Tag: restoration

Restored Cuban fishing boat was used by refugees fleeing to Florida

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Fishing boat used by Cuban refugees restored

Fishing boat used by Cuban refugees restored Restored fishing boat used by Cuban refugees Restored Cuban fishing boat used by refugees

Esperanza, the day she was relaunched and at earlier stages in her restoration

It’s been a great few days for people sending me photographs, and here are some more. If any of you happen to have any stories to tell and photographs to share, please send them in!

Robin Marshall, a supporter of the Florida Gulf Coast Maritime Museum sent us these photos of a little flat-bottomed fishing boat that someone had used to sail from Cuba to the USA.

I’ve tried imagining what it must have been like so far from land in such a small boat – a flatiron skiff so small and limited in terms of seaworthiness that most of us wouldn’t sail more than a mile or two out in it, let alone the 90-plus these this brave crew must have covered.

It was all years ago, so I hope the weather was good and that what they thought they wanted really was what they wanted after all!

Here’s what Robin has to say:

‘Hi Gavin.

‘I thought you might be interested in an unusual restoration.

‘Our local maritime museum the Florida Gulf Coast Maritime Museum in Cortez took on this project – the remains of a Cuban refugee fishing boat.

‘It had been left to rot in someones yard down in southern Florida and was almost rotted away.

‘Under the guidance of Bob Pitt, who is in charge of the workshop, the museum restored her using as much as possible of her original timbers. She was re-launched this weekend at our annual wooden boat festival.

‘Robin Marshall a member of the museum’

Many thanks Robin!

For more on boat restoration in the area, check this lot: Great Florida Gulf Coast Traditional Small Craft Assn

For more on flatiron skiffs and a whole range of other North American boat types, I recommend the classic work by Howard Irving Chappelle, Small American Sailing Craft. For material on building them try The Sharpie Book.

Volunteer wooden boat restorers at Goolwa, on Australia’s Murray Lakes

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Armfield slip, on the Murray Lakes

Boats at the Armfield slip, close to Goolwa

This picture came from our very good friend and supporter Jeff Cole. Here’s what he said about it:

‘This is Armfield Slip, the base of a volunteer wooden boat restoration organisation in the original buildings of the Armfield family of boatbuilders.

‘The organisation teaches techniques and builds and restores boats. The example under the lean-to is a station supply and ‘picnic’ boat from a property on the River Murray. She’s now restored and fully operational, and I rode in her at the last Goolwa Wooden Boat Festival.

‘The open boat in the foreground is a ships boat from HMSAS Protector of 1884, the only ship in the South Australian Colonial Navy. She had a long history including deployment to China with the Aussie contingent to the Boxer Rebellion. (see link below) There are plans to replicate the ships boat as it is beyond restoration.

‘There are several boats on the lake that the Armfield group have restored, and a local schools boatbuilding programme is very active, financed in part by raffling a boat they build at each festival. The current project is a large yacht.

‘The lower Murray Lakes face permanent acidification because of the long-term drying of the Murray catchment and the over-allocation of what water there is. The resulting ecological disaster overtaking the Murray’s drought-ravaged lower lakes has hit home, and it was recently confirmed that they could be deliberately flooded with seawater: South Australian Water Security Minister Karlene Maywald said opening barriers to let in the sea was an option that could be considered this year.

‘That fact that the action is even being thought about Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert underlines the severity of the crisis in the Murray’s lower reaches.’ Read more here. The river will probably look totally different at the next Festival, if it goes ahead.’

Thanks Jeff – as always we’re grateful for your photos and explanations.

Albert Strange’s Blue Jay falls into the right hands at last

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Albert Strange Blue Jay

Bill Hitchins has big plans for Albert Strange’s Blue Jay,
despite the slight hogging in her sheer

People who care for old boats are a special breed – each one I’ve met has seemed to me to have been a mix of several key ingredients.

Along with a big helping of the romantic, they have to have a large dollop of the perfectionist craftsman about them, they must enjoy getting thoroughly dirty, and they have to be happy to take on large long-term projects that will probably seem less than sensible to most of their family and friends.

In my experience there’s usually also a sense that the boat and its inevitable problems are a kind of cross the traditional boat enthusiast is bound to bear by some law of God. After a talk about what’s going wrong, how it all has to be fixed and how it’s much simpler for owners of plastic boats, the phrase I’ve heard many times is: ‘Well, you’ve got to, haven’t you?’

I hope that Bill Hitchins, who has just bought Albert Strange’s lovely Blue Jay, won’t mind my saying it’s clear from his write up and photographs that he’s got the romance, love of dirty, practical work, craftsmanship and long-term projects bits of the mix in spades. Just take a look at the photos in this post at the Albert Strange Association website, for they show exactly what he’s taking on. Good luck to him and the boat, I say.

I think many intheboatshed.net readers will want to wish him well by adding a comment at the bottom of his post. Where would all the old boats be if it wasn’t for heroes like Bill? I think we know the answer.

For more on Albert Strange and the Albert Strange Association, follow this link.

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