Like many traditional sailing vessels from the twenties and thirties, Kentra has had her fortunes peak and plummet at different times in her life. Built for Scottish industrialist Kenneth MacKenzie Clark, whose great-grandfather invented the cotton spinning spool, she was completed in just six months and launched in 1923. Clark owned her for only one year when another Scotsman, Charles Livingstone whose family founded the Cunard shipping line bought her and used, raced and cruised her. After several other owners, she was purchased by the current owner in 1992 and in 1993 a major rebuild started which was to give her a new lease of life. Using as much of the original material as possible, Fairlie Restorations painstakingly replaced 90% of the frames below the water line and 60% of those above. The steel floors were replaced by new cast bronze ones and the decks were replaced, as were the spars and rigging. Some original deck furniture was kept but the interior layout, although resembling the original, is in fact all new.

Kentra has to be the ultimate traditional cruising vessel. Just the right size for extended living aboard, without being too big, she has recently completed a trouble-free circumnavigation and returned in as good a condition as she left. A tribute to her owners and crew, she must be visited to be fully appreciated.