Olympic Yachts - More Images from John Gardner

For Olympic year 1996 John Gardner produced a series of former competitors, which I am happy to show here.

Above is Magda IX, designed by Johan Anker, the Norwegian winner of the Gold at the 1912 Games held at Nynashamn in Sweden. Sadly there were only three entries, the others being Erna-Signe from Sweden and Heatherbell from Finland.

Next we move on to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the sailing events taking place outside Kiel. The British entry Lalage, designed by Charles E. Nicholson, won the Gold, after a tense series of seven races at the end of which Lalage, the Swiss Ylliam III and the Norwegian Lully II were all equal on points. Unexpectedly the Swiss entry was then disqualified for infringing the amateur status rule. In the redistribution of points between the other two Lalage came out one point better to win the series.

 In his mind's eye John must have been on almost the same spot I was sailing over in 1998 when I took this picture during a race in quite windy conditions. You can see the U-boat memorial in the background in both images.

Fast forward to 1948 at Torbay in Devon. Here we see Johan Anker's Dragon Class yachts, Norwegian design of course and the winner Pan also from Norway, narrowly beating Sweden's Slaghoken and Denmark's Snap.

For Helsinki in 1952 the Swede Richard Sarby designed the Finn Class for single-handed racing with an unusual rotating rig and unstayed mast. Competitors drew lots for identical boats built by Borreson of Denmark, whose Paul Elvstrom won the series with four wins, beating Britain's Charles Curry and the Richard  Sarby himself picking up the bronze.

Next we have the Star Class at the 1964 games on Enoshima Bay near Tokyo. The Bahamas entry Gem took the gold, the American Glider the silver and Sweden's Pelle Pettersson the bronze.

On Lake Ontario in 1976, in Solings, Denmark's Odds-n-Ends took the gold despite only winning one race, the Americans took the silver and the East Germans got the bronze.

Finally John Gardner chose to depict the Tornado catamarans at Long Beach in 1984, the gold going to New Zealand with a boat built by Reg White of Brightlingsea, Essex, the silver to the United States and the bronze to the Australia. With one hull out of the water these machines can easily reach twenty five knots.

Another Buchanan and some Olympic Nonsense

 

John Buchanan was born on New Years Day 1884 into a family of fabulous wealth. His father Francis C Buchanan described his employment in the 1891 Census as "living on own means" and at that time the family were living in a seventeen-roomed house in Rhu. Further back in history the family belonged to that elite group of Glasgow merchants whose fortunes were founded on the tobacco trade, slavery, shipping and finance. They lived in a massive townhouse on Blythswood Square opposite the Smith family whose lovely and dangerous daughter Madeline famously charmed a jury of Edinburgh gentlemen. It's possible that Buchanan Street was named after a distant relative. I don't think John would have had to work very hard, if at all, and he certainly devoted most of his life to yachting.

Like his fellow, near namesake but unrelated, yachtsman James Buchanan, John was a joiner, being a member of the Royal Northern, Royal Clyde, Royal Western, Clyde Corinthian Yacht Clubs and the Loch Long Sailing Club.

At the age of twenty four John Buchanan was part of the crew aboard Sir Thomas Glen-Coats' twelve metre yacht Hera taking part in the 1908 Olympics. This yachting event or match, as it was termed, was a little strange because there were only two entries, so everyone was guaranteed a medal, be it gold or silver. Further, both entries were British, so they helped the country's tally regardless of how well they did.

There was a slight international flavour, as the other entry, Mouchette, came from Merseyside, although her owner Charles MacIver was also of Scottish descent. The teams decided not to bother going to the South of England and on the toss of a coin the match took place on the Clyde. Hera duly won, helped a little when Mouchette found the way ahead blocked by the moored steam yacht Hebe.

John Buchanan owned a number of yachts during his sailing career, including the 19/24 Shireen, two big old boats called Llygra and Pallas, then the Fife eight metre Falcon, before buying Stroma from her first owner George Nisbet in 1937.

Hirta, formerly Llygra, in Argyll 2011

In his first season John Buchanan managed only one win out of twenty three starts. He did a bit better in 1938 with three firsts out of a total of ten places, but was plainly disappointed and decided to blame the boat, because at the end of that season he sold Stroma and bought Herbert Thom's old Westra. He did rather worse in 1939, managing just one win and no places at all from 13 starts. He doesn't feature in our story thereafter, because racing stopped for the War and he died at the end of 1943.