It was only after we’d been in the Stoke Gabriel Boating Association for a couple of years that it dawned on me what an incredible resource it was (see panel, page 48). In addition to a large fleet of dinghies available to all members for a small fee, the association regularly receives donated boats of various kinds – recent incomers include a three-person rowing boat, an inflatable dinghy and a dilapidated 1930s clinker rowing boat, the latter which I snapped up as a restoration project in return for a donation to the club’s coffers.
Scillabub was another of these donated boats. The mid-blue Drascombe Lugger appeared at the SGBA looking slightly shabby in the summer of 2018. I had long been interested in Drascombe Luggers, ever since reading about Ken Duxbury’s adventures in Greece in the 1970s on his Lugworm, described in his book Lugworm on the Loose. I too lived on a boat in Greece in the 1970s, and our courses must have crossed many times without our meeting. Later, while working in the offices of Classic Boat magazine, I read about Webb Chiles’s extraordinary round-the-world voyages on his Chidiock Tichborne and was still more impressed with the design’s seaworthiness.
This story is from the December 2019 edition of Practical Boat Owner.
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This story is from the December 2019 edition of Practical Boat Owner.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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