St John Crusader 1978

Minuet

Through his association with the Order of St John, Hugh Mackay was able to obtain a grant from the order towards the purchase and running of the Seagull Trust's first boat.

The chosen vessel was "Minuet", which had already proved a success while being operated on the English canals for the original owners, Clare Hammer's Peter Le Marchant Trust. She was the Marchant Trust’s second boat, launched in 1978, their second year of running. She originally sported livery of a navy-blue hull and scarlet upperworks, with a lift at the bow which allowed wheelchair access.

The Marchant Trust decided to move to wide beam boats and gave the Seagull Trust the first opportunity to buy Minuet for £10,500 and it was then that Hugh got in touch with the Order of St John Edinburgh Committee who immediately very kindly and generously agreed to make the purchase, and not only that but to provide the crews from their St John Volunteers, and pay for the stationary etc involved on the passenger booking scheme and the cost of fuel. The Trust were responsible for repairs on the boat when required and the insurance cover. (NS)

Bringing Minuet To Edinburgh

The task of bringing Minuet north to the Union at Ratho was accepted by committed Seagull Trust supporters, Stanley Ross-Smith and his wife June. They had already considerable experience on canals in England thanks to enjoying several extended holidays with their families on narrow boats and also knew in advance the difficulties and problems they were likely to encounter as they had already brought their own boat, "Thomas Telford" up from the south.

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"Undeterred next morning we travelled there and finally boarded "Minuet" for the first time. The first aspect of "Minuet" which struck both of us was her large glass windows, which would be ideal for the future Seagull Trust guests to enjoy sightseeing while out on a cruise, but which made Stanley and I feel as if we were in a goldfish bowl! Fortunately at our first port of call at Burton where we visited Bob Shopland of "Waterways World", he kindly gave us some posters and many sheets of black paper. These we soon used to cover the windows thus giving us some privacy, but also at the same time advertising The Seagull Trust, as we decorated them with logos and added an explanation of the reason for the journey."

The advance warning of a diversion all the way through Birmingham proved to be the case and this added several days to the journey.

"The city is on a plateau and we had to navigate "Minuet" through no fewer than 26 time consuming locks," remembers Stanley. "The journey however was fascinating as we passed under the elevated road system including the famous Spaghetti Junction, where high structural concrete supports rise out of the middle of the canal. By then the weather had changed from cold and wet to warm and sunny and June did the steering whilst I stripped to the waist and operated the locks. Careful map reading was essential as there are more miles of canals in Birmingham than there are in Venice.

After completing the length of the city canals we descended to the level of the surrounding countryside by sailing, "Minuet" down the Wolverhampton flight of eleven locks in one long staircase. All went smoothly until the very last lock. There the gear lever, but unfortunately our destination was not far ahead and a phone call to Mr. Jones at the boatyard produced an efficient engineer bearing a replacement gear lever. The total journey had taken us six days during which time the log showed that we had sailed "Minuet" seventy five miles and negotiated her through eighty six locks.

Once "Minuet" was safely craned ashore our job was done. We left her at Penkridge to await the arrival of Wright's lorry from Tranent, which was to transport her all the way north to Ratho ready to being her new career after she was carefully launched on the Union under the careful guidance of Ronnie Rusack.

After a ceremony at the Seagull Trust's site at Calder Crescent on 28^th May 1979. There she was appropriately renamed, "St. John Crusader", by the Duke of Hamilton in his role as Prior of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, whose organisation had provided much of the money for her acquisition. The Prior was assisted by 14 year old Allan Hobkirk, who was well wrapped up in his wheelchair to protect him from the snell wind on that chilly spring day."

Norman Simpson says this – his notes taken from the Annual Reports.

The Minuet, now the St John Crusader went into service on the 28^th of May 1979 after it was unveiled by the Duke of Hamilton, Grand Prior of the Order of St John along with the help of Allan Hobkirk (14) well wrapped up in his wheel chair as it was a jolly cold day but a happy one.

I was keen on sailing, so it was then that I became a crew member of the St John Crusader every Monday along with my friends, who were all members of Fairmilehead Parish Church: Seton Murray and Alec Paterson (retired Ben Line Captains), Arthur Farrell (brother-in-law of Seton), and Austin Anderson CA who volunteered as soon as the St John Crusader took to the water.

I did enjoy these Mondays and saw the great work those crew members carried out and could see the broad smiles of the passenger’s faces and their happy joyous talk. The happier they were, the happier were the crew - our front line soldiers who do their work so well and give the Trust such a good image. We are most grateful to them.

Boat handling is not so simple as people think!

“The Bridge Inn’s part from the start was to look after and service and maintain the boat and train the crews how to navigate the canal. Many at that time were ex merchant shipping captains like Captain Seaton Murray who said on his first day out the he did not need any training. A boat as small as the “St John Crusader” he could have dropped down the funnel of one his ships. Unfortunately for Captain Murray it was a windy day. He left the dock and proceeded to hit the bridge. He was only too willing to take advice after that!”