“Had you looked at other boats?” I asked. Found Agnes alongside, talked to Luke and had a sail aboard her.” We’d planned to sail to the West Country that year so we looked him up when we got there. “Found Luke Powell on the web whilst browsing. “Space, a tested boat, solid.” All the usual reasons in fact. “Then pilot cutters came up,” Nick continued. “Gaff rig is the essential rig of interest,” according to Nick, “and is simple to repair.”
AMELIE ROSE SERIES
This brought them to a series of decisions, the first about the type of boat they’d choose. They read ‘sell up and sail’ books, and they decided to buy a big boat. They tentatively stepped into this course five years ago when they realised they were becoming trapped in the nine-to-five world and decided they were not up for another 20 years of sitting in offices staring at screens. But they were aware that there’s a massive leap between that boat and a Scillonian pilot cutter. Together they had owned a Westerly GK29 – still do, though it’s for sale – on which they’d done some charter work. Both had sailed from an early age, Nick on dinghies, Melisa with her dad on larger boats. They certainly aren’t new to sailing even if this boat is a huge step up from their past experience. They’ve set out to strive for the smallest carbon footprint both during construction and in use. But two things became clear talking to them: firstly, they had done their homework before they committed to the project and, secondly, they were very aware of the impact any boat has on the environment. So what makes a couple give up their secure IT jobs in the City and beat a retreat to sea via a route that involves buying a £300,000 boat? Okay, for that money they certainly get a good deal of boat, and it’s a sum comparable to any plastic boat of a similar quality. She’s the basis of Nick and Melisa’s new livelihood, Topsail Adventures.
Amelie Rose, Luke Powell’s seventh Scillonian-inspired pilot cutter, is a mirror of his fifth boat, Ezra, and built for the same purpose, charter work. It’s a formidable sight and one that drives home the splendour and strength of the vessel. A slow whish turns into a gush as wind pushes sea apart. Not being able to face another 20 years staring at computer screen, change was needed, and the smiles show it was the right decisionĪs she sailed by, feet away from where we gazed, the power of the boat was audible. And what a show she’d put on for us in the photo-dinghy as we sat back and admired her speed, her power and beauty in the Force 4 winds that simply are a tease for this type of craft. She is what is now regarded as being of the ‘normal’ Luke Powell pedigree, modelled on an early-1800s pilot cutter from the Scillies, square in the forefoot, deep and upright in the sternpost, with a long sloping keel and a high rise of bilge, all of which help her stand up in a strong wind yet produce a good turn of speed. “That wasn’t our environment though we could see what was happening,” said Nick, “but long before the first signs of recession loomed over the horizon, we were set on a path that today brings us here.”Īt this moment ‘here’ was the Chain Locker, the well known watering hole by Customs Quay in Falmouth, and the mood was one of exhilaration following five hours sailing and photographing the new boat. To most people that probably means earning bucketfuls of money whilst leading the country into rack and ruin. They both have a background of working in IT in City financial institutions. Suddenly she was not a wooden thing any longer but a living structure, a moment new life is created,” Nick told me a few days later, when the reality of what they’d done had fully sunk in. She’d been in the mud but suddenly she moved.
“It was a hell of a moment when I saw her floating. “Unfurl yourself into the grace of a beginning that is at one with your life’s desire, awaken your spirit of adventure, hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk.” (You can see the whole thing on their website). It was a good party, laid on at builder Luke Powell’s Gweek Quay workshop, with some 80 friends, barrels of beer, a fine spread of food and a really inspirational dedication from Ken Boullier, Vicar of St Just and St Mawes and a sailing nut himself. It was at the launch party, just as the tide rose and the water kissed Amelie Rose’s keel for the first time, that her owners Nick and Melisa suddenly realised they’d bought a real boat, not a dream. She’s the key to their bid to swap their City desks for a new livelihood in classic charter. For former IT specialists Nick and Melisa, Amelie Rose, their new Luke Powell pilot cutter is more than a beautiful boat.
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