How did the dream begin?

Water Sprite’s owners, Peter and Elizabeth Mullins, now back home in Australia, tell me that really it all started two generations ago with a small clinker dingy, the first Water Sprite, commissioned by Peter’s grandfather during the Great Depression in 1932. Peter’s father, Jimmy, then a youngster, helped build the boat in Grahamstown in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. Jimmy sailed her all his life on a tidal river at the bottom end of Africa and taught Peter to sail, which is where the dreams of one day sailing the world began. It’s easy to imagine the young boy in his little clinker boat learning to adventure and navigate the tidal waters that once would have been his whole world, slowly expanding…

I’m glad that Peter felt it necessary to tell me a little about the first Water Sprite. It brings home the value and importance of getting kids out on the water by any means available. The skills it gives and the places it allows the imagination to go are unique, invaluable and leave lifelong impressions and passions…

And then you grow up and it’s a chance to turn dreams into reality

So Peter grows up and marries Elizabeth, who also has a passion for sailing . They’ve owned a few cats: a Leopard 43’ a 44’ and finally a 48’, Water Sprite, which they bought before they retired. Previously, they’d been holiday sailors with the dream of one day sailing slowly around the world. Water Sprite was the boat to do it in, the time was right and in April 2019 they set off on their circumnavigation. The first leg of the voyage was from Sydney up the east coast of Australia, along the Great Barrier Reef, where Water Sprite had previously lived.  At the top of Australia (Cape York) they turned left and sailed west.

Peter says it was really interesting sailing through the Great Barrier Reef, with immensely strong currents at the top of Australia as the water pushes through from the Pacific. They spent some time in Darwin and then sailed the beautiful Kimberley coast before moving onto Broome in North Western Australia. The tidal ranges there are similar to Bristol in the UK, with spring tides at 9 metres plus making it perhaps the third biggest range in the world. Added to that the islands are quite remote, far from anywhere, and with no mobile coverage. They had to rely  on satellite phone only and days went go by without seeing another boat. The stunning clear waters call to the unwary swimmer to enjoy a dip, but I somehow get the message that Peter is saying  you should only cruise (and swim) in this part of the world with extreme caution and full understanding of the inherent risks – the tides and currents, but also the saltwater crocodiles, sharks, and jellyfish… you have been warned!

From the Kimberleys they started crossing the Indian Ocean stopping off first at the Australian owned Cocos Keeling Islands and then at the British Indian Ocean Territories owned Chagos Islands. A beautiful archipelago 6° South of the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka. A magical place with minimal infrastructure and where Water Sprite was one of only two boats. Reminiscent perhaps of a much less developed and populated Maldives although nearby is Diego Garcia, owned by the UK but used by the US military Peter tells me, and a wide-berth no go zone.

Water Sprite  continued on west to the Seychelles, north of Madagascar. They’ve holidayed in the Seychelles a number of times before and Peter tells me they are beautiful islands populated by lovely people, the true ‘island paradise sailing grounds’.

They then head south to Madagascar and onto South Africa where they spent around three months going on safaris mainly in Namibia. As Peter talks on from place to place I stop him. “This all sounds very straight forward, you just nip across huge tracts of ocean and then you’re in the next bit of paradise enjoying yourselves…But there must have been 1000 adventures in between each island?” “Oh yes!” says Peter. “We blew spinnakers, we had huge waves, we had some rig failures and we had a spinnaker over the side and round the prop and had to dive in the middle of the Indian Ocean to free it…But nothing ever worried us to the point of feeling imperilled.”

I guess each of those events could be an entire chapter in itself, so we move on and Peter tells me about Nosy Be in Madagascar. Nosy Be, on the North West side of Madagascar, is home to a community of genuinely subsistence fishermen – catching to put food on their families’ tables from small outrigger-dugouts, built just as they were 2000 years ago. The sails are mostly woven from palm leaves or occasionally a sheet, literally a bedsheet! Peter was clearly impressed by their capabilities and tells me these little boats can sail very efficiently at five to six knots. Does this knowledge make anyone wonder why you bother with that expensive suite of sails?!

Water Sprite left this paradise and sailed unwittingly into an adventure of the less appealing kind.

According to the pilot book they were using, French run Joan de Nova promised a friendly welcome from the local gendarme. Water Sprite arrived at around 3:00 AM and anchored offshore, awaiting daylight to make her way more safely into the unknown anchorage. The crew were up early, enjoying a morning coffee and  taking in their beautiful surroundings.  They were relaxing and preparing to take the boat in further ashore when two inflatables came speeding towards them. “Oh good” they thought “They’re coming to tell us where we need to go.” But how wrong they were. The inflatables were packed with 12 French Foreign Legion guys and gendarmes all rattling away in French making it clear that Water Sprite wasn’t wanted there.  Noone on board Water Sprite spoke French but they got the gist “GO AWAY!”. One of the gendarmes spoke a bit of broken English and they managed to communicate the message “480 euro’s to anchor.” The response from Water Sprite was “No way.” The unfortunate net result of that conversation was two guys producing submachine guns while they liberated the four crew of their passports. The crew then watched helplessly as their passports were whisked ashore, uncertain at this point whether they’d ever see them again. Clearly they’d underestimated the allure of potentially lucrative visitors to this island as when the gendarme finally returned, official paperwork was produced with the now vastly inflated price of 1250 euro’s. This came with some intimidation tactics as the inflatables circled Water Sprite with the gendarme filming them and saying that they would impound the boat if they didn’t pay. Obviously the crew were very upset but Peter said it was a rather ridiculous situation, almost comical in its ludicrousness  and they began filming the gendarme filming them….However, in the end there was nothing for it but to pay the €1250, not so comical after all.

