New Skippers, New Ideas and a RYA Sailing School
2004
In 2004 we were working with
- Eve of St Mawes
- Irene Jack
- Regard of Brixham
- Chloe May
- Stavros S Niarchos
Here is a short story from 2004
I was skippering Eve of St Mawes to the Brest International Sea Festival which is always focused around July 14th Bastille Day in France. So it was probably four or five days before that.
Getting to Brest the passage had to pass down the Channel du Four where it was essential to go with the tide that could reach 7 knots in places. This meant the timings across the English Channel (Approx 24 hours) were crucial to the passage plan.
It was a hot day and after passing due South beyond the Manacles the wind died away to nothing. To keep to schedule we used the engine but when we had only gone about another 12 miles the engine seized. This was the new engine we had installed in the winter and our daily maintenance log keeping confirmed that the engine oil had been checked that morning and it showed the correct level. So the seized engine was not our fault.
But what to do?
How were we going to get the customers to Brest?
Using what wind there was and the tide that had now turned north to our advantage we did manage to sail Eve back to St Mawes by late evening.
In that time I and Debbie ashore managed to secure the use of a Brixham Trawler Yacht called Regard that we had just begun to work with. Luckily they had no engagements for the Brest period and we put all the customers and myself on Regard in Brixham the following morning. Regard came complete with her own Skipper and mate so it was an easy life for me.
We managed to make the Festival in time for the main event. I recall having an excited conversation with Luke Powell about how 2005 would be the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. We felt it important that the French were reminded of our naval successes and we should try to celebrate that in some way. It seemed the French had all the sexy replicas so Luke Powell and Adam started to scheme how we could come up with an answer. Read all about that in Chapter 4
What Classic Sailing learnt from this episode was the advantage of not being a sole operator and having other vessels we could put guests on.
RYA Recognition
As far as I recall in 2005 there were no traditionally rigged sailing vessels offering RYA Courses and we decided to become an RYA Sailing School. The opposite of the old boy network helped as Debbie had sailed as a trainee skipper with the Ocean Youth Club and one of her skippers was Penny Haire who went on to become the RYA Chief Training Officer. Penny came to inspect Eve and was impressed by our thoroughness which was a nice recognition of how well we ran Eve.
RYA recognition was duly granted and we have been able to promote RYA Sailing Courses ever since.
RYA Sailing Courses this year..
Plastic Turns Turtle
Classic Sailing has had an environmental policy since our beginning in 1996 and one of the problems that we felt needing sorting was plastic bags killing turtles. We started a little campaign ‘Plastic turns Turtle’ to try to stop turtles dying in this horrible way. Shortly afterwards national newspapers took up the problem and eventually the use of plastic shopping bags was regulated and the problem seriously reduced in the UK.
Plastic pollution is still a major problem to all the oceans and seas of the world.
Adopt a Turtle with the World Wildlife Fund
Growth and Skippers
As we began to promote other vessels the workload ashore grew more than one person could deal with and we started to employ our first office staff. At the time we were in a dilapidated shed in our garden. I’m back in the garden but the shed is now a purpose made wooden office. But that’s a story for post Covid.
Suzanne Allin came to us from a background of working for Oracle and she helped us improve our office systems and became our first relief skipper for Eve of St Mawes.
We have had a lovely succession of skippers and office members. It has always been a pleasure to see people move on in their careers. Here are some names that may ring a bell with you. Diggory Rose, skipper, instigator of the Pilot Cutter Review and still forging a career on traditional ships. Amy Ferguson played a big part in our office and now produces incredible paintings. Lara Caine came to us from modern yacht sailing but we were correct in feeling she had a huge enthusiasm to offer as a skipper of Eve. James Mackenzie was a brilliant skipper and went on to make a big success of Eda Frandsen in Scotland before passing her onto Mungo and Stella.
2005
By 2005 we had added Ezra, Anabel J, Bessie Ellen and Stavros Niarchos to our fleet. You could sail across the Atlantic, in Scotland, the Solent, the Canaries and Brittany. On one occasion I had great pleasure in skippering Bessie Ellen to the Isles of Scilly, thank you Nikki Alford.
We moved to a small office and Chart Room at Parton Vrane near Portscatho. We had tables big enough to spread full size charts on and run RYA Shore based Theory Courses.
Logos had a rustic feeling!
Bluebell
For a couple of years we ran day sails on Bluebell a Falmouth Working Boat that had been an active oyster dredger. In fact we obtained a licence to dredge for oysters. The season is from 1st October to March 31st and we thought it would supplement our income during the winter months. Trouble was we were so knackered from sailing all summer we did not have the energy to oyster dredge in winter. And to be honest Bluebell was not a worthwhile operation in the summer and we sold her to a syndicate of users.
Women and Sailing
In our early days we noticed that only 40% of our customers were female and set out to improve that. We ran Women Only voyages, Women go Wild Weekends, it was appropriate for the time and did increase the proportion of men to women to around 50% each. I’m glad to say we also employed female skippers, Suzanne Allin, Lara Caine, Esther Tibbs, Christine Partridge and others in later years.
