PROVIDENT'S CENTENARY VOYAGE

Steve Jones and Morag Slesser sail Provident, a historic Brixham Sailing Trawler, on a centenary voyage from Scotland's west coast to her roots on the South Coast

- Morag Slesser

Eight days after leaving Oban on the west coast of Scotland, we arrived at the Fowey estuary on the Cornish coast. The guests and crew on board were oblivious to the magnitude of the occasion for us. For them, Steve's dash ashore to Polruan’s Lugger Inn to procure ice for the celebratory gin and tonics was simply 'part of the service' they had come to expect from a Provident voyage where food and drink rank easily as highly as sailing and adventure.

Polruan marked the end of a two-year journey; the place where, during a damp and freezing January in 2022, we had first hauled our newly purchased boat out of the water; where the magnitude of the task before us became clear, and, where eventually, with a gang of friends, supporters and local workers we began our mission to keep Provident sailing. The surveyor, a dour Scot, had not approached the boat with enthusiasm. We waited anxiously for his report. Was it going to be the beginning of an epic adventure?

The journey from Oban to Brixham had passed in the haze of sailing, sleeping and eating that comes with a long voyage. A sleep in the middle of the day after a four-hour watch is one of the joys of passage sailing. Of the eight guests on board, four had sailed on