For sale: pilot cutter Breeze, and cutter Medusa Bay

Pilot cutter Breeze

I’ve learned that two great but very different boats are for sale.

The 39ft pilot cutter Breeze is up for auction on eBay. She was built in 1887 by Coopers of Pill near Bristol for the pilot Albert Cope.

She started her working life working from Cardiff in 1887 and continued to work primarily in the same family ownership until around 1912. She’s believed to be the second oldest Bristol Channel pilot cutter still around, and the only remaining example of a Coopers of Pill-built cutter.

Also the Conyer-built 37ft cutter Medusa Bay is for sale priced at €90,000 in Belgium. She’s said to be in near perfect condition, and I know she has a number of admirers in North Kent, so if anyone is interested, contact me at gmatkin@gmail.com and I’ll put you in touch with the current owner.

  

 

Red Sails DVD is a cracker… get it for Christmas!

Stills from the film Red Sails about the working boats we call sailing barges Stills from the film Red Sails about the working boats we call sailing barges

Stills from the film Red Sails about the working boats we call sailing barges

Stills from the film Red Sails

Last night Julie and I finally grabbed some time to watch Mike Maloney’s splendid Red Sails film on DVD. I can report that it’s a cracker.

The new footage is wonderful, but the old footage Mike found is really something, not least because it reveals so much. I thought I’d read enough to know a little about these old working boats but had no idea, for example, that when they were loaded with bricks they were brought on board by hand, in small numbers by each man.

Again, I hadn’t realised that Conyer and Halstow had been such busy centres for the brick trade, and I’d forgotten if I ever knew it that the ‘rough stuff’ hearth ash brought down the estuary by the barges was mixed with clay to make the bricks. Presumably that’s what makes the dark markings that make the characteristic London brick so handsome.

The footage also of the old barge skippers Jimmy Lawrence and Don Satin adds to the value of the film – we’re so lucky it has been made at a time when there are still old barge skippers around to be interviewed. Needless to say, they’re both excellent value in this film – having seem Jimmy Lawrence telling his stories before I knew what to expect, but Don Satin’s a great find, for me at least.

I’d like also to thank Mike Maloney for taking the trouble to include some good, useful stuff about the last of the barge skippers Bob Roberts, including his role as a singer of old and traditional songs. This aspect of Roberts seems often to be neglected by enthusiasts for these old boats, and I think it’s a great shame. I remember him singing years ago, and it will probably surprise some readers that I sometimes take singer friends over to Faversham to show them the Cambria, as a kind of pilgrimage.

Red Sails, the new film about the story of the sailing barges, is available on DVD from the Countrywide Productions website.

Does anyone know the story of gaff rigged cutter Medusa Bay please?

Medusa Bay

Medusa Bay Medusa Bay

A chap called Udo has been in touch to ask for information about a boat he has bought recently.

She’s a strip-planked 37ft gaff-rigged cutter named Medusa Bay and is currently in a marina at Hull – though he plans in the spring to sail her to Blankenberge, Belgium.

Udo was put in touch with intheboatshed.net because has been told that she was built at Faversham. We’ve since learned that she was actually built at Conyer, though her spars came from Faversham. Still, I’m sure Udo would be delighted to learn more about her story, and for any old photos readers may have to hand please!

PS Now in the autumn of 2012 Medusa Bay is for sale. Contact me at gmatkin@gmail.com, and I’ll put you in touch with the owner.