Laurent Giles 25 ft Vertue 1962/2015

It might be quite difficult to write something new about Jack Laurent Giles’s legendary Vertue design, the subject of many books and articles over 90 years, often about intrepid voyages. But TOM THUMB has always been a special Vertue, because of the astonishing quality of her original build by renowned artisans Harold Kimber and David Blake – its specifications, and raw materials, under Lloyd's ✠100A1 supervision – and now also because of the honourable restoration treatment in present ownership undertaken by Stirling & Son. All ferrous metal, often the usual suspect in denying longevity in these boats, was removed and replaced with bronze; she got a replacement deck, cockpit and enchanting interior; and, very recently, a new engine. Subsequently TOM THUMB has been well proven cruising Baltic and Hebridean waters, and is very ready for more.

- This is a provisional set of details for a new listing
- New photos/ specs to be added in the coming weeks

TOM THUMB underwent what we call in the car world a 'full nut and bolt' rebuild/ restoration in 2014/15 [detailed below]... to a high standard to make her fit for ocean and coastal sailing. She has been meticulously maintained since with new exterior paint and varnish ( including mast ) in the last couple of years. She has always been stored ashore in the winter under her own metal framed tent (included). She has been well tried and tested in all weathers in UK waters and the Baltic and is a true go anywhere little boat. Reluctantly for sale due to pressure for a larger boat from a growing family.

When we brought TOM THUMB here we kept her afloat for a while and purposely went out beyond the breakwater into some heavy weather to see how things worked. We found that to be a very worthwhile experience. When a boat is being pressed like that you can appreciate what is right about her deck layout, how the leads work and so on. But you can also find out what is not working well and work out how to change it. She’s absolutely brilliant to sail. The helm is finger light and she handles very easily. We are used to INTEGRITY, which is 62ft (19m), and you realise with a boat like this [TOM THUMB] how much easier it is to handle – you can do a lot with muscle, which you just can’t do on a bigger boat. And that gives you more leeway to go to a whole lot of different places – because you can just grab the sail and pull it down, or push yourself off. And we’ve already been out in some bad weather… we just sat in the cockpit in drysuits and felt bulletproof.

STIRLING & SON, PLYMOUTH 2025
- New Beta engine
- New standing rigging

STIRLING & SON, PLYMOUTH 2014-2015
"Is this the best restoration of a boat that has been called the best of her class?"
(Dan Houston, Classic Boat July 2015 )
- Overhaul to prepare her for expeditions to high latitudes
- The spec was to be simple and basic but to the highest quality
- All ironwork replaced in custom cast bronze
- Non-copper fastenings replaced in bronze
- New bronze keelbolts
- New bronze external chainplates and backing plates
- New teak deck
- New deck beams
- New cockpit well (GRP scupper tray system)
- New interior
- All new systems/ wiring/ plumbing

LAURENT GILES DESIGN NO. 421
VERTUE CLASS SAIL NO. V111
First Registered (at Bridgewater), 5th June 1962

In the days when all yachts were bespoke, you could order a new boat from your local builder and then take winter pleasure watching it rise from the shop floor by a skilled hand on an adze, the application of steam, the hammering of copper rivets, and the naturally mathematical mind of the shipwright - while dreaming of and planning summer days afloat.

Somerset timber products manufacturer Brian Tottle didn't have far to travel from his West Huntspill home to review progress at Highbridge by Harold "Kim" Kimber and David Blake in creating TOM THUMB from the finest of materials. Tottle's choice of builder was a local one, but fortuitously fine. Since founding his enterprise in 1927 at the heavily silted docks of that soon to become post-industrial port, Kimber had forged an excellent reputation as a thinking boatbuilder. Relatively unusually for an artisan shipwright of the time, he was also an accomplished small boat sailor, and a Trinity House pilot for the Bristol Channel and local tidal rivers. A true all-rounder.

Kimber had previously built two Vertues, V6 FRANCOLIN in 1939, and V38 VIRTUE in 1951. FRANCOLIN's commissioning owner lived in Romsey Hampshire, suggesting that Kimber was already known to Jack Laurent Giles, but it is most likely that his name became more widely regarded from the 'those in the know' publicity surrounding Uffa Fox's 1955/56 decision to purchase his 48 ft cruiser-racer design FRESH BREEZE at Highbridge, and finish her with Kimber - after her commissioning owner, Porlock Weir resident Cardiff shipowner Bill Morel, had passed away mid-build.

