Robert Clark/ AH Moody 37 ft Bermudan Sloop 1961 - Sold

MATAMBU is a fine example both of Robert Clark’s cruiser-racer development through the mid-20th Century, and the high-quality boatbuilding and carpentry skills of A.H. Moody & Son of Swanwick. Her air of proportion, purposefulness, comfort, fine craftsmanship and proven performance is a seductive blend indeed. It requires careful custodians over the years to preserve this aura in a yacht now into her 60s, and MATAMBU has been lucky to receive a lifetime of just deserts and sympathetic upgrading from a handful of loving owners. In recent seasons she has been enjoyed as a classic regatta participant and family cruiser and, in our opinion, there can be few better classic yachts of this size for such sailing adventures.

2016
- Engine top end rebuild
BY OSMOTECH, HAMBLE POINT
- Repainted following cosmetic winter storm damage

2014-2015 WINTER
BY TIM GILMORE LTD, BIRDHAM POOLE
- Work on mast foot
- Fastenings checked below water line and 100 bronze screws replaced
- New stainless steel tie bar fabricated
- Intermediate bearing added to the prop shaft with new steel floor
- Topsides repainted
- All brightwork stripped and varnished
- Check of keel fastening tightness
- Other minor works as necessary

EARLY 1990s
IN CHESHIRE
- Major structural refit

A.H. MOODY YARD NO. 414
For MATAMBU's first owner, David Norton, whose family's long-established engineering business Sir James Farmer Norton and Co. of Salford, Manchester, manufactured textile industry and steel finishing machinery, the choice of Robert Clark as designer would have been easy.

Norton's previous yacht, JANCIS, is believed to have been the last boat built (as NORN) to Clark's seminal Mystery Class design, and among the last vessels built by Sussex Shipbuilding Company (formerly Sussex Yacht Works) at Shoreham-by-Sea in 1946; before that yard was acquired by James Taylor (Chertsey) Ltd. Norton purchased JANCIS in 1955 and proceeded to gain regular placings in the Royal Ocean Racing Club's offshore races, including winning Class III(a) in the 1960 Channel Race.

MATAMBU, typically beautifully built by the Moody yard at Swanwick on the River Hamble, followed in 1961 and continued Norton's upwardly mobile progress in offshore racing with regular placings in RORC races through the 1960s. Results included: 1962 North Sea Race - 3rd in Class II; Morgan Cup - 3rd in Class II; RORC Points Championship - 3rd in Class II: 1964 Cowes-St. Malo - 2nd in Class II. She also completed the 1961, 1963 and 1965 editions of the Fastnet Race.

In 1966 Norton ordered the Camper & Nicholsons-designed TIDERACE, built by Berthon at Lymington in 1967; the first in a long series of racing and cruiser-racing yachts thus named that continues with his descendants to this day.

Under the new ownership of L. David Brook from 1968, MATAMBU started a new life at West Mersea on England's east coast and continued her winning ways on the East Anglia Offshore Racing Association (EAORA) circuit in between extensive cruising, including to the Baltic. Her new owner was only continuing more comfortably what he'd very successfully begun with the Kim Holman designs NYMPHET, a Holman 26, and BANDIT OF MERSEA, the 2nd ever Twister, recalled in Brooks's charming book '3 Boys in a Boat' (Adlard Coles, 1968). David Brook and MATAMBU were winners of the 1971 season EAORA Carmen Cup for top overall boat in Class I.

When B.G. Rayment of Ealing, London, became MATAMBU's third owner in 1974, her home port relocated to Gosport where he was a member of Hardway Sailing Club. Then in 1977 she moved north to Milford Haven with fourth owner G. Donald Bagley of Haverfordwest. It is believed that MATUMBU had possibly two further owners - one putting her through a major structural refit in the 1990s - before the present south coast of England ownership which began in 2012. In recent seasons MATAMBU has been a regular competitor at the British Classic Yacht Club's Classic Week at Cowes.

©2022 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

- Teak planking below waterline; mahogany above
- Copper fastened to rock elm timbers
- Galvanised steel strap floors
- Galvanised hanging knees
- Typical Clark-style 2 x semi ring frames at mast
- Beam shelf with additional clamp in way of mast
- Teak laid deck, epoxy and bronze nail fastened on marine ply
- Mahogany bulwarks with teak capping rails
- Long varnished mahogany trunk cabin with sheathed ply coach roof
- Teak and laid teak companionway sliding hatch; washboards
- Teak and laid teak forehatch
- Mahogany, wide capped cockpit coamings

GENERAL
- Teak laid deck
- Varnished mahogany carpentry
- Stainless steel pulpit, pushpit and stanchions
- Stainless steel wire guardrails

AFT DECK
- Split backstay chainplates port and starboard
- Chromed bronze mushroom vent
- Chromed bronze mooring fairleads port and starboard
- Associated mooring cleats port and starboard
- Mahogany rudder head bush
- Lifting tiller

