It is now some six years since the writer had the pleasure of seeing
the 'Camellia.' She had just been sold to a gentleman to go to
Stranraer, where she is at the present time. She was hauled up on
Fairlie beach in charge of the late Mr. Boag, and was awaiting a
suitable tide for being launched. The 'Camellia,' though of like
dimensions to the 'Vril,' was altogether different in form, and to
those acquainted with the Fairlie type was as pretty an example of
what the Messrs. Fife were in the habit of turning out at that period
as it was possible to select. She and her sister ship the 'Clio' were
both built from the same drawing, and were the first boats in which
Mr. William Fife, jun., whose name is now a household word among men
interested in yachting matters, played the conspicuous part of
designer. The 'Camellia' was a smaller-bodied boat altogether, more
compact than either the 'Vril' or 'Freda,' with a powerful entrance
and fine run, and ribbands as fair as they could be. Messrs. Craig and
Lawson, for whom she was built, possessed in her a little sea-boat
capable of being driven in all weathers, and the harder it blew the
more she seemed to like it. With less bilge and somewhat higher floor
than 'Vril,' she was fitted, like her predecessor the 'Pearl,' with
simply a half-deck and waterways, and was strengthened by a strong
beam running across her to which the pump was attached. Of course in
smooth water it was a great advantage being able to work the yacht
from below, but in anything like very heavy weather she carried
hatches for covering in the open space. Both the 'Vril' and 'Freda'
were fitted with topmasts, but giving the 'Camellia' the same fitting
was only an afterthought, for when she was launched, like the 'Clio,'
she was supplied with a polemast. Three or four years after her
appearance she was decked in and provided with a very neat coach roof,
or booby hatch, but her head-room below in her cabin could not have
been more than 4 feet. She makes a very good cruiser now, and from the
grand work put into her, as into all yachts which hail from the great
Fairlie yard, her sides looked when last seen as fresh and as smooth
as on the day when she first saw the water.
[Illustration: 'Freda.']
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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