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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

He assumed the Orsborne name when his widowed mother remarried and moved the family to Aberdeen, where George, nicknamed "Dod", spent his formative years.

[17] 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.

[22] 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.

They had already received sums totalling £2,400 from the underwriters,[21] 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.

[29][30] 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.

[30] 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 trawler's description, anchored in the Savage Islands.

[31][32] Lloyd's of London sent a representative to Las Palmas, to investigate the sighting;[33] meanwhile Girl Pat made an unobserved call at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where she was repainted.

[41] 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.

[43] 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.

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?".

[59] A man from the town of Hull thought the adventure demonstrated "the spirit of Drake", and called for a public subscription to meet the crew's debts and expenses.

[63] On 27 June, following further discussions in London, the brothers were arrested on a warrant issued under the Fugitive Offenders Act, and brought before the Georgetown magistrates, where they were charged with the theft of Girl Pat.

[70] While the Orsbornes were in Georgetown, Harold Stone, Girl Pat's erstwhile mate, made his way home from Dakar and arrived in Liverpool on 20 July.

[71] After interviews with the police, Stone spoke to the press of the hardships suffered during the Girl Pat voyage, especially the shortages of food and water: "I would not want to go through the experience again".

[74][75] When the hearing resumed on 10 September, the court heard from Marstrands' managing director that George Orsborne had not been given authority to operate Girl Pat outside the North Sea.

Stone testified that Orsborne had made plain his intentions to take the boat south from the outset,[26] and also gave evidence concerning the changes to the ship's log.

[80] The prosecution opened by stating that this should not be considered as "a cheerful buccaneering adventure," but as a breach of trust on the part of George Orsborne, to whom the owners had entrusted their ship.

[8] Orsborne denied that he had tried to conceal his or the boat's true identity in Dakar, or had left the port to avoid enquiries—the sudden departure was due, he said, to troubles with the natives.

[87] James Orsborne, giving evidence, said that he had learned from his brother about Moore's proposal to get rid of the boat, and had told George that he would be "a darned fool" even to consider the suggestion.

Prosecuting counsel argued that if the month's joy-ride was the innocent explanation, why had it been necessary to introduce into the case the unfounded allegations of proposed insurance fraud "against men whose reputations were above suspicion?".

This was unwarranted and undesirable: "Whether the two prisoners be guilty or innocent [of theft], the property of someone else was being used by them without permission ...George Orsborne clearly knew that he was acting directly against his employer's interests".

[99] It is difficult not to entertain a sneaking gratitude towards the two men whose curious and unsuccessful adventure has sent us all vicariously sailing on a desperate mission across tropic seas ... Apart from the length of their voyage and their happy-go-lucky methods, they maintained to the end an air that was at once tough and enigmatic.

[101] While in prison, George Orsborne lent his name to a ghost-written account of the Girl Pat adventure, which repeated the claim that the vessel had been sent out inadequately equipped and provisioned.

[102][103] On his release, Orsborne planned to make a single-handed transatlantic crossing in an open boat,[104] but the trip was delayed, and finally cancelled when war began in September 1939.

[110] In his 1949 memoir Master of the Girl Pat, George Orsborne records briefly that Stephens went straight back to sea after the adventure, that Harris drank up his share of the crew's newspaper money, and that "Fletcher" (Stone) emigrated to Australia.