Malcom Miller and Astute? This week in the Sound

By The Captain, maritime correspondent, The Beagle

Many of you will have noticed the three masted schooner tied up alongside the pontoon in the middle of the Cattewater. This is the Malcolm Miller. She was ordered in 1968 from the Aberdeen yard of John Lewis and Sons to a Camper and Nicholson design. Half of her cost was donated by Sir James Miller, a former Lord Mayor of London and Lord Provost of Edinburgh, in memory of his son Malcolm, who had been killed in a car accident.

She was used for many years by the Sail Training Association (who used to organise the Tall Ships Races) as a sail training ship, until replaced in 2000 by the Stavros S Niarchos. In 2001, the Malcolm Miller was sold and became a private yacht - the Helena C until 2008, when she was damaged in a fire and ended up laid up (as Malcolm Miller again) off Tolverne on the River Fal.

Thankfully, in 2012, she was taken in hand, rebuilt in the Conrad shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, and recommissioned in 2014. Malcolm Miller is available to charter.

The main naval activity this week has been the two German Frigates – FGS Sachsen (an anti-air warfare ship) and FGS Sachsen-Anhalt (a general purpose frigate).

And towards the end of the week, we had a nuclear submarine – no identity given, but probably HMS Astute – out at C buoy for a night. She could be seen from the foreshore just this side of the Breakwater Fort. I have no idea why she was here. Submariners are very secretive by nature (and necessity).