Christian Jensen 54 ft Fast Cruising 10-Metre 1939

Flush-decked and simply beautiful, the ‘Cruising 10-Metre’ INDIGO is a wonderfully preserved reminder that Norwegian yacht designers and builders may be said to have perfected the creation of elegant and fast cruiser-racers during the late 1930s. She was launched as GANNET III along with five Christian Jensen-designed sisters - one of them the recent Mediterranean classic regatta winner KIPAWA - commissioned by a generation of the great and the good of the Royal Norwegian Yacht Club brought up enjoying getting wet racing the metre classes, who wanted something more comfortable but not much slower for their older age. In the custodianship of two fastidious German owners since 1978, INDIGO has had the best of care; shed-stored each winter. A yacht that ticks so many classic yachting many boxes.

CHRISTIAN JENSEN DESIGN NO. 331

Along with five almost identical sisters built at Soon 1937-1938 for a Royal Norwegian Yacht Club syndicate of friends, INDIGO (launched as GANNET III) may represent both the high point and swansong in Norwegian yacht design and building of the classic period.

The concept, by 1912 12-Metre Olympic Gold Medallist, Halfdan Hansen, was a boat with more home and seagoing comforts than his eight earlier racing/ metre rule boats all named TAMARA (plus the 'halfway house', TAMARA IX, also designed by Jensen and built at Soon), but with not much lesser performance, in particular in stronger winds. This wasn’t an entirely unique idea. Since the 1926 Fastnet Race win by William Fife’s HALLOWE’EN - dubbed, but not conceived, a Cruising 15-Metre - designers had been following suit. But Christian Jensen’s take on the idea is somehow so pure yet purposeful, fine yet wholesome. And fast.

He'd been the Jensen of Anker & Jensen and had spent some time in the early 1900s learning with William Fife Jr ('III') in Scotland, and Max Oertz in Germany. Christian Jensen was a true all-rounder: as skilled with the adze as at the drawing board; outside of Norway, one of the unsung geniuses of both yacht design and building.

Hansen encouraged a group of like-minded friends to join in: apart from it being fun, this also significantly reduced the cost of the individual boats, in particular because the Soon yard had been quiet, and a skilled workforce had to be re-employed. The initial commission was for five boats, numbered using the pre-First World War metre-yacht sail lettering system (F for 10-Metre) to differentiate them from the “straight” metrics:

F20 TAMARA X - Halfdan Hansen
F21 GANNET II - Lorentz Severin Skougaard
F22 IF [III] - Halfdan Ditlev-Simonsen
F23 GRATIA - T. Dannevig
F24 KIPAWA - C.B. Thorne

Apparently Skougaard, a former Royal Norwegian Yacht Club Vice Commodore from a long established Langesund family of merchants and shipowners, wasn’t happy with GANNET II’s construction quality and immediately ordered GANNET III - F25 - now INDIGO. But overall these boats were superbly designed, specified, and built - under Jensen’s regular supervision. They all survive to this day in one way or another.

It is believed that all six had American Kermath auxiliary petrol engines, but there was a split in sailmaker loyalties, with TAMARA X and KIPAWA using sails by Helmer Örtengren's Stockholm loft, while the others, including GANNET III, imported sails from Ratsey & Lapthorn of Gosport and Cowes, England.

Skougaard kept GANNETT III for twenty years, but the Second World War got in the way of his sailing, then in 1958 her ownership transferred to a member of another of the south Norwegian merchant families, Niels Frederik Aall of Ulefos. He would be her last Norwegian owner.

As the carving mark in one of her deck beams reveals, in 1970, renamed GANNET OF KERRY, she entered the UK Registry under the ownership of D.R. Brodie of Barton on Sea, Hampshire, previously of the 12-Ton Gauntlet Class cutter REDGAUNTLET. Lloyd's Register of Yachts recorded her home port at this time as Dartmouth, Devon. Not much is presently known about this English period in her life, which continued from 1974 under the ownership of Jack Bond, whose address was care of a London legal office.

We do know that her life in Germany began in 1978 when purchased by the owner of a boatyard at Glückstadt on the River Elbe, northwest of Hamburg, and her care since then, including in present ownership since 2001 has been in the true north German style: summers afloat in a secure berth and cruising the western Baltic; winters protected from the elements in a storage hall.

