In May of 2006 I received an email from Thomas Board to say that he and his wife Anisa had recently bought a classic yacht. Thomas sent me some photographs of their new boat which was a stunningly beautiful 44 foot James Mc Gruer design Yawl. They had bought this boat, Frenisi of Clynder, in Britain and had her delivered to Portimão Marina in the Algarve.

Thomas explained in his email that whilst he had experience sailing his previous boat, a Bavaria and prior to owning that boat had completed several RYA courses, he realised that the sailing and handling characteristics of a classic long keeled wooden yacht would be very different to anything that he had previously experienced, he asked if I could perhaps spend two days with them on the boat.
Needless to say, I said that I felt that I could help, and we agreed that we would spend August 17th & 18th putting Frenesi through her paces. Now more than three years later those two very enjoyable days are firmly engraved on my memory, it is not very often that I get an opportunity to sail such a beautiful boat.

In the morning on August 17th with a westerly force 3 we took Frenisi out to sea and sailed her towards Lagos close hauled on the starboard tack, Anisa was steering and Frenesi was beautifully balanced and showing about 6 knots on her log as she sliced through the waves clearly enjoying her freedom.  Whilst it would have been nice to continue close hauled towards the Azores, my function was to try her out on every point of sail which we did and I just could not fault her performance, she sailed as you would expect from the thoroughbred that she is.

Sadly much of my time is spent sailing modern light displacement cruisers whose designers have given more importance to having 3 double cabins in a boat of this size to ensure comfort for the crew in a berth in a marina, than to comfort and performance at sea. The difference for me having not sailed a classic heavy displacement yacht with a long keel for several years was very pronounced, Frenesi was a real joy to sail.

We returned to Frenesi’s berth in Portimão Marina for lunch and discussed the problems of handling her in a marina with just one crew. Whilst Frenesi was a real lady to sail out at sea, the same could not be said of her performance in the marina. In 1961 marinas did not exist, yachts were kept on moorings and so an ability to maneuver a yacht under engine very precisely was not considered necessary.

Thomas and Anisa’s problem was lack of crew (Ismail was only 2 years old then!) and the fact that one of them might be needed to look after Ismail at any time. I suggested that we should get a stern rope, bow rope and bow spring ready, but to set up the spring either from a mid ships cleat or a bow cleat exactly the right length with a loop on the end created with a bowline. This should be ready for whoever was crew to drop over the cleat on the end of their pontoon. Frenisi’s berth was port side to, I then recommended that whoever was steering would stop the boat when the spring was tight then put her back in ahead with the wheel hard over to starboard and the prop-wash would hold Frenesi in her berth with plenty of time then for the crew to attach all the other ropes.

We decided to try this after lunch, Thomas positioned Frenesi beautifully and Anisa dropped the spring over the cleat and then Thomas truned the wheel to starboard & motored gently ahead. Frenesi sadly did not behave as we had hoped and expected, but instead gradually drifted out to starboard! After two more attempts we tied her up and over coffee we looked at some photographs of Frenisi taken when she was out of the water for her survey in Poole. Then we could see exactly what the problem was; unlike most long keel boats who tend to have their propeller between the after end of the keel and the rudder in an area specifically cut out of the rudder for this purpose, Frenesi had her propeller above her rudder and so she would have no prop wash at all. (Prop wash is created when the thrust of water from the propeller on the rudder when held over to one side, will push the stern over to the other side as well as pushing the boat forwards.)

Clearly motoring ahead on a bow spring was not going work. So we needed to come up with another way of doing it. In addition to there being a cleat on the end of the finger which we had been using to attach the bow spring, there was another further forward a little astern of amidships on Frenesi. We decided to use this for a midships lassoo. Fortunately Frenesi has a geneoa track actually on her teak toe rail. We tied a rope to a slide towards the forward end of this track and took it back on board via a genoa block also attached to the track and then back to a cockpit winch. 

Now to try this new method, Thomas brought Frenisi into her berth with Anisa (Ismail was down below have his afternoon sleep) standing on the side deck holding the loop of rope over the pontoon. As Thomas stopped Freneisi with the cleat just in front of Anisa, she dropped the loop of rope around the cleat and Thomas leant forward from the wheel and winched the rope in, Frenisi was now secure and we could take our time securing the remainder of her ropes.

I think I learnt more from this experience than Thomas and Anisa!  Next time I am asked to give some marina boat handling tuition in a classic boat I will make sure I know in advance where the propeller is in relation to the keel and the rudder!

We spent the next day, practicing various maneuvers which I enjoyed immensely, Thomas and Anisa have since taken Frenesi back to Britain.I feel sad that Frenesi has left Portugal, but the British climate will be much better for her teak deck, top sides and varnished teak. I wish Thomas, Anisa and Ismail very enjoyable cruising with Frenesi of Clynder.

Frenesi was built on the Clyde for the 1961 boat show where she was awarded the honour of being the ‘Best Boat at the Show’.  She was initially named ‘Marguerita Helena III’. For the first 9 years she was kept in the Solent  and  in 1970 the Scottish racing driver, Ninian Sanderson, bought her and took her back to the Clyde, and renamed her Frenesi of Clynder.

Between 1973 and 1997 she was owned by Peter Gray who first raced her in the Irish Sea then cruised around the west coast of Scotland.

Between 1997and 2006 she was owned by David Hart who kept her in Poole, using her very successfully for racing.

Thomas and Anisa Board kept her for a year in Portimão and when Thomas’ job took him back to London from Madrid they took Frenesi back to Poole. To see a video of Thomas and a friend Rupert sailing Frenesi from Poole to Lowestoft in October 2007 click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYNmdawAQ7M  Thomas has also written two excellent articles on buying Frenesi and sailing her called Heart or Head and Emotional Journey which were originally  published in Classic Boat magazine, and re-produced on the Sandeman Yacht Company web site and if you would like to read them click here to go to the Sandeman Yacht Company web site where you will find links to the two articles on the home page.