Girl Pat was a small fishing trawler, based at the Lincolnshire port of Grimsby, that in 1936 was the subject of a media sensation when its captain took it on an unauthorised transatlantic voyage. The escapade ended in Georgetown, British Guiana, with the arrest of the captain, George "Dod" Orsborne, and his brother. The pair were later imprisoned for the theft of the vessel.
Built in 1935, Girl Pat was the property of the Marstrand Fishing Company of Grimsby. On 1 April 1936, Orsborne, with a crew of four and his brother James as a supernumerary, took the vessel out on what the owners authorised as a routine North Sea fishing trip of two to three weeks duration. After leaving port, Orsborne informed the crew that they were going on an extended cruise in more southerly waters. Nothing more was heard of them until mid-May, when the owners, who had by then assumed the vessel lost, received invoices relating to its repair and reprovisioning in the northern Spanish port of Corcubión. Subsequent sightings placed her in the Savage Islands, at Dakar in Senegal, and Îles du Salut off the coast of French Guiana in South America. The captains main means of navigation during a voyage of more than 6,000 nautical miles (11,000 km) was a sixpenny school atlas and a compass. At one point Girl Pat was reported wrecked in the Bahamas, with all hands lost. After the vessels capture and detention following a chase outside Georgetown on 19 June, Orsborne and his crew were hailed as heroes in the worlds press.
Charged with the theft of the vessel in October 1936, Orsborne maintained in court that the owners had instructed him to get rid of the ship, as part of a scheme to obtain its insurance value. This claim was dismissed by the court. Years later, in his memoirs, Orsborne told a different, uncorroborated story: in absconding with Girl Pat he had been carrying out a mission on behalf of British Naval Intelligence, connected with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936.
After his release from prison, Orsborne took part in further maritime adventures and served in the navy in the Second World War. He died in 1957. In Georgetown Girl Pat was acquired by new owners who returned her to Britain, where she was displayed as a tourist attraction in several resorts. In 1939 she was sold to the Port of London Authority for use as a wreck-marking vessel and, after being requisitioned by the Royal Navy during the war, was returned to the authority in 1945. There is no public record of her subsequent career.
George Black Orsborne was born George Black on 4 July 1902,[n 1] in the small north Scottish coastal town of Buckie. He assumed the Orsborne name when his widowed mother remarried and moved the family to Aberdeen, where George, nicknamed "Dod", spent his formative years. When he was 14, Orsborne lied about his age and enlisted as a Boy Seaman in the Royal Navy; in his memoirs he wrote: "I never did have an adolescence". He served in the Dover Patrol, and was wounded during the 1918 Zeebrugge Raid. After leaving the Navy in December 1919 and working ashore for a brief period, he was persuaded by a former captain of the Cutty Sark, Captain Wilkins, to go back to sea. He joined the merchant navy, sailing mainly in small ships based in Liverpool.
At 21 he passed his masters ticket examinations and took over his first command, a Grimsby trawler. During the following ten years, Orsborne said his career included "a bit of everything—rum-running, whaling, deep-sea trawling in the Arctic". In November 1935, back in Grimsby, he became skipper of the former seine fishing boat Gipsy Love, which its owners, the Marstrand Fishing Company, had converted into a trawler.[n 2]
In March 1936, for his second voyage in Gipsy Love, Orsborne attempted to engage the services of an experienced seaman, Alexander MacLean, to whom he confided that the trip might go further afield—perhaps to Bermuda or South America—but MacLean declined the opportunity. Orsborne offered the mates berth to Harry Stone, a local seaman who did not possess a mates ticket but was told by Orsborne that he could use MacLeans number. The other crew members were a Yorkshireman, Hector Harris, and a 17-year-old Scottish cook, Howard Stephens. The formal crew was joined by Orsbornes younger brother James, a grocer, who had no formal status on board and was later classified as a stowaway.Gipsy Love left Grimsby late in March 1936, supposedly to fish in the Dogger Bank area of the North Sea, but within hours had returned to port with engine trouble. With the consent of the owners, Orsborne transferred stores and crew to another Marstrand vessel, the small trawler Girl Pat; James Orsborne again joined them.
