Sailing Cornubia a Bristol Channel PILOT CUTTER

I looked out of my bedroom window one day across the river and lying in the mud on the other side of the river was the most beautiful hull shape I thought I'd ever seen. I got on my push bike and pedalled over there and it turned out to be the hull of the pilot cutter mascot and I sat there and thought well if I had any money I would rebuild this ship because obviously she used to be quite a reasonable sailing ship and it actually took 40 years before I got around to actually doing something about it and sailed her around the Bristol Channel for 16 years or so during which time the Cornubia came on the market and the shipyard directors and I decided that she was a famous ship she was then called the Herta owned by Tom Cunliffe, a very well-known vessel so we thought really that would be a good object for restoration so we put an offer in and lo and behold at auction we actually were successful we bought her. I started to rebuild the hull with the shipyard doing the work of course at which point I thought well this is daft I've got two pilot cutters and you can only sell one at a time so we put both on the market and fortunately Barney was able to find a customer to buy the mascot so the money from selling the mascot went into completing the Cornubia and here we are today. This boat was built originally in 1911 by a boatyard in Polruan, Foy by a company called Jay Slade and Sons and the J stood for Jane and the company was run by a lady which in those days was quite unusual but she had four sons one of whom Thomas Slade actually built this boat and the pilot who had this one built was a George Morris and George must have seen this earlier boat sailing and thought I'd quite like to look at that so he came all the way to Cornwall to have the boat built and called her Cornubia which is an ancient name for Cornwall. His house in Barry is still there and in the fan light over the front door in gold letters is Cornubia because they named their houses after their pilot cutters not the other way around. Morris was very fortunate he sailed from Polruan in June 1911 and we know she paid harbour dues in Newlyn so we know that he stopped off at Newlyn he then picked up a ship off Land's End bound for Barry and shipped aboard as a pilot so he had a job he didn't even sail the boat home the man in the boat did that for him he actually had a job going home so he started earning money straight away. Having put the pilot aboard the ship he would then get back to the cutter they would then have to get the punt back on board but just the two of them and then either wait for the pilot many of them used to go to Ilfracombe and wait for the pilot to come back in to come back down the river sometimes they'd go back up sail back up the channel to meet him in the port that he was bound for. It was very dangerous work and they used to get drowned every now and again it would be lost. I mean they are extremely capable boats. Of course when they were piloting they didn't have skylights they didn't have skylights because the seas in the Bristol Channel were such that you take heavy water on board and a skylight was a was a point of entry for the water so they didn't have skylights but as yachts or pleasure vessels they all have skylights in now so that is that is sort of one difference but they are extremely extremely capable boats yes I must say I've never felt as confident in a boat as I have to my mind as Tommy Nielsen would say if it looks right it probably is right but what I think you mustn't do in a boat like this is to put gear into her I mean for example don't use stainless steel shackles use galvanized or bronze shackles so to try and keep the thing looking as original as possible she is a working boat she's she was built as a working boat so in the restoration had to take that into account I think to try and make sure as far as we could that the restoration but the boat was finished if pilot Morris came aboard he wouldn't have too many fits about what he saw around the place it would look more or less right to him apart from the skylight we could take her working in the Bristol Channel embarking pilots and landing pilots as she did 105 years ago and I think that's that's the important thing that the thing could still fulfill the function for which she was designed and built she had remarkably little weather help she has enough weather help that she's just gently fighting you to get to windward all the time which is what you want so that the boat's doing all the work and you just lightly restrain her from trying to get too far into the wind obviously she is exceptionally close winded and in a breeze of wind reef down she points just as well as she does when she's full mainsail set we had last summer quite a bit of quite quite strong weather when we were had three or four rolls down most days we were out and she pointed she pointed just as well as she does when she's sailing under full mainsail the grandchildren enjoy it plenty of mackerel fishing off Plymouth in the summer so we've we've done some of that um yeah it would be it would be nice to do more but she's she is so busy doing the charity work that there isn't a great deal of time to do anything else very much she's 52 feet overall and he draws seven foot six in the water but if you look at the underwater shape there's hardly any boat there at all she's very very fine in the ends and if you look back aft you can see that there's no space in the ship inside because she's got such a fine run and an entry of good entry forward as well and and it proved it proved to me that the the hull which hadn't been sailed of course for years and years and hadn't been raced as far as I know ever I don't think Tom used to race seriously he was a cruising man really when he when he had it when she was the so it was the first time that what we thought was a fast looking hull turned out to be fast in that way so that was extremely rewarding um yeah she's an exceptional boat