October 2014: under a tarpaulin in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, I found a Dunkirk Little Ship

I was looking for a liveaboard boat, not a story. A Freycinet barge, something rational to live on the water. In Fontainebleau, where I lived, I had been visiting every port between Saint-Mammès and Avon for two months. Nothing really appealed to me. A friend mentioned: « Go up as far as Sens, there might be something there. »

On 14 October 2014, I drove past Sens and stopped dead at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. On the quay sat a boat entirely covered in builder's tarpaulins. You could see nothing of her, except a stem. A stem that looked like nothing else I had seen on a Burgundy canal.

The owner was named Francis Ruffenach. He invited me to slip in under the tarpaulin.

A 1929 Scottish yacht

Inside, fifty feet of timber (about fifteen metres). Oak, teak, iroko. A copper wheel. A saloon with period banquettes, a bronze bell engraved Davia 1929. A galley in keeping with the style, fitted out in the 1990s. Original furniture arranged symmetrically on either side of the centreline.

Francis told me the story for two hours. The James Silver Limited yard at Rosneath, in Scotland. The naval architect John Bain, who designed the Brown Owl model in the 1920s. The first owner, Sir William « Alec » Coryton, Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force. The 1930 London-to-Cowes race, in which the Davia won the André Gold Cup.

And then, May 1940.

Dunkirk

That is the moment I sat down.

My grandfather spent two days in the water at Dunkirk before being rescued. He told me about Operation Dynamo throughout my childhood. The beaches, the private boats, the 338,226 soldiers evacuated in nine days. I knew what the Little Ships were. I never imagined one might be within arm's reach, asleep under a tarpaulin an hour and a half from Paris.

I said to Francis: « Don't sell her to anyone before I come back. » I drove back to Fontainebleau. I sold what I had to sell. I came back.

The chrysalis

When we first pulled off the tarpaulins, a phrase came to me that I have ended up repeating ever since: the boat was ready to become beautiful again. She was like the chrysalis of a future butterfly. The varnishes were dead. The deck leaked. The interior joinery needed redoing aft. The two Parsons Engineering Co (Southampton) engines fitted in 1969 still turned over, miraculously.

I had neither the budget, nor the time, nor the experience of a shipwright. I had a family history and a conviction.

Ten years on, I have invested more than 2,400 hours of work in the Davia. Twenty-four months of major refit at the Evans boatyard in Migennes. Replacement of planking and frames, engine overhaul, propeller-shaft alignment, sanding, varnishing, antifouling. Rewiring to 220 V standards. The original fit-out has been left « as found »: the bell, the prism deck light, the flag locker for the international code of maritime signals.

In September 2016, the Davia became a full member of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships, whose patron is Prince Michael of Kent. In October 2019, she received the Vessel of Heritage Interest label from Patrimoine Maritime et Fluvial. In February 2021, I founded the Association Davia.

I was looking for a liveaboard boat. I found a mission that will last until 2029, the year of her centenary.