Westerly Centaur 50th fun
Hillary Corney explains how the die was cast for this summer’s record-attempting golden rally in honour of a British classic
All aboard this summer’s golden anniversary rally to mark 50 years since the launch of a British classic
It was late August 2018, as I stood on the Duver Pontoon at Bembridge Harbour, an idea was slowly forming in my mind. “How many boats can you get in here Sarah?” I asked the berthing master who had just helped me dock safely.
“What size boat?” she asked. “26-foot,” I replied.
She thought for a moment before coming up with an answer: “Around 200.”
“That seems like a good number for a rally,” I said.
Sarah gave me the sort of look that’s reserved for people who say they have a pet unicorn at home or that Brexit is easy.
“No really, they made 2,444 of them, the Centaur, we can do it,” I stuttered. Sarah was as polite as always but I could see she now regarded me as something of a nutter. But the die was cast: nutter or not, I was going to organise the biggest cruisers’ rally the Solent had seen for ages.
To explain how I got myself into this, we have to go back over 45 years, to Aysgarth Road, Waterlooville, Hampshire. As a teenager I was visiting a good friend
who specialised in Volkswagen campervan restoration. His garage was opposite the Westerly factory. He and I watched idly as another gleaming white Westerly Centaur was loaded onto a truck to begin its journey to the sea.
Teenage dream
“Wouldn’t mind one of those,” I remarked. I had a boat back then, a 21-footer my Dad and I had built together. I loved getting out on the Solent in it, but fun as it was, it wasn’t a patch on a Westerly Centaur. But a Centaur cost as much as a top-of-the-range Jaguar car and my Dad and I didn’t have that kind of spare cash.
In the intervening 45 years I moved away from Waterlooville, went to university, had a family, moved inland, and forgot about sailing in the never-ending rush of family life and work. Then, around five years ago, I found myself changing jobs and moving back to the Solent.
Being around the Solent again, the smell of harbour mud at low tide, sails catching the sun off Osbourne Bay, the unmistakable thump, thump, of a small marine diesel as a yacht lazily cruised by brought all the memories of my teenage sailing years flooding back.
“I might get a boat next year,” I said to my wife as casually as possible, expecting an immediate rebuttal.
“Get it now, you might be dead next year,” she replied. So with that ringing endorsement I started looking. But what sort of boat?
A thoroughbred
I made a list of features that were important:
■ It needed to be relatively inexpensive, well made, solid, tough even, sea kindly, safe and forgiving.
■ With retirement not too far away, it needed to be a proper yacht. One that could go round Britain, or through the canals to the Med. ■ Not too long as marinas charge by the metre but it also needed to be big enough to sleep five, perhaps six, it needed bilge keels that would enable setting onto an inexpensive drying mooring.
■ It needed to sail well and cope with anything the British climate could throw at it. But where was I to find such a paragon?
I mooched around the Southampton Boat Show looking at a few new yachts but most cost as much as a new house let alone a new Jag. That’s inflation for you I thought. I realised I needed something second-hand – the price of an old Ford.
I searched the internet and found myself watching The Solent By Centaur on YouTube. Dylan Winter was extolling the virtues of the Westerly Centaur “the boat he had always wanted.” Suddenly I was back in Aysgarth Road watching that Centaur being loaded onto the lorry.
So my wife and I searched. We saw a
‘The Westerly Centaur was to become the best-selling British yacht ever made’
number of Centaurs before deciding on a new set of blue cushions that happened to be inside a Centaur called Moonshine.
Joining the gang
We joined the Westerly Owners Association (WOA) and the first sail we did was to the 50th anniversary of the organisation. That was four happy seasons ago. We now take Moonshine out as often as we can, most weekends, and we have never been disappointed.
She quickly proved to be a thoroughbred, the best of 1960-70’s British engineering and design, She ticked all the boxes on my list.
Sold as ‘a gentleman’s yacht’ they were fun to sail, roomy, sturdy as a tank, sea kindly and forgiving.
Thousands of people have learned to sail in them and every British harbour and marina has at least one or two Centaurs.
They have sailed to the Med, to America and even further afield. One I am aware of has even made it half way round the world to New Zealand.
For many Westerly owners it was their first boat and even when they went on to bigger, faster, better, boats they remember their Centaur with fondness.
I even know one or two members who upgraded to something they thought better only to discover that new isn’t always best – and then got themselves another Centaur.
Despite her advanced years Moonshine still lives up to the claims of the 1970s Westerly brochure. But perhaps not without a little help: a new Beta Engine, new rigging, and other repairs, upgrades and improvements.
Last year I was looking for original drawings to help with restoration and found that they were available from the Laurent Giles Archive. The manager,
Barry van Geffen, told me that 2018 was the 50th anniversary of the Westerly Centaur. The plans were 50 years old. Intrigued I did a little research and discovered that the first Centaur was sold at the London Boat show in 1969 so this year, 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the launch of the very first Centaur.
A British classic
I did some more research and found that they made 2,444 Centaurs between 1969 and 1980. I thought how this British classic is a proud representative of a golden age of British boat manufacture and deserves to be celebrated. So I thought a 50th anniversary of such a much-loved yacht deserves a WOA Rally – but not any rally, a rally for Centaurs. A 50th birthday party.
I suggested this to a couple of Centaur owners at my yacht club, the Fareham Sailing & Motor Boat Club, and their enthusiastic agreement encouraged me.
So that’s how I found myself on the pontoon at Duver in Bembridge Harbour asking Sarah how many boats they could get in. Two hundred is actually only 8.3% of all the Centaurs made and when you put it like that it seems like an easily achievable figure.
My WOA friends and the WOA committee agreed and have enthusiastically backed the rally. So the rally now has the grand title ‘The Centaur Golden Anniversary Rally in association with the Westerly Owners Association’ and it is being run under WOA rules.
All aboard
If you own a Westerly Centaur or can borrow one, bring her to the rally this summer – its going to be a great party!
You don’t need to be a member of WOA to bring your Centaur but you can sign up and join at the rally. We have boats coming from all over the UK from Anglesey in the west and the River Orwell in the east and most harbours in between.
At the time of going to press, 79
‘Two hundred is actually only 8.3% of all the Centaurs made and when you put it like that it seems like an easily achievable figure’
Westerly boats have so far signed up, of which 76 are Centaurs.
So far the long distance prize goes to Kai Swartz who is currently preparing his Centaur Saga for a transatlantic crossing from Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, to the rally via New England, Nova Scotia, across the North Sea to Hamburg with a possible diversion to Iceland, weather and time permitting.
Kai sailed his first Centaur Desire more than 1,200 nautical miles through the Pacific Islands for several years and says he can attest that the Centaur is a stout little pocket cruiser capable of long distance voyages.
Rally events so far include a beach barbecue, pontoon parties, a fancy dress competition for boat and crew, a race to the Nab Tower and back for Centaurs only, a race for crews in any rally boat that is not a Centaur dubbed ‘The Other Centaur Race’ – with pantomime horse style Centaur costumes along the beach and a prize donated by Force 4. Plus a talk on boat restoring and maintenance from ASAP Supplies.
PBO columnist Dave Selby will be the guest speaker at the end of rally meal. The event will finish off with a Sunday lunch to say goodbye before rally-goers depart on the afternoon tide. It’s going to be one heck of a party! The WOA South Coast group will award the silver Nab Tower Trophy to the winner of the Nab Race, while those with line honours will receive a Quay Lane Trophy. The BBC will be covering the event. ■ To sign up, recieve more information and a booking form visit the Westerly website westerly-owners.co.uk where there will be a direct link to the joining form.