THE BOATYARD
Sumurun was designed and built as a gaff-rigged yawl by William Fife and Son, in Fairlie, Ayrshire, Scotland, on the eve of World War I. William Fife, III, was then running the yard founded by his grandfather, and he is considered a central figure in the golden era of classic wooden yachts. From his slipway came not only Sumurun, but also the King’s yacht Britannia and such other lovely vessels as Altair, Belle Aventure, Tuiga, Moonbeam of Fife, Hallowe’en, Cambria, Mariella (an Alfred Mylne design), and America’s Cup challenger Shamrock I. All except Shamrock I are still sailing.
The first William Fife once declared that the secret to creating a great yacht was to make her both “fast and bonnie,” and Sumurun displays all the hallmarks of her pedigree: renowned speed, exquisite lines, solid construction, and impeccable craftsmanship.
THE YACHT
In an article in the May 19, 1914 issue of The Yachtsman announcing Sumurun’s launching, the writer declares:
More extreme boats, and less extreme boats than the really beautiful 90-ton yawl for Lord Sackville have been built at Fairlie. Speaking, however, with a close personal knowledge of about 50 years’ duration of the yard of Messrs. Fife, we should say there has not been fashioned… [a boat] in which the best elements of several types have been better or more harmoniously blended.
Exquisitely fitted out, Sumurun was lavished with the finest rigging, hardware, and joinery work. With a generator on board, she had the distinction of being one of the very first yachts with electric lights as well as kerosene lanterns.
Sumurun was launched mere weeks before Europe was catapulted into World War I. By the summer of 1920, she was sailing the waters of the English Channel, with Lord Sackville and his daughter, Vita Sackville-West, on board.
Designed as a “fast cruiser,” Sumurun raced often in the 1920s and 1930s, and her name quickly became synonymous with Big Class yacht racing, the era’s grandest spectacle in sport. A favorite rival was her great contemporary, the Fife yawl Rendezvous; and in fleet racing she competed with such noble yachts as the schooner Westward and the royal yacht Britannia.
As World War II engulfed Europe in the 1940s, Sumurun and many of her sister yachts, including the famous America’s Cup challenger Endeavour, were taken to the Hamble, across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, where their hulls were buried in the mud to preserve the wood. Sumurun was fortunate to escape the fate of some other vessels, including Britannia, which were stripped of all their hardware for the war movement and scuttled.
It wasn’t until after World War II that Sumurun was resurrected and fitted with her first engine. Until then, she had always been towed out of the harbor and to the starting line of every race by her little gasoline-powered tender. In 1948, the decision was made to re-rig Sumurun as a Marconi ketch to create a smaller main for easier sail handling. The new rig, finally completed in the 1950s, originally included a little bowsprit, which no longer exists. Sumurun had a series of owners following Lord Sackville, until her current owner became her dedicated caretaker in 1980.