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Yachting changed dramatically after World War II. Prior to 1939,
the British and the Americans dominated the large-yacht scene in both power and
sail. During World War II, the British and U.S. navies requisitioned a large
number of yachts for use in the war, many of which were armed. Quite a few were
sunk. The surviving vessels were returned to their owners in terrible condition.
This restitution, combined with a huge postwar increase in taxation, death
duties and all sorts of other postwar traumas, was too much for many of the
original owners who, rather than find the cash to refit their yachts, put them
on the market.
During the fifties, most of these yachts found new owners, few
of which were British or American, and most of whom made new fortunes during and
immediately after the war. One then has to add the rise in power of the trade
unions to get a feel for the difficulties facing the yachting industry in
postwar United Kingdom. The countries that benefited from Marshall Plan aid were
off to a better postwar restart.
Views of the Thornycroft shipyard. Photographs by ©Trevor Piper. (Click images to enlarge)
I came into yachting at the end of the fifties. During the
early part of the decade, the Camper & Nicholsons (C&N) Southampton
shipyard was full of large yachts, most left there for sale, forlornly standing
in their traditional winter mud berths. Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos
bought Creole from my grandfather in 1954. English aviation pioneer Sir
Thomas Sopwith’s Philante went to Norway in 1956 and became Norge.
Lord Iliffe’s Virginia went to a West African republic, and so it went.
Although not in service, in poor condition and for sale, many of these yachts
retained their original English captains. As they were purchased, their new
owners tended to keep the original captains. After the yachts were refitted,
they headed for the Mediterranean and elsewhere, but always away from
England.
The captains, too, were affected by the rise in taxation. They
soon discovered that if they stayed out of England for more than six months in
the year, they would be exempt from paying UK taxes. Having been able to compare
the quality of life in the south of France with that of life in the United
Kingdom, many of the captains had no difficulty persuading the new class of
owners to keep their yachts permanently in the Med. This made a big hole in
traditional business for the C&N Southampton shipyard.
Having just finished a four-year training in marine engineering
at John I. Thornycroft (now VT Group) at Woolston, and having recently joined
the C&N design office at Southampton, I was asked by my father to go to
Cannes and persuade the yachts to return to the United Kingdom for their refit
work. This was in 1959, and I was 22 years old. I went and, like those captains,
stayed.
 Thornycroft’s Woolston yard (now VT Group). Photographs by ©Trevor Piper. (Click image to enlarge)
Cannes was a world apart from the United Kingdom, and not just
due to its weather. People forget that luxuries were in short supply in the
United Kingdom for the first 10 years after World War II. Food, clothes and even
petrol were slow to come to everyone. In Cannes, the sun shone and the colorful
markets were cheap and full of vegetables, meat, cheese and even clothes. Many
of the captains quickly started second families on the taxes they were saving in
the United Kingdom. I quickly realized that postwar yachting was going to
re-establish itself in the Mediterranean and not anywhere in the north.
 Wooden harbor defense motor launches (HDMLs) from World War II made up most of
the early charter yachts in the 1960s. Photograph courtesy of Sea Power Centre–Australia. (Click image to enlarge)
The postwar harbors that could take yachts were a far cry from
what they are today. The main yacht harbors were Cannes, Villefranche and
Monaco. Nice was commercial. Saint-Jean was a little fishing port. Saint-Tropez
was completely empty in the winter. Antibes, now one of the largest yacht
harbors in the world, was just a small Roman port. There were a few old boats in
the Vieux Port in Marseille, notably Cambria. Cannes was quite exposed to
winter storms because the southern breakwater had not been extended. Monaco
wasn’t any good in the winter either. The great storm of December 2, 1959, which
broke the Malpasset dam and drowned some 400 people in and around Fréjus,
damaged just about every yacht in the harbor at Cannes. Compounding the problem
was the fact that the yachts were moored three deep. This was before any of the
old harbors had been modernized or any new ports had been built. Port Pierre
Canto, the first of the new breed of yacht harbors, did not open until 1968, and
by then berthing pressure had become really extreme. This particular wheel now
has turned full circle.
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