Design No. 308 by Alfred Mylne, GOMETRA is a cutter built in 1925 for Admiral James Farie at the Mylne Brothers Bute Slip Dock, in Port Bannatyne on the Isle of Bute. Designed for British coastal waters, until 1939 she sailed and raced along the coasts and between the islands of Scotland, Wales and England. During World War II an unexpected mission would then change her destiny, taking her as far as the Pacific where, from Canada to El Salvador, she would undertake long and arduous sailings and participate in challenging offshore races with excellent results.
In 2006 GOMETRA arrives by cargo in the Mediterranean. In Nice she met her current educated and passionate owner who began a thorough and total restoration completed in 2016. Today she is one of the boats with the purest and most harmonious lines one has the pleasure of seeing, and one of the rare vintage boats to have been powered by an all-electric propulsion system. Never has a boat been purer. There will never be a drop of diesel in the bilge.
Her current owners wanted to restore her to perfection, but for lack of time, the boat has been in storage since 2023 and has been waiting, trembling, to return to the sea, sail and win races.
GOMETRA is being sold in perfect condition with up-to-date maintenance.
HISTORY
GOMETRA is named after a small islet off Mull, Scotland. She began her racing career in the Firth of Clyde and until 1939 sailed and raced along the coasts and between the islands of Scotland, Wales and England. Among her owners was Lieutenant William Blaine Luard, a talented sailor, navigator and writer who praised her sailing virtues in his book Where The Tides Meet.
In 1939, World War II caught GOMETRA in Scotland, but when Norway was attacked by the Nazis,the boat was chosen by the Norwegian government in exile in London to transport part of the Norwegian Crown's gold reserves to safety in Canada. Having stowed a substantial amount of gold on board, the boat was loaded onto the freighter Bra Kra with its crew on stand-by to sail to safety in case the freighter was sunk by U-boats. In the case of the sinking of the freighter, GOMETRA was to tow floating crates containing over 40 tonnes of gold to Canada.
The Golden Keel is the name of an adventure novel by Desmond Bagley that is thought to have been inspired by this extraordinary adventure.
In Halifax, having done her duty and brought the precious cargo out of Hitler's reach earning her the nickname The Gold Ship, she was bought by the Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron Nova Scotia Ernes Allison Bell and began to earn the praise of many sailing enthusiasts including Charles Rawlings. The latter, with the help of the boat's skipper, naval architect William J. Roué, reconstructed GOMETRA's troubled history and in 1941 narrated it in an article for Yachting Magazine.
After the war the yacht was bought by Gus Ortengren and made her overland journey to the west coast by train with the Canadian Pacific Railway. Taken over in 1954 by Elmer Palmer, GOMETRA spent many happy years as flagship of the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club participating in several regattas annually, achieving victories or excellent results. High dignitaries and distinguished guests were often on board on these occasions.
In 1976 she was bought by the Scotsman David Millis who participated that same year in the Victoria-Maui, the 2300-mile transpacific race from Canada to Hawaii that is still run every 2 years. In 1978, he returned to take part in the Swiftsure Races, and sailed between Canada, Hawaii and California, as far as Mexican waters.
At her new base in Baja California, GOMETRA continued to attract admiring glances and triumph in her home race, the Bandaras Bay International Regatta until, due to her owner's health problems, she was neglected and almost abandoned at the risk of hurricanes in La Paz, Baja California. In 2003, Molly Holt, a dynamic and strong-willed sailor, became her owner and devoted a year to her, despite interruptions due to hurricanes Ignacio and Marty. Then with a friend, her two sons and his dog, she sets off on a 2,500-mile cruise in the Sea of Cortez along the coasts of Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. In 2006 she reached Toulon via cargo, from here she sailed to Nice where she met her new educated and passionate owner and began the extensive restoration anticipated and documented by her son's in-depth study and naval engineering graduation dissertation.
Alfred Mylne was a well-known Scottish naval designer. He began his career by apprenticing to G. L. Watson, the architect who designed the Royal Yacht Britannia for the Prince of Wales and later King of England Edward VII.
Mylne set out on his own in 1886, but it was in 1906 that his consecration among the greats of yacht design came with his involvement in the drafting of the most famous rating rule of all time, the International Yacht Racing Rules , a formula according to which Mylne would produce numerous and always fast hulls during his long career.
In 1911 together with his brother Charles he opened the Bute Slip Dock shipyard in Port Bannatyne on the island of Bute. The yard would work continuously under their management until it was handed over to his nephew Alfred Mylne II in 1946, spanning two World Wars during which he worked with the Royal Navy and the Royal Naval Air Service producing components for seaplanes.
Alfred Mylne's great achievements include collaborating on the design of Britannia's new sail plan in 1921 and designing several very fast hulls such as the 12 Metre Hera, Olympic gold medallist in Stockholm 1908. Mariella, Thendara and Irina VII are among his yachts that have always stood out for their elegance, making the yachts born from the pencil of this great designer coveted.
CONSTRUCTION AND ACCOMODATION
Norwegian pine planking, flexible acacia stringers alternating with reinforced Iroko laminate stringers. Original spruce deck (kept because it was too beautiful to dismantle) screwed onto the beams, over which the 2016 teak deck is glued.
316 stainless steel floors.
In the central area of the boat, at the mast and shrouds, there is a double stainless-steel ring structure - a very strong cage fore and aft of the mast - that connects the floors, frames, beams and is connected to the shrouds. Robust steel braces connecting the beams and frames have been placed in other areas to provide stability against torsional stresses.
All the ballast pins are new, as are all the metal connections between the planking, frames, beams and shrouds, and all are made of stainless steel.
INTERIOR
5 berths: two comfortable bunks under the cockpit benches, the two settees in the saloon and a wide berth in the dedicated cabin in the mast area, with a door separating from the saloon and access to the bathroom in the bow. The minimalist kitchenette has a sink and a small spirit cooker. There is space for a small fridge.
Teak furniture and panels.
EQUIPMENT
Electric engine 13kW 72V DC L-200 D135 RAG Lynch Motor Company.
Autonomy depending on engine speed and sea state. 25 miles at 4 kt .12 miles at 5 kt.
Service batteries 24 V with 2 x 12V-40 Ah batteries.
Power supply 3 Mastervolt MLI Ultra 24/5000 batteries in series for 72 V engine supply.
Silentwind wind generator.
Solar panels and propeller-driven generation while sailing.
Sailor VHF.
Tak Tik wireless wind station.
Bilge pumps 2 electric, one automatic with float. Plus one manual bilge pump operated from the cockpit.
Water tanks 2 stainless steel tanks, approx. 150 litres; there is room to add more capacity.
Hydraulic system Due to the purely regatta or day trip use that GOMETRA has had since the restoration, the hoses for the hydraulic system have never been connected; there is a small collection tank for grey water to complete the system. There is no black water tank. There is room to make one if desired.
Kitchen There is no refrigerator but it can be added. Neither is there a boiler, but there is a predisposition on the electrical panel with a dedicated line to hook it up. All of this cruise adaptation work can be done by the new owner or, by agreeing on the design and construction, by the current owner.
Sails North Sail: mainsail, light genoa, heavy genoa, intermediate jib (never used), wind jib, spinnaker. The boat has sailed very little and the sails are practically new.
Safety equipment and self-inflating jackets.
Bespoke waterproof winter awning for full cover, including gunwale.
Custom-made hoods for all superstructures.
Custom steel cradle, very robust can be lifted with the bindings or dragged on the windshields.