Yard No 176, first registered as ALMARA
This yacht was designed by C.E.Nicholson and launched from our Gosport yard in 1907. Built as a wood gaff ketch for Major H.W. Calverley. In 1911 she was sold and renamed JOYETTE and spent the first World War in Copenhagen. Brought back to Portsmouth we fitted a Bergius auxiliary engine in 1923 with the propeller on the quarter.
During the WWII she was laid up in the Gosport yard but in the air raids of 1941 lost all her sails and rig, the lead keel was also removed.
After the war she was moved to a mud berth at Universal Shipyard on the Hamble river with a number of other large yachts. In 1965 she was towed to Solent Power Boat Services where the copper sheathing was removed, a second hand rudder installed and the planking re-fastened with Cupro Nickel Gripfast nails.There was also work done on the sternpost as Belsize Boatyard provided a second hand Perkins diesel with a centreline shaft and propeller. She was then taken to Hamble to load 8 tons of iron ballast and then motored up Channel to Kew Bridge on the Thames where she stayed until 1967 when she was taken to our Southampton yard for a refit in 1968when she was fitted with a new steel and concrete box ballast keel and a 6 cylinder 125 H.P. Perkins diesel and rigged as a staysail schooner.
By 1989 she had been given a major refit still rigged as a bermudan staysail schooner.She took part in the 1992 Imperia Classic Regatta and also the Saint Tropez Regatta in 1995.
Charles Nicholson wrote ‘I always think her one of the nicest I have ever designed’.
Please see the book ‘Charles E. Nicholson and His Yachts’ by Franco Pace & William Collier. 2000.
In March 2014 she was lying afloat in Genoa but seized by a bank without decking or interior. She was purchased and taken to shipyard Postiglione in Naples for a refit but the outcome is still not known.
Particulars
Length Overall 89.75’
Length Between Perpendiculars 75.0’
Length Waterline 61.75’Later 66.73’?
Beam 17.00’
Draught 10.25’
Sail No. 17
TonnageT.M. 89 tons
Official Number 123313
Signal Letters H K P L
OWNERS LIST
1907 – 1909 ALMARA Major H.W. Calverley Portsmouth
1910 – 1911 JOYETTE Hamilton Fletcher Portsmouth
1912 – 1914 JOYETTE Carl Holber Holbek Copenhagen
1915 – 1919 JOYETTE Carl Petersen Copenhagen
1920 – 1922 JOYETTE Capt. Cecil W. P. Slade Portsmouth
1923 – 1937 JOYETTE John E. Humphery Portsmouth
1938 – 1939 JOYETTE Sir Osborn G. Holmden K.B.E. Portsmouth
1946 – 1951 JOYETTE Comdr. H.J.Mason Hamble(Universals)
1952 – 1964 JOYETTE David Heather Hamble(Universals)
1965 – 1968 JOYETTE Cyril F.Hartmann,(Australian), Jean-Louis Daeschler, David Heather Thames (Kew Bridge)
1969 – 1971 JOYETTE Cyril F.Hartmann Thames (Kew Bridge)
1971 – 1974 JOYETTE Joyette Ltd. (Werner Humpel Mgr.) Not Known