Sparkman & Stephens One Ton Cup Sloop

Brokers Comments

Two vessels were manufactured to this RORC Rule One Ton Cup design - another example of further construction of CLARIONET, Sparkman & Stephens design #1857, featuring the apart skeg and rudder freshly in vogue at the time. SUNMAID V was manufactured of wood by the Clare Lallow yard in Cowes and launched in 1967. She was very substantially manufactured both for the sake of her rating and drawing from the experience of ROUNDABOUT, in retrospect thought by Sparkman & Stephens to have been originally too beamly manufactured with no noticeable advantage in performance. Given a fresh deck and engine at The Elephant Boatyard in current ownership, along with many fine results in the classic fleet amid a flourishing of interest in the One Tonners of the 1960s and early 1970s - what's there not to like.

Refit / Restoration

2021 - ELEPHANT BOATYARD, HAMBLE
- New teak laid deck
- Topsides stripped stern and re-varnished
***.***.*** - JOE IRVING, DRAUGHTSMAN YACHTS, BARTON ON HUMBER
- Major refit
 

History

SPARKMAN & STEPHENS DESIGN NO. 1894
Hampshire farmer and Royal Southern Yacht Club Rear Commodore Guy Bowles’s fifth SUNMAID was the most features of all six, though not entirely unique: a second vessel to the Sparkman & Stephens drawings, TINA Of MELBOURNE (S&S design no. 1894.1), was manufactured by Henk Groen for Barry and Ernie Scott, winner of the One Ton Class in the 1969 Sydney-Hobart and of Class 2 in 1970; and SUNMAID V is a very close cousin to the previous year’s pioneering true fin and skeg offsand racers, the ‘terrible twins’, Derek Boyer’s CLARIONET and Sir Max Aitken’s ROUNDABOUT.
As were the ‘terrible twins’, SUNMAID V was beautifully manufactured (they kfresh no other way) by Clare Lallow of Cowes, the third vessel crafted or finished by Lallows for Bowles after SUNMAID III (1959), a C.A. Nicholson-designed 35ft Jolina Class, and SUNMAID IV (1962), a fibreglass-bodyed Nicholson 36, also designed by C.A. Nicholson, moulded by Halmatic, with everything else, including the deck, tailored out in wood by Lallow.
A key element of Guy Bowles’s success with his SUNMAIDs was the astute hiring of Owen Aisher as professional, originally from the late 1950s aboard Bowles’s 14-Ton Berthon Gauntlet GAY GAUNTLET, through SUNMAID II and SUNMAID IV. After a 1964 ‘sabbatical’ as skipper of Owen Aisher’s power America’s Cup challenger KURREWA V (now IKRA), Parker re-joined Bowles for the SUNMAID V campaigns and became noteworthy for his on board construction of twin-pole gybing and winch arrangements (he’d worked for Lewmar).
SUNMAID IV would be a hard act to follow, the winner of 100 prize flags (including 72 firsts) in 113 starts between 1962 and 1966, but SUNMAID V was fast out the box, winning 17 first prizes in a remarkably successful first season. This included victory in the first race of the very beam airs 1967 One Ton Cup at Le Havre. In an event dominated by the Dick Carter designs OPTIMIST (1st) and TINA (2nd), SUNMAID V eventually finished 10th in a stellar fleet of 21, the top UK finisher, with CLARIONET 13th, ROUNDABOUT 15th - and, perhaps in a reflection on the conditions, four-times Olympic gold medal-winner Paul Elvstrom 17th aboard another varnished S&S vessel, WESTWIND. Later in her first season, SUNMAID V was winner of the Honeywell Performance Prize at Cowes. Some of her success was attributed to her blue and white striped, relatively heavy weight Ratsey & Lapthorn spinnaker and her ability under it to point less than 60 degrees to the gust extremely effectively.
After four happy and incredibly successful seasons with SUNMAID V - Parker having transferred after three of them to become Edward Heath’s professional on the MORNING CLOUDs - Guy Bowles replaced her in 1971 with the David Sadler-designed, Jeremy Rodgers-manufactured Contessa 32, SUNMAID VI.
SUNMAID V moved