Name Jack Heron

JACK HERON is a leisure craft, a yawl of timber carvel construction and a rare surviving example of a Herbert White designed cruising yacht.  She was originally built without an engine, but a petrol paraffin engine was fitted in 1934.  It is believed there were two sister ships built, one called CYGNET and the other ALANA.  However, subsequent research in Lloyds Register of Yachts has only brought up a boat called ALUNA, built by Whites of Itchen in the same year as JACK HERON, a 9-ton, 36ft auxiliary cutter with motor.  There is a CYGNET built in 1903 by Whites of Itchen listed, but as this was three years after JACK HERON and of different rig and tonnage, it is unlikely to be a true sister ship.

During the Second World War, JACK HERON was laid up in Heybridge basin.  During a bombing raid on London, a spare bomb dropped in the river, which sank some yachts on the river sending pebbles and other river debris through the unfortunate boats' bottoms.  JACK HERON did not founder during this raid, but the vacuum created by the explosion cracked the deck beam aft of the skylight.

In 1950, the owner gave the vessel to his son as a wedding present, who then had a new mast fitted to convert her to Bermudan rig to modernise her.  He kept the mast stepping in the same place and the original long boom.  The deck was painted canvas over pine planking. 

JACK HERON was laid up in Everson's boat yard on the River Deben at Woodbridge in the 1950s and virtually left to her own devices.  She remained neglected through most of the '60s until she finally sank at her berth.  Most of her corking had been spilled, and she was filled and emptied on every tide.  She stayed like this for three years until she was bought in 1972.

Under new ownership, she was towed across the estuary to Freston on the Orwell, then hauled out on to a cradle.  The next couple of years saw her being rebuilt and a new bowsprit fitted.  A few grown frames were replaced, and the steamed frames doubled, rotting canvas on the deck replaced with epoxy resin and cloth, the port garboard replaced and many planks refastened.  A Ford Watermotor petrol conversion was installed, and two years later replaced with a 2HG Sabb Diesel.  JACK HERON cruised over the next few years to most places around the East Coast, as well as to Holland and a long cruise across the Baltic to Finland.

Bought by new owners in 2008, she was converted back to a gaff yawl from Bermudan rig.  She damaged her stern in the storm of 1987 and has since had a sawn off counter, but the intention was to reinstate the full counter stern.