Ziska

Ziska was built in 1903 as a cruising and racing yacht to the lines of the working prawners of her day. Every fishing harbour in the isles had a fleet of Morecambe Bay Prawners. They were generally a bit smaller, open boats with prawn holds, and were made to be worked by a man and a boy. They also had a boiler and they’d cook the prawns on the way back to harbour and sell them hot right off the dock.

In the early 1970’s she broke a mooring line in a blow and was wrecked. She was taken to Cowes where what was to be a 24 year rebuild began.That restoration ended when Ziska found Ashley Butler, a young sailor and shipwright: Ashley completed her rebuild part time replacing the stem, sternpost, several planks, deck, rig, and interior. Ashley solo sailed her 25,000NM in six years and then sold her.

In 2017 Ziska underwent a two-year rebuild involving many of the luminaries of wooden boat restoration in Port Townsend and giving her a few upgrades including new spars, rig, and sails, a new saloon, a few planks, a 12V system, and a few changes on deck.

She completed the R2AK race to Alaska in 2019 and sailed back to Port Townsend and hauled in 2020 for a few new planks, recorking bottom, forefoot rebuild, rebuilding rudder post trunk, rig alteration, and added a Torqeedo Cruise10 Pod Drive with 15KWH lithium ion batteries: range; 50nm@2kts, 10nm@5kts.