Phyllis 1907. Loa 68ft, Beam16ft.4, Draft 7ft.4, Official Number 124785. Yard Number 60. Sail Number 26148.

Updated: April 2016

Sailing at South Ferriby

The Journey Home.

Benbola tows Phyllis out of Buckie Harbour to start her journey home to the Humber after 24 years away.

We couldn't be there to see her off but Kath was in constant contact with Benbola's skipper Karl, the MCA left it until the last minute in the tidal window to release her from Buckie (very helpful) but Benbola made good time from Scotland to the Humber and then had to wait outside Spurn Point in a force 7 to pick up not one but two pilots. Bear in mind this is in the middle of the then well reported Humber Pilots dispute and our two seemed to be just out of training school.

 Kath and I had borrowed a friends 40ft trawler yacht "Golden Whiskas" to meet Benbola and Phyllis at Spurn intending to take over the tow up river to Barton Haven. The two (very young) pilots were a bit windy of that idea and insisted that Benbola towed her up river were we would then swap the tow onto Golden Whiskas. However, neither of our pilots knew were Barton Haven was so I explained over the radio were to go and how to get there, "main channel up to Paull and through Hull Roads, across the river from Fish Dock wall end and Barton Haven is about 1/4 mile east of the south bridge towers, over". A short pause, "we don't go there, over". My reply, " you do tonight, over", long pause, "OK we've found it on the chart, out".

 With no lights to mark the entrance at Barton and not being confident our intrepid new pilots knew were they were let alone were they were going I took a short cut over Skitter Ness and past New Holland pier to get there before them and mark the position with the boat, much to the pilots suprise at beating them there. It proved difficult to snatch the tow in the flow of the river past Barton, one reason why I wanted to take the tow in the lower Humber, plus Phyllis was completely black and so was the night. Another problem seemed to be that the pilots couldn't keep the tow on a static course head to tide and when we went to approach Phyllis she was coming at us from the other direction so had to keep backing away. After a few attempts with Kath on the helm of Whiskas and leaning on Phyllis we had her breasted up along side although not in an ideal position for manoeuvrability. We had passed fresh provisions over to Karl and his crew on Benbola and so wished them well as they headed back down river to drop the aspiring pilots off at Hull and head back to Scotland.

Site created May 2009

By Kath Jones & Alan Gardiner.

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