Spring has arrived in the tranquil harbour of Cogolin on the Gulf of St. Tropez. The mistral of the past few days has subsided, and while the coolness of the harbour water can still be felt, the sun is already warming from above. Decks are being scrubbed on the boats, equipment is being carried on board and excited voices can be heard from all directions.
Creative chaos also reigns on the deck of the "Moonbeam III". A babble of French, German and English is reminiscent of a building site. And the ship itself also looks more like the setting for a winter camp. There are toolboxes everywhere, whole rolls of wire and cordage, boxes of all kinds of adhesives and lubricants.
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But that's no surprise. The "Moonbeam of Fife", as she is known, was extensively overhauled during the past winter season. The noble yacht - which is considered one of the most beautiful classics ever, and not just by its owner - is to be rigged and prepared for the upcoming season. "Taking a boat like this apart is one thing," says Erwan Noblet - the captain is responsible for carrying out the work - "putting it back together is another." That's as far as he gets. Erwan is needed everywhere at once here today. His schedule is extremely tight. The first regattas are just a few days away.
"Moonbeam" is more than just a workplace
As if the excitement wasn't already great enough, sailmakers, regular crew, owners and parts of the race crew have travelled here today. Everyone wants to be there when the first sailing tests of the season are completed. But at the moment, there's not even a thought of setting sail.
The owner is not fazed by this. Carsten Gerlach routinely gives his professional crew a helping hand. The Hamburg businessman learnt to appreciate them last summer - his first on board. His confidence in the French crew cannot be shaken after this experience. "They love the ship," he says and talks about how Erwan, Sylvain, Merlin and Nathalie communicate without words when they sail the "Moonbeam III" to regatta successes and then enter the narrow harbour basin under full sail as a joke and do a lap of honour there to applause.
They all come from the area and are at home in the scene. Gerlach explains that the crew have only been on board a few classic boats on the Mediterranean coast for as long as they have here. "Moonbeam" is more than just a workplace for his crew. When he bought the ship through an auction house last year, getting to know her was therefore eagerly awaited by both sides.
The first thing his team wanted to know was what he was planning for the future. Gerlach's ideas appealed. After all, they had a lot to do with the regatta circuit on the Mediterranean, where the crew of the "Moonbeam of Fife" defend a great reputation year after year, in addition to their purely private use.
Owner has a love of yachts with history
Gerlach is not someone who sails. "I grew up with boats," he says, recalling trips on his father's ketch in the 1970s to the Cape Verde Islands. "Later, when I did my A-levels in France, my father fulfilled his dream of a gaff-rigged classic with the 26-metre 'Javelin', built by Summers & Payne in 1898."
The 80-tonne displacement ketch is something like the antithesis of "Moonbeam". "But we spent a lot of time on board in the Mediterranean, and I developed a love for the old, gaff-rigged yachts," says Gerlach, adding that he was particularly fascinated by the "Moonbeam of Fife" even back then, "because she is not only beautiful, but also fast. And because she also has a very special history."
After a career-related break from sailing, the entrepreneur acquired Baron Bich's first yacht, the 14-metre "Lak II", a few years ago. She is a well-known name in the Mediterranean fleet. Gerlach devotes himself to the ship with dedication and immediately catches fire again for the classics. But then he learns that "Moonbeam of Fife" is for sale.
Her new owner is not the only one whose dreams are haunted by the ship. Whenever people talk about the great classics from the early days of international regatta sailing, her name is quickly mentioned. She has borne the name since 1903, when she was launched as build number 491 at the William Fife & Son shipyard in Fairlie on the River Clyde. At the time, Fife was considered one of the most renowned representatives of his trade.
Mr Fife's finest work
The client is London lawyer Charles Plumptre Johnson. The member of the venerable Royal Yacht Squadron wants to win regatta silver with his third "Moonbeam". Scotsman William Fife III is commissioned to create a yacht that is competitive under the new rules of the Royal Ocean Racing Club. The formula favours heavy ships with a large sail area and a fully equipped interior. The "Moonbeam III" was built as a yawl rigged yacht with a long tiller.
The overall length is 30 metres. The extremely flat hull made of teak and elm planks on oak frames measures 20 metres above deck, is 4.75 metres wide and 3.30 metres deep. The elegant crack is characterised by the flush deck, the spoon bow and a widely overhanging yacht stern. The current sail plan has an area of almost 600 square metres and moves around 70 tonnes.
"Moonbeam III" fulfils all expectations right from the start and makes a name for itself in the first season with regatta victories on the Solent. Owner Johnson, however, also enjoyed his yacht during extended voyages in the years to come and put many thousands of nautical miles in her wake.
At the time, the ship was considered one of Mr Fife's finest, as Dixon Kemp, the founder of Lloyd's Register of Yachts, wrote in his standard work "A Manual of Yacht and Boat Sailing" in its 1904 edition. Not least because the client had the third "Moonbeam" luxuriously refitted in Edwardian style.
