Peregrine is a Suffolk Beach Punt which has been constructed from marine plywood and is owned by myself and my friend Ian Page. We have had this boat five years now and have never really knew what would happen if she capsized or was swamped. When we first got it, and decided to test sail it on our local council pond, we were informed that she had to undergo a capsize test before we were allowed to sail her. We turned up expecting to do the dirty deed, to be informed the 'mast will break before she will capsize, you can sail her'. So no capsize or buoyancy test was ever done.

The boat has a 16 foot waterline and length overall, she is 6 foot 6 inches wide, carries 300lb of ballast (bags of shingle) and has a steel centreboard plate which is sealed within the boat. From this you can appreciate she is a very stable boat, and under sail with 'four' large men sitting on the leeward side the gunwale is no-where near to being underwater. She has two hatches under the bow (not watertight), a stern hatch (not watertight), two rear side tanks (not watertight) and two forward side tanks (in theory watertight). These tanks normally carry our clothing, food, cooking equipment, ropes, fenders, fuel tanks and kedge anchor. We generally sail her in coastal water, especially off the West Coast of Scotland and can be several miles off-shore.

After hearing Ed Wingfield's account of Goosander sinking on the Amble, who thought his boat was unsinkable, and sails in similar conditions to ourselves, we decided that we needed to find out what Peregrine would do. Thus, this Easter we travelled to Glencoe to have a sail and to buoyancy test Peregrine.

We decided that we would need to test our boat just after high tide, so if the worst happened and she sunk, we could recover her after the tide had gone out and re-float her on the next tide. Unfortunately, this meant we had to start the test at 7:00am (at least there would be no spectators, if all went wrong!). Initially we took out all the floorboards and ballast, removed the bungs and started the scuffling process. To speed things up, we also bucketed in water and added the ballast back in until she reached equilibrium, i.e. no more water coming in through the bungs. The water level inside was half way up the side tanks, but had not reached the bow hatches, and was no-where near the stem hatch. Jumping around the boat, or putting all our weight on one side, or Ian trapezing of the side on the halyard, did not cause the boat to be unstable or to allow water over the side.

At this point we decided to fill her with water until the seats were just covered, leaving about 12 inches from the top of the boat. Again we tried every thing to get one of the sides under the water, or to feel that she was unstable and would capsize, and failed in the process. We decided to take a break and leave her for about an hour and contemplate on what we should do next. We noticed the odd bubble coining from the edges of our side tanks, thus we realised the tanks that we thought might be water tight were not, but we would see what would happen. While we were waiting, we decided to see if the rudder would floats it is made out of solid hardwood and has a metal skeg built within it. As this weighs quite considerably I expected this to sink, but I was surprised to find that it would float with four inches sticking out above the water, not enough on a stormy day, but if accidentally dropped while on a mooring, it was recoverable.

After an hour, the water level in Peregrine had dropped slightly, thus telling us water was entering the tanks, albeit slowly. We could have gone on filling her to the brim, but decided that she would still float and would not capsize, and in normal circumstances if we had a swamping we had plenty of time to recover the situation. Thus we started bailing the water out, on inspecting the tanks, all had taken in water but in most cases the water level in the tanks was less than the water level had been in the boat.

So what conclusions have we made?

She will not capsize easily; if she does (I believe only by a freak wave and circumstances being right) she will not be righted by the crew, but will still be floating. If she is holed, or swamped, we believe we have enough time to keep water levels under control while temporary repairs are made. We could fit watertight hatches to the bow lockers and possibly the stem locker. We could fit buoyancy bags into the tanks and sacrifice storage space. We could make all our tanks water tight by using glass-fibre tape on all edges.

What are we going to do? Well, initially nothing. Why? This is answered by looking at the type of sailing we do and the precautions we take. No boat can be made 100% safe, only a fool believes such a thing any boat can sink or capsize given the right circumstances. The trick is no know when to sail or, more importantly, when not to sail. Most of us would not go out in conditions that push the boat or ourselves beyond our capabilities. If Ian and myself go on a coastal passage, we would not go out in extremes of weather, we would also make sure we are carrying enough safety equipment and we would also have chosen some escape routes to go to if the weather started to change for the worse.

Those of you who know Ian and me will know that in the first year we had this boat, through our naivety and belief in our skills we got caught out with strong winds and a foul tide off Anglesey. Using our VHF we had to call out the Lifeboat when we lost our only means of propulsion. From this it can be seen that the biggest danger to us is ourselves not the boat, and therefore, however much buoyancy or capsize testing you do - it ultimately comes down to you, your skills, your knowledge and your judgement.