Jolie Brise

Jolie Brise is a gaff-rigged pilot cutter built and launched by the Albert Paumelle Yard in Le Havre in 1913 to a design by Alexandre Pâris. After a short career as a pilot boat, owing to steam replacing sail, she became a fishing boat.

Bought by E. G. Martin (Commander Evelyn George Martin RNR OBE) in 1923 she was refitted and won the first Fastnet race from seven starters in August 1925. In 1927 Martin sold Jolie Brise, through an advertisement in Yachting World to Captain Warren Ferrier and his partner Dr Brownlow Smith. An engine and an additional cabin were fitted at Morgan Giles's yard at Teignmouth. Bobby Somerset, a founder member of the Ocean Racing Club - as was Martin, purchased her in 1928. After competing in the Fastnet, Bermuda and Santander races he sold her four years later to Lt. John Gage RNR. His ownership was only for a year and it seems that in 1934 she was purchased by an American, Mr Stanley Mortimer. Alterations, mostly to the living accommodation were made at a yard in Palma, Majorca and a Gardner diesel was fitted in Marseilles. After cruising the Mediterranean Sea, and with war in the offing Jolie Brise returned to Southampton and was put up for sale. She was bought by William Stannard but requisitioned by the Royal Navy who laid her up on a mud berth at Shoreham for the duration of the war. In 1945 she was bought by a consortium headed by Lillian and Jim Worsdell and her name was changed to Pleasant Breeze. A voyage to New Zealand was aborted and when she put in to Lisbon she was acquired by a Portuguese consortium headed by Luis Lobato. Repaired and refitted, she was once again listed as Jolie Brise. For nearly 30 years her home port remained Lisbon but in 1975, partly because of the political situation in Portugal, she returned to the Solent, 50 years after her first Fastnet win.

In 1977 she was bought for Dauntsey's School Sailing Club.

Jolie Brise was one of a number of prestigious vessels to be moored along the route of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant, to celebrate the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Due to her size, she was not part of the flotilla of vessels, and was instead moored with other vessels at St Katharine Docks, in a display known as the Avenue of Sail.