JOHN ALDEN 58ft GAFF SCHOONER 1930/ 2003 - Sold

The last and largest of the legendary run of John Alden’s personal MALABAR schooners that all but dominated US offshore racing between the wars and won three Bermuda races between them - with MALABAR X winning her class in 1930 and overall in 1932 (beating DORADE) - she has always been considered the best of them, in particular by her original crew. The epitome of the wholesome, fine and fast Alden schooners, after a major turn of the 21st Century rebuild MALABAR X now graces Mediterranean waters: an iconic, head-turning regular at the Spanish classic regattas, and very comfortably appointed for easy and elegant cruising with family and friends.

Between 1999 and 2003 MALABAR X was rebuilt for Doug Hazlitt by Cayuga Wooden Boat Works at Ithaca, NY. As with all the best such projects, there was a clear post-restoration plan for how she would be used – for day charters on Seneca Lake. The work was supervised by Cayuga's Dennis Montgomery, and by naval architect Niels Helleberg of the Alden design office.

That clear vision meant that early honourable hopes of saving parts of the wood structure were, as is more often than not the case, replaced by a desire to replicate, and improve structurally where time had told that it would be prudent, with as much non structural gear as possible being reused. The result is a yacht that looks and feels just right, and can be sailed just as John G Alden envisaged and experienced.

Working back up from the original iron keel, she was given a new backbone of extremely hard and durable angelique, with planking in silver bali and ceilings of angelique, all fastened with bronze and copper and tied with cast bronze floors and knees.

The interior is an evolution that feels right while offering the modern comforts we expect 90 years on. And on deck the result is remarkably true to the original layout; why not – after all, her designer and first owner had had at least ten personal schooners to work out what makes that most beautiful of rigs tick.

MALABAR X was launched in 1930 by the famed Hodgdon Brothers yard at East Boothbay, Maine. For John G Alden she was again a means to both pleasure and promotion, achieving both by winning her class in that year's Bermuda race. In 1931 she came second in the prestigious Cape May Race, and in 1932 excelled by winning the Bermuda race overall from DORADE.

After many ownerships, in 1991 she was seriously damaged at Greenport Long Island during Hurricane Bob and all but abandoned. Enter saviour Doug Hazlitt in 1999 with a plan to operate this iconic yacht for day charters in upstate New York. She was trucked to Cayuga Wooden Boat Works, Ithaca, and began what became a keel-up rebuild under the supervision Cayuga's Dennis Montgomery, and Niels Helleberg of the Alden design office.

Relaunched in 2003 and listed by Classic Boat magazine as one of the 250 all time-classics, after her early-century day charter years on Seneca Lake, MALABAR X's present owners shipped her to Spain in 2009 where she joined the Mediterranean's astounding fleet of beautifully maintained classics, but few can emulate her provenance and presence.

- Carvel angelique planking
- Original iron keel
- Silver bali backbone
- Angelique ceilings
- Bronze and copper fastened
- Cast bronze floors and knees.
- Teak laid deck
- Teak deck furniture

- Teak laid deck
- Bulwarks with scuppers
- Varnished teak cap rail
- Bronze stanchions and bases
- Classic winches, newer and older
- Long "L" trunk cabin

- Bronze fairleads on taffrail port and starboard
- Raw teak and bronze Sampson posts
- Ash and bronze leather covered mainsheet blocks
- Bronze, rubber-buffered mainsheet horse
- Large Merriman winch

Large cockpit
- “Schooner style” wheel
- Yanmar instrumentation inside steering gear box
- Kobelt throttle control
- Constellation steering complass in bronze binnacle
- Navigation and autopilot displays in pedestal box ahead of binnacle
- Teak lockers port and starboard in cockpit double as seating
- Bridge deck, repeater instruments, shore power socket, access to engine
- 2 x Bronze cleats port and starboard
- Bronze Highfield levers for mainmast backstays port and starboard
- Ash and bronze running backstay blocks
- Merriman winches port and starboard
- Meissner 40 winches port and starboard
- Bronze headsail track with cars port and starboard

Mainmast
- Bronze pinrail at shroud base port and starboard

Trunk cabin
- Teak grab rail port and starboard
- Bronze, rubber buffered horse for foresail sheet
- Meissner 40 winch for foresail sheet with cleat
- Butterfly skylight over aft cabin
- Teak storage box for winch handles halyard pins
- Butterfly skylight over main saloon

