The glass ceiling... the growing GRP refit scene, exemplified by Norseman

Twenty years ago, the idea of taking 'glassics' seriously just didn't exist. The classic yacht scene was indelibly linked to the big wooden interwar yachts like Altair, Creole and Moonbeam, and the people who owned them, impossibly glamorous sorts like the Ferrari collector Albert Obrist and the fashion heiress Allegra Gucci. That continues today; witness the beauty of Silicone Valley billionaire Jim Clark's Atlantide, fresh out of a big job at Royal Huisman in the Netherlands (my feature on this is in the current, July issue of Classic Boat); see the way Patrizio Bertelli and Miucci Prada go in for classic yachts... an America's Cup campaign is just the tip of the iceberg – their collection of classics grows and grows. That has never been, as some would have you believe, a problem. Quite the opposite, in fact. Quite aside from heightening the image of classic sailing, the network put in place – new boatyards, sailcloth and so on – is the driving force behind hundreds of smaller restorations and new-builds that have followed. But it has at times encouraged a monopoly of value... the Fife-opoly you might call it.

It all changed 20 years ago when Irish yachtsman Hal Sisk took the same, meticulous, no-holds-barred approach to the restoration of the 36ft (11m), one-off, 19th-century GL Watson yacht Peggy Bawn, and since then, there has been a flood of high-budget, best-practice restorations of smaller yachts. It all started changing again, about a decade ago, when people started taking classic GRP yachts more seriously. Yachts like the S&S Swans from the 1960s (34 and 36), Contessa 32s (they just built a new one this year too!), the early Nicholsons (43, 55 and others), glass Twisters and so on, started getting 'the treatment', their owners knowing that in heavy solid lay-up glass, these boats, the same beautiful shapes as their wooden ancestors, might las as long as the Pyramids. The recent restoration of Norseman, designed in 1965 by Olin Stephens and built at Teksoglass in Finland two years later, is a perfect example of the breed. You can read all about her, and her restoration under owner Pal Einar, by clicking here.