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For over 25 years  Classic Boat   has celebrated the world’s most beautiful boats. Each issue showcases the best-designed traditional boats afloat, examining their design, provenance and heritage and championing their classic good looks and craftsmanship.

With its outstanding photography and expert editorial coverage,  classic boat is the definitive magazine for everyone seeking credible advice, reviews and information about classic boats, events and gatherings worldwide..

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Classic Boat is the magazine for the world’s most beautiful boats. Packed with stunning images, we have the inside stories of the great classic yachts and motorboats afloat today, as well as fascinating tales from yesteryear and the latest from the wooden boat building scene around the world.

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New Classics: Stephens Waring Design’s new classic, 39-ft Wisp

Past meets modern excellence: Stephens Waring Design’s new classic, the 39-ft Wisp, is a nod to the past and a tack towards the future, combining timeless aesthetic with a modern sailing experience and the latest sailing technology.

Sailing excellence and innovative systems.

With a moderate draft and generous sail area, alongside a design shaped for seamless management, this yacht promises outstanding sailing performance. An under-deck system handles the mainsheet trip, the boat’s winches are all electric and, with the enjoyable ease of pushing a button, as is the hoisting of the roller-furling mainsail. Optimised for effortless gear shifts, Stephens Waring Design’s Wisp showcases the latest innovative systems, assuring an excellent sailing experience.

Stephens Waring Design’s new classic: Spirit of tradition

Stephens Waring Designs has a long lineage of SoT yachts , bringing the latest construction and technologies together with a classic appearance and feel and Wisp is no different. With an emphasis on functionality and ergonomics his design is branded with “Past meets modern excellence” and it’s clear why. While reflecting last-century cruiser racers within the design, Wisp maintains optimal sailing ability with a modern accessibility to sailing controls, alongside boasting the creature comforts of a cockpit geared towards guests and standing headroom down below.

Construction excellence at Artisan Boatworks

The construction process at Artisan Boatworks (Rockport, ME) has been surprisingly quick considering this SoT Yacht’s modern complexity, yet this has been achieved through a number of design tricks to increase build efficiency and speed. As a result, Wisp’s debut is scheduled just over a year after her first concept drawings in July 2024.

Known for constructing the Herreshoff 15’s and 18’s and other smaller graceful daysailers, the undertaking of this project is the largest and most complex Artisan Boatworks has seen to date. We’re looking forward to Stephens Waring Design’s new classic, a delicate blend of innovation and tradition, hitting the water in July.

Construction Videos

• Credit: Artisan Boatworks

Vessel Particulars 

LOA: 12.04 meters (39’ 6”)

LWL: 9.21 meters (30’ 3”)

Beam: 3.36 meters (11’ 0”)

Draft: 1.83 meters (6’ 0”)

Displacement: 6600 kg (14,500 lb)

Mainsail: 43.1 sq. m. (464 sq ft)

100% Foretriangle: 28.4 sq. m. (306 sq ft)

Total: 71.5 sq. m. (769 sq ft)

Power: Yanmar 3JH40 40 hp

Fuel: 118 liters diesel (31 gallons)

Water: 380 liters (100 gallons)

For more info visit the Stephens Waring Design   website .

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Five classic superyachts brought back to life from the brink

Related articles, superyacht directory.

Not every owner relishes the prospect of a shiny new-build when they have the option to restore a beloved classic. Read on to discover some of the world’s most fascinating and valuable classic superyachts, which were brought back from the brink by their patient owners...

There is something intensely magical about the act of restoration: the feat of rescuing something that has fallen into a state of disrepair and returning it to its original condition. For owners, there is a process of falling completely for the yacht – something which compels them. British sailor Tracey Edwards recalls how restoring the yacht that became Maiden ceased to be purely about practicalities. “I fell in love with her,” she remembers simply. It is something to which many owners could relate.

 The recovery of something that was once great is a venture infused with nostalgia and romance. Particularly, perhaps, when its heyday is recorded in writing or in photographs that survive. And while this could apply to lots of things, the very word “wreck” is strongly redolent of boats. 

A wreck that has been restored, of course, is no longer a wreck. But henceforth she will always have once been one – and this fact will remain an element in the boat’s story, a source of pride and interest for those who continue to sail her.

Built in 1930, Atlantide (as she is now known) is now in her 90s – a venerable old lady, sprightlier than most nonagenarians after judicious refits. She is a beautiful boat with an illustrious past.

Designed by Alfred Mylne , Atlantide served as a tender for a J Class America’s Cup challenger. Then, in 1940, she was one of the “Little Ships” that evacuated more than 330,000 Allied troops from the Dunkirk beaches, entitling her, unusually, to fly the St George’s Cross.

