At the beginning of the last
century the rapid evolution of yacting brought a rather chaotic
situation in regards to rating as applied to regattas. Practically
every club of some importance had it’s own regulations prejudicing
in this way the international status of the competition. To put an end
to this situation, a conference, which took place in London in 1906
concerning all the countries involved, established a single rule: the
International Rule, which came into effect a couple of years later and
was subdivided into different metric classes: 4m,5.5m, 6m, 8m, 12m,
15m, 19m, 23m. These measurements were not related to the length of
the hull, but were the result of the rating formula. When A.Richardson
set himself up in 1907 to work on designing WHITE HEATHER, (this was
VARUNA’s original name), he probably had the need to create a hull
which was appropriate to the formula of the 12 meter class, but also
the desire to design something which, even though smaller in
proportion, was the most similar to the beloved BRITANNIA, GEORGE V’s
royal yacht. Philip & Son shipyard in Dartmouth had the task of
handling the precious Burmese teak used for the construction. Legend
has it that a chosen cargo of the exotic timber was imported at the
beginning of the 1800’s by a Lord, ancestor of the shipowner. The
wood was stored to mature in one of the many peat-bogs which
surrounded the English coastline while waiting for the right
application. The
war destroyed the shipyard archives therefore not much is known about
the construction of VARUNA. Successive witnesses say she was used as a
trial horse for other 12 meters and also engaged in long cruises in
the Baltic sea and along the Scottish coast. The international rating
foresaw for it’s major different classes, from 8m and above, living
space with a minimum of comfort, as the gentlemen who participated in
regattas in the Solent were arriving there under sail on board their
“twelves”. The 30’s brought a change from the splendid gaff rig
to the handier Marconi, the installation of the engine and a new name:
Classic yacht VARUNA .An English lady descendant of the first owner,
and herself owner until the ‘70’s, recalls how in Cowes, where
VARUNA cruised frequently, she was nicknamed “Little Britannia”,
due to her resemblance to the Royal yacht. Quite different from the
appearance of the boat in the last thirty years of the century, marked
by long-term neglect on the clear Caribbean coast or at the bottom of
Mediterranean ports, by poor maintenance and botched pieces of work;
the beginning, in a word, of a sad, last route that leads old boats to
their final mooring. But evidently, and perhaps due to the personal
interest of the Indian divinity, Varuna, in charge of the waters and
of the seas and also of the multiple deities in the crowded Hindu
pantheon, quite a different karma awaited VARUNA’s Fate. And so she
awoke one fine May morning in the Imperia shipyard, surrounded by the
loving cares of Mario Quaranta and his carpenters.
12
metre S.I. for contact +39 0142.456566 / +39 335 7242088 - Email : luigi@italnet.it
The
war destroyed the shipyard archives therefore not much is known about
the construction of VARUNA. Successive witnesses say she was used as a
trial horse for other 12 meters and also engaged in long cruises in
the Baltic sea and along the Scottish coast. The international rating
foresaw for it’s major different classes, from 8m and above, living
space with a minimum of comfort, as the gentlemen who participated in
regattas in the Solent were arriving there under sail on board their
“twelves”. The 30’s brought a change from the splendid gaff rig
to the handier Marconi, the installation of the engine and a new name:
Classic yacht VARUNA .An English lady descendant of the first owner,
and herself owner until the ‘70’s, recalls how in Cowes, where
VARUNA cruised frequently, she was nicknamed “Little Britannia”,
due to her resemblance to the Royal yacht. Quite different from the
appearance of the boat in the last thirty years of the century, marked
by long-term neglect on the clear Caribbean coast or at the bottom of
Mediterranean ports, by poor maintenance and botched pieces of work;
the beginning, in a word, of a sad, last route that leads old boats to
their final mooring. But evidently, and perhaps due to the personal
interest of the Indian divinity, Varuna, in charge of the waters and
of the seas and also of the multiple deities in the crowded Hindu
pantheon, quite a different karma awaited VARUNA’s Fate. And so she
awoke one fine May morning in the Imperia shipyard, surrounded by the
loving cares of Mario Quaranta and his carpenters.