[david_japp]

It occurred to me that you may be interested to hear about the rebuild of my 60yr old steel motor yacht - a vintage 61ft Feadship - Alto Volante (ex Tiki, ex Lenton Rose ) built by van Lent in 1960 , which apparently spent many years in (I believe) Rotterdam and then on the Dutch waterways before moving to the Med in the 1980s, where I found her

I live in London where I work as a music publisher and I am a lover of interesting and beautiful boats of all types. I’ve owned and restored various wooden yachts (ranging from a 12ft American catboat built in 1900, a 25ft 1930 estuary motor-cruiser, a 1950's BB11, a 34ft 1959 sloop, a 26ft 1938 ChrisCraft and, latterly, Amokura a stunning 51ft Fred Shepherd designed yawl built by Moody’s in 1938, and that I rebuilt over 7 years, before selling her because my young sons didn’t like sailing!) I then decided that my next project would be a small classic motor yacht that my family could enjoy and use without a full-time crew. Eventually, I settled on Tiki, which I found lying in very poor condition, in Pollenca in N. Majorca.

We did some work on her in Spain, using a combination of the local yard staff and a variety of itinerant and in the main incompetent labour. This involved large section of rusted bow being re-plated, replacing so so-called "new " teak deck (that had been laid on the "old"teak deck without attending to the rusted structure beneath) , replacing the worn out engines and boxes with re-built Gardners 6LXB engines ,fitting new stabilizers, bowthruster and shafts etc .

That was a very slow, frustrating and expensive process. After 3 years I finally realised that completing the work by remote control in Majorca was going to be uneconomic and an impossibly long process. Accordingly, as soon as she could move under her power we took her to the Classic Works yard at La Ciotat in France. Doing work there proved to be impossibly expensive for me so we took a deep breath and took her through the French canals back to the East Coast of England, where she is now entirely stripped out and waiting for work to begin at “Landamores”, a well-known family owned & operated boatyard, known for the quality of its workmanship and at a price that will be approx 50% of the rates quoted in France & Spain.


work remaining to be done:

rebuild entire interior in light oak
rewire & re-plumbing throughout
build new Pilot-house
sort out rusted fuel and water tanks (not sure how, yet!)
more hull plating
much else.....!

Tiki is an interesting boat - she was built with a typical Northern European displacement hull with a flared bow, but with a superstructure based on 1950's planing ChrisCraft design - presumably with a view to selling her to the USA, which as I am sure your are aware, was the reason for the Feadship federation of Van Lent and de Vries yards, in the early fifties.

Tiky would look lovely with the original open helm but I'm not sure that is the best/most practical solution for a 61ft displacement yacht which will be used as a family holiday boat in the Med, or even if it is the most aesthetically pleasing, so were currently looking at alternative designs

More posts to come as the work progresses…could be a while , though!
best
D

[Loren Schweizer]

Countless YF readers are no doubt clogging the emergency rooms at local hospitals suffering from 'dropped-jaw' syndrome. You, sir, are brave.

You are finding this refit to be:

"impossibly expensive....a very slow, frustrating and expensive process....uneconomic and an impossibly long process".

I hope these are mere badges of honor and not outright complaints. But, since you are up to your eyeballs, you can't quit now.
It sounds like you're contemplating modifying/adding to the original bridgedeck area, i.e., enclosing the area possibly with a hardtop & sides.
Being that your Van Lent is steel--and your previous refits dealt with God's own wood--you might be tempted to add more steel to the structure and that would be a mistake: do the uppers in aluminum (aluminium?) which will attach to the underlying steel via a strip of Detaclad (if that's what Dupont calls it in the UK).

And....good luck! You will be noted by the locals back home as having provided a Major Economic Stimulus Package as you soldier on and which may warrant a town square statue in your honor, or at least a write-up in FT.

BTW, was that BB11 similar to the BB10 (Bjorn & Bjorksen, Danish design) campaigned by me & friends back in the '80s--a sort-of Hobie 33-low freeboard-wet-fast little booger?

