NISN OATYARD YARD VISIT: FOX’S FANTASTIC · NISN OATYARD CRAFTSMANSHIP A visit to a comprehensive...
1
90 91 CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017 CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017 CRAFTSMANSHIP NIELSEN BOATYARD CRAFTSMANSHIP A visit to a comprehensive facility on the Suffolk coast that is hard at work on Churchill’s funeral barge FANTASTIC MR FOX T he top of the Orwell, under the huge road bridge 140ft overhead, and in the shadows of powerlines that moan in the wind, is not a place that ever featured in the works of Maurice Griffiths; but if you were a yachtsman with a problem to fix, Fox’s Marina and Boatyard would look like an oasis, for this is a true one-stop-shop haven for a sailor. The yard is celebrating its 90th birthday this year and in that time, a lot has changed. It’s a huge, sprawling site that encompasses a well-stocked chandlers, a marina, as the name implies, and a repairs and restoration boatyard in which almost everything can be done in-house. That, and the range of work that can be undertaken here, is the appeal of the yard, thinks Will Taylor-Jones, a classic yacht owner who took over management of the yard four years ago. The scale of the place is quite impressive: around 60 staff are organised into teams, including four in marine engineering, four in stainless steel fabrication and six in rigging. There are separate shops for standing and running rigging, both Aladdin’s caves of wire, rod, rope and marlin twine. There is even a corner of the running rigging workshop where two electronics engineers can service all the bits on your boat that no one else understands. The yard is not particularly known as a hotbed of classic yacht restoration, but we already knew about Havengore – the 1954 PLA hydrographic survey launch built by Toughs – an amazing 80ft (24m) of double-diagonal teak motor launch. Owner Chris Ryland has joined us to show us around the boat, which is having its beamshelf, Clockwise from top left: swaging wire strand in the standing rigging workshop; routing seams; the metal shop; the running rigging shop Top to bottom: Lion Class sloop, the hull is being splined above the waterline; the 80ft (24m) teak launch Havengore; Oliver Patten works on his lifeboat project deck beams, carlins and deck renewed. That’s serious heavy timber engineering on a boat this size – and great efforts are being made to preserve originality, not least in the deck beams. Rather than being replaced entirely, they are having new ends scarphed on, with the middle sections remaining as Bob Tough’s men intended. Originality is a particularly sensitive issue on Havengore, a boat that was watched by about 350 million people around the world as she bore the body of Winston Churchill up the Thames for his funeral in 1965 (“Not even the Golden Hind had borne so great a man,” said the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby at the time). Havengore still plies the Thames, now as a charter vessel, so the challenge, as always, is to balance originality with practicality: for the latter, steel packing has been introduced between the deck beams to give the bollards a better footing for her daily work. Below decks, we peer at the twin Gardner 8L3 diesels with Michael Harrison, director of Gardner, which is overseeing the engines’ refurbishment. Outside, Will shows me the exquisite shape of the Fife yacht Kismet and the Stella Scorpio, both of which belong to Richard Matthews (Oyster Yachts and Gunfleet), who owns the land Fox’s stands on. In fact, steel fabrication, rig and more for both these companies, as well as Swan and Oyster refurbishments, are a big part of Fox’s bread and butter these days. We check in on lead shipwright Oliver Patten, who is hard at work on his own project under a tent: a 1932 Barnet Class lifeboat, designed by James Barnet and built by J Samuels (Isle of Wight). She is an extraordinary sight – 51ft (15.5m) of double diagonal wood (like Havengore, but mahogany rather than teak), with a heroic, almost comical sheer. The hull is reasonable, but Oliver has a huge amount of work to do to on nearly everything else, including turning the enormous space into a vintage, wheelhouse yacht to an outboard profile drawn by naval architect John Stock. He plans to keep the survivors’ pod in the bows. We also look at Will’s own yacht – one of the lovely 35ft (10.6m) Arthur Robb-designed Lion Class sloops built in 1951. Will is busy splining the hull above the waterline. “The trouble is that these old yachts were built without bulkheads – they relied on the timbers and the planking, which is why they go out of shape sometimes,” explains Will. The idea of the splining is not only to build in some longitudinal stiffness, but to provide a surface to which paint will adhere smoothly for a long time. Until now, Fox’s has mainly tended to “pick up specific tasks” as Will puts it. The yard is clearly in a state of gentle evolution, to the point where it would now consider a complete rebuild of a good- sized classic yacht, something that it is effectively carrying out on Havengore, albeit on a winters-only basis, leaving the boat to earn her keep in London during the warmer months. Havengore is a tough challenge in many ways, and if every yard needs what Will calls a “reference boat”, then she ought to act as a pretty good calling card. Main picture: Havengore, Churchill’s funeral barge in 1965. Inset: sales manager Richard Hamer, MD Will Taylor-Jones and yard manager David Russell YARD VISIT: FOX’S
Transcript of NISN OATYARD YARD VISIT: FOX’S FANTASTIC · NISN OATYARD CRAFTSMANSHIP A visit to a comprehensive...
