foxy
VIXEN is a 15 square meter sloop originally designed by Knud Reimers and built by Oscar Schelin’s Kungsors Boat Yard (Sweden) in 1937. She was built for the export market and was shipped directly from Kungsors’s to the UK.
Not much of her ownership or race record history is known but in 2010 VIXEN was sailed in the Uffa Fox Challenge (Cowes UK to Trosa, Sweden 1000+ miles) by three intrepid Brits (Luke Yeats, Jack Gifford & Will Shepard) and completed the race in 12 days. After a bit of rest the trio raced VIXEN against other 15 square meters in Sweden but eventually she was put on the hard and offered for sale.
VIXEN’s new owner had always admired the sleek looks and sailing qualities of square meter boats and wanted to have a wooden boat that he could use to race in the (wood only) classic yacht races here in Maine and southern New England. Figuring that if VIXEN had sailed across the North & Baltic Seas without sinking that was as good a survey as needed so he bought her sight unseen. VIXEN was packed up into an extra long shipping container and arrived here at Brooklin Boat Yard in the summer of 2011 with just enough time to be launched and raced in the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta.
VIXEN’s new owner had already had Brooklin Boat Yard do a complete and total restoration of the Bill Tripp Sr. designed KATRINKA so he looked to us again to restore VIXEN. Many man hours, floors, frames, planking, rigging and a whole new deck and cabin later VIXEN is now back in the water and sailing. – John Maxwell.
