Do small boat classes deserve to live forever?
Have you ever wondered how many small cruising yachts were built in the UK over the last 100 years? I have no idea what the total might be, but it is surely a very large number.
What we can be certain about is that these boats were constructed using a wide variety of materials — including timber, plywood, veneers, GRP, steel, aluminium and carbon fibre. They also reflect a beguiling diversity of traditions, aesthetics and design ideas, resulting in small yachts that spread across the whole range, from elegant to downright ugly, and from exquisite performers to reluctant pigs. It is also clear that while some of these boats were one-offs or had limited runs, others met with great commercial success, with production runs going into the thousands. These offered something new – better lines, speed, handling or accommodation; lower price or reduced maintenance requirements.
Some (also unknown) proportion of these boats is no longer in service, having rotted away, or been sunk, burned or abandoned in the overgrown back corners of boatyards and gardens.
And those that remain? Some are sailed and enjoyed regularly, maintained in good order, and, as required, benefit from timely – and often costly – refits and rebuilds. Others are on a downward slide, as they are increasingly judged to be too cramped, too slow, too expensive to maintain, and so on. In other words, from a benefit-cost perspective, they are simply not competitive with more modern alternatives. Many wooden yachts fall into this latter category, as reflected in the low prices they fetch in the market. Even revered ‘classics’ can be had for a song.
Is this a problem? Is it a problem that, for example, whole classes of once-loved cruising yachts seem to be at risk, and might soon disappear?
Arguments for acting to try to save some or all of these ‘at risk’ yachts and classes usually articulate around the idea that they were from a particularly influential designer, or were especially innovative, or became design classics, or played an important part in British yachting or maritime history. Some or all of these points might certainly be relevant, but how innovative or classic does a yacht or a class need to be, and in whose eyes? How influential was the designer, or how important an historical role did the yacht play, and in whose eyes?
And even if these arguments are accepted, how many boats should be ‘saved’, and who is willing, or should, foot the bill?
Broadly speaking we might consider two approaches to saving at risk boats. First, in situ approaches seek to keep individual boats or whole classes in use, for cruising, racing, training etc. In contrast, ex situ approaches seek to preserve representative boats into the future by removing them from use, by, for example, placing them in a museum.
Both carry costs: in situ approaches depend on the same continual maintenance (and occasional refits) required to keep any older yacht in good condition; ex situ approaches require expensive museum floor or shed space, and in any case, a boat left on display, even under cover, may suffer further degradation.
The question then arises as to how these costs might be met. Again, two stylised approaches might be considered. The first is to leave it to market forces – if there is sufficient interest in the boats this will be reflected in the prices at which they change hands, with buoyant prices supporting the required further investment in maintenance etc. The theory is that a £15,000 boat is less likely to be left unpainted, or in the garden without a cover, than a £5,000 boat. However, the reality is that the very boats that might be on someone’s priority list to ‘save’, are those languishing in the market.
An alternative is to de-link the future of the boats from their market value. Here funds must be mobilised from individuals, charities, government sources and so on, which generally means that ownership of, and responsibility for the boats will pass to a trust, charity or community enterprise. The challenge here is to assure sufficient funds both for initial purchase and continuing storage, maintenance etc. While some boats might lend themselves to chartering or use in training, others will not, and in the latter case, assuring the continuing maintenance element will likely be particularly troublesome.
Which of these various options might work for a particular yacht or class is not easy to ascertain.
But perhaps the more important question is this: With the availability of so many different small yachts, and more being designed and build every year, how important, and how realistic, is it to save individual yachts or classes that have lost or are losing their place in the market? Would a quiet and permanent berth in a museum not be the better option?