ROBERT CLARK 39 ft MYSTERY CLASS CUTTER 1939 - PROJECT - Vendido

It may be typical of the very best yacht designers that some of their most revered work is among their earliest, from before they were widely known. It’s for sure the case with Olin Stephens and DORADE, and arguably the same with Robert Clark and his Mystery design, which some consider set him on his career path. Clark was untrained, and not yet in practice for himself when, working intuitively and convalescing from a serious illness, he created this beautifully simple, fast, good-looking and quintessentially English design that has become sought after. The masthead cutter-rigged Mystery Class ASTROPHEL is one of the most authentic pre-war English yachts we’ve seen.

ASTROPHEL has reached the stage in her life where she’s a project, but very few owners and an exceptional length of time in present ownership have ensured that she is an outstandingly original 1930s yacht offering a unique opportunity for very authentic restoration because everything is there. The restoration element should mainly be structural.

Commissioned by Itchenor Sailing Club member Maxwell F.A. Keen, ASTROPHEL was built, like all twelve Mystery Class yachts, by Sussex Yacht Works, Shoreham-by-Sea; an innovative yard that built many Clark designs, including the well-known pre-war ocean racers JOHN DORY and ERIVALE, both launched the year before. That ASTROPHEL has subsequently had very few owners is the key to her authenticity, and perhaps confirmation that designer and builder got her right first time with no need for further tinkering. She enjoyed a particularly happy time in the 1950s, cruising Ireland in the hands of the country’s then UK Ambassador Gurth Kimber, from whom the present owner purchased her in 1964.

- Pitch pine underbody and mahogany topsides planking on oak and elm frame
- Pine deck and house roof, cascover or fibreglass sheathed
- Teak house sides, coamings and toerail
- Iron floors
- Steel ring frames fore and aft of mast partners
- Lead keel

From aft
- Teak toerail flush to topsides with no capping, fashioned to attractive taffrail
- 2x Bronze fairleads and ensign staff socket on bronze plate on taffrail
- 2x Mooring cleats on aft deck
- Stainless steel mainsheet horse
- Bronze mushroom vent
- Simpson Lawrence running backstay levers
- Galvanised “gas pipe” tiller with turned teak end; bronze rudder stock cap
- Raised teak cockpit coaming
- Morse engine control
- 4x Teak headsail cleats
- 2x Original bronze headsail winches with original handles
- 3x cockpit lockers under side decks – 1 as lazarette
- 2x Original bronze winches on coach house sides, 1 each side, with original handles
- Stainless steel headsail track outboard close to toe rail P & S
- Bronze inner headsail track P & S

Coach house
- Teak sliding companionway hatch
- Teak butterfly hatch
- Teak handrail P & S entire length
- Varnished teak ventilation boxes P & S with bronze nav lights
- Stainless steel staysail sheet horse forward of mast partners
- Teak fore and aft sliding forehatch
- 4x circular bronze framed ports each side

Foredeck
- Teak cleat
- 2x Deck prisms
- 2x Teak mooring cleats either side of Sampson post
- Bronze hawse pipe
- Bow rollers port and starboard of stemhead

Access via companionway aft of coach house, over short bridge deck
- Down one step onto engine box; further step to cabin sole
- Galley to port
- Two-burner gimballed hob
- Stainless steel sink with hand pump
- Stowage aft to port under side deck
- 2x Bulkhead lights
- Quarter berth to starboard; battery under
- Lombardini marine engine instrumentation
- Auto bilge pump switch
- Ship’s isolator panel
- Echopilot repeater

Moving forward
- Full height hanging locker to starboard

Saloon
- Cushioned settee berths port and starboard
- Slated settee base and stowage under accessed from side
- Upholstered settee backrests, stowage behind
- To port above seat back, lockers
- To starboard above seat backs, shelf
- Full length grab rail at house sides

Moving forward
- To port, wc compartment with Jabsco-Par manual toilet
- To Starboard, sideboard with fiddles, lockers under and shelf outboard

Forepeak
- To starboard, two large lockers

- Masthead cutter twin spreader rig setting yankee and staysail
- Assumed original spruce mast, boom and spinnaker boom
- Main, staysail, light weather and heavy weather yankee jibs, all by Ratsey & Lapthorn

- Lombadini LDW 1003 30hp marine diesel, very low hours
- Engine starting and service battery
- Water and Diesel tanks

- Portable chart table at quarter berth
- Traditional navigation P & S light at coachhouse
- EchoPilot depth sounder

-Stainless steel stanchions, lifelines and pulpit
- Fire blanket in galley
- Auto and manual bilge pumps