VERTUE XXXV - A Search ,or" what happened to Vertue XXXV?" Since I was a child, ships and airplanes were an irresistible attraction: I think that every adolescent sails and flies with his imagination. May be, I was more than normally fancing and in my bedroom there was plenty of books of adventures at sea. Pirates, tea clippers, fast ships with sails full of wind. All these images filled my teen-years together with model airplanes. But then, as now, I lived in Milano , a town in the north of Italy, far away from sea and in the fifties rich of industries and not very much ready to accept people not actively introduced in the business world.So the life itself adressed my existence in a direction where the daydreams of my youth didn’t find a space. High school, the university ,a job soon binding, and an entrepreneur activity took up my time and my energies. After many (may be to many) years the dreams came back. The family was stable, the firm was running well, I had more freedom so I decided it was time to go for a skipper certificate. I begun with some charter cruising and eventually I bought a 30 feet GRP cruiser. .From 1989 nautical magazines and books started to find their place on my bookshelves . Not to say my wife and the sons were smiling but also involved.One of the very first books I purchased was " Les bateaux de l’adventure": two volumes with the presentation of the vessels that in a century did illoustrious , hazardous or fantastic voyages.For the first time I saw the Vertue and the the tales of many unbelieveble navigations. The following step was "Laurent Giles, an evolution of yacht design" . Vertue was studied passionately and I started to collect informations on this boat and the men that sailed her.It is difficult to explain why I fell in love , it would be like explaining why we fall in love of a woman. And i like to think that sometimes our choices are not rational but, instead, emotional: this is what happened to me with V35 Other reasons were the feeling of adventure that transpires from the Vertue: I mean not the defy against some records but, instead, the confrontation of the man with a dream and the tenacious wish to realize this dream. But also, the form designed to match strong seas, the typical english simplicity . May be pipe dreams, but the interest started to became more real and soon I began to carefully screen the advertisements to find out the used Vertues . Offers were almost absent. But after the examination of few Vertues in England and in USA, I asked myself: why to search for a Vertue and why not, instead, to search for the most illustrious XXXV? The idea was fascinating but what happened to XXXV after the Atlantic crossing? A number of articles related the crossing with reverence,fear, enthousiasm but , apparently ,nobody had informations on the actual owner, mooring place and condition. I didn’t abandon the idea to find the XXXV but for a long while the project slept in a corner of my mind. September 1992 I bought "Yacht Digest" a classic boats italian magazine and reading the advertisements I saw with emotion the XXXV offered for sale ( fig...) but lying in Massachussets! So, the 35 went never back and was still in America! . Despite the distance, the foreseable difficulties for the trasportation and, most important, the unpredictable conditions of the boat, I was so excited that I started to call the broker who tourned out to be L.Giles and Ass. I couldn’t find a better broker! The naval architects that keep the heritage of Jack Giles. A fax correspondence started with an employee, Nigel Crome, who supplied the standard documentation but also an historical repert, the Nr 5789 of London Illustrated dated 1st of April 1950 where the Atlantic Crossing was covered with a full page drawing ( fig, ) Unfortunately no information on the boat conditions. A survey was needed but the price offered by L.Giles, yet correct, was out of proportion in relation to the value of the boat. An american surveyor? May be, but N.Crome had no connections. The enterprise started to became overwhelmingly complicate. Therefore after few months I decided to buy : yes, the Vertue but the 35! A fax was promptly sent to Nigel but after few days he replied that the owner had decided to refit the boat and to enjoy sailing. May be after few months it would have been possible to call back and to assess the intentions of the owner. So I did only to hear that Nigel left the company and that nobody didn’t know the name of the owner. The story was ended. Temporarly… More than one year later, reading the advertisements in Wooden Boat, I saw a Vertue offered by Cannel, Payne and Page, very close to the 35. My search machine went back in action but the boat was the Vertue 33: shot but not enough . January 97, the broker mailed the offer for another Vertue- the 101 Alaria. My answer was straightforward: I was interested only to the 35. The reply was the best possible. They knew the boat and had questioned the owner that was ready to sell. The price was discussed but a survey was necessary. Every thing was running smoothly because my son Stefano was leaving to Boston for his PhD and therefore April 16th,1997 we were in Martha’s Vineyard in a foggy and wet day. At the end of the pier we met Tim Colon, the owner that runs, with his wife Tricia, a sail shop.He showed us the 35 moored in the haven and gave us an old dinghy to inspect the boat. The emotion was strong; the general impression was of a boat very used but otherwisw in good shape. All the parts seemed original: the duck anchor,the slutter rigging , the bumpkin, the Humphrey Burton DOG. Madieri and planking were apparently sound. Only two alterations: the chart table had been tranformed with a wash bassin and a motor had been added., a very cumbersome gasoline Atomic 4 in terrible conditions. Sails wardrobe pale image of what they once used to be. In the evening we had a dinner with Tim and Tricia, a smiling and fancy woman.The contract was signed and between scallops, wine and beer the story of the 35 started to take