After a post-war refit, she spent 50 years in the Mediterranean and was given her current name in the 1980s. Then, shortly before 2000, she was bought by yachtsman and technologist Tom Perkins, who devoted time and money to the further refit that Atlantide desperately needed.

Yacht designer Ken Freivokh remembers the project with great fondness, travelling to Malta with Perkins to view the boat. When he did so he was horrified. Her condition, he recalls, was “very, very poor, half-abandoned”. She was being used as a dive-boat, and an out-of-keeping superstructure had been put on top, destroying the boat’s elegant sheer line and making her look “very strange”.

What he could see immediately, however, was her underlying beauty and potential. But she needed a major restoration, and about 90 per cent of the plating along her spine had to be either restored or replaced. Freivokh contacted an aluminium worker who built an entirely new and more appropriate superstructure.

Freivokh and his team were given exceptional input, the licence (and the money) to do whatever they felt necessary. In addition to the standard requirements of yacht renovation, they had extraordinary paintings and antiques at their disposal. They were able to commission further art deco artworks too – of a style that complemented the yacht and her era. The boat and her contents might have ended up, he reckons now, as “inch-for-inch the most extraordinary yacht afloat”: a big claim, but one that’s hard to deny.

After Perkins’ passing in June 2016, Atlantide was sent to Royal Huisman in the Netherlands by another owner and American technologist – Jim Clark, who also built J Class boat Hanuman as well as Hyperion . It is fair to say that, for all the ups and downs of her past, Atlantide ’s future looks rosy, well beyond her centenary in 2030.

Western Flyer

We might think 2021 a bad year, but in 1940, as Nazi Germany invaded Norway, the world truly “went to hell”, wrote the future Nobel-laureate John Steinbeck. Far from these hostilities, having published The Grapes of Wrath to both acclaim and notoriety the previous year, Steinbeck motored along the coast of Mexico and California, into the Gulf of California. There, as he had hoped, “the great world dropped away”.

In an out-of-season sardine-fishing “purse-seiner”, then named Western Flyer , he and a small crew examined and collected marine animals, negotiating “wrecks and wayward currents”. Though they marvelled at “the incredible beauty of the tide pools” and “the swarming species”, it was no idyll. Things seemed “to sting and pinch and bite” worse than in other places. The region was “fierce and hostile and sullen”. Written up as The Log from The Sea of Cortez , largely as a result of Steinbeck’s enduring fame, the venture has entered literary folklore – and attached added renown to the boat.

During the decades since, the Western Flyer has – like all fishing boats – pursued catches (different species, caught often in quite different areas) as marine populations have shifted and declined: perch; king crab; salmon – far to the north or further south. The story of Western Flyer is the story of the Pacific west-coast fishery, and the story of humanity more broadly.

Rechristened Gemini , at times her ownership was hazy. Located by her unchanging call sign WB4044, she had come to resemble a ghost ship: paint peeling, mud-spattered, strangled by weed and timbers rotting. She has sunk at least twice, become completely unseaworthy, and all the time the price of restoration has grown.

She is owned now by a marine geologist called John Gregg who is restoring her with the help of Tim Lee, a shipwright from the west coast. Whereas the wheelhouse, Lee remarks, could remain remarkably intact and original – around 90 per cent of it – the hull was in a shocking condition. The starboard side, in particular, he remembers, was “completely rotten”. “If the boat had rolled over” she would probably, he remarks, “not have been salvageable.”

While some backbone timbers are original, it has been necessary to basically build a new hull. Time cannot be denied. But she – and the wider world – are lucky indeed that she has found people enthusiastic and committed enough to restore her, and to ensure that this piece of literary history can continue to “fly” along the western coast.

Shenandoah of Sark

More than once the famous yacht Shenandoah of Sark has been pulled back from the brink. As others have observed, she has really lived. She has seen all sides of life and come, in the process, perilously close to extinction.

First built for an American financier in 1902, she was in Germany before the First World War and then confiscated by the British Navy. She was given the name Shenandoah after the war, then rechristened again, this time by an Italian prince – another boat to be called Atlantide . She spent the Second World War concealed in a Danish shipyard, her masts and one of her engines removed to make her unseaworthy (and less appealing to thieves). Her post-war history included an almost year-long zoological and oceanographic expedition along the African west coast, as well as time spent smuggling in Central America – her precise location is unknown. Seized by French customs in 1962, she was tied up and left to rot before being bought and restored by a French industrialist.

