2018

Parting Ways

In 2018, after 7 unforgettable years, Tim did indeed part ways with 'Albacore', the decommissioned wooden trawler he rescued from the scrap heap and converted in to a house boat.

Those of you who followed his journey from the very early days in Kilkeel in Northern Ireland and his (somewhat perilous) journey across the Irish Sea, through the years of life onboard and the ups and downs of restoration work slowly and meticulously carried out, thank you for your love and support throughout those crazy adventures, and rest assured that although Tim may have hung up his Cap’n’s hat, he will always be a Pirate at heart.

Our decision to sell wasn't easy and even now, several years later, we sometimes get nostalgic for life on board, so allow us to share with you some of our memories, our triumphs and disasters, from our years on board Albacore and how it was that that great, rusting old fishing trawler, rescued from the scrap heap by Tim, became The May Queen.

'May Queen IV' was built in 1970 by Mackays of Arbroath as a larch-on-oak traditional fishing trawler. She was decommissioned in 2008 and in 2011, I took the ferry from Wales to Northern Ireland and travelled to Kilkeel where 'Albacore', as she was then, had spent her last years as a fishing vessel. The story goes that I bought this boat from an Irish fisherman in a bar, and who am I to argue with such a romantic tale?



After several weeks in Kilkeel making repairs I then sailed her singlehandedly across the Irish Sea to Ilfracombe in North Devon. Whilst this is not a course of action I would recommend to everyone, the adventure makes a great anecdote and Lisa even managed to create a whole art project and story from the tale. You can read her (mostly?) fictional account of what happened in 'Salt in the Blood'. A cracking yarn indeed!

​This little film was cobbled together from a few snippets of video I took on my old camera whilst bringing 'Albacore' across the sea from Ireland to Ilfracombe in Cornwall in 2011. It looks relaxing and romantic, but it really wasn't. It was rough, dirty and terrifying. It was also an utterly unforgettable and life-changing adventure. Would I do it again? ... Probably ...



After the weeks spent alone in Ireland and my rather exhausting solo trip across the Irish Sea, it was a real joy to have my friend Ben come along for the journey around Cornwall, a journey which would see us setting out from Ilfracombe in North Devon and travelling first to Padstow where I moored for a few - (eye-wateringly expensive) - weeks, and then back to Cornwall again for the next leg around Land's End and into Newlyn harbour for one sneaky free night under the cloak of darkness, before finally setting out one glorious spring day in April 2011 for the final part of Albacore's journey up the south coast past St.Michael's Mount and Penzance, then The Lizard and Falmouth and finally, gratefully, on to Torpoint where we were to find our new home ...

-Tim

My first ever sighting of Rame Head at Whitsand Bay.

 I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but this landmark would feature heavily in my future …



It would be another 2 years before I moved on to Albacore to live full time and in the meantime I had to leave her moored in Torpoint whilst I travelled back and forth between Cornwall and East Sussex to work on her. It wasn’t exactly an ideal arrangement and my visits to Cornwall were brief and sporadic. Eventually, I stopped visiting altogether and Albacore was moved to an open water mooring out on the river. When news reached me that she had taken on water during a storm and was in danger of sinking, it seemed that the dream of boat life was over.

A Change of Circumstances

Starting The Restoration

2013

My old life was over.

I moved on to the boat in the middle of winter at the beginning of 2013 and it truly could not have been any further from the romantic ideal of ‘boat-life’ than if it had given me scurvy as a house-warming present. I carried out an assessment of my situation and on reaching the not unreasonable conclusion that it wasn’t for me, I put the boat up for sale.

Still, I was where I was, at least for now, and with nothing better to do whilst I waited for a sale, I got to work. It was, if nothing else, the easiest way to stay warm, so I worked from first light until it was too dark to carry on, at which point I would put on the electric heater, climb in to one of the cold, damp bunks, and attempt to do some reading until I fell asleep.

It was a rough time in every way imaginable but day by day I set to work, distracting myself from my predicament by focusing on the task in hand. I worked mostly below decks, in the old fish-hold where the huge oak beams curled around me like the ribs of a whale, first clearing out all the debris from Albacore’s life as a trawler, removing the wooden partitions and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning … It stank, not surprisingly, of rotting fish and was unimaginably filthy but it had a potential to become something beautiful, I was sure …

… And if you spend any time on or next to the sea, perhaps salt really does get in to the blood because slowly - (very slowly) - it began to work its magic on me.

I had quite a bit of interest in the boat and a few of the nosier folks even came to have a look around but there were no offers. And why would there be? This was clearly a project of epic proportions. Who would be crazy enough to take this on?

oh …

I’m not quite sure what I would have done if the boat had actually sold that winter of 2013. I guess life would have been very different. Who knows? All I know is that the boat didn’t sell. Consequently, I stayed in Cornwall and carried on cleaning out those bilges. I survived pneumonia, a tooth abscess, and some pretty unpleasant existential angst, but I stayed, the bilges got cleaned, and slowly, inevitably, winter turned in to spring …

-Tim

The first time I saw Albacore was in May 2013. I was living down in Falmouth at the time studying for a Masters degree in illustration at the university there and I had become completely enamoured with living in Cornwall since moving there a year earlier. I probably fell in love with Tim’s boat before I fell in love with Tim - (I’m joking!) - and having such great access to the boatyard and to the incredible boat which was Albacore immediately became a massive source of inspiration for my work.

