The Coming of Passim
We decide to by a yacht
In the spring of 2001 I suggested to my wife, and my sister, that we buy a nice little yacht. This was not an entirely new idea. In the ‘80s I had restored and sailed an old wooden classic, Marianna, on the West of Scotland. She was 44’ long, 66 years old, and not a clever investment. But she was beautiful; I was young and unmarried; and life was but an adventure. So my desire for another boat was treated with some scepticism by my wife Frances, and most of the rest of the family.
Fortunately my two little boys knew no better, and Margaret, my big sister, God bless her, had always indulged her errant little brother, even at the age of 50. So I kept my eyes open and hoped for the perfect boat. And I gently pointed out, on every possible occasion, that “family” cars, and continental holidays, and new kitchens and all the paraphernalia of modern living were all as much luxuries, and quite possibly much more expensive to run, than a “sensible” little yacht.
Searching for the right yacht to buy
In April 2001 I took a trip from our home in Strathpeffer near Inverness up and down the West coast, and found three potential candidates, all around 28’: a wooden cruiser from the early ‘60s built of teak and pitch pine; an Elizabethan; and a Twister (Passim), moored at Plockton. At that time I knew nothing about Twisters, and was torn between the beauty (and low asking price) of wood, the lightness, simplicity and wonderful condition of the Elizabethan, and the obvious seaworthiness of Passim.
I was inclined towards the Twister. As a composite, she had just enough wood to make her beautiful and enough fibreglass to make her practical. But she was also considerably more expensive. So I got big sis and her partner to come up and check them over. The only one Steve would fit into was Passim, so we did some research, and soon discovered that most real sailors positively drooled over Twisters. A chat with some members of the Twister Association confirmed our view that this was the boat to buy. I clinched the deal by mobile whist working in Thailand. And so we came to own Passim in July 2001. And we are smitten.
Refitting Passim for the coming season
However…..she “retained many of her original features”…. including a petrol engine, which, needless to say leaked fuel and was temperamental. Several unhappy weekends fiddling with engines, and subjecting Frances to pungent fumes did nothing to reassure her that this was a sensible family investment. And Steve, a professional safety specialist, was not exactly relaxed about it either. So by the end of the first winter we had decided to get it over with and re-engine her.
We ordered a Beta Kubota BZ482 (13.5BHP), booked her into a yard on Skye, contracted an engineer, and aimed to be refitted and back in the water by early June for a long trouble free season. We even bit the bullet and asked the yard to do all the tasks that would eat into the sailing season, including a new green paint job on the topsides, finishing off the installation of a new toilet, fixing the mast head lights, installing a GPS, and a number of other minor tasks.
Discovering and fixing problems
But there is something about boats that defies the normal logic of time and progress, and there is something about some boatyards that would make any normal man beat his forehead against a stone jetty. We finally got her back in the water on a wet and windy day in September, when most people were taking their boats out for the winter.
Fortunately we had spent most of the previous week checking her over. She would have sunk, and the mast would probably have fallen off, had we not. I could not, in the space here, do justice to the litany of errors made by the yard but I will mention the most serious. There was no siphon loop on the toilet intake (despite my provision of the correct length of pipe). As soon as anyone opened the sea cocks, not only the toilet, but the whole boat would have been flushed. The boom-mast fitting was broken. There were missing split pins in shrouds and forestay (the mast had been removed to change a bulb in the mast-head light). The electrics had been completely confused, with the new GPS connected direct to the spare battery, and nothing else connected to anything very useful.
The paint job had been botched by itinerant interior decorators sub-contracted by the yard (although to be fair they did do their best to make good the mess). Fortunately Eddie the engineer of Eishort Marine Engineering, had done a first rate (if somewhat late) job of fitting the engine, and when we finally got underway she purred. A safe, steady, odour free, purrrrrrr.
Late season sailing at last
We had a couple of sails at the end of last season before winter
drew in – one spectacular trip in crisp autumn sunshine.
And since we kept Passim on her mooring all winter, we got off
to an early start this year in the stunning Spring weather. Plockton
(at the entrance to Loch Carron) is the perfect base for island
and beach hopping with small kids, or for longer trips around
Skye and to the Hebrides and St Kilda when they get a little
older.
After some serious misgivings towards the end of last summer,
Margaret is now more than happy that she indulged a (slightly
more) youthful
fantasy. And the kids had a great time on their first real trip.
Just a short one, to the lovely anchorage of Poll Domhain near
Applecross.
So hopefully the very un-Scottish weather will continue and we will have a good full season. And instead of a nice little yacht, I think we ended up with a real little ship. She sails beautifully, and feels as safe and solid as a much bigger boat. Oh, and I would love to hear from other readers with young children about how to keep them safe and happy on those slightly longer passages that I am planning…….
John Hambrey, Passim
(Note: Passim is a composite Twister, built by Uphams of Brixham
in 1968. Mahogany coachroof and pitch-pine cockpit. Previous owners
Mike and Elizabeth Davis and Keith Gems. Stories of Passim’s
journey to Plockton have been covered in a previous magazine)