©2024 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

- Tabasco mahogany planking
- Teak garboard planks
- Galvanised steel frames
- 2 x Intermediate Canadian rock elm timbers
- Teak longitudinal structure
- Lead ballast keel
- Fir beam shelves and deck beams
- Teak laid deck (believed original)

GENERAL
- Raw Teak laid deck
- Varnished mahogany king plank and covering boards
- Low mahogany bulwark/ toerail, varnished inside; varnished capping rail
- Lewmar bronze stanchion sockets port and starboard
- Mahogany deck structures

FROM AFT

AFT DECK
- Bronze mooring fairleads port and starboard
- Bronze ensign staff socket
- Bronze U-bend ventilator
- Bronze A&R pattern mooring cleats port and starboard
- Period bronze warping winch
- Ash mainsheet blocks on bronze padeyes
- Bronze rudderhead with wood tiller
- Scandinavian pattern 2 x leaf steering/ lazarette hatch
- Steering compass
- Engine panel
- Auto-pilot and engine controls

COCKPIT
- Anker & Jensen pattern, deep, self-draining with removable table
- Raw teak sole
- Angled backrest lining boards
- Attractively shaped benches port and starboard
- Low coamings merging with companionway hatch
- 2 x Lewmar bronze self-tailing sheet winches port and starboard
- Bronze winch plinths
- Associated bronze and teak bar cleats
- Chromed bronze backstay levers at side decks port and starboard

LOW PROFILE RAISED COMPANIONWAY HATCH
- Bronze-framed ports to port and starboard
- Sliding hatch
- Washboards

MID DECK
- Glazed mushroom vent over galley
- Lemon squeezer deck prism over chart table
- Butterfly skylight over saloon
- 2 x Dorade vents
- Butterfly skylight over owner’s cabin
- 2 x Bronze screw-in padeye sockets port and starboard
- Spring line inset bronze fairleads port and starboard
- Associated bronze A&R pattern mooring cleats port and starboard

MAST POSITION
- Galvanised pinrails port and starboard
- Stainless steel u-bend cable tidy

FOREDECK
- Hinged hatch to focsle
- 2 x Dorade vents
- Inset bronze mooring fairleads port and starboard

GROUND TACKLE
- CQR plough anchor
- 100 m Galvanized chain
- Manual Simpson-Lawrence ratchet windlass and warping drum
- Stemhead bow roller offset to starboard

- 3 x Steps (removable) down from companionway over engine compartment
- 'Cabin' gold plated bulkhead mounted lighting throughout

QUARTER BERTH TO PORT

GALLEY TO PORT
- Pantry with three burner Alpes gas hob and oven
- Sink with pressure fresh water supply
- VA cooling box (with compressor)
- Ample stowage on shelves and drawers
- Bin

FORWARD FACING CHART TABLE WITH BENCH TO STARBOARD
- Electronic control panel
- Navigation instruments, VHF-Radio

FORWARD TO SALOON
- L-Settee berth to port
- Settee berth to starboard
- Butterfly skylight in deckhead
- Schatz barometer and chiming wind-up clock
- Drop leaf dining table offset to port
- Fiddled top sideboard to starboard fwd
- Car HiFi with CD and USB, two speakers
- Stowage outboard in lockers and under

SLIDING DOOR FORWARD TO OWNERS CABIN
- Berths to port and starboard either side of mast
- Drawers under
- Butterfly skylight in deckhead

SLIDING DOOR TO FO'CS'L
- Manual Wilcox, Crittenden sea toilet in commode to port; seacocks under
- Locker to starboard
- Locker seats port and starboard
- Forehatch in deckhead with winch handle shelf
- Deckhead port light
- Chain locker forwards
- Ample stowage for sails and ropes
- Bronze line stowage hooks over beam shelves

RIG
- 7/8 Fractional cutter rig
- Original hollow spruce 71.3 ft / 22 m mast
- 2 x Sets of spreaders
- 3 x Halyard winches
- Mast is 65.2 ft / 20 m above deck; 68.7 ft / 21 m above waterline
- Ball-slide mast track
- Telltale staff
- Original spruce boom
- 1 x Bronze clew outhaul winch
- Spinnaker pole (2021)
- Jockey pole
- Galvanized wire backstays on adjustable levers

SAILS
- Fully-battened mainsail
Cruising headsails
- Staysail
- Jib
Racing headsails and downwind sails by CN Segel, Kiel
- Staysail
- Jib
- Genoa
- Reacher
- Spinnaker

CANVASWORK
- Hatch and skylight covers
- Mainsail boom cover

MECHANICAL
- Yanmar 4 cyl 90 hp Diesel (1996)
- 3 x Blade feathering propeller

ELECTRICAL
- 1 x 115 Ah Gel engine start battery (2021)
- 2 x 230 Ah Gel service batteries (2021)
- 12 V 25 A Battery charger
- Shore power 230 V with FI switch

TANKAGE
- 80 L Water
- 120 L Fuel

OTHER
- Eberspächer Diesel heater

- Removable Classens & Plath steering compass at doghouse roof
- B&G Hydra
- Depth sounder (B&G)
- Sumlog (B&G)
- Autohelm 7000 Autopilot
- Simrad RD68 VHF Radio

- Whale Gusher manual bilge pump
- Electric automatic bilge pump (2021)
- EPIRB
- 6-Person life raft
- 6 x life jackets
- Guard lines and lifelines

- Abeking & Rasmussen wooden rowing dinghy (1982)
- WM Meyer trailer for storage of equipment