Fathoms Free is a group of volunteer divers who protect marine wildlife and the environment for everyone’s benefit by removing ‘ALDFG’ (abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear) and other marine debris from the coastal waters of Cornwall and Devon, and they are now seeking donations to help fund the revival of legendary Cornish dive boat Stingray.
‘ALDFG’ is also known as ‘ghost gear’ or ‘ghost fishing gear’, as it continues to ‘fish’, entangling, trapping, and killing wildlife indiscriminately. These trapped animals will die and act as bait, attracting more wildlife in a vicious cycle of death until the ghost gear is removed from the environment.
Fathoms Free wants to revive and restore Stingray to its former glory to increase the area’s capacity for marine conservation, and continue the legacy of much-loved Cornish skipper Mark Milburn. They want a boat that allows them to clear more ghost gear and marine debris than ever before.
Restoring Stingray will also enable them to provide other local marine organisations with a larger, faster boat, which, along with their volunteer skippers, will increase their marine conservation activities and facilitate greater community involvement.
Given the boat and trailer’s current condition, Fathoms Free have estimated it will take over £10,000 to get it back in the water and up to the required standard. This estimate could quickly increase to £15,000 or even £20,000 if they can’t get the engine running reliably and have to source a replacement or buy a new trailer.
The hull needs repairing, the trailer ideally needs replacing, and the 200HP Mercury Optimax engine doesn’t start. The boat has no electronics, navigation equipment, or safety equipment. It’s a bare hull with tubes. The Fathoms Free team plans on doing all the work themselves to keep the project costs to a minimum. Despite these costs and the work involved, there wasn’t a better fit than Stingray for various reasons (see Stingray’s Story below).
To help Fathoms Free achieve potential match funding, they’ve set their target at £5,000, hoping that they will get match funding to take them to their estimated minimum requirement of £10,000.
Stingray’s Story
Stingray was designed from the outset as a fast dive boat and bought from Barnet Marine a couple of years before the turn of the century by Looe Divers, aptly named Looe Diver 1. Fathoms Free trustee, treasurer, and highest-qualified skipper, Julian, was a regular skipper on it between 2000 and 2005, including for the sinking of the Scylla in 2004. During that time, Julian progressed his skippering development with the boat, completing the Advanced Powerboat and Instructor courses.
Approximately a decade after Looe Divers purchased the boat, they sold it to Starfish Divers, and it was renamed Starfish. Unfortunately, Starfish Divers ceased trading a few years later. The boat was neglected, and its condition declined. We’re not sure what happened to it in the following few years before it was found and purchased by Mark Milburn in 2015 as a project to restore.
Due to Mark’s various other projects and lack of spare time to complete the work required, Starfish remained neglected until COVID-19 gave Mark free time to start looking at her. Up until this time, other than an unsuitable replacement aluminium-framed trailer that needed refurbishing and a replacement second-hand engine that no one had seen running, there was no other progress toward getting the boat seaworthy.
Following a jet wash, removing and selling the faulty engine, and stripping the boat back to its bare hull, the first step was to have her re-tubed, which took place in July 2022. It was at this time, Starfish took on the new name Stingray, named after Mark’s first charter boat, which had been the foundation of his dive charter business, Stingray Charters. Sadly, Mark passed away the following year, and the incomplete boat, Stingray, was neglected once more.
Mark wasn’t just a scuba diving school, dive shop, and dive charter operator; he was a stalwart in Cornwall’s marine conservation efforts for decades until his passing. Mark supported all the marine conservation groups in and around Cornwall with his business and led his own ghost gear recoveries and underwater cleans-ups in Cornwall decades before some groups even existed. You would often hear of Mark giving preferential rates to marine conservation groups to ensure they could impact as much as possible on the limited budgets they all operate on.
Fathoms Free was, in fact, Mark’s last dive charter customer before his passing. Team members spent an entire Sunday with Mark clearing a wreck of ghost gear and marine debris in the Falmouth estuary, a memory they’ll cherish forever.
When Fathoms Free heard Stingray was sitting in a hedge a mile from Mark’s old dive centre, they knew there was only one option to increase Cornwall’s capacity for marine conservation and continue Mark’s legacy. The team spoke with his family and chose to continue what he’d started.
A spokesperson said: “With your help, Fathoms Free can honour Mark Milburn’s legacy and ensure that the Stingray name continues to significantly impact marine conservation for years. No matter how small, every donation brings us closer to our goal.”
