Saunders Roe 45 ft Medina/Saro Class Twin Screw Motor Yacht 1937/ 2011

GRALIAN’s proud bow seems to depict the ‘chin up’ attitude of her era. Cowes aircraft manufacturer Saunders-Roe’s Medina / Saro Class motor yachts are brave little ships - as brave as their original owners, many of them aviators. Eight were built in the late 1930s and five are believed to survive in commission. GRALIAN is arguably the most authentic, retaining most of her teak hull, superstructure, and original Art Deco interior, while enjoying a major 2010-2011 restoration of her vital structural organs at Harbour Marine Services, Southwold, who have so far worked their charms on three of the class survivors. Nominated for Restoration of the Year in 2011 by Classic Boat magazine as, “… the epitome of the gentleman’s motor yacht... immaculately restored…”, GRALIAN has subsequently become perhaps the most travelled classic motor yacht of her type, cruising at sea and inland over 20,000 miles from Greece to the Arctic Circle. She’s very ready for more of the same, or simple, elegant and comfortable family holidays.

This is a yacht totally set up for long distance cruising and live-aboard, done in style and total comfort. She is a seasoned yacht that is ready to slip lines and head off on a new adventure right away.

2021
- Port shaft bearings replaced
- Both stern glands re-packed
- Ambassador rope cutters serviced

2017
- Top end rebuild of starboard engine
- Both raw water pumps replaced
- Engine room hoses renewed
- Starboard heat exchanger replaced
- Port heat exchanger rebuilt
- Both propellers re-pitched

2010-2011
HARBOUR MARINE SERVICES, SOUTHWOLD, SUFFOLK

Nominated for 'Restoration of the Year' in 2011 by Classic Boat magazine
- Replaced many steamed timbers and some planking
- Strengthening of the hull with new steel floors and new keel bolts
- Deck replaced entirely with teak glued over plywood sub-deck
- Gives a stiff and low maintenance deck structure
- Many of the original deck beams were retained
- Original teak covering boards retained wherever possible
- Underside of the ply sub deck was locally veneered in oak
- Specially chosen by the owners from trees at the Woburn Estate
- Top end rebuild of port engine
- New shaft couplings; engine feet; waterlocks; anti-syphons; goosenecks
- New bearings on drive train
- 'A' brackets refitted and shafts realigned

2013
Classic Boat Magazine 300 most beautiful boats in the world

Classic Sailor Magazine
- 12 x Issues featuring GRALIAN's voyaging adventures

2011
Classic Boat wards - nominated for 'Restoration of the Year'

SAUNDERS-ROE LTD., BUILD NO.1803
UK NATIONAL HISTORIC SHIPS REGISTER No. 2132

It may be a coincidence that Joyce Sherren (née Tilden-Smith) commissioned this fine motor yacht as a retirement gift for her aviator husband, Wing Commander Percy C. Sherren, in the same year her late father, mercurial coalowner Richard Tilden-Smith’s estate finally sold his vast and apparently profitable Tilmanstone coal mine in Kent. But it’s most probably not by chance that Mrs Sherren came to Saunders-Roe of Cowes for the yacht.

Although founded on the Thames as a boatbuilder, by the 1930s the Cowes yard was much better known for aircraft production, and Canadian-born Percy Sherren’s life was aviation: a First World War and beyond air ace living in Felixstowe, Suffolk, most probably by association with the Royal Air Force’s Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment there and in particular the nearby Martlesham Heath Aircraft Experimental Establishment.

Tragically, 44-year-old Wing Commander Sherren would enjoy JEAKELARD (as she was first named) only briefly. During the King’s Cup Air Race of 1937 he was killed along with his co-pilot, Wing-Commander Edward G. Hilton, when their plane crashed at Scarborough in turbulence. Not only did Joyce Sherren keep and enjoy JEAKELARD through the remainder of the 1930s; she also entered and flew in the 1938 King’s Cup Air Race in a Percival Vega Gull piloted by record-winning veteran of international air races Ken Waller. Hiring a skipper and crewman for JEAKELARD, Joyce Sherren is believed to have cruised European inland waterways in the years running up to the Second World War.