The gendarme kindly offered them leave to stay for seven days for this ‘fee’. Peter tells me that he informed them in no uncertain terms that he would not be taking up the offer! They found out later that Macron was due to arrive the following day and security had gone ballistic. Maybe it was just a case of wrong place, wrong time and normally they might expect a slightly more friendly welcome, but somehow I don’t imagine Water Sprite plans to return any time soon to check the theory.

By February 2020 Water Sprite was in Namibia, spending time in Luderitz and Walvis Bay. She then headed to St Helena, a UK overseas territory located in the South Atlantic ocean. St Helena is the very remote island where Napoleon was exiled and died. Water Sprite’s crew found it beautiful and fascinating there and spent a week before heading to Ascension, another British island with around 300 resident population plus 300 British and American Air Force personnel. The plan had been to sail from there to the Cape Verde Islands, but this had always been wind dependent and as they sailed the trades pushed them further and further west. Water Sprite crossed the equator closer to Brazil than Africa so they headed for the Azores. On arrival they were shocked to be met by officials in full PPE. While they had been bobbing around in their 48ft bubble that was Water Sprite, the world had been consumed by the pandemic. They’d heard some whispers of something called Covid when they were in St. Helena but really had no idea what it was about. 10 days later in Ascension there was a  little bit more, but cruising in the way they were unaware of what was taking place in the bigger world so it was a terrible shock to encounter the full impact of Covid when they reached the Azores.

They needed to do some repairs to the boat and the intention had been to head to the Med. but everything was closing up – Italy Spain Greece… their only option was to carry on North and try to get to the UK.  Peter fortunately holds dual citizenship, British and Australian, so contacted the British Embassy in Lisbon. On board Water Sprite were two Brits, a South African, and an Irish  passport holder. Gillian Herculano, the British Vice Consul,  responded to Peter’s plea for help and he can’t praise her enough. He tells me that she was outstandingand couldn’t have been more helpful despite the chaos the embassy was dealing with at the time, repatriating as many Brits as possible. Water Sprite left the Azores and crossed Biscay at the end of March  2020, punching into big weather but desperate to find a safe port before the world shut down completely. Finally, and with huge relief, they pulled into the Helford River, a beautiful safe haven on our Southwest coast. It was also an unexpected ‘home coming’ for one crew member, Jeremy Edmonds – a long standing friend and frequent sailor on Water Sprite’s who was born and grew up in Cornwall. Jeremy is one of more than a dozen friends and family who have sailed various legs on Water Sprite’s adventure.

Helford Passage is also the place where Peter’s cousin, Tom Bligh, lives and they were able to use his local knowledge whilst they formulated a hasty plan. Tom just happens to be a Dazcat owner (Dazcats are built right here at the yard), proud owner of Lady Bounty (And yes, he’s a decendant of Bligh of the Bounty!) and he recommended they bring Water Sprite to the Multihull Centre where she would be able to get all necessary work completed in good hands while they returned to Australia to wait out the pandemic. Airlines were closing down and travel becoming more and more difficult at this point so they had very little time to arrange things and managed to get one of the last flights back to Australia. They’ve been communicating with the yard by phone, WhatsApp and email and tell me that we’ve been incredibly helpful and supportive. In addition to her new Coppercoat bottom Water Sprite is being fitted with a new Selden mast and boom. When I spoke to them they were sitting on their balcony in Sydney sipping an evening drink after a broiling hot day. It’s not how they thought they would be spending this January but they sounded quite philosophical. However, Peter lamented the current situation in the UK and wonders when he and his boat will be reunited. He describedthe differences in the way entry into the UK and Australia were managed (as they did both in close succession). The differences were stark and made it clear why we are now in the situation we are in and Australia is not…

“If I could write the future” says Peter, “we’d be back in the UK by the 3^rd quarter of 2021 and would sail with my cousin, enjoying the South West coast of the UK, venturing to the Isles of Scilly and maybe also up the Thames to spend some time at St Catherine’s Dock. Hopefully we’d be joined by my brother Doug and his wife Hilary who live in Winchester. Yes, ideally in the third quarter of 2021 if that’s possible. If not, and travel can only start in 2022, we’ll cross back over Biscay and spend two seasons in the Med, then to the Caribbean and spend some time, some years (?) wandering back to Sydney via the Panama Canal, Galapogos and the beautiful Pacific islands…”

Although we can’t write the future we need to keep making plans. Water Sprite  is the cumulation of a dream that began way back with a young boy sailing off the tip of Africa. Now she finds herself taking an unexpected break, catching some winter TLC and some exceptionally good company at Europe’s oldest multihull specialist boatyard. But she is definitely waiting to be reunited with her owners and continue their adventures together. Let’s hope it’s not too long. I swear she whispered at me that day when I when went to take a photo for the Coppercoat story…

Afternote: Water Sprite  hadn’t planned to be sailing up the UK coast and Peter only had old paper charts to navigate his way up to the yard, so he has a word of warning for any future unsuspecting sailors coming to see us. He tells me the charts didn’t indicate clearly enough the fact that it is almost a completely drying estuary and that he was fortunate he arrived at the top of a spring tide. But it definitely took him by surprise in the morning to find the boat surrounded by mud flats and only a very tiny channel that even a kayak can’t stay afloat in on a low spring! Do contact us before visiting by boat so we can give you the correct tidal information for your boat.