ELBOW POWER

Paul Mimmack’s seagoing career began in his pre-teen years but it must have been in his blood all along. His great-grandfather was the captain of a Jersey brigantine that traded between Newfoundland, South America, Italy, the Baltic and London in the 1870s and 1880s, a career cut short when he contracted yellow fever. Paul first took to the water on the Hamble river when he was about 11, “just messing about in dinghies and helping my mate’s dad who ran tripper boats and hire boats”. It was around that time that he first saw, and admired, the motor sailor Mary Islay when she was kept on a mooring just off the Bugle pub in Hamble village. The memory must have stayed with him because 30 years later, by which time both Mary Islay and Paul had coincidentally made their homes in Jersey, the boat came on the market and he bought her.

was designed by John Powell and built in 1956 by Aeromarine in Emsworth, where Powell was the yard manager. She was solidly constructed with 1¼in teak planking on English oak frames and