Jim Scott

Moving South at the age of 15 from Middlesex showed me there was more to life than housing estates, crowds and traffic and it wasn’t long before I took to a life at sea with spear fishing and Scuba Diving off the Dorset coast.  By the age of 21 I had followed this passion further and become a commercial diver and qualified for my RYA Skippers licence.

In 1981 I started my own diving company and charter boat service from Poole specialising in wreck diving and salvage.  This has taken me back and forth across the channel to Alderney, Guernsey, Jersey and France so many times that I have lost count!

Ocean Spirit is my third boat; a Tyler 51, purchased in 1999 and fitted out by 2000 to accommodate 10 passengers sleeping in three forward cabins with shower and head.  More about that later! 

Where was I?  Yes, apart from plying the English Channel, in the late 80’s I lived and worked on board the Survey Vessel Norskery as first mate which took me via Malta to As Sidrah Libya.  I travelled across the gulf of Sirte to Misratah for several hundred miles scanning the sea bed for three months, and then back to Malta and home to resume my charter business.

It’s a bit of a whistle stop tour but I wanted to give a flavour of the broad range of experience I have acquired operating and manning boats from an early age and throughout my life.   

Ocean Spirit

 She was built for Humberside Pilotage working as a Pilot boat on the Humber and eventually after 10 years sold privately, making her way to Bristol, which is where I found her.  From here I sailed her to Poole in Dorset and carried out an extensive refit.

Specification

• - Built of GRP construction with 2 Rolls Royce Engines giving a cruising speed of 12 knots
• - 3 cabins forward sleeping 10 with forward shower and head
• - Aft cabin consisting of large state room with walk in wardrobe, ensuite shower and head, large double bed.
• - Up top Galley/Saloon & bridge area
• - Good sized aft deck and foredeck with sun deck on top