Buchanan 50 ft Bermudan Ketch 1957 - Sold

Conceived by multi-faceted designer Alan Buchanan as “a comfortable family motor-sailer that might be easily handled under all conditions”, SPRINGTIDE is a characterful, able and seakindly teak-hulled vessel that may be the perfect classic explorer yacht at this size. The current efficient and easily handled sail plan was re-drawn by her original designer, and her powerful, low-hours engine installation coupled with long waterline length means that SPRINGTIDE can keep up impressive passagemaking speeds while her relatively shallow draft tucks her into anchorages other 50-footers might have to miss out. SPRINGTIDE is a brave but understated vessel that has the accommodation to take a family on a wonderful adventure.

2021
- All masts and spars re-varnished
- Freshly painted
- In commission and ready for the 2022 season

2019
Thorough professional engine check over and service at 900 hours, including:
- Injectors serviced and given new nozzles
- New Prestolite 90 A alternator and new V belts fitted
- Raw water pump service kit and impeller fitted
- Tube stack inspected and given new O-rings
- Re-cabling of the 145 A/h sealed engine cranking battery
- Total replacement domestic battery bank

1980s RESTORATION
Following a stranding, the lead keel was removed and all the ballast keel bolts and some 56 other centreline bronze bolts were fitted. 19 structural wooden floors were installed. The propeller shaft and rudder stock and thru bolts were replaced as well.

SPRINGTIDE’s commissioning owner, successful Belfast-born, Surrey resident dry cleaning entrepreneur Ernest Palfrey, was an accomplished sailor who had a lot of input in her design and build, and was very proud of the result. Her designer, Alan Buchanan, drew, in his own words, “a comfortable family motor-sailer that might be easily handled under all conditions”. Priors of Burnham-on-Crouch stoutly built SPRINGTIDE of teak planking on an oak and elm frame with wood, not metal, floors. Her original sails were by Sadler, and the first engine was a 3-cylinder 36 hp Gardner 3LW diesel.

In first ownership, from a home mooring on the Beaulieu River, Little Ship Club member Ernest Palfrey cruised the Solent, Isle of Wight, and to France on happy family adventures. Then, in 1967 SPRINGTIDE's base moved to Gosport, then Hamble under the ownership of Lieutenant Commander R.C. Hewson, R.N.R., of Fareham, later joined in ownership by Mrs E.F. Hewson. The Hewsons may have initially sailed further afield; eventually living aboard at Moodys, Swanwick Shore, where they struck up a friendship with the parents of double-ender aficionado, designer and ocean wanderer Paul Johnson, brought up on their Hamble-based Colin Archer ESCAPE.

Ownership from 1977 was by a Scottish couple, Mr & Mrs D.G. Haldane, who may have spent much of their lives living and working in Botswana. Their term of ownership is hard to define with the demise of Lloyd’s Register of Yachts in 1980, but they weren’t the owners when SPRINGTIDE suffered a lee shore stranding in the early 1980s and was subsequently purchased by her present owner in 1983 for hull restoration.

In 40 years of caring current ownership SPRINGTIDE has truly lived up to Alan Buchanan’s brief, roaming Europe’s western seaboard as a comfortable and vice-free cruiser.

©2024 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

Built under Lloyd's Supervision and Classed ✠100A1 until 1960

Alan Buchanan had a phobia about corrosion and specified everything he could to avoid it:
- Built to Lloyds 100 A1-18
- Mostly teak planking 1 3/8 in / 35 mm; iroko replaced some teak in the rebuild
- Copper fastened
- Wood keel: selected English oak
- Lead ballast keel: cast in one pour approximately 7 tons
- Internal ballast: lead approximately ½ ton secured below engine and saloon bilge
- Grown oak stem
- Oak horn timber and deadwood
- Grown oak frames (laminated iroko used to replace many)
- Intermediate bent wood frames: Canadian rock elm or oak; steamed oak; laminated iroko
- Oak and iroko floors
- 6 x Additional intermediate oak floors added in the rebuild
- Oak shelfs, clamps and stringers - pitch pine and laminated iroko used in rebuild
- Oak deck beams and carlins properly dovetailed
- Mainmast compression pillars bolted over beds; distribute loads over 5 x floors
- Teak laid deck 1 3/8 in / 35 mm
- Copper secret fastened with cut copper nails and extra horizontal fastenings
- Teak rudder with bronze stock
- Varnished teak bulwarks, covering boards, king planks
- Varnished teak coamings, hatches and skylights
- Cockpit coamings are partly iroko and painted

