Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
Photos of the rowed lifeboat rescue mission to the sailing barge Sepoy 80-odd years ago published by the EDP show the reality of what lifeboatmen had to cope with.
Notice the surf, and the terrified barge crew hanging on in the rigging.
I find these photos very sobering… and even more so is the thought that the Sepoy was only a few hundred yards from shore, unlike many such rescues. Those crews were very brave and very tough – and still are.
This is quite something: the log is dug out and the exterior shape cut, then the log is opened out and framed, and then a sheer strake is added.
This is ancient history in action – and arguably marks the change in direction in boat evolution that eventually led to the very earliest beginnings of clinker construction.
This is Haughty Belle, a barge built for racing that was either an aristocrat among Thames sailing barges, or a black sheep that should never have been built, depending on how you view these things.
My thanks to Simon North of the excellent Thames Sailing Barges Facebook group for spotting this photo.
The National Maritime Museum has a striking model of her hull, which shows just how far her hull deviated from the usual Thames sailing barge form – but even in the photo above, the yacht-like cutaway stem and stern are clearly unlike other barges.
There’s a drawing showing the form of most Thames sailing barges here (scroll down a bit).
She was built for EJ Goldsmith in wood as a counter-stern racing barge with iron leeboards. She won a race in 1896 and her design was described as ‘astonishing’ – however, I gather she did not compete in further races because the owners of most of the other barges declined to race against her on the grounds that she wasn’t a bargbe but a yacht.
However, Haughty Belle did carry cargoes for a living, and I gather she had to have her beatiful counter cut off after about 10 years in trade, as it was too easily damaged.
She was eventually broken up at Cubitt’s yacht basin at Chiswick.