Laurent Giles 35 ft Bermudan Cutter 1939/2018

FARIDA is quintessentially Giles, and a gem - one of the most carefully thought-out yachts of her size of her day. And still stunning: her perfectly proportioned overhangs, sweet sheer-line and unmistakable Jack Laurent Giles styling still capable of turning heads. And she's got it all, because, of course, FARIDA's well-balanced, powerful rig is easy to handle, and she is very quick even in light conditions. And her delightfully airy accommodation offers perfect comfort in the classic style. Skillfully and beautifully rebuilt/ restored over a five-year period for a very passionate owner using as much of the original as possible and the finest of materials where she is new, FARIDA was relaunched in 2018 in ‘better than new’ condition, and given normal just deserts should offer many years of sailing fun and passion into the future, cruising and classic racing.

The rebuild/restoration by JWS Marine, Southsea 2013 - 2018

After a comprehensive condition survey, Farida was stripped back to bare timber, the keel, coachroof, deck and interior joinery removed and all fittings, fixtures and metalwork taken out. All the floor straps and deep plate floors were recast in bronze and new laminated frames and sister frames were made and fitted as necessary. Six planks from the garboard plank upwards and the sheer plank were replaced on the starboard side and seven on the port side. The hull was fully refastened using clenched copper nails and bronze bolts and all the hood-ends’ fastenings were replaced with countersunk bronze screws. The plank seams above the new planks were all splined. The keel bolts and chain plates were recast in bronze and new stainless steel mast partners were manufactured and fitted. The keel was refitted and a new galvanized engine mounting frame was manufactured and fitted.

In the second phase, sections of the beam shelves, and the deck beams, covering boards and carlins were replaced and a new 12mm plywood sub-deck and 12mm teak deck, laid. The transom was completely rebuilt. The coachroof planking was repaired and replaced as necessary and the coachroof refitted. The butterfly hatches were overhauled and the original hatch hinges, stays and other fittings were refurbished and refitted. The cockpit coamings were refurbished and the capping replaced. The cockpit was completely rebuilt, which included replacing the sole bearers, teak gratings and tongue & grooved teak panelling, panelled lockers and companionway threshold. Custom-made bronze thru-bolts were used throughout. The bulwarks were replaced using 25m solid teak, and edge fastened to the covering boards and new sheer planks. The top edges were finished with a profiled teak cap-rail.

In the third phase, the interior joinery was fully refurbished and replaced after the manufacture and fitting of five new bulkheads, a new galley, engine casing and quarter-berth. The overall design is close to the original, but with a cut-away central bulkhead to improve the interior of the main cabin. The galley has been placed on the starboard side and the quarter-berth moved to port to give it more shelter from the elements when Farida is at sea. A new instrument housing and panel were made with all the electric functions, and both the domestic and engine batteries moved to an easily accessible and watertight compartment above the chart table at the aft end of the main cabin.

New hardware and LED light fittings have been fitted throughout the vessel together with an Eberspächer cabin heating system and a pressurised hot and cold water supply. Fresh water is stored in a flexible water tank under the starboard saloon settee. A Sigma calorifier, heated by the engine or by an immersion heater, has been fitted beneath the quarter-berth. Mahogany battons and new saloon cedar sole boards have been fitted throughout.

Finally, a new wooden mast was manufactured by Collars and fitted, together with all the refurbished mast and deck hardware. The mast winches are Farida’s original bronze winches. New bronze thru-hull fittings, seacocks, pumps and hoses have also been fitted throughout the vessel.

J. Laurent Giles design No. 27
R.A. Newman & Sons yard No. 46

Exactly what drew a Rootes motor car manufacturing group sales executive to R.A. Newman & Sons of Poole to buy a thoroughly modern, exquisitely, yet speculatively-built 35ft/ 11m Jack Laurent Giles-designed Bermudan cutter is as yet lost in the mists of time. But this son of a ship broker, experienced yachtsman (his previous yacht was the 47ft/ 14m Charles E. Nicholson-designed, Camper & Nicholson-built schooner AOTEA (now GRAYLAG), Royal London Yacht Club member, specialist foreign (especially American) car importer, and Sales Manager of the Hillman Car Company, Charles H. Fison, chose well. And FARIDA somehow sits well with a highly successful modern man in his forties who most probably drove one of Rootes group’s higher-end Humber cars, definitely owned a beautiful country house in Wiltshire and a new Mayfair apartment in London, enjoyed golf, and regularly appears travelling first class on the Cunard trans-Atlantic passenger lists.

