Hyland/ R.Cliffe & Son 34 ft Dunkirk Little Ship TSMY 1930 - Sold

This evocatively named, very fine example of a Hyland Cruiser experienced many far from LAZY DAYS during the Second World War: at the 1940 Dunkirk evacuations as one of the Dunkirk Little Ships, and later during hazardous parachute mine spotting patrols on the Medway. But with the exception of these dark but heroic times, she’s been enjoyed and loved true to her name for the comfortable, elegant and handy-sized motor cruiser she is. In recent ownerships, LAZY DAYS has been gradually brought back to fine condition - most recently in the capable hands of John Buckley's Harbour Marine Services at Southwold - and tastefully and practically modernised with no loss to her striking pre-war 'Hyland Cruiser' looks. She thoroughly deserves it, and returns such care with pleasure.

2018-2019 AT HARBOUR MARINE SERVICES, SOUTHWOLD, SUFFOLK

- c310 ft of planking replaced
- 3 x steamed oak timbers replaced
- Others repaired
- Many fastenings replaced
- Seams re-caulked and splined
- Internal carpentry removed and reinstated
- Teak deck boxes removed and refurbished
- 5 x Teak deck planks replaced at mast tabernacle
- Wheelhouse removed and rebuilt; roof replaced
- New portable hatch and garage
- New wheelhouse sole; bi-fold door; windows
- New wheelhouse console
- New cockpit sole level with engine box
- Total re-finishing of paint and varnish surfaces

- Engines removed, serviced, reinstalled
- New stainless steel engine bearers, anti-siphons and drip trays

- 2 x Remote greasers fitted to stern glands
- 2 x New rudder stock logs with remote greasers
- Propellers re-pitched
- 5 x New skin fittings and valves; remainder serviced

- New stainless steel stemhead fittings/ rollers
- All deck gear removed; refurbished/ re-chromed

- New sitka spruce gaff and boom
- All new stainless steel spar fittings
- New gaff steadying sail

Considering LAZY DAYS’s eventual Second World War exploits - for which she is still revered as a member of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships - it seems wholly appropriate that her first owner, gentleman of independent means Henry "Harry" McLean Duff-Still, would also become a war hero as commander of an assortment of Royal Navy warships, including the Royal Navy Kent Class destroyer HMS STEVENSTONE during the 1944 Normandy Landings.

With such a name, nobody was thinking about such a horrific near future in 1929 when Duff-Still commissioned this elegant ‘Hyland Cruiser’ that most probably would have been designed for Wakefield yacht and yacht engineering equipment manufacturers and marketers Hyland Ltd by Arthur H. Comben. Hyland subcontracted their builds to a select group of favourite nearby builders, including Richard Cliffe & Son whose timber merchant and ship and boat building yards were on the bank of the Aire & Calder Navigation at nearby Castleford.

With addresses in Kensington, London, and Seaview, Hampshire, and Duff-Still’s membership of the Royal Motor Yacht Club, Poole, there seems little doubt that LAZY DAYS was south coast of England based in her earliest years. As the 1930s progressed Duff-Still’s yachting interest seems to have transferred to sail power, becoming a member of the Royal Ocean Racing Club and a director of Sussex Yacht Works, Shoreham. In 1932 he sold LAZY DAYS to Kent corn merchant and Medway Yacht Club member Walter G. Machell, and she’s been a mostly south east of England boat ever since.

It was during her third ownership by Little Ship Club member Victor George Lazarus of Harrow-on-the-Hill that LAZY DAYS was requisitioned for the UK Second World War effort, initially believed to be based at Sheerness where the shore base was the hulk of the 1813 former ship of the line HMS WILDFIRE (formerly HMS CORNWALLIS). The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships cites LAZY DAYS spending three days during the Dunkirk evacuation ferrying troops from East Beach amid fierce air attack, and returning to England with many of her ribs broken at the waterline.

Later in the War she was based at Chatham as one of the Medway Mine Watching Patrol. A letter received by late 1970s/ early 1980s owner Valerie K. Clark from one of LAZY DAYS's wartime commanders, Captain J.H. Haisley, offers a candid insight into the danger involved in such work, and a court martial incident:

“The boats were manned by the Patrol Service (‘Harry Tate’s Navy’) and each boat was under the ‘command’ of a Second Hand (P.O.). P.O. Frost had LAZY DAYS. Frost was a hard-bitten East Coast professional yacht skipper under the command of a Lt. Osborne, shore based.