Built in 1935 in Oulton Broad, Suffolk, Girl Pat was a vessel of 55 gross registered tons (GRT), 19 NRT. She was 66 feet (20 m) long, with a beam of 18.7 feet (5.7 m), a hold depth of 8.7 feet (2.7 m), and accommodation for six. Some sources refer to her as a "seine netter," suggesting that like the Gipsy Love she had been converted to trawling. She was insured with underwriters for £3,000. Her regular engineer, George Jefferson, was added to Orsbornes picked crew for the forthcoming voyage.
Girl Pat left Grimsby on 1 April 1936. According to Stones later account, when they entered the open sea, Orsborne assembled the crew—except for Jefferson—in the wheelhouse and told them that this would not be a normal fishing trip. Instead, he proposed to take the boat south, first calling at Dover where he would get rid of Jefferson, who was not included in his further plans. At this stage Orsborne was apparently undecided as to his longer-term intentions, but indicated that they would be sailing into southern waters and might go fishing for pearls.
On 3 April the craft reached Dover, where Jefferson was taken ashore and given food and drink. When he returned to the harbour, Girl Pat had departed; the engineer returned in some confusion to Grimsby. As Girl Pat sailed into the English Channel, Orsborne revealed to his crew that the vessel contained no charts, and that future navigation would be dependent on a cheap school atlas that he showed them. He changed details in the boats log book, entering himself as "G. Black," Stone as "H. Clark," and James Orsborne as "A. Black". After anchoring off Jersey in the Channel Islands to await calmer weather, Girl Pat proceeded southwards through the Bay of Biscay. Orsborne ordered changes to the boats appearance: the bowsprit was altered, and the fishing registration number on the side of the hull was blacked out. According to Stone, Orsborne indicated an itinerary that included Madeira, the Canary Islands, the African coast and, eventually, Cape Town. They might then sell the boat and share the proceeds. Severe weather in the Bay of Biscay hampered progress and battered the small vessel, and on 12 April they took shelter in the small northern Spanish port of Corcubión, where they stayed for around 14 days. Necessary repairs were carried out, and the boat was reprovisioned. Orsborne instructed that the accounts for these services, totalling £235, be sent to Marstrands in Grimsby, as their punishment, he later said, for letting the boat be taken out with inadequate stores and equipment.
Following Jeffersons return to Grimsby, Marstrands were puzzled by Orsbornes actions, but initially thought that he had taken on another engineer in Dover and had gone fishing, perhaps in new grounds. There were unconfirmed sightings of Girl Pat in the Baltic Sea and elsewhere. As weeks passed with no definite news, the Marstrand directors assumed that the vessel was lost, either through foundering or barratry, and claimed insurance. They had already received sums totalling £2,400 from the underwriters, when they were surprised by the arrival of bills from Corcubión, together with the news that Girl Pat had sailed from the port on 24 April, her destination unknown.
After Girl Pat left Corcubión, there was speculation in the port that Orsborne intended to fish in the waters around Gibraltar, but there was no sighting of the vessel in that vicinity. Stone later recalled that after sailing for some time, they arrived at some uninhabited islands—this is consistent with a probable sighting by the British liner SS Avoceta, which on 17 May reported seeing a vessel closely matching the trawlers description, anchored in the Savage Islands. This small uninhabited archipelago, roughly 170 nautical miles (310 km) south of Madeira and roughly the same distance north of the Canary Islands, had long been associated with stories of pirates buried treasure, and news that Girl Pat had been seen there gave rise to press speculation that she was engaged on a hunt for treasure.Lloyds of London sent a representative to Las Palmas, to investigate the sighting; meanwhile Girl Pat made an unobserved call at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where she was repainted.
Leaving Tenerife, Girl Pat continued her journey southward, following the African coast. According to Stones account, the crew went ashore at Port Etienne in French West Africa (now Nouadhibou, in Mauritania), leaving the boat unguarded. While they were away, marauders stole gear and provisions, leaving the crew almost destitute: "All we had left to eat and drink were four bottles of water, a tin of corned beef, a bottle of lime juice and a tin of condensed milk". Leaving Port Etienne, they ran aground on a sandbank and were stranded for three days. Eventually they managed to refloat the vessel, and on 23 May were picked up by a pilot boat which brought them into the harbour at Dakar, starving and exhausted.
