Tallulah

Our expert view: What the Pilot Cutter Tallulah Does Best

Anchoring in ‘out the way’ places

Tallulah’s skipper Debbie has spent 25 years finding secluded anchorages and spectacular settings in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly on our previous pilot cutter ‘Eve of St Mawes’. Its fair to say she can show you parts of Cornwall that few have visited and where to immerse yourself in nature.

Learn the skills to live a coastal life

Forget rubber dinghies & petrol outboards. Tallulah has a proper rowing boat that can propel 7 guests under oar with style.

This is more than a holiday. The skipper and mate on Tallulah want you to ‘live the coastal life’ with them whilst you are on board (and look like you have been doing it for years). By introducing you to smaller boats as well as Tallulah, we aim to give you to confidence to one day create your own affordable version of messing about in boats. Its not just the sailing skills either. Try proper wild swimming; actually standing up on a paddleboard; lighting an oil lamp, or showing your partner you can eat as well as any restaurant ashore on a well provisioned yacht.

Blue Health – wellbeing & boaty bootcamps

You can pub crawl on a boat and sink gin and tonics as the sun goes down, but sometimes its just nice to wake up felling super alert and ready to take on the world.

Tallulah, Pilot Cutter, offers plenty of voyages where wine and beer is enjoyed of an evening, but she also has a few voyages with an emphasis on fitness, eating well, sleeping well and trying out new outdoor activities. Why not try one of our retreats or boaty bootcamps. Both offer living on board a sailing ship without pressure to drink alcohol in the evenings. The skipper will encourage you to try wild swimming, be happy to row ashore with you for a run or a bit of yoga on the beach. Meals will be vegetarian with a choice of refreshing non alcoholic drinks.

What to Expect

What to Expect – Sailing Style on pilot cutter Tallulah.

Tallulah was originally built for a couple to sail, so there are a few things to make life easier like a furling jib, but you still have to ‘sweat and tail’ plenty of halliards. She is a powerful and fast pilot cutter with a jib, staysail, gaff main sail and topsail to play with. When the boom swings over to the other side when tacking and gybing, there are 2 sets of runner backstays to adjust.

The skipper and mate will explain the emergency drills so you know how to help. We will give you a speedy course in sailing a pilot cutter on the first afternoon, cemented by immediate hands on practice. We generally sail somewhere on the first evening (so you can’t escape…)

The requirement for everyone to do something comes in bursts of activity when you are needed to alter course, or when setting sails (up) or handing them (down). If you get a chance to go in a straight line for a bit, life is easy.

There is a surprising variety of voyage types on Tallulah and each has a slightly different style.

If you are on passage to the Isles of Scilly or Scotland then there will be formal watches day and night so there is always an alert lookout, helm and navigator and down time for the off watch. Once in the Islands the navigation is quite advanced so even day sails might involve some attention to your surroundings as guest crew. Visit the Isles of Scilly

On a short break the sailing tends to be in 3-4 hour stints between breakfast, perhaps with an extended stop for lunch and a sail into the sunset before an evening anchorage. As long as the crew have enough people round on deck to steer or respond to a course alteration then a nap or sunbathe during the day is a perfectly civilised thing to do. If you want to learn something then just ask.

Tallulah has a few intensive courses where sailing is the main thing and we will fit in as much learning experiences as the crew can handle. We do occasionally sail with volunteer mates and add opportunities for experienced or cheerful hands to bolster tougher trips for a reduced voyage fee It is worth learning the boat operations like anchoring, man overboard drills, hoving to, parking Tallulah alongside and small boat handling. Tallulah has a training syllabus you can work through if you are keen to gain valuable sea time.

Skipper Debbie and many of the guest skippers are RYA Yachtmaster Instructors so you can ask us any aspect of sailing, sailing careers or share your hopes and dreams.

Evenings – Usually either the skipper or mate will cook and the other can take the more energetic guests off to swim, row, paddleboard or go ashore for a beer or coastal walk.

Sailing and wild camping. Debbies other boats are 2 spritsail yawls which offer dinghy style cruising and camping ashore or under a boom tent. If you want to connect with your inner Bear Grylis then Helford, Restronguet and the River Fal estuary are a fantastic shallow water playground for shallower draft boats than Tallulah. Finding a place to sleep for the night is quite an art.

