Do You Deserve Her?

Hard-standing and wooden boats don’t go together

- Adrian Morgan

The squalls became more frequent, the seas steeper until, a mile or so into the short, but increasingly windy, stretch of exposed water between Isle Ristol and Rhu Coigach – the turning point towards Lochinver, sailing alone – I began to wonder what would happen if Sally’s keel fell off. She was 80 this year, after all and the last time the keel bolts had been checked was soon after I bought her, over 20 years ago.

Davey Elliott of the Elephant Yard in Bursledon had held one of the old ones suspended on a length of string, and it had looked fine until tapped with a hammer. The dull clink of bronze was all he needed to know. They would have been the originals, fitted by Reg Yeabsley, the shipwright at Elkins who built her over the winter of 1936-7. Which meant they had lasted around 60 years, so the new ones would surely last as long.