Category: Sailing ships

The Pentreath photo archive talk at the NMMC, Falmouth

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Newlyn harbour; portrait of a Porthleven fisherman; unloading, Mevagissey harbour; launching lifeboat, Port Isaac; Princess Victoria. Click on the thumbnails to see larger photos. Images courtesy of the Pentreath Photographic Archives of Cornish Maritime History

This post marks the 1000th intheboatshed.net post! Hurrah!

Professor Jan Pentreath will reveal some items from his archive of local images dating from the mid-nineteenth century up to the end of the 1930s at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall at Falmouth on the 7th December 2009.

The event is an illustrated public talk titled Snapshots of Cornish maritime history and is part of a programme combining a lecture and lunch exploring different historical and nautical themes. Prof Pentreath says: ‘Each image represents a snapshot of our rich local maritime history and reveals the lives of the men and women who lived and worked on our waters. This talk will look at a number of stunning images and the fascinating stories behind them.’

The lecture and set lunch is from 12.30pm on Monday, 7 December and costs £12.50. To book your place please call 01326 214546.

For more intheboatshed.net posts on events and exhibitions at the NMMC, click here.

Spectacular photos of working boats and houseboats in Hong Kong’s harbours

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Boats of Hong Kong – click on the images for a larger photo

Hong Kong resident and photography enthusiast Matthew Atkin has kindly sent me this collection of his stunning shots – I guess the fact that he’s also my brother had something to do with it!

I’ve never been to the Far East (though will have to save up to travel there now my brother ands his family have set up residence), but I’m struck that while Hong Kong’s tower blocks seem very familiar, nothing else seems at all like anything I know, including the hills, the boats and ships and even the colour of the sea. I think Matt shot these images using his Leica camera, so I’m confident that the colour rendition here is accurate.

I’d like to say that these boats are junks and sampans and that some of the images of small boats include yulohs but I can’t, for neither Matt nor I can give these craft and their components their proper names. If anyone would like to help, please use the Comment link below.

Thanks for the photos Matt – I’ll post some more in a few days.

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Crunch time for the sad clipper ship City of Adelaide – can you help?

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The City of Adelaide again. Photo courtesy of Paula Palmer of
the National Historic Ships

Rather late in the day, I’ve just received news of the last chance to save the other’ last clipper, the City of Adelaide from the Australian group trying to preserve her.

There’s more information on the history of the ship and their campaign and appeal here, and also a gut-wrenching open letter to the people of the UK and our political leaders. It seems unthinkable to let a clipper from the middle of the 19th century go now after surviving so long.

This is the message I’ve received:

‘On the 22nd October, the Scottish Maritime Museum issued a tender for the demolition of the City of Adelaide. Tenders close on Monday 23rd November.

‘We are preparing an offer to submit by the deadline on Monday. Our offer will be based on removing the City of Adelaide whole and thus save her from being permanently lost to future generations.

‘We urgently seek your help to raise an additional A$200,000 to enable us to bid a lower price for our tender submission. This will improve our competitiveness against the cheaper chainsaw and bulldozer options.

‘We already have offers of in-kind support from industry for labour and materials that will be needed in Scotland and Australia but we need more industrial in-kind help. If you are in a heavy engineering industry and believe that you could supply labour, steel and/or equipment for use either in Australia or Scotland then we are most keen for you to contact us This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

‘At this time we would like to acknowledge the support of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects (London) commemorating their 150th year 1860-2010, and Aztec Analysis (Adelaide) heavy lift engineers.

‘We do need more support. Would you please consider supporting our cause to save the City of Adelaide clipper through a financial contribution?’

In publicising the Australian claim to rescuing the dear old City of Adelaide, I’m in danger of forgetting another aspect of the story – the fact that there are people in Sunderland, where she was built, who would also dearly love to retrieve her and care for her. In fact, one of that illustrious town’s councillors recently camped on board the old ship to draw attention to her plight. See the BBC’s news story here.