Thornycroft 60 ft Auxiliary Ketch 1922/2025

TAHILLA entered present ownership in 2015, when the painstaking commitment began of restoring this perfectly proportioned 60-footer, full of romance, history (a Dunkirk Little Ship) and undoubted ability, to her present condition, interspersed whenever possible with summer cruising. Launched as SKYLARK from Thornycrofts’ Hampton Launch Works on the River Thames, perhaps as a 20th Century interpretation of a clan chieftain’s galley – certainly to perform as a laird’s pleasure yacht on the remote north west coast of Scotland – by 1940 she found herself embroiled in the trauma of war at Dunkirk, where her stout teak, oak and greenheart construction withstood air attacks. In a long and happy life TAHILLA has also been a race yacht mothership and a pioneer of the Mediterranean charter trade. Any past owner would immediately recognize TAHILLA’s exterior and hopefully be charmed by her tastefully updated, luxurious accommodation.

- This is a provisional set of details
- New photos to be added in the coming weeks

REFIT 2024-2025 - WILLETT MARINE, SHAMROCK QUAY, SOUTHAMPTON
- Letting in Tufnol load transfer rings around portholes
- Re-splining topsides
- Fairing and refinishing with Epifanes two-pack system

REFIT 2022-2023 - WILLETT MARINE, SHAMROCK QUAY, SOUTHAMPTON
- Reinforcing of horn timber and counter timber
- Replacement of iron ballast keel with lead ballast keel
- Replacement of iron and stainless steel keelbolts with bronze
- New rudder blade

REFIT 2020-2022 - WILLETT MARINE, SHAMROCK QUAY, SOUTHAMPTON
- New structural timber 'green' oak
- Replacement of centreline frames & floors fwd of engine room bulkhead
- 80% were replaced in total
- Complete replacement of the inner and outer stem to the wood keel
- Replacement bronze keel bolts for original iron and later stainless steel
- Replacement of entire foredeck
- including new sub-deck structure
- adding significant strength to further support the original structure
- Replacement 12 ft section of aft wood keel which joins with the original green heart wood keel.
- Revised engineering & plumbing systems for:
- the black water holding tanks
- engine
- generator cooling
- air conditioning cooling
- Revised key electrical / wiring systems in the bilge to modern standards
- Adding an oak doubler or short ‘Keelson’ timber
- to brace historic damage found in the centreline structure between Battery and Engine rooms
- Installation of 630 Ah Lithium Ion Po4 battery bank; new location fwd of engine room

REFIT 2015-2017 - MICHAEL DENNETT BOATBUILDERS, CHERTSEY, THAMES
(More info TBC)
- New (current) interior and systems
- Installation of 2 x new Nanni diesel engines and associated systems
- Installation of new WhisperPower generator and associated systems
- Exterior restoration work, in particular to aft trunk cabin

JOHN I. THORNYCROFT & CO. LTD. HAMPTON LAUNCH WORKS YARD NO. 1829
UK NATIONAL HISTORIC SHIPS REGISTRATION NO: 552

"Of more than usual interest is the twin-screw motor yacht Skylark, a sea-going auxiliary built by Messrs. John I. Thornycroft and Co., Ltd at their Hampton Works. She is a vessel of some 60ft. in length, with a beam of 13ft. and a draught of 4ft. 5in. Her stern is rounded off, and she has a neat counter stern giving a water line length of 50ft. She is very strongly constructed of teak, while the deck erections are also of teak."
[Hampshire Advertiser 9 September 1922]

In the 19th and 20th Centuries era of remarkable British engineering stories, the name John I. Thornycroft & Co. Ltd. stands out for the diversity of their output, much of it at the leading edge of technology. From the smallest and fastest of waterborne craft, and Thomas Lipton’s William Fife designed aluminium and bronze 1899 America’s Cup challenger SHAMROCK [I], to ships and warships up to 500 feet long, and road vehicles and engines of all types – all from multiple sites in southern England and abroad.

In 1922, the year TAHILLA was launched as SKYLARK from the Thornycroft Hampton Launch Works on the River Thames island of Platts Ayot, that site’s output included a lifeboat for the Chilean Navy, a fast launch for future author of ‘Whisky Galore’, Compton Mackenzie, high speed, stepped hull ‘Coastal Motor Boats’ (CMBs) for the US and Japanese Navies, and interestingly (considering the source of income of SKYLARK/ TAHILLA’s first owner, Walter Melville Wills of W.D. & H.O. Wills, Bristol), two CMBs for the Spanish Tobacco Monopoly.