shape. << H.Burton decided to sail the 35 to the United States with the purpose to sell her and to promote the sales of further Vertues thanks to the celebrity acquired with the crossing. In 1950 crossing the Atlantic with a 25 feet sloop, in April, quite North, was absolutely exceptional but Burton and his co-equipier O’Riordan were both exceptional sailors . After the crossing, Burton let the boat in a yard of City Island, near New York to be repaired from the damages suffered during the storm encountered at day 41 of navigation. Lambert Knight, with his wife, was near to purchase the boat but the project was stopped because of a serious car accident.So, in the very year 1950 the 35 was sold to a surgeon of New York. One year later, Lambert Knight who was living in Martha’s Vineyard, in a bad weather day saw the 35 moored in the haven. Two couples were aboard quite unhappy for the weather and for the cramped space. Lambert asked the owner if he was willing to sell the boat and against 7000 dollar, Vertue 35 changed hand. Up to 1962 Lambert, his wife and the son Frank enjoyed many summers sailing between Martha’s, Cape Ann and Long Island; in the following years the 35 was used for day sailing.Knight loved the sea, boats and friends and ( I think) that special happiness or, better, serenity that you reach when you know that you can do big things, when you sometimes do big things, with no obligations or constraint to have to demonstrate something to somebody. The life of 35 became quiet but enlighted by the big accomplishment. The son Frank took care of the boat and in 1975 all the varnished wood received a coat of white paint that thogh less beautiful, was effective in protection.Frank sailed two times the 35 to Bahamas, in 1974 and 1977 spending there two full winters.In 1980 Lambert passed away and in 1981 Frank sold the boat to Carl and Susan Pratt: scattered informations of this ownership were available but the impression is that the boat had been not used nor maintened. In 1990 Tim and Tricia Colon became the owners. Tim felt that the boat needed a serious overhauling after 40 years and at first decided to sell, but successively started to do by himself the necessary intervention. At Martha survives astrong tradition in wooden boatbuilding; Tim was a carpenter and the intervention was done with the right technique: replacement of two planks at the water line, new transom,new deck canvas.Mast, boom and bumpkin repaint,madieri galvanised, two bolts of the keel extracted and found in very good condition. The 35 was happily sailed in Massachussets waters and did a crossing to Bermuda. Eventually Tim and Tricia decided to build an own home at Martha’s and this new project and the consequent lack of time convinced them to sell.>> The following day Tricia presented us the book of H:Burton on the Atlantic crossing, now a rarity because out of print,and pulled out the cotton storm main with the mythic number 35 sewn in black.Both went with me in Italy. I remember Tricia and Tim with great pleasure. Before the flight-back still some problems to fix: the order for a cradle, the search for a truck transport to New York, the agreement for a deck transport on the s/s Shakenborg to Genua. You really ought to have had! August 1997, the 35 was in Genua ,dried by the ocean crossing and the italian summer but in few days she was cleared, carried to Marina del Faro ( near Venezia) and entrusted to Ivano Gadamuro and Lucio Savian, two extraordinary characters, very skilled and born in wooden boats world. The work was not complicate, but instead, accurate . The boat resulted original almost at 95% with very few changes introduced in so many years. It was easy to bring it back to the 1950 conditions. The 35 was dismasted , brought to bare wood. Checked the planks and recaulked,replaced some aft frames,rechecked the lead bolts and found in perfect order. Mast and boom were scraped and varnished and the original sitka spruce was found nearly as new. Retouched interiors and refitted chart table. Some additions completed the refitting: canvas and seat covers were replaced; new sails; a new electrical wiring to be compliant to the current regulations; a small Yanmar 1GM10 and a VHF. But no instrumentation, only a Walker log. Sailing this boat confirmed my personal expectation and what was written about the seaworthiness of Vertue class. Smooth sailing and the feeling to sail a bigger boat. Now Vertue 35 is moored in Marina del Faro in good company: wooden boats of Giles, Hanna, Rhodes and Sciarelli an illustrious italian architect devotee to a conception of boat designing that Ican define this way: boats of beautuful lines, seaworthy and aristocratic. But what is extraordinary is that few meters farther two more Vertues are rocking: RETURN (Nr 100) and BETTINA (Nr 58)!! The later is owned by Enea Riboldi, a designer, who described the come-back of a return in a beautiful cartoon ( fig ) The weather in Adriatic sea ,cold and wet in fall and winter, is suitable for these boats so distant from the english waters even if Vertue 35 did plough them once and never came back. The Future Yes, the 35 has a future: Elkins did a good job and , with a regular maintenace has an expectation of long life. In 2000 Vertue 35 will be fifty and my plan is to circunavigate Italy and to sail vertue to the classic boat rally of Imperia . There she will celebrate his birthday. When i were fifty, a friend told me:" the next fifty yers will be even better ". So I hope for Vertue 35.
Credits: -Mary Burton, a very pleasant letter an two photos of 35 never seen before -Matthew Shehan,Vertue Association, the color reproduction of an oil paint of Vertue 35 -Barry Van Geffen, original plans and informations -Franck Knight, informations on Knight’s ownership -Ian Elkins, memories and simpathy -Savian e Gadamuro, passion and skill Notice Vertue 35 is now A.I.V.E. registered with the Nr a743 After the inspection the % autenticity was assigned as high as 92, a very high rate. A.I.V.E. means : Associazione Italiana Vele d’Epoca |