HERITAGE, VINTAGE AND CLASSIC YACHTS +44 (0)1202 330 077 60 FT JOHN ALDEN GAFF DOUBLE TOPSAIL SCHOONER 1939/1946 - SOLD Specification DIRIGO II 60 FT JOHN ALDEN GAFF DOUBLE TOPSAIL SCHOONER 1939/1946 Designer John G Alden Length waterline 45 ft 0 in / 13.72 m Engine Yanmar 4JH2-UTE 100 HP Builder Goudy & Stevens, E Boothbay, Maine Beam 15 ft 7 in / 4.75 m Location USA Date 1939 Draft 7 ft 10 in / 2.39 m Price Sold Length overall 72 ft 0 in / 21.95 m Displacement 49 Tonnes Length deck 60 ft 5 in / 18.41 m Construction Carvel, plank on frame These details are provisional and may be amended Specification BROKER'S COMMENTS DIRIGO II is a fully functional classic schooner yacht of impeccable pedigree, still sailing the ocean doing what she was intended and built for - which is to take family, friends, and crew on adventures: voyaging and sailing in style, in both communal and private comfort, and safely. Two major structural refits under present ownership since 2010 leave this handsome and proven schooner a long way from retirement sitting at a dock as another pretty face. In fact her 2019 summer cruise was 6200 miles from Mexico back to the Maine waters of her birth, and taking part in three regattas once there, proving just what a capable and seaworthy family passagemaker DIRIGO II is – still doing exactly what she was conceived for by John G Alden in 1939. • SANDEM AN YACHT COMPANY • • Brokerage Of Classic & Vintage Yachts • www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk © Sandeman Yacht Company Limited 2021. A member of the ABYA. HERITAGE, VINTAGE AND CLASSIC YACHTS +44 (0)1202 330 077 60 FT JOHN ALDEN GAFF DOUBLE TOPSAIL SCHOONER 1939/1946 Specification RESTORATION / REFIT 2010 at Ensenada - All new purpleheart floors from the keel forward - Work on frames: 56 either replaced, repaired or sistered, in purpleheart - 14 new Douglas fir, bronze fastened planks in the bow around the new stem - All floors removed, repaired, galvanized - New foremast top, spreaders, cross trees, etc - Associated cabin sole and water tank bearers restoration - All new paint, hull & topsides - Keelbolts checked - All sails repaired - Bottom planking bronze refastened - Engine, transmission and shaft inspected and found to be in good condition - Rudder bronze strapped - Propeller re-pitched and polished - Deck recaulked - Rig unstepped, taken ashore and maintained / repaired as necessary - Rig wooded and overhauled off boat - Rig restepped and tuned - Steering refurbished 2016 at Port Townsend - New purpleheart stem, forefoot and knee - New purpleheart foremast step Specification HISTORY The plan for DIRIGO II was always that she would be a circumnavigator, but a major war stymied commissioning owner Charles Van Sicklen’s plans, It was Crawford who finally allowed DIRIGO II to really stretch her legs, hatched during a voyage round Cape Horn aboard the legendary former setting off on a circumnavigation in 1959 which would feature in his still German Pilot Schooner WANDERBIRD. sought-after book Count the Cats in Zanzibar, in which he recounts how well-behaved and fast she is, and how that WANDERBIRD rig and It was said that DIRIGO II’s rig and accommodation arrangements were accommodation worked so well. Both are little changed. almost copies of WANDERBIRD’s and her design is at least a combination of the client’s personal experience and long serving Alden architect Clifford P When the present owner and his family found her in 2010, besides being Swaine’s then two decades involvement in the development of the Alden love at first sight, DIRIGO II was in need of and deserving attention. She schooner type. received that and much more in two extensive restoration refits. These included: structural restoration, system overhauls, electronic and equipment Twenty years passed before DIRIGO II could finally set off for the big one, upgrades, sail inventory service and addition, interior refit and refinish - of and under subsequent ownership. But before the USA entered the second course, not withstanding the normal annual haul outs, paint, varnish, spit world war, in April 1939 this characterful schooner gained a place in history and polish. by being presented on launching at Goudy & Stevens, East Boothbay, Maine, with the first example of the newly legislated State of Maine Merchant and Thereafter, DIRIGO II cruised, raced and chartered in the San Juan Islands Marine flag. Her name comes from the State motto meaning “I lead”, and of the Salish sea and the Pacific North West. In 2015, on the return from a she’s DIRIGO II because the first vessel of that name was a 312 ft/ 95 m voyage down the west coast of America and cruising the Sea of Cortez, Baja steel sailing ship (the first all-steel ship to be built in America) owned by California, she entered