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Автор Тема: Sir Robin Knox-Johnston refits his famous yacht Suhaili  (Прочитано 2763 раз)

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The completely refurbished Suhaili on her first outing at the 2016 Hamble Classics Regatta

Suhaili was famously the yacht first sailed non-stop around the world single-handed in the 1968-69 Golden Globe. Following a recent refit by her owner Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, she’s back on the water. Adrian Morgan went aboard.

Suhaili, with Robin Knox-Johnston at the tiller, crossed a start line off Falmouth. Few saw them off, and fewer still gave this 29-year-old merchant seaman and his heavily-laden boat any chance of winning the Golden Globe Trophy, put up by The Sunday Times.

They were wrong; of the nine who entered, only one finished. Thanks to the little craft’s strength and her skipper’s tenacity, they were back – almost in one piece – 313 days later to become the first to circumnavigate the world, non-stop and alone.

Having earned her place in yachting folklore, Suhaili spent a spell on show at the National Maritime Museum, where she began to dry out alarmingly. “I had to do something before too long,” explains Sir Robin Knox-Johnston.

“I told them, ‘If we don’t get her soaked she’ll open up. Leave her much longer and she’ll never recover.’ They told me they couldn’t soak her as there was a risk of Legionnaire’s disease.”

So he took matters into his own hands, removing her in 2002 and personally restoring the yacht that had carried him into the history books. The bulk of the work was completed over the past three years, with Suhaili relaunched in time to be guest of honour at the Hamble Classics regatta in the autumn of 2016.




Built in Bombay

Suhaili, a William Atkins design derivation, was originally built in Bombay in 1963-64, of Burmese teak by Indian carpenters from drawings supplied by a firm in Poole, which advertised “full plans and a free advisory service”.

This proved to be somewhat economical with the truth, as no rigging diagram was included (it transpired that was extra).

Suhaili’s keelson was hewn from a 25ft log using traditional tools: adze, bow drill and hand saw. “We would watch, fascinated, as the adze, handled almost casually by the Indian craftsmen, produced as fine a scarph as any modern plane,” Knox-Johnston recalls in his book about the historic voyage, A World of My Own.

Iron fastened teak was used for the entire construction: keel, planking, frames, deck and cabin top. The iron keel weighed two and a quarter tons, and was cast in two sections, held by 14 two-inch keel bolts.

The stringers were six inches by six inches and all the planking one and a quarter inches. So massive was she that when launched on 19 December 1964, Suhaili floated two inches below her waterline.

Knox-Johnston, his brother Chris and radio officer colleague Heinz Fingerhut, sailed Suhaili – the name given by Arab seafarers in the Persian Gulf to the south-east wind – for home, completing the final Cape Town to Gravesend leg non-stop in 74 days, averaging 112 miles a day.

“Suhaili,” he wrote “had proved herself a seaworthy boat, able when close-hauled to sail herself for long spells without attention because of her remarkable balance.”

It was the intimate knowledge of the boat gained over 10,000 miles, allied with Suhaili’s strength, her ability to sail herself and her skipper’s experience as a merchant seaman that was to give her the edge in the Golden Globe.

Suhaili had not, however, been Knox-Johnston’s first choice. Determined to become the first man to sail alone around the world, he had approached English yacht designer Colin Mudie to design a 53ft steel schooner – light, strong and unsinkable.

But without the necessary funds, everything led to the obvious answer, go in Suhaili, the boat he already knew so well.

After a period of fitting out, Suhaili was ready. Her standing rigging was replaced – in tallowed plough steel not stainless – and her pine mizzen swapped for an alloy one.

She had new sails and an elaborate wind-vane self-steering system, which projected from her quarters to clear the mizzen. Described by Knox-Johnston as “like one of Heath Robinson’s nightmares,” the entire contraption was swept away during the voyage.

Restoring history

Today Suhaili is back in fine order after a thorough refit, much of it undertaken by the owner himself, along with friends and family and the assistance of retired shipwright Keith Savill. The hull has been completely refastened, the old interior stripped.


Sketches of what needs to be rebuilt – this one of the starboard berth – are drawn on the cabin sides

“The whole thing took three years. We spent two years just getting the old bolts out,” recalls Knox-Johnston, “We never thought it would end.

“The timber was all good – hull and deck – apart from a thick coating of green slime. No, the real problem was the iron; it was Indian iron but any iron will give trouble after 50 years. Some of the fastenings were corroded to just 1mm thick.

“We had to remove them all – 1,400 of them – and replace them with bronze. To begin with we were managing eight bolts in a day using just hammers.

“Until we tried a hammer drill, and then two hammer drills, one each side. We were doing 80 a day then – we had to slow down and put in bronze or the old girl would have fallen apart.”

To release one of the original keel bolts during the restoration, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston used Sarson’s vinegar as penetrating oil

Suhaili was not recaulked, although Knox-Johnston says in retrospect it’s something he should have done. “There’s a few seeps here and there. I reckon she needs about 15 strokes a week, so it’s not serious. That’s about 1.5 gallons.


