Cam Sailing Club

"Volunteer"
Thames Half-Rater

Racing yacht "Volunteer" — 21-foot Thames half-rater

with Charles Lovelace (helm) and Chris Winterton in very light winds
Sunday, 30 September 2007

Photo taken by John Harris, cut and reduced. For larger size, click on photo.

(NB This page is under construction. More information and photos are to be added as they become available. In particular, it's hoped that more evidence will come to light to support the account of her origins, though it is certain that they were on the Thames.)

**Index for this page**
Left column index	Right column index
Volunteer's orgins & designer Volunteer's first sailing life, 1894-1971 Trophies Volunteer won 1913-1946	Volunteer's rebuilding by Charles Lovelace Volunteer's specifications

Text, colour photographs and web page © John E Harris 2007, 2008

Volunteer's orgins & designer

Racing yacht Volunteer was built in 1894. She's a Thames half-rater, most probably designed by the brilliant and much respected yacht designer, Olympic sailing gold medal winner and official Naval Architect to the King of the Belgians, Linton Hope (1864-1920), who also commanded the Legion of Frontiersmen's Maritime Troop from Lowestoft during WW1.

Linton Hope (From Legion of Frontiersmen archives)

As well as A-raters and half-raters, Linton Hope designed:

the Norfolk Broads One Design about the same year as Volunteer
the Fairy Class for the then new Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club in 1902
early sailing canoes in the evolutionary line that led to the International Canoe class (see IC history 1850-1900 and 1900-1950)
many individual, non-class boats
flying boats.

Raters, including some designed by Linton Hope, still race at the Thames Sailing Club, on whose website there are descriptions and photos of other Linton Hope raters.

In that list of descriptions of boats still sailed at the Thames Sailing Club, the name of Burgoine keeps cropping up. Charles Lovelace has been told that it's likely that one of the Borgoine brothers, Alfred Burgoine, built Volunteer. Alfred and his elder brother, Charles Burgoine, generally known as Charlie, designed and/or built many of the boats that were racing at the five sailing clubs on the non-tidal Thames in the 1890s. Their boatyard was at Hampton Wick, across the Thames from Kingston.

At least one other racing yacht, Saucy Sally, was designed by Linton Hope and built by Alfred Burgoine; so it's certainly quite plausible that Volunteer was too.

From the 1860s, when regular racing stated on the non-tidal Thames, innovations and technical improvements produced successive generations of ever faster boats beating the previous ones in the races. About 1892 a new type of racing boat appeared:

In or about 1892, Mr. De Quincy designed, and Bathurst, of Tewkesburv, built for Mr. Paul Waterlow, the Atalanta. Keel in her had disappeared altogether. The so-called "skimming dish" had arrived.

(Quote from W F Jackson, 1898, Boat Sailing on the upper Thames, in The "House" on Sport, Ed. WA Morgan, London: Gale and Polden Ltd.)

Volunteer was of this new skimming dish design, shallow and very fast. In Boat Sailing on the Upper Thames, from which the above is quoted, WF Jackson was so impressed with the skimming dish that, in his chapter on boats (Chapter 2), he wrote more on the skimming dish type than on all the other types together.

(Chapter 1 is on the Thames sailing clubs, Chapter 2 on the history of the boats racing at these clubs and Chapter 3 details the trophies and races, including how the measurements were made to determine the rating handicap.)

Volunteer's first sailing life, 1894-1971

Volunteer was raced on the Thames (either at the Thames Sailing Club at Surbiton or the Upper Thames Sailing Club at Bourne End), until about 1900 when she was bought by N G Goddard of King's Lynn and sailed at the Ouse Amateur Sailing Club, including against the Cam Sailing Club in one of the first matches between the two clubs. She impressed members of the Cam SC team so that in 1904 Cam SC members, Messrs. Amps, Freeman and Piggott bought her and brought her to the Cam.

Volunteer has been owned by members of the Cam SC ever since. In about 1915 she was bought by George Heath and Frank Evans, eventually passing to their sons Geoffrey Heath and Stanley Evans. They sold her to Frank and Mary Bendall, who sailed her in races till 1971. After a serious capsize in which the hull was probably strained, she had severe leaks and was laid up in a barn at the club.

Volunteer leads other Cam SC Thames half-raters at Waterbeach. Half-raters were raced at the club during much of the first half of the 20^th century.

Trophies Volunteer won 1913-1946

Year	Trophy	Helm, Crew
1913	Granta Cup	P Piggott, G Heath
1925	CSC Ladies' Cup	Mrs S Evens
1926	CSC Ladies' Cup	Mrs S Evens
1930	Whitehead Memorial Plate	G Heath, S Heath
1931	Pye Gold Cup	G Heath, SFF Evans
1931	Whitehead Memorial Plate	G Heath, W Nunn
1932	Pye Gold Cup	G Heath, SFF Evans
1933	Pye Gold Cup	SFF Evans, G Heath
1933	CSC Ladies' Cup	Muriel Heath
1933	Paget Cup	SFF Evans, G Heath
1934	Pye Gold Cup	SFF Evans, G Heath
1934	Whitehead Memorial Plate	G Heath, FG Nobbs
1934	Paget Cup	SFF Evans, G Heath
1939	Pye Gold Cup	SFF Evans, G Heath
1939	Goodman Cup	G Heath, S Evans
1945	Paget Cup	G Heath, R Benstead
1946	Goodman Cup	G Heath
1946	Paget Cup	G Heath, L Sanderson

Volunteer's Rebuilding by
Charles Lovelace

CSC member Charles Lovelace learned to sail on Volunteer as a boy in the 1950s, when she was still winning races. He later went on to train as a boat builder at Appleyard Lincoln Ltd, at the Riverside Boatyard in Ely.

Charles Lovelace
10 May 2008

Volunteer was sailed until 1971, but in 1975 Charles found her lying in a shed in a dilapidated state and due to be burned. By this time she was owned by Frank and Mary Bendall. Charles asked if he could buy Volunteer to repair her and was given the boat.

That was the start of what must have been something of a love affair, considering the amount of time Charles spent over the next 32 years rebuilding this beautiful boat and restoring her to her former glory.

He took her to his home in the village of Lode to find the centreplate casing was badly rotten. He decided that rather than repair the boat he'd rebuild her. This meant making patterns to match Volunteer's shape and take accurate dimensions.

At this point, starting and running a furniture business and becoming a father to four children meant time for Volunteer's rebuilding was scarce and so progress was very slow. Once these responsibilities eased, Charles was able to finish the rebuild in 2007.

The angle of the coaming to the deck varies as it runs aft from the bow, so each successive knee has to match a different angle. This the aftmost knee on the port side.

While Volunteer's frame is English oak, Charles imported Honduras cedar, which is extremely light, for the decks and hull planking. He imported Honduras mahogany for the parts that needed particular strength, such as the tabernacle and the knees used to fix the coaming to the deck. He used spruce for the mast and deck beams.

The top of Volunteer's mast

Charles tried Indonesian bamboo for the boom and gaff, but they were too heavy and were replaced with Chinese bamboo. In the end the only wood that was preserved from the original boat was her elegant transom.

The only original wood is the transom

He even made new wooden pulley blocks to keep Volunteer as she was originally.

He has been able to use the original metal parts, such as the heavy, pivoted, steel centreboard, the steel rudder, the tiller and the bronze deck fittings. The fastenings are copper and brass. The new standing rigging is stainless steel with hand-spliced ends. The running rigging is a hemp-like fibre, real hemp ropes of a suitable type no longer being available.

It's hard to believe that her original finish can have been as immaculate as that achieved in her restoration!