The great divide – Part I


              


 


42 SEAHORSE


Bombshell In 1880 a bombshell hit the English yacht- ing scene – and it came straight from Scotland. Into the comfortable procession of southern regattas, one following on smoothly from another, crashed a dynamic new vessel that blew any opposition out of the water. This was the Vanduara, brain- child of the formidable George Lennox Watson, who had been steadily making his name in much smaller but equally success- ful craft ever since setting himself up in business in Glasgow in late 1873. Watson was good at his chosen profes-


sion: his designs to date had risen to head their class, as Vanduara was to do. Paisley millionaire John Clark had been persuaded by his racing skipper, William Mackie of Gourock, to give the young genius free rein to produce a racing cutter for the forth- coming season; Anglo-Scottish yachting relations were never to be the same again.


Watson and Mackie Vanduara was a 90-tonner and a Clydesider in every respect, constructed by D & W Henderson at their Meadowside Partick yard, under the strict supervision of that pair of proud Scotsmen, Watson and Mackie. They had been friends from their youth, sharing a passion for the con- struction of boats as well as the sailing of them, and this was the largest and finest racing vessel the up-and-coming Watson had yet attempted. He had a distant family connection to the immensely wealthy Clark thread-spinning dynasty, which may also have helped secure him the commis- sion. Together these two obsessives pro- duced a worthy champion for their sup- portive employer, and for all of Scotland. Vanduara was truly groundbreaking,


‘a revolution’ as one journalist put it, for she was constructed of steel, not wood, ‘peculiar in form, construction and


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  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120