In 1914, Wills purchased the West Highlands of Scotland shooting estate of Killilan near the head of Loch Long; Eilean Donan Castle, on the road to the Isle of Skye, famously guards the loch’s entrance. Included in the sale was the estate’s small steam yacht, ENEID, built at Birkenhead in 1896 and eventually replaced by the larger and more modern SKYLARK. Among the most important functions of a power yacht at such estates was the transportation of owner and guests to hunting and fishing locations accessible only by sea, and generally as a private means of transport and pleasure.

But first, in late May 1922, Tom Thornycroft seems to have persuaded Wills to bring SKYLARK to a remarkable event on the River Thames held between Albert and Chelsea bridges: a “Motor Boat Display” promoted by Thornycroft under the guise of the British Motor Boat Club, attended by around 50 vessels large and small, private and commercial, with activities including: “maneuvering ahead and astern while in line abreast", and “best uniform speed during turning circles”. This on an already busy waterway always populated by commercial tugs and barges.

SKYLARK appeared regularly in the yachting movements section of the Oban Times newspaper during Wills’s ownership between 1922 and 1925, presumably waiting for parties to arrive by train, though the alternative railhead of Kyle of Lochalsh, much closer to Killian, must also have been used. Wills eventually realised he needed a bigger boat for all these roles.

Retired Lancashire cotton merchant and philanthropist Thomas F. Tattersall became SKYLARK’S second owner during 1925 and she moved south to eventually spend most of her mid-life in Celtic seas, initially in North West Wales, at Conwy and later Beaumaris, from 1932 with Eccles, Lancashire mining engineer turned estate agent W. Egerton Wilson for whom she was mothership to his Fife One Design day racing sloop SIGLEN.

SKYLARK was in Wilson’s ownership when commandeered on the Thames by the Ministry of War Transport. She is recorded in May 1940 as one of the ‘Dunkirk Little Ships’ in the command of 28-year-old Sub-Lieutenant Marwood J.R. Yeatman. At Dunkirk, SKYLARK was strafed and disabled by enemy aircraft fire (during a 2021 structural refit she was found to still bear the scars in her old timbers). She was found abandoned by another Dunkirk Little Ship, “Southern Queen”, which towed both SKYLARK and the Eastbourne RNLI Lifeboat back to England. SKYLARK was repaired and continued in Admiralty service on harbour patrol and pilotage duties until 1947.

Although SKYLARK then returned to Wales, it was in the different ownership of industrialist (later Sir) W. Clayton Russon, MBE/ OBE. She may have been berthed at Caernarfon at this time,

Apart from the trauma of war, the first really big changes in her life happened in the middle 1950s. She was purchased in 1954, probably at Caernarfon (which then became her Port of Registry from the previous Bristol), by Richard Myles Rothwell, who, together with his brother, Rainshaw Norris had been one of David Boyd’s first ever design clients for the 40 ft auxiliary ketch LADY ANNE built by Alex. Robertson & Sons, Sandbank, Argyll in 1933; Robertsons remained Myles Rothwell’s postal address, though he was probably resident in the west of Ireland by 1954. Her name changed to the current TAHILLA, perhaps after a favourite anchorage on Kenmare Bay, County Kerry, and she was re-engined with 1943-built 60 hp 4-cylinder petrol-paraffin Thornycrofts (probably “RD/4s”), replacing the original 4-cylinder “M/4” 30 hp petrol-paraffin units (engines that were started on petrol but ran on paraffin).

The next major 1950s change was that TAHILLA’s owner from 1957, Lt. Col. John P.W. Samuelson, M.C. – who together and especially with his wife, Eleanor, née Dawson, were major and highly successful ("Night Nurse") racehorse breeders from Cloghran Stud, County Dublin – took the boat to the Mediterranean where she chartered on the French Riviera into the 1960s. In 1967 she was again re-engined, with Gardner LK 60 hp diesels (which the present owner still has).

TAHILLA’s penultimate, long-term owners (1969-2015), Jerry and Peggy Lewis, found TAHILLA apparently laid-up in a rundown state at Menton in 1969 and commenced a long period of refit mixed with use. In 1980 they returned her to the UK and a berth on the Hamble River. Since 1985, TAHILLA has attended every major, 5-yearly Commemorative Return to Dunkirk.

