Chirria 
(ex Nante)

An Invited Friend of The Harrison Butler Association
Built by David Hillyard in 1950

Chirria : Mystery Boat Identified
Jan Solér and Jonas Edenbrand joined the Hillyard Owner's FaceBook group in September 2017 having been given a run-down but sea-worthy Hillyard in Malmö, Sweden. The boat came without a name or history but they found a six digit number etched into one of the beams: 187953.
I like a challenge, and so decided that the number was most likely to be a Lloyd's Registration from before 1963. Allowing a few years for the boat to be registered, I found in my 1965 Register that there are 340 boats listed as designed by David Hillyard. I started to look up each boat to see what its Registration number (if any) was. Of course the boat might not be in that particular edition of the Register at all. I got lucky; The 36th boat in the list had the correct number; Chirria. With a foot in the door, I could then flesh out her owner history between 1957 and 1973, those years for which she is presented in Lloyd's.
It'll be interesting to see if Jan and Jonas can now add any more detail from their point of view. Chirria was renamed Nante sometime after 1973. Rather than keep Nante, they feel it would be more respectful to revert to the original name.
They believe that during the 'missing years' the boat had Belgian ownership and then went to Estonia where what they describe as “sloppy repair work was carried out”.

Chirria Statistics
Built : 1950 by David Hillyard at Littlehampton, England
LOA : 33' 0"
LWL : 27' 6"
Beam : 9' 0"
Draught : 5' 0"
Displacement : 8 tons TM
Lloyd's Register : N° 187953
Signal Letters : MMUE8

Chirria Custodians & Home Ports 
Jan Solér & Jonas Edenbrand (2017...) Malmö, Sweden 
J Wilson (?-2017) Tosteberga Harbour, Sweden
Mr Brad Swain (?-2009-?)
Mr & Mrs EJ Filkins (1970-1973-?) Portsmouth Harbour, England
Robert H Vardy (1962-1969) Portsmouth Harbour, England
Dr Norman L Crabtree (?-1957-1961) Beaulieu, England

Chirria Links 
• Classic Hillyard Wooden Boats on FaceBook

Page last updated : January 2018

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