Always on
This project successfully funded on 25th December 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
Stingray Gearbox Appeal - Keep Stingray Moving
Liskeard, Cornwall, United Kingdom
Aim
Stingray’s gearbox has failed after a busy summer of marine conservation and needs replacing. Please help us continue protecting marine life
Help Get Stingray Back in Action – Please Support Our Gearbox Appeal!
It has been a fantastic first year for Stingray. She's been at the heart of Fathoms Free's work, facilitating ghost gear recovery dives and helping us support other brilliant marine conservation organisations around Cornwall.
Some of you might have seen or backed our last crowdfunder to get Stingray on the water, and we've kept our promise: she's been out there making a difference all year! Since her first recovery at Drakes Island in Plymouth Sound in the spring, Stingray has been busy responding to ghost gear reports along Cornwall's coastline and preventing further unnecessary death to marine life.
In addition to our ghost gear recovery work, Stingray and our volunteer skippers have also supported Cornwall Wildlife Trust's Seasearch efforts, with dive and snorkel surveys around the coast of Cornwall, ranging from Whitsand Bay, Looe, St Austell Bay, Falmouth Bay, Mounts Bay, St Ives Bay and lots of places in between!
We also threw our support behind the Ocean Conservation Trust's seagrass efforts in Mounts Bay, helping them out at short notice to survey and gather important seeds ready for next year's restoration projects!
Stingray and our volunteers even spent the weekend supporting the Kernow Dive Fest fundraising event in June, held in Mounts Bay, which raised over £8,000 for DDRC healthcare in Plymouth, a leading provider of hyperbaric research, treatment and other vital services available to all divers in the UK.
But at the beginning of this week, we hit a stroke of bad luck. After a season of trouble-free outings and over 100 sea hours since April, Stingray's gearbox suddenly failed. The breakdown left us stranded in Falmouth Bay. Fortunately, thanks to the kindness of the local community, we were safely towed back to Mylor Harbour.
Wherever possible, we do all our own maintenance and repair work. Our small volunteer team has already invested countless hours of care this year in keeping Stingray seaworthy and ready for action following her maiden launch. But this time, the problem is beyond fixing, and we need a new gearbox. A part of the drivetrain decided it wanted a divorce from the other components and attempted to break free from the gearbox housing!
A replacement gearbox direct from the manufacturer will cost us approximately £3,500 delivered to us before fitting – money we don't have set aside for unexpected breakdowns. We can potentially save money by considering non-genuine aftermarket gearbox options that are slightly less expensive. We've also considered sourcing a slightly cheaper second-hand option, but this comes with too many unknowns and could prove to be a false economy in the long run.
Whatever route we take, the simple truth is that without a reliably functioning gearbox, Stingray cannot take us to the dive sites. That means ghost gear will continue to pose a threat to marine life, and we can't offer our support and Stingray to other marine organisations.
We need your help to get Stingray back out where she belongs: on the water, protecting wildlife and delivering marine conservation around Cornwall's coastline!
Every contribution, large or small, will get us closer to our goal and back out at sea doing the work we love.
Thank you for supporting us and our work.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made