Working as a charter yacht, she was sold in 1986 to a Swiss businessman who ordered a complete restoration at New Zealand shipyard  McMullen & Wing . The majority of the riveted hull was replaced, and the result was impressive: in 1996 she won the ShowBoats International award for Best Classic Yacht Restoration.

Together the owner and the yard have lavished attention upon every detail: from polished teak or redwood planking, to art deco lights and a unique, detachable deck cockpit. Further attention since to her rig and her mechanics has ensured that this is one yacht in a very fine position to advance far into – and perhaps complete – her second century.

Well past her centenary (having been built in 1913, on the eve of the First World War) Vagrant is one of the oldest yachts still afloat. There are a small number of older human beings living – but not many. And the comprehensively refitted Vagrant will almost certainly outlast them all. In 2017 she had a major refit – for almost two years – in Dutch restoration yard Royal Huisman. Her owner’s instructions were that “ Vagrant should be ready to last for another one hundred years.” Well, who can say? It certainly isn’t impossible.

Back in the distant past, Vagrant ’s designer, Nathanael Greene Herreshoff , dominated the America’s Cup between the late 19th century and the early 1930s. A boatbuilder, he was also a proficient sailor, placed in the National Sailing Hall of Fame, and helming in the America’s Cup at least once.

Vagrant was built for Harold Vanderbilt, of the famous dynasty. Herreshoff built boats for the financial big guns – William Randolph Hearst, John Pierpont (JP) Morgan, Jay Gould. Yachts, like houses, were (and are) a symbol of wealth and success, and Herreshoff’s were the finest.

Now, under relatively new ownership, Vagrant – one of the most revered classic yachts afloat – is being restored to her former greatness. Her steel hull needed substantial work (sandblasting areas of corrosion left some plates too thin and in need of replacement). But her teak interior has justified the wood’s reputation as the best natural material for a marine environment: beautiful, hard, rich in protective oil, resistant to rot and little prone to warping.

Sure enough, when removed and examined, much of the wood in the cabins could be treated and reused, even after so long (with the redesign to accommodate things such as electric lighting, plugs, heating and air conditioning, which were absent from the original boat). This clear link with the past serves to emphasise that this is very much the same boat.

Other departures from the original – aluminium masts, for instance, with internal furling for the mainsail and fisherman’s sail – seem an update rather than any kind of insult to the original maker. She might still sail under her old name of Vagrant but she has, very clearly, a loving home.

Having been built in the late 1920s, the sailing yacht Cambria was assumed, like so many, to have been destroyed during the Second World War. In fact, she had fallen into complete oblivion: vanishing not only from the present, but also from the historical record. One authoritative book on the yachts of William Fife , the renowned Scottish boatbuilder responsible for Cambria , omitted her completely. Only subsequently has she been rediscovered in every sense – restored to history and restored in the present.

Cambria was built originally for a newspaper magnate – Sir William Berry – who rose from complete obscurity (having left school in South Wales at 13) to become owner of the largest media empire of the day: publisher of titles still active and well-known, like The Sunday Times , Financial Times and The Daily Telegraph . Berry’s publications happened to include Yachting World , giving him a route to its editor. 

Soon after its construction, Cambria won an early race, then for a few years raced some 50 times a year. Her beauty was much admired, and fame seemed assured. (Berry asked his wife whether she might like a matching yacht, an offer she sadly declined.) Rules of the time hindered Cambria , however, and not long afterwards she changed hands. Her name was changed and she retreated, during the 1930s, into obscurity – and then into oblivion.

Her sketchy post-war history includes an ill-fated circumnavigation during the 1970s, before being bought, and mothballed, in Australia, until finally she was rediscovered near the Great Barrier Reef. Her basic structure, mahogany planking on a steel frame, remained intact and was remediable with careful repair work. Only in the 21st century did she return to British waters, after more than half a century. With a new mast, of spruce pine, and a thorough refit in Southampton in 2006 which saw Cambria stripped back and the boat’s stem reworked. There is no doubt now that Cambria does once again fulfil Fife’s basic requirement of a yacht – that she be both “fast and bonnie”.

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Moonbeam of Fife III, 1903

Built at Fairlie by Fife

The 30 metre, gaff cutter  Moonbeam of Fife III  epitomises beautiful classic yachts at their finest. Launched in 1903,  Moonbeam of Fife  is still going strong on the classic yacht regatta circuit despite being more than a hundred years old. The William Fife-designed yacht is constructed in wood with an oak hull and superstructure, while her interior joinery is well-kept mahogany. The historical yacht  Moonbeam of Fife III  is currently for sale.

