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This all-mod-cons boatbuilding shed at Bosham is on sale via estate agents Jackson-Stops and Staff in Chichester
Zulu skiff Ocean Pearl restored by Nick Gates
Family matters and moving house are conspiring to keep me away from my computer and the Internet this week, but I’ve just about found time to put a post and these photos up from Chris Partridge. South Coast boatbuilders look out – this could be just the shed for you!
‘How about this for a boat shed? It has all the new technology including dust control, insulation, three phase power etc etc. Luxury!
‘It was built on the site of the old Combes yard at Bosham, entirely because the developer wasn’t allowed to cover the site with houses. The local council and the harbour conservancy didn’t want to lose all capacity for
boatbuilding in the area. Unfortunately, it seems likely that the shed will be demolished and replaced with a house anyway – an estate agent chum ofmine says it is to be sold with one of the new houses, and the owner is likely to hang on to it for a year, and make an application to replace it with a house on the grounds that no-one wants to build boats in it. So if anyone wants a cracking boatshed, apply to Jackson-Stops and Staff in Chichester.
‘I took the snap while out rowing, and coincidentally passed Ocean Pearl, a 1933 zulu skiff that originally fished out of Peterhead. She was restored by Nick Gates at Combes before it went under at the end of the last century. Doesn’t she look great?
‘There are pictures of the restoration on his website at www.nickgates.co.uk. The old Combes shed was definitely time-expired, but the new one deserves to have boats such as Ocean Pearl brought back to life in it.’
Warington Smyth’s Mast and Sail in Europe and Asia has more on the zulu, and explains how it derived from the fifie and the scaffie.
See Nick’s website at www.nickgates.co.uk.
Is Ocean Pearl a zulu, fifie or a baldie? Click here.
Shed-tacular! But since when is a big boy like that called a 'skiff'? Is that a bit like when you call a 'pebble' what we would call 'rock as big as your fist'?
Cheers
David
It's a lot smaller than the full-sized zulus! It's said that fishing fleets of zulus made a tremendous sight, particularly when racing home with their catches. As they would all be travelling at 10 knots on a good day, I have no trouble believing it.
I don't know whether there are any full-sized zulus left, but I'd certainly like to see one. One to that, I'd also be delighted to see the Ocean Pearl!
Gav