TAHILLA entered present ownership in 2015 when the painstaking commitment began of restoring this yacht full of character and history - and ability - to her present condition, interspersed whenever possible with summer cruising.

©2025 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.
(with acknowledgement also to the websites of TAHILLA and the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships)

- Carvel teak planking on oak frames
- Greenheart and oak wood keel
- Lead ballast keelbolted under wood keel (2023)
- Laid teak decks on plywood substrate

GENERAL
- Painted galvanized stanchions
- Varnished teak/ iroko rail;
- 'Gates' at port quarter and port & starboard
- Stainless steel guard wires
- Teak swept-laid deck; nibbed to covering boards fore and aft
- Varnished king planks and covering boards
- Varnished teak, iroko and mahogany superstructures
- All hull ports are double nickel coated

FROM AFT

AFT DECK
At taffrail
- Chromed mooring fairleads port & starboard
- Associated chafe strips
- Bronze ensign staff socket
- Stern light
Aft deck
- Chromed large raised mushroom vent
- Chromed mooring bollard cleats port & starboard at quarters
- Flush varnished lazarette/ steering flat hatch
- Tender stowage chocks

AFT CABIN TRUNK
- Laid teak roof with varnished teak margin boards
- Starboard side companionway
- Companionway hatch with light and doors
- Chromed opening ports to port, starboard, and aft
- Mizzen mast position; tabernacle
- Liferaft stowage point
- Engine room companionway to starboard

OUTSIDE HELM POSITION
- Extensive acrylic canopy
- Wood framed windscreen; 2 x wipers
- Traditional ship's wheel with chain drive
- Chromed binnacle; steering compass
- Chromed Kobelt throttle levers
- Engines monitoring displays
- B&G Navigation displays

SIDE DECKS
- Guard rail gates port & starboard
- Chromed bollard mooring/ sheeting cleats port & starboard

'SUNK' DECKHOUSE/ DAY CABIN
- Access from port only (starboard door disabled)
- Searchlight
- Horns
- Varnished grabrails port and starboard
- Port & starboard navigation lights
- Chromed Dunkirk Little Ships plaque
- Chromed ship's bell
- 'Lean-to' skylights port and starboard forward
- 'Lean-to' locker forward

FOREDECK
- Large raised butterfly skylight over saloon and galley
- Mainmast position
- Galvanised painted tabernacle
- Chromed mooring bollard cleats port & starboard
- Smaller raised skylight over forward WC
- Raised, capped forward bulwarks port & starboard
- Oak stanchions

GROUND TACKLE
- Lofrans Titan electro-hydraulic windlass
- Horizontal chain gypsy
- Horizontal & vertical warping drums
- 100+ m of Galvanised anchor chain
- 2 x 40 m Octoplait buff floating mooring lines for stern to (fjord-style mooring)
- 'Ultra' stainless steel bower anchor in launcher
- Fortress folding kedge anchor

'SUNK' DECK HOUSE/ DAY CABIN
- Port side entry only
- Braided leather covered grabrail
- Varnished oak sole; locker
- Sideboard to port
- L settees aft and to starboard
- Companionway stair down to forward accommodation
- Ship's barometer and clock
- 2 x Chromed opening ports
- 4 x Deckhead lamps
- Red/ white lighting

FORWARD ACCOMMODATION
- Down 6 x steps to short lobby
- Varnished oak sole
- Braided leather covered handrail

GUEST CABIN TO STARBOARD
- Entrance door with custom disc handle rosette
- Varnished oak sole
- Corner seat forward starboard
- Athwartships double berth aft
- Stowage under
- Reading lamp
- Bulkhead lamp with shade
- 2 x Chromed opening ports

WC/ SHOWER COMPARTMENT TO PORT
- Entrance door with custom disc handle rosette
- Varnished oak sole
- Ceramic bowl in marble and brass frame/ top
- Electric flush toilet
- Bulkhead lamps
- 2 x Chromed opening ports

FORWARD TO SALOON
- Entrance door with custom disc handle
- Varnished oak sole
- 'Bar' Shelving at aft bulkhead port& starboard
- Bottle stowage; custom glasses stowage
- Settees to port and starboard
- Drop leaf glass and hardwood table on centreline
- Sideboards to port and starboard; lockers and shelves
- Bulkhead lamps
- 4 x Chromed opening ports
- Large butterfly skylight in deckhead

