- Peter Matheson in Glasgow starts building a replica of the 136-year-old Hope.
- Sail around the Iron Pot in Tasmania with Mat Conboy and mates.
- American Lady is rigged and ready to go. A timeless beauty for sale.
- Coming soon: Thames to Tahiti by Sidney Howard. A tale from 1933 of a 38-footer you’ve probably never heard of.
Peter Matheson, the intrepid 79 year old traditonal boat builder in Glasgow, is still at it. The Stroma yole American Lady, inspired by The Aegre, which he built in 2024-5, is now largely finished. So what’s next? Feet up in front of the tele? No, Matheson now plans to build a detailed replica of the Stroma yole Hope.
Learn about Hope and why Matheson has chosen her here: Building a Replica of Hope: Tradition Meets Craftsmanship
What is the IronPot? Why would you sail around it? Mat Conboy and some Small Craft Tasmania sailing mates made a weekend of it and sent me a link to a short movie on YouTube to prove it. Great small boat sailing south of Hobart.
He took some reading too, The Voyage of The Aegre.
It’s all on YouTube, the next best thing to sailing there yourself. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5uQlsHuROc
American Lady, the Stroma yole Peter Matheson and helpers built in Glasgow during 2024-5, was moved out of the workshop at the end of 2025 to make room for the next boat, Hope, (see above). You can see photos and notes covering the complete building of American Lady on this website. I’ve reorganised the pages to make it easier to follow progress. Take a look here.
Matheson planned to rig American Lady once she was outside, and the weather improved. Finally, he says, it has, and the mast has now been stepped, and no doubt the sails experimentally set. She’s about to be launched. Pictures are awaited.
American Lady is now for sale. A rare opportunity to acquire an immensely rugged craftsman-built brand-new Stroma yole, built to take pretty much any sort of weather. Her hull is pure Aegre, but the deck arrangement has been changed to provide a larger, multipurpose cockpit, with a small cabin forward to accommodate a cooker and bunks in the style of a Danish Eel drifter of the 1900s.
She will have the same standing lug rig and jib as The Aegre, but also a Yanmar 12 hp diesel amidships, which will have no trouble pushing her along at her maximum hull speed. More details here. (If only I lived in the UK, I’d be putting in an offer…)
Coming soon: A review of Thames to Tahiti, by Sidney Howard. A tale from 1933 of a 38-footer you’ve probably never heard of. It was republished in 1951 as No. 16 in the Mariners Library by Rupert Hart-Davis. Aboard The Aegre, Julie and I sailed a similar course (apart from the different starting point), 40 years later. Had anything changed?
I found a copy in Boat Books New Zealand when I was in Auckland in January this year. BB NZ has an outstanding collection of 2nd hand sailing books, see https://boatbooks.co.nz/product-category/secondhand-books/
Warning! Browsing the 72 screens of 2nd-hand books here may take longer than you expect.
Good reading, good sailing.
Nick Grainger
