PATNA
“The leak was an old one he’d forgotten about”
Above, clockwise from top left: At Tollesbury for antifouling; Fred Lockwood with the old wheel steering on the Tollesbury voyage; alongside the quay at Tremerlin, with the 1950s
deckhouse about to come off
put her back to gaff rig, she apparently being the last gaff-rigged cutter yacht designed by Charles Nicholson. A gaff yawl rig would enable practical handling by a small crew. Our first sail was with Fred via Tollesbury, where we dried out
alongside the pilings to antifoul and survey the bottom. We then enjoyed a night aboard off Osea Island, warmed by the glow of oil lamps and a bottle of wine and revelling in the secure comfort of fo’c’s’le pipecots as the tide changed, dragging the chain over the seabed below the glass-calm estuary.
THE PASSAGE HOME We planned to take Patna to Gweek Quay Boatyard in Cornwall to begin her restoration and opted to sail her there in August 2006 – with some trepidation in view of her condition. Katie, Rupert and I were joined for the passage by a friend, Martin Shaw, and we locked out of Heybridge Basin on a grey, damp, breezy day. With a reef in the bermudan mainsail Patna burbled into life with an approaching black squall astern, surging us along at over 10 knots. Clearly she was no slouch. The weather settled down and we made a good passage averaging 5 to 6 knots across the Thames Approaches, leaving Dover astern during the night and progressing towards the Isle of Wight the next day. Suddenly Katie appeared from below looking very
anxious. The cabin sole boards were awash aft. I investigated and found a leak high up the sternpost with
18 CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2012
water ingressing at the rate of a fully open tap. The source was beneath the port bilge stringer, so there was no stopping it. Fortunately Fred had installed a very large rotary bilge/deck wash pump on the engine which worked well and the rest of the voyage was punctuated at hourly intervals with its use. We hastened homeward after anchoring off
Weymouth and visiting Dartmouth for a couple of nights, and arrived back in Helford after sailing through the night. We later spoke to Fred and found out that the leak was an old one he had forgotten about; it had previously been prevented for many years by grease that had been pumped up the rudder trunk. We were also lucky that the engine held out, as when
we dismantled it later the manifold disintegrated, being paper thin with rust, and it would have been full time with the hand pump to stem the leak. We laid up alongside the quay at Tremerlin on the
Helford River in order to remove all loose gear and the huge deckhouse before towing up to Gweek to lift out the mast. Patna was then craned out on to a low loader so that she could be shunted into an open shed – the beginning of what turned into a five-year project.
Next month: Greg and his team get to work on Patna’s hull, her deck and the new deckhouse
PHOTOS; GREG POWLESLAND
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