Veteran skipper Rob Mason, from Milford Haven in southwest Wales, made a dramatic impact on the Irish sailing scene in 2017, when he turned up at the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta during its special year of the Kingstown Bicentenary, sailing his drop-dead gorgeous 37ft cutter Myfanwy which was designed in 1897 by one of the connoisseurs' favourite naval architects, Alexander Richardson of Liverpool.

Rob – a former tugboat skipper on those massively powerful vessels you see at Milford Haven - had restored Myfanwy in a four-year project by his own efforts from a state of virtual dereliction, transforming her into a classic among classics. And she didn't just look good. She sailed like a witch, and at regatta's end, she made the passage back to Milford Haven with the regatta's special Bicentenary Trophy for the event's star boat stowed safely below.

The Star of the VDLR Bicentenary Regatta in Dublin Bay in 2017 – Rob Mason's own-restored 1897-vintage Myfanwy from Milford Haven. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O'Brien

Mysfanwys successful crew in 2017 were (left to right), Max Mason (Rob's son), Gus Stott, Andy Whitcher, and Rob Mason. Photo: W M Nixon 

Soon afterwards, Myfanwy was snapped up by an international buyer to join the highly-developed Classics scene in the Mediterranean, for the ever-active Rob already had another project in mind. He'd got to hear of an interesting vintage motor cruiser of classic Scottish fishing boat style but now in a tired state, berthed in the drying river port of Hayle on the north coast of Cornwall.

Regular longtime readers of Afloat will know something of how this attractive and historically interesting vessel Blue Hills has come to spend some time in a refit and restoration berth right outside Rob's house on the shores of Milford Haven.

The 42ft-boat was originally built in 1937-38 by for Commander Frank Gilliland of Derry, who'd previously owned attractive sailing cruisers. But with advancing years, he sought "the kind of able fishing boat style motor-cruiser that would be suited to a sailing man", and he made a significant personal input into the design of Blue Hills, which was built by Weatherhead & Son at Cockenzie on the Firth of Forth on Scotland's East Coast.

Blue Hills moored in Mulroy Bay in Donegal in 1938  

But although Donegal was where Blue Hills spent some of the summer of 1938, by 1939 she'd been commandeered by the Royal Navy as having potential for Special Forces use in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway after the latter had been occupied by the Nazis, smuggling underground agents who could be hidden in specially-constructed secret bunks for the sea passage.

There is still some evidence of these secret compartments in Blue Hills, though whether she played a significant role in the "Shetland Bus" operation away in the far north is still unclear. Be that as it may, over the years after the war, she became known as a boat with a mysterious past. But Robbie Mason's interest in her was exactly the same as Frank Gilliland – he wanted a motor-cruiser in which a sailing man could feel at comfortable.

Getting her home to Milford Haven from the far end of Cornwall was quite an effort on the limits of the road trailing with the vehicles available, but a mid-winter attempt on a direct sea crossing of the Bristol Channel was not a sensible proposition, a viewpoint which has been fully borne out by the amount of work which has had to be done to restore the hull and equipment to full seaworthiness.

The tides of Milford Haven are big, but only a few are big enough to carry a boat the size of Blue Hills within hauling distance of Rob's handy fit-out berth at his waterside house. The right tide was expected in March 2018, so with the boat re-launched at Pembroke Dock, all was set up, and it went well, albeit in freezing conditions with snow still in the ground.

March 2018 – after road trailing from Cornwall, Blue Hills is briefly afloat again in Milford Haven, waiting for the last push of a "super-tide" to be heaved into Rob Mason's fitting-out berth. Photo: Andy Whitcher

Made it! After windlassing and man-handling Blue Hills into the fitting out berth at the top of the super-tide, getting her upright was a doddle. Photo: Andy Whitcher  

Secure in the berth, Blue Hills was brought upright, and Rob has been busy ever since with a massive work programme which had reached the stage of thinking of re-launching after exactly three dedicated years, with any jobs still remaining coming within the "Work Afloat" remit.

In Spring 2021, the magic super-tide was beckoning. It duly arrived in ultra-cold weather yet again, and Blue Hills was persuaded along the short ways into deeper water and back to being a living creature once more. She's a unique and handsome ship, and in due course we'll doubtless see her gracing Irish waters.

Welsh skipper Rob Mason has taken on a new vintage boat restoration challenge writes W M Nixon. The retired Milford Haven tugboat skipper swept all before him when he brought his beautiful 1897-vintage 37ft restored cutter Myfanwy to the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta 2017 in July last year. He and his cheerful crew went home with the Kingstown 200 Cup and a traditional purse of a hundred guineas, which they’d won in the classics racing to celebrate the Harbour Bicentenary.

(Above and below) Classic winning elegance – Myfanwy on her way to taking the Kingstown 200 Cup last July. Photo David O’Brien/Afloat.ie

Myfanwy is now for sale and is attracting international interest, while Rob has found another project irresistible – the restoration of a 42ft 1938-built trawler yacht which he discovered in a very tired condition in the tidal port of Hayle in the far western corner of Cornwall.

He bought this boat Blue Hills knowing only the main aspects of her history, notably that she had been designed and well built by renowned fishing boat constructors W. Weatherhead of Cockenzie on Scotland’s East Coast, and that thanks to the installation of secret compartments in her comfortable accommodation, she’d had a successful World War II in 1939-1945 career smuggling secret agents across the North Sea.

Blue Hills as she was when Rob Mason first saw her in Hayle in Cornwall. Photo: W M Nixon

But now it has emerged that there’s an Irish twist to the tale, as Blue Hills was originally built to the very specific requirements of Frank Gilliland. He was a north coast cruising enthusiast (Donegal and cross channel ventures to the Hebrides were his speciality) who wanted to change to a seamanlike motor-cruiser after a long sailing career.

However, the brief period of cruising by Blue Hills from Lough Foyle and Donegal (where her moorings were in Mulroy Bay) was the only time she was in Ireland, for after her war service ended in 1945, she was sold to an owner in Devon. When Rob Mason found this attractive boat, she had been out of commission in Hayle for at least four years, but having seen what he could do with Myfanwy, the results with Blue Hills will be impressive.

Blue Hills on her moorings in Donegal’s Mulroy Bay in 1938 while in Frank Gilliland’s original ownership.

To do it, however, Blue Hills had to be moved to Rob’s hidden waterside home in the upper reaches of Milford Haven, and in order to do this she’d to be lifted out at Hayle (where the tides are large) and road-trailed the full length of Cornwall and Devon before traversing the entire width of South Wales to Pembroke for a further brief period afloat being towed in the shelter of Milford Haven to Rob’s place.

Fortunately the long road haul was done before the present bout of extreme bad weather interrupted, and Rob’s shipmate Andy Whitcher reports: “only three punctures, otherwise not a bother….” In other words, a formidable task, well done by people who knew what they were about.

Blue Hills safely lifted at Hayle, but with the long road journey to southwest Wales still ahead of her. Photo: Andy Whitcher

With the Donegal connection, we’ll he following this already fascinating story with extra interest. Meanwhile as they wait for the perfect tide to get Blue Hills into her proper restoration berth, Rob has been going through the many lockers, and reckons that some of them have never been fully emptied of assorted specialist spare parts in all the boat’s eighty years.