Afloat.ie is a curious beast. Over the years, the numbers of our global visitorship have become pleasantly surprising in their quantity and variety. It can be fascinating, too, how long an item – having been examined and discussed in detail - can slumber in our little bit of cyberspace before it suddenly pops up again in another context.
Thus it's some time since the very traditional gaff cutter Marie Michon of 1927 vintage figured on this site. But now Charlie Watt, grandson of her designer Bevil Warington Smyth of Falmouth in Cornwall, wonders if we've any idea of what became of this special boat. Sadly, she ended her days in the 1970s, wrecked on the shores of an anchorage mistakenly thought of as adequately sheltered in Strangford Lough. We begin in the 1950s:
Marie Michon – her gaff boom was as long as her widow-maker main boom. Photo: W M Nixon
A boyhood home on the southeast shore of Ballyholme Bay provided a fascinating view of the entrance to Belfast Lough, as boats sailing in from the east revealed themselves only gradually as they emerged from beyond the west slope of Ballymacormick Point where it rose towards its height of Islet Hill.
My father the doctor had been gifted a superb set of Zeiss U-Boat binoculars by a grateful patient, who had in turn liberated this coveted item from a surrendered vessel of the Kriegsmarine wolfpack fleet in Lough Foyle in 1945.
U-BOAT BINOCULARS
The exceptional magnification from this wellnigh perfect example of German precision technology meant that small boys could maintain a very detailed sea watch from the top floor of our tall house. Despite massive construction, the upper storeys of this rather weird building really did tremble in winter's proper northeast storms.
The hand held Zeiss U-Boat binoculars of 1942 are probably still the best multi-purpose binoculars ever created.
Yet in summer, when the Ballymacormick sea-intertwined heathland was well warmed, there was much educational goings-on among the gorse bushes that we weren't meant to see at all. But that quickly palled, for the binoculars also meant that we were detailed connoisseurs of those slowly-revealed sailing rigs of boats making westward into the lough past the Point.
One raw late-season Sunday evening with a brisk westerly, the usual Bermuda rigs were making themselves visible when interest sharpened. A tanned-sailed gaff rig with white spars was manifesting itself, plugging to windward towards the anchorage in Ballyholme Bay. Gradually, the whole and very complete boat was revealed. It was my first sight of Marie Michon, the ultimate gaff cutter.
The "enormity" of the Cornish-style rig
'ENORMITY OF CORNISH-STYLE RIG'
Thanks to the enormity of her Cornish-style rig, with the gaff boom every bit as long as the widow-making main-boom itself, she looked much larger than her hull length of just 28th ft LOA. But had she been around 35ft, she could have comfortably provided full standing headroom under her flush deck. Yet in 1927 her young first owner Ralph Swann and her Falmouth-based amateur designer Bevil Warington Smyth were dedicated to purity of concept, and she remained determinedly flush-decked despite being some inches short of full standing headroom.
Having been reared among dayboats and cruisers with dinky little headroom-augmenting coachroofs, this austere suggestion of the ablest seagoing non-compromise was inspirational. And though unacquainted with Cornwall at the time, the fact that the boat was built by the quintessentially Cornish-sounding little firm of Gilbert & Pascoe at the often storm-battered harbour of Porthleven seemed purest West Country.
Summertime off the Royal Ulster YC in Bangor, and Marie Michon gets her 1963 season under way. Photo: W M Nixon
DIMLY-LIT TAVERN
You could easily visualise being in a dimly-lit tavern in Porthleven on a dark and foggy night as the hush descended on the place when the sound of one-legged Blind Pew limping past brought spooky silence to the room. All this was evoked by the vision of Marie Michon making into the limited shelter of Ballyholme Bay. And when Bertie Slater and his team hauled her into Bangor Shipyard next day, it was clear that we'd never really seen a boat like this before, and we liked her more than ever.
