A Little Ship

“You’ve haven’t bought a boat, you’ve bought a little ship!”  Stefan chuckled as we watched Davenham leave the dry dock (which she had sunk and thus not been dry at all) and glide majestically along the creek. 

One of the most exquisite sentences ever uttered to me.

Stefan’s survey had been a relief to say the least, since we had purchased Davenham without one.

Or  without a mooring. 

The two most glitteringly golden rules about buying a boat, broken in the instant we were smitten.

The “For Sale” ad took us to Brentford where Davenham was lying, with an air of dereliction about her, on a leafy mooring opposite Kew Gardens – we could see the glasshouses from the deck. That mooring we assumed, would be transferable to us and imagined heady gusts of fragrance wafting over the river in the summer. As it turned out, neither the mooring nor the heady gusts came to pass.

 In October 2011 Stefan had conducted a “mud walk around inspection”. Davenham was sitting on her mud berth and there was sufficient time between tides for him to examine the hull sides and an “area of the forward bottom”, taking percussion soundings and ultrasound thickness point readings.  The hull surface, he wrote, was, “muddy but only a little marine growth covered the surface.” 

Barnacles I thought, might be gluing her together.

This mud walk was “a Summary of Findings” only and not “a full pre-purchase condition survey report”.   Approximately 100 readings were taken and plotted on an ultrasound chart.

What Stefan did find was some weakness in the integrity of a couple of the plates.

A hole was found “SB at 4MSt.  A corroded rivet head was found PS at8MSt.  There was a “thin patch” at the keel and garboard strake. 

But there was “very little pitting” and “some plate wastage noticeable but of no concern” and I took heart from the happier adjectives - few, adequate, some – while not understanding any of what was then, to me, a technical and arcane language. I’ve since done a great deal of studying with the dictionary and the invaluable,  “A Sea of Words:  A lexicon and companion to the complete seafaring tales of Patrick O’Brien” (a gift from Andrew).

 The Captain, who had mud-walked with Stefan, communicated his optimism - he had, of course, been charmed by Davenham.  The vibes were encouraging. 

But the decision, as I’ve said, had been made long since and, in love and ready for anything, she became ours in the New Year. 

And, since she didn’t sink like a stone during the tow from Brentford to the dry dock for her full medical, we felt we could safely predict that no gaping hole would be found.

In February 2012, Stefan’s examination of her every accessible inch - somewhat hampered by the tides which inconveniently flooded into the dry dock -was concluded. 

Diagnosis:  Davenham’s hull sound except for a few rivets and three plates.

“You’re very lucky.” he said, “You have won the lottery”. 

Somewhere I read that, because Davenham was constructed just after the Second World War, it is possible that the steel may have been of a military grade. This might account for the almost unbelievably good condition of the hull and our almost unbelievable good luck.



Davenham in dry dock in London



Prognosis: Excellent following repairs.

Cure: welded, electrified, plumbed, heated, painted.

With deep and abiding love lavished upon her, complete recovery certain.

Loving our Little Ship is synonymous with breathing.