Saving historic vessels
From a Severn car ferry to the Cutty Sark, the preservation and promotion of maritime history and culture knows no bounds. Rob Melotti reports
The preservation of Britain’s maritime history can be a real battle
On 2 December 1949 a British naval fireboat towed the 150-year-old HMS Implacable out into deep water to the east of the Isle of Wight, where an explosive charge aboard sent her to the seabed.
Implacable was a survivor of the Battle of Trafalgar and, at the time, the second oldest vessel in the Royal Navy. She was scuttled by the Admiralty in preference to footing the £200,000 restoration bill, yet ironically the public outcry is said to have led directly to the saving of the Cutty Sark ‘for the nation’ – a process that began four years later.
Fast-forward 72 years and there are over 1,300 vessels on the National Historic Ships register supported by hundreds of charities and thousands of volunteers. Power, sail, steam and horse-drawn; rivers, canals, lakes and coastal; rowing barges, gunboats, lifeboats and fishing boats; bronze-age, medieval, industrial and Victorian... there is no system of simple classification that can comprehend the depth and breadth of British maritime heritage efforts.
But what is it about the country’s floating heritage that attracts so many volunteers and so much enthusiasm and what impact will Covid-19 have?
History or boats?
The passion for traditional boatbuilding and the spirit that catches fire around a new project is immortalised quite brilliantly by the author Bill Jones in his novel Mr Pilbeam Built a Boat. Set in a fictionalised Bridlington in the 1960s, the eponymous hero is inexorably drawn to building boats – one of which is a traditional coble –
without regard for the consequences to his family life or even the outcome: sinkings, boatyard fires... and a dramatic finale – none of it matters.
“Anyone who has ever built or restored a boat will know how this feels,” Bill tells me. “To begin with, it’s a hobby; a loose and woolly dream. But then something happens. At night, you lie awake thinking of how you’ll complete the next phase; every waking moment is consumed by the pictures in your head; by the secret lists you compile, and what began as a simple hobby has mutated into a fever; an obsession to manipulate wood and glue into the picture you formed long ago in your head.”
The character of Seymour Pilbeam was partly based on Jones’s father, who was completely consumed by a boat project, then lost interest once it was completed.
“Sailing his boat never quite matched the expectation which fuelled its construction. And within a few years, he sold it to someone who would never know the private mania which underpinned every single joint.”
Within living memory there are few maritime events that inflame the British spirit of preservation and commemoration more than the evacuation of over 300,000 troops from the beaches at Dunkirk in 1940. Operation Dynamo saw 800 civilian and commercial vessels conscripted at short notice into crossing the Channel (some did multiple trips) and bringing troops home from France.
The Dunkirk Little Ships Restoration Trust is an umbrella group at the nexus of a variety of individual vessel trusts, although there are private owners that fund entire boats themselves. There are 123 vessels listed as members, some of which are practically celebrities.
PBO contributor Peter Draper spent 15 years restoring Caronia, a 40ft St Ives gig that took part in Operation Dynamo, and takes pride in her as a boat first and foremost.
‘A well restored and overhauled vessel is no less seaworthy than one a fraction of its age,’ he wrote in PBO (December 2018). ‘I knew what was under the cabin sole and behind the cabinets and had confidence in my work.’
Yet the urge to reconnect with Caronia’s origins proved impossible to resist. She was built at Tolcarne beach near
Newlyn, Cornwall, and Peter made a pilgrimage back there in 2018 to collect a jar of sand, which he now keeps aboard: ‘I looked at where men with hand-tools had built Caronia, the boat that changed my life, and the many timbers of derelict hulls now half hidden by the sands.’
He also took part in the filming of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk in 2016 and is proud to be a flagship of the National Historic Ships fleet. It’s fair to say that her future seems assured as a historic vessel of significance.
At the much earlier end of the historic spectrum is a charity called the Dover bronze age boat trust, which raises funds to maintain and display a 3,500-year-old oak-planked vessel discovered during construction of the A20 road linking Dover to Folkestone. This is a structure far too delicate to refloat, but building replicas, such as the one funded by the National Maritime Museum in 2013 reveals interesting extra details.
The 9.5m long hull was discovered in 1992 and put on display in 1998. Archaeologists sliced it into sections to excavate and then a team of specialists at the Mary Rose Trust spent six years reassembling, analysing and preserving the structure.
Investigations showed that most of the wood was free of knots, so came from below the first branch level. This means the trees would have been over 30m tall and perhaps 350 years old and almost certainly located inland rather than on the coast.
The six very large planks are held together not by bronze fastenings, but by wooden bars, wedges and giant stitches made from young shoots of yew trees. Moss, beeswax and animal fat fill the gaps in the joints to make it watertight.
According to the museum’s own educational material, the painstaking research and restoration revealed some fascinating insights.
By studying tool marks left in the wood it’s possible to conclude that the builders used two types of axe, an adze, a chisel and a gouge – all made of bronze.
It is estimated that it would have taken 50 people a month to build the boat.
And so precise was the examination that the team even pondered the meaning of a thin layer of sand from the shore that was lying inside the boat. The conclusion they came to was that it might have got there from the feet of the crew!
See also the Ferriby Heritage Trust for more on Bronze Age Boats, including a 4,000-year-old vessel: ferribyboats.co.uk
Replicas can bring old boats to life and provide a more accurate history, but they can also be used as a ‘jumping off point’ for some very modern thinking.
Greenhook Fishing (greenhook.org) is a charity that has been established to provide training and full-time employment in boatbuilding, fishing, and related industries. They plan to develop a fleet of MCA approved fishing vessels under 10m that will be powered by sail or oar, in order to fish without the restrictions imposed on motor vessels.
