60 CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2019MARY ISLAY
Paul’s ownership. He had her four original mild steel fuel
tanks replaced with two aluminium tanks with 600 litres
total capacity, which left room under the wheelhouse for
a calorifi er, fridge compressor and tool storage. He also
fi tted an enlarged 240-litre stainless steel fresh water
tank, shaped to fi t between the engine bearers forward
of the engine.
He decided to replace the Foden engine in the
mid-2000s. After much research he found that a
“period classic” 4LW Gardner would fi t with minimum
modifi cations to the installation arrangement so he
bought a secondhand 1960 rebuilt vehicle engine from
Walsh’s Engineering of Eccles and had it marinised by
Jersey engineer Bill Keating and then installed.
Mary Islay’s navigation equipment was extremely
basic when he bought her, and he well remembers a
Decca navigator that would only work by “turning the
engine off for fi ve minutes to get a good reading as there
was a lot of interference from the alternator”. He
upgraded this to a GPS and radar the following winter.
In 2014 he retired from his job but at that time he
hadn’t really used Mary Islay for a few years because
of problems with his hip. By the time he had a hip
replacement operation and was, once again, in good
shape, Mary Islay was in need of some serious work. In
September 2015, he read an article in Classic Boat about
the 8-tonne Gauntlet Nausikaa – a boat he remembered
being moored off the Bugle when he was a boy –
following an extensive refi t at Traditional Shipwright
Services (TSS) in Poole. Soon afterwards he met the
proprietors Tim Frearson and Paul Kendall. He was
favourably impressed and so they subsequently fl ew
to Jersey to look at Mary Islay and confi rm that they
could do the work required.
Mary Islay was unable to make the trip across the
channel under her own steam because the engine sump
now had a hole in it, but the logistics for shipping her
across were relatively simple. “All we had to do was put
her on a 40ft platform and lash her down,” Paul told
me, “and then Alderney Shipping, which runs a twice-
weekly service to Poole, could load her as soon as they
had space. She was loaded on a Friday, unloaded on
the quay at Poole on Monday, craned in on TuesdayBelow left: Paul
at the wheel in
Poole harbourBelow right: Mary
Islay’s forepeakMARY ISLAYLOA
37ft (11.3m)LWL
34ft (10.4m)
BEAM
10ft 6in (3.2m)DRAUGHT
3ft 9in (1.1m)
DISPLACEMENT
9.4 tonnesGuthrie”, one that gave the designer a “free hand...
to specify all that he knows to be good”.
In 1962, Guthrie sold Mary Islay and had a new boat- Mary Islay II, a 53ft steel ketch – designed and built
in Holland. Mary Islay’s new owner was JJW Salmond
who he kept her on the Beaulieu River for eight years
before selling her to Lawrence Tully who took her to
the north-east. Her next home was on the Thames, at
Datchet, when Nelson Masters bought her in 1980,
and it was six years later that she fi rst went to Jersey
when she was sold to Tony Aspland. On her way there
she was taken to Cowes where Spencers made beaching
legs for her, ready to take up her new home in the drying
harbour of St Aubin.
Meanwhile Paul Mimmack had been educated
at Pangbourne Nautical College before joining the
Merchant Navy in 1968 when he went to work for the
Harrison Line, a private Liverpool-based cargo company.
He got his Master’s ticket in 1983 and then served on
various cargo and container ships. Five years later, he got
a job as Assistant Harbourmaster in Jersey. And then in
January 1992 he bought Mary Islay from Tony Aspland.
Paul continued to keep Mary Islay in St Aubin,
Jersey’s oldest harbour. From there, he mostly used her
for day trips and fi shing. He also took her to the Paimpol
Sea Shanty Festival a couple of times, and in 1996 to
Brest and Dournanez. “There were two other occasions
when we left Jersey to go that way but it was blowing
hard from the north-west and very uncomfortable,” he
told me, “so we turned around.”
He often uses the mizzen sail which “stops her rolling
in a nasty beam or following sea” but has only ever put
the genoa up once. “She sails okay,” he said. “Not like
a proper sailing yacht but it would be enough to get
you home if there was a problem with the engine.”
Although it is a two-person job to get the beaching
legs on and off each time the boat enters or leaves St
Aubin, Paul was delighted to fi nd they were carefully
designed to fl oat vertically – and with the bolts exactly
in line with the bolt holes in the hull – while holding
the handle at the top. They even have a boot top painted
on them to line up with the one on the boat’s hull.
Various work has been carried out to the boat during