Master of the dark arts –Part II


1995 the team launched a 36-footer, to Richards’ design and free from any rule constraints. This would serve them well for the next decade. Looking remarkably like an enormous


Jo Richards tries to educate James Boyd on the intricacies of rotomoulding, Swan sailing, Europe masts… and bilge keels


Back to the 1990s and Jo Richards and Stephen Fein’s Full Pelt team reverted to monohulls, with a race programme straddling the Solent and the European lakes. At home they often sailed one- designs, including an Etchells with longterm Full Pelt crew Graham Deegan steering, Fein in the middle and Richards doing bow. There was also a Swan 48 – although inevitably with a new rig in it and a resec- tioned keel, and a 1720 in which they won the UK championship. There were any number of Full Pelts out racing in those days if you looked in the right direction. However, the call of a high-performance bespoke craft proved too great and so in


52 SEAHORSE


49er, this Full Pelt was water ballasted (750kg on 1750kg displacement) with hollow curvature in the topsides to keep the ballast – both water and crew – well outboard. Being able to then trail it across Europe was a consideration that could be achieved if the hull was inclined, the keel raised and then lowered on a dolly. Natu- rally enough Richards also built the spars. With these boats Richards feels Fein and


the team had their most enjoyment: ‘It was nice – there’s a lot to be said for racing fast boats in warm places, especially with a small crew, so you can all get in a car and then sit together around a restaurant table. ‘Also, we weren’t a professional outfit, we


had guys who ran interesting businesses, so you had good conversations over supper.’ They also performed well. Despite IRC hating the boat they nonetheless managed to come second in the Round the Island Race and did well on the big European lakes.


This yacht was eventually replaced by


Full Pelt X, another 36-footer, with the same sail area and displacement, but this time with a canting keel, swinging through +/-55° and wings that bolted on, rather than being integral to the hull shape. In this they beat all the Libera class to win a breezy Centomiglia on Lake Garda. During a busy summer they also came very close to winning monohull line honours in the Bol d’Or on Lake Geneva, until the Psaros 40s, benefiting from their taller rigs, passed them in new breeze barely 100m from the finish. Then after 25 years of Full Pelt campaigns


Fein’s fur trading business was hit by some large client defaults and the programme in its familiar form was forced to come to a close. However, Richards continued to build boats for himself on which Fein was frequently invited to sail, a sign of their enduring friend- ship rather than the more typical owner/ hired gun skipper relationship. Still based by the Thames in Chiswick,


and as heavily cultured as ever, Fein is now retired and today has turned to academia – he is, for example, a world expert on the French Communist Party of the 1930s,


INGRID ABERY


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