Cultural Olympiad - The Boat Project

Just some of the 12000 wood donations received from the public.

Outside the hull

The Boat Project is a living archive of people's stories and lives, a 30ft vessel made from donated wooden items. From February to July 2011 the public donated their wood to the project but not just any old wood. Pencil or piano – exotic as Zebrawood or as familiar as pine every piece had a story behind it. Donations arrived in their thousands, from the highly personal to pieces of national importance. All of these donations have been used to build a state-of-the-art seafaring yacht.

The boat, named Collective Spirit is currently on a round of publicity visits to ports and harbours around the South East, including a trip inland to Milton Keynes in July. The Boat Project is one of 12 creative concepts taking place throughout the UK as part of the Cultural Olympiad to celebrate London and 2012.

A timely reminder - safety at sea - MOB gear

With incidents involving the loss of life from three separate incidents involving fishing vessels this RNLI gives a timely reminder how best use can be made of the latest affordable, compact communications safety technology at sea.

Salt! at 2am.

With the little hand on the clock now two hours astern of midnight.......

there's a glow over the harbour and another emanating from outside Newlyn gallery as it hosts this year's Museum's at Night event, Salt!.........

 although there is much to see inside the gallery, like Katja Davar's "The stage, the plot" inspired by the tidal observatory at the end of the South pier in Newlyn........

 it's outside where there's salt being produced.........

 in a series of biscuit ware troughs - the same process is used the world over, a series of containers are heated (sometimes naturally) - as water evaporates off, brine from the first is added to the second container, which in turn is added to the third..........

 after six hours........

 and around 40 Kg of the finest Scottish peat.........

 the third trough is half full of almost solid salt ready to adorn any fish dish.........

 more peat and heat speeds the process.......... 

 with the occasional top up of water and stirring of brine.......there's a strong local connection with evidence of salt making over on the Lizard at St Keverne - the recently created Cornish Sea Salt Company follows in this tradition not many miles away in Porthkerris.........

the current gallery exhibition is open till the 16th of june.

Salt! at 8pm.

Newlyn Orion Gallery: Join Andrew Fielding in the gallery garden as he extracts salt from sea water, using the ancient method of heating saltwater in ceramic troughs over a peat fire. Andrew’s aim will be to see how much salt he can produce in the 12-hour period. We will also work throughout the night with Amanda Lorens to create an animation of tales in a salt landscape. To sustain our audience and participants there will be a variety of fruits from the sea, from the edible to the aural available, including a series of salty tales, told throughout the night. 

This video was shot at 8pm as Andrew lit the peat fires under the troughs. With a heady mix of sea water taken from Mount's Bay only a few feet away and peat from Peterhead in Scotland the atmosphere in the grounds of the Newlyn Orion Gallery began to take on an alchemy of their own.

 Early stages as the peat fires are lit......

first of the biscuit fired clay salting troughs are filled with sea water.......

 Newlyn is just one of many venues taking part in the Salt project.......

 topping up the steel salt tank........

 there's some well researched books on the history of salt and salt works........

 all these events are part of ECOSAL Atlantis.......

salt samples and plenty of reading matter for the visitor. Salt and the fishing industry are inextricably linked the world over - salted fish in one form or another has featured in the diet of many cultures pre-dating the use of refrigeration to preserve fish allowing for increased storage and transportation. The last salt fishing factory in the Uk only closed its doors a few years ago - see the Pilchard Works web site for more information. There's a site dedicated to salt in all forms here.

Mackerel men find fish

 While the population of Penzance who are assembled on the prom are being treated to a display of seagoing craft.......

there's work to be done on the new grading machine in the auction hall.....

 as two concrete plinths are cast to raise the feeder....... 

meanwhile some of the mackerel men are making good landings for the morning's work.

Two French fishermen lost off the Le Bara Pemdez

Another bad day for fishing communities. This time on the French coast off Belle-Ile where the search for two missing French fishermen from the inshore boat Bara Pemdez has been suspended.  

"The hopes of finding alive two fishermen whose boat sank off the coast of Morbihan Friday morning are dwindling. The device searches deployed Friday near Belle-Ile was arrested Friday night, "after twelve hours of research" and "with the rough seas and water temperatures, there is little hope of finding them alive," said Saturday the maritime prefecture of the Atlantic. The "Bara Pemdez", a 12 metre potter from the island of Houat, activated its emergency beacon Friday at 9:45 ET and was finally located aground on rocks south of Belle-Ile. The wreckage was found empty. Attorney Lorient has instructed the Coastguard to investigate the circumstances of the sinking."

Full story here courtesy of Europe1. 

Olympic flame crosses the bridge at Newlyn on its way to London 2012.

Thousands lined the Coombe and New Road in Newlyn to see Roger Smitheram do the honours carrying the torch across Newlyn Bridge. 

Awash with patiently waiting flame fans lining the road and what seemed an endless stream of police cars and outriders.......

 a more official looking car appeared in the motorcade.......

 then a bus full of Olympic Flame carriers, their numbers clearly visible on their white running tops......

 followed by one of the big Games' sponsors........

 and even a spoof team of runners with their own police escort.......

 then the moment all hands had been waiting for since they arrived around 7am.......

 and before they knew it the flame had passed them by on its way to Wherry Town and the promenade run in Penzance.......

in the excitement, Samsung's shiny new electric cart appeared to have run out of battery power......

and needed a roadside charge!.......

 one minutes walk away and it's time for tea in the Mission and a chance to sit back and watch the flame being carried along the prom on the big Mission TV.......

and with Cornwall making the headline news it was only fitting for top Cornish chef, Nathan Outlaw to be cooking bass on James Martins' Saturday Kitchen.