Charlie Barr Project

I am very excited and honoured to be collaborating with a good sailor friend of mine Alasdair Purves. I met Alasdair whilst sailing on the three masted schooner Atlantic at San Tropez in 2018. Alasdair is the Great Grandson of Charlie Barr the three times winner of the Americas Cup and one of the most illustrious names in yachting history. Alasdair is currently working on a film project to tell the story of his famous ancestor. I was so excited and honoured when he asked if I could produce a series of paintings that would help tell Charlies story. Below are a selection of the paintings of Charlies Yachts ive completed to date. Please check back as more of Charlies yachts are added.

Charlie captained and raced in some of the most famous yachts ever built. He raced Minerva the crack 40 footer that swept all before her in America , Then Herreshoffs 46 footers Gloriana and Wasp not to mention racing Navahoe against the Kings Britannia in England in 1893.

In 1895 he raced Vigilant against Defender in the Americas Cup trials. He so often getting the best of Capt Hank Haff of Defender that it was thought he should have helmed Defender in the Cup that year.

In 1899 and 1901 he Captained Columbia in the victorious Americas Cup campaigns of those years before moving on to the mighty Reliance of 1903.

In Response to the Kaisers challenge for a Trans Atlantic Race in 1905, Barr was placed in comand of Wilson Marshalls three masted schooner Atlantic. A yacht. with which he won immortal fame winning the race and setting a record that was to remain unbroken for nearly a hundred years

When Nat Herreshoff’s new schooner Ingomar raced in England in 1906 it was Barr in command sweeping the board in both the solent and against the best of the Kaisers schooners at Keil.

His final command was Westward with which he famously administered successive defeats on the fastest schooners in England and Germany. In one race he refused to yield his right of way simply because the Kaiser expected him to.

Capt Barr died rather suddenly died at Southampton in 1911 on the eve of departing with Westward to do battle with Herreshoff’s new schooner Elena.

1896-1900 Colonia

From 1896 to 1900 except for breaks to race Columbia in 1899 Charlies main command was the schooner Colonia. Colonia was originally built as a sloop to contend for the right to defend the 1893 America’s Cup against Valkyrie 11. In the final trials of 1893 she lost out to the other Herreshoff designed contender Vigilant but in 1895 she was converted to a schooner and for the next decade she raced competitively against the great schooners of the day including Emerald, Ariel, Quisetta and Elmina. It was her great success with Charlie at the helm that inspired Nat Herreshoff to design the great line of schooners he is known for.

On my visit to the Herreshoff Museum in the summer of 2024 I was made up to find a fully rigged model of Colonia. Seeing this model has certainly inspired my projected painting of Colonia.

All of Colonia’s construction plans can be viewed at the website of the Herreshoff Raisonne and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT

1899 Columbia and the battles for selection.

1903 Reliance and the Americas Cup

Reliance Research

In the summer of 2024 I visited the Herreshoff Museum at Bristol RI and studied the two models they have exhibited of Reliance. I was especially moved by touching Reliances actual wheel. Knowing Charlie Barr was the actual wheel used by Charlie Barr to helm this imortal yacht to victory in 1903 was quite overwhelming.

All of Reliances construction plans can be viewed at the website of the Herreshoff Raisonne and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT

1905 Atlantic and the Kaisers Cup

1906 Ingomar battle of the schooners

1910 Westward