Fromstock Filius - The beginning

As our search for the boat's history would reveal, she was was one of two. The twin boats were built from matching hauls by the father and son sailors, Valentine and Philip Howells. Valentine, or Val as he was known, was already well known in the sailing world at the time this boat was built. Of his son, Philip, there is less information. As of this writing, Val is still alive and living in Whales, though in his 90s. We have been unable to discover the whereabouts of Philip.

In part, Val is easier to research because he wrote several books about his sailing adventures. At least one other book by another author gives a first hand account of him, which paints a very clear picture of a man worth admiration, but I will get to that in another post.

The boat we now own is a Jester class named the Fromstock Filius that was built by Philip. His father's boat, the twin sister to ours, was named Unibras Brython. Both started in the 1976 OSTAR for which they were built, but the Unibras did not finish due to an injury to Val early in the race.

Of the 125 boats that started the race, only 73 finished with 2 skippers lost at sea. Our boat finished in 35th place and 22nd in its class. Each boat had only one person on board. Remember that this was before the time of GPS and cell technology, so alone was ALONE.

This began my thinking about the relationship between a lone man in his lone boat and how he trusted his life to her. Later I was to learn more about the construction of these special little boats. . .