FARIDA was one of a pair of Giles designs sponsored by R.A. Newman director Horace W. Clark of Sandbanks, and laid down in 1937/38. Clark kept for himself the highly innovative 35ft waterline (43ft overall) cruiser/ racer CERIDA - relatively recently famous on the Mediterranean classic regatta circuit - with the smaller cousin, FARIDA, perhaps most easily described as a stretched “Brittany Class”, eventually sold to Fison. But this was 1939, so five years of war curtailed any sailing immediately beyond her first season. The R.A. Newman yard built a fair percentage of Giles's pre-war designs, including design numbers 1 (CLYMENE), 2 (ETAIN) and 3 (KANGA).

FARIDA was fitted with an American Grey Marine petrol engine, and sails from the local Pipler loft just across the harbour from the builders. Laurent Giles’s sense of proportion was exquisite, and FARIDA’s looks have always been stunning, but in the late 1930’s Giles designs also came with the shock of the new. There was nothing quite like them, with their low-slung, truncated and beautifully tumbleholmed counters, and, assisted by slightly higher than usual bulwark toerails, getting away with a commodious doghouse on an overall length of 35ft. There is a sense of purpose about Giles designs, and it’s a remarkable fact that he wasn’t prolific in his output before the Second World War, yet almost every design from that period has become iconic. Every element of FARIDA is a bold Giles statement. And she’s a beautifully efficient and easy to handle sailing machine.

Eleven owners have fallen for FARIDA’s charms over the 80 years since she first launched at Newman’s Hamworthy yard, the site nowadays where Sunseeker motor yachts are mass produced.

Post war, Fison is briefly still recorded as owner, followed in 1947 by retired Royal Engineers Lt-Col G. Low, a member of the Royal Engineers YC, and Royal Southern YC., who had her until 1951. In that year Cowes-based South African mining engineer Cecil E. Donne downsized from his previous William Fife 12-Metre CINTRA to take over the reins until 1956.

Subsequent owners were:

- 1957-1963 J.S. Taylor, Uxbridge, (Island SC, Little Ship Club).
- 1963-1974 Wing Commander E.J.D. Routh, RAF (Ret), Fareham, Hampshire
- 1974-1977 F.G. Johnson, Newport, Isle of Wight
- 1977-1991 Peter Blackman, Southampton and Yarmouth, Isle of Wight
- 1991-2004 Michael Nicholson, Surrey (ITN’s Chief foreign correspondent)
- 2004 -???? John Moore, Brighton and Oxford
- ????-2012 Kim Rowlatt, Upham, Hampshire
- At some point in time FARIDA was sailing Turkish waters
- 2012 Present ownership

Early in present ownership, by this time in her 80s, FARIDA received the kind of treatment yachts inevitably demand at that stage in their lives, but don't always receive. Her 2013-2018 rebuild and restoration is detailed elsewhere here, and has been lauded recently in a Classic Boat magazine feature article. The result of this epic undertaking is that a very special yacht has a totally new lease of life,and, given normal classic yacht just deserts, FARIDA should offer many years of fun and sailing passion into the future.

©2024 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

- Mahogany carvel planking on laminated oak frames; elm and oak backbone
- Bronze and copper fastened
- Bronze floors and chainplates
- Substantial stainless steel mast partners structure
- Raw teak laid deck on plywood substrate
- Teak bulwark and capping rail
- Teak superstructure

- Raw teak laid deck on plywood substrate
- Teak bulwark and capping rail
- Varnished teak covering board
- Teak superstructure

FROM AFT
- Stern light on taff rail
- Chromed fairleads port and starboard
- Mooring cleat on centreline
- Tiller
- Chromed mainsheet horse
- Ash mainsheet blocks

COCKPIT
- Deep cockpit with raised teak coaming
- Teak cleats port and starboard in cockpit under side deck
- Helm seat (access to lazarette via locker under seat)
- Lockers port and starboard in cockpit under side deck
- Engine control
- Volvo instrumentation
- Raymarine instrument repeaters on bridge deck bulkhead
- Winch handle holder
- Windlass control
- Shore power socket
- Lewmar 45 primary winches port and starboard on teak outside coaming plinths

SIDE DECKS
- 2 x Running backstay tackles with ash blocks
- Jib tracks as side decks port and starboard
- Chromed foresail cars
- Chromed fairleads port and starboard on toerail midships
- Chromed mooring cleats port and starboard midships

