Mariquita surges up the Solent with her balloon jib poled out wing-on-wing. With her 71ft mainsail boom also fully eased she is now wider than she is long; as well as a challenge at close quarters she unarguably makes a magnificent and imposing sight. Built in 1911 Mariquita is the only survivor of the four 19 Metre big class yachts built before 1914. Seen astern on the opposite gybe, Mariette’s more modern asymmetric spinnaker is flown off her bowsprit while Richard Mille’s own yacht Moonbeam is sailing poled out in the same style as Mariquita
aboard, enjoy the memory challenge of ‘learning the ropes’. Time is getting close to the start
sequence. Charles is on a handheld VHF to the RIB helping it get on the transit in the full-flowing east-making spring tide. ‘Delta Two, this is Line. I’ll call it, standby… Now! You are just behind the line so that is good, stay like that.’ He has a team of 12 helping him, a third
of them women. On deck they are scan- ning the fleet with binoculars, relaying the radio messages, making notes and noting time. Two are below the platform in front of the Squadron wearing ear defenders on the gun emplacement with the signal mast and the row of 22 polished brass cannon. The starting sequence begins and
Charles is in a tall chair with the upright wire sight on the desk in front of him. This forms a transit with a larger one on the mast, and that’s the line. Another race officer calls the shots and there is a suit- ably large explosion followed by the rapid downhauling of a flag as the smoke drifts away. Appreciative gasps are heard from the onlookers below. The schooners start with the 185ft
spectacle. And also they should be in the right place… ‘The length of the race will be about 20
miles and the weather is similar to yester- day (a SSW F3-4). Warning signals for the schooners will be at 10.30 and the others at 10.50.’ There’s time for a coffee and chat before
the start. ‘I used to race Dragons and Darings out of Cowes before I got too lame,’ relays Charles who has been a Squadron race officer for 25 years. ‘There are seven or eight of us who do the races here, and it’s a busy season – we’ve got about 90 races with 30 regattas; I’ll do a good proportion of that.’ The race today will be about three hours
for the faster boats. Charles explains, ‘In order to make it attractive for spectators as well as making it interesting for the com- petitors you set the line so they go to the west against the tide. And they’re held back from the line. So they have a beat, followed by a long run, which they like, a reach, then they will come back with another long
beat, and then we’ll finish on a run against the tide, fairly close inshore. So it’s attrac- tive for people on shore… and for the photographers to take good pictures.’ This event, perhaps more than others, is
a lot about how everything looks. The style of the boats, with their huge gaff- hung mainsails and jaunty jackyard top- sails with a staysail and often two jibs in the foretriangle, creates a superb sight. The clear decks of the boats quickly fill
with the 20 or more crew needed to manage the cordage of so many sails. Most are in matching clothing. There are no black sails here – quite the
opposite, sailmakers produce a material to match the Egyptian cotton, at least in colour tone, of these boats’ original era. The mass of ropes on deck aren’t colour
coded either. While they are not the original hemp or manilla they have that same washed-out buff colour; and some of these boats don’t have winches, so sheets can have hardeners with pulley systems on deck. New crew, when they first get
three-masted Adix first, then the 108ft Mariette, followed by the 185ft Atlantic, some way behind, in fact she’s still not across the line as the cutters begin. There is more jostle and interest among them; the 95ft Mariquita is a few seconds ahead of the gun. She will incur a three per cent penalty; there is no way boats this size can turn back safely racing so close together. There are some famous boats for classic
yacht fans here. Like two of the legendary 15 Metre class, at 75ft 2in The Lady Anne of 1912 is match racing the 74ft Tuiga of 1909. Both cutters were designed by Fife at Fairlie, with Tuiga especially famous as one of the early restorations that led to boats like this being valued again. She won’t beat The Lady Anne, though; sailed by a full professional crew, she’ll go on to win her class by a goodly margin. Richard Mille’s own boat, the 1914 95ft
Fife design Moonbeam IV, is at the regatta. He bought her in 2017 and in a recent restoration returned her interior to Fife’s original design. Moonbeam IV had been built for the London lawyer Charles Plumptre Johnson. From 1950 to 1954 Prince Rainier of Monaco owned her, renaming her Deo Juvante and spending his honeymoon with Grace Kelly aboard. She was first restored in Burma in 2000 with 90 per cent of her original teak
SEAHORSE 49
INGRID ABERY
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 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125
