MFV Patricia Campbell

[Greg Ledder]

Hi everyone!
Thought I would introduce myself as I happened to see some photo's on the site of my boat "Patricia campbell" (former number PL68).

My name is Greg Ledder and myself,my partner Ann and her daughter Tamsin have owned the boat,currently berthed in Fleetwood Docks for 5 years and are in the (very slow!) process of converting her to a liveaboard while we are living on her which is no easy task.

Shortly after buying her we re-registered her as a Motor Yacht under her present name of 'Andromeda'. You may have seen a photo or two of her with the name 'Longhorn' which seems confusing but this came about when comedian Peter Kay asked us if he could come and do some filming on the boat for his 'X Factor' spoof show 'Britan's got the Xtra Pop factor' in 2008. To cut a long story short,his props team painted the name 'Longhorn' on the bow and I haven't yet got around to painting it out as I've been too busy on the interior of the boat!

For those who may be interested I have posted photo's at the address below of the conversion from day one when we brought her down from Whitehaven to the present stage of conversion where there are several jobs ongoing at any one time as I'm doing all the work on my lonesome and we're on a tight budget (aren't we all these days?) so it's a kind of disorganised chaos but I'm gradually getting there!

http://andromeda.myphotoalbum.com (hope it works!)

We have discussed selling the boat (have advertised her to guage reaction) as the ladies are not as keen as I am to keep her but we'll see what happens......the jury is out at the moment.....

Anyway,hope you enjoy the photo's and any comments - positive or negative are welcome.

Cheers,

Greg

[MASTERFRITH]

Just looked through your photos,your doing a great job their Greg,she will look nice when you have finnished.Always was a well kept and good looking boat when she was fishing, glad to see she didn't get chopped up like most of them.

Tony.

[Greg Ledder]

Just looked through your photos,your doing a great job their Greg,she will look nice when you have finnished.Always was a well kept and good looking boat when she was fishing, glad to see she didn't get chopped up like most of them.

Tony.

Cheers Tony - there's a long way to go but it was never going to be an easy job!

[stucazedmacca]

Hello,

i worked on this boat round about 1994 out of fleetwood, went to a few places and spent 2 weeks in ramsey painting her on the slip, and 2 weeks duty for the rigs guarding a pipe.

It was a pretty good boat to work on, pulled rockhopper nets when i was on for fish, was the first boat i went on that had a shelter deck so was good to be working out of the elements.

i left to go back and work at whitehaven, eventually leaving the fishing.
But i rember seeing her in queens dock whitehaven and was their for a long time.

Its good to see her being put to good use.

[Greg Ledder]

Hello,

i worked on this boat round about 1994 out of fleetwood, went to a few places and spent 2 weeks in ramsey painting her on the slip, and 2 weeks duty for the rigs guarding a pipe.

It was a pretty good boat to work on, pulled rockhopper nets when i was on for fish, was the first boat i went on that had a shelter deck so was good to be working out of the elements.

i left to go back and work at whitehaven, eventually leaving the fishing.
But i rember seeing her in queens dock whitehaven and was their for a long time.

Its good to see her being put to good use.

Hi Mate,

Thanks for your comments - I'm always amazed at the number of people that have a connection with this Boat! It's great to hear of peoples experiences on her and if anyone else has any tales to tell I'd love to hear them!

As far as I know,the Boat was in Whitehaven for at least 4 years before we bought her - she still had food in the cupboards and clothes in some of the drawers in the captain's cabin & the pigeons had been squatting for some time so there was a lot of bird crap and feathers - mainly on top of the old whaleback where they had been nesting. She doesn't smell quite as bad now....

[Alan Duggan]

Your doing a great job there Greg. Like Masterfrith said its great to see the boat in use and not towed away to the choppers.

Alan

[Graham Wright]

Hello to you all.

I thought you might like an update on this story as there seems to be a lot of affection for the vessel.

Greg mentioned that one option was to sell;- he did - to my son Mark.

The boat narrowly missed being painted pink and used for gay weddings would you believe!

My son's intentions are to bring Andromeda (don't know if he will restore or change the name) back to a sea-going state and then move it to or near Inverness. Initially, he will use it as a live-aboard while he refurbishes the interior and bring the gear up to scratch.

Below decks is dismal with a lot of broken kit and a lot of rust. However, the engine fires up impressively and the steering gear works at least in manual. By a process of elimination (and translation!) we have deduced that the controls are throttle, variable pitch control and clutch/brake. I hope someone can confirm this is correct. Having a sailing boat of my own with a variable pitch propeller but no clutch or brake, motoring through moorings is a "hold your breath" experience.

Probably going to be asked to assist during the passage, I am concerned to find there is no anchor and, furthermore, no evidence of there ever having been one. Looking around Fleetwood dock, other trawlers seem to be the same. I would greatly appreciate a comment on this.

Unfortunately, the power take-off from the Twin Disc clutch at the forward end of the engine has been brutally amputated. As the obvious place to attach a hydraulic pump for a windlass, this is more than inconvenient. I wonder if anyone has ever experienced removing this clutch? I have an engineering company that could reinstate the drive but presumably not in situ.

I have every confidence in Mark doing a good job with this boat but there is a fair amount of work involved and considerable expense ahead. There are a few weeps below and some stove-in planks which will require slipping. But that is for the future.

As my grandfather used to trawl under sail out of Fleetwood in "The Two Brothers" ( a not uncommon name I believe) I have an affection for the whole enterprise. Is there any chance anyone can know anything about her?

If it is of interest, I will continue the story and doubtless plague you all with requests for information!

Graham

[Graham Wright]

I guess it's not of interest!

[Davie Tait]

The sites been down from the 27th of December until last week Graham and a lot of members haven't been back on yet

[Graham Wright]

Thanks for the reply Davie. I was informed by Google that the sites had suffered malware. Shoot the •••••••••s!