Philip Rhodes 40 ft Bermudan Sloop 1946/1992

An incredibly thorough rebuild by very competent people who knew exactly what they wanted to do with her, followed by more than a decade of the demands of successful day chartering on Penobscot Bay, Maine, have ensured fifteen years of trouble free, easily maintained ownership for two UK custodians of this strikingly beautiful, strong and practical sloop by one of the masters. SHANTIH OF COWES' board-up draft of only 1.4m allows her to explore where others don't dare, and with the centre board down she sails delightfully and with the lack of fuss her purity of sheerline suggests. With such ease of sailing, comfort below and pure personality, SHANTIH OF COWES may be the perfect family and friends classic forty-footer.

2018 REFIT
- New engine and exhaust system
- New propeller shaft and cutlass bearing

2015 REFIT
- Cockpit well alterations
- New fuel tank
- Complete rewiring
- Shore power installed
- New Garmin electronics and VHF radio

1988 - 1992 REBUILD
Between 1988 and 1992 SHANTIH was recorded, dismantled and rebuilt in Camden, Maine by her shipwright owners Nigel 'Twig' Bower and Bonnie Schmidt and their Carpenter's Co-op colleagues.

All new frames, floors, stem, horn timber, transom and centre board were fastened to the original ballast keel and deadwood. The original planking served as rib-bands during the framing process and was mostly discarded as new planks were installed. The bottom four garboard strakes are white oak for structural purposes and the rest is 1 1/8th inch mahogany. The sheer plank was left off while the new 2 inch Douglas fir sheer clamp and beam shelf was steamed into place.

A new deck frame came next and the sheer plank followed. Teak covering boards, margine boards/ grubs and king planks were installed. Then came the 1 3/8th inch x 1 7/8th clear quarter sawn white pine (no sap - heartwood only) sprung deck. The new cabin trunk is solid mahogany with ash beams and a cedar & Dynel roof with teak trim. Cockpit and coamings were also all new.

A new boom & clubfoot was made, with extensive rebuilding of the mast. She has new standing rigging, turnbuckles, new sails with conventional battens and Lazy jacks and much new hardware. She was finished off with a new raised panel interior.

- PHILIP RHODES DESIGN No. 523
- SHANTIH's original drawings are housed at Mystic Seaport Museum

One imagines SHANTIH's commissioning owner and highly successful Bay Head, New Jersey boat builder and designer Hubert Johnson as a cheery optimist. Contemporary marketing photos of him with a beaming smile at the helm of his 1940 42ft sloop TEAL certainly suggest it, along with his either side of the Second World War commissioning and building of two highly attractive 40 - 42 ft centreboard sloops in the hope of encouraging a one design class, and, of course, work for his yard. But Johnson's optimism was stymied, first by war for the 42ft Frederick C. Geiger-designed sloop TEAL, then by ill health for this very similar Philip Rhodes post-war 27 feet waterline design SHANTIH. Perhaps there's a suggestion in the waterline length that SHANTIH may be close to a centreboard version of the popular Rhodes 27 class; it is said that Johnson's one design would have been known as the Johnson 27. What an attractive class it would have been.

Little is known of SHANTIH's ownership history through the 1950s until 1966-67 when she was purchased at Sandy Hook, New Jersey by Howard & Dolores Lenzer. Her home port became Forked River, NJ, and she was the family boat for 20 years of cruising around Barnegat Bay. Voyages in more open waters included spectating at the 1976 New York Grand Parade of Sailing Ships “Operation Sail” of the US Bicentennial Program. In the early 1980s the Lenzers achieved their dream of sailing SHANTIH in the Bahamas for more than just a mere few weeks by taking a sabbatical year to sail around the islands. Eventually, recognising the demands of an ageing wooden boat, the family decided that SHANTIH needed some youth and energy to take her into her next chapter.

By the late 1980s SHANTIH had found what she needed and was in restoration/ rebuild in Maine by Nigel 'Twig' Bower and Bonnie Schmidt, nowadays better known for their self-built John G Alden design #390 charter schooner HERON. Bower and Schmidt cut their teeth in yacht restoration and classic chartering to their own account with SHANTIH (then known as SHANTIH II), and they've since made their life out of it with HERON.

After an extremely thorough rebuild by the couple's Camden, Maine, Carpenters' Co-op, and over ten years of chartering on Penobscot Bay - including some classic racing success at Eggemoggin Reach Regatta - the completion of HERON meant it was time to part with the by then well tried and tested SHANTIH II. Bower and Schmidt's marketing matched two key bullet points on Englishman Roger Harrison's tick list in the search for a classic yacht larger than his much loved 26 ft Harrison Butler bermudan cutter DESTINA: the same shallow draft for English east coast waters and his River Deben mooring (SHANTIH draws only 1.4 m with the centreboard retracted); yet a larger yacht that nevertheless required less looking after - the sales particulars correctly stated: "in short, the boat is new".

