VERTUE CLASS YACHT

Humphrey Barton's 'Vertue XXXV'

Well shipmates here is a little yacht with a remarkable pedigree and history. To date over 200 of these little boats have been built. The voyages these little yachts have made are the stuff of legend. She was designed by Laurent Giles, one of the great English yacht designers of the 20th century in the 1930s.

The yacht in the above photograph is Vertue XXXV. This design was popularised in 1950 when she burst on the yachting scene in a dramatic crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by her skipper Humphrey Barton and Kevin O'Riodan his affable Irishman crew surviving the battering of a category 4 hurricane along the way. It was thought at the time that such a voyage in such a small boat was very daring stuff indeed; but over the years the Vertue  (Not spelled Virtue) was to repeat these dramatic adventures time and time again.

Basic dimensions - LOA: 25’ 3” (7.69m),  LWL: 21’ 6” (6.61m),  Beam: 7’ 2” (2.19m),  Draft: 4′ 6″ (1.45m),  Displacement: 4.2 tons - So is smaller than my current little ship 'Mariner', but the displacement is the same - she's a real little pocket battleship.

LOA is yachtie talk for Length Overall - LWL is Length on the waterline.

This (above) is the fiberglass Mark 2 version with slightly more beam.

Vertue (above) built in Corten Steel in The Netherlands.

Two Anecdotes:
By today's standards it is old fashioned with its heavy displacement, cutter rig, small cockpit, narrow beam, and such an anachronism as a bumpkin, but it has its virtues. It will run true as a dart, heave-to like an old duck, work its way to windward in relative comfort when the going gets tough, and sail itself beautifully -- characteristics that few modern 25 footers can boast. One of my most vivid memories of a Vertue is of trying to catch a halyard that had come adrift and was just out of reach. "Here - use this!" said the helmsmen, and handed me the tiller as the boat sailed on.

- Yachting and Boating Weekly

On the wall of the Harbourmaster’s office in Durban, according to Vertue myth, is a notice. ‘In winds over Force 7, no yacht may depart without my authority. Unless she’s a Vertue’
It is the kind of story owners of these modest little Laurent Giles designed 25 footers tend to take with a pinch of salt. Vertues have made pioneering voyages, survived savage storms and written themselves into sailing history. There is no need for myth. The reality is enough. Most extraordinary, perhaps, for a yacht whose wake has criss crossed every ocean, is that she was originally designed in 1936 to do no more than potter about the Solent on the south coast of England, perhaps cruise to the West Country and hop down to the Channel Islands.  - Vertue Web Site.

The Vertue class yachts were among the finest cruising boats of their tonnage ever built. In this design Laurent Giles developed all that was best in the traditional English pilot boat. The result was a really seaworthy small yacht with a performance under sail which could never have been approached by her forebears.

Over 130 Vertues have made long ocean voyages: Humphrey Barton's famous 'uphill' crossing of the Atlantic in Vertue XXXV (1950), Dr. Joe Cunningham's round voyage, England - West Indies - Newfoundland - Ireland in Icebird (1952-3), Peter Hamilton's voyage from Singapore to England in Speedwell of Hong Kong, in Salmo to Quebec, Panama, Tahiti and California; Bill Nances circumnavigation of the world including a Cape Horn rounding and of course in 1960 David Lewis sailed Cardinal Vertue in the single-handed race from Plymouth to New York, and returned in her to Shetland. Several of these little yachts have completed circumnavigations .... the list goes on and on.

"The most perfect small ocean going yacht that has ever been built" - Humphrey Barton's conclusion in his book "Vertue XXXV" on his celebrated crossing of the Atlantic in 1950.

'Tui of Opua' This beautiful wooden example of the Vertue is the cruising version showing the lower cabin top without a doghouse. 

'Speedwell of HongKong' is another cruising version of the Vertue.

'Speedwell of Hongkong' with her current Junk Rig and sporting a flash yellow paint job.

The Vertue (Above) is the new improved version of Vertue XXV. The topsides have been raised about 8 inches and the cabin and doghouse redesigned. Another updated version by Laurent Giles in the 1980s for fiberglass construction had a slightly increased beam measurement to improve the accommodation and a few other minor tweaks.

This little delight called 'Poppy' is an example of what a restored and ready for ocean voyaging Vertue might look like.

NOW!! - 'Here's the thing' shipmates. There is a Vertue Class yacht lying close by as I type (Improved version). She is for sale.

She needs the TLC of someone with boat building experience, preferably someone who has built a yacht. Someone who has a real heart for sailing. She needs not so much a restoration as an enablement - she needs a complete accommodation rebuild and a refit to make her worthy of a long ocean voyage - now just where would she find such a man?