I fell in love with an old derelict
Oct 29 2007 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post
Cathy Roberts with her boat the France Hayhurst in the Albert Dock _320
The interior conversion is well under way and includes delightful details like a spiral staircase incorporated inside her typically 1930s-style flat-topped dummy funnel.
Her half round-Britain cruise was her second such voyage, having more than 30 years ago sailed from the Weaver around Britain to work on the Aire & Calder Navigation. “An amazing coincidence occurred when we stopped at Whitby and a dinghy bobbed alongside,” says Cathy.
“The man aboard said he’d brought her around to Yorkshire 30 years earlier, and there we were doing the reverse journey.”
CATHY was undaunted by bringing the tug back from Yorkshire the long way round. Perhaps it was being brought up in Waterloo, home to so many past Mersey seafarers.
Her great-grandfather ran Darby’s Nautical Academy, in Liverpool, and her father, Albert Roberts, worked as purser for White Star, Cunard (aboard RMS Ascania) and Irish Continental Lines.
Skipper was Bryan Hunt (who has sailed 75,000 nautical miles), engineer was Clive Brookes, who lives on a boat in Goole, and Fred Bemand, from Aintree, was crew.
“We bounced around like a yo-yo at times and the worst part was between Berwick and Montrose when the furniture flew around.
“Ratray Head was fine, but in the Sound of Jura, we were doing six knots with a seven knot tide against us so we went backwards. It was pretty hairy approaching the Point of Ayre, on the Isle of Man.”
At one point, the GPS satellite navigation went down and the only way forward was with a hand version held over the side in the dark. “Thank God for lighthouses. There’s nothing more comforting than seeing the beam of a lighthouse sweep through the dark,” says Cathy.
The last leg from Douglas, IoM, took 40 hours and was remarkably smooth, but Cathy says: “It was awesome to see these giant container ships racing past you into the Mersey.”
Fred says: “Everyone should have the need to get out and feel a bit scared and a little closer to God – but I won’t be doing it again.
“It was a sense of fear mixed with periods of tranquillity on a long trip around the British Isles, a tiny bit like being trapped on a fairground ride. I calculated the tug rolled 28,000 times a day.”
Bryan says: “This boat is built like the proverbial brick outhouse.
“This never let us down, which was reassuring when sailing on nights that were as black as the inside of a hat.”
France-Hayhurst will become Cathy’s home and also workplace for Chicken Shed Outreach Theatre, for which she is a writer and workshop leader.
She says: “I’ve always been mad about boats and the sea, and never thought I’d find what I wanted, but France-Hayhurst is now my home in Liverpool.”
Historic boats survive because of dedicated band of volunteers putting in thousands of man hours >>>
