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Imke Is Relaunched, June 2017
Exciting news has arrived this morning in the form of a FaceBook post showing Imke being relaunched following a three and a half year restoration endeavour. George bought Imke in 2013 and his first job was to assemble evidence to prove that Imke was built to a genuine Harrison Butler design. The key evidence was to superimpose a photograph of Imke with a line drawing of the West Wind design. Here is the compelling match up;
The West Wind design, published in 1916, was enlarged and refined version of THB's 1911 design, Memory. Paul Leinthall-Cowman, the HBA's authentication expert, informed the Association that only two examples of the West Wind design were built. One was called West Wind built for the nephew of HJ Suffling, the first owner of Memory. The other is Darling built entirely of Argentine wood, in 1920 in Buenos Aries. West Wind had been renamed Imke before George bought her.
West Wind is in my Lloyd's register of 1936 but not in any of my Register's from 1947 onwards. In the 1946 register she is owner by “The Executors of the late Lieutenant Richard A Edmunds RNVR”. It has been suggested to me that she was stranded, perhaps abandoned, in France when World War II broke out. There remains much that the Association does not know about this boat.
Imke Statistics
Built : 1928 by Ernest Woods of Horning, Cantley
LOA : 24' 0"
LWL : 21' 0"
Beam : 7'
Draught : 4' 3"
Displacement : 4 tons TM
Imke as she was when George Böekling bought her in 2013
She had been in this shed for twelve years
Imke Custodians & Home Ports
George Böekling (2013-2017...) Zeewolde, Netherlands
Onno Reeskamp (1987-2012) Kortenhoef, Netherlands
Lieut Richard A Edmunds RNVR (1938-1947-?) Waldringfield
NA Stuffling (1928 -1937) Brundall
Page last updated : June 2017
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