Letters
The shock of the wreck of Berenice LETTER OF THE MONTH SUPPORTED BY OLD PULTENEY WHISKY
What a shocking photograph in the March issue of CB, showing Berenice of London wrecked on the shores of Port Grimaud. Strange how intimately
acquainted you become when you make a delivery passage on a boat, and then it makes no sense at all seeing its corpse washed up on a beach; no masts, no guardrails, and she is a big boat. Just thinking of all the beautiful mahogany panelling inside! The brutality of the image is in such a stark contrast with the utmost care, precaution and professionalism with which this beautiful vessel was handled – 92ft (28m) and an offset prop coming into Grand Harbour, Valletta was no mean feat. Three and a half years ago I was invited to crew on Berenice from Turkey to Spain. I had discussions during the long night watches with one of the consortium owners about the
feasibility of taking on a boat of this size privately. I had some ideas I wanted to test for myself and I got the answer during this voyage. I’d toyed with the idea of transporting oriental carpets to the UK in a carbon-neutral way. Say you buy carpets in Turkey or on the Black Sea and sail them back to England in a suffi ciently large vessel. Setting up camel-back trade routes deep into Asia Minor felt like a romantic thing to do. Well... we motored for 10 days and only got half way, no wind
Berenice and her beautiful mahogany panelling
at all. We are spoiled here in Britain – the occasional windless day, but never for long. So we project what we take for granted onto another place, and luckily I had the chance to check this on board Berenice. I abandoned the idea after this trip, now knowing a bit more about the winds in the Med. Hopefully Berenice won’t end cut up in a vineyard on the Ramatuelle Peninsula; what a horrible idea. Cornelius van Rijckevorsel, Plymouth
Searching for seven missing Gauntlets Try our digital edition
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We are searching for information on seven ‘missing’ Gauntlets – among 41 of the class built by the Berthon Boat Company between 1935 and 1951. 1) Sussex Maid, no 468/1934-5 (12 tons), name changed to Brambling, last heard of registered in
Southampton in the late 1950s. 2) Greengage, no 482/1935 (12 tons), last heard of at Swanwick late 1970s, may have been up for sale recently. 3) Paviroma, no 496/1936 (12 tons), name changed to Luteis then Sursum, last heard of at Lymington late 1960s. 4) Grey Seal, no 536/1938 (12 tons) last heard of at Fleetwood c1980.
5) Sinloo, no 520/1937 (12 tons), name changed to Le Petit Cygnet, last heard of in France in the 1970s. 6) Coch Y Bondu, no 497/1936 (17 tons), last heard of in the 1970s, based in Rapallo, Italy. 7) Jenny Spinner, no 512/1937 (18 tons), renamed Blue Moon,
then Flying Gauntlet and back to Blue Moon, I believe, last heard of at Cannes in mid 1960s.
If any readers are able to help with any detail on these ‘missing’ Gauntlets, do please contact us Hugh Rayner,
Berthon Boat Company Ltd, Lymington, Hampshire
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