In December, 2024, we’re featuring the Winkle Brig. Gerard Brown tells the story of how he and his family bought and got to know ‘Sea Jade’ which they trail to sail from Scotland to Cornwall.
We bought ‘Sea Jade’, our Winkle Brig, during the lockdown in 2020, and initially, we worried that she was just an extravagant holiday romance. But almost five years later, the relationship has proved much more durable than that and ‘Tinky Winky’s’ place in our lives has been assured. As a family of four with differing ambitions and ideas about what sailing was for, we’d bought a Wayfarer from which we could fish, picnic and even line up for some club racing when the occasion demanded it. We’d enjoyed sedate trips to the Lake District with it and an eye-opening holiday on the West Coast of Scotland. But, it was when we were on holiday in Cornwall with the boat sat on a mooring that we decided we wanted something bigger, with a cabin to get us out of the weather and to sleep in.
But, living in Milton Keynes, whatever we chose also had to be able to sit on a trailer and be small enough to overwinter in a barn. ‘Sea Jade’ had been for sale for some time before we spotted her online and made the short trip over the Carrick Roads to Falmouth, where she was waiting for her next custodian. We were impressed by her. She crammed a lot into her 16-foot hull; she had the traditional looks we so much admired, plenty of woodwork and bronze to look after, and a cabin that we were confident would take the four of us in relative camping comfort. After a few days of deliberation, we sealed the deal and dragged her to the excellent Pasco’s Boatyard in St Just in Roseland, where we’d arranged to keep her until we could next get down to Cornwall to sort her out.
Two weeks later, we were back and set to unpacking the spars, the sails and the rigging. We really had no idea what we were doing, though; there was far too much string to deal with and a couple of extra sticks to tie it to. Thankfully, help was available, and Craig, the yard manager, gave us some valuable help and assistance sorting us out and getting her ready for the water. A tractor-assisted launch followed, and with our puny Honda 2.3hp doing double duty in the outboard well, we puttered out towards the ‘vast expanse’ of the Carrick Roads before we hauled up the canvas and began to work it all out. The first few days aboard were amazing, and at times, we must have even looked like we knew what we were doing. Sadly, we only had a week with her before we had to head home in late August. ‘Sea Jade’ was left on her mooring, and thanks to another wave of COVID-19, we weren’t to sail her again until the spring, when we enjoyed a week in Coniston launching and recovering from an excellent custom-built Extreme Marine trailer.
The summer holidays saw another month of messing around Falmouth Bay and the Carrick Roads before we ventured East to Titchmarsh for a few end-of-season trips around the Stour and the Orwell with an E-Propulsion electric motor. We felt that we’d found our feet with a gaffer and, as newly qualified Day Skippers the following year, we took her to the West Coast of Scotland for some much more ambitious passages around the Sound of Mull and the Lynn of Morvern where even two batteries don’t get you quite enough range for multi-day multi-day off-grid adventures, but do allow you to get very close to the wildlife. Although rated as only having three berths, for one night of this trip, we managed to sleep five, thanks to two broken elbows and a section of slippery rocks between our anchorage and the beachside campsite we’d identified for our two children and their friend. We thought this must be some WB record, but a little online research told us that Sea Jade’s first owner had even managed to sleep seven (including five small children) on board with the help of a cockpit tent.
Since we’d bought her, we’d spent a lot of time and effort ironing out whatever issues needed sorting, including sanding, painting and varnishing. However, we needed professional help to replace the leeboard pins, which, after 30 years of service, must have required some years of attention. So, Harry King took on the job of drilling out the old ones out and fitting new ones, as well as reconfiguring the transom to accept a much more punchy Tohatsu 6hp motor. We also had a new mainsail made where the sharp-eyed will notice that the WB18 has been accidentally flipped to BW18 on the port side. An Aeroluff Spar furling Genoa brought the rest of the rig into the modern world, and its lightweight efficiency made a massive difference to real-world sail handling. Some sea trials from Titchmarsh and an OGA East Coast summer cruise in 2022 left us delighted with the extra power and range we’d acquired, and over the next two years, we’ve enjoyed more of the East Coast and longer trips to the West Coast of Scotland.
The children have left home now, and they do their own things during their holidays. As a result, we’ve gained much more space on board, and ‘Sea Jade’ is a pretty good multi-day cruising boat for two tidy adults. Whilst she’s no racing boat, we have seen 7kts SOG with two reefs, in gusts of 32kts, and the Winkle Brig has proved to be the perfect introduction to proper sailing for us. She’s stable and forgiving, easy to handle on and off the water and has allowed us to explore some beautiful coastline that a bigger boat would struggle to get into. A 12-litre fuel tank easily gives us a week’s worth of cruising, and a solar-powered lithium battery keeps the Garmin, the VHF, and the iPhones charged almost indefinitely, as well as providing some basic cabin lighting.
She has left us wanting more, though, and much like the situation we found ourselves in with the Wayfarer, we sometimes think bigger might be better as our ambitions grow. Still, we’d most definitely miss her looks, charm and portability. She’s been a real memory maker.
Words and photos: Gerard Brown
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