Name Kindly Light

1.   What is the vessel’s ability to demonstrate history in her physical fabric? Evidence for designs, functions, techniques, processes, styles, customs and habits or uses and associations in relation to events and people. How early, intact or rare these features are may impact on significance.

KINDLY LIGHT was commissioned by pilot Lewis Alexander and launched in November 1911 by shipwright William Stoba at the yard of Armour Brothers of Fleetwood. Stoba had been sought out specifically due to his previous pilot cutter, ALPHA, having proven to be such a fast vessel. Both vessels departed radically from the more traditionally designed Bristol Channel pilot cutters from Cornish and local yards. KINDLY LIGHT had a fine high bow, lean entry and well hollowed lines below the waterline blending into her deep keel. Converted to a yacht in 1922, she was fitted with a Bergius 2-cylinder auxiliary petrol engine and underwent internal modifications to her accommodation more fitting with her subsequent use for cruising and then offshore ocean racing and sail training. In later life, she fell into disrepair having been out of the water for a considerable time with minimal maintenance. On the basis of extensive research, a major reconstruction back to her original configuration was undertaken between 1993 - 2011. No modern glues, laminates or new materials were used and the vessel was not fitted with an engine or electronics.  She has no hull openings and the original parts that had been lost, such as the pump, metal trim and anchors have been faithfully reproduced from images and exact measurements. Whilst lacking in original fabric, all aspects of her hull form, rig, deck layout and accommodation are as close as possible to her time in commission as a pilot cutter. Under the mast is placed the original coin dated 1854, the birth year of her designer William Stoba.

2.   What are the vessel’s associational links for which there is no physical evidence? Associations with people or places.  Off-ship research.

KINDLY LIGHT has strong associations to the Bristol Channel and specifically the port of Barry in Wales. Commissioned by local pilot Lewis Alexander at a cost 40% more than contemporary cutters soon paid off. By enabling Alexander to reach incoming ships first, she made her owner a wealthy man, earning almost three times her building cost in one year, and giving him the record for the greatest number of ships (fourteen) piloted in one week. Whilst forced into layup during the First World War, she was one of the last pilot cutters to seek under sail following cessation of hostilities. This was at a time that the pilotage service was undergoing amalgamation with pilots forced into this method of working under threat of having their licenses revoked. Amalgamation signaled the end of sailing pilot cutters seeking incoming ships, with KINDLY LIGHT being the last to sail out of Barry.

In 1946, under the name THEODORA, the Royal Artillery Yacht Club converted her for ocean racing. During this time, the author Hammond Innes sailed aboard her in a Fastnet Race, later writing a story based on his experiences. She was bought by the Radley and Eton schoolmaster Chris Ellis as a sail training vessel in 1955, sailing in the first Sail Training Association race to Lisbon in 1956 and making an Atlantic crossing in 1958. In 1960, she became the founding vessel of the Ocean Youth Club (now known as the Ocean Youth Trust) and continued to take young boys and girls to sea for eleven years until she was sold to the Maritime Trust in 1971.  She then re-affirmed her Welsh connections as an exhibit for the Cardiff Industrial and Maritime Museum from 1975 until 1993.  KINDLY LIGHT’s history has been researched extensively by the present owner.  She is well documented in pilotage records, a glass negative collection and oral recordings of pilot Lewis Alexander talking about his career.  The apprenticeship documents for Lewis Alexander also survive, along with his licenses carried when boarding ship and the original barometer. KINDLY LIGHT was recorded on the National Register of Historic Vessels in 1996 and given National Historic Fleet status.

3.   How does the vessel’s shape or form combine and contribute to her function? Overall aesthetic impact of the vessel, her lines, material she was built from and her setting.  Does she remain in her working environment?

As a sailing pilot cutter, KINDLY LIGHT was designed to operate in the notorious tidal ranges found in the Bristol Channel and was heavily built of pitch pine planks on oak frames to facilitate operation far out into the North Atlantic, West of Lundy Island, seeking out vessels making for her home port of Barry. Bristol Channel pilot cutters were built to withstand all weather conditions with the minimal crew of a mate and apprentice pilot.  For practical reasons, they had no running backstays, Appledore patent reefing on the boom, a self-draining cockpit and all sail controls led aft within the reach of the helm, as was the bilge pump. KINDLY LIGHT’s hull design with its striking white painted boot-top was a stark deviation from the normal pilot cutter profile with fine high bow, lean entry and well hollowed lines below the waterline blending into her deep keel enabling her to sail fast whilst remaining easily handled.  She was reported to be wet, tender and difficult to heave-to on station, but met the brief of being faster than her competitors.  She is flush decked with bulwarks as was typical of Bristol Channel pilot cutters and her foredeck has a small, offset forehatch with the bowsprit running in on the other side, a basic windlass and a set of bitts built to withstand the forces developed under the occasional tow.  Whilst not currently in commission, KINDLY LIGHT is maintained in excellent condition afloat under a well-ventilated cover at a Falmouth marina.

Sources:

Tom Cunliffe, Pilot Cutters Under Sail, Seaforth, 2013

Author: 

Peter Green, National Historic Ships UK

December 2025