2013 was an amazing year for me. I was having the time of my life at university whilst working part time at St.Mawes Castle where my commute was, of course, by boat. Then visiting Tim on Albacore and watching his progress with the restoration work. I’m not sure he was having quite as good a time as me that year but his hard work was beginning to pay off as gradually that stinking old fish hold transformed in to a snug den which smelled less of fish and more of sanded wood as time passed. We threw a mattress down on the floor like kids and watched DVDs of Breaking Bad and Flight of The Conchords, drank tea and lived in the moment.

Of course, when I wasn’t there - (which was most of the time) - Tim was busy trying to make the place gradually more habitable …

The old fish hold, in particular, underwent a lot of work: After the cleaning and the sanding, Tim removed the old metal pipes, emptying them of oil and sealing off the ends. He then treated and waxed all of the wood using a beeswax which he made up himself from the raw ingredients. It smelled amazing after that! He then spent most of the summer working on the upper decks which had a habit of leaking water in to the old bunk room below, an unfortunate fact which he had been forced to endure from one of the bunk beds all through that previous winter! He used traditional methods and materials to caulk the seams with oakum and tar, the smell of which can still transport me back to that summer in an instant.

By the following winter, Albacore was watertight and sealed in, Tim had a new and much improved ‘bedroom’ in the old fish hold, and most importantly of all, he had a log burner.

And the boat, of course, was no longer for sale.

-Lisa

The Restoration (& Life) Continue at

A Leisurely Pace

2014 - 2016

Over the next 2-3 years the work on Albacore continued at a more … leisurely pace. There were a few reasons for this but the big one, as is often the way, was money. I didn’t have any and I needed to work to earn it, leaving me with less time to spend on the boat. I began up-cycling some of the things I found in skips in the boatyard, a fantastic source of raw materials. I also found and restored a vintage bicycle for Lisa for Valentine’s Day 2014, an endeavour which left my new girlfriend suitably impressed! I also found myself working for the boatyard a lot of the time, which certainly helped with the mooring fees. I also, admittedly, gave myself a pretty massive distraction when I decided to rescue my 1941 Ford truck from my old home in East Sussex, towing it to Cornwall and restoring it so I could use it as my daily driver. It took me the best part of 2 years to get the truck up and running and during that time Albacore had to take something of a back seat.

Then there was life itself … which was pretty good most of the time. Challenging. But good. Lisa finished her MA and moved closer to Torpoint so we could spend more time together. I collected the rest of my belongings from my old life and squeezed everything on to the boat and in to her rented house and we just … got on with life.

We were enjoying ourselves, enjoying being together and enjoying life and probably, thinking back, still both adjusting to the big changes we had both been through over the previous few years. But this time couldn’t last forever and neither did we want it to.

The future was beckoning and some choices were going to have to be made …

-Tim

2017

The BIG Year

Some Decisions Are Made

We loved the boat.

We loved the stories it had given us. We loved the people we had met. We loved what it had taught us. We loved that it had brought us together. But despite these things we had never quite managed to make boat life work for us and we were beginning to itch for something new.

Despite our serious lack of funds we made the decision to put everything we had - (and didn’t have) - in to one big push to get the boat as fully restored as we could manage over the next year and then put her up for sale, hopefully to release us back in to the wild with some capitol to begin a new adventure together.

I had already stripped back the old layers of paint and rust from the wheelhouse so I started by priming that. I also started stripping, repairing and priming the one side of the boat I could safely get to. I removed more of the old iron gubbins from the decks which were a hangover from Albacore’s trawler days and I put most of my personal belongings in to a storage container to - (literally!) - clear the decks so I could begin work on the interior.

I started by building 2 doors on the shelter deck as that part of the ‘interior’ had always been open to the elements. I then removed the old metal hatch which led down via a ladder to the fish hold so I could build a fancy new wooden staircase and hatch. I was going to need a lot of wood for building and fortunately I managed to salvage a massive stack of pallets.

I built the kitchen, or galley, around the hatch which was in the centre of the deck, creating a sort of island kitchen with a hole in the middle which led down to the bedroom and bathroom - (the old fish hold) - via the new wooden staircase. It doesn’t always make life easy, this urge to do things the hard way, but why take the easy route when you can create something so much more interesting and creative?

I also salvaged, or was ‘gifted’, an old Belfast sink and a vintage oven which both needed some work to clean up and repair but which fit in perfectly with the overall look of the kitchen.

What Lies Beneath

An ‘Out-of-Water’ Experience for Albacore & Us

2017

Ah, The Underneath …

Not for the faint hearted, that was for sure.