OWNER'S COMMENTS
This ship has a lot of clear deck space and we do use deck chairs. The forward companion/skylight is slightly offset to starboard to provide extra dinghy space to port. Cockpit is 2mtr x 2.4mtr and at the lowest point of the sheer line, seating is at deck level and between high coamings. Steering pedestal has a brake and houses compass, engine control, autopilot display and a foldable teak drop leaf dining table.

GENERAL
- Teak varnished bulwarks
- Teak varnished covering boards
- Numerous deck prisms

FROM AFT
- Self-steering at counter
- Galvanised painted pushpit
- Bronze mooring fairleads port and starboard
- 2 x Large keruing and teak laminated mooring cleats
- Emergency steering point
- Lewmar 48 3-speed warping winch on steel mount
- Winch also used for springs and sheeting via fixed quarter blocks
- 2 x Bronze mushroom vents
- Raised hatch
- Solar panels on pushpit
- 2 x Fairleads on steel mounts

RAISED TRUNK CABIN OVER OWNER CABIN
- Mushroom vent
- Mizzen mast tabernacle
- Mainsheet padeye at tabernacle
- Trunk-end hatch to owner cabin

COCKPIT
- Coaming joins pilothouse
- Jib sheet winches on wood plinths
- 2 x Lewmar 52 2-speed black anodised
- Ship's wheel on binnacle pedestal
- Steering compass
- Engine controls
- Navman autopilot repeater
- NASA Echosounder

COMPANION PILOTHOUSE
- Solar panels on roof
- 2 x Dorade type boxes with bronze vent cowls

MOVING FORWARD
- Gas bottles
- Butterfly hatch
- Running backstays

MAINMAST POSITION

FOREDECK
- Raised booby hatch with butterfly skylights to port and starboard
- 2 x Vent cowls
- Raised hatch
- Bronze mushroom vent
- 2 x Keruing and teak mooring cleats port and starboard
- 3 x Deck prisms
- 1 x Round deck port

GROUND TACKLE
- Hydraulic windlass
- 2 x Warping drums; 2 x chain gipsies
- Galvanised cleat
- Bowsprit; x 2 rollers port and starboard
- Port anchor, 120lb Admiralty pattern fisherman
- Starboard anchor, 75lb CQR
- Kedge options
- 30kg Bruce
- 70lb Danforth copy
- 40lb Admiralty pattern fisherman
- 25lb CQR
- Approximately 170 m of ½” calibrated short link chain
- Rope, nylon 3 strand, 100 metre in a compact bale, unused

GENERAL
- Iroko cabin sole
- Varnished hull is visible and accessible throughout
- Current layout has been installed gradually since 1990

COMPANION PILOTHOUSE
Good all round visibility and away from the accommodation below
- 3 x Steps down from companionway
- Chart table to port
- Navigation and communication equipment
- Ship's isolator panel
- Banquette
- Teak seating to starboard
- 4 x Steps down to saloon

SALOON
- 4 x Steps down from doghouse
- Large food lockers to starboard
- Saloon table
- Settee berths port and starboard
- Curved varnished solid iroko backrests
- Pipe cot to starboard
- Shelving forward saloon bulkhead
- Dickinson Antarctic diesel heater with cast iron hot plate
- Serves a radiator and domestic hot water
- Simpson-Lawrence barometer
- Butterfly skylight hatch in deckhead
- Numerous decklights in deckhead
- 3 x Bulkhead lights

GALLEY TO PORT
Owner's comment
"The Galley in this boat is very popular. The central sink peninsular keeps the cook secure at sea"
- Mixer tap
- Also gravity water feed from port tank
- 2 x Sinks
- Extensive plate and cutlery lockers and drawers to port
- Gimballed Force 10, 3 x burner hob with oven
- Fridge
- Behind a lifting countertop to port is an alcove:
- Extra shelves and a refrigerator with a small freezer compartment

