John Steven Dews b. 1949

Louise A. Felstead, A Cloud of Sail - Maritime Paintings by J. Steven Dews, Swan Hill Press 2002, pp. 44-45, illustrated

STRUCTURE Original canvas. PAINT SURFACE The painting is in very good original condition. There is no retouching or repair work visible to the naked eye and the painting is ready to hang. ULTRAVIOLET Ultraviolet light does not reveal any re-touching. FRAME Held in a contemporary wooden frame.
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Lulworth was built by White Brothers of Southampton for Richard H. Lee and launched in the spring of 1920.  Her construction provided a  challenger to His Majesty King Edward VII's yacht Britannia.  Lee had competed against Britannia with his first yacht Wendur before the First World War.  152 feet in length Lulworth's construction cost £24,000, over five million pounds in today's money.

She was initially named  Terpsichore and her first few racing seasons in the early 1920s saw little success due to problems with her rigging as well as her lower mast which had been made of steel due a shortage in supply of spruce wood.  Lee died of a stroke while out shooting in 1923 tragically unaware of the enormous success his yacht would achieve. 

In 1924 she was brought and re-named Lulworth by Herbert Weld, owner of Lulworth Castle and Grandson of Joseph Weld who was a co-founder of the Royal Yacht Squadron and owner of two previous yachts called Lulworth.  The years up to 1930 saw Lulworth achieve extraordinary success; out of 258 starts she was placed first on fifty-nine occasions, with fifty-two second places and twenty-six thirds.