JACK GIFFORD Lines man

When he’s not writing his Classic Design column for us, naval architect Jack Gifford is usually designing boats – or prospecting for gold in the Congo

- STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES

The story of how Jack Gifford became a naval architect with a bent for tradition could hardly be simpler: “Dad was really keen on sailing, and my earliest memory was of ‘helping’ him to restore my grandfather’s old, wooden Wayfarer that he bought new in the 60s. I remember a lot of scraping. So from the start, my earliest perception was that if you wanted to go sailing, you had to restore a boat.”

Jack is speaking from his home office between Falmouth and Redruth, and that Wayfarer – Venus – is in his back garden, along with some swallows that have arrived for summer. But Jack was raised on the other side (Aldeburgh, Suffolk) and spent his childhood racing out of Slaughden – a hamlet on a shingle spit until the 1953 flood washed it away. They used to build big fishing boats there, and at the Three Mariners pub, long lost to the sea, they would open the back door to let the spring high water run through. By Jack’s time, all that was left was the “working man’s” club, Slaughden SC, and the smarter Aldeburgh YC nearby; and he joined both. “Much of my sailing was on the River Alde,” remembers Jack. “When I was old enough, Dad got me an old wooden Optimist – again, it needed a big restoration; it barely had a bottom in it. It must have been a very early one, as it had the sail number OP66. Pluto was my trusty steed when growing up. I could just about get home from school in Woodbridge on the train and make it to the sailing club for racing on Wednesday nights in summer. The Alde was a good training ground. You got all the good stuff like tides, shallows and wind shifts, but you were close to the club and the safety boats. Then there’s all the Arthur Ransome territory nearby for camping and picnics.”