Gone are the handwritten entries with signature and official stamp on broadsheet-sized manilla folded into the cloth-bound ‘blue book’. Since the 1990s the Certificate of British Registry is simply a laminated piece of A4 card, printed in plain type and renewable every five years.

‘Cachalot’ had a Yanmar 16hp diesel engine installed and took part in the 1990 ‘Return to Dunkirk’ as part of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships (ADLS) fleet. The final records in the ‘blue book’ are from 1992, when the registered owners are listed as Julia Webb and Martin Davy.

Steve Daley-Yates with Glyn and Chris Holt were registered as owners of ‘Cachalot’ from 3 November 2005, Glyn and Chris having 16/64ths share. They purchased her via a broker in September 2005 from David Richard John Francis Macaire of Newmarket, Suffolk who had owned ‘Cachalot’ for ten years. He purchased her from Julia and Martin Davy on 8 July, 1995. In October 2010, Steve became sole owner of ‘Cachalot’ and continued the restoration project started in 2007. In 2017, on 4 August, ‘Cachalot’ was launched at the Tidemill Yacht Harbour, Woodbridge, Suffolk. At renewal of the registration in 2020, even the laminated ‘certificate’ has gone. The ‘Certificate’ is now just a standard piece of A4 paper!