Restoring a lugger
Looking for a bigger boat than his Wayfarer dinghy, Graham Padfield was seduced by a traditional lugger... but she needed work
Peter Pan was a sorry sight before restoration work began
With apologies to Jane Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man who lives in sight of water, and in possession of two pennies to rub together, will soon enough find himself in need of a boat.”
That was certainly the case with my father, our farm being bounded on one side by the River Avon, where it flows past Saltford on its way to Bristol. The Bristol Avon Sailing Club had just been formed. My father figured a tall rig was necessary to catch the wind so he bought himself a British Moth. So I grew up a farmer’s son with an affinity for boating, though a lot of it horizontal.
Six decades have gone by since then and now I find myself in semi retirement with a cottage in Cornwall.
How can anyone with a view of Looe harbour resist the urge to get afloat and venture out to sea?
I figured I needed a boat which would cost less than £1,000, point well to windward and land a family on a beach.
The Wayfarer dinghy fitted the bill, thousands have been made, and loads of them change hands on ebay for as little or as much as you want to pay. I got mine for £560, bought some half decent sails, furling gear, a small Honda outboard, and had terrific fun with her.
I modified the mast step so I could lower and raise the mast in a few minutes for sailing on the upriver side of Looe’s seven arch stone bridge, as well as out to sea.
The problem was that the Wayfarer, although exhilarating to sail, especially single-handed in a stiff breeze, is not very inviting to the other female in my life. My wife gets the collywobbles if the boat leans by a thousandth of a degree, and she doesn’t like buckets of water being continually thrown over her.
Single-handed sailing is all very well but I do like a bit of company.
So in the hope that my dear wife would accompany me I decided to get a bigger boat. I managed to get a bigger mooring in the harbour, and I thought I’d bought a nice Drascombe longboat on ebay. Unfortunately I was pipped at the post by some impassioned sailor from Germany who drove all the way from Stuttgart, with the cash in his pocket, to get to Bournemouth before I did.
I couldn’t help feeling it was a bit like the football World Cup, you play for ages and in the end Germany wins. I think that’s another quote from Jane Austen.
Anyway I was left with a lovely mooring, but no boat. Then I remembered that a builder friend, Stuart , had said there was a lugger lying in Polperro harbour in need of a loving owner.
Now, for the uninitiated a lugger is the traditional fishing boat of Looe. The rig is derived from the old square riggers. The loose footed mainsail is hung from a spar or yard which is hoisted up the mast. There are various configurations of masts and foresails but almost invariably there’s a mizzen and a jib.
The idea was fishermen could drop the mainsail to make more working room for hauling in nets, while sailing with the mizzen. The hull has a shallow, long keel, so that the boat can be landed on a beach and floated off on the rising tide.
Every other year Looe hosts “Lugger week” when boats up to 100 ft long from both sides of the Channel compete in various races. Almost every resident of Looe feels a certain attachment to these venerable hand built craft.
So we walked to Polperro, my wife and I, and laid eyes upon Peter Pan a 21ft mastless and rudderless lugger languishing in the harbour.
Down at heel
She was a sorry sight. Grass growing on her foredeck, she was half full of water with a dead seagull disintegrating in her bilges. Some souvenir hunter had purloined her rudder. It is probably decorating a pub wall somewhere.
But you couldn’t help marvel at the craftsmanship you see in all wooden boats. Heavily built of mahogany and oak with an 8ft beam, she weighed at least two tonnes.
The question was, would she float?
“Of course she will!” said her owner Tim. “Just needs her garboard caulked and you can sail her back to Looe.”
I nodded, though I had no idea what he was talking about. I’m a farmer and cheese maker. I know what a cheese board is, and I know where my port and starboard is, but garboard?
Evidently it is the butt joint between the keel and the first plank that runs the length of the boat. On a clinker built boat it is the about the only joint that doesn’t have an overlapping plank.