"Moonbeam II" presents itself as it did 100 years ago
Everything is still in its original condition today. A spiral staircase leads below deck. The chart room and toilet are located on the port side next to the companionway, while the owner's comfortable cabin with a double berth and ample cupboard space is on the starboard side opposite. In the aft section there is a guest cabin with its own WC. The ambience in the saloon is characterised by flamed mahogany, mirrored cabinets and green leather upholstery. There is no pomp, no ornamentation - these stylistic elements alone convey dignified luxury in a restrained manner.
The galley and the crew's area, which has its own toilet room, are located in the foredeck. Unusually, no expense has been spared with fine woods in the crew accommodation either. Apart from the leather upholstery and mirror surfaces, the interior style is the same as for the owner and guests.
Back on deck, the picture is similar. The view across the open deck is like it was a hundred years ago. "Moonbeam" is not an over-restored operetta ship, her elegance is authentic, innate and unbroken to this day. This has been made possible by constant care, continuous use as intended and timely refit measures. For example, in 1988 at Camper & Nicholsons and most recently in 2005 at Fairlie Restorations in Southampton. The "Moonbeam of Fife" spent nine months there being restored to the immaculate condition it is still in today.
She had to endure many changes of ownership, but no one treated her badly. Her second owner brought the yacht to France in 1920, and since then - apart from brief guest appearances in Greece and England - the Côte d'Azur has been her home territory. Moonbeam III survived the Second World War in storage on land. Since the late 1980s, she has been at home on the Gulf of St Tropez and a permanent guest at the major classic regattas in the Mediterranean.
Intensive refit
During the very first winter break under Gerlach's direction, the "Moonbeam" disappeared ashore under a large tent, where boat builders stripped her underwater hull, replaced two planks and created a new paint job. Above all, however, the team of owners, regular crew, shipyard crew and some boat builders from northern Germany focussed on overhauling the rig. All the spars were stripped and repainted, the iron fittings were re-galvanised and then painted black again. The work took the team, which at times consisted of nine men, four months.
A complete set of new sails was also customised this winter. The wardrobe of 14 cloths measures 1595.40 square metres, the size of two handball courts. The work of sailmaker Albert Schweizer and his colleagues from French sailmakers Incidence began before the winter refit, right after the last race in 2016. The entire rig had to be remeasured.
"We spent a full two days taking all the measurements. Then these points were put together on the computer so that we ended up with an electronic sail plan, just like you would on a modern yacht," says Schweizer, adding that the next step was to measure all the existing cloths. "We were then able to depict them in the plan, check the centrelines and create the new sail plan." Geometry, profiling, processing - everything was rethought, taking into account the original plans. "We even revived a few sails from these."
This also necessitated changes to the ship. Lower shrouds had to be moved for the original large genoa, and new spars had to be made for the topsail in its original dimensions; an effort that will pay off in terms of speed, according to Schweizer.
16 sailors are the absolute minimum for regattas
Today all the work was completed, the new sails arrived on board in oversized, sand-coloured bags with the Fife kite and name on them and the mainsail was hoisted, which alone took half a day.
The crew is busy turning the construction site into a seaworthy ship. To do this, "Moonbeam" is first cleared out. A hoover finds its way ashore via the gangway, followed by a light stand and an XXL belt sander. The building thermals can be felt more and more clearly, sun cream makes the rounds, the last of the sailors arrive.
Denise Kretschmer from Hamburg, for example, is part of the race crew that complements the regular crew on the numerous Mediterranean regattas. "16 fellow sailors is the absolute minimum," she says and that she is happy to be part of it. Kretschmer has been sailing the great classics for many years. Each one has its very own character, she explains, and that "Moonbeam" is particularly elegant, but above all extremely easy to sail: "She is uncomplicated. Winches and fittings are well organised and she is extremely resilient." And last but not least, they were a really good crew last summer.
Captain Erwan Noblet seems to take a similar view. At some point, almost unnoticed, he and his team transformed the construction site into a seaworthy ship in less than half an hour between lunch and coffee breaks.
When all the lines are finally untied and he steers "Moonbeam" out onto the Gulf again for the first time, everyone is relieved that the labour-intensive winter has come to a good end. With practised hands, the crew members hoist the huge gaff sail while Carsten Gerlach holds his ship in the wind. After a while, all the cloth is set. The rudder wheel, gleaming in the sunlight, turns several times, "Moonbeam" drops, leans slightly to one side and picks up speed almost imperceptibly under the gentle pressure of the evening breeze. A barely perceptible swell lends liveliness to the elegant yacht, which otherwise almost silently carves up the greenish waters of the Gulf of St. Tropez.
A smile can be seen in the owner's reserved expression. His crew can also see the relaxation that is spreading during the metamorphosis of the dockyard vessel into a sailing yacht.
Perhaps it's moments like this that have kept people coming back to the Moonbeam of Fife for more than a hundred years. Moments full of anticipation of what the sailing day, what the sailing summer will bring. Moments in which anyone standing on the deck of this special yacht can become one with her.
Technical data of the "Moonbeam III"
- Design engineer: William Fife III
- Year of construction: 1903
- Total length: 30,94 m
- Torso length: 20,70 m
- Waterline length: 18,70 m
- Width: 4,75 m
- Depth: 3,29 m
- sail area: 566 m2
- Displacement: 67 t
The article was first published in 2018 and has been revised for this online version.
