Morvargh Sailing Project - Urgent Vessel Repair

Morvargh Sailing Project is a volunteer-led sailing organisation based in Fowey, Cornwall. Our mission is simple: to use sail training to inspire and change lives!

We do this by providing life-changing offshore sailing opportunities to 14-19 year olds. Our voyages bring out the best in young people by helping them become more confident, resilient, motivated, and better able to communicate.

After two years of enforced closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we, along with many other Sail Training organisations, have depleted all our reserves. My wife Vicky and I run Morvargh Sailing Project entirely in our spare time and support it financially until a time that it can become self-sustaining.

Even before coronavirus, we were acutely aware of the challenges faced by young people. High levels of mental health issues, anxiety, a fast-changing landscape of technology causing isolation, pressures to perform in exams and now the cost-of-living crisis. As you can imagine, we regularly hear from parents whose children struggle to cope.

Our extended 5yr MCA survey this year meant that our season started much later than we would wish, but we have had some fantastic voyages. The highlight was a recent 7-day Adventure voyage to the Scilly Isles!

Always a fantastic addition to our season is acting as the Fowey Royal Regatta’s Committee Boat. Disaster nearly struck at 01:30 on Wednesday morning however when we were awoken by alarms sounding!

Helen Mary R's shaft seal had sprung a leak and flooded the bilges, thankfully, we were able to pump out the water but not before our Alternators, and starter motor was damaged, along with a significant portion of cabling. After such a great few weeks, this is such a blow.

Thankfully the Harbour and local boat yard could help, and we now have Helen Mary R ashore. Parts are being ordered, but as you can imagine, these are not cheap. We've so far ordered the starter motor (£600), and thankfully we already had a replacement alternator aboard to replace the blown one. Also on the list is a new PSS seal (£590) from PYI Inc., which will be more robust and a few reals of replacement 12v tinned marine cable. (£55) This will allow us to replace damaged cables when dunked. The yard fees accrue daily and cost around £100 per day to keep HMR on the hard. Due to the nature of the repairs, we've also had to secure a marine engineer and are not sure yet what their fees will be.

We’ve since had to cancel a weeklong voyage to France and let down young people who were excited to undertake a voyage with us.

To deliver our valuable and life-changing sail training voyages, we need to be able to offer voyages again as soon as it is safe to do so. Once the shaft seal and engine components have been replaced, we will be better able to find out what else has been damaged in the flooding.

The worry is in navigating through a period during which we have had very little income, so the funds available to repair Helen Mary R are depleted.

Keeping a sail training vessel running is a massive financial commitment; mooring fees, servicing safety kits, paying for insurance, to keeping systems operating aboard. We spend in the region of £10k a year on Helen Mary R’s annual refit & coding; from anti-foul to paint brushes, anodes to sail repairs, it all adds up.

With your help, this fund will enable us to ensure that we are ready to start sailing as soon as possible.

Thank you so much

Matt Barraud

Director, Morvargh Sailing Project