Category: Culture: songs, stories, photography and art

Traditions and culture relevant to the world of real boating and sailors

A replica of the ocean-crossing caique, Bom Successo

When a boatbuilder goes on a trip to the Algarve – a holiday, I’m guessing – what do they do? In my experience they usually find time to look at boats in among the other stuff.

Dorset boatbuilder Ian Baird (contact him here or here) has sent these pictures of the splendid replica of the Bom Sucesso, a caique reconstructed from a drawing of 1808 of a vessel that sailed the Atlantic Ocean from Olhão to Brazil.

‘The Portuguese were rebelling against the French Garrison.

‘Some and 17 men made the voyage on this boat to deliver the news that the French had been beaten and removed from the Algarve, to the King in exile, Dom João IV. They arrived at their destination in less than three months.

‘Cheers, Ian, your correspondent in Southern Europe… ‘

Photos of shipbuilding in the Victorian era

FRANCE – CIRCA 1890: Le Havre (Seine-Maritime). Maintenance of boats in the dock of Commerce, about 1900. (Photo by ND/Roger Viollet/Getty Images)
31st July 1863: An iron-cased Russian battery ship in dock. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
1865: A group of top-hatted ‘worthies’ in a shipyard. The liner Tancore can be seen in the background. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

For some stunning photos of shipbuilding in the Victorian era, see this collection taken from Retronaut.

My thanks to Malcolm Woods for the tipoff!

 

 

Working and life on the Norfolk Broads in the late 19th Century

2003-5001_3_21475_50, 7/2/05, 1:51 pm, 8C, 4628×5570 (318+737), 88%, bent 6 stops, 1/15 s, R26.1, G28.7, B73.7
1990-5037-P13/8/6, 27/4/05, 2:38 pm, 8C, 6630×3444 (725+3383), 125%, bent 6 stops, 1/15 s, R37.4, G18.7, B35.3
2003-5001_2_21472, 25/6/04, 10:30 am, 8C, 5076×3438 (858+2979), 112%, bent 6 stops, 1/15 s, R26.6, G28.4, B72.4

My pal Malcolm Woods has just found a new online collection of Victorian photographer Peter Henry Emerson’s atmospheric shots depicting the Norfolk Broads.

They’re stunning – though I can’t help that despite the dreamy tranquility they do seem to depict a hard and narrow-looking sort of life. There would be work and the struggle of getting by all week and on Saturday, of course – and then on Sunday there would other duties for many, often listening to fiery sermons in the chapel.

When novelist LP Hartley wrote: ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there,’ he could so easily have been writing about these folks.