Photos of Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland

Matt Atkin on Holy Island

Matt Atkin on Holy Island Matt Atkin on Holy Island Matt Atkin on Holy Island

Matt Atkin on Holy Island Matt Atkin on Holy Island Matt Atkin on Holy Island

 Matt Atkin on Holy Island Matt Atkin Holy Island

Matt Atkin’s usually to be found in Hong Kong and most of his photos are from the exotic Far East, or at least the Eastern Hemisphere. So it makes a refreshing change to be able to publish these photos of Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland, taken during a brief holiday in England last week. It’s a shame the light wasn’t really on his side, but that’s the home country for you…

Also known as Lindisfarne, Holy Island’s an astonishing place famous for all sorts of things, including being a centre for Christian evangelising starting from 635AD, the historic Viking raid of 793AD, and the illuminated manuscript known as the Lindisfarne Gospels. More prosaically perhaps, it’s also known for its remoteness, the abbey ruins, a photogenic collection of sheds made out of old boats, and as an interesting destination for small boat sailors.

Among the boats, connoiseurs of these things will spot a couple of fairly standard North East coast cobles and a double-ended coble among the boats

For those who like to know these things, Matt’s moved on from his Leica to a Fujifilm FinePix X100. Click on the image below to see the detail it delivers.

Thanks for the photos bruv!

Fuji Finepix X100

Victoria of Bridlington, a Bridlington rowing boat at the Beale Park Boat Show

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Victoria of Bridlington

It’s high time we had some more photos from the Beale Park Thames Boat Show, as this year’s event isn’t too long away. If it isn’t already in your diary it takes place on the River Thames at Pangbourne, and the dates this year are the 5th-7th June.

Victoria of Bridlington is a Bridlington rowing boat built by the Siddalls, a Bridlington boatbuilding family – read all about them at the website of the Bridlington Sailing Coble Preservation Society. Nowadays, she’s apparently one of two similar boats kept on the Thames, and there’s even a small website including photos of Victoria and an even cuter dog.

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A Selway Fisher Northumbrian coble launched at the Boat Building Academy

This time they show Neil Bailey’s boat built to the Selway Fisher Northumbrian coble plans.

‘Neil, a Royal Marine for 22 years before coming on the course, wanted to find a new career working creatively with wood. With his main partner on the build, journalist Mike Lowson, he built the the boat with a solid mahogany sheer strake and fitted the boat out in sapele.

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Neil Bailey on launch day – and doesn’t it look like a real celebration!

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As promised, Boat Building Academy principal Yvonne Green has sent us some more photos from the big student launch day at Lyme in December.

This time they show Neil Bailey’s boat built to the Selway Fisher Northumbrian coble plans.

‘Neil, a Royal Marine for 22 years before coming on the course, wanted to find a new career working creatively with wood.  With his main partner on the build, journalist Mike Lowson, he built the the boat with a solid mahogany sheer strake and fitted the boat out in sapele.

‘In the entire 38 weeks of the course we didn’t see Neil look half as happy as when he opened the champagne and took to the water for the first time.’

Yvonne addss that the Academy has been busy recently with a wooden boat restoration course that included staff from some of the leading museums. Apparently,  the eight on the course were keen to come back and suggested the folks at Lyme should think of running more courses on restoration. The hot news right now is that intermediate and advanced wooden boat restoration courses are being planned, probably next year.

The ‘coble’ itself seems a very attractive and useful boat, but I’m not sure how much it resembles a traditional cobles: click here for a post about cobles at intheboatshed.net. For more intheboatshed.net posts mentioning cobles, click here.