Category: Events

Events such as historical events, races, exhibitions, processions, regattas and so on.

BBA student launches a 14ft Joel White peapod

Joel White peapod built by Tim Talo photograph by Andy Blundy

Joel White peapod built by Tim Talo photograph by Rebecca Joseph Gail McGarva carries Tim Talo Joel White peapod built by Tim Talo photograph by Derek Thompson

Photos by Andy Blundy, Derek Thompson and Rebecca Joseph

Boat Building Academy student Tim Talo’s 14ft Joel White-designed peapod hit the water on launch day to cheers, as Tim and his friend were piggy-backed on board by rowing gig builder Gail McGarva and instructor Will Reed.

Jesta is a double-ended row and sail boat made using the strip plank technique in Western red cedar, and sheathed in glass and epoxy, with a sapele centerline and Sitka spruce mast and spars.

Photography student Tim first learned about the Academy two years ago at the Art in Action exhibition held in Oxford – while he was not particularly interested in boats, he decided that the 38-week boat building course would enable him to achieve his dream of working with wood.

Now equipped with the skills and a new found love of boats, Tim is exploring careers in both the woodworking and marine industries, and plans to row Jesta along the Great Ouse river near his Bedfordshire home.

Geoff Foulkes worked alongside Tim on Jesta’s build. After completing a masters degree in civil engineering Geoff wanted to pursue a more practical career and develop his existing woodworking skills. During the course he also built a tool box, and designed and built a Victorian sweet cart for a friend’s wedding.

For the photographic diary of the boat’s build see the BBA website.

Medway and Swale boating conference 9th March

Medway and Swale Boating Association conference programme 1

Medway and Swale Boating Association conference programme 2

Medway and Swale Boating Association secretary Tony Lavelle has asked me to help publicise the association’s conference in March.

The MSBA is in fact the old MYA, now re-constituted to represent all forms of boating on the tidal Medway and Swale.

To celebrate the its relaunch, the association is hosting a spring conference at Chatham on 9th March with Gus Lewis and Stuart Carruthers from the RYA, Paul Newman from the British Canoe Union and author, local cruising sage and East Coast Sailing contributor Dick Holness. Celebrated sailor and author Tom Cunliffe will make a keynote speech and close the conference.

There will also have representatives from Medway and Swale Councils, and Medway Ports to talk about their plans for the waterways and how they will affect the 4,000 or so boaters the association aims to represent.

For more, click on the images to see the conference details, and go to www.msba.org.uk to book your place. It’s cheaper if you book early…

The Northfleet disaster – who drowned and who was saved, and who was Mr Braud?

Northfleet lost and saved page photographs

The portraits at the bottom of this page are the Captain of the Northfleet and his wife, who are both mentioned in the song. I don’t yet know the significance of Mr Braud (or ‘Brand’ – see comments) pictured at the top

I’ve been interested in the story of the loss of the emigrant ship Northfleet off Dungeness ever since I first heard Sussex fisherman Johnny Doughty sing his song The Wreck of the Northfleet way back in the early 1980s. Here’s the song as I learned it from him.

It was an event that lodged in the minds of the people of Kent, partly because of its horror so close to shore, partly because of the mystery surrounding the identify of the ‘big and foreign vessel that crashed into her timbered sides’ and partly because of the stories survivors had to tell about the Captain shooting a man who tried to save himself ahead of the women and children, and about how the Master’s lovely young wife chose to go down with her husband.

Or are those stories made up by some hack in order to sell the printed ballad on the streets?

This account tells the story:

‘On the 22nd January 1873, the emigrant ship Northfleet, while riding at anchor in Dungeness Roads, was run down by a large steamer which proceeded on her way. Panic broke out on board, the night was pitch black and only two boats got away in the fight to get aboard. Mary [a fishing lugger] was anchored off Dungeness and her master, George Pout, saw the distress rockets, hove up and bore away, narrowly missing one of the lifeboats, deep laden with 34 people and sinking, no one had thought of putting in the plug. After taking all on board the lugger went on, but found nothing. Northfleet had sunk with the loss of 327 lives. Later the Spanish [ship] Murillo was identified as the guilty steamship.’

For more on the Northfleet story including a much fuller account and the song, click here and page back through the previous posts.

Northfleet lost and saved page 13 Northfleet lost and saved page 14 Northfleet lost and saved page 15

Northfleet lost and saved page 16 Northfleet lost and saved page 17