“On one bright afternoon Osborne decided to go down to Sheerness to see his opposite number and as LAZY DAYS was duty boat he went in that. However, whilst he was communicating with his ‘oppo’, Frost went to the local and got himself ‘nicely’. On the way back upriver Osborne apparently kept ‘nagging’ at Frost to watch the mud banks. The point was that Frost could have found his way blindfold and Osborne was a bank clerk whose total sea time was a few weekends in a yacht. Anyway, the upshot was that Frost lost his temper and ‘clobbered’ Osborne! He could have dealt with this easily himself, but he had Frost arrested and tried at Chatham Barracks. He was demoted and got 90 days in the ‘glass house’ at Bristol. However, he had the last laugh as, when being escorted from Chatham to Bristol, there was a delay for trains in London and he gave his escort the slip and disappeared!

"As we had no spare P.O.’s I took over LAZY DAYS and for 2 months made the hazardous passage every night up and down between Bulls Nose, the entrance to Chatham Dockyard and Rochester Bridge watching for parachute mines landing in the river. Not as silly as it sounds as we reported four and one of our boats went up on one.”

LAZY DAYS has had many post-war owners; through the 1950s to 1970s Thames and Thames Estuary based members of the Thames Motor Cruiser (now Motor Yacht) Club. Her early 1950’s owner, consulting engineer Fred Esmond Pearce from Twickenham replaced her original Swedish Penta 4 cylinder petrol engines with a Morris 4 cylinder 21 hp pair. That her next owners, Iris M.J. and Charles W.J. Coles, were Morris motor agents in Croydon may be connected. Pearce also added the wheelhouse during a rebuild to deal with wartime dilapidations, and in 1953 she took part in the first Thames Royal River Pageant.

Many short periods of ownership continued: she suffered sheathing in ferrocrete at some point (later removed); in the mid-1990s LAZY DAYS was owned by Staines yacht brokers Tony and Cindy McGrail - who would later restore the royal ocean racer yacht BLOOODHOUD; and in the early 2000s she cruised the low countries decorated inside and out with 'racy' artwork; in 2012 she became the only Dunkirk Little Ship to take part in two Thames Jubilee Pagents. LAZY DAYS is also a regular attendee at Association of Dunkirk Little Ships events.

In more recent ownerships, LAZY DAYS has been gradually brought back to fine condition - most recently in the capable hands of John Buckley's Harbour Marine Services at Southwold - and tastefully and practically modernised with no loss to her striking pre-war 'Hyland Cruiser' looks. She thoroughly deserves it, and returns such care with pleasure.

©2022 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

- Carvel larch planking on oak frame
- Splined and caulked seams
- Steamed oak timbers
- Glass/ epoxy resin sheathed
- 2 x Stainless steel hydraulic rudders

HULL & GENERAL
- White painted topsides
- 4 x Chromed bronze opening portlights in topsides port and starboard
- Rubbing strakes port and starboard with chromed coping
- Varnished tumbleholmed transom
- 2 x Chromed bronze transom clamshell vents
- Laid teak over plywood deck areas; varnished teak covering board margins
- Chromed bronze fender holders

FROM AFT

AFT DECK
- Flush laid teak deck lazarette hatches in quarters port and starboard; access to steering gear
- 4 x Chromed bronze mooring fairleads
- 2 x Corresponding chromed bronze bollard cleats
- 2 x Chromed bronze transom vents
- 2 x Chromed bronze transom exhaust outlets
- Chromed bronze ensign staff socket

COCKPIT
- Teak cockpit coaming: varnished outside; painted inside
- Teak cockpit sole level with engine space access hatches
- Waterproof, upholstered, hinged cockpit seating:
- Aft over lazarette boxes; port and stbd over gear boxes
- Drop-leaf varnished mahogany cockpit table
- 2 x Courtesy lights

VARNISHED TEAK OPEN BACK WHEELHOUSE
- Teak sole
- 3 x Forward facing windows
- Fwd stbd window part of opening companionway access to foredeck
- 2 x port and starboard side opening
- Leather Pullman type sliding
- Alloy framed acrylic 'Houdini' escape hatch above steering position
- 4 x Chromed bronze and varnished teak grab rails port and starboard
- Chromed bronze searchlight
- Running lights
- Horn

FORWARD DECK
- Straight laid teak on plywood deck
- Stainless steel mast tabernacle
- Nibbed to covering boards
- Stainless steel stanchions port and starboard
- Varnished teak capping rail
- Noreseman-Gibb type guardrail terminals
- Varnished teak butterfly hatch over saloon
- Stainless steel protection bars
- 4 x Chromed bronze mooring fairleads and corresponding bollard cleats port and starboard
- Extending Varnished teak table
- Table seating over stowage boxes port and starboard
- 3 x Courtesy lights port and starboard
- Varnished teak hatch over galley; chromed circular deadlight
- Varnished teak butterfly hatch over forecabin
- Stainless steel protection bars
- Chromed bronze mushroom vent
- 2 x Chromed bronze mooring fairleads
- 2 x Corresponding chromed bronze bollard cleat
- Stainless steel pulpit (2019)