- 2 x Panama fairlead midships port and starboard with cleats

Foremast
- Pin rail at aft of foremast and at shroud bases port and starboard
- Bronze traveller for staysail boom
- Hardwood and bronze blocks

Raised scuttle hatch over fo'c'sle

- 2 x Panama fairleads port and starboard
- 2 x Bronze mooring bollards with pins

Bronze manual windlass with capstan and warping drum
- 3 x Anchors: Admiralty, Hall and Danforth

Bowsprit

Accommodation for 9 in 4 cabins
- Varnished teak cabin sole and joinery
- Companionway offset to starboard in L-shaped aft of cabin trunk

Down companionway ladder to lobby with full size chart table to starboard, galley to port and aft cabin off galley

Chart table
- Ship's isolator panel
- Navigation electronics
- VHF radio
- 12 V socket
- 24 V socket

Galley
- 2 x Stainless steel sinks with mixer tap
- 4 x Burner Broadwater gimballed marine stove with oven
- Large top loading fridge and freezer
- Lockers

Forward to spacious saloon with 2 x pilot berths outboard, settees, U dining area to port
- Double drop leaf table
- Storage behind and under settees
- Lockers and book shelves to port
- Butterfly skylight over saloon table
- 2 x Bulkhead lights
- 8 x Opening ports
- 4 x Deckhead lights

Fwd to passage offset to starboard
- Large hanging locker to starboard
- Small set of drawers

Double guest cabin to port
- Double bunk
- Set of drawers under
- Vanity desk and mirror
- Small hanging locker

Forward via walk-through head
- Manual WC; ceramic basin with mixer tap
- Shower with teak grating
- Large lockers
- 2 x Opening ports
- Hatch in deckhead

Forward to fo'c'sle cabin
- Berths to port and starboard
- Large hanging locker to starboard
- Ladder access to forehatch

Aft cabin
- Large double bunk to starboard
- Locker under
- Manual WC to port
- Folding basin
- Lockers and set of drawers
- Butterfly skylight in deckhead
- 2 x Opening ports

- Gaff schooner rig
- Fir masts
- Stainless Steel 1X19 shrouds
- Backstay levers

- Mainsail
- Top sail
- 2 x Fishermen
- Foresail
- Staysail
- Jib top
- Jib
- Genoa
- Heavy Genoa

- Classic winches, newer and older
- All blocks and hoops are leathered

- Covers for hatches, wheel, binnacle, gas box, instruments and cockpit boxes
- 3 x Overall covers: fore, mid and aft decks

- Yanmar 4LH-HTE 120 kW Diesel engine
- Kobelt 2042 bronze throttle control
- 2 x 170 L Diesel tanks
- 1 x Water tank
- 1 x Grey water tank
- Hot water system
- 3 x Service batteries 100 Ah each
- Engine battery
- Mastervolt Charger Master 12/70-3
- Sinergex Pure Sine 1500 Series II inverter
- All electrical cables up rigging are protected

- Raymarine anemometer ST60 plus wind vane (2011)
- Lewmar/ Simrad autopilot (2011)
- Garmin GPS Map 5012 inside
- Garmin GPS Map 5008 at cockpit
- Anemometer display in cockpit
- Simrad autopilot display in cockpit
- Compass in cockpit

- Navicom VHF radio inside
- 2 x Submersible handheld VHF: Icom and Entel

- Spreader lights
- Steaming light on foremast
- Running lights on shroud boards
- Navigation light on foremast shrouds
- Anchor light top of mainmast
- Stern light

- AM/FM Radio.

- Zodiac liferaft 12 persons
- First aid kit
- Flare kit
- CO2 fire extinguisher 1-10 cil in engine room
- 2 x 2 kg Fire extinguishers
- 2 x 6 kg Fire extinguishers
- EPIRIB
- 12 x Life vests
- Barometer
- Fog horn
- Bell
- Books and nautical charts
- Code flags
- Compass
- Hand bearing compass
- Signaling mirror
- Flashlight
- Radar reflector

- New deck caulking March 2012
- Varnish on a year basis
- Cleaning and antifouling paint every year

- 8 x Fenders
- 4 x Mooring lines
- Binoculars
- Ensign
- Toolbox
- Sail mending box
- Electrical spares
- Miscellaneous silicon bronze hardware
- Several spare blocks, stanchions, shackles

Sailing images by James Robinson Taylor