ALPHA was built as a Bristol Channel pilot cutter, designed to take pilots out to ships requiring pilotage as they approached Bristol or other big ports. The first pilot there to negotiate a price got the job, so the cutters had to be fast and easy to sail with as little as two crew members.
ALPHA was commissioned by Newport based pilot William Prosser, as a pilot vessel from 1904 till 1923, after which she became a yacht. She was named ALPHA, it seems, because Prosser’s pilot number was one.
She was a Fleetwood build boat and with that an exception in the fleet of Bristol channel pilot cutters. Her fairly cutaway for foot gave her an enviable record for speed, particularly in light winds; although during the pilot cutter review at St Mawes 2011, she belonged to the fastest cutters of the fleet, also in a fair breeze!
She was built in pitch pine on oak, her topsides were oak on oak (strength). Over the years hardly any oak remained on her topsides and all the pitch pine was replaced by larch and iroko.
It seems that somewhere after World War 2, she was re-rigged and her mast replaced by a shorter one as well as her gaff and bowsprit, which became significantly shorter. The bowsprit has been replaced in July 2011 by the original sized bowsprit.