FORWARD TO MID CABIN
- Double berth to port
- Copious stowage under incl. 3 x large teak fronted drawers
- 2 x Single berths to starboard
- Lockers on fwd bulkhead
- Bookshelf
- Raised hatch in deckhead
- Heating by hot water pipes
- Butterfly skylights to port and starboard in deckhead
- 3 x Bulkhead lights

FORWARD ACCOMMODATION
- WC/ Shower compartment
- Jabsco manual WC
- Solid teak grate
- Separately sealed and pumped bilge
- Basin with hot and cold taps
- Radiator
- Sail bins for general storage and fresh water containers
- Anchor windlass hydraulic control
- Chain locker under waterline
- Raised forehatch in deckhead
- 1 x Bulkhead light

AFT OF SALOON
- Passageway to starboard
- Sail lockers
- Waterproofs stowage

WC COMPARTMENT TO PORT
- Blakes WC
- Sail locker outboard

OWNER CABIN
- Via passageway to starboard
- Double berth to port; lockers under
- Single berth to starboard; lockers under
- Shelving port and starboard
- 3 x Bulkhead lights
- Raised glazed hatch aft
- Ladder to companionway hatch fwd

LAZARETTE
- Stern gear and auto pilot in plain sight
- Glazed lifting hatch above

OWNER COMMENTS
This powerful and versatile ketch rig, with a small mizzen and large boom staysail, is maneuverable in tight areas (without the windage of a furled headsail, she is docile in an anchorage with no veering about) and easy to trim to get the best from the Aries self-steering. With no jib hoisted and only the three boomed working sails she is still balanced and with or without the main reefed, she neatly tacks to windward without trimming sheets.

RIG
- Cutter headed ketch rig with a working sail area of 1361 square feet
- Current sail plan with bowsprit drawn by Alan Buchanan 1976
- 1976 Re-rig by Moodys, Swanwick

Hollow Sitka spruce main mast
- Tabernacle stepped
- 2 x Sets of spreaders
- 2 x Andersen 48 stainless steel 2-speed halyard winches
- Gibb bronze halyard winch
- Solid main boom; wood mainsheet blocks

Hollow Sitka spruce mizzen mast
- Tabernacle stepped
- Single set of spreaders
- Lewmar 8 halyard winch
- Solid mizzen boom

Twin aluminium booms, on tracks with lifts
- For identical twin genoas in trade wind sailing

SAILS
- 10 x Lucas sails from 1977 which are all serviceable and set well, but some are well used
- Plus 2 x recently acquired second-hand mainsails:
- Mainsail, Lucas, 2 x reefs.
- Mainsail, Quantum, tri-radial
- 3 x Reefs, maximum possible luff length
- Loose-footed with the top two battens at full length, a powerful sail.
- Mainsail, Hood, 2 x reefs, smaller, high clew for max headroom under boom
- Little used, untried
- Mizzen, 1 x reef
- Boom Staysail, 1 x reef
- No. 1 Jib, yankee, full length luff
- No. 2 Jib
- No. 3 Jib, little used
- Genoa Light, 836 sq ft
- Twin Boomed Genoas, 600 sq ft each, for trade wind sailing, very little used
- Storm Trysail, 175 sq ft, never used

CANVASWORK
Heavy duty polyester canvas covers for:
- Main and mizzen boom
- All hatch openings including -
- Forepeak
- Forward cabin skylight
- Saloon butterfly skylight
- Main companion sliding hatch
- Stern cabin hatch
- Stern cabin coach house
- Lazarette hatch

OWNER'S COMMENT
Engine room: totally accessible port and starboard by the removal of any whole side panel or lid into the engine box. Daylight by a prismatic decklight and four Lewmar opening portlights in the cockpit well. Ventilation above deck by permanent 7.5 cm stainless steel duct.

