Category: wooden boat

Sardine carrier Jacob Pike finds a new home

Jacob PIKE sardine carrier

Sardine carrier Jacob Pike

Penobscot Marine Museum of Maine, USA, has put up a very nice short series of films about the Maine sardine industry in general and the elegant sardine carrier Jacob Pike in particular.

The museum has been forced to abandon the attempt to convert the Pike into a floating classroom because safety regulations would have required such great changes to the vessel that it would have lost much of its historical value – but she has been bought by a local lobster fisherman, Jamie Steeves, who is determined to preserve the vessel.

Jamie recently rebuilt a historic wooden-hulled tanker, the Rockland Gulf, which is of about the same size as the Pike, and the museum is confident the sardine carrier will receive good care.

Following repairs, the Pike will be used as a bait carrier and will be berthed at Rockland, where she will be a visible reminder of the city’s waterfront heritage.

Lottery funds lerret oral history project

Gail McGarva Lerret Littlesea

Locals celebrate the launching of the newly built lerret Littlsea

Lyme-based traditional boatbuilder Gail Mc Garva and Lyme Regis Museum have won Heritage Lottery funding for a new project designed to enable people to learn and participate in the maritime heritage of the Dorset coast by exploring and sharing the story of the ancient local clinker-built lerret.

Titled Maritime Lyme and the Lerret, the project includes an oral history project that will collect, preserve and share stories connected with the traditional boats, and the material will be made accessible to the public online via a new website and in the form of a physical archive.

Also, 2011 will see a touring exhibition of the living history of the lerret with related community events. At the heart of this exhibition will be two lerrets, Vera, built in 1923 and the new boat Littlesea built by Gail in 2010 with funding from the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust.

PS – I gather that Gail will be starting a project to build an impressive third rowing gig for Lyme in the autumn of next year.

Tait’s Seamanship, or how to sail a ship, part III

Tait's Seamanship 1913 Cover

Here’s another segment of the Tait’s Seamanship primer for the Board Of Trade examination for ships’ officers. See part I and part II.

Once again, it’s in the time-honoured maritime question-and-answer format. Among the points covered are how to tack and wear ship, when to start cutting down masts when the ship is on its beam ends, and which mast to start with, the importantce of maintaining ships boats in usable condition, and the reason why seamen who are cast adrift should soak their underpants in sea water. I’m not sure I really believe that last one, by the way.

Click on the thumbnails in turn for much larger images.

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