We’ve become sadly inured to reports of Denis Doyle’s exquisitely-varnished Crosshaven-built Frers 51 Moonduster of 1981-vintage mouldering mossily in the harsh climate of northern Norway. So when a certain nautically-minded antiquarian bookseller of the Roughty Valley in southwest Kerry mentioned he’d heard from Scandinavia of the super-star of 1974, the Ron Holland One Tonner Golden Apple built in Cork with Bushe family brilliance for Hugh Coveney, we prepared ourselves for bad news.
Not so. After going through a couple of post-Coveney ownerships in the south of England, many years ago Golden Apple went to Denmark. There, she has been much loved and kept in extremely good order thanks to wintering in one of those classy Baltic boat-sheds where the heating comes on if freezing temperatures threaten.
Were it not for the fact that we know so well when she was built, you’d think she was ten years old at most. But this is indeed the boat in which Harold Cudmore properly launched his stellar international sailing career, and he and she made such an impact in the Worlds at Torquay that everyone now tends to remember Golden Apple even though another boat was the actual winner, with Cudmore’s first Ton Class Worlds title coming two years later in 1976 with the Half Tonner Silver Apple - now owned by Conor Fogerty of Howth.
Golden Apple meanwhile - the pioneer of them all - is now a very manageable classic, and for sale at €60,400 – details and more photos here
