1974

Arctic Smoke immediately after launch

ARCTIC SMOKE was built for the (then) current owners and exhibited in the Southampton Boat Show in 1974, Various additions were included such as wheel steering. She was moored in Lymington until 1986 when she was sailed to Bordeaux and through the canals to the Med. She has since been kept in Marinas in the South of France, Corsica, Majorca and Menorca and has just sailed back to the UK. She has been taken out of the water every winter for a minimum of five months and appropriate maintenance has been carried out each year. In 1985/86 she was found to have osmosis, the gel coat was removed and replaced with Blake solventless treatment, all work carried out by Haven Boatyard at Lymington Yacht Haven. In 1997 the owners removed the anfiouling (which had become flaky) back to the epoxy resin and added a further three coats of epoxy resin, and re-antifouled. The iron keel was treated with Primacon prior to antifouling. A sample of three of the keel boats was ex-rayed in 1986.
A VAT exemption certificate was obtained from Spanish customs in 1993 which covers European Common Market area. VAT was paid when the yacht was built in 1974 but the receipt was not kept.

I got this from Ken in August 2013

Hi Tom,

Thanks for letting me have your e mail address - I didn't want to put my address on the open blog forum.
As I mentioned on the blog, I have a photo of 'Arctic Smoke' on her very proud launch day. I will dig it out for you and scan a copy for you to have a look at and if you felt I was something you'd like to have then I'd happily let you borrow the original to get copied and you could then return to me.
This may take longer than I would hope since we are between houses at the moment and all my photos are " somewhere up there" to quote my wife! Nevertheless, I'll venture " up there" and see what I can find.
I've also got a narrative log of a big trip we did in 1975 to Southern Brittany which, whilst not about the boat is certainly 'of the boat' if that makes sense. This was written by a fellow crew member who was a journalist so it's nicely written and a cut above the usual "we did this, and then we did that" sort of story.
I guess that all these memories I have of Arctic Smoke may only be of passing interest to you since you are interested in the ' now' of looking after her. If there are any gaps in her history that I can fill then I'll do my best.

Dad chose the Liz 33 having looked closely at many other similar yachts, notably the 'Contessa' which I think was also made in Lymington. The Liz was chosen because she was a bit less tender and certainly drier in a big sea!
I think the entire Elizabethan range was basically a bit of a copy of an American design (Morgan?) and none the worse for that.
I recall my Dad driving a pretty hard deal on the purchase and looking at the expression on Peter Webster's face when he realised that he'd agreed to fit Wheel Steering and forgotten this when finalising the invoice!

The trio of owners I mentioned on the blog were perfect owners since they all had really useful yachting skills, and were all Ocean Yachtmaster's ( Dad also taught Astro-Nav at night school....in pre-computer days when it was all slide rules and star tables!).
One guy was an ex RN electrical systems officer, the other was a time-served engineer and Dad brought up the rear as Medic.
I'm sure by now that the cockpit decking has long since disappeared but it was a teak thing of beauty made by hand by the engineer.

Anyway, apologies for rambling down my very own memory lane.

As a final point, I'm about to return to sailing after a very long time and my brother and I will buy a Westerly of some sort next year ( a bit predictable as a yacht I know but we need something each of us can sail single-handed) and have a drying mooring at Salcombe. Happy Days return!

Kind regards and let me know if you can bear any more of these memories!