[david_japp]

Hi

it has often occurred to me that having re-plated much of the hull, ripped out the entire interior (bulkheads, deck lining, furniture and cabin sole), replaced the deck, replaced the engine shafts exhausts and all systems, fitted a new stabilzer and bow thruster, rewired and re-plumbed, I have paid a tidy sum for what is in effect a builder's plate...but I dont regret it as building anew wouldn't be so satisfying as saving a graceful old lady from the scrap heap. ...

the BB11 is 20' 3/4 decked keelboat sloop, conceived and built in mahogany in 1956 by Borge Bringsvaerd, Drobak, Norway a very pretty boat that looks like a small Dragon

I was thinking of building Tiki's new PH with ply/epoxy sides and either strip planked or balsa core for the roof..aluminium is a possibility that I hadn't really considered till now, mainly because I dont know anything about it ... so I'll now have to fine someone who does..
best
D

[q240z]

Hi David. Thanks for posting on my Chris Craft Roamer thread.

Judging by the pix above, you have a drop-dead gorgeous motoryacht there, which isn't surprising considering the era in which it was produced. You wrote about the horrible PH that was on the boat before (pix?), but I would be inclined to think very long and hard before adding a pilothouse to a boat with such exquisite lines as yours.

On my Roamer, as with pretty much all of the late-'60s Chris Craft cruisers, the helm and aft decks were all covered with a roof of some sort. Most of them extended nearly all the way aft, and were subsequently enclosed by the owners. Though I caught all sorts of grief from some purists when I proposed putting an aluminum enclosure on mine after removing the plywood and pine enclosure built in the 1980s that had entirely rotted away, the addition of walls & windows doesn't fundamentally change the profile or lines of the boat.

But then there's Tiky. How could a pilothouse be added that won't detract from those god-given curves? The car analogy I'm coming up with is a 1960 Cadillac Coupe de Ville that I used to own. It didn't have the outrageous, almost comical, fins like the 1959, but...what a beauty! No matter how practical it might have been to put spoilers and wings and other modern aerodynamic goodies on the thing, doing so would have destroyed the aesthetic. OK, so it's not a great analogy, but you get my point. :-) I will be very interested in seeing how you pull it off.

And what the heck were they thinking back in the 1980s? It seems as if most things that were done to motoryachts by their owners in that era were absolutely horrid.

[Capt Bill11]

Wow! That is a beautiful boat. Thank you for saving it.

I would think long and hard before I changed the lines by adding a pilot house.

As to dealing with the tanks, if you have to replace plates on the hull, that might be the time to look at getting into the tanks.

[david_japp]

Believe me, adding a PH is not something I will do without a great deal of thought - clearly , doing so will change the way she looks and may detract somewhat from her sexy 1960s curves (but not nearly as much as did the 1980s addition which Ive posted). Bear in mind she is a displacement boat with a max speed of around 11 knts, rather than a fast sports boat, which i think has some bearing on how she should look. I also have to think about how the boat will be used -ie as a family boat in the Mediterranean where in Summer it is either too hot, or in winter toocold and wet for there to be no shelter. I considered a bimini top but I dont think that works visually on Tiky and since it would be up all the time, it might as well be permanent. I am therefore considering a small "cuddy" type structure that will be in white, rather than teak, and open at the rear so as to be less heavy visually. In any event Id appreciate your thoughts on my design (which is far from final)

[david_japp]

here is the General Arrangements of what i had in mind for the new PH

[Henry Newbold]

What a stunning boat. Does she have any sisters that you know of??? - seriously?

Keep up the wonderful work you are doing. Its very heartening to see such appreciation and comittment to classic beauty.

[david_japp]

Hi
thanks for the kind words - its messages of encouaragement such as yours that give me the enthusiam and impetus to carry on. In fact, she is a "one -off" and that's what make her special and worth all the aggravation & expence.... However, who knows, if I run out of steam and or money, she may be for sale one day!
best
david

[q240z]

I like the PH concept you've posted...very well-conceived. Do you plan to do it up in fiberglass?

[david_japp]

Im Not as yet certain as to constaruction method - possibly ply sides and either strip- planked or balsa core roof and radiused edges ...all encapsulated in epoxy.

[YachtForums]

Mr. Japp,

Please refrain from uploading further images until you read our rules. We have already removed multiple posts you have made on the same subject. I have reduced the image you posted above to fall within our guidelines of 640 pixels wide.

Thank you.

[david_japp]

so sorry .Im going to ask someone at my office how to handle attachments..

[K1W1]

Originally Posted by david_japp

so sorry .Im going to ask someone at my office how to handle attachments..

Hi,

Try this little proggie, its free, works a treat and is easy to use.

http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm

[alloyed2sea]

Originally Posted by david_japp

here is the General Arrangements of what i had in mind for the new PH

In keeping with her Netherlands origins. From Mulder: