Alfred Mylne 29ft Gaff Sloop 1909/2007

LADY TRIX is an Alfred Mylne gem: celebrated, as are many Scottish-designed classic yachts in France, with Monument Historique Classé Patrimoine Maritime et Fluvial status, and by Yacht Club de Monaco as "The Atlantic Stradivarius"; given a new life under present ownership after 6000 hours of artwork by restoration expert Bruno Barbara; and with a reputation backed up by a superb trophy list for a turn of speed larger yachts would be jealous of. This is sailing in its purest, least complicated, and most aesthetically pleasing form; her first owners collected art works by the likes of Dürer, Rembrandt and Whistler – it all make sense. What fun can be had sailing LADY TRIX with a bunch of friends, or simply as a couple!

2006-2007 by Bruno Barbara/ Candela, La Rochelle
- Hull stripped, deck removed and all structure thoroughly checked
- Many structural elements replaced including floors, frames and several metres of planking
- New keel bolts
- New painted plywood deck and mahogany trim with deck hatch
- New cockpit and coamings

2019
- Winner La Rochelle St Jean Trophy
- 5th Classic Week Monaco
- 3rd Régates Royales, Cannes

2018
- Winner, Défi du Bar La Rochelle

2015
- Winner, Classic Week La Rochelle

2014
- Voted Bateau de l’Année

2012
- Accepted as a Monument Historique in France, Classé Patrimoine Maritime et Fluvial

2009
- Centenary Celebration, Atlantic and Mediterranean France
- Winner, Voiles de Légendes La Baule
- 2nd, Lancel Classic Noirmoutier (3 x 1st, but last race technical incident)
- 2nd, Monaco Classic Week (1. ORIOLE Herreshof 1904; 3. BONA FIDE Sibbick 1899)
- Winner, Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez (2. AVEL Nicholson 1896; 3. ORIOLE)

2008
- Winner, Classic Week La Rochelle
- Winner, Voiles de Légendes La Baule
- Trophée YC France
- Trophée Eric Tabarly (the only one ever awarded by Jaqueline Tabarly)

2007
- Winner, Voiles de Légendes La Baule
- Winner Lancel Classic Noirmoutier

Alfred Mylne design No. 170

LADY TRIX’s origins are inevitably linked with the story of the wealth generated courtesy of the Firth of Clyde, Glasgow, and west central Scotland’s position as “Workshop of the British Empire” through Victorian and Edwardian times; the resulting conspicuous consumption in the commissioning of fabulous “salt water palaces” by those shipbuilders and engineers who profited by it; and the consequent carte blanche enjoyed by Scotland’s three big names in yacht design: Fife, Watson and Mylne.

But for one of the most innovative and successful of those engineering families, yachting would remain a smallboat activity, undertaken in exquisite small yachts of such undoubted pedigree that they would be cherished more than a century later, perhaps paralleling their passion for collecting works of art by Dürer, Rembrandt and Whistler to name but a few.

TRIX’s (as she was launched) first owner Catherine Spence Howden’s father, James Howden (1832-1913), ensured a comfortable life for his family, initially as a successful designer and builder of ships’ steam engines and boilers, and more particularly from his perfection and practical application of the ‘Howden Forced Draft System’ which doubled the economy and efficiency of marine steam engines and was employed most noticeably during his lifetime in the Cunard liners MAURITANIA and LUSITANIA. The company that bears his name still trades to this day, and notably in the late 20th Century designed and built the boring machines for The [English] Channel Tunnel.

Catherine and her step-brothers James and William were typical ‘Clyde Corinthians’ of the late 1890s and early 1900s: young sailors who preferred to take the helm themselves rather than be sailed around by a professional. Until his untimely death at Montreux, Switzerland, aged 25 in 1908, James had been owner of the former Royal Clyde Yacht Club 23ft lwl Class cutter THISTLE. And William had begun the family relationship with Alfred Mylne in 1907 with the commissioning of the beautiful 40ft gaff cutter cruiser/ racer ELVIRA, built by McAlister of Dumbarton when that yard was also well underway with a virtual production line of Mylne-designed metre class racing yachts that would eventually number from 6-Metres to the almost 100 feet 19-Metre OCTAVIA.

Not to be outdone by her younger siblings, 37-year-old Catherine commissioned from her Glasgow West End neighbour and exact contemporary Alfred Mylne the very pretty, fast day-sailer TRIX, built by one of the designer's favourite smaller builders, Archibald Malcolm at Port Bannatyne on the Isle of Bute. Her original name may be from the Latin girl’s name meaning “bringer of joy”. Catherine would have welcomed such joy in her life after the very recent death of her brother, and TRIX was and is imbued with all the gorgeous aesthetics Mylne learned from his illustrious mentor George Lennox Watson, and developed on his own account in Glasgow from 1896. By 1909 Mylne was at the peak of the early stage of his career and must have been astonishingly busy. But the design of TRIX would undoubtedly have been a lot of fun, because it was not to be hindered by the restrictions of any rating rule. TRIX remained one of the Howden fleet until 1934: to the First World War registered in Catherine’s name, and afterwards under William’s ownership.

After a brief ownership by F. Glen Seligman of Glasgow, in 1936 she crossed Scotland, presumably via the Forth & Clyde Canal, to a new base at Granton on the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh under Almond Yacht Club member Dr R.M. Craig’s ownership. It was probably under the ownership of Seligman or Craig that the coachroof seen in the 1970s photos here was fitted. By 1939 she was back on the Clyde at Gourock, owned by John Andrew Malcolm of Cambuslang, Lanarkshire.

After the Second World War, Clyde Cruising Club member William Ewing of Dumbarton, believed to have worked as a ships' carpenter at the William Denny Bros. shipyard there, became owner. Ewing renamed her THISTLE, and this is how she is still remembered by Clydesiders of a certain age under succeeding ownerships by:

1968: Frederick Stewart Stang (Clyde Cruising Club)
1970: Dr Andrew Motherwell (Royal Gourock YC)
1975: Dr James Buchanan (Otter Ferry, Argyll)
1978: Frank & Jenny Coghill (Cardwell Bay, Gourock)

Under the Coghills, THISTLE proved a fierce competitor in Clyde and west coast of Scotland handicap racing of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, and - famously at the time - won her class overall and the Tobermory Trophy for best all-fleet overall corrected time result in the 1980 edition of the Clyde Cruising Club’s legendary Tobermory Race. A contemporary Scottish report of her performance will read very true to those who have tried to race against her past and present…

“[THISTLE’s] performance certainly took the wind out of the sails of the many owners who paid 10, 20 or 50 times as much for their latest glassfibre racers, plus a row of expensive instruments to consult and all the go-fast gadgets the modern mind can devise to foist on the owner who wants that extra quarter of a knot. But in the light wind and sea conditions that suit her, the varnished sloop is as slippery as an eel.”

In 1982 THISTLE entered her last Scottish ownership. Royal Northern & Clyde Yacht Club member Bill Courtney fell in love with her sweet lines just as every previous owner had, and kept her moored on the upper Firth of Clyde’s Gareloch. Her French story began there in the mid 1990s.

France-based maritime consultant and marine artist Reginald Marsh-Feiley became her next suitor, finding THISTLE on the Clyde and having her restored close to original deck configuration and additional bottom structural work by David Raeburn's Clyde Classics at Renfrew near Glasgow. Marsh-Feiley also restored close to her original name: just TRIX being already taken on the British register, she became LADY TRIX.

In 1996 she was trucked to her new home at Île-aux-Moines in the Gulf of Morbihan, Brittany. After a subsequent period of French ownership, LADY TRIX was discovered by her present owner who turned out to be the guardian angel every yacht of a certain age needs, entrusting her to the renowned rebuild and restoration skills of Bruno Barbara of Candela, La Rochelle. Relaunched in 2007 by her new Godmother, Annette Roux, and Godfather, Philip Plisson, LADY TRIX has proven just as slippery as ever in the expert regatta hands of French sailing legends Bruno Peyron, J.P. Dick and Pierre Follenfant.

In her centenary season LADY TRIX made her major classic regatta debut at Les Voiles de Saint Tropez 2009 and cleaned up; she has continued to do so into her 110th year, most recently winning the La Rochelle St Jean trophy, gaining 5th at Monaco Classic Week and 3rd at Régates Royales, Cannes. She subsequently gained Monument Historique Classé Patrimoine Maritime et Fluvial status in France. LADY TRIX is therefore a national treasure of both France and Scotland - vivre The Auld Alliance!

©2024 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

- Pine and mahogany carvel planking on oak and elm frame
- Oak and stainless steel floors
- Stainless steel keelbolts
- Painted plywood deck

Simple layout with steering cockpit and deck hatch

From aft
- Mahogany covering board, toerail and taffrail
- Bronze ensign staff socket
- 2 x Bronze mooring fairleads
- Bronze 2 x mooring bollard fitting
- Bronze threaded mushroom vent
- Painted iron mainsheet horse
- Ash and bronze mainsheet blocks
- Original bronze rudder head engraved "TRIX"
- Mahogany plinth
- Oak tiller
- Mahogany cockpit coaming and cockpit bulkheads
- Mahogany adjustable position benches port and starboard
- Access to forward hull via 2 x mahogany companionway lift-off doors, and mahogany deck hatch with round prism light
- Interior fitted with narrow benches port and starboard
- 2 x Vintage style bronze winches on low level mahogany plinths
- Under side deck winch handles
- 2 x Bronze tail cleats
- Running backstay ash and bronze tackles port and starboard
- 3 x Bronze/wood bullseye headsail fairleads port and starboard
- Raw teak deck chocks fwd of cockpit for deck hatch cover
- Mast with canvas boot
- Raw teak deck chocks for topsail stowage
- Bullseye deck prism; bronze frame
- Sampson post with pin
- Bronze threaded mushroom vent
- Bowsprit

RIG
- Mast believed original
- Single set of spreaders
- Boom
- Gaff
- Short bowsprit with dolphin striker
- Mahogany boom crutch

SAILS
(Those by Incidence are 2007-2009)
- Mainsail - Incidence (as new)
- Mainsail - Demé Voiles
- Genoa - Impacts Voiles
- Balloon jib - Demé Voiles
- Heavy airs jib - Incidence
- Code-0 - Incidence
- Jackyard topsail - Incidence

COVERS
- Mainsail
- Cockpit
- Topsail

- Compass boxed for fitting at mast

- Anchor and chain
- Flares
- Electric bilge pump
- Manual bilge pump
- Inflatable lifejackets
- Sweep oar

Main image and 02 by Odile Boyé-Carré