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Nautilus

Vessel numberHV000387

Sail NumberB 11

Vessel Registration NumberWL 138S

Designer J J Savage

Builder Botterill & Frazer

Vessel class 21 Foot Restricted Class (1907 - 2007)

Date1946

DimensionsVessel Dimensions: 7.62 m x 6.4 m x 2.44 m (25 ft x 21 ft x 8 ft)

DescriptionNAUTILUS was designed by Jack Savage. It was Petley's third 21 Foot Restricted Class yacht - he had previously owned JACKDAW and then QUONDONG, now known as GALATEA (HV000246). NAUTILUS was built by Botterill and Fraser in South Melbourne and launched in late 1946, who also built QUONDONG. Petley belonged to the Royal Brighton Yacht Club. He built NAUTILUS to compete in the 1947 Forster Cup series held on Port Phillip as a Victorian representative. The 1947 series was won by TASSIE TOO.

NAUTILUS was carvel planked according to the scantlings and rules of the class and carried a gunter rig. This rig was an anachronism as the Bermudan rig was well established in most other classes. The 21s held onto the gunter style when some experiments in Bermudan sailplans proved unsuccessful. The hull shape was relatively conservative too. As the class approached the end of its heyday the last few yachts built did not try anything extreme or unusual in their proportions, and stayed with moderate displacement and maximum beam dimensions.

NAUTILUS remained on Port Phillip throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. It was eventually converted to a Bermudan rig probably taken from a Dragon class yacht. It often raced against its sister ship ALTAIR from the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron.

During the 1970s NAUTILUS was owned by the Bull family in Metung on the Gippsland Lakes in eastern Victoria. It eventually ended up stored out of the water and not in use. In 1989 the Albert Park Yacht Club in Melbourne purchased the boat and restored it to sailing condition for use on the lake. It also made occasional trips to Ballarat and Goolwa to race with the other remaining 21s.

Justin Nix bought NAUTILUS from the club in 1998 and extensively rebuilt the boat over a three year period. It was re-launched in Williamstown, Victoria on the 21st October 2001, and sailed on Port Phillip for another seven years before being sold to new owners in Goolwa. There is a healthy fleet of surviving and new 21s racing with the local Goolwa yacht club. The hull, deck and layout on NAUTILUS are all original or rebuilt to the original specifications, but the rig is the modern Bermudan pattern used on almost all the Goolwa-based fleet.
SignificanceNAUTILUS is a wooden 21 Foot Restricted Class yacht built in 1946 in Melbourne, Victoria for class enthusiast Horrie Petley. The class raced for The Forster Cup, the premier Interstate series sailed over three decades during the middle of the 20th Century. NAUTILUS was one of the last 21s to be built while the class still competed for the trophy. It raced in this series at least once, and remains sailing in SA with a modified rig stepped on the original hull.

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