She may have originated in Cornwall, but there were acknowledgements to French influence, not least in the name being drawn from Dumas's The Three Musketeers. Marie Michon was one of the names for a female character whose behaviour lent itself to several interpretations, so much so that the boat's youthful owner occasionally had to withstand harsh criticism for using such a dodgy name at all.
CAPTAIN GUSTAF ERIKSON OF THE ALAND ISLANDS
But he was rightly proud of his able little craft, and spread his voyaging wings through the 1930s, sailing to the northern Baltic in 1932 to visit the Aland Islands and see the great and still-trading world-girdling sailing ships of Gustav Erikson. However, the season was already well advanced, so when Erikson suggested that Swann leave Marie Michon in his care for the winter and return next season for a more leisurely progress back southwards, the offer was accepted with relief.
Gustav Erikson's Herzogin Cecilie, the most famous of his "wind-jammers". Ironically, after Marie Michon had sailed to the Aland Islands to see Herzogin and her sisters in 1932, she was wrecked on Start Point in fog in 1936 after calling at "Falmouth for orders" for her cargo of Australian grain
ERIKSON SAILS MARIE MICHON SOLO
As their steamship departed for the first stage of the journey home, Swann and his shipmate were surprised to see Marie Michon sailing alongside them as they left port. It was Erikson himself seeing them off, sailing the little cutter single-handed with evident enjoyment - the ultimate seal of approval, and the guarantee of good care through the Baltic winter.
"'SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY"
Ralph Swann (1904-1992), was by profession a London stockbroker, which was at its respectable height an ideal trade for a cruising enthusiast, as its unspoken but much-followed code of "Sell in May and Go Away, Come Back on St Leger Day" provided ample time and space – St Leger being September 12th - for worthwhile seagoing ventures.
When the going was good – Marie Michon making knots in Scottish waters. Photo: W M Nixon
He successfully built up various connections in the 1930s including Royal Cruising Club membership, which saw his Baltic venture awarded the Romola Cup for 1932. Sensing the imminent war of 1939-1945, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer reserve in 1937, and when hostilities broke out, he seems to have overcome the disdain with which some professional RN officers treated the "Wavy Navy", as the London Gazette of 28th January 1944 announces his award of the OBE "for outstanding zeal, energy and cheerful devotion to duty while serving in HMS Formidable in the Mediterranean before and during the operations in Sicily and Southern Italy."
LIFEBOAT SERVICE AND FACING A SHUT-DOWN
By war's end, he was a Commander RNVR, and then post war, his maritime interests came to include the Lifeboat Service in a big way while continuing with RCC involvement, which saw him serve as Commodore from 1967-1972.
He'd barely put this behind him before becoming Chairman of the RNLI from 1972-1975, after much work in specialist committees which oversaw some impressive technical and safety advances. Being Chairman from 1972 -'75 was a particular honour, as the RNLI's foundation in 1824 meant he was in the top role for the 150th Anniversary in 1974. But at the time Britain was in the throes of Ted Heath's three day week and multiple shut-downs with power switch-offs, and the big RNLI celebrations in London looked embarrassingly like being a non-event.
St PATRICK'S HALL IN DUBLIN CASTLE
However, in those days the Lifeboat Service's main man in Ireland was the ever-ebullient Brian Clarke ("outstanding zeal, energy and cheerful devotion to duty" could equally have been applied to him), and the impressive Clayton Love Jnr of Cork had also come on board in a senior role. With two can-do types like that, things moved in mysterious but positive ways, and before we knew where we were, the main celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the RNLI took place with considerable style in the brightly lit and warmly hospitable St Patrick's Hall in Dublin Castle.
St Patrick's Hall, Dublin Castle. With London shut down under the three day week, the 150th Anniversary of the RNLI, with Ralph Swann as Chairman, was celebrated here in 1974.
Thus the only time I ever met Ralph Swann was in St Patrick's Hall, almost totally immersed in Sesquicentennial RNLI pageantry. But even then some snippets of Marie Michon nostalgia floated past, even if he'd sold the boat in Aberdeen after World War II ended in 1945, which suggests she'd had to be laid up in that no-nonsense port after a hasty return from the Baltic in the face of imminent war in 1939.