In that war, JEAKELARD was requisitioned by the UK Admiralty and is believed to have served as part of the Marine Patrol on the Solent and the east coast of England. In June 1944 she took part in the D-Day landings as an ambulance boat to carry wounded from the beaches out to hospital ships. After the war, JEAKELARD’s usefulness to the Admiralty continued into 1946, possibly at Chatham as a training vessel under the command of Ted Nelson Danbury. Her ships bell is inscribed: ‘War Service Admiralty 1940-1946’. Joyce Sherren didn’t take GRALIAN back and immersed herself in local politics - becoming Mayor of Felixstowe - and in leading the post-war revival of Felixtowe Ferry Sailing Club.

In 1946 JEAKELARD became London perfume importer Arnold W. Munns’s second GRALIAN, replacing his pre-war Powles of Wroxham 36 ft twin screw Norfolk Broads cruiser. The name was a combination of his wife Grace Lilian’s first names, and perhaps also a term of endearment.

Just as the first GRALIAN had been both a cruiser and mothership - to his Broads (“Brown Boat”) One Design PINTAIL (sail no. 29) - our GRALIAN acted as mothership 1950-1955 to Munns’s Solent-based McGruer-built International Dragon sloop CLYTIE (sail no. UK 114). Then, in 1956 and 1957, Munns was joint Rear Commodore of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, its Knightsbridge clubhouse being a short walk from his Mayfair home. Favourite English Channel cruising haunts during the Munns’ long ownership included Deauville, France, and the Channel Islands. Grace Lilian died in 1967 and GRALIAN was sold to John F. Baker who based her at Teddington on the Thames and was a member of the local British Motor Yacht Club. It is believed that Arnold Munns then moved to Alicante, Spain.

John Baker may have been in the habit of buying and selling motor yachts to his own account, though not as a broker, and it is most probably he who replaced GRALIAN’s original 6-cylinder Chrysler petrol engines with the current 4 cylinder Mercedes diesels, the work perhaps done by Toughs of Teddington, Baker’s ‘c/o’ postal address. In the fourth ownership of Australian-born Mrs Barbara G. Bagshaw of Dulwich Village, London from 1970, GRALIAN is believed to have returned to Europe’s inland waters, cruising extensively for about 20 years - reportedly as far as Switzerland - often based in Amsterdam.

GRALIAN’s present owners, and saviours, purchased her from fifth owner David Goose at Brigg, Lincolnshire in 2010. Thanks to the care of all her past custodians, she was the gem of 1930s Art Deco style and originality they been seeking for elegant cruising adventures, but first, some open-heart surgery was required to her structure, undertaken in the skilled and pragmatic hands of John Buckley’s Harbour Marine Services at Southwold, Suffolk 2010-2011. Nominated for Restoration of the Year in 2011 by Classic Boat magazine, GRALIAN was described as, “… the epitome of the gentleman’s motor yacht... immaculately restored.”

Since her 2011 re-launch GRALIAN has been arguably the most travelled classic motor yacht of her type. Her owners have cruised over 20,000 miles, including two years in the Mediterranean via the French canals, visiting Italy and Greece, a circumnavigation of the UK, two years in the Baltic, to Sweden, Poland and getting within 80 miles of the Arctic Circle. Latterly she has spent time cruising in the Netherlands, the Frisian Islands and the UK.

©2024 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

- Teak carvel planking
- Canadian rock elm and oak close spaced timbers
- Copper rivet fastened
- Timbers extend across centreline acting as floors
- Galvanised steel floors added for strength
- External iron ballast keel, 2.1 tons
- Bronze keel bolts (2010)
- Teak laid deck on plywood (2010)
- Sheathed plywood aft trunk cabin and wheelhouse roof

GENERAL
- Teak laid deck on plywood
- Teak superstructure
- Original cast stanchions with stainless steel guard wires
Air height:
- Mast up - 8 m
- Mast down - 3.25 m

FROM AFT
- Seating at pushpit
- Gate in pushpit aft for pasarelle access
- Chromed emergency tiller post
- Varnished lazarette/ steering flat hatch
- Chromed mushroom vent
- Liferaft canister stowage at starboard quarter
- Outboard motor bracket at starboard quarter
- Chromed mooring bollard cleats port and starboard

