intheboatshed.net

This weekend I was lucky to meet Dan Worrall, an anglo concertina player from Texas who has written a series of fascinating articles about the instrument.

His latest paper examining the widely-held perception that the instrument has a strong connection with sailors is required reading for those of us with an interest in sea songs and music!

For some years there has been a widely held view that the ‘tina-playing sailor was a myth - they might bring a concertina bought on the quayside home as a present, but they would be impractical instruments on a boat because steel reeds would be subject to corrosion. With no real evidence to work from, I tended towards this view myself.

However, from the evidence Dan has found, it turns out that sailors in times past did play concertinas. In a way, that should be no surprise when one considers the limited options sailors have had for entertainment during their precious leisure hours at sea - ask a ex-merchant navy seaman over fifty years old who remembers voyages made before video players were widely available, and he’ll usually tell you how important music making was on board ship.

That being so, then why shouldn’t an instrument as popular as the anglo concertina in the late 19th and early 20th centuries be an important part of the music-making scene on board ship, if a way can be found of keeping the instrument dry? After all, many types of instruments are susceptible to damage from damp and salt, not least the fiddle.

The Poole Harbour merman. I’ve been unable to find any
decent royalty-free images of the blacktip shipworm - please
point us to any you know!

An old carving found off Poole Harbour by Bournemouth University archaeologists has been attacked by a warm-water ship worm that could threaten boats, archaeological sites and wooden structures around the UK.

The carving of a merman in the Swash Channel near the entrance to the Harbour is said to be an important find, but the discovery of the warm-water ship worm Lyrodus pedicellatus or blacktip shipworm in both the carving and in timbers of the wreck could be rather more significant.

‘The presence of this type of borer can be interpreted as an indication of global warming, as it typically lives in more temperate waters, such as the Mediterranean,’ said one of the academics, Paulo Palma.

‘If this species of ship worm continues to spread at its current pace it poses a major threat to all submerged wooden structures around the British coast including jetties and piers, as well as to our underwater heritage.’

It seems pretty sure that this creature eats wood, it’ll attack many of our most important old boats too.

Undergraduate marine archaeology students from BU have spent the last three summers mapping the Swash Channel wreck which emerged in 2004 following dredging work. The wreck is believed to date from the early 1600s, although its exact country of origin remains unknown.

Click on the link to see Bournemouth University’s announcement.

Jeff Cole’s been busy moving house, and turned up this splendid painting of a junk. Here’s what he said about it:

‘Hi Gavin, my house move(s) are going along, a very exhausting process mate! Here’s a pic that might interest the viewers of your site.

‘My maternal great grandfather was an officer in the British Merchant Marine and had learnt Japanese which he taught to my grandmother. In the early 1920s she taught english to Japanese naval officers training at Portsmouth and some embassy officials. One of those men, Takeo Fukuda, became Foreign Minister and Prime Minister in post war Japan. One day in the 1950s he turned up at my grandparents house in the Australian bush (they had migrated in 1928) with gifts including needlework from his mother and this painting of a junk. The artist’s signature symbol is under the mask. It’s one of the family heirlooms now.’

Inspired by some of my shots of the Swale recently, Jeff also sent over some photos of some local sunsets in his part of Australia.