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  • Classic Boat

    GOING WITH THE FLOW

    Aug 13, 2021 5 minutes
    WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS NIC COMPTON

    Nick Smith has more reason to believe in destiny than most. His life was transformed by a chance encounter on a beach on the Isle of Wight one fateful day 30 years ago, and he has been reaping the benefits ever since.

    It was 1991 and Nick had moved from Devon to the Isle of Wight to work with Harry Spencer on the restoration of the 1896 Camper & Nicholson cutter Avel. One bitter cold winter’s day while he was taking a walk around Newtown Creek he spotted an old clinker boat dragged up on a slipway. He had already seen the boat before on a mooring and been struck by her shape.

    “I guess she was originally a ship’s boat, but there was something about her that was just right,” he remembers. “The hull had sagged

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