Sparkman & Stephens 40 ft Sloop 1964 - Sold

It is not by chance that Olin Stephens wrote about FIREBRAND in his book “Lines” wherein he portrays his favourite and most important designs. He comments on how she was a breakthrough boat in design terms and on how flattered he was that she now belonged to another great yacht designer; the late Ed Dubois. Found by the current ownership in the USA nearly 20 years ago FIREBRAND has but been carefully looked after ever since – sometimes cruised and sometimes raced but always an incredibly rewarding boat to own. This is a winning boat!

At the time of her launch, it was remarked how similar FIREBRAND was to recent Nicholson designed team yachts in her deep vee midships sections and fine ends. Her fine pinched-in stern followed classic British designs from before the war, largely dictated by the RORC Rule and were quite different from the broader, slightly shorter counters prevalent on American yachts and favoured for their increased buoyancy. Comparing FIREBRAND with QUIVER VI, a contemporary Nicholson design for the Admiral's Cup team, one can see that the Sparkman and Stephens design has longer overhangs, while there is slightly less immersion of the counter. The bow profile, however, is similar. This was the beginning of the end of the spoon bow and the adoption of the modern straight raked bow, albeit with some curvature. The sheer line to the bow is marked with high freeboard, allowing for an almost flush decked profile with a small doghouse. The bow is fine, the forefoot quite cut away below the forward water line, but the shape is still the classic S & S equilateral triangle, and in this the American boats differed from many British racing boats of the 50s and 60s, such as those designed by Illingworth, Parker and Clark, which always had a pronounced toe to the keel profile. FIREBRAND’s original rudder configuration has been changed but she retains the classic aft raked counter.

The Sparkman and Stephens designed FIREBRAND was built by Clare Lallow's yard in Cowes in 1964 for Denis Miller, who intended for her to compete in the Admiral’s Cup the following year. In the 1963 Cup, his then boat CLARION OF WIGHT had been top individual points scorer, and Miller saw no reason not to use the same designer for FIREBRAND. Although it was unusual for British owners to commission non-British designers at that time, he had her drawn by Sparkman & Stephens and built by Clare Lallow in Cowes.

She was one of three selected out of the 15 British boats for the 1965 Admiral’s Cup, alongside QUIVER IV and NORYEMA IV, those two designed and built by Camper & Nicholsons. This trio retained the Cup against a record seven nations. Tom Richardson, a highly experienced sailor; now owner of the Elephant Boatyard on the Hamble sailed on FIREBRAND during her first three seasons and remembered winning the 1965 Round the Island Race. “It was pretty hairy, and at one time we were sailing downwind between two boats, overtaking them and praying we wouldn’t broach.”

The following year, she crossed the Atlantic and competed in the Onion Patch - and the Bermuda Race as part of the winning British team. She was the best performing boat in the team, but the Australians won and the Cup went overseas for only the second time. Two years later, Miller moved to Bermuda and took FIREBRAND with him, selling her soon afterwards to American lawyer Robert Bicks, who gifted her to a Canadian bank to comply with some bizarre tax law.

In 1998, at a time when he had just designed a 46 ft traditional boat for himself and getting quotes to build it, naval architect Ed Dubois was travelling back to the UK after a client meeting in the US Virgin Islands. Seeing an advertisement in "Wooden Boat" for “FIREBRAND built to compete in the 1965Admiral’s Cup”, Ed remembered as a teenager being inspired by her towards his own fascination with offshore racing yacht design. He phoned the broker and learned she was lying nearby in Fort Lauderdale. In short order he was aboard with her then owner Doug Kent.

Ed considered FIREBRAND the epitome of RORC yachts of her time, designed as she was by Olin Stephens who was somewhat his hero; Ed confessed to a very powerful impulse to buy the boat. Meanwhile a great friend Esben Poulsson was also looking for a boat, after returning from Hong Kong to live in the UK so they agreed to buy her together.

