PHOTOS C/O GUIP BOATYARDS
LONDON Royal rowbarge fit for a Queen
The central event of this year’s Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations will take place on 3 June, when 1,000 boats will parade on the Thames. Mark Edwards of Richmond Bridge Boathouse is busy building a 90ft (26m) rowbarge to head the procession – although it will not, as some of the the press reported, be carrying the Queen herself. That accolade falls to the modern passenger boat Spirit of Chartwell. Gloriana, as the rowbarge is to be named, was commissioned by a syndicate put
together by Lord Sterling CBE, ex-chairman of P&O and trustee on the Cutty Sark Trust. Gloriana will echo barges used in similar river pageants of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, as depicted by artists of the time, notably Canaletto. She will be rowed by 18 oarsmen.
BRITTANY, FRANCE Guip’s yards busy ahead of Brest Festival
When the biggest traditional boat festival in the world comes to the small Breton port of Brest every four years, boatyards are busy in the months before, and none more so than the three Guip boatyards, all in Brittany. The Brest yard has two boats on its books that must both be restored by this July. One of them is described by Chantier Guip’s Yann Mauffret as a “major addition to the yard’s workload” and he’s not joking – the sailing sand coaster Fée de l’Aulne, built 1957 and weighing in at 200 tonnes, needs serious remedial work to frames, gunwales, hold hatches and hull planking. If that weren’t enough, the yard also has the smaller
Left: France’s last sailing tunnyman nearly ready for the sea again Above left: Night time work on Runa IV on the Recouvrance pontoon Above right: A new Bantry Bay gig
scallop boat Saint Guénolé to restore as well. Prior to this, the yard was involved in a 10,000 man-hour ‘keel to truck’ restoration of the stunning 1918 yawl Runa IV, 10.4m (34ft) long, designed by Gerhart Rønne and built in Denmark.
Her owner will now entrust the yard with another of his Runas: Runa VI, the 36ft (11m) gaff ketch dating from1928. “We’re now at the research stage,” said Yann, who hopes for a 2013 relaunch. At another of the Guip yards, in Lorient, work has nearly finished on a rebuild of Biche, the last sailing
tunnyman from the Île de Groix. These were a tough breed of gaff yawl that sailed until the end of the 1940s. Francois Vivier, who is behind her redesign, said: “They delighted generations of artists, photographers and, of course, sailors.” Biche, 21m (69ft), will be used as a yacht when launched this spring.
Meanwhile, a little further south still, the third Guip yard has its hands full with new-builds: two Bantry Bay gigs and seven wooden runabouts. The 20th anniversary Brest Festival runs from 13-19 July. 2,500+ boats are expected.
CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2012 89
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