“THISTLE DUBH” a Jaguar 23

We bought our Jaguar 23 last September. She had been lying in a berth for 3 years with minimal maintenance. For a start there was a mussel farm growing on her keel, a metre of kelp on the rudder and only 2/3 of a propeller! However we took her home and stripped her out, servicing the engine, replacing most pipework, cleaning and checking mast and rigging, replacing the sails, scraping the hull and putting on 4 coats of gelshield and 3 of antifoul etc. Removing the fuel tank entailed Ian getting bodily into the aft locker (all 6 feet and 16 stone of him): anyone for yoga lessons?

She has a fin keel giving a draught of 1.4 m and a BMW inboard diesel engine which appears to be the original (this way I can tell friends we have a Jaguar and a BMW to go with my Golf!). We used a big fencepost to help lift the engine out of the cabin and the mainsheet to lower it down a scaffolding tower.

She sails beautifully with full sail and reefs as we discovered when we took her cruising on the Clyde. Upwind she points well and will go better downwind once we’ve worked out the best way to rig a spinnaker (any tips?). We’re going to leave her berthed this winter to see if winter sailing is possible this far north and will let you know in the spring if we survive.

Ian & Alison Malcolm