BEKEN OF COWESPOLRUAN, CORNWALL
New Thames trading sailing barge
The first British-flagged vessel to carry cargo under sail alone for nearly 50
years could be at sea next year, reports Dick Durham. Blue Mermaid, an 87ft
(26.5m) steel-hulled, Thames spritsail barge is being launched on 29 May at
C Toms & Son shipyard, a family firm that once built trading schooners and
ketches and now builds fishing boats. The hull will then be towed round to
Down’s Boatyard in Maldon, Essex, where she will be commissioned by Cutty
Sark rigger Jim Dines. The entire project will cost around £600,000.
Blue Mermaid will be able to carry 150 tons of freight and will teach up to
four sailors at once how to earn a living under sail between the East Coast ports
of Great Yarmouth and Dover. She will be run by the Sea Change Trust charity,
whose proprietor Richard Titchener said: “We are proud this ship was built at a
UK yard and confident Blue Mermaid will provide a genuine objective to making
a voyage, and skills for young people seeking work in the maritime world."
She will have a ‘load-line’ Plimsoll mark certified by the MCA and will seek
‘hoy’ freights at first – one-off deliveries such as furniture – but eventually regular
fixed freights of anything such as beer, or concrete slabs for sea-wall repair.
The original Blue Mermaid, built by Horlock’s of Mistley, was sunk by a
German mine in the West Swin in 1941 with the loss of her skipper, Percy Bird,
and his 18-year-old mate George Lucas. The last vessel to carry freight under
sail alone was the Thames spritsail barge Cambria, which discharged her last
freight at Ipswich in 1970; 100 tons of cattle feed loaded in Tilbury Dock. Fred Shepherd's winner
Coral is an 80ft (25.4m) teak-on-teak Fred Shepherd
yacht built by the White Brothers yard in Southampton
in 1902 for an Irish yachtsman. She was drawn as a yawl
and re-rigged as a schooner during a 1990s refit in
Cape Town that led to further remedial work there a
decade later. British owner Richard Oswald bought her
in 2011, had her brought up to a good standard in
Antigua then chartered her for four years.
Shepherd drew comfortable cruising yachts, but
Coral is no slouch, having won the King's Cup (twice)
and the Queen's Cup in the 1920s and 30s; impressive
for a heavy boat with a gimballed dining table and a real
fire! She's now in private ownership in Greece.BREST 2016
Fury about tax on spectator vessels
Coral
1902Organisers of the Brest Festival of Sail have stirred up a squall among
Breton sailors after announcing an arbitrary tax on boats following the
grand parade from Brest to Douarnenez, reports Jeremy Greenaway.
More than 2,000 vessels from Cornish gigs to big square-riggers
will take part in the event this 13-19 July. The fleet then sails south for
the three-day rally in Douarnenez. It's been a highlight for spectators
since 'BrestFest' was first held in 1992 by the publishers of Chasse-Marée.
Usually accompanied by nearly as many spectator craft, the huge fleet
presents an awesome sight as it threads its way through the narrow
Toulinguet Channel near Camaret-sur-Mer, with a claimed one million
or more sightseers on the cliffs surrounding the Rade de Brest.
This year, the new organisers, Brest Evénement Nautique et Nautisme
En Finistère – a consortium of Brest City, Finistere county, and Brittany
regional councils – voted in late March to impose a charge of € 20
(about £17) for all craft accompanying the fleet.It has raised a furious response from the local boating fraternity, led
by the Amicale des Plaisanciers des Marinas de Brest, who represent
the 4,000+ leisure users of the city's two marinas. The association's
president, distinguished navigator and French naval officer Richard
Tanguy, expressed his anger at the decision, taken without consulting
any boating organisations. It is, he says, an astonishing move that
allows a million spectators to watch the flotilla free of charge while
taxing those providing the spectacle, and an "unacceptable imposition
on the freedom of navigation". The charge would apply to all craft, power
and sail, private or commercial, and would include foreign-flagged
vessels, whether spectating or just making passage on the same fair tide.
The organisers have failed to respond to requests for further details,
and whether French Navy and Gendarmerie launches would be used to
enforce the tax. They have already upset some regular British
participants who have had their applications to take part turned down.NIGEL PERT