90 91CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017 CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2017
CRAFTSMANSHIPNIELSEN BOATYARD
CRAFTSMANSHIP
A visit to a comprehensive facility on the Suffolk coast that is hard at work on Churchill’s funeral barge
FANTASTIC MR FOX
The top of the Orwell, under the huge road bridge 140ft overhead, and in the shadows of powerlines that moan in the wind, is not a place that ever featured in the works of Maurice Griffiths; but if you were a yachtsman with a
problem to fix, Fox’s Marina and Boatyard would look like an oasis, for this is a true one-stop-shop haven for a sailor.
The yard is celebrating its 90th birthday this year and in that time, a lot has changed. It’s a huge, sprawling site that encompasses a well-stocked chandlers, a marina, as the name implies, and a repairs and restoration boatyard in which almost everything can be done in-house. That, and the range of work that can be undertaken here, is the appeal of the yard, thinks Will Taylor-Jones, a classic yacht owner who took over management of the yard four years ago.
The scale of the place is quite impressive: around 60 staff are organised into teams, including four in marine engineering, four in stainless steel fabrication and six in rigging. There are separate shops for standing and running rigging, both Aladdin’s caves of wire, rod, rope and marlin twine. There is even a corner of the running rigging workshop where two electronics engineers can service all the bits on your boat that no one else understands.
The yard is not particularly known as a hotbed of classic yacht restoration, but we already knew about Havengore – the 1954 PLA hydrographic survey launch built by Toughs – an amazing 80ft (24m) of double-diagonal teak motor launch. Owner Chris Ryland has joined us to show us around the boat, which is having its beamshelf,
Clockwise from top left: swaging wire strand in the standing rigging
workshop; routing seams; the metal shop; the running rigging shop
Top to bottom: Lion Class sloop, the hull is being splined
above the waterline; the 80ft (24m) teak launch
Havengore; Oliver Patten works on his lifeboat project
deck beams, carlins and deck renewed. That’s serious heavy timber engineering on a boat this size – and great efforts are being made to preserve originality, not least in the deck beams. Rather than being replaced entirely, they are having new ends scarphed on, with the middle sections remaining as Bob Tough’s men intended. Originality is a particularly sensitive issue on Havengore, a boat that was watched by about 350 million people around the world as she bore the body of Winston Churchill up the Thames for his funeral in 1965 (“Not even the Golden Hind had borne so great a man,” said the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby at the time).
Havengore still plies the Thames, now as a charter vessel, so the challenge, as always, is to balance originality with practicality: for the latter, steel packing has been introduced between the deck beams to give the bollards a better footing for her daily work.
Below decks, we peer at the twin Gardner 8L3 diesels with Michael Harrison, director of Gardner, which is overseeing the engines’ refurbishment.
Outside, Will shows me the exquisite shape of the Fife yacht Kismet and the Stella Scorpio, both of which belong to Richard Matthews (Oyster Yachts and Gunfleet), who owns the land Fox’s stands on. In fact, steel fabrication, rig and more for both these companies, as well as Swan and Oyster refurbishments, are a big part of Fox’s bread and butter these days.
We check in on lead shipwright Oliver Patten, who is hard at work on his own project under a tent: a 1932 Barnet Class lifeboat,
designed by James Barnet and built by J Samuels (Isle of Wight). She is an extraordinary sight – 51ft (15.5m) of double diagonal wood (like Havengore, but mahogany rather than teak), with a heroic, almost comical sheer. The hull is reasonable, but Oliver has a huge amount of work to do to on nearly everything else, including turning the enormous space into a vintage, wheelhouse yacht to an outboard profile drawn by naval architect John Stock. He plans to keep the survivors’ pod in the bows.
We also look at Will’s own yacht – one of the lovely 35ft (10.6m)Arthur Robb-designed Lion Class sloops built in 1951. Will is busy splining the hull above the waterline. “The trouble is that these old yachts were built without bulkheads – they relied on the timbers and the planking, which is why they go out of shape sometimes,” explains Will. The idea of the splining is not only to build in some longitudinal stiffness, but to provide a surface to which paint will adhere smoothly for a long time.
Until now, Fox’s has mainly tended to “pick up specific tasks” as Will puts it. The yard is clearly in a state of gentle evolution, to the point where it would now consider a complete rebuild of a good-sized classic yacht, something that it is effectively carrying out on Havengore, albeit on a winters-only basis, leaving the boat to earn her keep in London during the warmer months.
Havengore is a tough challenge in many ways, and if every yard needs what Will calls a “reference boat”, then she ought to act as a pretty good calling card.
Main picture:
Havengore,
Churchill’s funeral
barge in 1965.
Inset: sales
manager Richard
Hamer, MD Will
Taylor-Jones and
yard manager
David Russell
YARD VISIT: FOX’S
![Development of a NiSn anode for the methane SOFCProjekte/2014... · NiSn anode for the methane SOFC that appears to be stable at temperatures up to 1250°C[4]. ... (2007) 869 [5]](https://static.fdocuments.us/doc/165x107/5d02223288c99365078c0e2c/development-of-a-nisn-anode-for-the-methane-sofc-projekte2014-nisn-anode.jpg)