They initially set out to build a modern version of the Plymouth Hooker, a 10m long-liner that operated in the South West Approaches at the end of the 19th Century. But in the meantime they are using a similar vessel for which a mould already exists, and which is based on an oyster-dredger and long-liner from the same period.
These hulls are being laid up by Evolution Boats of Cornwall, and will be fitted out in Plymouth by members of the co-operative with training from the Boat Building Academy at Lyme Regis.
Wielding influence
In 1970 the Maritime Trust (MT) was formed with Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, as one of its chief advocates. The MT’s efforts saw around 20 vessels restored and then handed down to individual trusts in order to find ways to prevent them falling into disrepair again.
Henry Cleary is a trustee of the Maritime Heritage Trust, which is an amalgamation of the old MT and the lobbying group Heritage Afloat.
“I think Prince Philip deserves credit because he banged heads together,” Henry tells me. “Until the MT was created in the early 1970s, officialdom always put ship preservations in the ‘too difficult’ box.”
“There were some famous losses,” Henry continues, referring in particular to HMS Implacable being scuttled in 1949. “Frank Carr, one of the great directors at Greenwich [and a founding member of MT], he campaigned on the ‘never again’ basis and it was largely due to that threat he was able to preserve the Cutty Sark.”
Last Whitstable oyster yawl
Photographer Alex Hare is a volunteer for the charity Whitstable Marine, which has been focussed on restoring the 42ft yawl Game Cock the only vessel still in existence that is known to have taken part in dredging for oysters under sail in Whitstable Harbour.
“I think everybody comes to charity work for different reasons,” he tells me over the phone. “I’m not an expert in yachting or boat restoration. I’m a photographer so I’m contributing free photography to the charity, although I do also donate 5% of profits from Whitstable Photographic Company to the charity as well.”
The charity’s founder is Gordon Vincent, a retired teacher and until recently owner of a classic wooden dinghy. “I’ve had a knee replaced,” he says. “So I can’t jump around in the boat and she’s a little bit heavy for me. I sold her a couple of weeks ago. Broke my heart.”
Whitstable Marine “is bigger than the Game Cock. The charity is about celebrating Whitstable’s past, present and future, as regards coastal connections.
So it’s looking back but also dealing with climate change, alternative energy, marine pollution,” he says.
“There’s very little evidence of the past boatbuilding and oyster industry here. Even the locals are not very aware of it and certainly visitors are oblivious when they’re sitting on the beach that it’s an artificial beach created for sea defence and underneath the shingle are the slipways that used to go to the boatyards that were all along this bit of coast.
“There’s two other big activities we have apart from the boat: we’ve set up a 5km [history and conservation] trail along the coast. And also we do an annual harbour boat show, where we have stalls and workshops about the environment. We had 10,000 visitors in 2019!”
In fact he credits the boat-show’s success with finally convincing Whitstable Harbour board to give the boat a free berth ashore for the restoration.
“Gordon’s a very likeable person,” says Alex. “You get a real sense that he’s not doing this for any other reason than because he’s passionate about giving people a strong connection between what they’re doing here today and what happened here in the past. And that passion and enthusiasm is quite infectious. I think that is what inspires other people to want to come and roll their sleeves up.”
“The restoration isn’t the be all and end all. All it does is build a boat. It’s what you do with it afterwards. So the boat must be available for all sorts of community groups. It’s got to be available for children, for people with learning difficulties; people with mobility problems.
“Boats were so important. They were the most important part of our commerce. It’s communicating to people that idea, that piece of heritage. That’s the long term and for me the underlying objective to restoring Game Cock.”
I ask Gordon what advice he’d give anyone considering starting up a trust or getting involved in a heritage restoration project.
“When people say to me ‘how have you got to this stage where you’re negotiating with councils, you have companies involved and public campaigns going...’? It ultimately comes down to relationships. Working hard on relationships. Giving people encouragement to do things and trusting them. I think that’s the key.”
crowdfunder.co.uk/restore-whitstablesailboat
Wherry Maud Trust
In May this year PBO received the following press release:
‘Norfolk Trading Wherry Maud, a vessel on the National Historic Fleet, is to benefit from a fundraising campaign to raise vital funds for a new support boat. It will enable Wherry Maud Trust to increase the number of Maud’s sailings and continue in their work to keep Broads history alive in these financially difficult times. With volunteers from across Norfolk clubbing together to help support the well-loved wherry, the campaign has already got off to a flying start, attracting £1,150 in donations towards its £10,500 goal.’
Maud started her working life in 1899 as one of a small fleet of trading wherries owned by a director of Jewson, timber merchants in Great Yarmouth. By 1965 she was redundant, sunk in Ranworth Broad to protect the riverbank from erosion. In 1981, Vincent and Linda Pargeter fell in love with her, restoring her over 18 years. Vincent died in 2015 and Linda is now treasurer of the Wherry Maud Trust.
“All the repair and maintenance is done by amateurs except for every three years when the boat is lifted out of the water for any major repairs that are needed,” says Linda. “We should have had major maintenance last year but due to the pandemic we couldn’t. So this year in September she’s going to be lifted out at Goodchild Marine and will be out for about a month.
“We’re all excited about this campaign. We are keen to show off our lovely historic wherry to more people,” she says. “Having an easy to maintain support boat with a more powerful engine will ensure the Trust can run more trips and be less restricted by winds and tides. The extra trips will generate donations to make up income that was lost due to the 2020 pandemic.” gofundme.com/f/Wherry-Maud