Details of the 1988-1992 rebuild appear under another heading. Suffice it to say here that after more than a decade of chartering in Maine, an Atlantic passage (albeit on board a ship), and 15 years of the rough and tumble that racing and cruising English Channel waters often offers up, SHANTIH, now SHANTIH OF COWES, has proven to two UK-based owners true to that tick list, and a joy to behold - a regular collector of Concours d'Elegance awards, in particular at Suffolk Yacht Harbour's Classic Yacht Regatta, and at Hamble Classics, where things are often done differently, and she was awarded Concours d'Authenticité at the inaugural 2016 event.

©2024 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

- Mahogany carvel planking, bottom 4 strakes white oak
- Steam bent white oak frames
- Bronze screw fastened
- Clear quarter sawn vertical grain Eastern white pine deck, no sapwood, 1 3/8th inch thick
- Varnished teak rail cap, covering boards, margin boards and king planks
- Bright mahogany cabin sides and coaming
- Dynel over cedar cabin top with ash beams
- Bright teak butterfly hatch fwd.
- 6,000 lbs exterior lead keel ballast

FROM AFT MOVING FORWARD
- Bronze fairleads and mahogany cleats port & starboard
- Pushpit seats port and starboard
- Lazarette hatch
- Bronze main sheet horse
- Ash main sheet blocks
- 2 x Original Merriman genoa sheet winches on bronze bases outboard of cockpit coaming
- 2 x Lewmar running backstay secondary winches on wood mounting outboard the coaming
- Jib / genoa cars on toe rail
- Wood rimmed stainless spoked helm wheel
- On Edson binnacle with steering compass
- Self draining cockpit
- Bridge deck
- Trunk cabin
- Stainless steel chimney for Diesel stove
- Butterfly hatch
- Bronze horse for jib
- Raised hatch
- Stainless steel stanchions on bronze bases
- Varnished teak toe rail
- Varnished teak cover boards
- Large bronze mooring cleat
- Teak and bronze cleat for anchor chain
- Bronze panama leads port & stbd
- 35 lb CQR anchor
- 2 x Anchor bow rollers

SUMMARY
- Sleeps five:
- 1 x Double berth; 1 x single berth in saloon
- 1 x Double berth forward

FROM AFT
- Sliding hatch in trunk cabin
- 6 x Companionway steps down over engine to main cabin
- Varnished deck beams
- White painted deck head
- 6 x Opening ports
- Pine cabin sole
- Half bulkheads in Galley area

SALOON
- 1 x Settee berth converts to a double port side
- Drop leaf table on centre line
- 1 x Single berth to starboard
- Stowage bins forward of the berths below the oil lamps
- Refleks diesel cabin heater stove recessed into saloon bulkhead
- Heater flue runs to coachroof via WC compartment

CORRIDOR FORWARD
- Large hanging locker to port
- Head compartment starboard
- Lavac manual WC
- Stainless steel wash basin and brass hand pump
- Shelving outboard
- Fore cabin
- Raised hatch in deck head to fore deck
- Large double vee berth
- Anchor locker fwd

COMING AFT THROUGH SALOON
- Nav station over engine box, instruments under bridge deck
- Galley to stbd
- Two burner Taylors paraffin stove with warming oven
- Stainless steel sink with original bronze fresh water hand pump
- Large countertop opposite doubles as work surface and chart table while on passage
- Lockers under and shelving for plates, cutlery outboard
- 2 pilot berths/ stowage areas either side below side decks alongside
- No cushions for pilot berths as they have recently been dedicated to stowage

RIG
- 7/8th Fractional sloop, mainsail 465 sq ft, boomed jib 222 sq ft
- Hollow spruce spars

SAILS
- All cleaned and dry stored after each season
- Jib by Suffolk Sails (2011)
- Main with lazy jacks by Suffolk Sails (2011)
- Light wind genoa (2005)
- Spinnaker by Crusader (2017)
- Spinnaker by Momentum (2005)
- Asymmetric by Suffolk Sails (2011)
- Storm jib 2nd hand from a Sigma 38 (date unknown)

CANVASWORK
- Boom covers for main and foresail by Suffolk Sails (2011)
- Cockpit cover
- Companionway cover
- Forescuttle cover

MECHANICAL
- Yanmar 3GM30 Diesel (2018)
- New exhaust system (2018)
- New propeller shaft and cutlass bearing (2018)
- MaxProp feathering propeller
- Line lifting centre board via bronze tube / stanchion on table to block and winch on coach roof
- Helm wheel to Edson steering gear

ELECTRICAL
- Entirely rewired (2015)
- 220 V Shore power system (2015)
- 2 x 12 V House batteries
- 1 x 12 V Engine starting battery

TANKAGE
- 15 Gal / c68 L Stainless steel baffled fuel tank (2015)
- 2 x Monel water tanks total c30 Gal / 136 L
- Holding tank

- Garmin plotter (2015)
- Garmin Tridata instruments (2015)
- Garmin VHF (2015)
- Ritchie steering compass in binnacle

- Life buoy at pushpit
- Dry powder fire extinguisher
- Electric bilge pump float switch activated
- Manual bilge pump in cockpit

- Jill Lenzer for SHANTIH's mid-1960s to mid-1980s story
- Sailing photo no.4 by Paul Wyeth
- Hubert Johnson photo: classicboatsnj.com blog