Captain of industry: Patrick Cowley
In an excerpt from The Superyacht Report, Martin H. Redmayne speaks to Patrick Cowley, captain of 63m 'Lady Britt', about his journey from deckhand to new-build captain.…
In Issue 133 of The Superyacht Report, Martin H. Redmayne interviewed Captain Patrick Cowley of motoryacht Lady Britt. We provide you with an excerpt about his journey through the industry from deckhand to new build captain.
"I planned what is now seen as a gap year to travel the world to immerse myself in and work in many different cultures, [and] I found myself almost by accident flying out to Aruba in January 1991 to join my first yacht, the Toughs Shipyard-built Atlantic Goose, which at the time seemed to be huge at an awe-inspiring 42m. I promised the captain, “Bud” Abbott, that I would do my best for him for a year before I returned to the ‘normal’ world of industry ashore. I actually stayed there for almost three-and-a-half years, as it was both rewarding and challenging, due partly to the off-the-beaten-track destinations that we visited. During that period I enjoyed several roles simultaneously: I was a deckhand, a steward, an engineer’s assistant and, on one infamous transatlantic crossing, the sole cook. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to work in all four departments of that vessel and really get to know how a world-cruising yacht ran.
In the summer of 1994 I was convinced that before I finally left the yachting industry, I would work on one more vessel, one that was planning on visiting the more well-known and established cruising grounds than my first vessel did. I was fortunate to be presented by a very well-known and respected US crew agent to an equally well-known and respected US captain who was completing the build of Rasselas, a new 52m at de Vries shipyard in the Netherlands. The deckhand’s job was mine and thus began a six-and-a-half year working relationship with that captain and wife team. During that time I saw Rasselas complete a successful and educational circumnavigation and saw myself progress through the deck department to boatswain, second officer, first officer and finally chief officer by the time I stepped off in Antigua in January 2001.
I was then approached by a colleague to help him and a small team oversee the build of another vessel during its final year of construction – the 60m Paraffin at Van Lent shipyard, also in the Netherlands, as chief officer. After a busy year of chartering Paraffin, I was asked to run another recently launched Feadship, the 56.5m de Vries built Barbara Jean, which was barely one year old at that time, as its captain. My two years with her saw me help the owners enjoy some memorable cruising throughout the South Pacific (Galapagos, French Polynesia, Fiji, Vanuatu, Australia and New Zealand), Central America, the Caribbean and the US east coast, along with the Great Lakes of the US and Canada. Despite my many years in the yachting industry by then, those two years were a steep learning curve for me and I remain grateful for the lessons that I learnt in running a 16-person crew so far from the more regular cruising groundsunder various challenging conditions. Using this experience, I returned to Paraffin for another two years of chartering and owner trips where I, after approximately 15 years of being in the industry, cruised the UK for the first time in a fabulous summer’s worth of British weather. Out of the over 60 countries that I had visited by that time, the north-west of Scotland still stands out as being one of the most breathtaking cruising grounds that I have been fortunate enough to sail through – particularly as we enjoyed such a amazing weather.
At the request of a well-known management company figure, I then returned to the industry [after going home for the birth and raising of his daughter] to help run Happy Days, a 50m Delta yacht. This position became a rotational one, allowing me to advise (with the management company’s and owner’s knowledge) a previous charter client in the early days of his new build at the de Vries Aalsmeer yard. As his project developed and at the client’s request, I became more and more involved in advising him and so I needed to hand over the reins to my very able colleague on Happy Days, allowing me to return to Holland full time to manage the build of Project Ansgar, as Lady Britt was known in those days. It also felt quite strange to walk back into the de Vries yard as an owner’s build captain some 15 years after walking in for an interview for a deckhand’s job. We took delivery of Lady Britt in mid-February last year and since then have enjoyed almost 30,000 nautical miles of travelling that have seen us visit ports of call as far apart as Grenada in the southernCaribbean; Boston, MA, on the US east coast; Malta in the Mediterranean; and St Petersburg, Russia, for the World Economic Forum in the ‘north-east’. I think we’d visited 25 countries in that time, so we’re certainly putting Lady Britt through her paces."
