Category: Barges and wherries

Barges and wherries and other working boats originally for carrying cargoes

Mike Maloney’s Red Sails sailing barge film now available

Red Sails A4 free screening poster

Red Sails, the new film about the story of the sailing barges made by Mike Maloney, is now available on DVD from the Countrywide Productions website following a public screening last week.

I’m looking forward to receiving my copy and will write about it shortly – but I’m expecting a lot, given the welcome it has received:

  • Many congratulations on the magnificent film. I think the applause at the end expressed everybody’s sentiment – William Collard – project manager, Cambria Trust
  • Bob and I – and many other people I talked to afterwards – thoroughly enjoyed Red Sails. It was well researched, beautifully filmed and put together. The film is a valuable contribution to the understanding of the Thames Barge – Lena Reekie
  • I was very impressed by the film and treatment of the subject. It ‘reached’ me and I thought that the treatment of Jimmy Lawrence and Bill Collard was very effective in binding the film sections together – Phil Latham, ex-mate of the Cambria

Faversham boatbuilding apprenticeship scheme to open in 2013

The Purifier Building - home to the new Maritime Heritage Apprentice Training Centre

Faversham Creek Trust officials have announced a new maritime apprentice training centre is to be opened in the old Purifier Building by the side of the upper part of the Creek.

The Maritime Heritage Apprentice Training Centre will enable six student apprentices each year to gain a City & Guilds qualification up to NVQ level 3 over a period of three years. There will also be other short and part-time courses for young and mature trainees, and there may be bursaries.

The Trust says it is confident these accredited courses will lead to employment.

The craft to be worked on by the apprenticeship scheme will be traditional boats suitable for training and which can be delivered to the scheme building. New boats built by the students will be small enough to be built inside the building; access to the building will be from the water, and through a new door.

The new scheme builds on an earlier apprenticeship scheme that began with the restoration of the Thames sailing barge Cambria, which was completed this year.

‘We have had enormous support from our members and the people of Faversham, who are very keen to see the the Creek Basin used by traditional craft again,’ said master shipwright Simon Grillet. ‘We hope the Apprentice Training Centre and its need for waterborne suppliers and customers will be helpful to other Faversham Creek restoration projects.’

The organisation is also grateful for the Purifier Buildings owner, the Morrison’s supermarket chain, for enabling it to secure a long lease on the historic site in return for restoring the building and equipping it as workshops for the training centre and allied maritime trades.

A spokesman for the trust said: ‘We cannot thank Morrisons enough for their imaginative contribution to this project, which will provide training and jobs for the young people of Faversham and Kent.’

The trust is now engaged in raising funds from private and public sources for the restoration of the building, which will cost over £100,000, and take the best part of a year to complete. This will enable the first apprentices to start their courses in the New Year of 2013.

The Trust is also working with other organisations to open up the upper part of the Creek to navigation. Medway Ports will open the sluice gates, which will allow some vessels into the Basin, including small dredgers.

Anyone wishing to support the project financially or to become a Trust member is invited to write to: Faversham Creek Trust, c/o The Faversham Society, Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre, 13 Preston Street ME13 8NS. All contributions will be eligible for gift aid.

Films online from the East Anglian Film Archive

East Anglian Film Archive

There’s some great film at the East Anglian Film Archive 

Inteboatshed.net readers Paul Mullings and John Button have been in touch to tell me about material they’ve found on the East Anglian Film Archive – and in doing so, they’ve opened a Pandora’s box.

There’s some wonderful stuff here. Typing the word ‘wherry‘ into the search box reveals a selection of videos about the craft and the trade they used to ply, including reminiscences from old wherryman Nat Bircham and a cracking sequence in which the Albion breaks her mast on-camera.

Punch in the word ‘barge‘ and you’re immediately rewarded with Venture On The Wind, an eleven-minute film made in 1970  and described as ‘an impressionistic study of an outing of cine film enthusiasts on a Thames sailing barge on the River Orwell‘. The barge sails from Pin Mill.

There’s a useful film about the history and tradition of maritime East Anglia, but my own personal favourite has to be Here’s A Health To The Barley Mow, filmed at the legendary Blaxhall Ship Inn some time in the fifties. The Ship is a wonderful put that I’m glad to say is still a singing pub today – in fact, they’ll be singing this lunchtime as they always do on a Monday. There should be more pubs like the Ship, and more singers too.

There’s a job to be done in searching the other film archives around the country for similar material – for someone who has the time. Meanwhile – thanks Paul and John!