A few weeks ago this minesweeper joined us at the marina.
The scrap metal merchant who owns it, brought it from a chap on e-Bay who had been planning to sail to the Suez Canal to join friends with other "army toys" when he became ill and had to sell it.
The metal merchant is gutting it; the minesweeper's hull is made entirely from wood but most of the innards are bronze and other non-ferromagnetic materials so I imagine there is profit in it. Mike (neighbour and co-captain of the beautiful target-puller Amiens) has acquired the wind turbine, Genevieve (next-boat-neighbour) a door and the Captain and I the stanchions - essential if party guests are not to be lost overboard.
The breaking up of boats and ships feels as tragic a happening as the felling of a tree. I realise as I write that sentence, that it has an ironic shudder running through it as those trees have, since the first human carved a canoe, supplied boat builders with one of their most needed materials.
Davenham might herself have met a similar fate had she not been rescued at various stages of her life. Even Simon, her previous owner, who loved her, uttered the words "break her up" as timings became critical during our negotiations.
But she, like so many others, is a beneficiary of such cannibalism. Some of her elegant brass portholes are the spoils from a 1930s liner and those we plan to fit in the hold will, in all probability, also have been butchered from other ships. Irony is at work here too as the trade in this particular salvage is a dying one; vessels are no longer fitted with the old portholes and those remaining to one day be dismembered of their treasures, are few.
Mike had tipped us off about the minesweeper's stanchions and The Captain and I went to investigate; the solid, industrial metres of wire and chain were just perfect for our beloved Little Ship.
A few days later, on a deck bestrewn with the wreckage of her violation, I haggled unashamedly and ruthlessly with the metal merchant over the price.
Boat husband was most impressed.
The thrill at my boldness in knocking it down by £50 rather overshadowed the ghoulishness of this transaction which only hit me later.
The minesweeper has no name - at least, there is none visible - which feels strange. Like a nameless person... although I don't know of any nameless people. People without a known name simply need someone to ask it. I did not even think to ask it of the merchant. Perhaps If you name a boat you have to care about it in some way. Without one it remains an object, a commodity.
Like an organ donor, perhaps it's better that way.