We had been putting it off all year but it had to be done. We just didn’t know how! The boatyard had a lift but it could only take a maximum weight of 30 tonne. Albacore was 50 tonne … 50 tonne, 50 feet long, 18 feet wide and with a draft of 8 feet. It was going to be a challenge, for sure.

The solution, when it came, was brilliant but not altogether simple: First, we had to wait for a really high tide as the boatyard where we were moored was in a tidal estuary and Albacore actually spent large parts of her day sitting in mud. We then had to have one of the guys from the yard tow us out of there on a rope line as we no longer had a working engine. And then, about a mile or so up the river near to where the Torpoint Ferry runs to and from Plymouth, we were deposited next to the huge outer wall of the historic Ballast Pond.

It was here, outside of the comforting safety of the boatyard, exposed to the tides and the elements, that we would spend the next couple of weeks working frantically on every low tide to repair and seal the massive hull.

We had about 10 days until the next ‘high’ high tide or we would be stuck there for another few weeks and with September just a few days away we knew that the weather would soon be turning to ‘storm season’.

We set to work on the first side, scraping barnacles and oysters - (yes, I did say oysters!) - from the hull, power washing away the slime and debris and scrubbing her bottom clean. We worked at low tide, waiting with baited breath for the water to fall low enough for us to climb down the ladder where we stayed for the next few hours until the water rose again and we were forced to scramble back on board. We learned so much about the shifting tides in that time.

Our aim was to clean up the hull, remove the remains of the old anti-foul paint, remove the old caulking, re-caulk, re-seal, repair any damage, replace anodes, prime and apply fresh anti-foul. The task itself was pretty straightforward, but working on the tide raised the stakes as we had to be sure we had made her watertight before the water rose every few hours. Pretty nerve jangling stuff.

With Albacore leaning port side out, we did everything we could to get her as close to finished with her in this position, including the rudder, the propeller, the white stripe denoting the water line and as much as we could possibly, physically get to on the starboard side against the sea wall. Being just that bit shorter and a bit more flexible than Tim, I was able to reach quite a lot of it in that dark, narrow space, but even so, claustrophobia was beginning to tighten its grip on me and at some point we had to make the decision to turn her around so we could safely access the starboard side.

We had some friends of ours from the boatyard, Jenny and Geoff, bring their small boat over to help us turn Albacore on the next high tide. With their help, it was a simple enough manoeuvre but with Albacore now facing ‘downhill’ on the low tide, she was leaning even more precariously on the wall at a horrible, uneasy angle.

To minimise the time she was in this position, we needed to work really fast. There were just a couple of days until the tide would be high enough to float her back to the safety of the boatyard and we really didn’t want to miss that window. Unfortunately, the weather was really against us. It was windy and the rain was relentless. At one point it rained so hard and so fast that water poured in to the upper deck and flooded the interior. Because of the angle of the slope we were sitting at, there was absolutely nothing we could do to stop it. All we could do was stand there and look at each other as the rain flowed through the boat, trying not to cry and reassuring each other that it would be okay. It was a horrible moment.

As is often the way with the Cornish weather, however, by late that same afternoon the clouds parted as if by some celestial miracle, the wind dropped, and as the tide started rising we made the decision to call the job finished and make a break for the boatyard. Fortunately for us we were able to secure a tow home and as the sun started setting we untied our mooring lines and set off back down the river.

It was a perfect evening which came precariously close to disaster when one of the tow lines broke and we began drifting precariously close to a row of fancy looking yachts. Fortunately, the experienced guys towing us - (Nick and Mark, take a bow!) - steered us clear and a short time later we rounded the corner back in to the boatyard where we were welcomed back home by the cheers of the folks waiting for our return on the pontoon.

The relief to be back safe in our mooring spot with our newly restored hull barnacle free and water tight was really quite something … Let’s just say that a few beers may have been consumed that evening.

-Lisa

Albacore Becomes The May Queen

New Colours, A New Name & A New Beginning

2017 - 2018

With the hull finished and repaired it would have been easy to presume that the hardest part of the restoration was done … It wasn’t.

I was really determined to do a good job of the restoration and the conversion to a houseboat, despite my limited budget and resources. All these years I had had a vision of what Albacore could become and although I didn’t quite have the means to include the atrium, the hot-tub and the glass elevator - (only half joking!) - I was still keen to fulfil as many of my ideas as I could before advertising her for sale.

Transforming that rusty, crusty old wheelhouse with its layers and layers of old paint back in to what would have been its original and traditional wood grain paint effect was satisfying work. I had uncovered the remains of the old wood grain paint and it was evident that this technique had been used many times in the past. I was even able to trace the placement of the old lines, and by taking it back to the bare metal to start anew I was able to do a really nice job.

With the wheelhouse in paint and fully restored, I had little choice but to crack on with repairing and painting the rest of the boat exterior, a mammoth task which would be made all the more challenging by the short, cold days of the fast approaching winter.

Saying Goodbye

2018 - 2019