AFT TRUNK CABIN
- Raised varnished hatch over aft cabin
- 4 x Chrome-framed windows port and starboard
- 2 x Chromed mushroom vents
- Passarelle stowed in teak chocks
- Tender stowage on teak chocks
- CQR anchor stowage on teak chocks
- Boarding ladder stowed on teak chocks
- Mast in tabernacle; single spreaders
- Boom/ derrick
- Folding chromed step-ups to port and starboard
- 2 x Mushroom vents

WHEELHOUSE/ DECK SALOON
- Radar scanner
- Mushroom vent
- Air horn
- 2 x Cowl ventilators
- Alloy hatch over helm position
- Searchlight
- Solar panel
- Raw teak handrails port and starboard

SIDE DECKS
- Galvanised davits to starboard
- Small mooring cleats port and starboard
- Chromed mushroom vents port & starboard fwd under foredeck step

RAISED FOREDECK
- Chromed springlines bollard cleats port and starboard
- Stowage boxes port (gas bottle) and starboard
- Butterfly skylight hatch over saloon
- Stove pipe fitting
- Raised forehatch
- Chromed mushroom vent to port
- 2 x Chromed mooring bollard cleats
- 2 x Chromed mooring fairleads

GROUND TACKLE
- Simpson-Lawrence Sea Tiger 555 2-speed manual windlass
- 1 x Chain gipsy
- 1 x Warping drum
- Galvanised davit to lift anchor
- Manson Supreme 60 lb/ 27kg bower anchor in custom stainless steel roller
- 55 m of 13 mm anchor chain
- Spare bow roller to port
- 48 lb/ 22 kg CQR No 2 Bower anchor
- 9.5 kg Kedge anchor
- 5 m of 10 mm chain/ 45 m of 16 mm 3-strand nylon rode
- 13.6 kg Anchor angel
- Snubbing hook

OVERVIEW
- Entry via sliding wheelhouse doors port and starboard
- Art Deco interior restored during the refit; mostly original.
- 6 x Berths + child berth: 1 x double, 4 x singles and a childs berth

WHEELHOUSE
- Helm position to port
- Ship's wheel
- Helm seat
- Foot locker
- Morse engine controls
- Chromed steering compass binnacle
- Navigation displays
- Sestrel clock and barometer
- Gralian inclination gauge
- 2 x Sliding chromed ports in aft bulkhead
- Flag locker
- Banquets aft to port and starboard of aft companionway
- Foot locker to starboard
- Ship's bell engraved for wartime service

AFT ACCOMMODATION
- 3 x Steps down to aft corridor

WC/ SHOWER COMPARTMENT TO PORT
- Sliding door
- Jabsco manual toilet
- Porcelain hand basin
- Hot and cold taps
- Shower with teak grating
- 2 x Sliding ports
- 1 x Deckhead light

STARBOARD SINGLE GUEST CABIN
Original carpentry
- Single berth
- Lockers under
- Clothing lockers
- Hanging locker
- 2 x Opening ports
- 1 x Deckhead light

AFT OWNER CABIN
Original carpentry
- Double berth to starboard
- Single berth to port
- Lockers under berths
- Clothing lockers on centreline
- Glass fronted hanging lockers
- Book rack to port
- 4 x Opening ports
- Hatch in deckhead
- 1 x Deckhead light

FORWARD ACCOMMODATION
3 x Steps down to Saloon sole

SALOON
Original oak panelling in teak surrounds
- L-shaped settee to port
- Drop leaf table
- Book case to port
- Lockers/ drinks lockers port and starboard at forward bulkhead
- Davey Hotpot red solid fuel cabin heater (2010)
- Tiled adjacent bulkhead
- 2 x Built-in armchairs within oak starboard sideboard
- 5 x Bulkhead lights
- 2 x Art Deco bulkhead lights
- 4 x Chromed bronze opening ports
- Butterfly skylight hatch in deckhead
- 2 x Oil lamps

FORWARD VIA DOORWAY TO ATHWARTSHIPS GALLEY
Carpentry in teak matches the boat's original woodwork
Port
- Alpes Inox 4 x burner hob and oven to port
Starboard
- Oiled wood worktop
- Top loading Penguin fridge/ freezer (2020)
- (Keel cooler)
- 2 x Stainless steel sinks
- Mixer tap
- Filter tap (drinking water)
- Numerous food and utensil lockers and stowage
- 2 x Deckhead lights
- 2 x Chromed bronze opening ports

