Tag: Faversham

Please sign the petition in support of Standard Quay’s boatbuilding future

Standard Quay

Standard Quay, winter 2010/11

 

Please sign this e-petition – it offers an opportunity to register public support for the aim of saving Faversham’s Standard Quay from a development that many fear could curtail or end the traditional boat building and repairing.

It’s a cause that deserves the support of anyone who cares about the future of traditional boat building, and about the future of the priceless Thames sailing barge fleet.

(If on signing you don’t immediately receive a confirmation email you haven’t signed, so please dig it out and click on the confirmation link. It’ll most likely be in your spam or trash folders.)

If you’re new to this issue, read more about the danger to Standard Quay at the Faversham Creek website and from this national newspaper article, and from the campaign press release, which I’ve posted in the comments below. (It’s not my press release, but I felt people should be able to access it.)

Also, do please take a moment to read the latest news and watch a short movie about Faversham Creek and Standard Quay put together by local film maker Simon Clay and journalist Richard Fleury. In relation to that site, I’d be curious to know which of the facts included in Simon Henley’s article are held to be incorrect by councillors. The news section of Simon and Richard’s site will explain what I mean.

I should report that I wrote to many of the local councillors just before an important meeting held in November and did not receive a single reply – not even an acknowledgement. (I have now had a reply from Mike Cosgrove.)

Finally, if you can, please pass this message to friends interested in this issue. The easiest way may be to select, copy and paste this web address into an email: http://intheboatshed.net/?p=12714

PS – The weblogs are taking up this story:

http://thetroublewitholdboats.blogspot.com/2011/02/save-standard-quay.html

Steel-hulled schooner for sale, lying at Standard Quay, Faversham

Schooner for sale

Schooner for sale

A pal and I dropped by Standard Quay at Faversham to see if we could spot a little lugger that we’d heard a friend is considering buying, so I took the opportunity to bag some photos of how things are there now. I’m sorry if you feel they’re not up to my usual standard – on arrival I discovered the battery of my usual camera was flat and so had to use my mobile phone, which seems to produce quite blue-grey images. I must get a spare.

Anyway, if you’re in the market for a steel-hulled schooner liveaboard, the one currently for sale at Standard Quay may be just what you’re looking for. It looked in pretty good shape to us, though neither of us has ever seen it sailing. The schooner’s pictured above.

Lady of the Lea Thames sailing barge Lady of the Lea Thames sailing barge Cambria being renovated

Roxane at Faversham Thames sailing barge Cambria being renovated

On a more cheerful note, the first two shots above are of the lovely small Thames sailing barge Lady of the Lea, two shots of Bob Roberts’ old sailing barge Cambria in restoration and a nice little Roxane that lives on the creek here.

And below is the bow of another Thames sailing barge Lady Daphne, here in a dry dock being repaired after a racing accident (I believe) and the yuppie flats that have already encroached the area opposite Standard Quay. The blue banner reads ‘Save Standard Quay’. For more on the Standard Quay campaign, click here.

Lady Daphne, Save Standard Quay banner

Lady Daphne, Save Standard Quay banner

Itchen Ferry Wonder in the Swale, photograph and comment by Dick Holness

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Wonder photographed in the Swale by Dick Holness

Itchen Ferry Wonder in the Swale, photographed by Dick Holness

Most readers may not have noticed our pal East Coast Pilot author Dick Holness’s comment about the 160-year old Dan Hatcher-built Itchen Ferry boat Wonder, which now resides in Oare Creek, just off the Swale.

Here’s what he says:

‘Strange coincidences at work here.

‘Many years ago my brother (who was a naval architect and old boat nut, and worked for Campers and then Vosper Thorneycroft at Southampton) was one of those who helped look after Wonder for the Nicolay family. In return he occasionally sailed her. I never did, but had seen pics of her.

‘So I’m trundling down Oare Creek in the Spring 2010 in my boat (modern plastic fantastic, sorry!) and passing Tester’s Yard, I idly glanced across and saw a small black bow up on the hard with the lettering SU120. Hmmm, I thought, that rings a bell but I can’t think why. And thought nothing more of it.

‘The very next day I received an email from someone I had never heard of, sent to the secretary’s email address for Hollowshore Cruising Club (I am the Hon Sec this year). “Hello,” it said, “I am the owner of an Itchen Ferry down near Portsmouth, and heard that another, called Wonder, has been sold up your way. Do you happen to know who’s bought her?”‘

‘It was one of those moments when you wonder if there are strange forces at work! The sender of the email was pretty astounded too when I rang him up, and since then he’s been in touch with my brother.

‘In the meantime, I have enjoyed seeing Wonder out on the Swale several times this year – she looks splendid, and whoever the owner is certainly knows how to sail her.’

Many thanks for the comment and photo Dick! I can only apologise for not being able to come to the laying-up social – I’m afraid we just have to put it down to family business, but we are certainly looking forward to spending more time at the club and on our boats when life settles down.

I’d just like to say that Hollowshore Cruising Club at the head of Oare Creek near Faversham now has a splendid new website and that I’ve been looking for an excuse to link to it for a little while: www.hollowshorecc.co.uk.