COCKPIT
- Spacious, deep and secure
- Wide capped varnished mahogany coamings
- Teak laid seats/ hatch covers
- Teak sole grating
- Mainsheet track and car at bridge deck
- 2 x Andersen 46 stainless steel winches
- 2 x Andersen 52 (ST) stainless steel winches
- Adjacent traditional sheet cleat
- Steering compass and instrument repeaters at fwd bulkhead
- 2 x Teak washboards; top panel louvred
- Single lever engine control
- Winch handle pocket

TRUNK CABIN
- Long - extending forward of mast
- Varnished mahogany uprights
- Painted sheathed roof
- Sliding teak/ teak laid companionway hatch
- Chromed bronze mushroom vent over galley
- 4 x Varnished teak grab handles
- 2 x Varnished teak Dorade boxes with plastic cowls
- 1 x Large fixed pots aft port and starboard
- 4 x Smaller fixed ports port and starboard
- Hinged teak/ teak laid forehatch; lifting side baffles

SIDE DECKS
- Stainless steel headsail tracks at rail
- 2 x Bronze cars port and starboard

FOREDECK
- Chromed bronze recessed rail mooring fairleads
- Substantial stainless steel central bollard cleat
- Simpson Lawrence manual windlass
- Horizontal warping drum and chain gipsy
- 35 lb/ 16 kg CQR anchor
- 20/30 m Chain + platted anchor line
- Stainless steel stemhead fitting
- Forestay chainplate & 2 x stainless steel rollers

GENERAL
- Full head room below
- Fine, mostly original joinery throughout
- White painted bulkheads and deck head
- Varnished mahogany carpentry and trim
- Plenty of lockers and seagoing drawers and general stowage

COMPANIONWAY
- Step down over engine box to attractive raw teak sole
- Oilskin locker and navigation area to starboard
- Galley to port

GALLEY
- Taylor’s 030 gimballed pressure paraffin hob grill oven
- Stainless steel deep inset sink bowl
- Mixer tap
- Stowage under, outboard and aft
- Plate and crockery racks outboard

NAVIGATION AREA
- Fiddled shelf over oilskin locker
- Large chart table
- Chart reading light
- Side deck head light
- Navigation instruments and VHF Radio
- Ships isolator panel
- Stowage for traditional navigation tools
- Drawer and locker stowage under

SALOON
- Settee berths port and starboard
- Stowage under
- Trotterbox under fiddled sideboard to port
- Drawers in sideboard
- Pilot berths outboard
- Hinged mahogany leeboards
- Stowage under
- Bookshelves at foot of starboard pilot berth
- Single drop leaf mahogany saloon table to port
- Danish type brass reading lights port and starboard
- Fiddled sideboard to starboard; drawers under, locker outboard
- 2 x Brass/ cast glass deckhead lights

LOBBY
- WC Compartment to port
- Raw teak grating in sole
- Jabsco manual sea toilet
- Stowage shelves and locker outboard
- Inset sink bowl
- Stowage under
- Brass/ cast glass bulkhead light
- Hanging locker to starboard

FORECABIN
- Twin V-berths
- Portable lee board fwd to separate v-berths
- Infill panel and cushion for double berth
- Access in fwd bulkhead to chain locker
- Brass reading lights port and starboard

RIG
- Bermudian masthead sloop rig
- Sailspar gold anodised aluminium single spreader keel-stepped mast
- 2 x Lewmar 24 halyard winches
- Lewmar reefing winch
- Gold anodised aluminium spinnaker pole
- Stainless steel standing rigging
- Split back stays
- Harken furling for headsail

SAILS
Doyle AP Fibrecon (2016)
- 1+3 Battens mainsail
- Roller furling genoa
- 2 x Spinnakers
- 1 x Gennaker
- 1 x Dayglo storm jib
Older Sails
- Fully battened mainsail
- Roller furling genoa

CANVASWORK
- Mainsail boom cover
- Summer cover
- Heavy winter whole boat cover

MECHANICAL
- Yanmar 3GM 27 hp Diesel (1995)
- Top end rebuild 2016
- Single lever controls
- 3 x bladed feathering propeller on centreline for up to 7 knots

ELECTRICAL
- 2 x 12 V batteries under bridge deck
- 2 x 110 Ah engine start batteries

TANKAGE
- Mild steel fuel tank
- c 23 Gal / 105 L + 10 Gal / 45 L header tank
- Stainless steel paraffin tank for galley stove in oilskin locker
- Calorifier hot water tank in oilskin locker
- Pressurised water supply from 2 x flexible tanks under the cabin sole & 12 V pump

- Plastimo steering compass mounted on bulkhead
- Garmin GPS Map
- Furuno radar
- AIS sender/ responder
- Brookes and Gatehouse Focus log, speed echo sounder, wind
- 2 x MFD displays and 1 analogue
- ICOM DSC VHF Radio with lat/ long
- Simrad tiller pilot

- Life buoy
- Dan buoy
- Whale manual bilge pump in cockpit
- Rule auto float switch bilge pump
- Fire extinguisher
- Fire blanket

- 7 x Fenders
- 5 x Mooring warps

- Sailing 1-4: John Green Cowes
- Downwind: Cowes Spring Classics
- Hauled out abeam: Tim Gilmore Ltd
- 1961 Cowes: Desmond O'Neill/ Tatler