FORWARD CABIN
- 2 x Bunk berths to port
- 1 x Child's bunk to starboard
- Refrigerator to starboard
- 2 x Chromed bronze opening ports
- Raised forehatch in deckhead
- 2 x Deckhead lights
- 1 x Bulkhead light

MECHANICAL
- 2 x Daimler-Benz OM314 85hp 4cyl diesel engines (1969/ 2010/ 2017)
- 2 x Borg-Warner Velvet Drive gearboxes
- 2 x Stainless steel shafts
- 2 x Handed 3-blade bronze propellers
- Cruising speed of 6.5 knots; 9 knots max speed
- Approximately 7 L/ hour total consumption

ELECTRICAL
Engine start
- 2 x Batteries of 95 Ah each
Domestic
- Bank of 2 x Mastervolt deep cycle batteries: total 260 Ah
Charging
- 65 A Engine alternators
- Or through a Sterling 240 V 30 A digital charger when connected to shore power
- SunSaver MPPT-15L solar panel regulator
- Zinc Guard shore earth system

TANKAGE
Diesel:
- Total 575 L in 2 x tanks either side in the engine room
- Port side 350 L is painted steel (1995)
- Starboard side 225 L is stainless steel (2000)
Water
- Total of 568 L in 2 x galvanised tanks
- Seagul dock-side fresh water filter
- Seagull IV filter under galley sink
Hot water
- Hotpot calorifier via port engine supplying domestic hot water
- Alternative immersion heating via shore power
Black/ grey water
- Tek Tank 143 L with macerator at WC compartment

OTHER
- 2 x Webasto hot air diesel heaters

NAVIGATION
- Sestrel steering compass
- Sestrel WW2 hand bearing compass
- Raymarine Tridata
- Raymarine ST60 speed, distance log and echo sounder
- Raymarine C80 chart /radar plotter
- Comar CSB 200 Class B AIS Transponder

COMMUNICATIONS
- Raymarine DSC VHF
- Navtex 6 plus
- Complete set of original signal flags

- Small pine mast in tabernacle just aft of wheelhouse
- Pine boom/ derrick
- Stainless steel standing rigging to external galvanised chain plates
- Small steadying/ at anchor sail with battens
- Mast/ boom crutch
- Decklight
- Olive wood ensign staff
- 2 x Ensigns
- Acrylic covers for all deck/ trunk hatches, boxes & searchlight
- Sun awnings: fore and aft decks; movable side awning

- Radar reflector at mast
- 1 x Manual bilge pump 105 L/ minute
- 3 x Electric bilge pumps (2011-2018)
- Bilge alarm
- Nereus gas and carbon monoxide detector
- 3 x Smoke alarms: forecabin/wheelhouse/aft corridor
- 2 x Fire blankets: galley bulkhead and saloon locker by stove
- 5 x 2 kg powder fire extinguishers
- 8- Person liferaft - service expired
- 2 x deck mounted life rings
- Simpson Lawrence ship’s searchlight controlled from wheelhouse
- Ship’s air horn
- Emergency tiller
- Trilens radar reflector
- Anchor ball

- Moody 1954 9.5 ft clinker-built launch
- 1934 Stuart-Turner 1.5 hp inboard engine
- Oars, rowlocks, rope fender, painters, canvas cover
- Passarelle
- Original Mediterranean boarding ladder
- Teak boarding/ swim ladder
- 6 x Large fenders
- 2 x Large ball fenders
- 2 x Small ball fenders
- Full set of fender skirts
- 2 x 45 m 12mm Polyester sheathed navy Docklines - Jimmy Green
- 2 x 20 m 14 mm standard natural polyester
- 2 x 15 m 14 mm 3 Strand Matt Buff Polyester
- 2 x 10 m 14 mm standard natural polyester
- 2 x Short Shock-absorbing lines 14 mm 3 Strand Matt Buff Polyester
- 1 x 12 m heavy tow/ mooring warp
- Spare keel cooler
- 2 x 4.5 kg gas bottles
- 1 x Camping Gaz bottle
- 1 x Swedish gas bottle