Jake's birthday - catchin' summer mackerel!

Visiting beamers, Ora et Labora and Kees Korf in for the weekend giving their Dutch crews from Urk a well earned break. These boats do not fish on Sundays.
Not so one Jake Freethy on 'Go for It', despite the fact that it was Jake's birthday! Up at six and back, landed before 9am with 28 stone (approx 180Kg) of best Cornish mackerel.After sorting, the fish are weighed.....
tallied....and then iced in the chill room....
a quick total of the landing before.....the boxes go back aboard the boat as the next tosher comes to land....
which happens to be Bobby 'Boxer' Laity from Porthleven........
two punts head back to the pontoon berths......
the Hannah G from St Ives takes back boxes for the next trip.....
Boxer sees his day's catch going up on the crane...
Chris and Jeremy head in for a quick trawlfish landing.....
and our gull friends still seem incapable of earning a living as they should!

To the bitter end

Despite being submerged for over 60 years, the still solid oak timbers of the Trewar's keel proved more than a challenge for the breakers!Terry, from Mount's Bay Engineering had to cut away bolts through the keel iron.
Out of desperation, the swing shovel was used as a final resort to remove the keel timber from inside the iron channel.And the heart of the oak keel - still green!
Penlee lifeboat heads out for an evening exercise.
The Bryan D, next vessel for breaking, has now been shifted prior to her going under the gas torch.The Roseland has escaped the breakers and has been sold away from the port.

History in a skip

Down the cannery slip, a final skip-load of timbers from the Trewarveneth await collection. Behind the skip, the keel waits to be cut up with a gas axe.

It would be interesting to gather some recollections from previous skippers and crew of the Trewar'. In particular, those who sailed with 'Big' Clifford or possibly someone who has knowledge of these Admiralty boats being built.

Down to the last few timbers and an interesting find from the splintered timber frames.

But first, the first sighting of an entirely new sport - wind skateboarding - ever inventive, but just who is the mystery skater on the prom?

Sunday and Monday saw Trewarveneth reduced to a small pile of smashed timbers.

Just the keel remains largely in one piece.



Breaking up the frames.

Concrete ballast was difficult to remove from between the bilge area of the engine and fishroom frames.


Loading the lorry with pieces of the hull.

Looking down the length of the remaining keel.

The huge stern post remains intact.

One way to move a skip.

Almost at the accommodation bulkhead.

'Maverick' secures a full load of boat timber.

Breaking up the remaining engine room bilges.

One of the engine beds, they came out in one piece.

All that remained on Sunday morning, the stern section containing the accommodation.

'Mav' supervises from the back of the lorry.

Among the smashed bow frames in the bilges, a mystery coin. Was this coin, a 1905 penny (perhaps the year the boatbuilder was born) placed there for luck, a common practice? If the penny had dropped in the bilge it would surely have corroded completely and been worn smooth over the years. Either way, the coin will be a suitable memento of time spent with the vessel for one ex-skipper.

Berthed near the Cornish Ice Company, the Bryan D Stevenson is the next boat in the fleet due to go under the breakers torch.

Breaking news

As the family firm, W Stevenson & Sons face 37 charges involving the handling of illegal fish at the port, one of their oldest trawlers, PZ196 Trewarveneth enters the final stages of her life in the port - under the breaker's hydraulic grabs.

If you get the chance when visiting the port, there are a number of ceramic tile pictures depicting boats on the sides of buildings owned by the family firm. Here is the Trewarveneth, captured by the artist in her hayday as a sidewinder trawler.The breakers were down to ripping out the fishroom by Saturday.





Lending Clive a hand to fill the bucket, labourer Mac lends a hand.
View from all that remains of the forefoot.
Ripping out the formeost section of the keel.

Mojo Marine's Mac Johns takes a break from labouring to inspect the curious purple discolouration of the oak timbers.