THE LAST LOWESTOFT DRIFTER

The big old wooden boat looked an unpromising sight as I peered down at her, as she was lying alongside Penryn town quay, on the south coast of Cornwall. Her deck was cluttered with ropes and chain lying in seemingly random piles, and a pair of boat’s legs and a water-filled canoe were scattered to one side. For a few minutes, I wondered if I was wasting my time. This formerly mighty Cornish lugger was said to be the last surviving Lowestoft drifter, rescued from almost certain destruction in Germany, dismantled and transported in parts back to Cornwall, and then painstakingly reassembled on a beach in Penryn. But, I mused, standing there on the quay, perhaps all that was nothing more than a romantic story; perhaps she was more wreck than boat.

However, after a couple of cups of coffee, owner Spike Davies and friends started sorting through the debris; the anchor chain was stowed below decks, the rope coiled and the canoe and legs neatly stacked. The ancient Lister engine was fired up, the lines released, and we headed down the Penryn River with a satisfying chug-chug from the exhaust. It was glassy calm and sunny, an idyllic autumn day – but too windless to sail. So, while we waited for the breeze to come, Spike filled me in on the boat’s surprising history.

Built at the yard of Richard Kitto in Porthleven, Cornwall, in 1878 (that’s a year before the light bulb was invented), was an early example a new).