Rainbow II sail plan.
(SuperYacht Times)
The pot of gold is secured: the Rainbow II replica project is official, and spectacular.
Naval architecture is by Dykstra Naval Achitects, with launching and completion set for 2016. Holland Jachtbouw of Zaandam, Netherlands, has secured the project contract, with the inevitable aluminium hull (described in the blurb as “traditional”) to be constructed by Shipyard Made in Moerdijk. Interiors will be by deVosdeVries Design and wood masts and spars by Ventis Scheepstimmerwerk of Enkhuizen, who last year undertook various shipwrighting necessities and the making of a new mast for the Fife 8-Metre Saskia.
We’ll be following this project with great interest. Hopefully our hero, designer of the original and the subject of Martin Black’s wonderful biography, G.L. Watson, will eventually get a mention, and they will see sense and do away with that ugly cockpit coaming; perhaps in a superyacht it can be retractable…
Here’s the original Rainbow racing at Hunter’s Quay, on the Clyde, in 1899, courtesy of IFI Irish Film Archive.
~ Iain McAllister ~
