60 CLASSIC BOAT AUGUST 2016BARNABAS
Orkneys: “It had been a major herring port and had
obviously had its heyday, but was a pretty bleak spot,”
he says. Then Fair Isle (“It was so beautiful and great to
be there,” says Erica) and Lerwick in the Shetland Isles
(“A fantastic experience, but so cold,” she adds).
“We had hoped to go all the way up to Unst,” says
Adam. “That would have been the real cream, but the
wind, which had been persistently from the north, was
about to go persistently south, so we thought we had
better turn back.”
After a fairly uneventful start, the trip down the east
coast featured some high spots – at Holy Island, for
instance – “The weather cleared and we had the most
beautiful sunset, fantastic stars and a meteor shower,”
says Erica. Soon afterwards, however, Barnabas
endured some of its worst conditions.
Having been storm-bound in Whitby for three
nights, time was running out to get to Lowestoft for the
next crew change, and there was little choice but to
spend 36 hours motoring into big head seas. “It was
horrific,” says Erica, who came close to calling it a day
when they arrived in Lowestoft, where her mother lives.
Erica went to her house for dinner. “All I wanted was
toast,” she says, “and a night in a comfortable bed. It
was quite hard to get back on board after that.”
The crew of the penultimate leg, to Eastbourne,
suffered further as Barnabas motored into more head
seas in wind-over-tide conditions, first across the
Thames Estuary to Ramsgate, then going past
Dover. “It was bloody miserable,” says Adam Kerr,
back on board again.
Thanks to Barnabas’s new AIS system, many
watched her progress on the Marine Traffic website – in
fact, Peter did so “sitting in a comfortable armchair,
and the symbol showing Barnabas became
affectionately known as the LPT (or Little Purple
Thingy) in my blog and on Facebook”.
Two notable events took place on the last leg: first,
when she did 10.8 knots in the Needles Channel (albeit
with a very favourable tide), and then when they went
through the Portland race. “It looked like theymisjudged the tide by about six hours,” says Adam.
“They are lucky they didn’t get beaten up more than
they did. It’s interesting that AIS allows you to sit at
home and watch people making asses of themselves!”
Generally, though, the last leg provided some
wonderful sailing and the voyage was completed with
final stops at Fowey, Falmouth and – on the last night,
so the arrival time at Newlyn could be planned with
reasonable accuracy – Porthleven.
Barnabas is by no means a comfortable boat – in
fact, Peter’s recruitment declared: “Crew are warned
that accommodation on ‘the Barnabas’ is spartan! She
is fitted out as a fishing boat of the late 19th century.
Six cramped berths forward and two aft, with no real
community spaces.”
Life on deck can be pretty hard too. “Barnabas was
a bit of a beast to handle, with heavy fenders and ropes
in and out of locks,” says Dickon.
“Lugger sailing is really heavy work,” adds Erica,
“and requires a certain amount of brute force.” Not
surprisingly, the crew throughout the voyage were of
mixed ability, but Erica proved to be an increasingly
valuable member as time went on. Adam Purser has
been a professional skipper of the pilot cutter Eve of St
Mawes for almost 20 years but, by his own admission,
was a novice lugger sailor, so was particularly grateful
for the experience Erica had gained on the first two
legs. “She knew how to put all the sails up and down,
which was fantastic,” he says.
Those who took part clearly got a great deal out of
the voyage and it brought home the hardships endured
by fishermen all those years ago. “We’ve only really
experienced a tiny bit of what they went through,” says
Erica. “They didn’t have electrics, an engine, foul
weather gear and so on. It’s quite humbling and
thought-provoking.”
“I’m not sure what I was expecting,” adds Dickon,
“but I found myself awe-inspired, thinking about how
they would have done it originally.”cornishmaritimetrust.orgAbove l-r:
The Needles to
stern, with only
the South Coast
ahead; Holy
Island at dawn.
Below: skipper
and trustee
Adam Kerr