BILLY BROWN BRINGS HER TO IRELAND
Certainly by 1948 she's registered to one J Cruikshank of Hardgate, Aberdeen. But by 1955 Billy Brown of Portaferry – subsequently in 1971 the designer of the successful 35ft Ruffian, and then the production-built Ruffian 23 – had brought her to Ireland, though he did mention later that the noted Dublin geologist Francis Millington Synge (of the playwright's family) had some involvement.
Either way, it was the unheralded and dramatic debut off Ballymacormick Point in 1955 that brought her centre stage, but after a busy winter of work in Bangor Shipyard - for several bits of her were beginning to show their age – Billy Brown took her back to Portaferry and cruised from there until 1962, when his younger brother Dick bought the ultra-light-displacement van de Stadt creation Black Soo, as different a boat from Marie Michon as you could imagine.
About as different from Marie Michon as you could get – Dick Brown's van de Stadt-designed Black Soo at Portaferry Pier. Photo: W M Nixon
Marie Michon in turn was bought by my fellow sailors in Belfast Lough with the 26ft Swallow Class Jim McCreadie and George Crowe of Ballyholme, who returned with the black cutter to Strangford Lough for a week in 1962 as mother-ship to the Swallow Class for the bacchanalian Strangford Narrows Regatta.
AILSA CRAIG FINALLY RACED AFTER 65 YEARS
Then when it was finally decided later in 1962 that it was time and more to stage the cross-channel-and-back RUYC Ailsa Craig Race for which a magnificent trophy had been available but unused since 1897, I found myself with the usual suspects racing Marie Michon and discovering that the crude but effective mainsail roller-reefing really did the business. For as we ran before a rising sou'west gale through an August night as dark as the inside of a cow, it was something of a surprise to find the latest bout of reefing had brought the throat of the main right down beside us with no bother at all.
CURE FOR SUMMER FLU
Indeed, the experience of racing offshore in this remarkable boat was such that I dashed off some sketches accompanied by merchandisable verbiage and sent it to Monk Farnham, Editor of Boating in New York, and he – God bless him – accepted with a really beautiful-looking dollar cheque whose arrival through the letter box was the quickest cure for summer flu you ever saw.
"The latest bout of roller reefing had brought the throat of the main right down beside is with no bother at all" – Marie Michon in the inaugural 1962 Ailsa Craig Race, from a sketch for Boating Magazine of New York by W M Nixon
But our most complex interaction with Marie Michon came in 1963, when largely Ballyholme-based teams of young sailing thugs went on various cruisers across the North Channel to the Gareloch in the Upper Clyde for the Mudhook Yacht Club's annual Schools & Universities Championship.
ASPERGER'S ACADEMY
My older brother Michael - who had initiated this annual pilgrimage by sailing over in a 9-tonner in 1957 and winning the Schools Races for Asperger's Academy, aka Bangor Grammar School - had already closed off one route by pre-chartering our usual mount, the 9-tonner Ainmara. But George and Jim kindly loaned Marie Michon to my brother James and me and our younger brother John, and it was all systems go for the exodus Clydewards.
After the foul weather, Marie Michon enjoying fair weather in Kilbrannan Sound. Photo: W M Nixon
While Michael and another brother David took Ainmara northwards by the direct route, we decided to add a bit of interest by going through Kilbrannan Sound west of Arran, and then through the Kyles of Bute.
YACHTSMAN'S GALE
It made no difference either way, as both boats were caught out in a northeasterly "yachtsman's gale" with endless torrential rain. Michael sensibly found shelter anchored close under the southwest side of Holy Island at Lamlash on Arran, but this meant that he'd no means of making shore communication.
Meanwhile, we in the slower-to-windward Marie Michon were so exhausted and frozen by the time we berthed in Campbeltown in Kintyre - in the still-pouring rain - that all efforts were devoted to getting Marie Michon's heating stove burning nicely without asphyxiating us (I think we'd to deal with three different stove-pipe dampers), so phoning home was overlooked.