So Peter Pan was lying, half forgotten, in Polperro harbour, not having been out of the entrance for six years.
On the plus side her masts, spars, and sails had been carefully stored and looked nearly new.
I didn’t rush into the purchase. I took advice from friends.
“If she doesn’t float, you can always grow flowers in her!” said one friend.
Another said: “That’s the kind of boat you should walk past, and KEEP WALKING!”.
Another was more direct: “DO NOT buy that boat.”
Another said: “You must be MAD!” They were quite right, I agreed with everything they said. Clearly to take on a wooden boat restoration project you need plenty of time, experience, skill and a well equipped workshop.
None of which I had. I am a farmer. I repair things with baler twine. My favourite tool is a 16in adjustable spanner which I use instead of a hammer. It made no sense to get involved. I would end up with an unfinished project on my hands.
But what a boat! Everything a man could want: clinker built, real craftsmanship, real sense of history, of culture, a boat that spoke of Francis Drake, Lord Nelson, and Captain Pugwash.
If only I could find a way. I needed to get a man on board with all the skills I
‘The question was, would she float? “Of course she will,” said her owner’
hadn’t got. My friend Stuart was the man, but he’d had several costly relationships with mistresses of the sea, the latest of which was a boat called Hooker in Looe harbour. He had sworn that, on principle, he’d never own another boat again.
But wooden boats have a certain appeal about them, people want to get involved. Perhaps it’s because we’ve used timber to build structures since the dawn of time, we have evolved to have a respect for something that is the very material of our society. Wood is durable but at the same time vulnerable. It is of the present and of the past. There is history written in its grain. It is tactile. With every touch people feel a sort of respect, and wonder.
Peter Pan appealed to Stuart. And he couldn’t resist.
So having taken ownership of our lugger the problem was what to do next. There was lots of helpful, though often contradictory, advice.
“What you want to do is get her out of the water, get her into a barn where you can work on her,” said one local, while another advised: “Whatever you do don’t take her out of the water. Her timbers will shrink and she’ll leak like a sieve.”
Similarly “she wants a good pressure washing, then you can see which planks to replace”.
The advice from Alex, at HJ Mears, whose yard built her in back in 1967 was “don’t pressure wash her with fresh water, treat her like a lady. Just chuck buckets of sea water over her.”
Under pressure
I confess we did use a pressure washer to drive out six years of accumulated mud from her bilges, and mould from her bulwarks, then we left the drain cocks open for total immersion on the next tide.
Polperro harbour master, Ollie, was keen to help... or perhaps he just wanted to get an old hulk out of his harbour.
Ollie introduced us to farmer Rowe who had space in his barn. Getting her there was the problem.
Road transport was out of the question. She was wider in the beam than the Polperro road.
It was suggested we stop the leaks with bathroom sealer then, with one man hand -pumping to keep her from sinking, tow her to Looe as fast as was reasonable. We had press ganged a younger man, John, to help with this job. He’s only 67.
Having been waterlogged with salt water most of the planks were well preserved. Some were a little soft, especially in the transom where rainwater had washed out the salt.
The crane was booked for slack water at Looe 8am. Monday 5th February 2018
It was also suggested that we hire an engine driven pump for good measure , but we rejected that proposal as being far too safe.
The morning was frosty and dark, but the sun came up like a molten fiery ball, like something sent from the gods. The frost retreated, the sea was subdued with silver, the harbour was lit with a golden light. The only thing missing was a choir of angels.
Stuart couldn’t get his trousers on. He was recovering from a broken knee cap, and had his leg in a brace, but he wasn’t going to miss the trip.
“Is it painful?” I asked.
“I’ll be OK,” he grimaced.
“But it’s freezing, you might get frostbite,” I said
It’ll be alright, so long as I keep it straight,” he assured me, and waddled into position like Long John Silver, to take charge of the steering oar.
We set off with a crowd of wellwishers consisting of two disinterested seagulls, a scatty cormorant and man walking his dog.
