Istria (yacht)

Istria

During the golden age of sail and competitive yacht racing ISTRIA was the most radical and quite simply the most interesting 15-metre class racing yacht ever built. She was designed and built by Charles Ernest Nicholson at the Camper & Nicholsons yard in Gosport, Hampshire, in 1912 and incorporated some revolutionary ideas; namely,

a) She was the first yacht in the world with a lightweight, laminated wood construction

b) She was the first to feature a marconi topmast.^[1]

c) She was the first yacht to incorporate a Dinghy Cockpit.

Her owner upon completion was Sir Charles Carrick Allom, an eminent British decorator and trained architect, who was knighted for his work on Buckingham Palace.

It is believed that she was broken up around 1924 in Norway!

Construction

For centuries the most traditional method of building a yacht, was that of ‘Plank-on-Frame. This is where the fundamental structure is defined by a keel (the horizontal backbone of the hull), a slightly more vertical stern (this forms the bow); and a more vertical sternpost and horn timber (to create the long overhang that terminates at the transom to form the back of the yacht). A series of Oak frames were then added to this backbone, and then planks were steamed and moulded and attached to these frames to form the elegant lines of the yacht. In order to save weight Charles Nicholson dispensed with the heavy planking and instead built the skin of ISTRIA with layers of lightweight laminated wood.

Design

In order to both reduce the ‘wetted’ surface and yet create a very stable platform, ISTRIA’s hull shape consisted of a long forward overhang and a wide beam at the waterline. Yachting Monthly at the time described her as;

“Short on the waterline, with large displacement, a fine tail and a useful snout, she would not have been a pretty vessel had she not proved clever. But as I have always insisted that efficiency is beauty, the blue ‘fifteen’ was admired”.

The First Marconi Mast

Until Charles Nicholson developed the Marconi Mast, the topsail was laced to a jack-yard, which was then hoisted from the topmast. The cleverness of the Marconi mast lies wherein the topmast is extended to the full height of a jack-yard, and the leading edge of the topsail is hoisted on a track for its full length. The main advantages of this design lay in improved sail shape.

Dinghy Cockpit

For the sake of safety in case a yacht should flounder, the rules at the time stated that a dinghy should be on the deck of the yacht, and was typically stored over the main skylight. Charles Nicholson, being an extremely able racing helmsman, understood the impact of wind resistance and hence how to get the maximum performance from racing yachts. In his quest to reduce the windage across the yachts hull and deck, Nicholson decided to create a dinghy with a broad gunwhale rim which was then countersunk through the deck to form the cockpit. When ISTRIA attended her first race, ALL the opposition protested against the arrangement. However, after successfully proving that the dinghy could be launched in under 10 seconds, the protests subsided.

Race History

During her maiden racing season of 1912 ISTRIA started in 31 races in European waters ^[2] and won 29 of them. Originally 60 races had been planned but due to very strong winds there were only 43 starts. Over the following seasons up to the start of the First World War; ISTRIA won a further 43 races from 50 starts, thus making a very impressive 72 WINS from 81 STARTS.

It was intended that the boat competed as a challenger for the 1914 America's Cup.^[3] During the trials, World War I started and the next competition was the 1920 America's Cup.^[4]

In the history of the 15-metre class, ISTRIA’s position as the pre-eminent remains unchallenged.

Approx. Dimensions

LOD: 23.94 m LWL: 14.78 m Beam: 4.16 m Draft: 2.82 m Displacement: 40 tons

References