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The new James Caird, photographed a few days ago

If you’re wondering what to do this weekend – perhaps now’s the time to decide, for Friday sees the first day of the three-day Beale Park Thames Boat Show at Pangbourne!

An important attraction of the show this year is a recreation of the small ship’s boat that Sir Ernest Shackleton and his small crew used to reach Elephant Island, the James Caird, which is currently being built by students of the International Boatbuilding Training College (IBTC) at Lowestoft. We saw it during a brief visit to the college last week, and were made very welcome – the college is always pleased to receive visitors.

I was particularly amazed by the scale and diversity of the traditional boatbuilding projects under way at the IBTC, and will be writing more about it shortly.

At the Beale Park show students are scheduled to work on the James Caird’s deck beams and caulking. If you don’t know the story, after Shackleton’s expedition ship Endurance became trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea he and 28 men crossed a chaotic maze of ice in three salvaged boats and finally a small group including Shackleton sailed across the Southern Ocean to South Georgia to safety and to organise the rescue of the rest of the crew. The successful journey stands as one of the most impressive small boat voyages ever made – there were gales almost all the way, and it took 17 days of constant constant pumping and chipping ice from the hull and rig to prevent capsize before the little boat landed at South Georgia.

Three of the crew then climbed a four thousand foot mountain climb before staggering into Stromness whaling station to raise the alarm.

Commissioned by The Honourable Alexandra Shackleton, the new James Caird is to be used by by an expedition to re-create the voyage and mountain climb led by environmentalist and explorer Tim Jarvis.

The original boat was constructed of Baltic pine on steamed elm frames; in the absence of these, the students are using European larch on steamed oak. She is copper fastened with keel stem and a stern of grown oak. The students have planked her to the same original sheer and then built up with a further three planks in the same way as the original James Caird, and she will be decked in and canvassed. Caulking will be with cotton and she will be paid up with white lead putty, and then the whole boat will be painted white.

For more intheboatshed.net posts on the James Caird voyage and project including stunning photos of South Georgia, click here.

For more intheboatshed.net posts relating to the Beale Park Thames Boat Show, click here.

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Adventurer Tim Jarvis and the Hon Alexandra Shackleton
with the original James Caird at last year’s Earl’s Court
Sail, Power & Watersports Show

A replica of Shackleton’s famous boat the James Caird built at the the Sail, Power & Watersports Show at Earl’s Court will be used to re-enact Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1916 voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia.

The boat to be built at the show from the 26th to the 30th November is to be completed by the International Boat Building Training College (IBTC) by the end of 2009, when she will go to Antarctica to follow in the wake of the original James Caird under the leadership of adventurer Tim Jarvis.

Show sales director Caroline Evans and the Hon Alexandra Shackleton last year asked the IBTC to consider building a replica of the James Caird suitable for a re-enactment. The college then met expedition leader Tim, and the build was agreed.

Extensive help from both Dulwich College (where the original James Caird is housed) and Greenwich Maritime Museum has enabled the IBTC to build a boat that is faithful to the original.

I’ve read original expedition member Frank Worsley’s 1933 account of the original voyage Shackleton’s Boat Journey,  and all I can say is that Jarvis must be a very brave man, even if he will presumably have modern equipment to help him and his crew.

The International Boatbuilding Training College (IBTC) trains people of all ages from all over the world in the skills and techniques required to build and restore traditional wooden boats. The teaching ‘tools’ are a range of 30 boats from 9ft dinghies to 44ft blue water cruisers, all of which are completed to a professional standard.

The IBTC always runs an ‘active’ stand with work on various projects going on from building small boats to steaming mast hoops etc. The team is always happy to answer the boating public’s questions where it can, and people are welcome to ‘have a go’ where appropriate even down to such basics as sharpening a chisel.

PS – While you’re at the show, do drop in on the Wooden Boatbuilders Trade Association stand, where we’re told craftsmen will be only too happy to show you their latest work, and answer questions on restorations.

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