good idea, believe me ! (TC)

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From the work on "Neried" (see Mike Hawthorne’s article)

Screwfix are a very useful company. The glue I used was Balkotran which uses moisture to go off and I thought that as I was working outside this would be a good idea. No problems to date. If you use, it protect your hands other wise you go brown, but not permanently! SP Systems in Newport Isle of White provided a wealth of data on resins and techniques. And a very helpful book I bought was, ‘From a Bare Hull’ by Ferenc Mate, ISBN 0-920256-31-7. (MH)

A few modifications done over winter

1. Probably the most important was a new mainsheet horse in bronze, obtained from Classic Marine in Woodbridge. It is much further back and wider, so we had to cut a new hole in the rudder stock for the tiller. This has given the mainsail a much better shape on the wind.
2. Getting the topsail near flat on the wind. Problem – the main has to be peaked high for windward work. Until I took 10 inches off the back edge of the topsail it used almost to flap. Now it is OK. I also drilled a vertical hole through the end of the gaff because it is then easier for the outhaul line to the leech of the topsail to run.
3. We purchased a longer pole for the genoa foresail. This was a swimming pool cleaning brush handle, which extends to over 12 feet – and cost £25 !
4. Making and fitting the filling pieces to block the propeller aperture (See Jan. 2004 newsletter. Ed.)

1. Lifting the centre-plate on a run - everyone knows this but we have installed a Nasa combined log and depth sounder, and lifting the plate gains us half a knot.
2. Do not sail to leeward of barges and smacks, with their large spread of sail. Keep a good half a mile off to avoid their influence on your wind !
3. And keep the bottom clean – my local yard charges £25 to lift out, power wash and scrub off. So next season I shall forget about the anti-fouling and just ring the yard before each race. That is about 5 times per season, which is easily off-set by the full cost of an anti-fouling job.

1. Put a third set of reefing points in the main.
2. Get rid of a lot of un-needed tools and extras on board.
3. Get rid of the Origan alcohol stove and get one of the cheap single burner gas stoves for less than £10.
4. Fix a small opening porthole in the front wall of the cabin – for ventilation.
5. Fix a new version of the blocking arrangements for the propeller aperture. In the Mark 1 version, I have to go over the side and lift off the rudder. But it does make a difference to the performance, so I shall try for a ‘slide it in’ blocking piece. It will still mean going over the side to get it out – but that’s all after the final whistle has blown.
6. Purchase a new Marina 3.3 outboard. This is very light and fits easily under the cockpit seat. (A note, re the inboards v. outboard brackets v. outboard wells debate. To my thinking the outboard well wins every time. I have lowered the mounting in "Greensleeves" by one and three-quarter inches. We have not had any sea in or anywhere near it, and you can easily lift the 3.3 Marina with one hand. Cruising speed – 5 knots and top speed 5.4 knots.)

A pretty good year in 2004. Out of nine fairly substantial events we’ve been placed in all except one and they included five ‘firsts’. (In the Prior Cup, we ran aground in a force 7/8 – wave action knocked the bows back so that we could not tack through the wind, but eventually got ourselves off the lee shore). And get this: in one of them we also won the Ron Pipe Cup for the best looking boat on the river – but there’s nothing like ones grandson crew for knocking you back to size as he emphatically announced "That’s the first time in your life Grandad that you’ve ever won anything for beauty !" And always our main competition on the East Coast – you might have guessed ! - is Nick Hillman in "Letty May", one of those ‘older’ (huh !) Memorys. But overall, owning a Memory is great fun – a boat to be proud of and at very little cost.

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1976 - My Memory, named Nereid, was bought from Eric Berquist and involved a long tow, with a baby Peugeot 206, from Lymme in Cheshire to Suffolk. It says much for Peugeot engineering ! Eric’s collection of materials and drawings made for a fairly easy boat to assemble. A Seagull 102+ was bought and this languished underneath a locker until needed in an emergency. One had to have advance warning of emergencies with this arrangement.

