There is something about a Fairey boat, or more specifically Fairey owners, that brings out the best. Take Richard Gough and William Cadbury, for example.

When Jonathan Napier announced that he wanted to bring his 1978 vintage Fairey Spearfish back to England from its now regular home on the French Mediterranean coast to compete in the 2008 Round Britain Powerboat Race, he had the twin problems of funding his challenge and moving the boat from and back to France by road. A plaintive message left on the Fairey Owners Club website had fellow members Gough and Cadbury rushing to help.

Richard Gough has been immersed in the Fairey culture for more years than he can remember. From owning original wooden Swordsman boats, with all the annual costs of upkeep that they require, he eventually found himself one of the driving forces behind Swordsman Marine, the emergent company dedicated to rekindling the Fairey legend by building new Fairey designs in fibreglass using the most modern techniques and technologies.

Gough offered Napier some much needed financial assistance and brought others to the party to ease the path to the startline but why, you might ask, would he do this?  The parallels are obvious.

Before their move out of the marine industry, Fairey Marine built their classic Alan Burnard designs at Hamble Point near Southampton; Napier’s Spearfish was actually one of the last boats ever built there and Gough’s Swordsman Marine builds its new Burnard designs on the same site.

Starting with 37 and 40 foot designs, Swordsman Marine’s latest offering is a sweet pretty 30 foot boat which traces its hull shape directly back to the Spearfish and almost uses the same hull mould so there was an immediate synergy. That is why Napier’s Team 747 Spearfish carries the name Swordsman Marine writ large on its race round Britain.

William Cadbury is another Fairey enthusiast, currently the proud owner of a Fairey Fantome and an articulated low-loader truck which he uses to move his own boat about the place. He offered to bring the Team 747 Spearfish back to England and has since offered help that could be considered over and above the call of duty.

Having returned from a family wedding in Italy to see the racing fleet at Plymouth, he immediately found himself coerced into first trucking Napier’s Spearfish to Milford Haven and then, returning to Plymouth, taking fellow Fairey owner, John Skuse’s Huntsman, Xanthus, to Scotland to rejoin the fleet.

Cadbury’s knowledge of veteran Fairey boats is the stuff of legend so it was no surprise that whilst re-launching Xanthus at Troon Marina, he fell in with one Sandy Wood, who had just completed the total reconstruction of a 1963 vintage Huntsman 28, Chasseur, for its new owner. 1600 miles in the saddle and he was still enthusing about the marque and the people who love them.

Jonathan Napier’s crew of BA 747 Captains have benefitted from the enthusiasm of Richard Gough and William Cadbury to get them and keep them in the Round Britain Race; people who don’t understand the attraction for these classic designs might just think that they were away with the fairies but actually, they are away with the Faireys.