Lot 69: - Jamie Medlin , b. 1970 Lulworth in the Mediterranean oil on canvas

Signed l.r.: Jamie Medlin oil on canvas

76 by 106.5cm., 30 by 42in.

LOTS 69-71 PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
Following the decline of the Big Class yachts at the end of the 1930s, Lulworth, which was owned at the time by Alexander Allan Paton, was anchored in the River Hamble in Hampshire where, after a brief career as a house boat, she fell into disrepair.

She changed hands five time between 1937 and 2001. Rediscoverd in 1990 and removed from her prison of mud by Harry Spencer, she was towed to the Camper & Nicholson yard in Gosport before being purchased by the Columbo-Vink family and shipped to Italy for a refit; during the voyage she was held in a submerger, essentially a floating dry dock. However, the fact she survived the journey was testament to the quality of her original build.

Legal disputes followed which delayed the rebuild but finally in 2001 she was purchased by the Dutch entrepreneur Johan van den Bruele and the refit began in earnest in 2002. Her steel frame and furnishings were, to a large degree, intact and the sail plan of 1926 was faithfully recreated giving her one of the tallest wooden masts in the world. She was rebuilt to Lloyds classification and relaunched in 2006. As such, she is the only one of the 'Big Five' consisting of Britannia, Westward, White Heather II and Shamrock to survive in her largely original state. She competes regularly in regattas in the Mediterranean.