Classic Boat — January 2018

CB ARCHIVES

Above:

Boathouse 4

inside and out

(^18) CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2018
Tell Tales
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Late this summer the trustees of IBTC
Portsmouth passed control of the
business to the landlord, Portsmouth
Naval Base Property Trust (PNBPT)
after running into financial difficulties.
The previous trustees of IBTC
Portsmouth took over the running of
Britain’s newest major boatbuilding
school, housed in the iconic Boathouse
4 at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard,
after founders Nat and Gill Wilson
(previously of the still extant IBTC
Lowestoft) left for a new life in
Scotland in 2016.
IBTC Portsmouth has always had a
complex structure of ownership and
frequent turnover of trustees in its
short life. The trust struggled to make
a financial success of the business and
reached an agreement with PNBPT to
allow it to take it on. The trustees of
the IBTC Portsmouth will soon formally
wind up the charity. PNBPT will now
run the school with minimal disruption
to the paying students who are there
to become the shipwrights of
tomorrow: most of the training staff
have been retained in situ and been
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PORTSMOUTH
New management at IBTC Portsmouth
bolstered by new recruits. This is far from
being a caretaker arrangement. The
School is now being run by Diggory Rose,
ex-boatbuilder, skipper and boat-owner, as
well as occasional contributor to this
magazine. Diggory trained at IBTC
Lowestoft and taught at the Boat Building
Academy (BBA) in Lyme Regis, so has
much experience in the relevant areas. His
role as boatkeeper at the PNBPT over the
last two years has meant a close familiarity
with problems previously faced at
Portsmouth and with the vessels students
restore during their studies, many of which
belong to the PNBPT.
The PNBPT has also recruited Bob
Forsyth, an experienced boatbuilder
involved with the original setting up of the
BBA, as head of teaching. The cost savings
of having IBTC Portsmouth run in-house will
be considerable, and Diggory and PNBPT
chief executive Peter Goodship are
optimistic about IBTC Portsmouth's future.
£2.5 million expansion
IBTC Portsmouth and Boathouse 4, as well
as being a boatbuilding school, is a museum
for visitors to Portsmouth Historic
Dockyard. These days, any collection
needs a cohesive narrative. “The Navy
isn’t just about grey warships," says
Diggory. The National Memorial Fleet,
as the PNBPT boat collection is now
named, will tell untold stories of Navy
life, Portsmouth’s history, and the
smaller boats that have made the Navy
what it is. To this end, PNBPT recently
secured £2.5m from the Chancellor’s
LIBOR Fund. Part of this involves having
boats available for charter and day-trips
for visitors, on a pontoon. The plan for
the PNBPT is, broadly, to get the boats
running on the sea where they belong.
“It is an exciting time for would-be
students to join the school as the PNBPT
starts three significant projects," said
Peter Goodship. "We have the build of a
replica World War I Coastal Motor Boat
(CMB4) and the restorations of a Battle
of Jutland veteran, Armed Steam
Pinnace 26 , and Foxtrot 8, an assault
landing craft aboard HMS Fearless in
the Falklands. With the experienced
team we have in place, there is no
reason why IBTC should not be Britain’s
foremost boatbuilding school.”