Sir Robin Knox-Johnston did much of the restoration work himself, here preparing the iron keel prior to applying epoxy/fibre tape. Photo PPL

“We stripped the interior out entirely,” he comments. “I sanded the deckhead and hull to bare wood again, and it’s primed, ready for painting.

“We kept the layout simple, just bunks, chart table and galley. Oh, and a loo. With a door this time.”

Thus stripped, she was much closer to her designed waterline at her relaunch, and proved steady and remarkably fast with sheets slightly eased, her best point of sailing.

“We also put in a few more wooden floors, as that was a problem I had on the round the world voyage. That strengthened her a bit.

The restoration of Suhaili took 140 days and well over 3,000 man hours
“So she’s much the same as she was, maybe a little stronger and certainly lighter. At the Classics regatta I reckon she was a little too light. She needs a bit more ballast to get her going.

“She’s best on a reach, not great upwind. You can’t pinch her. She’ll just stop if you do.”


Sir Robin Knox-Johnston with his daughter Sara at the helm. He has never let anyone borrow Suhaili and almost never lets anyone else helm! Photo Nick Gill

One of Suhaili’s worst traits had always been her habit of hobby-horsing in certain conditions, especially when heavily laden. She showed no signs in the Solent that day.

A jib, single reefed main and full mizzen were sufficient. Her mizzen is far from an afterthought, and provides real drive, even more so with the huge mizzen staysail, for which conditions were too boisterous for us to set.

Three new oak floors were added during the restoration that weren’t in the original – which was why Suhaili leaked at the garboards and had to be patched during the round the world voyage with a copper tingle
Some elements of the refit are still a work in progress, the tiller being the next priority.

“The tiller isn’t the original, it’s from about 1973. It’s oak and as rotten as an apple, bits falling off all the time. It’s the next job on the list.”

As testament to her many sea miles, some items were left untouched: “We found the old penny that had jammed between the cabin top and a deck beam, which got there after we were knocked down in the Southern Ocean. We left it in situ.”

If Sir Robin Knox-Johnston was to enter the re-running of the Golden Globe race in 2018, the recently refitted Suhaili would be as strong as ever and almost certain to knock days off her 1968-69 time. “Nothing will persuade me to do it again,” was the gist of his response to that suggestion.

Suhaili’s rig is the one she was fitted with after being dismasted in 1990, when Knox-Johnston was rolled mid-Atlantic, and sailed to the Azores under jury rig


Suhaili’s cockpit is very small, with a breakwater to protect against waves from following seas. A steel-framed pushpit extends beyond the rudder to provide a sheeting point for the mizzen boom, and from which the yacht’s original wind vane self-steering system was hung. Knox-Johnston nicknamed the wind vane ‘The Admiral’ because, like some flag officers, the control system of blocks and pulleys caused some considerable friction. Photo PPL.


The original deck capstan was purchased from Glasgow-based chandlers Simpson-Lawrence, and shipped out to India during the yacht’s construction. Photo PPL



Suhaili’s original hatches were revarnished at home over the winter. The entire boat was originally built of teak. Photo PPL



The original Tufnol sheet blocks still working well after 50 years. Photo PPL




The original bronze Highfield lever on the foredeck releases the forestay and jib halyard sufficiently to allow the sail to be pulled inboard and unhanked from the headstay, so nobody has to climb out on to the bowsprit.




The original fisherman’s anchor (and chain) came from the SS Sirdana, a deck passenger and cargo ship from the British India Line on which Knox-Johnston served while stationed in India. Photo PPL

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, born 1939, is Britain’s most celebrated yachtsman. His 1968-69 voyage secured his place in the history of yachting, but he also led teams in Admiral’s Cup, Whitbread and Round Britain races, and co-skippered the Jules Verne record-holder Enza in 1994.

He sailed single-handed round the world a second time – in the 2007 Velux 5 Oceans Race, at the age of 68 – was third in class in the 2014 Route du Rhum, and now runs Clipper Ventures, which organises the Clipper Round the World Race.

After retiring from sailing for a while, he was behind the building of Troon, Mayflower, Mercury and St Katharine Dock marinas.

He is patron of the Cruising Association, elected a Younger Brother of Trinity House, president of the Little Ship Club, and honorary member of at least a dozen yacht clubs worldwide.

He has been voted the YJA Yachtsman of the Year four times, he won the Royal Institute of Navigation gold medal in 1992 and was knighted in 1995.

Suhaili specifications

LOA: 13.41m (44ft)

Hull length: 9.88m (32ft 5in)

LWL: 8.53m (28ft)

Beam: 3.37m (11ft 1in)

Draught: 1.67m (5ft 6in)

Displacement: 9,876kg (9.72 tons)

Sail area: 61.8sq m (666sq ft)


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