MY 55 Alexander 36?
Please find attached pictures of a yacht we have. It's a 36" class framed hull, 62" mast. My father and grandfather sailed many of these yachts in the 40s and 50s and we have a photograph published in the local paper at the time possibly showing them sailing this yacht.
We think it was made by Alexanders of Preston and my father suspects
he remembers visting the shop to trade in an M-class for this yacht.
Anyway, an identification would be great if you or your members can
provide it. The hull appears similar to mystery boat 8 - the Heather
Dew, although framed rather than solid. There are no obvious makers
marks.
We have several sets of period sails and although she is shown with
a metal three-piece mast we also have the original wood mast. We'd also
be grateful if you could point us to a resource for rigging the "brain"
(?) steering system correctly!
The last time she sailed was at West Shore boating Lake, Llandudno with
no problems about 10 years ago - not bad for little maintenance except
decent storage for 60 years! We would be looking to sail her again depending
on how near a vintage sailing club is to Manchester!
VMYG Comment:
The 36 register records this boat no. 379, first registered
in July 1938 as 'Patsy', owned by a Mr Ashcroft of the Fleetwood club. It
is recorded as being designed and built by 'Alexanders'. It is in a batch
of Fleetwood boats registered at the same time including one other recorded
as 'D & B Alexanders' and one 'Heather Elf', owned by one of the Alexander
sons and as designed by the father. Very probably these are all to the same
design.
I'm not aware that Alexanders ever had a shop as such, but they certainly
ran a large model yacht building concern in Preston. I had always assumed
that it was run alongside the father's original business as a patternmaker
and that the son's had day jobs as well. By the post war years the father
would be retired and able to work full time on the models.
The design is quite similar to Heather Dew. All Alexander's 'toy' boats
derived from one of their 6-m designs. There is a change in fin form between
the pre 1939 and post 1945 profile, but other wise little change. It seems
entirely reasonable that they used an essentially similar concept for their
36 design. There was a 36 in their range of toy boats which usually sold
under the name of 'Heather Dew', though the names migrated round the range,
possibly because of temporary fluctuations in the availability of the ivorine
name plates that they typically used.
The Braine gear is covered in a little pamphlet that Bassett-Lowke published
in the 1930s. Curved Air Press do a reprint of this. See the link on the
VMYG web site
Russell Potts