Labour of love lands TV deal

He was looking for a blue water yacht to spend his money and ‘a few leisurely weeks’ on, but was captivated by Bette Ruby when he first saw the vessel for sale on Ebay. Restoration works are now underway at Gosport UK.Unfortunately, it has taken more than a ‘few leisurely weeks’ to get the old girl, who is now 60, into a habitable state, and almost as long to get his wife to accept the ‘other woman’ in his life. ‘She was expecting me to come back with a boat, not a project. Luckily my sons have been able to help her believe that it is all possible,’ he says.

Ross Farncombe is doing most of the repair work himself with help from friends and a bit of input from people with specialist skills. But the boat is, even after years of neglect, basically very sound. Its solid oak beams were able to take the strain of the refit and the only water ingress that Bette Ruby has is coming from above the waterline. This is because the oak timbers have shrunk where they are not continuously immersed. ‘The regular hosing down would have taken care of that in its working life,’ explained Farncombe, ‘but its not practical for a live aboard boat.’

While a keen sailor, Farncombe admits he knew very little about how to treat the surfaces he now so proudly owns, so he wrote to an associate asking for information. Within a short time he had both a specialist surveyor from Jotun and all the paint and sealants he could use for his restoration project, with a very detailed spec sheet of where and how they could be applied, all supplied by Jotun’s South East of England marine distributor, Shepherd Marine.

And this wasn’t the only spot of luck. Due to a bout of sleeplessness, he found himself staring at a late night TV ad asking for ‘unusual property developments’. One email and a few days later a TV team had signed up both him and Bette Ruby for a documentary showing the boat’s restoration. ‘The only problem with this is that it puts me onto a tight schedule,’ explained Farcombe. ‘I delayed the start so they could get a good bit of footage in, but they want it all wrapped up by mid March.’ So now he isn’t just dealing with the weather, he is dealing with TV schedules too.

The repairs are complicated somewhat by the lack of plans, although Farncombe sees this as a benefit rather than a problem. ‘It starts out with me having an idea of how it will fit together, he explained, ‘but talking to people has been the great thing about this. If you are on your own it is easy to become blinkered, but other people come up with very different ideas and solutions to the problems.’ He added that his friends have been a real help, egged on by the promise of appearing in a television documentary and liberal quantities of beer.

The tale of Bette Ruby and Ross Farncombe will be part of a new series to be broadcast on the Discovery Channel in 2009.