Fathoms Free and Stingray need you!
- Julian Collison
- Dec 6, 2024
- 3 min read
Fathoms Free wants to revive and restore the Cornish dive boat Stingray we recently purchased to its former glory in order increase Cornwall's capacity for marine conservation and continue Mark Milburn's legacy.
We want a boat that allows us to clear more ghost gear and marine debris than ever before, go further and get there faster.
Restoring Stingray will also enable us to provide other local marine organisations with a larger, faster boat, which, along with our volunteer skippers, will increase their marine conservation activities and facilitate greater community involvement.
The Stingray 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, based in Hannafore, Looe aptly named Looe Diver 1. This is just five miles from our current base.
Our trustee, treasurer, and highest-qualified skipper, Julian, was a regular skipper on it between 2000 and 2005, including for the sinking of the Leander Class Frigate HMS Scylla as and artificial reef in 2004.
During that time, Julian progressed his skippering development with the boat, completing the RYA Advanced Powerboat, Commercial endorsement 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 start 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 aluminum 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 and stripping the boat back to its bare hull, the first step was to have her re-tubed, which took place in July 2022. 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 we all operated on.
Fathoms Free was, in fact, Mark's last dive charter customer before his passing in April 2023. We spent an entire Sunday with Mark clearing a wreck of ghost gear and marine debris in the Falmouth estuary, a memory we'll cherish forever.
When we heard Stingray was sitting in a hedge a mile from Mark's old dive center, we knew there was only one option to increase Cornwall's capacity for marine conservation and continue Marks's legacy.
With your help, we can honor 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.
Please contribute to the Crowdfunder fundraiser here - if you are eligible to gift aid your donation, please do. It will then go 25% further at no extra cost to yourself
Loved reading the Q4 2024 Quarterly Newsletter! It’s packed with valuable insights, updates, and accomplishments that truly reflect the team’s dedication and growth. I always enjoy seeing how consistent effort and creativity come together to deliver meaningful progress. It’s inspiring whether you’re learning how to write a children’s book or even working on the next billionaire romance book, updates like these remind us that success comes from staying informed, adapting, and continuing to learn.
Getting children involved in conservation requires captivating storytelling. My non-profit needed a tailored narrative to explain marine debris to young volunteers, so I used a custom kids book writing service. Whitewolf Publishers provided the expert, engaging content that ensured our environmental message was perfectly curated for children.
A must attend webinar like the one on the Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting Requirement demonstrates the challenges and importance of staying compliant and understanding detailed financial regulations. Navigating such challenging reporting is a skill mirrored in writing a solid academic proposal. For students facing this important first step, choosing to buy dissertation proposal online is an advisory option to ensure this foundational document is meticulously researched, structured, and professionally presented, setting the stage for a successful final project.
Reading about how Fathoms Free are rallying support to revive their dive boat “Stingray” and keep up their marine conservation work stirred up an idea in me. It reminded me of times when I felt the weight of an upcoming challenge and the tempting thought popped up: online exam help service almost like hoping someone else could fix the problem so I wouldn’t have to dive in myself. But just like the volunteers who step in, gear up, face rough seas and complex logistics because they believe in their mission, there’s something powerful about showing up for your own work embracing the uncertainty, doing the hard hours, and owning the journey rather than outsourcing the outcome.
I just read the article and found the way it shows dedication to a bigger mission really moving. It made me pause and consider whether I should reach out for take my online nursing class help so I can stay focused on my goals without getting derailed. Your post reminded me how much better progress feels when you’ve got help and purpose behind it.