Letty 1905

05/07/2021

Letty's first outing, the 2021 Round the Island race.

21/05/2019

The launch... a very proud moment.

11/05/2019

11/05/2019

Letty 1905 Background story:

11/05/2019

Background Story:
Letty, built in 1905 at the famous Rowles shipyard at Pill nr. Bristol, was the last of a long line Pilot Cutters built to guide the shipping of the world into the ports along the difficult tidal waters of Bristol Channel including not only Bristol but Gloucester, Newport, Barry, Swansea, Cardiff and some North Devon ports.

All the Pilot Cutters, were individually owned and operated by their skippers and competed to be the first to put a Pilot on-board incoming ships for the valuable Pilot’s fee, so the boats had to be fast but very seaworthy in the rough conditions of the Western Approaches.

Around 1920 this ‘freelance’ pilotage ended when the Ports’ Authorities introduced faster steam driven Pilot Cutters and the Pilots were amalgamated to share the pilotage duties on the fewer steam cutters.

The remaining large fleet of sailing cutters were then made redundant. Some were sold off as private yachts and others to the fishing trade. Letty was purchased by a Grimsby fisherman and worked the North Sea eventually ending up fishing in Ireland until the 1980’s when sea was ‘discovered’ in Rosslare and identified as an original Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter.

She was sailed over to Bangor, North Wales where later I found her in a sad state of repair.

So in 2011, my story begins with an 8 year restoration programme.

10/04/2019

Some of the details on the Pilot Cutter Letty. Very nice work. One interesting thing is that the skylight on Letty used to belong to Carlotta.

07/04/2019

I had the good fortune to meet the great guys. Chris Rees and Graham Butler. They are working on Letty and doing a beautiful job of it. Can’t wait until she her out of the shed.

06/03/2019

How's the fit-out coming along Steve...?

06/03/2019

Big thx to Damien Lyall and his team for completing the planking stage...

A day of Pilot Cutter Restoration

05/03/2019

Letty - 1905: Rebuild, the early days...

05/03/2019

Letty's line drawings. Thx to Malcolm McKeand (Kindly Light) for passing them on. You will need to add at least another 12" to her depth of keel following her rebuild. All other dimensions remain the same.

03/03/2019

A new backbone for Letty 1905: During her days as a fishing boat in the North Sea in the 1920's working out Grimsby, Letty had undergone some major conversion work. Her name was changed to Roaming, an engine was fitted, her rig was converted to a twin masted ketch, a vertical skeg rudder was fitted and her keel was reduced in depth. She stayed this way all the time she fished in Ireland from 1935 to 1976 having several owners finally being owned by the brothers Dermot & Gerald Pierce in Rosslare. In 1976 Denis Crompton from Liverpool bought her and sailed her back to Penrhyn in North Wales where with his long time friend, Ernie Pottage, they converted her back to a sailing Pilot Cutter and gave her back her original name, 'Letty'.
Big thx to Andrew Massey & Duncan Skingley for undertaking the hull restoration work at Cockwells, Mylor, Cornwall.

08/02/2019

BLACK is the new BLACK

08/02/2019

Jeremy Corbyn takes time out from the Brexit debate to carve Letty's name boards...

16/11/2018

new toilet arrangements....

07/10/2018

Chris Rees heading up the Letty 1905 rebuild project...

Rebuilding a historic sailing yacht – Meeting a Master Boatbuilder / 1905 Pilot Cutter. Support; http://www.sampsonboat.co.uk/support-tally-ho Become a Patro...

29/09/2018

progress

24/07/2018

Beautifully cut sails. James Lawrence will be making ours...

Carlotta
Trials with new sails, made by James Lawrence of Brightlingsea, were conducted in the Solent on 9th July, 2018.

25/03/2018

Progress with the iroko capping rail. Also the Douglas fir decking overlay for the next stage of construction...

04/02/2018

Hey Steve, haven't heard from you for a while, what's been happening on the Letty 1905 project?
Well you know we moved her to Millbrook last year, bought a new temporary building so she's in the dry. Quite a lot of things going now. Engine and stern gear now in, we've mocked-up the interior, made a start on the keel band, mocked up the rudder and now working on the deck.

19/10/2017

Could this be Letty which carried the number 22? Thanks to Oli Dixey of Pill for finding this old photo.

17/09/2017

a boring video...

11/09/2017

Proposed sail plan

10/07/2017

Crazy yes but a PC worth saving. Let's just say it's my contribution to yachting history..!!!

02/07/2017

2011 - a reminder of some major surgery work. Fitting a new keel. Note the old piece of keel shown circled. We think her keel was cut down when converted to a motor fishing boat in the 1920's. Andrew Massey and Duncan Skingley cutting out the new keel.

02/07/2017

Arrived Plymouth by tug. Only minor leaks.