How long is a piece of string..

We started restoring ibis in July 2022, rescuing her from Sailor's Creek in Falmouth where she was slowly sinking and rotting away. That summer was full of uncertainties, we had a small legacy from Dominic's auntie and we were looking for a boat to start our dream of sail trading across the Channel. Throughout the winter we looked for a suitable boat but albeit a profusion of boats for sale, there was not one that spoke to us. We knew we had only one shot at finding the right boat and continued our quest until one day in the Spring of 2022, a friend boatbuilder turns up at our workshop for a chat and he mentioned 'Ibis'. She was the first boat that he worked on as a trainee fisherman when he was 18. She definitely kept a special place in his heart and we decided to go and see her in Falmouth.

We found her at Sailor's Creek, a lovely cove nestled in the Falmouth Estuary, where a community of sailors lived on their boats. At the time the creek was littered with cubic metres of junk and Ibis was sat there, surrounded and, in fact, covered in junk. The tide would flow in and out of her rotting planks, keel and gardboard, the deck was covered in litter as well as her interior. As I walked towards her from the beach and saw her shape, I fell in love with Ibis. Her lines were so true and powerful, her turn of the bilge full and curvy, only an artist could have built such a boat. Indeed I found out later that her builder, Percy Mitchell of Mevagissey and port Mellon, was known as the 'artist of the wood'. So we threw all rational thoughts aside, we had to save this beauty! Regardless of the fact that our small legacy was nowhere near the amount of funds that the restoration of a boat in that state demands, we started to plan her rescue. Our optimistic streak was fired up to the full and we would irk ourselves on by stating that, with the funds available, we would at least be able to bring her to Millbrook and stop the entropy that was taking her at a super fast speed towards becoming just matter again. Of course that was just the beginning of a very long piece of string..