Pat Alexander remembers pre-FACT days

It's great to see ‘Plain Kate’ getting so much tlc. She needs a lot of that. David (my late husband) and I did our stint of painting, varnishing, polishing brass, when we kept her at the top of the creek at St Osyth’s. Kate was our accom. as we explored the Colne in ‘Little Kate’ our sailing boat (a 19ft Hunter). LK had small stub keels, and there was often much angst about getting back up the creek before the tide left us short of our destination, stranded on the mud.






One particularly hot summer, the big seam on PK’s stern opened up. Water came in with a succession of tides and one morning we got a phonecall from the boatyard. PK had sunk. Oil from the engine had gone all through the accommodation. Sea water had turned the ground-up seashell packing in the Aga cooker to sludge.

Just when we’d spent a season or two getting her ship-shape and ready for others to enjoy, we had all to do again – driving across at weekends from our home in the village of Swanbourne (near Milton Keynes). In the end we realised that the task of keeping PK in good order, compared with the small amount of time we were able to spend on board, did not stack up.

In the goodness of God we discovered Fellowship Afloat, and our need to find a good home for PK matched their need for accommodation. Bingo.

God bless PK and all who do not sail in her!

Pat Alexander