Ed didn't think FIREBRAND had been sailed much before he bought her. “She was well maintained in terms of the varnish and paintwork but the sailing gear had not been updated for many years. She had
aluminium winches, which weren’t original, and they were all seized up.”

The boat was shipped back to Bembridge Harbour on the Isle of Wight, where Attrills modified the steering gear. A new semi-balanced rudder to Ed’s design was fitted further aft still and the wheel steering system replaced with a tiller, which Ed preferred on a boat of this size. The cockpit layout remains the same, with the seats cut out aft - originally to accommodate the wheel.

FIREBRAND’s Honduras mahogany planking – originally edge-glued on elm frame was one of the last ocean racing boats to be traditionally built before cold moulding became popular. When Ed bought her, the seams had been splined – probably because the glue had broken down – but the job had not been done very well. “She was as sound as a bell and very strongly built with bronze fastenings and bronze floors,” Ed said, “but when I took her out in a big seaway in the first year, her planking would move a little bit and she would leak.”

Attrills consequently sheathed the hull exterior with two layers of glass and epoxy. At around the same time, the bright work was stripped back to bare wood and 12 new coats of varnish applied, but the interior hardly had to be touched, apart from a new cooker.

In 2004, when Esben moved to Singapore, Ed bought the major shareholding in the boat; Esben retaining part ownership. FIREBRAND has since gone to Brittany and the West Country a number of times, but with four young children, family commitments took priority.

Nevertheless Ed did still race her occasionally, doing the Round the Island Race every year. She has often won her class, and did so again in 2012, immediately before the Pendennis Cup. She has also sailed in a few Cowes to Dinard races. “She is a joy to sail in all conditions,” Ed said. “She is as stiff as a church and goes to weather beautifully and is safe and handy in the worst weather.” In recent years she has been in the prizes at the British Classic Yacht Regatta in Cowes with impressive class wins and high up in the overall standing in the Round the Island Race.

In the summer, she has been kept on a mooring on the Beaulieu River 400 yards from Ed’s house - “I can see her on the mooring and make sure she’s still floating!”

Some time before his untimely death in 2016 Ed had proclaimed “I would hope I never part with her, as she is part of the family and I’d like to pass her on to my children. Someone recently said she is my spiritual home – I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, but I certainly feel very happy on this boat.”

- Mahogany planking on elm frames, subsequently epoxy sheathed
- Teak garboards
- Teak decks with bronze floors and reinforcements
- Varnished mahogany cover boards and toe rail

Access via sliding hatch in coach roof
- Removable wash boards and companionway 4 steps down to cabin sole
- White painted bulkheads
- Varnished deck beams
- Teak cabin sole

Navigation zone to port
- Electrical panel in aft bulkhead
- Instrumentation
- Generous pilot settee berth outboard into foot well fwd
- Large chart table extends over foot well with drawers under inboard and open shelves outboard

Galley to stbd
- Stainless steel sink against aft bulkhead with mixer tap
- Stowage bin and drawer to stbd
- Force 10 Mariner 2 burner hob and oven
- Glass fronted lockers for crockery, provisions etc above and outboard
- Top loading fridge with work surface over
- 5 x Deck head lights in chart and galley area

Step down into saloon
- 4 x Deck head lights
- 2 x Settee berths; one each side
- Pilot berth above to port
- Open lockers under

Corridor to forward accommodation
- Fore cabin with 2 x single berths with infill to make a double
- Shelving port and stbd
- Hatch to fore deck
- Sail stowage fwd
- Coming aft

Head compartment on RHS to port
- Jabsco manual WC
- Stainless steel wash basin with hot and cold mixer
- Open locker stowage
- Hatch in deck head
- 2 x Deck head lights
- Hanging locker opposite to stbd
- Drawers and locker stowage

Sloop rig
- Alloy mast; maker not known as no maker’s plate, could be the original as it is well aged
- Wooden spreaders
- White painted alloy boom, maker unknown
- White painted carbon leathered spinnaker pole
- Stainless steel standing rigging
- Forestay to Reckman furler
- Sailtech hydraulic backstay adjuster

