New Seeker

The MMBC stated "New Seeker is a twin screw motor sailer built by James Miller and Sons at Saint Monance, Fife, Scotland in 1971 for James McBurney, Wirrel Cheshire. Miller Yard with a 200-year history of building fish boats started to build “ fishing boat yachts” in the 1950’s. The class named “Fifer” ranged from 27 to 50 feet. New Seeker was one of the last built by the yard which closed in 1978. The heavily built “double-ended” hull shape, rolling chocks and high fo’csle of New Seeker follow the lines of a traditional herring drifter of which hundreds fished the North Sea until herring stocks were exhausted. The current owner’s father (Mark Myers a London businessman) bought the boat in 1975 on the Suffolk coast and she has remained a member of the family now for over 50 years. New Seeker was shipped to the US West Coast in 1981.

She retains her British documentation, port of registry Liverpool. Home port now is Olympia Washington. While in Europe the McBurneys cruised New Seeker extensively in the Scottish islands, Shetlands, Faroes and Irish Sea. The Myers’s voyaged with her from Holland to Britain’s Cornish coast, from the Thames to the Basque coast of Spain and numerous times to the coasts of Normandy and Brittany France. In the USA, the New Seeker has sailed from Southern California to SE Alaska and made extensive explorations of the Salish Sea. New Seekers’ stout build (1 1/2 inch planking of Iroko on carved English oak) and heavyweight (18 tons) make her a very weatherly passage-making boat ( with sail carried for engine load reduction and steadying) that can handle heavy seas in safety and a stable platform for sport fishing, fish being in her bones!"