My wife finally got tired of me hanging over the stern to install the engine in its bracket, plus she was worried about the main sheet and whirling flywheel. Anyway this started the search for a second hand inboard.

1993 - Such a beast was found eventually, in the form of a second hand Yanmar YSE8 complete with propeller. (I think it was Greg, who, commenting on inboards in a recent Memory Mag, said that these engines were very useful for pumping out paddy fields but not much else. However I didn’t have this wisdom then.) The engine was duly installed by a local boatyard and I finished off the water supply, exhaust etc. This Yanmar ran fault free until 2002. In fact , faithful till the end it packed up fatally just 12 feet from my mooring . Fortunately this was the end of the season.

Since we now had to have some new motive power; senior management rapidly rejected stern hung outboards, diesels were considered but we plumped it the end for an outboard in a well. Various articles in the magazine prompted this decision. In addition I made a trip down to Greg’s boatyard and he and Mike Brackstone offered much advice. At this time we felt that with all this extra space we had gained we would also install a cabin similar to Greg’s and Mike’s "Merganser".

Work started on the project in December 2002 by buying a Yamaha short shaft 4hp four stroke. In January 2003 "Nereid" paid a visit to Stephen Larkman’s boatyard close to our home. He did a magnificent job in installing our outboard well. I had a design parameter to get the motor below the tiller while still using the original mainsheet horse. Steve achieved this by cutting into the deadwood skeg and building up more material underneath.

When the weather finally got warmer I was able to start on cabin construction. I borrowed a professional jigsaw and then had to decide where to cut. I opted for taking the distance from the combing to deck edge at the rear of the cockpit and marking a line parallel to this to the front of the proposed cabin. I can’t remember what sort of blade this saw had but it cut though fibreglass like butter so that I soon had a shape that would have done well in the Tate Modern. With most of the flange for fixing the combing now removed I installed a length of 2 inches by 1.5 inches mahogany (called a carline I think) bolted thru the deck to provide a face to which I could mount the cabin sides and combing. The front of the space I shaped and then bolted on an oak deck beam of similar size. Things now began to look vaguely organised. I was determined to use as much of the original 7/8 inch Iroko combing as I could, (wood is expensive !) so that I decided on a composite arrangement for the cabin using 3/8 inch Iroko on the outside and half inch ply on the inside. The Iroko was bought in 6 inch wide planks and I bought a sheet of ply plus another sheet of half inch ply for the cabin roof. A useful piece of data I gleaned from Mike was the fact that a good radius for the cabin roof was 18¢ . The main bulkhead was made from 1inch Piranha pine with a facing of half inch by 6 inch wide planks bevelled to look like tongued and grooved, the whole lot bonded to the hull with fibre glass mat. A useful tip I gleaned for attaching bulkheads to a hull was to separate the bulkhead from the hull by approx. 1/8 inch and then squirt expanding foam into the gap thereby providing a slightly flexible contact. Once this foam dried I could round it off to a good curve so that the matting fitted without a void in the angle. Though I had worries about the pine, this arrangement has now survived two seasons with no sign of movement and the whole is immensely strong.

Time now to get the roof on. This was achieved by ropes and lashings to haul the ply down to a stage where I could bolt it to the cabin sides; that which I thought would be difficult proved very simple in fact.

Other additions were 4 deadlights which I turned up from naval brass and two Lewmar winches on the cabin top. The halliards are now brought back to the cockpit, plus the topping lift - the winches helping enormously.

The outboard well was finished and I installed what I call a dam to ensure that water did not enter the cockpit through the outboard hole. This ‘dam’ has its top low enough to reach the engine controls but high enough to keep dry. Without this dam I think I would have had problems, however none have appeared to date. Finally, full-length lockers with lifting tops finished off the cockpit.

Internally we decided to have a big locker to port with a small gas burner on top. To starboard we installed the smallest possible Porta Potti athwartships. My wife can use it to sit on whilst cooking and grand-children find it useful for its proper function.