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Captain Patrick Cowley of Lady Britt
"I planned what is now seen as a gap year to travel the world to immerse myself in and work in many different cultures, [and] I found myself almost by accident flying out to Aruba in January 1991 to join my first yacht, the Toughs Shipyard-built Atlantic Goose, which at the time seemed to be huge at an awe-inspiring 42m. I promised the captain, “Bud” Abbott, that I would do my best for him for a year before I returned to the ‘normal’ world of industry ashore. I actually stayed there for almost three-and-a-half years, as it was both rewarding and challenging, due partly to the off-the-beaten-track destinations that we visited. During that period I enjoyed several roles simultaneously: I was a deckhand, a steward, an engineer’s assistant and, on one infamous transatlantic crossing, the sole cook. This gave me a wonderful opportunity to work in all four departments of that vessel and really get to know how a world-cruising yacht ran.
In the summer of 1994 I was convinced that before I finally left the yachting industry, I would work on one more vessel, one that was planning on visiting the more well-known and established cruising grounds than my first vessel did. I was fortunate to be presented by a very well-known and respected US crew agent to an equally well-known and respected US captain who was completing the build of Rasselas, a new 52m at de Vries shipyard in the Netherlands. The deckhand’s job was mine and thus began a six-and-a-half year working relationship with that captain and wife team. During that time I saw Rasselas complete a successful and educational circumnavigation and saw myself progress through the deck department to boatswain, second officer, first officer and finally chief officer by the time I stepped off in Antigua in January 2001.
"It felt quite strange to walk back into the de Vries yard as an owner's build captain some fifteen years after walking in for an interview for a deckhand's job." - Captain Patrick Cowley
I was then approached by a colleague to help him and a small team oversee the build of another vessel during its final year of construction – the 60m Paraffin at Van Lent shipyard, also in the Netherlands, as chief officer. After a busy year of chartering Paraffin, I was asked to run another recently launched Feadship, the 56.5m de Vries built Barbara Jean, which was barely one year old at that time, as its captain. My two years with her saw me help the owners enjoy some memorable cruising throughout the South Pacific (Galapagos, French Polynesia, Fiji, Vanuatu, Australia and New Zealand), Central America, the Caribbean and the US east coast, along with the Great Lakes of the US and Canada. Despite my many years in the yachting industry by then, those two years were a steep learning curve for me and I remain grateful for the lessons that I learnt in running a 16-person crew so far from the more regular cruising groundsunder various challenging conditions. Using this experience, I returned to Paraffin for another two years of chartering and owner trips where I, after approximately 15 years of being in the industry, cruised the UK for the first time in a fabulous summer’s worth of British weather. Out of the over 60 countries that I had visited by that time, the north-west of Scotland still stands out as being one of the most breathtaking cruising grounds that I have been fortunate enough to sail through – particularly as we enjoyed such a amazing weather.
At the request of a well-known management company figure, I then returned to the industry [after going home for the birth and raising of his daughter] to help run Happy Days, a 50m Delta yacht. This position became a rotational one, allowing me to advise (with the management company’s and owner’s knowledge) a previous charter client in the early days of his new build at the de Vries Aalsmeer yard. As his project developed and at the client’s request, I became more and more involved in advising him and so I needed to hand over the reins to my very able colleague on Happy Days, allowing me to return to Holland full time to manage the build of Project Ansgar, as Lady Britt was known in those days. It also felt quite strange to walk back into the de Vries yard as an owner’s build captain some 15 years after walking in for an interview for a deckhand’s job. We took delivery of Lady Britt in mid-February last year and since then have enjoyed almost 30,000 nautical miles of travelling that have seen us visit ports of call as far apart as Grenada in the southernCaribbean; Boston, MA, on the US east coast; Malta in the Mediterranean; and St Petersburg, Russia, for the World Economic Forum in the ‘north-east’. I think we’d visited 25 countries in that time, so we’re certainly putting Lady Britt through her paces."
Lady Britt is a 63m Feadship motoryacht
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