Stone had fallen ill with appendicitis during the previous leg of the voyage; he was hospitalised in Dakar and took no further part in the adventure. Orsborne was able to obtain further fuel and water, but Girl Pats arrival attracted the attention of the local Lloyds agent, who had been on the lookout for the vessel. On 26 May he saw Orsborne and inspected the log book, where he discovered the false names and other inconsistencies. Orsborne was asked to present the ships papers at the British consulate but, on the pretext that he needed to test the engines, he rapidly put to sea. The appearance of Girl Pat in Dakar—the first confirmation since Corcubión that the vessel was still afloat—was widely reported. Relatives of the crew members were relieved that those aboard were safe but were apprehensive about what might lie ahead.
The level of public interest in the Girl Pat affair was enough for Gaumont British to consider making it the subject of a feature film. In the House of Commons on 29 May, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade stated that no requests had been made for the detention of the vessel in foreign ports; two weeks later, Walter Runciman, the President of the Board of Trade, confirmed that, on behalf of the underwriters, the Foreign Office had asked that Girl Pat be refused credit and detained on entering any port.
On 2 June the French liner Jamaique reported a small boat, flying the British flag and steaming southwards, near the Bissagos Islands 250 nautical miles (460 km) south of Dakar. Although this was at first assumed to be Girl Pat, the next reported sighting, on 9 June, was more than 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) to the west, on the other side of the Atlantic. Captain Jones of the Lorraine Cross, an American ship, cabled Lloyds agents in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana) with an account of a small ship flying a distress signal off the South American coast, 47 nautical miles (87 km) north-east of Cayenne. There were apparently four men on board. The boats name and markings had been painted out, but she claimed to be the "Margaret Harold" bound for Trinidad from London. Jones thought the crews behaviour suspicious, and when he asked to see the ships papers, the ship lowered the distress signal and sped away. Jones said the vessel was "undoubtedly a British fisherman", and thought it was Girl Pat. In Grimsby, a Marstrand spokesman expressed little surprise at this new location, and confirmed that the ship had sufficient speed to have crossed the ocean in the time since her last confirmed sighting. A check with Lloyds indicated that there was no registered ship named Margaret Harold.
A report from the Îles du Salut, a few miles off the coast of French Guiana, indicated that a vessel similar in appearance to Girl Pat had watered there on 10 June. An air search, by a Pan-American aircraft, covered over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of coastline around Georgetown, without sighting the craft. On 17 June several newspapers carried reports of the discovery of the wreck of a small boat, and three bodies, at Atwood Cay, a small island in the Bahamas. Much of the press assumed this to be Girl Pat; one headline read "Did School Atlas Course Lead Crew to Death?". The reports proved false when, early in the morning of 19 June, a police launch towed Girl Pat into Georgetown harbour.[n 3]
On the evening of 18 June the British steamer Arakaka had spotted a small ship a few miles outside Georgetown, and radioed this information to the shore. An unarmed police launch left Georgetown to investigate; as they approached, the crew of the as yet unidentified vessel became hostile. They denied that she was Girl Pat and threatened violence should officers attempt to board her. The launch retreated to Georgetown, where the police armed themselves and obtained authority to seize the suspect vessel. They returned early the following morning to find that their quarry was departing. A two-hour chase ensued, which The Hull Daily Mail glamorised as a sporting contest: "Like some coursing greyhound the faster Government ship stuck to the tail of the fleeing suspect which, harelike, doubled back on her course to dodge her pursuer". According to the British Daily Worker, the chase "[outdid] the most spectacular efforts of film directors". Finally, while manoeuvring at close quarters, the vessels collided. The stern of the suspect boat was severely damaged, whereupon she surrendered and was taken in tow. The name displayed on the vessels hull was "Kia-ora", but Stephens quickly admitted to their captors that the ship was Girl Pat.
With Girl Pat secured and under guard in Georgetown harbour, the Orsborne brothers, Harris, and Stephens were taken to police headquarters in the City Hall. The police issued a statement that the four were there "at their own request. They are under no form of detention". In London, officials struggled to establish the exact legal position, and issued confusing statements.[n 4] Meanwhile, Orsborne and his companions were widely hailed as heroes. The German newspaper Hamburger Fremdenblatt asked: "Is this not a bit of British tradition, to do the unconventional out of love for adventure, if great personal risks, audacity and romance are connected therewith?". A man from the town of Hull thought the adventure demonstrated "the spirit of Drake", and called for a public subscription to meet the crews debts and expenses. An alternative view, expressed in the Hull Daily Mail, was to question whether the men should be regarded so favourably, or merely as "men who have run away with someone elses property".
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