Category: History

Replica 18th century shipwright’s workshop to be built at Buckler’s Hard

Buckler's Hard

This year sees the building of a new replica timber-framed 18th century shipwrights’ workshop at the old shipbuilding village of Buckler’s Hard by the Beaulieu River.

Once built using local timber, the workshop will become a centre for the teaching and study of traditional shipbuilding, working in partnership with the Portsmouth branch of the International Boatbuilding Training College (IBTC).

The school’s aim is to ensure the continuation of shipwright skills for the restoration of historic ships, and to support the traditional boatbuilding industry.

Nearby woodland will allow students to be taught about timber felling, conversion and storage.

The building project will also be used as a learning exercise, with students taught to use traditional tools and methods, and the building is planned to be raised in in early August 2014 using the traditional gin pole and block and tackle, and then pegged together with cleft oak trunnels.

Read more here and here.

Lifeboats looking for new owners

The latest National Historic Ships newsletter reports that the converted Watson class lifeboat Gramarie is looking for a new owner (click here for details). On Guernsey it seems the Liverpool class lifeboat JB Couper is also in need of someone to love it (click here).

The rotting ghost ships of Mallows Bay

Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay, Maryland

This is an extraordinary story. When the USA entered the World War I in 1917, it had warships by lacked transport vessels – so President Woodrow Wilson ordered the building of 1,000 300-ft long steamships to be built in just 18 months. Because the job had to be done in a hurry and to keep costs down, the ships were built in wood rather than expensive steel – but even then by the time the Germans surrendered in November 1918 only 76 of the 130 completed vessels had been used to carry cargo as intended.

The moment the peace was declared, the vessels became redundant – but production continued for a period. In the end some 264 were completed, and many ended up in Mallows bay. Read the whole sorry tale here.