MECHANICAL
- Ford New Holland Genesis 85 hp diesel (2003/ 2004)
- 950 hours from new
- Regularly serviced according to the manual
- Thorough professional check 2019 (see refits for details)
- Located very low and in the middle of the ship
- Rpm/ Speed in flat water with no sails up:
- (Min) 750/ 4 knots at tick over
- 1000/ 6 Knots
- 1250/ 7.2 Knots
- 1500/ 7.8 Knots
- Max 1750/ 8.4 knots
- With sails assisting, 2000 rpm is possible
- Motor-sailing sheeted close to the wind can give hull speed at 1200 rpm

ELECTRICAL
Professional installation, proper boxes, MCBs and switches are in the deckhouse, and of a lot of new equipment was professionally installed in the summer of 2019 including:
- Four new Rolls 115 Ah AGM deep cycle domestic batteries in boxes
- Victron Argofet splitter system
- Victron battery monitor
- Prestolite 90 amp alternator
- Six assorted solar panels, each with their own dedicated controller
Springtide also has:
- Dometic Waeco 12v refrigerator with small freezer compartment
- Lighting entirely by LED, above and below deck
- Wind generator, Ampair Pacific 100

TANKAGE
Fuel
- 1.137 L / 250 Gal carried in port and starboard steel plate tanks
- They feed the engine by gravity, initially through 22 mm pipework
- Pipework can be tapped for any water or debris...
...prior to any contamination of the small diameter pipework...
.../ secondary bowls/ primary filters
- Fuel tanks kept full out of season

Water
- Capacity 1383 L comprising:
- Galley galvanised tank w. bib tap, so no pump or pipework rqd, 411 L
- Starboard stainless tank, plumbed in, 207 L
- Calorifier - plumbed to Dickinson Antarctic heater and radiator, 27 L
- Four under-sole plastic tanks, plumbed in, 78 L
- Portable plastic Jerry-cans and containers stored in every nook, 660 L

Gas - stowed on deck
- 19 kg propane for cooking;
- 15 kg butane for the shower
- Spares are available lashed to the shrouds for voyaging

NAVIGATION/ ELECTRONICS
At Chart table
- ICOM Class B AIS transponder MA-500TR
- Hummingbird 525 fish finder
- Garmin chart plotter
At helm
- Navman autopilot repeater
- NASA Echosounder

COMMUNICATIONS
At chart table
- SSB Receiver
- ICOM VHF ICH505

SAFETY EQUIPMENT
- Seago Offshore ORC+ 6-Person canister liferaft, cert.+ in survey to Aug 2022
- EPIRB, GME MT603G, 406MHz with GPS
- mounted in companionway at eye level
- water activated when manually released
- Jonbouy man overboard recovery module
- Lifebelts
- Selection of lifejackets
- 2 x Personal AIS transponders
- 2 x Personal EPIRBs
- Selection of safety harnesses and leashes
- Webbing around the deck to attach leashes

BILGE PUMPING
There are three separated bilges, to avoid contamination
- 3000 Gals per hour submersible electric, with a spare
- 2 x Whale Henderson Mk5 manual
- Whale Gusher 8 manual, forepeak
- Whale 3 in outlet plunge pump in the cockpit

- ARIES self steering lift up servo pendulum wind vane gear
- Steers a short tiller, very efficiently under all sailing conditions
- Quick and easy to lift off and store below, truly portable
- Navman G-Pilot 3100 Hydraulic linear drive
- The display unit is fixed on steering pedestal, the rest is below
- Mooring warps, spare halyards and sheets; extra ropes and lines
- Tailored tropical sun shade in light weight material - only for when moored
- Sun shade covers most of the deck; you can just about walk under it
- 2 x Folding bicycles
- Walker Excelsior trailing log
- Boarding steps light aluminium
- Boarding steps - superior set in teak
- Barometers; above the chart table and a large one in the saloon
- BBQ stainless steel, fixes to pushpit, gas
- Two big net buoy fenders and six large sausage fenders
- Galley equipment, crockery, cutlery etc.
- Full set of detailed drawings by Alan Buchanan

Any three of the following are included in the sale; all have oars and rowlocks
- 'FLY': 12 ft 4-oar GRP fast rowing boat, lifts aboard by jib halyard, built in buoyancy, dagger board and a portable sailing rig
- 7 ft 6in GRP pram dinghy (nests into Fly on deck); buoyancy
- 7 ft Sportyak, 19 kg polypropylene mini lifeboat (nests into Fly on deck)
- 10 ft. pre-1920 varnished English elm clinker lugsail stem dinghy, epoxy saturated
- 'TOD': 9 ft GRP stem dinghy, built in buoyancy, oars, rowlocks
- Inflatable Seago 2.7 m dinghy, little used
- Yamaha 4 hp outboard, or Mariner 3.5 hp