The dream that sank
Old sea dog spends £13,000 and three years restoring his beloved yacht... and goes down in 15mins on maiden voyage
‘We just had time to get off’
HE had spent three years of his retirement and £13,000 lovingly restoring the former wartime yacht with the aim of sailing the high seas.
But Richard Ogilvy’s dreams were quickly dashed as the Sea Wraith sank only 15 minutes into its maiden voyage.
The 40ft wooden craft began taking on water almost as soon as it was launched, leaving Mr Ogilvy, 75, and his son Jonathan, 45, to scramble to safety after possibly the shortest voyage in history.
Mr Ogilvy, who grabbed on to a trawler moored alongside before clambering on to the quay, blamed cracks in the hull that were more serious than he had realised.
‘We got it lowered into the shallow water from the crane quite quickly, but once it was in the water it started to go down. It took about 15 minutes,’ he said.
‘The water came gushing in. We just had time to get off. I was hanging on to the fishing boat as the Sea Wraith sank under me in about 12ft of water.’
Mr Ogilvy, from Forres, near Inverness, bought the Sea Wraith 15 years ago for £5,000.
Originally named Zeegeist, it had been built as a training yacht for German sailors in the 1930s and seized by the Royal Navy at the end of the Second World War
‘I’ve spent another £3,000 moving her about on cranes and lowloaders plus £5,000 on materials,’ said Mr Ogilvy, a retired forester and boomerang maker. Restoring the yacht took him about 5,000 hours over the past three years but the sinking has not deterred him or crushed his spirit.
He has managed to salvage the Sea Wraith from the bottom of Burghead Harbour, near Elgin, and is already planning to repair the yacht and sail it six miles around the Moray Firth to a new berth in Lossiemouth.
Mr Ogilvy insists he can make it shipshape in weeks – the hull must be made watertight, parts of the deck need patching up and the inside must be redecorated – and says his adventure has been ‘a very positive experience’. He added: ‘I expect it will take a month to get it seaworthy, when I’ll give it a test. The hull still needs finishing from the outside to make it watertight. Friends have said they’ll come for the second sailing. They’re a humorous bunch.’