Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
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A lady called Anne Francis has asked to put out an appeal to identify the ships in this painting she owns of the harbour at St Johns. It’s dated 1958.
My guess is that these might be fishing craft – perhaps the motor equivalent of the White Ships we’ve discussed before on this weblog.
Can anyone help with something better than as guess please? Contact me at gmatkin@gmail.com or using the comment link below, and I’ll pass the word along.
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The last remaining viable example of the feared German Schnellboots, S130 has been in restoration at the Roving Commissions yard at Southdown in Cornwall for some time.
Roving Commissions is run by John Owles, the man who identified the wreck of the historic yacht Scoter as a bawley type. Read more about Scoter.
The 35m torpedo boats had three 2500hp engines a maximum speed of 40knots, and it turns out that S130 was a particularly successful example. Commissioned in the autumn of 1943, she was part of the 9th S-Boot flotilla that in March 1944 found and attacked the American invasion force in Lyme Bay during Operation Tiger, the D-Day preparation training exercise at Slapton Sands that ended in the deaths of more than 740 American forces.
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Chris Partridge of the Rowing for Pleasure weblog went rowing on Monday (when doesn’t he?) and noticed this traditional Sussex beach boat somewhere up a West Sussex creek.
The great thing about this boat, is that she seems to be rigged for sailing, unlike her motor-only sisters up and down the coast. Thanks for the shots Chris!
See Chris’s report of his rowing trip here; and click here for more posts about this kind of boat and Hastings, where a large number are still to be found among the beach-based fishing fleet.
