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by Richard Humby (Author)
It is April 1955 and Brian & Freda Humby are honeymooning in the New Forest, Hampshire, England. Being keen sailors both having their own small boats its no wonder that they spent their time exploring the harbours and swatch ways of the Solent coast. Eventually this led them to a village called Bucklers Hard situated on the banks of the Beaulieu River, a sheltered navigable creek leading to the Solent. Bucklers Hard is well known for its 18th century shipbuilding drawing on the timber resources of the New Forest area. Although ship building at scale had largely died out, it had by the 1950's become a centre for yachting.
Close the to village moored in a mud-berth they found the somewhat neglected yacht 'Gwenili', a 38ft gaff yawl. They made enquiries at the local boat yard and found that she was indeed for sale. Eventually money changed hands and a few weeks later accompanied by a group of friends they set sail for Pin Mill on the East Coast of England. Pin Mill would be Gwenili's home for the next 44 years until in 1999, having lost Freda a few years earlier Brian felt unable to look after her in the way he would have liked and begrudgingly sold her.
The author Richard and younger brother Jon grew up in a world where everything revolved around the sailing seasons - winter maintenance, spring fitting out, summer weekends away and cruising, autumn laying up and packing away at the end of the year. This book gives an insight into not just our lives but those of the people who sailed with us and how sailing life was in those times.
Although principally concerned with 'Gwenili' from 1955 on, we go back to begin a couple years earlier with a cruise in 'Matariki' and adventures with 'Ariel' a Hornet dinghy. We also touch on 'Scud', fathers first boat that he sailed in the late 1930's, before WW2 broke out. During the early years Gwenili's log keeping was fastidiously maintained but as time progressed the records show this becoming more and more casual and indeed, records for many of the later years have been lost. 'Gwenili' eventually passed through the hands of two further owners before being sold to an overseas buyer and shipped to Thessaloniki, Greece in 2019. However, she remains on the National Historic Ships UK Register, number 2323.
