| | | Brass Plaques Inscribed
“Designed by Dr T Harrison Butler”
From Classic Boat, December 2018
Official Recognition That A Boat Is Harrison Butler Designed
In July 2018 the HBA began taking applications for these beautiful brass plaques from members of the Association that wished to have official recognition that their boat was a faithful implementation of a Harrison Butler design. The Association already has a fairly good idea of the boats that are likely to qualify for a brass plaque, these boats being listed on the webpage Boats Designed By Harrison Butler. Each of these boats has recently been allocated a unique sail number, as shown on that page. However, in order to preserve the integrity of the scheme, any of these boats wishing to purchase a brass plaque must first complete an Application For A Certificate Of Authenticity form. If the application is successful, a “Certificate of Authenticity” is issued along with a brass plaque stamped with the applicant boat's unique sail number.The cost of the brass plaque plus the certificate of authenticity is £40 + P&P.The form may be completed online (it's a Word Document) and emailed to the HBA's authentication officer, Paul Leinthall-Cowman. That is Authentication@HarrisonButlerAssociation.com Alternatively, it my be printed off, completed and mailed to Paul his address as printed in the HBA Yearbook. Either way, you may pay by cheque, or bank transfer.
Background Information About The New Sail Numbers
Recently all of the Harrison Butler boats were allocated official sail numbers. By way of a typical example, Sabrina's is Y135 and Tramontana's is CA201. It doesn't matter that many boats currently don't carry the official sail number on their sails, but over time it's hoped that the new numbers will be adopted. The numbers are in order of age of design, so 1 is the earliest from 1910 (The Hong Kong design) up to 355 from 1945 (The Dream of Arden Design). So, the 135 in Sabrina's Y135 tells you that she was built to a design that came before Tramontana, with her 201. The letter part of the number is for the design so Sabrina has Y because she's built to Harrison Butler's Yonne design and Tramontana has CA because she's built to the Cayuca design. So, it can now be deduced that the Yonne design came before the Cayuca design. The end digit of Sabrina's number, the 5, tells you she was the fifth boat built to the Yonne design. Tramontana's end digit, the 1, tells you she's the first boat built to the Cayuca design. All sails would also have the letters HB for Harrison Butler, so Sabrina's full official sail number is HB Y135. The Z4's are the exception to all of this as they already had two digit numbers. Cobber, for example, had number 35. To these to 400 is added which is why Cobber's brass plaque, in the photograph above, is stamped Z435.
This page last updated, 27th January 2020
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