Launched on July 7th 1948, Bettine (in the Laurent Giles office she was nicknamed Bettine Junior) was Ormonde Darby’s third Laurent Giles designed yacht and the fifth with a short doghouse. She was Elkins eighth of the twenty seven Vertues constructed in their Christchurch yard on the confluence of the rivers Stour and Avon in the twenty five years before Cheoy Lee introduced in the 1960’s the quintessential teak hull long doghouse version, at a more attractive construction price.
Unlike most of the Elkins boats Bettine Junior set a low fore-triangle rig with smaller headsails which is discussed in more detail elsewhere in this archive. She also had a longer cockpit arrangement later to be repeated on V 21 Hussar, also from Elkins.
It is worthwhile taking a moment to clarify the thoughts behind Jack Giles ‘slutter’ rig with two heads stays: Unlike the conventional bermudan cutters Giles’ slutters’ two forestays meet at the deck on or very close aft of the stem head, usually with only an inch or so separating them. In fact Giles designed a specialized twin stay stem head fitting just for this purpose. Giles thinking was certainly not that the jib and staysail be set at the same time; the aft of the two stays (he termed this as the forestay) was portable and tensioned on a lever to be removable when the stay would be tied back at the mast. In that set-up only the jib would be set. With the forestay in position and tensioned by the Laurent Giles designed forestay lever there would never be a sail set on the masthead stay.