ALVA
“Then there are the runners which we inevitably forget to harden on one tack. The mast didn’t bat an eyelid”
Top left: Forward-facing chart table at the skipper’s feet in his quarter berth Top right: Retractable bowsprit and raised forward hatch. Above left: The sheets are easily to hand Above right: Bucket and chuck it – now there’s a novel idea
the echo sounder display, I helmed us off the pontoon, backing Alva onto her spring to combat the wind blowing us on, Ben pushing the bows out then leaping on at the last moment – easy with no fence. Ben has packed the engine, a 27hp Yanmar, well, and it hummed quietly as we threaded our way through the packed field of moorings into Carrick Roads.
Head to wind, Ben pulled on throat and peak halyards at once and the cream-coloured mainsail, with one reef in, climbed the mast. The staysail whistled up on its bronze hanks and in a few moments the engine was off and we were flying dead across the wind at 7.3 knots on the GPS and with no tide under us: it was all boatspeed.
POWERFUL GAFF RIG We put a few tacks in and I rapidly discovered that while Alva’s rig is simple, I’d forgotten just how powerful gaff rig is, having turned soft on bermudan over the last couple of years. With the jib still in its bag below decks, the tugging of weather helm was somewhere between reassuring and challenging – though it never became what you might call a ‘two-handed’ tiller. The mainsheet, on its 4:1 purchase, though, was definitely a two-handed job in this sort of wind.
Then of course, there are the runners, which we inevitably forget to harden on one tack. The mast didn’t bat an eyelid, answering my earlier question. And that’s
34 CLASSIC BOAT APRIL 2012
handy to know on a cruising yacht that will not always be fully manned by a wide-awake race crew, but by just one tired person desperate for a four-hour off-watch. Soon we are heading about as dead downwind as I dare without a preventer on; the main has already shown me a hint of its wicked design when it backed for a moment and gave a hollow, billowing leer. We think about a gybe but the shallows are approaching more quickly than the mainsheet is nearing the centreline of the boat. We lose courage at the last minute and wear around to the next downwind tack through the wind’s eye. Next time we nail the gybe and run down Carrick Roads. It says something for the boat’s handiness that she can be managed by a crew of two in tricky conditions, one with no experience of her. With a couple of self-tailers for the main, this would make a perfectly viable two-handed cruising yacht; in lighter airs, Ben has sailed Alva alone. Back on our pontoon, we had a look around below
decks. Alva is more traditional here than most most new classics. The port quarter is home to a large single (or cosy double) quarter berth while the starboard quarter provides deep cockpit lockers. The quarter berth ends in a forward- facing chart table: this is one bed the skipper will love. Immediately to the starboard is a traditional galley,
with a Taylors gas stove and bowl sink with a bronze gusher found at a boat jumble. A settee berth on each side of a saloon table make up the saloon, and while dockside,
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100