Name Klang II

KLANG II was built in Falmouth in 1924, by W.E. Thomas. She is of a design commonly known as ‘Quay boats’, much used by agents and pilots to go out into the English Channel in all weathers to meet homecoming merchant ships to take their cargo manifests to port, they were quite heavily built and conservatively rigged making them very seaworthy vessels.

She moved to Jersey in the 1930s and was then in the ownership of Mr P Le Marquand. In June 1940 with the imminent fall of France, evacuation plans were put into action, the best known being the evacuation of over 350,000 troops from Dunkirk, Operation Dynamo, and Operation Cycle from Le Havre. The less well known was Operation Ariel, the evacuation of troops from the ‘other’ French ports (Cherbourg, St Malo, Brest, St Nazaire, La Rochelle and Bordeaux) which accounted for another 190,000 evacuees. KLANG II was one of 20 ‘little ships’ that went to St Malo from Jersey in response to a request from the Royal Navy to assist in the evacuation of allied troops.

KLANG II spent the rest of the war as an auxiliary patrol vessel before being released back into civilian life. Her whereabouts after the war are a bit vague but she started a new phase of her life in the early 1960s. She was to be owned by two famous sailing writers: Murray Davis and Keith Taylor. The former was the first editor of Sail magazine and co-founder with his wife of Cruising World magazine. The second one was former editor of Soundings.

It was Davis who bought KLANG II in the mid-1960s and added the doghouse to give some protection in the cockpit, he then sailed her to Bermuda with some friends and then continued on with his wife and two young children to America where he was to cover the America’s Cup races off Newport. He subsequently sold her to Keith Taylor who owned her for many year and sailed her widely on the eastern seaboard. After this she was again sold and became a ‘live aboard’, this was probably the low point of her career, in the late 1990s she suffered a hull fitting failure and sank at her mooring. 

It was at this point she was spotted by Captain Richard 'Rip' Hayman who determined to rescue her and bring her back to life.  Mr. Hayman got together with a group of fellow enthusiasts to form the Klang Association. Based in New York, they have been the custodians of her since May 2000.  The Klang Association was constituted to operate and maintain her as a community recreation boat, this worked well until post 9/11 when the New York Port Authority closed her dock to small boats. After this she became a bit of a nomad and spent most of her time in and around New England, based at Mystic Seaport, Connecticut. However, as she could no longer fulfil her community role, the Association looked to find her a new home.

In 2017, KLANG II was due to return to Jersey, Channel Islands, where she spent her early years and where she had her ‘finest hour’. Plans were in place for her to come under the care of Jersey Heritage and return to operational use as a passenger vessel, however due to the pandemic, Brexit, and other complications, this plan fell through. 

Update, May 2024: Vessel for sale. Currently on hard standing in a boatyard in Rhode Island.