William Fife III / Fairlie Yacht Slip 34 ft Bermudan Yawl 1957/2012 - Sold

The opportunity to own a William Fife design of this rare size – an incredibly beautiful classic cruiser-racer, practical in almost every modern sense – is a rare thing indeed. ELLAD offers that chance, and she is very ready, having been refitted 2022-2023 for short-handed, long distance cruising while still feeling just out of her major, award-winning 2011-12 restoration by some of Brittany’s finest craftsmen. William Fife Jr/ III was in his early 80s when he speculatively drew No. 830 which was to become his last design – employing the fine, unique, drawn-out canoe stern lines of the famous 70 ft yawl LATIFA in compressed form. Such a stern really lends itself to the yawl rig ELLAD was originally built with. Highly recommended.

2022-2023 LA SPEZIA, ITALY
- Restored to yawl rig
- New mizzen mast and boom
- Main mast given 2 x pairs spreaders
- Main boom shortened to accommodate mizzen
- New bowsprit for asymmetric
- Some new sails as detailed below
- New anchor handling system
- Forehatch re-instated over forecabin
- Accommodation refinements
- Generally optimised for short handed sailing
- Updated electronic navigation

2011-2012 BY OLIVIER CYRILLE AT STAGNOL, BENODET, FRANCE
- Deck, trunk cabin, doghouse and interior removed
- Teak hull planking found in good condition
- Re-framed in laminated acacia and oak
- Steel floors blasted, re-galvanised and reinstated
- Completely re-fastened
- New stainless steel keelbolts
- New teak laid deck over marine plywood substrate
- New low profile trunk cabin
- New open plan interior
- Re-use of period fittings
- New mast and boom
- New windlass, sails and all rigging
- New engine and all electrics
- New tanks and associated plumbing
- New navigation electronics

When long time Fife clients the Parker family of Fairlie, and Little Cumbrae island (seen in the 1958 photo above), formed The Fairlie Yacht Slip Ltd to purchase the Fife yard after the Second World War - to prevent it becoming a furniture factory, Fife III having passed away in 1944 - the yard came with a boat in frame needing finished. Exquisite, of course: the last design - No. 830 - by ‘the master’, William Fife Junior (III). The beautifully drawn-out canoe stern lines were a reduction of Fife's exquisite 70 ft ocean racer yawl LATIFA (No. 818, 1936) via Cowes/ Gosport sailmaker Tom Ratsey's 52-ft sloop EVENLODE (No. 823, 1937).

Colin A.S. Parker funded completion, and the very pretty 34 ft sloop was completed by Fife’s workers under the direction of Archie Macmillan, a Fife employee since 1911, latterly as a draughtsman. Launched in 1951 as NYATONGA, a beautiful yacht of such provenance - and ideally sized for a post-war world - was bound to garner attention. Father and son, Lt-Col Geordie and Captain Peter Mackie-Campbell of Monkton, Ayrshire (formerly of Stonefield Castle, Tarbert, Argyll) commissioned an identical sister launched in the spring of 1952 as NYACHILWA.

Archie Macmillan and The Fairlie Yacht Slip would continue to build these 34-footers as sloops and yawls until 1973: always the same ‘aye sweet’ hull, but with variations in rig and trunk cabin/ doghouse design. Two of the yawl versions were exhibited at London Boat Show: Archie McMillan's own NAVARA in 1957, and NEVADA, later ELLAD, in 1958.

©2024 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

WILLIAM FIFE III DESIGN NO. 830
FAIRLIE YACHT SLIP BUILD NO. 858

Remarkably, ELLAD had never sailed the waters of her birth until she participated in the 2013 Fife Regatta on the Firth of Clyde, 56 years after she was built at Fairlie by former employees of her designer, William Fife Jr (or “III” as he has been Americanised), led by Archie McMillan who had joined the Fife yard in 1911 and eventually worked under William Fife Jr as a draftsman.

They built this beautiful yawl - named NEVADA at completion - during the summer and autumn of 1957 as a “stock boat”, and over the Christmas holidays speculatively trucked her south (as they'd done the previous year with her sistership, NAVARA) to the January 1958 “National Boat Show” (fore-runner of London Boat Show) at Olympia, London, opened by Field Marshall Montgomery of Alamein.