You can either book a mini sailing and camping expedition on Outdoor Girl or Wild Boy separately or sign up for our 6 day course with 3 days on Tallulah as the mother ship (with all mod cons) and 3 days roughing it on an open boat (Outdoor Girl or Wild Boy)with the mate as your instructor.

Tallulah Pilot Cutter – Accommodation

Headroom, Heating, Open Hatches

The layout on Tallulah has the feel of an open plan boat, but her length and breadth allows for 4 separate sleeping areas. She has lots of skylights, portholes and deck prisms for the sunlight to shine in and show off all that lovely varnished oak

It is a layout that works well for individual adults, couples or small groups that don’t know each other yet.  Aft are the skipper and mates berths near the nav station. The saloon has a tucked away pilot berth and an easy to get to saloon seat berth, but the starboard side has only seating, a stove and bookshelf of wildlife and foraging guides, maps and explorer tales.

Forward of the mast, in the most stable part of the ship, are 2 bunk bed berths to starboard with easy access to the washroom and a forward hatch above you for extra ventilation at anchor.

For a special treat, there is a double bed for couples in a separate cabin. Forward of the big bed will be a single berth that can be used if there are no couples on board and we need 2 guests in the forecabin.

If you are feeling really indulgent you can book the whole forward cabin double bed for solo occupancy for a bit more money. There is an air vent in the bow and the large forward hatch can remain open overnight. In Autumn and Spring the stove heats big radiators in all the cabin areas.

There is a spacious washroom and WC – currently with a rather unimpressive shower….but at least the hot water tank is huge.

Tallulah has a big engine which heats a lot of water, and an electric immersion if you are plugged into shore power. The diesel stove also heats water and radiators. There is a heated towel rail in the shower.

The galley has a fridge and cooling beer and wine in the sea is easy. Tallulah does not have a dedicated chef but we would never employ a mate or skipper who does not like cooking. All meals are freshly cooked but we do need your help with the washing up.

You are welcome to bring alcoholic drinks on Tallulah to drink and share with evening meals. On well-being and yoga retreats please respect the wishes of those who don’t want to be tempted!

On any voyage we try to cater for vegetarians, vegans and special diets needed for health reasons. The cook is not superhuman and we have to provision before you arrive as we don’t often visit shops during our voyages. Please remember the galley is small. If we get too many complicated diets on one trip we may have to say no to your booking.

See Tallulah gallery for more interior photos.

Tallulah Pilot Cutter – Ship Specification in Full

How long is Tallulah?

Length overall: 59ft

length on deck: 44ft

Beam: 13ft 5

Draft: 7ft 5

Air draft 63ft

Sails: Mainsail, gaff topsail, staysail, big jib (roller furling), Number 2 jib, storm jib

Guest crew: max 6 (double bed, 2 single bunks in mid cabin, 2 single berths in saloon)

Professional Crew: Skipper and mate an sometimes a guest expert like yoga or art teacher

Engine: Beta 75hp

Steering: tiller

Ships Boats

15ft clinker rowing boat – towed if weather suitable.
Avon rubber dinghy stowed on board with oars and electric engine.
Stand Up Paddle Board & buoyancy jackets (2nd paddleboard on some trips)
‘Outdoor Girl’ 17ft spritsail yawl (with sails and oars) – hired for specific trips
‘Wild Boy’ 16ft spritsail yawl (with sails and oars) – hired for specific trips

When Was Tallulah Built?

Tallulah is an authentic replica of a Scillonian pilot cutter, built in 2008 by Luke Powell and shipwrights at Working Sail Ltd, Gweek. Her planking is oak and larch, on oak frames and with Opepe decks and deck structure.

She was originally built for a couple to sail privately. Debbie Purser bought her in 2021 as a business venture and converted her to run adventure charter holidays. This was following in the footsteps of the previous pilot cutter Debbie used to skipper for 23 years. 38ft ‘Eve of St Mawes’ was owned by shareholders of Classic Sailing and sold in 2016.

Certificates and safety
UK Maritime Coastguard Agency certificate for sailing vessel under 24m. Operating area Cat 2 (60 miles offshore from a safe haven). Insured for commercial charter from River Elbe to La Rochelle, French Biscay Coast.

Tallulah – Skippers, Mates & Instructors

Skipper/ Owner – Debbie Purser

Debbie Purser co-founded Classic Sailing with Adam Purser in 1997. She has now been creating and promoting adventures for adults on traditional boats and tall ships for over 25 years. Before Classic Sailing she briefly had a career as a landscape architect, but outside her ‘proper job’ she was a passionate tall ship sailor, volunteer mate for youth sail training charities and taught outdoor pursuits.

