Week six completed and the hull repairs and bulwarks are now painted in white undercoat.  The photo above shows work in progress towards the bow.

The photos below show more detail.

Work is 95% complete on the replacement of the internal bulkhead, but some additional rot was found under the cockpit lazarette hatch. Will Stirling and the team have found a way to sort this effectively.

Next week it’s about preparing the hull for final painting and completing the repairs to the cockpit hatch area. The weather seems against us for spraying the hull with her final white top coat.

As in 1952 at her launch, Yves has varnished bulwarks. A bulwark is the wood that runs around the top of the hull and takes it above the level of the deck. This varnished wood gives her a heavy look at deck level and the varnish is quite high maintenance, especially once we get to the Mediterranean sun and high UV levels.

To improve her classic looks and to reduce the varnish maintenance, we took a decision today to have the bulwarks painted the same colour as the hull, white. The capping and inside of the bulwarks will remain varnished.

We hope this will improve her already fine lines, fingers crossed…

Week 5 is now complete with the repairs and revarnishing of the mizzen mast finished and the port side hull repairs well in hand. The rotten aft bulkhead replacement has been started, and in the processes, the cause of the water leaks has been identified. It’s the chain plates for the mizzen mast shrouds that have been leaking. All have been taken out and re-seated. That’s a massive find because other areas were suspected for the leak.

Next week sees the bulkhead work continue, the cockpit table build start, the port side completed with possibly the new timber receiving an undercoat.

Work is underway to sort out some soft planks in Yves’ hull, varnish the masts, replace an internal bulkhead, replace all the rudder bolts, re-galvanise the stem band (a metal covering on her bow), new antifouling, repaint her white hull, sort out some varnish plus various other bits and bobs. Hopefully she will look wonderful when launched on 16 March. This of course is all subject to the weather!

Stirling and Son, the yard she is in, is based in No1 Covered Slipway, famous for building ships for the Royal Navy back when we were at war with France. It was build in 1763 and built one of Nelson’s flagships, HMS Foudroyant in 1798. The yard is now designated an ancient monument, like Stonehenge.

This is Yves inside the yard on her first day there. It’s like a cathedral dedicated to shipbuilding. Although not big enough for Yves’ very tall main mast.

The mizzen mast being being repaired and revarnished.

The planking repaired ready for painting.

Yves Christian was commissioned by Monsieur Louis Joullie through Glasgow based naval architects WG McBryde. She was built at Chantier Sibiril in Carentec, Northern France.

We haven’t been able to find out much about WG McBryde, other than he designed both commercial and pleasure boats from the 1920’2 through to the 1950’s. He published a book in 1947 called Twenty Designs of Motor and Sailing Yachts. Of the designs I have seen in excerpts of the book, some sailing boats look very similar to Yves.

The Sibiril yard that built her has a whole history of its own, being involved in making boats to smuggle out resistance fighters and downed airmen across the channel to Britain in WWII. The yard now makes modern pilot, rescue and commercial boats.

Here are the pictures of the build and launch of Yves.

Here is a photograph of Yves taken by Beken of Cowes.

Yves was sold by M Joullie in 1955 to M Sidem after he commissioned Yves Christian II, an 85 foot yacht, again designed by McBryde.

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We started this blog to detail our sailing adventure for our friends and family, so that they could keep track of us and what we were doing. It is also a written record for us to look back in future years and remember what it was all about. We hope you will enjoy the pictures and what we have written.