Last week, prestigious sailing magazine Classic Boat featured the Lady Daphne’s incredible tale from Christmas 1927, where she was abandoned off the Cornish Coast and somehow managed to navigate her way to a safe landing on the Isles of Scilly.
Coincidently, at the same time, new T&W volunteer Martin sent us a message to say Lady Daphne had come up in conversation with some friends and gobsmackingly it turned out that one of those friends, Roy, was the grandson of one of the lifeboatman that went out to the Daphne that day.
‘My Grandfather was on the shout for her in the Scillies on the lifeboat Boxing Day. My father remembers them going out, she was in heavy weather passing the Lizard Point, the Lizard lifeboat took the two crew off, Skipper & boy/deck hand, she sailed on straight through all the rocks with her sails in tatters up onto a sandy beach on the island of Tresco next to the Lizard Point there, wouldn’t believe that, St Mary’s Lifeboat towed her off, no damage with just a Canary aboard, Grandad got a bollocking for not bringing the Canary home ( Nan already had a Monkey he had brought home from sea, L, Daf was moored up inside the old quay St Mary’s to live another day.’
Small world – nice to add a little extra colour to the story.
Roy came down to Shoregate today to join the volunteer group and brought a chart with Daphne’s perilous course plotted through the rocks.
Great to have another helper with such a strong connection to Daphne’s history – she’s made a lot of friends over the past 100 years!
P.S. a note on lazy journalism. Geoff Gransden was listed as the owner by the author of the article, ignoring Intra Maritime Heritage and T&W, despite having the facts to hand.
It reminds us of back in the summer when Meridian news covered the launch of Intra Martime Heritage and Lady Daphne’s return. The presenter went through his questions in advance of going live on air and all was fine, then when the cameras rolled, he told all the viewers about how we’d run a crowdfunding campaign to raise £50k to bring her home – a complete fabrication!
Not quite as scandalous as Panorama, but you can’t always believe what you read and hear!