FORWARD TO GALLEY
- Varnished oak sole
- White marble counter tops port & starboard
- Stowage under
- Microwave oven to port; fiddled shelf over
- Inset stainless steel sink to port forward; mixer taps
- Oven to starboard; fiddled shelf over
- Inset electric induction hob to starboard forward
- Downlighters in deckhead
- 4 x Chromed opening ports
- Smaller butterfly skylight in deckhead

FORWARD TO WC/ SHOWER COMPARTMENT
- Double leaf door with custom disc handle rosette
- Electric flush toilet
- Marble counters port & starboard
- Stowage under
- Mirrors port, starboard, and forward
- Fiddled shelves over
- Teak grating sole
- 2 x bulkhead lamps
- 2 x Chromed opening ports

AFT ACCOMMODATION
- Companionway at starboard side of trunk cabin
- 4 x Steps down
- Athwartships double berth forward
- Stowage under
- William Holland copper freestanding bath aft
- Copper mixer tap
- L-Marble top surface starboard and aft with inset copper basin
- Copper mixer tap
- 3 x Downlighters
- Electric flush toilet concealed in under side deck locker to port
- Downlighter
- Bulkhead lights
- Shaded lamps
- 5 x Chromed opening ports

RIG
- Auxiliary gaff ketch rig
- Main mast in tabernacle
- Single spreaders set
- Gaff
- Mizzen mast in tabernacle
- Single spreaders set
- Radome
- Mizzen gaff
- Mizzen boom
- Stainless steel standing rigging
- All associated tackles and running rigging
- Tender hoisting and launching boom (stowed at foredeck)

SAILS
- Loose-footed gaff mainsail
- Mizzen
- Foresail
- Self-tacking motoring headsail with removable flush deck gear

CANVASWORK
- Canopy over helm position
- Boom covers for mainsail and mizzen
- Hanked-on cover for foresail
- Tender cover

MECHANICAL
- 2 x Nanni 110 hp diesels (2017)
- Cruising Speed: 8 knots
- Top speed: 10.5 knots
- 2 x Stainless steel shafts
- 2 x A-Brackets
- 2 x Bronze 3-bladed propellers

MECHANICAL/ ELECTRICAL
- WhisperPower Hybrid Generator M-GV3 (2017)

ELECTRICAL
- WhisperPower 630 Ah Lithium ion Po4 battery bank (2017)
- WhisperPower AC Power Cube 24/14000 Sine wave inverter (2017)
- 2 x WhisperPower DC Power Cube 24/150 Battery charger/ power supply (2017)

TANKAGE
Water
- Shenker 100 L/hr water maker (located in lazarette)
- 2 x 500 L / 110 Gals Plastic TekTanks (1 x to port; 1 x to starboard)
Fuel
- 2 x 700 L / 154 Gals stainless steel tanks (1 x to port; 1 x to starboard)
Waste
- 1 x 400 L Plastic TekTanks blackwater tank for all WCs
- Gravity discharge and macerator pump discharge
- Flush deck fitting for shore pump-out
- 3 x Plastic TekTanks greywater tanks

OTHER
- Air conditioning (condensation drains to grey water system)
- Eberspächer Diesel wet heating system (throughout the boat)
- Heater unit located in lazarette
- 220 V Ice maker (located in battery room)

NAVIGATION
- Magnetic steering compass
- B&G System (2017)
- Triton Multifunction Display (MFD)
- High powered depth and FL echo sounder

COMMUNICATIONS
- B&G VHF Radio (2017)

- 4-Person liferaft
- 1 x Foam throwable life ring
- Emergency tiller (at lazarette)
- Manual bilge pump (at lazarette)
- 4 x Auto electric bilge pumps
- Seafire fully integrated engine room fire system
- Dedicated fire system for lithium ion battery bank
- Fire extinguishers throughout boat
- Fire blanket at galley
- Navigation lights for both mast-up and mast-down

- 12 ft Gaff-rigged 1923-built Alfred Mylne dinghy, 'SKYLARK'
- Oars, rowing rudder and tiller, steel center plate
- Motoring pad on transom
- Pole-masted gaff sailing kit
- ePropulsion electric outboard with 2 batteries
- Varnished boarding steps for midships - dinghy use