Cruising off the Beaten Track in a 95 year old Yawl

By Mike Yendell

Where: Clyde Cruising Club, Bardowie Loch, Craigmaddie Rd, Milngavie, G62 6EX 

When: Monday 6 February 2012, 7:00pm for 7:30

Wine and Light Refreshments. 

In 2004 Mike Yendell who lives in Rhu, sailed his 1914 yawl Cooya through the Caledonian Canal to Scandinavia for a summer cruise with family and friends. Returning via the Kiel Canal that year, he laid her up for the winter in the South West of England where he grew up, at Turf on the Exe. 

Someone then asked Mike 'Where next?' Off the top of his head, Mike said 'Brazil, for Carnival'. Cooya duly arrived in Brazil just in time for Carnival in February 2008, returning to Scotland from Newfoundland in 2010 having sailed over 25,000 miles and visited 30 countries on five continents. 

She is now laid up afloat in Portugal for the winter. Happier on a lonely anchorage than moored in a busy marina and an explorer by nature, Mike and his wife Eilean sought out many fascinating off-the-beaten-track places to visit. For example in 2007 Cooya was the first amateur yacht to cruise Libya for about 30 years. In this illustrated talk he will give a glimpse of the remote places Cooya has visited and the people Cooya and her crew have been privileged to meet. 

Cooya is a 40’ yawl designed by Linton Hope, an Olympic sailor well known for the range of his designs and was built by Aldous of Brightlingsea in 1914 of Burma teak on English oak. Mike has owned her for nearly 40 years. She has been based in Rhu since Mike and Eilean moved to Scotland in 1984. 

For further information contact: Clive Reeves, email: cruising@clyde.org