Category: Racing rowing and paddling

National Maritime Museum Cornwall small boat register goes online

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St Agnes lighthouse, Scilly Isles – see
the news about Troze below

The National Maritime Museum Cornwall’s small boats register has gone online – and we’re all invited to let its organisers know of any craft that should be included. I should think there are hundreds!

Here’s the NMMC’s release on this important project:

‘Over the past few years, National Maritime Museum Cornwall has been working on a database of boats which deserve heritage protection. With the help of other museums, owners and charitable trusts, the Museum has been assembling a list of over 1200 boats.

‘Now part of this database known as the National Small Boat Register including boats under 40ft in length, is available on the web and everyone is invited to help make it the definitive list for the UK.

‘The list is modelled on the database used for ships – the National Register of Historic Vessels – but uses a new ‘history pod’ to identify key dates in a craft’s history.

‘Jonathan Griffin, director of the Maritime Museum says: “There is still much work to do. We need to obtain owners’ permission to publicise details of some of the boats we already hold on the database. We’d welcome hearing from everyone about other boats which they feel should be included in the Register.”

‘Looking ahead, the Museum is keen to develop a discussion forum to make the whole register inclusive and a place where enthusiasts can exchange information about the boats.

‘Have a look at the research area of the Museum’s website at www.nmmc.co.uk and see if your boat or a boat you know of should be registered.’

Also new from the NMMC has also launched an interesting-looking quarterly online journal called Troze. The first issue concerns wrecking on the Isles of Scilly.

Museum’s staff sayTroze will welcome article submissions from enthusiastic researchers, writers or people who are knowledgeable or passionate about their topics.

If you’re wondering, as I was, the title of the journal is taken from the Cornish word for the sound made by water about the bows of a boat in motion.

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News from my inbox

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Diana Berry, a descendant of six of the original Mystery
crew, names the Spirit of Mystery; the crowds turn out
to watch the ceremony. Click on the images for a
bigger picture! Photos by Mark Lloyd of Lloyd Images

Spirit of Mystery naming ceremony – Pete Goss’s replica Cornish lugger is named by original crew descendant Diana Berry.

Royal timber helps restore historic Lynn fishing boat

For love of a boat – racing seine boats on the River Teign

The ancient wooden boat retrieved from the Huong River in May – marine archaeology in Vietnam

Lance Lee and Lansing Madura – Indonesian fishing boat revealed by the weblog Indigenous Boats

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The Boat Building Academy builds a gig for the new Lyme Regis Gig Club

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Photos of the new pilot gig Rebel, built at the Boat Building Academy –
in the first Gail McGarva sits under the boat she project-managed.
As usual, click on the thumbnails for much larger photos

Lyme Regis’s well known Boat Building Academy agreed to build a pilot gig for the newly formed Lyme Regis Gig Club just over a year ago. It doesn’t normally undertake commercial work but this was a commission the Academy couldn’t refuse, according to principal Yvonne Green.

Former student and British Marine Federation Trainee of the Year 2005 turned instructor Gail McGarva project-managed the build and involved as many students and members of the local community as possible, including evening classes for members of the gig club to make their own oars – all of the school contributed even down to knocking in a rivet.

The students were not involved on a day to day basis as they were busy with their own boats but because the gig was in the main workshops it seems to have made a useful teaching aid, and Yvonne reports that the gig was launched on the 29th June with due ceremony. The mayor, the vicar, the town crier, students and the town all came, blessings were read, salt was strewn and the gig was rowed successfully across Lyme Regis’s sizeable bay.

‘The pilot gig measurers said it was one of the best gigs they had seen,’ she adds with pride.

Lyme Regis Gig Club named the new boat Rebel after the Duke of Monmouth, who started his 17th-century rebellion against the Crown on Monmouth beach, where the Boat Building Academy now stands.

Follow the link for more on the Boat Building Academy.

The Telegraph newspaper recently published a long feature on the Academy. I’m envious by the way – I wish people would commission me to write pieces like that!

For more intheboatshed.net posts including material about pilot gigs, click here.

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