Tuiga, 1909

Built by the renowned William Fife shipyard in Fairlie on the Clyde estuary in Scotland,  Tuiga  was commissioned by the Duke of Medinaceli, a close friend of the King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, and has had 10 owners in 106 years. HSH Prince Albert II decided to buy her in 1995.  Tuiga  has been participating in classic yacht regattas ever since and is now the flagship of the Yacht Club de Monaco, crewed by YCM members.

Mariette, 1915

Built by Herreshoff

The classic 42 metre twin-masted schooner _Mariette of 1915 _was built by Herreshoff in the United States 100 years ago. Age has not withered her, but  Mariette of 1915  has undergone a few refits in the Pendennis yard at Falmouth in recent years: in 2010 and again in 2012 in preparation for the Pendennis Cup, in which she took first prize in the St Petroc Traditional Class as well as being crowned overall winner. In 2014 she returned to Falmouth once more for minor works.

Creole, 1927

Built by Camper & Nicholson

Now owned by the Gucci family, this beautiful wooden schooner has had a colourful history. Commissioned by wealthy American Alan Cochran and launched in 1927,   Creole  has had a number of different owners and also been called  Vira.  When she was known as  Magic Circle , she was transformed into a minesweeper during the Second World War, having previously competed in a number of regattas and attended previous America’s Cup events. In the 1970s she was used by the Danish government for sailing training in the rehabilitation of drug addicts before being bought by the Gucci family in 1983.

Endeavour, 1934

Arguably the world’s most famous J Class,   Endeavour  was the British challenger in the 1934 America’s Cup, but was beaten by the Harold Vanderbilt-owned  Rainbow .  Endeavour  was commissioned by Sir T.O.M. Sopwith, who was keen to ensure that this yacht was the most advanced design possible. With his experience designing aircraft, Sopwith applied aviation technology to  Endeavour ’s rig and winches and spared nothing to make her the finest vessel of her day.

She swept through the British racing fleet and into the hearts of yachtsmen around the world, winning many races in her first season. Though she did not win the America’s Cup she came closer to doing so than any other challenger.

Since 1934, she has often led a perilous existence, even being sold to a scrap merchant in 1947 only to be saved by another buyer hours before her demolition was due to begin. In 1984, American yachtswoman Elizabeth Meyer bought  Endeavour  and she was transformed and rebuilt by Royal Huisman.  Endeavour  sailed again on June 22, 1989, for the first time in 52 years. J Class yacht   Endeavour  is now for sale.

Elena, 1910

Built by Herreshof

In 1910, Morton Plant commissioned 55 metre   Elena  to be designed by American naval architect Nathanael Herreshoff, the so-called “Wizard of Bristol”, who made his name designing sailing yachts for America’s elite. Plant’s brief was to the point: he wanted a schooner “that can win”.

Herreshoff gave  Elena  a slightly deeper keel than preceding designs of that time, lowering her centre of ballast, which improved her windward ability.  Elena  won most of her early races against the cream of the American schooner fleet and in 1928 came her crowning glory, victory in the Transatlantic Race. In 2009, she was rebuilt using the original plans for the first  Elena.

Black Swan, 1899

Originally designed by Charles Nicholson and built in 1899 at Camper and Nicholson in Gosport, England,  Black Swan  started life as  Brynhild  with a yawl rig. She won a number of races at the beginning of the 20th century, including the King’s Cup. Over the years, she has undergone several changes and different rig configurations, and at one stage she was renamed  Changrilla . She was rechristened  Black Swan  in the 1960s and, today, after an extensive restoration project at the Beconcini yard in La Spezia, Italy, she is now carrying a gaff-rig, designed by the Faggioni Yacht Design Studio and built by Harry Spencer.

Mariquita, 1911

Built by Fairlie

Another beautiful classic yacht from Fife,  Mariquita  was launched in 1911. The 38.16 metre sailing yacht was designed and built for the industrialist Arthur Stothert. As part of the 19 metre Big Class racing that re-emerged in 1911, this gaff-rigged cutter is said to have inspired the J Class yachts that came after her.

She raced competitively against her brethren from 1911-1913, but by the 1950s,  Mariquita  was the last in the 19 metre class remaining. She was restored in 1991 and received a further refit in 2004. A star on the classic yacht racing scene,  Mariquita  is now for sale.