GROUND TACKLE
- 35 lb Delta type Bower anchor (2019)
- 7 mm Galvanized anchor chain
- 12V Lewmar electric anchor windlass with horizontal chain gipsy
- Windlass control in wheelhouse and lanyard remote wheelhouse
- Deck wash
- Welded stainless steel roller (2019)
- Welded stainless steel anchor launcher (2019)

Throughout accommodation:
- White painted timber v'd lining
- Varnished deck beams
- White painted bulkheads, mostly v'd lining
- Teak sole in wheelhouse
- Oak sole in accommodation

WHEELHOUSE
- Teak sole
- Helm position to port with barber shop seat
- Navigator position to stbd with barber shop seat
- Chromed bronze six-spoke wheel
- Engine instrumentation x 2
- Morse engine controls
- Windlass control
- VHF Radio
- Plotter
- Autopilot control
- Chromed compass binnacle
- Steering compass
- Fwd stbd window is part of opening companionway access to foredeck
- Modern hatch over helm position
- 2 x Deckhead lights
- Ship's bell

FORWARD ACCOMODATION
- Access via open-backed wheelhouse
- Midships companionway beside helm position
- 2 x Steps down
- Water tank gauges
- 240 V socket
- Phone charging socket

Saloon
- Settee berth to port ; converts to large double
- 2 x Short settees and dining table to starboard; converts to large single berth
- 2 x Fridges under
- Battened hull slatting
- Ship's clock and barometer
- 1 x varnished teak and chrome hand hold fwd bulkhead
- Butterfly hatch in deckhead
- 1 x Deckhead light
- 4 x Bulkhead lights
- 2 x Opening ports

Forward to Passage: Galley to port; Heads to Stbd

Galley
- Ceramic 'Belfast' sink
- Mixer tap
- Plastimo Neptune 4500 2 x burner hob and oven (2019)
- All new piping and stainless steel gas bottle locker (2019)
- Top loading fridge
- Food and plates lockers
- Gas detector/ alarm
- 1 x varnished teak and chrome hand hold fwd bulkhead
- Hatch in deckhead
- 1 x Deckhead light
- 2 x Bulkhead lights
- 1 x Opening port

WC Compartment
- Electric toilet
- Ceramic sink with mixer tap
- Separate shower; GRP tray; teak grate
- 1 x Deckhead light
- 1 x Opening port

Forward cabin
- Berths port and starboard
- Stowage drawers under
- Battened hull slatting
- Butterfly hatch in deckhead
- 2 x Davey bronze/ frosted glass bulkhead reading lights
- 1 x Opening port
- Access to chain locker forward

MECHANICAL
- 2 x Beta 50 4 cy 50 hp Diesels (2015)
- 2 x 30 mm Stainless steel propeller shafts
- Stern glands with remote greasers
- 2 x Bronze P-brackets
- 4 x Rubber cutlass bearings
- 2 x 3-blade 19 in outward-turning bronze propellers

ELECTRICAL
- 3 x 12 V Domestic batteries
- 2 x 12 v Engine start batteries
- Comprehensive switch/circuit breaker panel

OTHER
- Side Power bowthruster; control in wheelhouse and lanyard remote
- Vetus hydraulic steering system
- Re-engineered to include a ram
- Rudder stops and indicator
- MV Airo cabin heater

TANKAGE/ PLUMBING
- 2 x Stainless steel fuel tanks in engine space
- Stainless steel water tank
- Engine calorifier tank with immersion heater
- Pressure water system to galley and heads
- Parmax 4 pressure water pump
- Black water holding tank in heads
- Parmate macerater holding tank pump out pump
- Deck wash pump

RIG
- Spruce mast; single spreaders
- Sitka spruce gaff and boom (2019)
- Stainless steel spar fittings (2019)
- 7 x 19 Stainless steel rigging
- Open bodied stainless steel rigging screws
- Synthetic running rigging

SAILS
- Gaff off white Dacron steadying sail (2019)

CANVASWORK
- Sail cover (2019)
- Awning/ bimini with clear screens (2019)
- Table cover bag (2019)
- Covers for deck structures
- Cover for windlass

NAVIGATION/ ELECTRONICS
- Raymarine Hybrid Touch plotter
- Raymarine autopilot

COMMUNICATIONS
- Standard Horizon VHF Radio

- 2 x Whale Supersize 12 V Electric bilge pumps
- 1 x Rule 12 V 1500 Gallons/hour bilge pump
- 4-Person Seago liferaft (2019)
- 2 x Horseshoe lifebuoys in covers at deck gear boxes
- Flashing dan-buoys
- Offshore flare pack.
- Gas alarm at galley
- 2 x 2 kg dry powder (ABC) fire extinguishers (2019)
- Fire blanket galley area
- AIS
- Searchlight and horn at wheelhouse roof (re-chromed 2019)

- Boarding ladder