There are so many tales. The time when a keeper of a lightship went berserk, and the crew going aboard were told to arm themselves with a pick-axe handle. The time, way back when, when there only used to be two light-house keepers, and one died and the other went mad, despite taking the precaution of hanging his dead mate out of the window. These events are not difficult to imagine, I think, as I climb the steep ladder up to Beachy Head Lighthouse, a magnificent candy-striped granite construction at the foot of splendid white cliffs. It’s awe-inspiring, and the awe is a biblical kind. “You can usually see some car wrecks on the rocks,” says Welshman Ted, one of the crew of THV Patricia, the lighthouse repair ship I’m sailing on for five days, one of two ships belonging to Trinity House, the five-hundred year-old corporation that has been in charge of England and Wales’ seamarks since 1514. 79 lighthouses, several light vessels and over 400 buoys. Someone’s got to do it.
There are no car wrecks today, but visitors have left a soft toy – Gonzo from the Muppets, we decide – in the doorway. Beachy Head can be reached by foot at low tide, so it doesn’t have a helipad. This is probably pleasing for the helicopter pilots who have to land on lighthouse roofs in gales, but it means Beachy Head gets more visitors than most, invited and uninvited. There are three mechanics living there this week, fixing the light. They’re close to shore, but might as well not be: Mobile phone coverage doesn’t work, and TV is intermittent. I ask them if it’s spooky at night, especially given the number of unhappy spirits there must be at the foot of these cliffs. “When the wind’s howling, and if the fog siren’s going, ghosts are the last thing you think about.”
When North Foreland lighthouse went automated, on 26 November 1998, the days of manned lighthouses ended. It was sad for the keepers, says Patricia’s pleasant commander Trevor Dann, but that’s the way it goes. In years to come, he reckons, all light vessels and lighthouses will be made redundant by technology. Ships will use virtual buoys and light markers, and even the hard-working Patricia lads might be out of business.
It’s partly for this reason that Trinity House has started to take fare-paying passengers. In 1998, the quango organisation (it’s funded by light dues, and gets a budget from the Department of Transport) was allowed to make a profit for the first time ever. With six luxury cabins, ceremonial rooms and a fine noble ship, Patricia Voyages was an obvious departure. “We try only to allude to the royal connection,” says Nina Chubb, of Trinity House, but the first thing I’m told on stepping into my tastefully plush cabin is that I’ll be sleeping in Prince Philip’s bed. The Duke of Edinburgh is the Master of Trinity House, and still hosts a cocktail party on Patricia at Cowes every year. Last year, the master of ceremonies was Chief Engineer Tommy Tucker, a jovial Dorset man who doubles as entertainments officer. Not an easy job, when the crew is three weeks at sea, and usually all-male.
The passenger initiative merits some rumblings from some crew – too much work, they say, to keep the cabins constantly on the go. Too dangerous, when they are working on 150-tonne buoys and cranes, when you have to wear a hard-hat to be winched in the work-boat up to the ship. But most are in favour. “It’s safeguarding our jobs, isn’t it?” says Ted, who, on being instructed to give me a tour of South Godwin light-vessel, is mystified at what he could show me. “Are you interested in batteries?” I am, actually. Batteries, and the dry rations for engineers who still come aboard to stay, and the ghosts of times past – not that long ago - when men would live on here for a month at a time, in vessels that had no propulsion and could be set adrift by bad weather. As happened in 1954 to South Goodwin. The ship ended up on a sandbank, and all hands on board – seven men - were drowned. The only survivor was a 22-year old visiting scientist.
By definition, of course, this is a dangerous job: All the buoys and lighthouses mark dangerous waters, and so are dangerous to care for. When we anchor near South Godwin, in the busy Dover Straits, we are closer than any other ship would dare to come, to waters that are only three metres deep. And it’s in the worst weather that things tend to break down. Third Officer Ian has developed a talent for buoy-jumping (which is exactly what it sounds like) in nasty squalls. There was one a couple of months back which was Force 10. The light had gone out on the buoy, and Ian had to replace it. At one point, he was gripping with one hand, fixing the light with the other, held only by a harness. Another time, he jumped into the work-boat, when suddenly the water dropped ten feet. When he tells me this, I understand why Trevor Dann had to avert his eyes, when he watched his passengers jumping from a light vessel ladder into a ship, which was rising and dropping several feet in waters the lads called “a little choppy.”
But even these tales of doom, even the leaping into work-boats in weather that “is getting to the limit,” can’t detract from Patricia’s supreme safety standards. There are lifeboats galore (one alone can fit hundreds, and there seem to be dozens), comfort in spades. Can there be any better relaxation, than standing on a warm bridge with binoculars, watching other people work hard outside?
Over dinner one night, as the impeccable steward Jean-Claude (one half of an impressive catering team that also includes French chef Tony) poured some fine wines around a huge dining table, the discussion was of Patricia’s potential. Birdwatchers, obviously. Lighthouse fans. Bridge parties, thought PR Michael Blanchard: Why not, with six double cabins? Someone suggested city types, stag parties, but Nina looked doubtful. “The trouble is that we can’t plan.” The Patricia is bound by statute to attend wrecks and to mark their boundaries. In an emergency, even with passengers on board, it would have to go where it was needed. I think this is an advantage, but I don’t have office obligations first thing Monday.
Despite her inability to commit, Patricia surely has a great voyaging future. Sailing around the coast of England and Wales (next year, Patricia will be on the more dramatic west coast), to the 49 lighthouses within Sites of Special Scientific Interest. No cruise crowds, no chaos. Just comfort and a little adventure, in any proportion you choose. Anyway, lighthouses are in: What about that Peugeot ad, where the girlfriend rescues her sailor boyfriend by turning on her headlights when the lighthouse goes out. “Huh!” says Steve Hines, the First Officer. “Our lighthouses would never have done that. They have two backup generators.”
On the fifth day, I am sad to leave Prince Philip’s bed. They are gracious hosts, the men of Patricia, as is the ship: On the last evening, the sun is out, and I lean on the rails of the helideck, outside the well-appointed lounge. On the poop deck below, three crew members are fishing, and all is at peace. On TV that evening, Tony Blair had fulsomely thanked the British troops in Iraq for making the world a safer place. But no-one has ever thanked the men of Trinity House, for doing the same to the sea.
This story was commissioned by the Financial Times in 2003 but not published.