Kimber seems to have preferred working mostly alone with youthful assistance when necessary. It was the FRESH BREEZE contract - the largest yet undertaken by the yard - that introduced David Blake as an apprentice, eventually becoming Kimber's business partner then successor. The story has continued, though not always at Highbridge, with Blake's son, Neil, the restorer of the Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter CARIAD, the Sparkman & Stephens yawl ARGYLL, and a member of the build team for the replica of John Cabot's 15th Century caravel, MATTHEW, built at Bristol 1994-1996.

TOM THUMB's build specification was seriously high-end, employing the very best of ingredients: teak, pitch pine, Canadian rock and English wych elm. All under Lloyd's supervision to their top ✠100A1 Classification which undoubtedly helped this enchanting and fiercely able gem to weather the storms of age. Now the 2014-2015 restoration by Stirling & Son of Plymouth has set her fair for easily another 60 years of pleasure-giving, and, as the yard boasts, prepared for high latitudes adventures. Few today know more about sailing a wooden yacht within the Arctic Circle than Will Stirling; who are we to argue. Of course, TOM THUMB is also eminently set up for wee adventures too.

On retiring from an impressive naval career often served on the largest of capital ships - he was Gunnery Officer aboard the Royal Navy battleship HMS DUKE OF YORK during the later stages of World War Two - TOM THUMB's second owner from September 1964, Captain James Hamilton Crawford, would enjoy thirteen years of pleasure afloat aboard perhaps one of the all-time best of venturesome pocket cruisers.

We presently know little about TOM THUMB's sailing activities in Captain Crawford's ownership, but he first moored her on England's east coast at Burnham-on-Crouch when he lived at Bishop Stortford, and by the late 1960s her home port became Lymington, Hampshire, where Crawford is still remembered for his Royal Lymington Yacht Club navigation classes.

Crawford sold TOM THUMB in spring 1977 into a brief period back on the east coast at Woodbridge with Gordon E. Linzey-Hamilton. Then, in 1980, she moved to the west coast of Scotland under the ownership of Ayrshire based Roy Hollands and Frederick Mattinson, and from 1986 by Roy and Rita Hollands.

Subsequent owners have been:

1986-1988 Geoffrey Nuttal, Workington, Cumbria
1987-2001 Peter A. Stratton, Solihull, West Midlands
2001-2014 Robin W. & Jonathan W. Assael, Godalming, Surrey

TOM THUMB entered present ownership in 2014. On completion of the 2014-2015 restoration by Stirling & Son detailed above, she was trucked to Germany from where she sailed into the Baltic for her first adventures in present ownership. Subsequently she's been based at Craobh Haven near Oban on the west coast of Scotland and, of course, much admired there.

©2025 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.

Built under Lloyd's Supervision to ✠100A1 Classification
- In-Class 1962-1985 (Class withdrawn 1985 at then owners' request)

- Teak carvel planking
- Teak transom
- Believed wych elm wood keel
- Oak stem & sternpost
- Canadian rock elm timbers
- Bronze (2015) & copper fastened
- Believed pitch pine deck beams
- Pitch pine beam shelves & bilge stringers
- Teak laid deck on marine plywood (2015)
- Lead ballast keel. Bronze bolted (2015)
- Wood transom/ keel hung rudder
- Teak laid deck on marine plywood (2015)
- Teak superstructures
- Laminated silver spruce coachroof beams

GENERAL
- Teak laid deck
- Varnished king planks and covering boards
- Bronze stanchions and bases for double wire guard lines
- All fittings are bronze

FROM AFT

AFTER DECK
- Bronze mooring fairleads port & starboard on taffrail
- Bronze bumpkin fittings port & starboard
- Bronze mainsheet horse; ash block
- Ash mainsheet blocks port & starboard with springs
- Bronze cleats port & starboard
- Bronze mushroom vent
- Carved oak tiller

