Britannia shapes up

Work is gathering pace on the restoration – for the second time by the same people – of Britannia, the 58ft (17.7m) sailing whelker built by Walter Worfolk and his two sons in King’s Lynn in 1915 (CB June 2020). She was bought, by then motorised, in the 1970s after she had finished fishing, by boatbuilder Sam Samuels and his wife Vicki, who lived aboard for 20-odd years, in the West Country and then in the Western Isles, slowly restoring her to original condition, doing a bit of chartering and raising two sons along the way.

They eventually sold her in 1996, only to come across her, in 2013, in Brixham, Devon, in terrible condition, more or less abandoned on an outer mooring. With all their shared history, they couldn’t help but mount a rescue. They reacquired her, set her up in a tent in Devon, 20 miles from the sea, and were restoring her as time and, more particularly money, allowed.

And then just when things were looking bleak financially, the National Lottery Heritage Fund provided £99,800, which should now see this vital piece of fishing heritage back on the water in spring/summer, location yet to be decided. See britanniasailingtrust.org for more. John Worrall