Pond Yacht is a quiet celebration of a pastime that feels both ordinary and enchanted—a small craft, made for a small stretch of water, yet carrying the romance of the open sea. In this second Painting of mine to explore pond yachting (the first being Sunday Sailors), the humble model boat becomes a central character: part toy, part sculpture, part memory. It is, at once, an object of play and a symbol of something much larger—tradition, craftsmanship, and the enduring pull of sailing culture.
The composition places the pond yacht in a world that feels gently idealised. The boat sits low and calm, its pale sails catching the light as if lit from within. The water beneath reflects the hull and rigging, but not with photographic accuracy; instead, the ripples soften the reflection into a painterly shimmer, like a memory forming and dissolving at the same time. There’s a stillness here that suggests the moment just before motion—the second before wind or a child’s push sets the yacht drifting across the pond.
The presence of the bench, the neat grass, and the deep, shadowy trees gives the scene a sense of ordered leisure. This isn’t wilderness; it’s a public space designed for rest and recreation. And that feels appropriate, because pond yachting has always belonged to shared places—parks, ponds, village greens—where everyday life brushes against the miniature theatre of sailing. In Pond Yacht, the scale is part of the magic: the boat is small, but it carries itself like a full-size yacht, proud and purposeful. It echoes the way many pond yachts were designed to imitate the real vessels of their era, reflecting the fashions of rigging, hull shapes, and proportions from the golden ages of yachting.
Pond yachting is one of those hobbies that has existed for centuries, passed down in countless small gestures. It is easy to imagine sailors and fishermen whittling simple boats for children, giving them not just a toy but a way to understand wind, water, and balance. The practice changed in the 1900s, when mass production began to take hold and pond yachts became widely available. Before the war, there was a rich variety of models; during the war years that range diminished, only to return again in the 1950s when full production resumed and new marques emerged. For many children, birthdays and Christmas meant receiving a pond yacht—a gift that carried both excitement and instruction, because pond yachts teach patience as much as play.
Yet this tradition has always carried a quiet divide: most pond yachts were affordable, made to be sailed and enjoyed, while more intricate, expensive examples became collector’s pieces—admired for their precision, but sometimes never touching water at all. That tension between use and preservation sits subtly within this painting. The yacht here appears ready to sail, but it is also presented with the reverence of a prized object. In the end, Pond Yacht isn’t only about a model boat—it is about what it represents: a small craft holding centuries of making, giving, and dreaming, caught in a single moment of sunlit calm.
# 13 Sunday sailors (2011)
Oil on fine portrait linen: 95 x 120 cm; 37.4 x 47.2 in (sold) Gallery Edition
#15 Pond Yacht (2011)
Oil on fine portrait linen: 95 x 125 cm; 37.4 x 49.21 in Gallery Edition
#51 Shimmer (2015)
Oil on fine portrait linen: 95 x 125 cm; 37.4 x 49.21 in (Sold) Gallery Edition
#69 Line honours (2021)
Oil on fine portrait linen: 95 x 180 cm; 37.4 x 70.86 in (Sold) Gallery Edition
#74 Sea breeze (2022) Oil on fine portrait linen:
95 x 125 cm; 37.4 x 49.21 in (Sold) Gallery Edition
#77 solitude (2023) Oil on fine portrait linen:
95 x 125 cm; 37.4 x 49.21 in (Sold) Gallery Edition
15 Pond Yacht
Oil on fine portrait linen: 95 x 125 cm; 37.4 x 49.21 in (Sold)
