5:33pm Thursday 10th June 2010
By Keith Hamilton
Hampshire sailors always know they are in for a good time when Nellie and Fanny spend a day out with the buoys.
Although not in the first full flush of youth – Nellie is 148 while Fanny is ten years younger – experience, good manners and a stout bearing ensure yachtsmen still like the cut of the boats’ jib.
Nellie and Fanny of Cowes, to give the craft her full name, will be sailing in home waters later this month, maintaining a proud local tradition.
The Itchen Ferry is a style of boat which was first used by the seamen who lived in the hamlet of the same name, which once stood near Woolston in Southampton.
Initially used for fishing, the ferries were mainly used to carry people across the river between Woolston and Southampton.
In 1836, though, steam-powered floating bridges arrived making the old boats redundant, and as a result only a handful survived.
On June 19 Nellie and Fanny will be among the hundreds of yachts setting off from Cowes in the annual Round the Island Race.
Nellie was built in 1862 by Dan Hatcher at his Belvidere boatyard in Southampton. Just eight years later she was reportedly involved in a fire and rescued by Henry Thomas Banks, whose family cared for her until the late 1950s.
In 1959 Nellie was acquired by Captain Peter Preston, who repaired her and raced her regularly in the 1970s and 1980s.
By 2003 Nellie was again in need of work and had a lucky escape from the bonfire.
Christopher Waddington, of Wicormarine boatyard in Portchester, had already restored two Itchen Ferries. When he heard about Nellie he agreed to take her on and the boat underwent an extensive restoration.
In 2005 Nellie passed to his son, Scott, who has just completed phase two of her restoration.
Despite Nellie’s 148 years, she has never been sailed around the Island and Scott will be accompanied on the day by John Banks, Commodore of the Cowes Corinthean and the grandson of one of her original owners.
Joining Nellie will be the other Itchen Ferry, Fanny of Cowes, making her first trip home to Cowes since 1970.
Built in 1872 for a Cowes-based fishmonger, Fanny moved to the East Coast in 1958 and has been owned by boatbuilder, Nigel Waller since 2003.
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