Classic Pond Yachts
This is an EBAY purchase a couple on months ago, the boat is being looked after by the very kind old owner, just outside Kings Lyn. Just the pictures for now, I have not yet seen the boat! Pretty sure she is a Daniels Pocahontas from the 1930s ????
10 April 21 --- She is here !!, see bottom of page --
10 April 21 - I picked her up yesterday from a friends place, she was delivered there as one of two boats we had collected to get them home. I must thank Graham who sold me the boat for looking after her for so long, and letting me know when she had been picked up, a good chap!! So she arrived and we removed the sails and had a look, the sails were very well made, the fittings on the boat are all good quality, it is tempting to think it was the hand of Bill Daniels, sadly the truth is we will never really know, but she was built to an extremely high standard. She is missing the top suit mainsail, but has a B and C main, A, B, and C jibs each with their own boom, and a spinnaker with a pole, some pictures below.
I always think the quality of the interior of a model is a good indication of the quality of the build. The condition of the external varnish, fittings the paint etc. indicate that she is old, I see no reason not to believe she was built at around the time she was designed in the 1930s, yet these interior pictures show a model that looks like it could have been built a few years ago, the way the the deck shelf has been carved into the hull to take the deck is really well done, again it shows the quality of the build.
Veiw looking aft, here you can see the splits in the deck, the inside just needs a clean up.
A picture of the deck, it looks like the deck varnish has been sanded back around the fittings, the varnish left is very old and crackled, but the deck looks to be in very good condition, there is a split in the deck aft, but that can be repaired, the difficulty is doing something that when done leaves the inside looking as good as it does now.
Everything about this boat says 'quality' the deck hatch is beautiful, it must have looked fantastic when new. I think it has been made from some of the deck timber, masked up and stained with Mahogany, then lined and varnished, it has a cork bung fitted, finished with a lovely hatch coaming.
Like the rest of the boat, she has really good quality deck fittings, the blocks seem to be mounted onto screw eyes, fitted through washers to protect the deck, then she has a sort of shroud fitted, presumably to stop lines from being snagged?
Pretty transom, you can see the deck where it is sitting on the top of the hull, I can't get any movement by pressing on the deck so it seems well fixed, also the inside pictures show no movement, but it does need some attantion.
There is some history here, you can see where the deck slide has been removed, the cut out for the mast adjustment has been filled with matching timber, and the deck plate has been fixed in place, the mast rake looks about right, but no adjustment can now be made. I think I will make a longer mast slide, fit it to allow adjustment, and to hide the repair. Again you can see blocks fitted with shrouds, for Jib steering control to the Brain quadrant.
This is the biggest jib, with the bigger of the two mainsails The B rig main ?, the quality of the sails is stunning, the hem in the leech of the sails is only 3mm wide, the battens are all made out of timber, she has a jack line along the boom and both the mainsails have hooks on the foot, as well as the luff, this again is an indication that she was built between the wars??
Number 1 jib detail, the panels have been made by lines of stitching on the sail, sounds easy !!! you can see shackles fitted to the jib track for the three rigs, and the hook linkage from the jib ferrule. When reading Bill Daniels book 'Model Sailing Craft' he mentions that there was a tendency to move the position of the jib boom fitting aft to make the leech stand better, but when overdone it kills the boat as the jib leech is then to tight, so the fittings moved forward again. I find it hard to understand why the idea of a jib boom topping lift (now universal) was not used back then ??, they were certainly aware of the cause and effect of moving the swivel aft.
Going down through the rigs, pictures of the A rig jib, with C mainsail, then the B rig Jib and C mainsail, also a picture of the B jib boom, all the booms are calibrated, and very neat !! The jib boom now on the B rig shackle on the jib track.
C rig, the jib is now on the aft shackle on the jib track, again the jib boom calibrated. Another indication of the age, is that if any of the running rigging had any load on it at all, it just broke, all the lines have perished.
And there is a spinnaker!!!!!!
