Wooden boatbuilders are not dead - yet.

Commercial wooden boatbuilding yards are fast becoming a part of the maritime history of many coastal states. In Scotland alone, yards like Millers, MacDuff, Herd & McKenzie, Nobles, Irvin & Sons. Jones, Forbes and Alexander Noble of Girvan have all either ceased trading or moved on to build exclusively steel vessels.

Once upon a time, the design of every boat built reflected the personal preferences and foibles of the commissioning skipper but increasingly in the 1980s & 90s stringent safety regulations and changing fishing practices helped standardise the construction of fishing vessels.

Britannia IV leaving Newlyn.

In Cornwall, John Moores is the only wooden boatbuilders left - probably best known locally for building Freddie Turner's Britannia IV. Luckily, the craft and skills associated with wooden boats are still being taught locally at Falmouth Marine School.

In France, a number of boatbuilders (chantiers) continue to build wooden vessels incorporating modern techniques and styles for their large inshore fleets around the coast - especially in Brittany. 

One such yard is the Chantier Tanguy in Douarnenez who in this video re-build the bow section of the wooden trawler, the Gwenvidik. The carpenters' work with a very new approach to the modernisation and upgrading of wooden fishing vessels.

More recently the yard saw work on the Morlaix registered crabber Steren Va Bro completed...

a predecessor of hers fished from Newlyn for skipper Mike Rowse until she was damaged in a fire after which she was sold and her hull used to create a 60' yacht.

7th May 2007, Gavroche sinks off the Breton coast north of Conquet

 

 

Not all vessels capsize and sink when they are full of water - in this instance the skipper and crew were all able to make it to aonther vessel safely.

 

Here is a report at the time:

 

On Monday, May 7, 2007 to 3:50 p.m., CROSS CORSEN was alerted by the trawler "Christda II" as "Gavroche" (a 19-meter trawler registered in Guilvinec, on board  were 5 crew members), the engine compartment was flooded while they were about 70 kilometers west of Conquet.

The "Christda II" immediately went to assist the "Gavroche". Four crew members were evacuated on the "Christda II" while the skipper of the trawler "Gavroche" remained on board to try to control the waterway.

At the same time, "Latouche Treville" Commander of the Navy was contacted by order of the Marine Operations Centre (COM Brest), it then implements its Lynx helicopter on board with a plunger and a motor pump.

With the arrival of the helicopter in the area, due to the impossibility of the ingress of water, the skipper of the trawler was removed with the help of divers from the helicopter on the "Christda II" remained close.

Shortly before 21 h00 May 7, the trawler "Gavroche" sank in one hundred meters of water.

Urgent Notice to Mariners was issued to indicate the position of the wreck.

Le Breiz Connection

The Maritime museum welcomed some special visitors from Brittany last week to see their new exhibition which celebrates the links between the Cornish and Breton communities. The museum's new Breton Connection exhibition explores the age-old ties between Cornish and Breton fishing communities through a stunning collection of black and white photography. These images have never been exhibited before and draw on a rare collection of photographs taken by Oliver Hill in Newlyn in the early 20th century. The Breton Connection exhibition runs from until July 15 at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, in Falmouth. 


For more information on opening times and admission prices visit www.nmmc.co.uk or call 01326 313388.

Ready for the pot ce soir :-) a la Monty Hall - episode 3

Listen to Monty Hall on Wednesday evening's Fishermen's Apprentice when he travels across to Brittany with his hard won catch of spider crab - revered in Breton restaurants and treated like crustacean royalty, the spider crab epitomises the huge gulf - 100 miles of open water or a "vast chasm" as Monty puts it - between French eating culture and the status that they afford fish like spider crab as compared to home territory where not so many years ago spider crab were dumped back at sea as there was no market for them - even now they make little money when sold here - at the end of the sound bite listen out for the surprise result of the blind tasting when the edible crab goes shell-to-shell with arch enemy spidercrab.

Excerpts from episode 3 of Monty Hall's Fisherman's Apprentice courtesy of BBC2.

In episode 3 of Monty Hall's Fisherman's Apprentice, the edible crab goes head-to-head with the under valued spider crab.... and it just so happens that the Through the Gaps household sat down to enjoy said spider crab for supper........

slip a couple in a good sized pot.......

and after 20 minutes they are ready - this applies to edible or brown crab, lobster and crayfish.......

 dried off the spiders look good enough to eat.......

ready to hand, a selection of shellfish picking tools - keep your eyes open in Lidls - a set of six on the left for a couple of squids.

Visits to Britanny - Petite Cornouaille - Festivals and fishing.

Making the Breton connection, the ex-fishing boat Solveig was one of the few classic working boats to visit Newlyn in the late 1970s........

eventually, interest in such vessels provoked the organisation known as Chasse Marée to hold a working boat festival in 1988 after the success of a very small fête a few years previously, the '88 event was such a huge success - as much to the organisers surprise, well over the 500 invited boats turned up - from all over the world - some as deck cargo on merchant ships - and the number of musicians topped 1,000.........

many Cornish boats made the journey including the classic yacht, Providence owned for many years by the Minns family of Restronguet and built by Pascoe's in Porthleven for the designer Nigel Warrington-Smythe in 1934.........

she was just one of many boats that enjoyed an event which drew a quarter of a million visitors over three days at the end of that July.........

including the top Douarnenez fishing boat Le Royale that used to target monk, megrim and hake on the Great and Little Sole banks - renowned for her willingness to stick out any weather the boat was never seen in Newlyn until she changed hands in the early 1990s........

looking back across a crowded harbour - and not a safety barrier in sight - and, amazingly enough, no one fell in........

everywhere you looked there were masts - the event spawned the hugely successful boat festivals that now take place every two and four years in Douarnenez and Brest - next year will be the 20th anniversary........

also visiting Brittany on occasion was the Newlyn netter, Keriolet seen here making her way in to Guilvenec for a major engine overhaul in 1992........

crewman Billy Bunn asked one of the local boats for a feed of fish as the engine job was going to keep the boat there for well over a week.......

in which time some of the boat's Breton friends paid social visits, like Bruno the engineer from the Kas Dei........

alternativley, the Keriolet's skipper and crew ventured north to St Geunole to visit old friend Jean-Claude who treated the boys to an evening meal in the Crepsicule Restaurant........

where it seems much gwin ru flowed, judging by the ruby cheeks on skipper Traz and Mr Bunn........

yet another sojourn, this time to see good friend and skipper, Christian and his wife Sylvie along with Annie Le Palud (left) of Le Doris Bar in Kerity - Annie's brother was lost along with the rest of the crew when their boat capsized in mysterious circumstances while fishing for langoustine on the Smalls - a submarine was suspected to have dragged her under - shades of the Buagled Breizh many years later. The Keriolet was fishing in the area at the same time.