HOUSE
- ‘Giles style’ house with sliding companionway hatch
- Navigation lights port and starboard
- Chromed mushroom vent to port
- Integral butterfly skylight hatches (flush with cabin trunk)
- Chromed mushroom vent
- Short handrails port and starboard of mast
- Double spreader keel-stepped mast
- Chromed traveller horse for boomed staysail
- Ash blocks; sheet lead to starboard cockpit side
- Flush teak forehatch fwd trunk cabin

FOREDECK
- Mooring cleat on centreline
- 2 x Mooring cleats at bulwark sides
- Chromed fairleads port and starboard
- Furlex headsail furler
- Lewmar 12V horizontal gipsy anchor windlass; controls at foredeck and cockpit
- 22kg CQR type anchor on bow roller
- 50m calibrated chain
- Folding kedge anchor with 30m (port cockpit locker)

- 5 x LED deckhead lights
- Shore power sockets

DOGHOUSE AREA
- Entry via double leaf teak companionway door
- 1 x Chromed rotating vent in port door
- Step down to varnished engine box
- Engine box makes full size chart table with chart stowage
- Nav and comms instruments under companionway
- 3 x Steps down to sole
- Quarter berth to port
Galley to starboard
- Stainless steel sink; mixer tap
- Taylors 028 2 x burner hob; locker under
- Plate rack
- Large food locker
- Pots; pans; cutlery

SEMI BULKHEAD FORWARD TO SALOON
- Stainless steel grab posts
- Long settee berths port and starboard; stowage under
- Timber book cases port and starboard
- Saloon table on centreline; stows at mast
- Sony CD/ Bluetooth/ USB player
- Sideboards forward port and starboard
- Drawers under
- Glass-fronted lockers over at bulkheads port and starboard
- Yacht’s name engraved in glass
- Long butterfly skylight in deckhead – much light

DOORWAY TO FO'C'SLE
- Not presently fitted as a forward (owner’s) cabin
- Potential for 2 x cot berths or substantial v-berth
- Jabsco manual wc
- Dinghy, sail and fenders stowage
- Ventilating forehatch in deckhead with port light
- 1 x Deckhead light

Bermudan cutter rigged

RIG
- Douglas fir mast by Collars (date tba)
- Masthead cutter rig
- Stainless steel rigging; bronze bottlescrews
- 3 x Original bronze mast winches
- Spruce boom with reefing winch
- Spruce spinnaker pole; deck stowed in chocks

SAILS
- By Ratsey & Lapthorn. Cowes
- Mainsail (slab reefing)
- Boom-set staysail
- Jib
- Storm jib
- Spinnaker

CANVASWORK
- Mainsail and staysail coves
- Covers for forehatch and butterfly skylight
- Canvas covers for cockpit and tiller
- Light coachroof cover
- Heavy duty whole boat winter cover

MECHANICAL
- Volvo Penta D1-30B 28hp Diesel (2012)
- Traditional drive train via stuffing box gland
- Three-bladed bronze propeller
- Eberspächer diesel heater
- Hydraulic autopilot

ELECTRICAL
- 1 x 12V Engine start battery
- 1 x 12V House battery
- Shore power and USB sockets

TANKAGE
- Flexible freshwater tank 125 L under starboard saloon settee
- Sigma calorifier 30 L - engine/ immerser – under quarter berth
- Eberspächer diesel heater
- Diesel tank 45.5 L

- Raymarine – repeaters at bridge deck bulkhead
- ST6001 Autohelm (to hydraulic drive)
- ST60+ Tridata
- Wind
- Raymarine 240E VHF radio
- Hand held VHF radio
- Raymarine repeater
- Ship’s isolator panel
- Raymarine C80 GPS plotter
- Low and high level nav lights

- Jabsco manual bilge pump in port cockpit locker
- 3 x Automatic lifejackets c/w harnesses, whistles and strobe lights
- 4 x Person Ocean Safety valise liferaft
- EPIRB
- Coastal flare pack
- MOB buoy
- Two fire extinguishers and a fire blanket

- Mounted clock and barometer
- Navigation charts for the Solent and SW England
- 8 feet inflatable dinghy and paddles
- Fenders
- 6m mooring strop
- Ample mooring warps and lines
- Power line for connection to a shore supply
- Comprehensive toolkit
- Spare 5 litre fuel tank
- Collapsible water hose
- Cockpit table fittings
- Settee cushions/mattresses
- The original cockpit winches and the running backstay levers are available

- Sailing images: Seascaper/ Lester McCarthy
- Historical image: Poole Museum