Her partnership with Adam brought in the business skills she lacked and Classic Sailing was born. She pioneered many themed voyages in Cornwall on 38ft pilot cutter Eve of St Mawes including ‘Women go Wild’ Weekends, Walking and sailing, wind power challenges and RYA courses on boats with bowsprits. When Eve was sold in 2017, she focussed her energies on helping expand the Classic Sailing fleet all over the world, until COVID pandemic shrunk the options for international travel.

When social distancing restricted sailing on boats with below decks accommodation, she created open boat wild camping expeditions, and whilst furloughed re trained as a boat builder. When things returned to normal in 2021 Debbie was able to invest in her own boat – Tallulah, to build on a lifetime of messing about in boats with guests. Debbie is the Chief RYA instructor to Classic Sailing school and runs Tallulah as her own business Sail Row Explore Ltd.

Mate and Relief Skipper – Anthony Champ

Anthony has been sailing on Tallulah from the start. His boundless enthusiasm for sailing, swimming in the sea, surfing and anything outdoors is infectious. He worked on Eda Frandsen as a mate many years ago and did some epic trips around Britain on his own small boat. He discovered a love of pilot cutters working on Carlotta and has recently ditched his day job to work at sea again as the mate on Tallulah. In 2024 Anthony has just started relief skippering on Tallulah and also works on a family run crab fishing boat up in Bridlington for part of the year.

Photo: Skippers Debbie and Bex running an art voyage together

Mate and Relief Skipper – Rebecca Sykes

Bex is a wave energy scientist, environmentalist, great cook and has just started skippering Tallulah. She supports many groups that encourage women to go further in sailing professions and boat building, and seems to know everyone in the traditional sailing world. If you recognise her, Bex was the mate on 44ft pilot cutter Amelie Rose for a number of years. She has done much work with young people through sail training vessels and loves to teach and encourage us all to understand our natural surroundings. Another keen sea swimmer, artist and spotter of wildlife.

Mate & Small Boat Skipper – Will Templeman

Will met Debbie on the 40 week boatbuilding course at the Boat Building Academy at Lyme Regis. A builder of yurts and founder of ‘Shipped by Sea’ Sail cargo business, Will always has many projects an inventions on the go. Casting bronze fittings, making dinghy blocks and building and repairing boats. He is also quite happy living in a van, or sleeping in a hammock on Tallulah’s decks, and adept at rustling up great curries on a camping stove.

Will helped build ‘Wild Boy’ a carvel constructed 16ft spritsail yawl, commissioned by Debbie at the Boat Building Academy, as well as building his own boat ‘Inshallah’. His fearless small boat skills makes him the perfect mate and small boat skipper for Tallulah’s ‘big boat – Small boat’ combo courses, as well as accompanying Debbie on many Isles of Scilly voyages with Tallulah. Will is at RYA Coastal Skipper level and hopes to compete his RYA Yachtmaster soon.

Guest Skipper – Diggory Rose

Digs has the perfect day job as boat keeper at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Zipping around the Solent driving WW2 motor torpedo boats, hanging museum boats from the roof and previously helping run the Boat Building College at Portsmouth, it seems too glamourous to be true. He still finds time to work on steam trains and Thames Barges, as well as make guest appearances on Tallulah as mate or skipper. Digs is a Yachtmaster examiner, but maritime history and traditional seamanship techniques light his fire more than high performance yachts. Son of a famous folk singer he can sing shanties for a pint, has skippered other pilot cutters like Eve of St Mawes, Pegasus and Amelie Rose and is a great host for maritime festival voyages.

Relief Mate – Jess Clay

Jess gave up her graphic designer job to do the National Historic Ships Apprenticeship, after getting hooked on sailing working craft like Brixham Trawler Pilgrim. She works for Classic Sailing, helping to market sailing holidays all over the world. Also famous for her podcasts ‘Off Watch’ with Hannah Hurford, Jess has been working tirelessly to encourage a broader spectrum of the public to try sailing on wooden boats and tall ships.

When she can, she sails as mate on Tallulah.

Shore support – Adam Purser & Towan

Lost count of how many times Adam has come to help move boats, hoist topmasts, ferry guests. Towan is a dog that doesnt do boats but he is great with humans. Essential emotional support to all the crew. Woof.

Tallulah Interior – Gallery