The past weekend’s weather experience of “Four Seasons In A Day” may have disrupted the sailing programme for the Crosshaven Traditional Boat Weekend, but some interesting boats had made their way to the venue beforehand, and classic yacht connoisseurs had the unusual experience of seeing two Fred Shepherd-designed beauties side-by-side. Fred Shepherd (1869-1969) may have lived to be a Centenarian, but his active career was for 45 years, with World War II in 1939 effectively concluding it. He was noted for the meticulous creation of seaworthy and good-looking performance cruisers, with personal attention to the building process.
Though he was based in London and later Hampshire, the thoroughness of his approach meant that there were just 84 yachts built to his designs, and finding two in one place is rare indeed these days, but as ever Crosshaven has risen to the challenge. TYRRELL OF ARKLOW In 1934, noted Irish sailor Billy Mooney of Howth and then - after 1943 - Dun Laoghaire-based, used Shepherd’s internationally-recognised talent to turn his own personal sketches and ideas-list into the famous Tyrrell-of-Arklow-built gaff-rigged 42ft ketch canoe-sterned Aideen in 1934. Stern situation or counter productive? Two very different sterns, yet from the same design board.
Photo: Darryl Hughes Having Fred Shepherd as the designer gave Aideen internationally-recognised credentials. But despite the skipper’s continuing enthusiasm for traditional-looking gaff rig, Aideen w.