The reviews were rave, in particular by Gabor Denes writing for The Sphere:

“Probably the most beautiful boat in the whole show is once more exhibited by the successors to the great William Fife, the Fairlie Yacht Slip Ltd. NEVADA is outstanding among the tall sailing yachts housed in the central well of the exhibition, not only for her breathtaking beauty of line and shape, but also for her fine workmanship and superb materials… I was told that, owing to clever design, she rates particularly favourably under the R.O.R.C. Rule… another fine example of British yacht building at its best. The planking is of teak on teak-laminated frames, and the keel is lead… there are many modern refinements such as a galley with a Calor gas cooker and a stainless steel sink.”

NEVADA was snapped up by Monaco resident and Yacht Club de Monaco member Dr. J.C. Lavoué, and renamed ELLAD apparently after his daughter. She would enjoy her first almost 50 years of Riviera good life in three ownerships - from 1959 (until 2022) sans mizzen, rigged as a sloop.

Her next owning partners, from 1962, were Monaco resident F. De Ramel, and Gaston Colomb de Daunant, a former Mayor of Nimes from a long-established family there steeped the city’s municipal affairs.

From 1966, ELLAD’s home mooring shifted a short distance west in the ownership of Yacht Club de Cannes member and Paris real estate agent Maurice Driguet who would own ELLAD for the rest of his days, until 2003 when she headed north to Brittany.

Jacques Jorry, ELLAD’s first Bretan owner, based her at Bénodet. But by now she was tired and in need of the inevitable 50-year makeover that no wooden boat – no matter how well originally designed and built – can escape. In the new ownership of Bergerac dentist Didier Griffiths, the significant restoration described above was undertaken in the safe hands of Olivier Cyrille working in rented space at Hubert Stagnol's Bénodet yard, with coordination by William Collier and technical support by G.L. Watson & Co.

The project was covered in detail over seven consecutive editions of Classic Boat magazine from November 2013 to May 2014, and ELLAD was subsequently voted 2013 Best International Restoration Under 40 ft at the London Classic Boat Awards.

Post-restoration, ELLAD was re-launched in 2012 by guest of honour, Vendee Globe race veteran Bertrand de Broc, and well tested at west of France regattas including 2nd at La Rochelle classics week by the time she sailed north - at last to Firth of Clyde “home waters” to participate in the 2013 Fife Regatta.

From 2016, in the ownership of a Marseilles based syndicate headed by Stéphane Richer, ELLAD returned to her true home waters of the western Mediterranean and participated in classic regattas there, eventually relocating to Italy in 2022 in the present ownership of a highly experienced Fife yacht owner. During a refit at La Spezia she has been restored to her original yawl rig which ELLAD wears very gracefully.

©2024 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

- Carvel teak planking
- Laminated acacia and oak frames (2012)
- Steel floors (sand blasted and re galvanised 2012)
- Lead ballast keel 3.2 tonnes
- 9 x Stainless steel keelbolts (2012)
- Stainless steel rudder tube and shaft (2012)
- Original wrought iron hanging knees regalvanised at beamshelves
- New wooden hanging knees at house in way of mast (2012)
- Mahogany superstructures (2012)
- Laid teak deck on marine plywood substrate (2012)

GENERAL
- Teak laid deck
- Raised and capped toerail bulwark
- Bronze stanchions and bases
- Stainless steel guard wires
- Mahogany superstructures

FROM AFT

AFT DECK
- Chromed ensign staff socket
- Mizzen sheet padeye
- Chromed mooring fairleads port and starboard
- Associated chromed and teak mooring cleats
- Chromed mushroom vent
- Backstay and mizzen shrouds chainplates
- Bronze mizzen partners
- Rudderhead with original Fife style engraved keyhole plate
- Painted bar tiller with bronze head
- Mainsheet blocks

COCKPIT
- Low varnished coaming open aft
- Port and starboard laid teak benches at deck level
- Stowage under
- Slatted raw teak sole boards
- Yanmar engine panel aft
- Throttle
- Laid teak bridge deck forward
- Steering compass and Raymarine repeaters under
- 4 x Lewmar 30 chromed self-tailing winches on mahogany plinths
- Associated chromed and teak cleats for after pair

TRUNK CABIN
- Varnished uprights
- Painted glassed roof
- 3 x Chromed opening ports port and starboard
- Sliding companionway hatch with washboards
- Low profile butterfly skylight over saloon
- Mast position
- Varnished raised smoked acrylic hatch over forecabin

