The Story of the Barbicans

I am sure that most members will by now be familiar with the name of Barbican, not least of all since Elizabeth and I bought our Barbican 33 "Red Dawn IV" after the sale of our Waterwitch "Rosy". As there are a number of Barbican 33 owners in the EOA I thought it may be of interest to give a little bit of information about the boats and their history.

There are in fact three different designs of Barbicans, being the 30, the 33 and the 35 and all by different designers. It is only the 33 that stems from a Maurice Griffiths design, the others being by John Sharp for the 30 which was derived from the Halmatic 30, and the 35 is a Holman design formerly known as the Super Soverign, originally built by Uphams of Brixham.

The Barbican 33 has a somewhat convoluted history and goes back to the days when Hartwell Boat Builders were producing the Golden Hind 31, which they sold in significant numbers to the Eastern seaboard of the USA. The company commissioned MG to produce a new design with shoal draft, long keel and centreboard for GRP construction that should provide improved performance over its GH31 predecessor. Only one such GH33, with a ketch rig, was made prior to the company closing.

Hartwell Boat Builders and its assets were sold; Terry Erskine acquired the rights to the Golden Hind and the hull mould for the 33 was purchased by Philips and Sons Ltd. Philips decided to produce the 33 as an aft cabin, centre cock-pit ketch, designing the super-structure themselves and producing the new moulds in house. Known as the Atlantic Clipper 36 the yacht was exhibited at the London Boat Show where its rather radical high-sided, ornately gilded and scrolled superstructure with a poop-deck and well endowed figure-head was generally ill received. Its sailing performance and layout, however, belied its appearance and with the gilding and scroll-work removed the yacht proved a success and between 1972 and 1974 some 54 yachts were built. Philips ran into difficulties in 1975, mostly due to the introduction of VAT which had a devastating effect on the buying public and they simply stopped production.

In 1978 Barbican Yacht Construction Ltd. was formed and the Atlantic Clipper moulds purchased from Philips. A new superstructure mould was commissioned from Scimiter Powercraft in Poole and in 1979 the first complete Barbican 33 was produced to Lloyds specification and built by Terry Erskine Yachts for Dennis and Jane Hebden and named Shumara. They owned this yacht, with its pale Grecian blue hull and conventional bermudian sloop rig until earlier this year (2008). This design was happily endorsed by Maurice Griffiths and his comments feature in much of the early advertising material and brochures.

Terry Erskine Yachts stopped building Barbicans in 1981, since when they have been produced by the Barbican Yacht Construction Company, and several sold for owner completion, as was ours. A variety of rigs have been employed, most being bermudian mast-head sloop or cutter but at least two have been Junk schooner rigs. There are also three different keel designs, all being long keel, with or without the centreplate and also some have had bilge keels fitted.

The Barbican 33 has earned a good reputation as a cruising yacht and several have made transatlantic passages and indeed at least one was sailed extensively in the Pacific Ocean. This reputation rather follows on from MG's Golden Hind which is also held in high regard as a blue water boat. Many Barbicans enjoy long periods of "one ownership" which is perhaps testimony to the yachts satisfying their owners expectations. Our having been accepted with "Red Dawn IV" to attend the Brest 2008 Classic Boat Festival is also recognition that they are now accepted as a "Classic" design. Well done MG!!

Rodney Leaper
B33 "Red Dawn IV"