Hard life

Whirlwind II , with owner Yarrow Thorne at the helm. Photo by Alison Langley After two decades on the staff of Classic Boat, it's not that often I see a photo and think... holy shit. A lovely yacht by Fife or Watson won't quite do it any more (my own fault; too much eye candy rots your brain). Neither will a normal catboat – the sort we Brits think of when we think of the type: half as beamy as it's long, mast as thick as Jeff Capes's forearm, mad-looking barndoor tiller hung

Another survey complete, this one on a timber cold-moulded Colin Archer style cutter, built in 2006, in Ipswich, Suffolk, and with surveyor friend Dan Hawkes in tow. Just like the good old days!

I was struck, once again, by the sober elegance of a properly painted coveline. This one is on a 1980 Kim Holman-designed Twister 28 (the GRP version of his original, wooden Twister). The boat was recently and quite comprehensively restored, and on a recent visit to sound her out our for an owner with a few to a pre-purchase survey, I found myself wondering: exactly when did off-white and dark blue hulls with painted, gold-coloured cove lines give way to toothpaste-white hull

The history of yachting, whether under press of the wind or turn of the screw, is frequently punctuated by stand-out designs that were originally hashed together by a committee (the Folkboat), designed by completely forgotten or one-hit-wonder yacht designers ( Grayling, Partridge and countless more) or conceived to be affordable. It seems hard to believe now, when we look at something like a West Solent Restricted One-Design (the name is not the catchiest), that it was one o