History
WILLIAM FIFE & SON YARD NO. 640
“More extreme boats, and less extreme boats than the really beautiful 90-ton yawl for Lord Sackville have been built at Fairlie. Speaking, however, with a close personal knowledge of about 50 years’ duration of the yard of Messrs. Fife, we should say there has not been fashioned in it one in which the best elements of several types have been better or more harmoniously blended… She is a very heavily wooded boat, and so perfectly has she been put together that she looks as if she should, bar accidents, wear for, well, say a hundred years.”
The Yachtsman, 19 March 1914
“The big handicap class… raced around the coast, and during the later 1920s was dominated by two beautiful yawls built by Fife and sailed by Essex crews. Sir William Burton’s RENDEZVOUS, launched in 1913, was an elegant 87 footer sailed by Captain James Barnard of Rowhedge and his great rival was Hugh Paul’s SUMURUN, a fast 94 footer sailed by Captain Nat Gurten of Tollesbury. Both boats set 5,500 square feet of canvas and, immaculately kept and sailed, were examples of the very best type of yacht produced in any period of the sport.”
John Leather, The Northseamen, 1971
Reputedly commissioned as a love token cruising yacht gift from Victoria Sackville-West to her husband Lionel Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville - did strict Presbyterian William Fife Junior ('III') have a twinkle in his eye as he honed the half model that would be used to loft her sweet lines? This was to be no ordinary cruising yacht.
Fife knew such yachts as 'Fast Cruisers' - nowadays we call them 'Cruiser-Racers' - but SUMURUN is surely 'Racer-Cruiser'. In fact, SUMURUN is everything, and that is the essence of a William Fife Fast Cruiser: wholesome; stoutly and beautifully constructed; exquisitely finished and fitted out, sea kindly - and fast.
SUMURUN’s beautifully drawn-out overhangs certainly suggest more than a nod to racing pretensions, commented on by those in the know as soon as she was launched on Wednesday 29th April 1914, but the yawl’s early forays on the regatta circuit in the command of Captain Robert Wringe of Brightlingsea (a veteran of Thomas Lipton’s first three SHAMROCK America’s Cup Challenges) were short lived. The First World War broke out on the eve of Cowes Week 1914 and the yawl would spend the next five seasons laid up.
First class yachting was slow to revive after the armistice, with King George V leading the way in 1920 by commissioning BRITANNIA. SUMURUN joined in, and either side of Cowes Week enjoyed extended cruises ‘down channel’, but Sackville-West had other things on his mind - and perhaps health issues. SUMURUN’s early 1920s moment of glory was taking line honours in the Royal Yacht Squadron’s 1922 Cowes Week King’s Cup regatta over a first class fleet that included her Fife stablemate fast cruising ketch VALDORA and the mighty Big Class cutter TERPSICHORE (later LULWORTH).
SUMURUN’s early period racing heyday would come during the late 1920s under the new ownership of Ipswich maltster and Rear-Commodore of Royal Harwich Yacht Club (and member of many others) Hugh F. Paul. In particular, her races against fellow RHYC flag officer, Vice-Commodore William P. Burton’s one-year-older, similar concept, slightly smaller and lighter Fife “Cruising 17-Metre” yawl RENDEZVOUS became something of legend – beautifully described above by John Leather.
Hugh Paul was considered a good amateur helmsman - still relatively unusual for the time. Hugh and his wife 'Maudie' would spend extended periods living aboard during the regatta season which always started early summer in south east England, and often took in the Clyde and Dublin regattas before returning south in time for Cowes Week in August.
Towards the end of the 1930 season Hugh Paul purchased the Nicholson 23-Metre ASTRA and optimised her to compete very successfully with the J-Class. SUMURUN required a new suitor who eventually appeared in 1932: entrepreneur and successful racehorse owner Frederick W. Shenstone.
During Shenstone’s ownership SUMURUN was a bona fide cruiser and very occasional racer; she was converted to Bermudan Ketch rig and received her first engine, a trusty 4-cylinder Gardner diesel. Although Shenstone lived in Sussex, Lloyd’s survey data through the period of his ownership – until 1951 – suggests she may have been based at Dartmouth or Brixham, though she is believed to have spent the Second World War very carefully laid up in a Hamble River mud berth. She somehow kept her original lead keel.
Some of SUMURUN’s competitors from these between-the-wars seasons are still with us: the 15-Metre THE LADY ANNE (Fife 1912), the 19-Metre MARIQUITA (Fife 1911), the fast cruiser MOONBEAM IV (Fife 1915/1920), LULWORTH, and the Nicholson J-Class boats SHAMROCK V, ASTRA and CANDIDA.
SUMURUN left the UK for the Mediterranean in 1951, renamed ERNA under the 4th ownership of London-based Greek shipowner Dimitrios Dionysos Stathatos who cruised her on the Côte d’Azure, eventually under reduced rig and with a more powerful engine. In 1960 ERNA was purchased by John Lubbock, 3rd Baron Avebury who cruised out of Gibraltar, spending long periods living on board – who wouldn’t?!
In 1966 ERNA’s life as a charter yacht began after transfer of ownership to Dutch oil man Sam Johanahoff. She became one of the beautiful people of Saint-Tropez, and then of Antibes when owned, sailed and offered for charter as ERNA OF FAIRLIE by Mrs Monique Vella-Brandt between 1979 and 1983.
A regular Cannes Film Festival charterer, American Robert Towbin, eventually was so smitten that he bought SUMURUN when the opportunity arose in 1983. This love affair would be the longest in SUMURUN’s long and happy life. When her centenary was celebrated in 2014 at the New York Yacht Club’s Harbour Court, Newport, Rhode Island station they’d been together for 31 years, and she received an award from Lloyd's Register for remaining 'In-Class' in their top wooden yacht Classification (18A1 1914-1957, later ✠100A1 1958-2014) for 100 years.
Bob Towbin would re-introduce SUMURUN to racing, and her ocean racing debut, as the “classic yacht revival” evolved. Of course, she took to it with relish. Notable results from this period include:
1989 - Antigua Classic Regatta Overall
1997 - 1st in Class NYYC/RYS Rolex Transatlantic Challenge - Newport RI – Lizard
1997 - 1st, Vele d’Epoca, Imperia
1997 - 1st, Cannes Régates Royales
2002 - Antigua Classic Regatta Overall
2005 - 1st, Cannes Régates Royales
2013 - Antigua Classic Regatta Overall
2015 - 1st in Class RYS Bicentenary Regatta
Bob Towbin’s final fling with SUMURUN in the Mediterranean was at the 2016 edition of Les Voiles de Saint Tropez, after which she transferred to present ownership and entered an extended period of refit, and the Yan Juan Kouyoumdjian rig re-design covered elsewhere here. The work was completed in the late summer of 2019, just in time to allow a stormy but triumphant return to the Mediterranean, winning first in class at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez.
SUMURUN is back doing what she does best: standing up to her canvas in big breezes, thrilling all aboard, winning prizes, and offering a superb après-race home to her owner, guests and crew. And she's ready to return to the oceans.
©2024 Iain McAllister/ Sandeman Yacht Company Ltd.
[also acknowledging the research and writing of Jacques Taglang]