Sails

- Genoa North Sails c 2012 not much used
- Main North sails 2012 not much used
- Alt Kevlar main North sails
- Older Genoa
- 1 x 1.2 oz spinnaker in GC
- 1 x 0.75 oz spinnaker in GC
- 1 x 0.5 oz spinnaker in GC

From aft
- Chromed fairleads on taffrail
- Chromed mooring cleat on centreline
- Vented box with concealed deck shower
- Cockpit coaming
- Chromed genoa check blocks on stainless steel mounts outboard of coaming
- Taffrail cleats
- 2 x Lewmar 55 Primary winches mounted on varnished blocks outboard of coaming
- Tiller steering
- Gas locker under side deck to stbd
- Vetus single lever chrome handle engine control
- Lewmar main sheet traveller
- Lewmar 44 ST winch on coach roof to stbd
- Sliding hatch with navigation instrument repeats above forward
- Lewmar jib tracks run fore and aft on side decks
- 2 x Lewmar 55 winches; one each side fore end of trunk cabin
- Varnished raised wave guide from trunk cabin around working deck area
- 2 x Deck prism lights
- 1 x Lewmar 44 ST halyard winch
- 3 x Lewmar 40 ST halyard winches on mast
- 2 x Varnished dorade boxes abd chromed vents
- Raised hatch over head compartment
- Raised hatch over forecabin
- Track down king plank
- Chromed mooring cleat
- 2 x Bow rollers

- Yanmar 3GM3QF New 2002 Diesel engine serviced annually
- Alternator on engine
- 2 x 12 V 80 Ah gel batteries
- Domestic engine start split by rotating 1, 2, all & off switch
- 12 V electrical system
- Werner & Plath isolator panel at Nav station
- 12 V power points by switch panel
- C Warm engine calorifier
- Pumped domestic hot and cold water
- Stainless steel 120 litre fuel tank
- 2 x Stainless steel fresh water tanks total capacity v approximately 450 litres
- 2 x 4,5 Kg Calor gas bottles

- Garmin 2006L GPS
- Garmin 128S GPS
- Raytheon ST 60 Tri data
- Steering compass
- Silva repeater
- Schatz barograph
- Simrad RD68 VHF
- Sony CD player

- 1 x RFD Seasava Plus R 8 person life raft
- 2 x Horseshoe rings
- 2 x Danbuoy
- 1 x Electric auto bilge pump
- 1 x Manual bilge pump at cockpit
- 2 x manual powder fire extinguishers
- 1 x Auto powder fire extinguisher

All deck hardware (winches, pulpit, guard wires, stanchions and feet, stern rail, vent boxes, cleats, tracks, deck prism etc) removed to gain access to the old worn teak deck.

The teak deck along with the teak covering the superstructure removed down to the plywood sub deck, which was damp and stressed in places.

- The mahogany covering and margin boards left in place as they were quite sound
- The ply sub deck allowed to dry and aged and stressed areas repaired with West System Epoxy
- New teak deck laid; bonded down with West System Epoxy
- New genoa tracks and some new fixings fitted
- New teak cleats fitted
- New deck prism glasses fitted to replace cracked glass
- External bright work scraped back to bare timber and sanded before re varnishing
- Cockpit bright work re varnished
- Transom stripped back, name removed and repainted in gold
- Bottom sides repaired where there were scuffs and grooves from grounding
- Bottom sides repainted there and anti fouled overall 2 coats
- Mast taken from store, the halyards etc removed, the mast weighed to find the centre of gravity
- Superstructure tops covered in mahogany
- Some stanchion feet re-welded
- Winches serviced and refitted
- All deck hardware refitted
- Various vent boxes refitted
- Engine serviced
- Deck heads touched in
- Minor damage on topsides repaired
- Standing and running rigging refitted
- Mast stepped and boom refitted
- Interior cleaned, gear and cushions refitted