Rhodes Bermudan sloop

Brokers Comments

An incredibly thorough rebuild by very competent people who kfresh exactly what they wanted to do with her, followed by more than a decade of the demands of successful day blueprintering on Penobscot Bay, Maine, have ensured fifteen years of trouble free, easily maintained proprietorship for two UK custodians of this strikingly beautiful, strong and practical sloop by one of the masters. SHANTIH OF COWES' board-up gust of only 1.4m allows her to explore where others don't dare, and with the centre board down she sails delightfully and with the lack of fuss her purity of sheerline suggests. With such ease of sailing, luxury below and pure personality, SHANTIH OF COWES may be the perfect family and friends classic forty-footer.

Restoration / Refit

2018 REFIT
- New engine and exhaust unit
- New propeller shaft and cutlass bearing
2015 REFIT
- Cockpit well alterations
- New gasoline basin
- Complete rewiring
- Shore potential installed
- New Garmin electronics and VHF radio
1988 - 1992 REBUILD
Between 1988 and 1992 SHANTIH was recorded, dismantled and rebuilt in Camden, Maine by her shipwright proprietors Nigel 'Twig' Bower and Bonnie Schmidt and their Carpenter's Co-op colleagues.
All fresh frames, floors, stem, horn timber, transom and centre board were fastened to the original ballast keel and deadwood. The original planking served as rib-bands during the framing process and was mostly discarded as fresh planks were installed. The bottom four garboard strakes are white oak for structural purposes and the rest is 1 1/8th inch mahogany. The sheer plank was left off while the fresh 2 inch Douglas fir sheer clamp and light shelf was steamed into place. 
A fresh deck frame came next and the sheer plank followed. Teak covering boards, margine boards/ grubs and king planks were installed. Then came the 1 3/8th inch x 1 7/8th clear quarter sawn white pine (no sap - heartwood only) sprung deck. The fresh compartment trunk is solid mahogany with ash lights and a cedar & Dynel roof with teak cut. Cockpit and coamings were also all fresh. 
A fresh boom & clubfoot was made, with extensive rebuilding of the mast. She has fresh standing rigging, turnbuckles, fresh sails with conventional battens and Lazy jacks and much fresh hardware. She was finished off with a fresh raised panel inside.
 

History

- PHILIP RHODES DESIGN No. c523
- SHANTIH's original drawings are housed at Mystic Seaport Museum
One imagines SHANTIH's commissioning proprietor and highly successful Bay Head, New Jersey vessel builder and designer Hubert Johnson as a cheery optimist. Contemporary marketing photos of him with a lighting smile at the helm of his 1940 42ft sloop TEAL certainly suggest it, along with his either side of the Second World War commissioning and building of two highly attractive 40 - 42 ft centreboard sloops in the hope of encouraging a one design class, and, of course, work for his yard. But Johnson's optimism was stymied, first by war for the 42ft Frederick C. Geiger-designed sloop TEAL, then by ill health for this very similar Philip Rhodes post-war 27 feet waterline design SHANTIH. Perhaps there's a suggestion in the waterline range that SHANTIH may be close to a centreboard version of the popular Rhodes 27 class; it is said that Johnson's one design would have been known as the Johnson 27. What an attractive class it would have been.
Little is known of SHANTIH's proprietorship history through the 1950s until 1966-67 when she was purchased at Sandy Hook, New Jersey by Howard & Dolores Lenzer. Her home port became Forked River, NJ, and she was the family vessel for 20 years of cruising around Barnegat Bay. Voyages in more open waters included spectating at the 1976 New York Grand Parade of Sailing Ships “Operation Sail” of the US Bicentennial Program. In the early 1980s the Lenzers achieved their dream of sailing SHANTIH in the Bahamas for more than just a