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• Featured News
• The end of the Maine pilgrimage: WoodenBoat Magazine
• risingTAdmin
• February 16, 2024

By Jesse Terry, CYOA Secretary and Owner of Abigail

Enclosed is the third and final part in an interview series developed from a wooden boat pilgrimage to Maine this past December. I met with three of the most influential members of the wooden boat community. Jon Wilson (founder of WoodenBoat Magazine), Maynard Bray (author, photographer, historian, technical editor for WB for 40+yrs, etc) and Steve White (owner of Brooklin Boat Yard and co-founder of the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta) have shaped the past several decades and developed the foundation for the future of wooden boat ownership. The following discussion took place.

Can you talk a bit about how the wooden boat community developed to present day?

JW: I was in Branford, CT, (Dutch Wharf Boat Yard) in the 1960s and fiberglass boats had taken over Southern Connecticut.  I did not feel the same way towards fiberglass.  I thought if only people knew about wooden boats that they would come to love them.   I wanted to share their secrets and the genius of their design.  I would not let wooden boats disappear without a fight.  I did not know enough to not try to save them (and start WoodenBoat magazine).  I wanted to make wooden boats accessible. My first issue was dealing with rot. I wanted to focus on how to build boats well enough to void this and to simply  tell the truth.

MB: We continue to need to spread the enthusiasm and expose the passion to people.  Wooden boats and the aesthetics that go with them are worth saving. The best materials are much harder to get nowadays, and you hate to see them wasted when vintage wooden boats are allowed to decay.  These needy boats built of wood can provide year-round fulfillment.

SW:  The complexity of wooden boats count as well. It is more fun and satisfying to build and work on wooden boats than boats of steel or fiberglass for both the owners and workers.

JW: I was a college dropout working on boats and living the Maine experience. I did not like the shift to fiberglass so I tried to figure out how a magazine might help save wooden boats. Maynard introduced me to Joel White, along with Jimmy Steele (Brooklin peapod builder), who was passionate about wooden boats. Together, all three of us tried to save something or learn how to save it.  Maine was able to hold on to the tradition longer because of the number of craftsmen and maybe fewer distractions.

How do we keep it going?

MB: Beat the drum!

JW: We must convey how cool it is to be aboard a wooden boat and sail it. We need to offer people the sound and the feel of it. Maybe we need more wooden boat festivals.  I also think the future of wooden boats is cold-molded due to cost and time that a traditional plank-on-frame boat requires. Steve recognized the importance of cold-molded construction and was ahead of it.

MB: We need to prioritize repair over replacement and simplicity over complexity. And make the process fun.

SW: There is no need for deadlines. Just keep it going. Learn how to take care of the boat and make the process enjoyable.

JW: Wood is the focus. There are no limits on design. The material is so fascinating and at the same time a renewable resource.

SW: The strength that wood has is amazing. I appreciated the WB issue with the article on a wooden hydroplane that went 185 mph.

JW: There is also the feeling of resourcefulness and the related skills. We need to encourage resourcefulness.

MB: Yes, using ingenuity to fix something. There is no feeling like it. The accomplishment of putting ourselves on the line and learning from our mistakes again and again.

SW: Also, the need to slow down. Time is most valuable to us. Wooden boats help us appreciate it.

Author’s note: One might believe there is a symbiotic relationship between WoodenBoat magazine, the number of wooden boats in Maine, the number of craftsmen in Maine, and the photogenic cruising ground in Maine. Could the magazine with 100k subscribers at its peak have succeeded in any other place? I think it is doubtful. I would suggest that the success correlated to the location in Brooklin Maine, a town of 800 residents and eight boatyards (and 100+ wooden boats that gather for the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta). Jon Wilson bootstrapped the start of the magazine through the sale of his Alden ketch for the initial funds. Joel White connected with Maynard Bray to provide the technical powerhouse. The WB campus became available. These three individuals all lived in a town of 800 residents, where only the summer population changes. Upon reflection, they talk about love for each other, a happy and inspirational era. I am not sure it could have happened in any other place.

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SPERRY SAILS

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The Rudder Magazine Online (1922)

This pdf of the rudder magazine (part 1) is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible..

The Rudder Magazine was published from 1891 to June 1977. Thomas Fleming Day (1861 – 1927) was a sailboat designer and sailboat racer. He was the founding editor of The Rudder, a monthly magazine about boats. He was the first to win the annual New York to Bermuda race. The T. F. Day Trophy is named for him.

The very first Bermuda Race was an act of rebellion. In 1906, the Establishment believed that it would be insane for amateur sailors to race offshore in boats under 80 feet. Thomas Fleming Day, editor of The Rudder magazine, vehemently disagreed, insisting, “The danger of the sea for generations has been preached by the ignorant.” Certain that an ocean race would be enjoyable and safe – and also develop better sailors and better boats.

The Rudder Magazine (Part 1) The Rudder Magazine (Part 2)

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