Ollie, the harbour master, was towing us in his aptly named boat, Smuggler. As he increased the revs, Peter Pan’s bows rose higher in the water, but her transom went down and seawater poured in through a gap between two rotten transom planks. But it was too late to stop. John, who could see his life was in jeopardy, was doing a great job with the hand pump.
Looe was reached in good time. John pumping, Stuart steering with the oar, leaving me to wave to any onlooker I could find.
Farmer Rowe backed up his massive flat bed bale trailer, the crane operator Dave and his hi-viz hard hat team took over. Strops went under her hull and up she came. Streams of water gushing from her hull. She was swung carefully round onto the trailer, secured, wedged and strapped.
She looked very small against a background of Looe trawlers.
Off she went her new temporary home in the barn. She was carefully placed on the dusty floor with three sleeper bearers under her keel. That day half a tonne of concrete ballast was lifted out, then over the next months Stuart and John washed , wiped, and oiled her. The transom was repaired with oak brought down from the farm at home. Stuart cleverly strengthened dodgy ribs with bent oak. More home grown oak was used to make a new rudder.
The aim was to get eight coats of varnish on her hull.
Cotton and red lead caulk was tapped into the garboard joints. A difficult job when lying on your back on a dusty floor.
Loose rivets were closed up, her bottom was antifouled, and on her keel went a new galvanised channel iron, taking the place of the rusty and bent wearing plate.
She was looking magnificent. It seemed a shame to put her back in the harbour. I can see how easy it is to get hooked on the restoration and end up with a museum piece.
But the season was marching on. It was now July and if we weren’t careful we’d
miss the summer. So we skipped the last coat of varnish and booked her in for craning on Friday 6th July.
Farmer Rowe’s big tractor and trailer delivered her to the East Looe crane and Dave the crane operator once again took charge. Down she went into the water. I followed down the ladder to look for leaks and check how well she floated. She had been out of the water for six months, including the hottest, driest June in living memory. I was surprised to find floorboards were floating extremely well... and Peter Pan was sinking fast beneath them. She was leaking just like a sieve. As she was lowered down, she filled with water. When Dave craned her up again she emptied nicely.
We had a problem. The mooring was only 200 yards away and I had intended to motor her into position under power from an ancient Seagull outboard, but that was out of the question. She would be swamped in five minutes and could even capsize. No one wanted a sunken boat blocking the main channel.
“We need Hainsey,” said Dave, “but he’s not answering his mobile.”
A shout was sent down the quayside and duly the reassuring throb of a powerful marine diesel drew near.
“We’re going to lower Peter Pan into the water with you in her,” said Dave, “then you quickly unhook the strops, and the chain hook, and Hainsey in his motorboat will attempt to tow you to the mooring before she sinks.
“Oh! and you’ll need a lifejacket.”
All went according to plan, except as I released the strops the chain hook swung wildly about, looking for the only person not wearing a hard hat. Yes... that was me. But It didn’t hurt much. Adrenalin is a good analgesic.
We got her to the mooring just in time.
“Handsome boat that, said Hainsey, pensively, as Peter Pan effortlessly took on two tonnes of water and sank slowly, like a dog taking a bath. With no ballast in her, she didn’t quite sink – just lay there comfortably with her gunwales showing.
“You could always rename her HMS Collander!” called out farmer Rowe, laughing, as he drove off in his tractor.
Looe harbour is dry at low tide, so as the harbour emptied so did Peter Pan, and when the tide came in she filled up again.
But within a week her timbers had plimmed up, the leaks had slowed, and she was floating nicely. We reinstated the ballast, in the form of silage clamp gravel bags. We worked out where all the ropes and spars belong, and now were getting to know each other quite well.
I know that all boat owners, whether it’s a canoe or a superyacht, think they have the best boat in the harbour.
But we really have.
‘Peter Pan effortlessly took on two tonnes of water and sank slowly like a dog taking a bath’