SELF-DRAINING COCKPIT
- Slightly raised sole to allow draining
- Capped coamings
- 2 x In-period bronze sheet winches
- Teak mainsheet cleats **port and starboard**
- 2 x Teak cleats inboard of coaming
- Bronze coamings protectors
- Teak laid fore and aft benches
- Lockers under port bench
- Bridge deck
- Teak laid raised sole with scuppers
- Manual bilge pump at aft bulkhead
- Kobelt bronze throttle control
- Winch handle pocket
- Raymarine Tridata repeater
- Steering compass at port house bulkhead

RAISED AFT CABIN TRUNK
- Sliding companionway hatch and garage
- Varnished teak handrails port & starboard
- Liferaft stowage
- 2 x large windows port & starboard of doghouse
- 2 x Small ports forward doghouse
- Bronze window/ port frames
- Bronze ventilator
- Bronze stove pipe fitting
- Bronze mast step tabernacle
- Bronze pinrails port and starboard
- Raised forehatch with portlight

SIDE DECKS
- Ash headsail blocks port & starboard with springs
- Deck tank fillers

FOREDECK
- Muir MV bronze vertical manual windlass (2015)
- Sampson post
- Chain pipe
- Rode pipe
- Miushroom vent
- Mooring fairleads port & starboard
- Stemhead fitting
- 2 x Bow rollers

GROUND TACKLE
- 2 x 25 lb/ 11.4 kg Anchors
- 50 m Chain

GENERAL
- The deck stepped mast offers increased space over keel-stepped
- Berths for three
- White painted 'pencil round' oak lining and varnished teak carpentry
- Oak sole
- 2 x Steps down over engine box

UNDER BRIDGE DECK
- Ship's isolator panel
- Beta engine panel

GALLEY TO PORT
- Beaten copper circular inset sink
- Brass manual water pump faucet
- Sink pump out plunger
- Taylors 2 x burner '028' gimballed paraffin hob
- Custom bronze hob top
- Plate and pot lockers

FULL LENGTH QUARTER BERTH TO STARBOARD
- (Drinks) locker and sideboard forward/ outboard

SALOON
- 2 x Settee berths with 'trotter boxes'
- Oak 'pencil round' backrests at an uncommonly comfortable angle
- Trotter box forward, port; aft, starboard
- Drop leaf saloon table on centreline
- Oil lamp
- Clock and barometer
- 'Faversham' solid fuel stove to port
- in copper lined alcove with drying rails
- Stove pipe angled to also heat fo'c'sle

LINED TEAK DOOR TO FO'C'SLE
- Hanging locker/ sail bin to starboard
- Stowage port & starboard Blakes sea toilet
- Chain locker forward
- Forehatch with portlight in deckhead

RIG
- Masthead sloop
- Deck-stepped spruce mast
- 2 x Pairs spreaders
- 2 x Period bronze halyard winches
- 2 x Associated teak cleats
- Whisker/ spinnaker pole track and fitting at leading edge
- Spruce roller furling boom; currently uses slab reefing
- Ash 'A' boomkin with bronze fittings; stays to transom
- Stainless steel standing rigging (2025)
- Standing backstay to boomkin
- Furlex headsail furler

SAILS
- Mainsail (Dacron, slab reefing) by North Sea Sails (2014)
- Genoa (Dacron)

CANVASWORK
- Spray hood
- Boom tent
- Mainsail boom cover
- Forehatch cover
- Liferaft canister cover
- Tender cover

MECHANICAL
- Beta Marine 20 hp diesel (2025)
- Stainless steel propeller shaft
- Darglow 'Featherstream' bronze 3-blade feathering propeller

ELECTRICAL
- 12 V DC System
- Domestic and engine battery banks
- Battery management system
- Charging by engine alternator
- 220 V Shore power connection

TANKAGE
Water
- 40 L / 9 Gal Stainless steel tank
Fuel
- 40 L / 9 Gal Stainless steel tank

NAVIGATION
- Steering compass
- Period Sestrel hand bearing compass (stowed in saloon)
- Raymarine ST60 Tri-data
- Compass, wind, depth

COMMUNICATIONS
- Standard Horizon VHF Radio

- 2 x Bilge pumps: manual in cockpit; electric auto in bilge
- First aid kit
- Fire extinguishers
- Fire blanket
- Flares
- Dan buoy
- Liferaft
- Radar reflector

- Inflatable tender with 5 hp outboard motor
- Metal-framed winter tent