Dear Editor

Norwegian Yolles

Finding some of my own photos of Eel, the boat which Hugh Clay sailed in the Baltic (Bulletins 89/90) and having talked with both Felix Gotto, who had her built and Evan his son from whom I bought her (Evan is the figure clambering ashore from Gypsy in the photo in the current Bulletin) we all agreed that Mr Clay seems to be getting less out of the boat than we did.

It may interest readers to know that while it is possible to sail without ballast (as the Gottos always did), the original users of these craft were fishermen who used stone for ballast when they rowed out into the North Sea and exchanged it for fish and sailed home. This is why she is such a superb pulling boat.

Felix took her lines from a rotting original and had her built by a boatbuilder in Littlehampton who built the Navy’s whalers. The raking mast and dipping (‘Scotch’) lug is a powerful rig, and Felix still uses it in his present boat because of its handiness and safety now he is older. It is interesting to see that someone is building a version of this type of craft commercially.

Alternative means of propulsion

The other day my son Peter and I set off to sail. We found at the mooring that our Drascombe Lugger Tethys’ centreplate was on the bottom of the sea! Nothing daunted, we set off with the Seagull, to have lunch and wait for low water to pick up the plate. We anchored for lunch, but the Seagull refused to start afterwards. So... third alternative into action, we set off to row. Unfortunately the wind was dead ahead and this was just not on if we were to recover the plate. So out came the fourth alternative — 50 m of anchor warp and another warp, Peter at the helm and me ashore towing! Even so, we had to wait for the tide to get over Shotley spit and did not recover the plate till a week later.