Here’s something that you don’t see every day: an Isles of Scilly pilot cutter. She’s the 60-foot working replica “Hesper,” waiting for the dawn fog to clear in Great Cove before starting a four-day cruise, which ended back here today. During that cruise, she was the classroom for a WoodenBoat School course on “Coastal Cruising Seamanship” and an iconic reminder of an interesting period in maritime history.
The Scilly (“SIL-ee”) Islands lie off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England, in the midst of perhaps the most popular sailing approaches to England in the 19th Century. But it was treacherous sailing for the many tall sailing ships trying to avoid the area’s reefs and ragged coastlines.
The seamen of the Islands became famous for their courageous and competitive efforts to travel out to the incoming ships and pilot the sail-powered visitors through. By tradition, the first pilot to reach a vessel won the contract to guide that vessel safely to a harbor.
Some pilots used gig boats to row out to near-in vessels, others used fast and maneuverable “pilot cutters” such as “Hesper” to reach the vessels that were farther out in the Atlantic Ocean. The peak period for pilot cutters reportedly was between 1830 and 1860, when Scillies’ St. Mary’s Sound often was full of large sailing vessels waiting for a fair wind to continue to London or Liverpool.
“Hesper” (meaning morning star), now out of Camden, Maine, was built in 2004 at Queek Quay, Cornwall, by famed pilot cutter shipwright Luke Powell. She’s one of nine that he’s built. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on July 13, 2023.) By the way, Great Cove is totally socked in fog as I write.