Binker

As the famous English naval architect and populariser Uffa Fox rightly said, when the head of a naval engineering firm sets his team the task of designing their own ideal ship, “the result is sure to be interesting and instructive”. In his book simply entitled “Uffa Fox’s Second Book”, he referred to the Binker, which even today, after more than ninety years, continues to sail happily, following a thorough and successful restoration. The subsequent comparison of the Binker with the famous English “Itchen Ferries”, ships considered very fast but of an old-fashioned design, seems rather forced and a product of the author’s well-known English nationalism. Boyd Donaldson, the boat’s owner, was a yacht broker from New York who had partnered with William Starling Burgess in what was a brief partnership, which nevertheless had time to produce the J-Class Rainbow, the victorious defender of the America’s Cup in 1934. The Binker was built in that very year, and the brief Donaldson had given to his firm was for a cruiser that would be easy to handle for a father and his son – in other words, almost single-handed! To this end, Burgess designed a hull with powerful lines and deep draught, featuring a fairly deep bow and a V-shaped stern. All this suggests excellent course stability, comfort in bad weather and at anchor, coupled with a certain slowness in stays, also due to the rudder, which was small and very steeply raked. A perfect boat anyway for the intended purpose. In the original designs, it has been discovered that the draftsman was Henry Gruber, the great German naval architect, who had been based for many years in the United States, and who was then working precisely for Burgess and Donaldson; in his later years, he would produce boats famous throughout the world, which are still sailing today, such as the Roland von Bremen or the Nordwind. This further distances the Binker from a supposed origin in English working boats. We know little of what Boyd Donaldson and his son sailed. We have news of her: from the late 1960s, we know she was owned by a family for over 20 years, before passing in 1987 into the hands of a professional skipper who kept her for ten years. In 1997, he crossed the Atlantic in her and encountered Hurricane Irina, which forced him to head for the Azores to repair the damages. He then sailed to England, where he sold her to a shipyard. The Binker suddenly reappeared in 2006, when a shipowner with great passion but little money attempted to repair her, without success. Two years later, she was in very poor overall condition and it was then that she passed into the hands of a Scottish couple who knew how to restore her and return her to her original condition. They replaced the planking and renewed all the ship’s rivets; in 2014, a new afromosia deck was fitted. A new engine and new equipment were installed, the American wheel steering system – which had been fitted shortly after the first launch – was removed, and the original tiller was reinstalled. The mast is also the original. The Binker was relaunched in 2016. Today the boat is in Italy, in very good condition, but its owner has to sell her for health reasons. Hence a most attractive price for a boat with pedigree, history and beauty, all rolled into one.