POMPOUS TWIT
But some pompous twit in Ballyholme took it upon himself to ring the Belfast Telegraph to tell them that the Doctor's five sons were missing in a gale in the channel, upon which a thick-necked newshound rang our mother – a very private person and the real backbone of the family – to enquire how she felt, and got the crisp response of: "How d'you think you'd feel?" with an unusually abrupt downing of the phone.
By next day the weather had cleared, communications were resumed, and we'd a fine old time at the Gareloch through to the regatta finish, though for some reason the happy band who'd volunteered to sail north had become depleted, and I sailed Marie Michon back to Ballyholme with just James and one Dougie Arthurs.
Home waters. Marie Michon coming in past Black Head on Belfast Lough, with the Clark Cup securely on board. Photo: W M Nixon
For James had won the Clark Cup to win the Universities title for TCD, which had more history than we knew, as it had been donated to the Mudhook YC by the Clark family of Lord Clark of Civilisation etc etc. But Dougie had been the defending champion sailing for Glasgow University, and having been a very close runner-up, he came along with us to sail back to Belfast Lough to manifest his reluctance to let the trophy go.
"Last days of the Glasgow Empire….?" Dougie Arthurs of Glasgow University with Clark Cup winner James Nixon of TCD aboard Marie Michon and the Cup suitably embellished on the side deck. Photo: W M Nixon
UNCERTAINTY ABOUT LAST OWNER
Eventually the Clark Cup reached its target in Dublin, but meanwhile although Jim & George meticulously maintained Marie Michon's registration at Lloyd's, when they sold her to a Strangford Lough YC sailor at Whiterock in the early 1970s, this useful keeping of rrcords seems to have been discontinued. So after fifty years, there's no longer complete certainty about her last owner.
For with the Lightship-based Down Cruising Club in nearby Ballydorn expanding rapidly, properly sheltered anchorages in the neighbourhood were no longer available. Marie Michon found herself lying to a very exposed mooring at the east end of Sketrick Island, and some time in the 1970s, maybe a few months after I met Ralph Swann, Marie Michon broke adrift in a ferocious easterly and soon became a total loss.
Sketrick Island (centre right) is where Marie Michon met her end. Her ballast keel is reportedly still visible at low water springs at the point on the right.
The word is her cast-iron ballast keel can still be seen at low water springs. A sentimental person might claim she could authentically be re-built on that keel alone, as surely other bits and pieces are still to be found in some of the hidden sheds of Sketrick.
SWANN MOVES ON
But Ralph Swann had long since moved on. The senior of the Warington Smyth brothers, Nigel, had also been a talented amateur yacht designer during the 1930s with gaff cutters. But in 1948 he broke free, designing himself a very likeable 7-ton 30ft bermudan sloop called Restive.
In the absence of the necessary set-up in Falmouth, she'd to be built by Stebbings of Burnham in Essex. But everybody liked Restive so much that when the third Warington Smyth brother Rodney set up Falmouth Boat Construction in the late 1940s, he was soon busy building Restive sister-ships, one of which was Black Cygnet for Ralph Swann in 1951.
The plans of the Nigel Warington Smyth-designed Restive, the original for Ralph Swann's 1951-built Black Cygnet
ABSOLUTE HONEY
You can make what you will out of a man called Swann having a boat called Black Cygnet. Perhaps something had been made out of the fact that the ruggedly Cornish Marie Michon had never been brought all the way back from very foreign Aberdeen. But frankly, in her day and still today, Black Cygnet was such an absolute honey of a boat that she outshines any complaint, and as soon as she was fully sea-tested, Ralph Swann had her back north, based in his happy place of the northern Baltic for cruising those long stockbroker holidays.
After the heavy booms and sails of Marie Michon's hefty gaff rig, Black Cygnet's rig was kept as light and simple as possible within demanding cruising requirements.
