The past weekend’s weather experience of “Four Seasons In A Day” may have disrupted the sailing programme for the Crosshaven Traditional Boat Weekend, but some interesting boats had made their way to the venue beforehand, and classic yacht connoisseurs had the unusual experience of seeing two Fred Shepherd-designed beauties side-by-side.
Fred Shepherd (1869-1969) may have lived to be a Centenarian, but his active career was for 45 years, with World War II in 1939 effectively concluding it. He was noted for the meticulous creation of seaworthy and good-looking performance cruisers, with personal attention to the building process. Though he was based in London and later Hampshire, the thoroughness of his approach meant that there were just 84 yachts built to his designs, and finding two in one place is rare indeed these days, but as ever Crosshaven has risen to the challenge.
TYRRELL OF ARKLOW
In 1934, noted Irish sailor Billy Mooney of Howth and then - after 1943 - Dun Laoghaire-based, used Shepherd’s internationally-recognised talent to turn his own personal sketches and ideas-list into the famous Tyrrell-of-Arklow-built gaff-rigged 42ft ketch canoe-sterned Aideen in 1934.
Stern situation or counter productive? Two very different sterns, yet from the same design board. Photo: Darryl Hughes
Having Fred Shepherd as the designer gave Aideen internationally-recognised credentials. But despite the skipper’s continuing enthusiasm for traditional-looking gaff rig, Aideen was otherwise full of novel ideas based on Billy Mooney’s extensive sea-going experience, and in his ownership she was awarded the Irish Cruising Club’s Faulkner Cup in 1936 for a cruise to France, and then in 1947 won her class in the Fastnet Race.
SISTER SHIP
By that time Aideen’s special qualities were widely appreciated, and in 1937 Lt Col W C W Hawkes DSO - a Cornwall-based World War I veteran with close family links to Cork Harbour – had commissioned a near sister to Aideen. She was and is Maybird, superbly restored by Darryl Hughes as his own Project Manager in Southampton, where he cleverly drew on the best of talents available from other major restorations under way nearby.
Maybird needed the work, as her long life had included a voyage with two families to New Zealand, with a child of one of the families being shipwright Dan Mill, now Galway based and building everything from classics to the extraordinary 70ft Nimmo for John Killeen.
FAMILY VALUES
The other Shepherd design in Crosshaven with Maybird was the 1919-vintage Aline IV. Many will associate the name “Aline” with Alfred Mylne designs built in Scotland, but this Aline is special in her own right, as she was built immediately after World War I to Fred Shepherd’s design in Lowestoft in Suffolk.
This was done as an act of thanksgiving by a family who had seen five sons go off to the war, yet with all five returning, an outcome which is wellnigh miraculous. Now in Crosshaven she’s very much a family boat again, owned by brothers Alan, Billy and Don Curran of Castlepoint Boatyard, who know a thing or two about classic boat building and fully appreciate the exceptional quality of Aline IV’s workmanship.
Perfect workmanship in the classic teak-laid decks of Maybird (foreground) and Aline IV. Photo: Darryl Hughes
