Name Sallie

Built for the Bowles family of Tollesbury in 1907 at Brightlingsea, SALLIE was registered for oyster dredging with a crew of four with the fishing number CK224.  This was seasonal work and she certainly participated in other fishing like trawling and stowboating for sprats.  She was remembered by Lennox Leavitt reminiscing in the 1970s as a "good boat" though this was late in her life as a motor smack and probably referred to her carrying capacity.  She was a medium sized smack of 44 feet known as class two boats able to fish in the Thames estuary, the class one boats ranging round Britain and the Class three being mainly day boats.  She had an auxiliary engine fitted in 1923 which is early.  There is a photo of her before this when fully rigged at Faversham.  Auxiliaries lost more sail progressively as engines improved initially retaining mast and "leg of mutton" mainsail and staysail.

SALLIE continued to fish until 1952 though laid up during the war.  By the fifties she had been fully motorised with two shrouds instead of three a side and a short mast and derrick.  Her fishing register terminated that year with a statement "sold out of fishing".  She was then owned by Drake Bros boatyard and may have become theirs' after a mooring debt.  Coincidentally the last stowboating voyage was undertaken by the Charlotte Ellen in the same year.  She was built by Kidby at Brightlingsea and has fine lines. Whereas there is some later evidence SALLIE was also built by Kidby, her shape is far more that of Aldous reproduced in scores of "off the shelf" vessels.

The new owner was Peter Light, famed as one of the last generation of sailing bargemen in trade in the 1950s under sail.  He ran SALLIE as a charter boat alongside the Memory, the first charter barge run by John Kemp who transferred her gear to the bigger THALATTA when the East Coast Sail Trust was formed.  SALLIE was an auxiliary but re-rigged as a cutter smack with bowsprit but no topmast.  She regularly went to Ostend for the weekend from her mooring at Heybridge.  She passed to West Mersea Sea Scouts in 1962 or thereabouts when Peter rerigged Baltic Trader Solvig. 

She remained with the Scouts until 1972 when they sold her to acquire a more modern vessel, the ex-ocean racer Ramrod, arguably less suitable for the role.  With two offers, one lower keeping her in home waters and one higher from Whitby she went north, being towed into Brancaster by Sherringham lifeboat.  Once repaired and in Whitby she became a hulk and was bought by the current owner and friends who found her in 1980 in the rubbish dump.

Refloated and taken home to Essex by road she was rebuilt at Downs Road Boatyard and sailed again in 1989, with her original rig and no engine.  She attended Brest-Douarnenez in 1992 and 2000 and the launch of Heritage Afloat in London.