February 2025  Bwana

By John Tattersall

The name was chosen by my wife Alison who was born in South Africa. Bwana is a very individual and interesting yacht, designed for ease of use, sea kindliness, safety and voyaging with our young son, around the world. She has had nearly as many adventures on land as she has at sea.

I am a Civil Engineer and set about designing a boat that would satisfy our requirements. I wanted her to be well balanced about the centre of gravity, have unstayed masts in a ketch layout, be built of steel as light as possible (aiming for 10 tons), and to be foam-lined to eliminate condensation and provide a good level of floatation. All hatches were to be from Lemar Ocean range. I was lucky to have a neighbour who worked for an international salvage company, who was able to run the calculations on stability. 

We had decided on a Bruce Roberts design, with centre cockpit. We liked the 35’ (10.7m) layout, but wanted it longer. I rang Bruce Roberts Goodson and he agreed it could be extended by 10%, making the hull 38.7’ (11.8m). Chris Garner built the hull, on Hayling Island. I had worked through all the construction weights and equipment positions to give a centre of gravity through the keel centre. One of the major weight distribution problems was that the 80 metres of chain could only be contained by bringing the windlass into the cockpit and dropping the chain into the keel. I got Chris to weld mark the theoretical waterline on the hull.

Immediately after shot blasting (to blast cleaning standard Sa2) my friend and I carried out the two pack epoxy painting. Doing this straight after the blasting resulted in two older men turning up at the local pub black as coal miners!

Bwana's first journey was 60 miles by road to a short stay at our local farmers’ yard where all hatches were made watertight, then 10 miles further, where we had bought an oak barn on the South Downs. We decided to dig Bwana into a hole in our field, to minimise the visible impact. Unfortunately, the locals had other ideas and the District Council asked us to move. The appeal took 18 months, which gave time to commence fitting out, then Bwana had to be moved into the barn. Here she sat comfortably and was largely fitted out. Then, another move, this time to a very nice boat yard in Newhaven. Unfortunately for Bwana we had now decided to move to an old farmhouse in Catalunya(Spain). I had to make numerous visits to the UK, to visit my ageing parents, and to continue work on Bwana.

Eventually it was time to put the boat in the water. The yard owner bet that Bwana was 16 tons, but I bet 10 tons. When the 60 ton crane arrived to drop her in, she weighed 10.1 tons and sat level in the water, to the steel weld marks. Time now for a proving sail. Out she went under two thirds fore sail and managed 4.5 knots. There were no major problems.

Next, we sailed along the south coast to Dartmouth. My crew was an 80-year-old man from the yard. We lost our steering along the way due to a broken cotter pin. On to Plymouth, to pick up an extra crew, and then off across Biscay in wild conditions. A broken shackle let the main sail go adrift and I had to do some gymnastics on the wheel house roof to fix it. 

Then four days to A Coruña, in Galicia. After Bwana rested here for some time I set off with my non-English-speaking Catalan friend Boni to sail around Spain, to reach Roses in Catalunya. We made 60 miles per day, calling in for sleep and refreshments at the many good marinas along the way. Our visit to Rota, a Spanish naval base, was quite exciting. As we passed a war ship, marines on deck covered us with rifles and ordered us to leave. We made a breezy trip to Menorca and explored the island for several days as a severe storm passed. 

So far, Bwana has covered 2800 NM and 75 land miles.

Our "Boat of the Month" Archive is here, and the forum discussion for comments and candidate suggestions is here