and was overall winner of the Great Americas Sicklen’s grandfather and built by Sewall of Bath, Maine in 1894 to a Schooner Cup Race in San Diego. She is not only a proven and capable sea Liverpool, England, design and from a kit of prefabricated frames and plates boat but can more than hold her own with other thoroughbred classics, made on the Clyde, Scotland. especially when the wind pipes up! Then DIRIGO II was tucked away in the back of a shed for the duration of In 2017, after installation of new GPS, Radar and Autopilot, she departed the war, described as “unfinished” to avoid the threat of government again from her base in the islands for another adventure south and is requisition. presently based in Puerto Escondido, an hour's flight from San Diego. Finally commissioned in 1946, DIRIGO II was 2nd over the line, 2nd in Then from early spring 2019 DIRIGO II once again set of on a big one: to Class A and first schooner to finish in the 1953 St Petersburg - Havana Race sail back east – “down east” – to the waters of her birth. After a 6200 mile in the hands of long time owner James W. Crawford. But she didn’t enjoy voyage via Panama Canal and the Caribbean, DIRIGO II arrived in Maine in such good fortune later that summer in the Los Angeles-Honolulu Race: time to take in the summer classic regattas there, at Camden Classics and searching for the wind she instead found the mother of all calms just over Eggemoggin Reach Regatta. 300 miles from Diamond Head. As Sports Illustrated reported: “Finally, on July 17, three days after the first finisher crossed the line, the crew of the Her 2019 voyaging proves just what a capable and seaworthy passagemaker DIRIGO [II] threw up their hands via a radio message that most West Coast DIRIGO II is – still doing exactly what she was conceived for by John G sailors consider the classic complaint on the classic race. "Out of wind," said Alden and Charles Van Sicklen back in 1939. the message, "out of patience and out of beer." Specification CONSTRUCTION - Single-planked, carvel, 1 ¾ inch fir & mahogany planking over 3 inch oak - Iron and steel beam knees frames - Oak and pine carlins - Bronze fastened - Varnished teak cappings - 3 x Marine ply main bulkheads - Wood painted bulwarks - Raw teak deck planking on 2 ½ x 3 ½ white oak beams - 2 ¼ inch bronze rudder stock - Bronze rudder pintles - 1 inch bronze keel bolts Specification DECK LAYOUT, EQUIPMENT AND GROUND TACKLE - Mostly painted finish with varnished highlights - Sheet winches in way of shrouds - Varnished cap rail on painted, stanchioned bulwarks - Horse for foresail fwd - Panama fairleads through bulwarks at quarters and in way of main mast and foremast Mid deck - Bulwark mounted belaying rails in way of Panama fairleads - Saloon stove pipe to port - Deck boxes are removable - 2 x Stowage boxes either side of portable grating-top table over saloon skylight From aft - Table doubles as cockpit table - Dinghy davits to starboard - Teak-capped, raked, stanchioned taffrail - Athwartships gas bottle deck box - Raised lazarette/ steering access hatch - Bronze and teak main boom gallows with ship's bell and stern light Forward deck house with portlighted hatches to forward saloon and galley - Mainsheet horse - Stowage boxes outboard - 2 x Sampson posts - Padeyes and tackles for backstays Foremast - Sunk cockpit with raised coamings, raw teak capped - Bronze spoked wheel forward of worm drive gear housing - Belaying pins at capping rail - Bronze binnacle - Belaying pins and running lights on shroud-mounted boards - 1 x Bronze mainsheet winch at “bridge deck” - Jib-boom stowed up starboard fwd shroud - 4 x Sheet winches at bulwarks - Galley ventilator to port of foremast - Engine controls and gauges in cockpit - Bronze stanchions - Plotter and instruments at aft bulkhead of aft deckhouse - 2 x Dinghy davits - Numerous mainly 1 ¼ inch mooring lines / warps Aft deck house - 4 x inflatable fenders - Grabrails outboard aft - Companionway sliding hatch to engine room/ owner’s cabin to port Raised scuttle forehatch - Opening portlighted hatch to aft cabin mid - Companionway sliding hatch and ladder to accommodation to starboard - Bronze Dorade vent - Stainless steel grab bar at aft bulkhead of hatch - 12 V Avon et Cie (Marseille) electric/ manual anchor windlass - Access cover at sliding hatch garage for bilge pump handle in use - Bruce 60 lb anchor 150 ft galv ½ inch chain and 250 ft x 1 inch Dacron line - Danforth 45 lb anchor and 50 ft x ½ inch chain and 150 ft x 1 inch Dacron Main mast line - Anchor davit - Belaying pins at capping rail and on shroud-mounted boards - 250 lb Fisherman Anchor (original) - 200 lb Fisherman Anchor (original) - c80 lb CQR Anchor - Sampson post / bowsprit heel housing - Fwd mooring fairleads on cap rail Specification