Category: History

The extraordinary screw lift dock at Barbados

These photos by Chris Brady are of the remarkable screw lift dock at Barbados – the last remaining lift of its kind in the world. (I have his permission to publish, but he retains all rights.)

Screw lifts were invented in the early part of the 19th century to enable ship repairs to be carried out more quickly than using the traditional dry dock, and New York, Baltimore and Singapore each had their own.

Completed in 1893, it could lift up to 1,200 tons, and measured 240ft in length, 46ft wide beam and could handle vessels drawing up to 14 ft – it operated by steam, but was later converted to electric power.

Chris has more photos here, there is a brief explanation of screw lifts here, and read a more about the Barbados screw lift here and here.

Thanks for the shots Chris!

Row St Kilda to Skye – 100 miles of very hard work

Row St Kilda to Skye

These folks’ project is to row the 100 mile distance from St Kilda – a remote island that was abandoned in 1930 – to the Isle of Skye in a boat that was built in around 1890, and which hasn’t been used since 1913.

The legend says that on that occasion a visiting lady had missed the scheduled steamer, and the boat was used to row her to meet the same steamer at a later stop at Stromeferry – and ever since that day, it has hung in the rafters of a boathouse.

Before she makes her first big outing for more than a century, however, she is being restored to her former glory.

The trip itself will be very weather-dependant: it will need a big high to calm the Atlantic seas to make it possible to row to Portree via the sound of Harris, around the top of Rhuba Hunish, down the sound of Raasay, past the Black Rock and into Portree harbour. There will be four crew members rowing at any time, each with one wooden hollow sculled oar and a fixed wooden seat, and a coxswain whose jobs will be keeping time, navigating, and bailing – out water! Another four rowers will be on a support vessel, and the two teams will change over at intervals.

The group is training – it has no previous rowing experience – and expects to be rowing for anything between 38 and 48 hours. Apparently, they expect blisters, back pain, sleep deprivation, exhaustion and a certain amount of chafing from the wooden seats… I guess long-distance rowers with some experience might well be able to offer them some useful advice.

There’s a charity dimension to the project also; money raised is to go to the RNLI and Skye & Lochalsh Young Carers.

Read all about Row St Kilda to Skye here.

PS Canoe and lute builder, Phil Bolger boat builder and astronomer and Bill Samson suggests has pointed out that some time ago the BBC Alba screened a TV programme about two women from the Stornoway Canoe Club on the Isle of Lewis, Dolina Swanson and Christine Stewart, recreating a 1965 canoe journey by Hamish and Anne Gow.

The Gows became the first kayakers to make the treacherous 40-plus mile sea journey from the Western Isles to the mystical islands of St Kilda.

Lewis boat builder Angus Smith re-create the original plywood and canvas Clyde double kayak – for the trip… See the BBC’s page of information, a clip and photos here. Thanks Bill!

Who was Bernard Gilboy, forgotten sailing legend?

11_Pacific_1882_Bernard_Gilboy

Who was he? Folks today might well ask…

The Wikipedia has this single, stark sentence describing what Gilboy did in 1882-3:

‘In 1882, Bernard Gilboy sailed a 19-foot (6 m) schooner that he built himself from San Francisco 7,000 miles (11,265 km) miles across the Pacific in 162 days until he was picked up exhausted and starving off Queensland, Australia after a swordfish pierced his hull and he lost the rudder.’

Weblogger Thomas Armstrong has a post about Gilboy at 70.8% quoting Webb Chiles’s take on the trans-Pacific sailor’s astonishing achievement – he links to Chiles’ own website, which describes Gilboy’s almost successful attempt to make the first solo voyage across the Pacific Ocean as ‘among the greatest almost unknown voyages’.

There’s also an informative French language article about Gilboy at the Atlantic Yacht Club web site. It seems Gilboy’s inspiration was Alfred Johnson, who famously crossed the Atlantic alone in his sailing dory Centennial in 1876.

Gilboy is best known today for the short book he wrote, A Voyage of Pleasure, which was reprinted in the 1950s, and can still be found here and there. I’ve ordered a copy and I look forward to receiving it. I understand the photo shown above comes from Gilboy’s book, and shows the ingenious jury rig he set up after being dismasted and losing much of his stores.

Chiles reports that the title comes from the customs clearance papers, which described his planned trip as ‘a voyage of pleasure’ – I suppose none of the other usual descriptions seemed to fit. Contrary to the expectations of most Europeans, it seems this American had a highly developed sense of irony…

If like me you ever wonder what happened to great adventurers after their moment in the limelight, you may be interested to know that Gilboy worked on the trams, became skipper of a steamer named Centennial. Sadly, Gilboy, his crew and ship came to a bad end – they died of cold and starvation while stuck in ice near the Island of  Sakhaline in 1906.