SIDE DECKS
- Running backstay tackles port and starboard
- Asymmetric sheet blocks port and starboard
- Chromed headsail track port and starboard on widened rail
- Bronze main mast bottle screws on galvanised scupper channels

FOREDECK
- Lofrans Project low profile vertical 12 V windlass w. chain gipsy
- Chromed mooring fairleads port and starboard
- Associated chromed and teak mooring cleats
- Anchor stowage to starboard of stemhead
- Bowsprit for asymmetric with galvanised powdercoated fittings

GROUND TACKLE
- Genuine galvanised CQR Anchor
- Anchor stowed and launched through starboard knightshead
- Stainless steel anchor chain

GENERAL
- Varnished mahogany and white painted finish
- Varnished mahogany slatted hull ceilings
- Down 4 x varnished open-plan steps over engine box
- 5mm Raw teak veneer on solid wood substrate cabin sole

FROM AFT
At companionway
- Ship's clock, barometer, hygrometer and thermometer
- Bronze grab handles to port and starboard

GALLEY TO PORT
- Stainless steel sink and 2 x burner ENO gas hob
- Fresh and sea water faucets
- Concealed under lift up counter top
- Stowage under, outboard and under bridge deck
- Small top loading fridge
- Chromed opening port

CHART TABLE TO STARBOARD
- Stowage under, outboard and under bridge deck
- Ship's electrical/ electronics panel in locker aft
- Breaker panel
- Garmin VHF Radio
- Iridium Go sat phone
- Chromed opening port

SALOON
- Settee berths port and starboard
- Stowage under
- Shelves outboard
- Mast position
- Fold-away drop leaf table at mast
- Navigation repeater display at mast
- Sideboards to port and starboard towards fore cabin
- Stowage under and outboard
- Original restored chromed reading lights
- Wash basin to starboard
- Butterfly skylight in deckhead
- Chromed opening ports port and starboard

FORE CABIN
- Double berth
- Jabsco electric/ manual wc concealed under
- Forehatch with smoked acrylic in deckhead
- Chromed opening ports port and starboard
- Access forward to chain locker

RIG
- Bermudan Yawl Rig (as originally designed)
- Oregon pine mainmast (2012)
- Mainmast adjusted 2022: now 2 x sets of spreaders
- 2 x Lewmar 16 chromed self-tailing halyard winches
- Oregon pine main boom (2012)
- Main boom shortened 2022 to allow mizzen mast
- Spruce mizzen mast (2022)
- Spruce mizzen boom (2022)
- Furlex 204S headsail furler

SAILS
(On board)
North Sails
- Mainsail adjusted 2022 for mast & boom changes
- Genoa adjusted for roller furling (2012/2022)
- Light medium genoa (2018)
- Code zero with own furler
All Sail
- Mizzen (2022)

(In Store)
North Sails
- Spare mainsail
- Medium genoa
- Jib
- Heavy Genoa
- Storm sail

CANVASWORK
- Mainsail boom cover (All Sail 2022)
- Mizzen sail boom cover (All Sail 2022)
- Awning (in store)

MECHANICAL
- Yanmar 3YM30 29 hp Diesel (2021)
- Traditional drive train
- Max Prop-bladed feathering propeller in aperture

ELECTRICAL
- 12 V DC System
- 2 x 12 V 100 A/h Batteries (2021)
- 220 V Shore power system
- 220V Charger
- 12/ 220V Inverter
- 3 X Solbian 50 A portable solar panels

TANKAGE AND ASSOCIATED
- Fresh water: 80 L flexible tank in bilge
- (easily removed for bilge access)
- Fuel: 50-60 L stainless steel tank under cockpit sole
- Pressure cold fresh water to fore cabin sink
- Pressure seawater to galley sink
- Foot pump fresh water to galley sink

NAVIGATION
- Riviera Polare steering compass
- Raymarine Axiom integrated navigation system
- Raymarine AIS 700 class B
- Raymarine repeaters
- Simrad autopilot

COMMUNICATIONS
- Garmin VHF Radio
- Iridium GO sat phone with external antenna

- Plastimo liferaft
- Flares
- Fire extinguishers
- Life vests
- Harnesses
- Electric bilge pump
- Manual bilge pump

- Fairlie Yacht Slip 1958: Iain McAllister collection