CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2016 59BARNABAS
Above l-r: fresh
seafood and cold
beers on deck;
dolphins in the
Irish Sea.
Below: Erica
Rivett on helmwe were pushing it a bit too hard, so we reduced sail.
We did very little sailing after that, though.”
“We only sailed for about eight hours all week which
was a great shame,” says Adam Purser, skipper of the
next leg to Fort William, “but we did go through the
Crinan Canal, which was a fantastic experience, and we
had some wonderful sailing just north of Jura.”
Dickon Berryman, the great-great-grandson of
Barnabas Thomas, for whom the boat was built, took
over “from a very tired and wet crew” in Fort William at
the western end of the Caledonian Canal. “As soon as
we got through the initial staircase of lochs, we were
blessed by good weather,” he says. “We had a nice
meander through the countryside with its incredible
mix of valley and mountainous views. We motored
initially, but by the time we got to Loch Ness it was
blowing quite hard from the southwest and we had a
very exciting sail, goose-winging at six to seven knots
all the way down the loch. Barnabas doesn’t like the
wind dead astern, but we learnt how to deal with that.”
Among Dickon’s crew as far as Inverness was his
wife Emma, who is fairly new to sailing, and their fox
terrier Ralph, “who is a salty old sea dog. He had the
time of his life and was good for crew morale.” Dickon
and his remaining crew then took Barnabas up to Wick.
“It was a pretty special trip for me and it was really nice
to see other people enjoying sailing Barnabas,” he says.
“I am so pleased she isn’t a museum piece.”
Adam Kerr took over for two consecutive legs and
with “the weather reasonable”, decided to go as far
north as possible. So they set off for Stronsay in thenew electronic equipment. The voyage would take 10
weeks, with a crew change each Saturday at a
predetermined port. All sea time, it was hoped,
would be in daylight, so the plan for each week
included stopover ports.
The main task then was crew recruitment. “One ofthe constraints we made,” says Adam, “based on our
Milford Haven experience in 2014, was that we mustn’t
sail short-handed at any time, that we must have a
minimum of six people – ideally eight, although that
stretches things with regard to accommodation. But
getting enough crew was a problem.”
“But we did manage,” adds Peter, “thanks to all sortsof wheezes and ruses and bullying, to have highly
qualified skippers on every leg.” He himself was in for a
massive disappointment. “I was planning to do all 10
legs, although none of them as skipper as I was going
to manage the whole voyage from on board, liaising
with next week’s crew and so on. But just a few days
before the start, I fell and damaged my back, and I was
advised to stay well clear of boats for a while.”
In all, seven skippers, 32 other crew members andone dog took Barnabas around Britain, “and the
amazing thing”, says Adam, “was that every week the
boat was in the changeover port on time, although that
was largely due to having an engine”.
The only crew member on board for the wholevoyage was Erica Rivett, who recalls that the best
sailing was on the second leg, from Milford Haven
across to Ireland and then up the Isle of Man. “It was
fantastic,” she says. “We had everything up at first, but