The bunks had some new mattresses and I attached some lovely mahogany I was hoarding in to make bunk sides. Forward of the mast we have strung some netting in which to stow clothing etc. Altogether the arrangement makes a very cosy "cup of tea boat" - or a one or two nighter.

While we were achieving a totally new Memory we decided to install Wyckham Martin furling rear. This has proved to be a great success and has my crew’s total approval.

The ballast in the form of lead was installed between the old cockpit front bulkhead and the new one, there still being some underneath the cockpit floor in the form of 28lb iron pigs.

The boat was launched in July 2003 and proved to be worth all the effort and cost incurred. However this year I did make the odd modification. The mast band was lengthened by one and a half inches, to provide a separate attachment for the forestay, the jib halliard staying in its original hole. This means that the jib is now sufficiently far away from the forestay to not intertwine with it on furling. Incidentally I now use bottle screws on the rear pair of shrouds – couldn’t seem to get lanyards tight enough.

Many thanks to Greg and Mike for giving up there time and providing much advice way back in 2002. Also thanks to all previous contributors to the MOA Newsletter for their pictures and thoughts !

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A rather nice piece of news to complete a success story : in the April and October editions of the 1998 MOA Newsletters, Tony Robinson MRINA described his early work on the design and launch onto the market of the first ‘Memory’, largely derived from a little1920s working boat of Stones Shipyard in Brightlingsea, called the ‘Brownie’. Tony originally designed and built the boat for his own family use – and the rest is history as they say. Many years on, with the family away and the time to contemplate and sail again, he has decided to order a new boat……..and you know what ? - it will be a Memory, of course. With the launch of this one, some time in 2005, something of a celebratory event should happen ? Any ideas ?

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Mike and Jessica Warren’s "Scheherezade" , a Liverpool Boat Company Memory of famed history in these pages, finally moved on to the ownership of Chris Osborne, as in your last issue of the Owners List. Into a new era, Chris has renamed her "Whisper" and she now lives on the river Yealm in the West Country.

David Penn and Sue Goddard have launched the new Memory "Uncle Bill" into Poole Harbour. They recently moved house as well as acquiring a new Memory so sailing was a bit limited this year, but the first outing – see picture page.

"Liz", the latest Memory, cabin version, was the star attraction at the Southampton Boat Show and has now been launched into Portsmouth Harbour by Iain Hobbs.

Geoff Hughes’ "Ruffler", an early Salterns Boat, has been sold on to Brian Riches. Brian was noted on your latest Owners List as a pending purchaser.

Peter and Margaret Stephenson ("Peg") have joined the Solent fleet

To be also added to your list please that Dave Walker, has taken over "Deja-Vu" from Peter Harrold and also that the boat, a 1979 L’pool Boat Company Memory, has reverted back to her old name "Black Pig". Dave has started on a substantial programme of renewal.

"Jess", an early Bergvist boat in Salcombe Harbour, has now been sold on by Will Burville for refurbishment – but we are not sure yet to whom.

Another new addition to the Solent fleet, Ben Collins (no relation this side of the first Irish rebellion as far as we know) at  Keyhaven, has the Memory "Anna" moored in this little inlet tucked under Hurst Castle.

Another 1978 Memory, ailing and discovered in Scotland, then named "Sans Souci", is to be ‘taken care of’ by Luke Fitzherbert (on your latest list) and is now renamed "Hawfinch" and has joined the River Dart Memorys.

And possibly the last (?) of the older Memorys likely to be recalled to life, the "Martha Knowles" which has lingered in a Gloucestershire garden for the last 25 years or so, looking very sad now, never sailed, but is to be ‘projected’ into the 21^st 

There are one or two other Memorys which are possibly on the market still. New owners will be found in due course, that’s for certain. Most sale and purchase of second hand boats continue to be handled by the Salterns Brokerage – probably because that’s where most of the initial build expertise and ‘spares’ now lie. (I try to keep the list as up to date as possible – but if anyone makes or hears of changes, I’d be grateful if they’d let me know. Ed.)

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