I remember my dad taking me and my sister Pauline (now Woodford), down on to the Quay to see the celebrations for the Smith brothers, Stanley and Colin Smith, who had just sailed across the Atlantic. They sailed from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia on 6th July 1949 to Dartmouth, England in 43 days. This yacht, they had constructed it in Nova Scotia. It was a twenty foot open yacht, clinker built, and as a cabin they used an up-turned dinghy. What a feat for those days! No wireless, no dehydrated food, no electronic instruments to guide them across the ocean. Photo
Yarmouth Quay,welcoming the return of the Smith Brothers 1949
The quay was covered in hundreds of people. Stanley Smith senior went on to build a class of yachts: Siani. There are still a few around. Some carvel, some clinker, based on the design of the Nova Espero.
They built these yachts in a shed next to the Institute, in a building that was between the bungalow ‘Seascape’ and the club extension. Before the mid fifties, there was a creek from the bridge right round to ‘Seascape’ and Smiths yard. When the tide was in, you couldn’t walk along in front of the wall that’s the back of the coastguard cottages. Les Turner b 1944
Crowds on the Quay to greet the Smith brothers on their return from Dartmouth after crossing the Atlaantic in 1949
