Volunteering at Pioneer Sailing Trust

Volunteering at Pioneer Sailing Trust

By: Gemma Bailey & Jasmine von Kaenel

During the half term of the New Year, Gemma and I had the pleasure to go and see what goes on behind the scenes and take part  at  the Pioneer  Sailing Trust.  During the last week of October Gemma and I had an immense experience aboard the Pioneer herself.  

In the New Year Gemma and I decided to do some volunteering at Pioneer since we had such an amazing time before. When we do anything with Pioneer, we are always looked after and are guaranteed to have a super time. This year we worked in the workshop, preparing Pioneer for the sailing season.

I did a whole week and Gemma did three days, but even with such limited time it was a brilliant experience.  We worked hard and everyone made us feel welcome!  On Monday, I worked on the blocks, sanding them down getting ready for the top coat.  After lunch, we got the rudder from the Pioneer and started to scrape away the old paint ready to apply the wood preserver.  Tuesday was very much of a continuation of Monday, but still was quite fun.  

Then finally on Wednesday, Gemma started and we both got the job to sand down some gig oars.  Then, after lunch we had the privilege to tape boards of plywood and then cut them with the jigsaw (which was pretty cool). After that we decided to do “A more fun job?” says Gemma, so we got to do some planing and sharpening of blades, which kind of ended up as a completion  between one another, “ Who’s Planing board looked the best?”.

The next day on Thursday, we started to sand down some other oars and clean them in white spirit.  After we did that a few times we took them into another room to start  varnishing them (this was                                                a Zen moment).

 

Then, on our last day, Friday, we got some sand paper and removed any bumps or dips, to create the perfect finish.  Afterwards  we had to put some more coats of varnish on the oars to get a glossy look. Then after our tea and coffee break we got on to making this blog, hoping to share our experience and to influence other younger people to do something as great as the Pioneer Sailng Trust. This has definitely been a once in a life time experience creating a new path and an interesting future.

   

Meeting Ben Lucas - 25.3.2015 by Julia Jones

Punts racing off the Stour Sailing Club 2003 Regatta

Ben Lucas is 22. It's easy to assume that a young man of that age will have spent most of his childhood indoors hunched in front of a screen blasting aliens or engaged in virtual high-speed car chases. It wasn't like that for Ben. He was born in Harwich, although the family soon moved to Bradfield, where he grew up, as well as in Manningtreee – all beside the beautiful River Stour. Ben is part of the Lucas family who have been winning the unique sailing punt races at Manningtree regatta for the last hundred years. Sailing punts had been in the area for centuries before that. They have big sprit sails but no rudder or centreboard and were originally used for punt-gunning and eel-fishing in the shallow waters of the Stour.

Ben working on one of the floors
for the Trinity House tender

 Ben did not take up punt-sailing but spent many hours of his childhood standing in the river, usually on Bradfield beach, sometimes up to mischief with his friends, sometimes looking out for evidence of young bass at low water. “As soon as the gulls began to dive, you'd rush over there and chuck in your line. You'd maybe get three or four and then the bass would move and the gulls would follow and you'd follow them.”

His father had a 16' dory, and a friend had a caravan and a barbecue, so every day could be spent on the beach in the school holidays. He was so deeply suntanned he looked like Mowgli, he said. He remembers an especially good birthday present of a knife with a serrated edge and a gadget to undo shackles. As Ben grew up he helped his father with the game-keeping on the local estate. He learned to shoot and was invited on friends and family pheasant shooting days as well as wild-fowling and clay-pigeon shooting. There was a moment of disruption in this happy rural childhood when his parents split up but Ben was determined to stay local to Manningtree. Even when home was directly opposite the Harwich School he made the trip to Manningtree every day to continue attending school there.

Ben liked school. He wasn't especially academic but was happy in the environment and knew he would miss it when he left. He did labouring jobs in the summer and got his 5 GCSEs at A* - C. At 16 he moved to attend Otley College to do what he had thought was a game-keeping course but turned out to be more agriculture and conservation. He made good friends during his year at Otley, then moved to Suffolk New College to study motor cycle mechanics. Ever since he'd been a child Ben had loved taking things to pieces to see how they worked. Now he was learning to put them back together again. A parking job (he's good at backing trailers) at Suffolk Yacht Harbour at Levington led Ben to realise that outboard motors were not so very different from motorcycle engines laid on their sides so he began working in a marine workshop there.

A section of planking completed by Ben

Ben was 18-19. This was his first adult job. The work was busy and varied. It could be dirty, when replacing wheel-bearings in a seized up trailer for instance. Ben's very tall (it's a family characteristic) and, while that was a help in making it possible for him to do quite a number of heavy jobs unaided, it could be quite a squash getting into cuddies and cramped engine rooms. Ben recalled the delight of being able to get out on the water and test an engine in whatever power-boat he'd just finished servicing.

Ben, through no fault of his own, left this first job in quite difficult circumstances and had very little to show for a year's hard work – except invaluable experience. A bleak period followed. Ben's father had moved to Portsmouth so he worked a while there, subcontracting. That was time-limited and anyway Ben's life still centred on the Manningtree area, so he came home and existed as best he could on casual work and the dole. He remains angry about the number of employers who don't even bother to acknowledge a CV or a job application when someone is struggling and doing their utmost to find work.

Discussing a problem with
Harker's Yard shipwright, Mick

The Job Centre put him in contact with the Prince's Trust who, at that time were running regular taster courses in partnership with Pioneer. “Loads of us came for the trial sessions,” Ben recalls, “But when we were told we had to stay two nights on the boat, most of them dropped like flies.” Ben worked for about six weeks in the yard and working on joinery. He had never done any carpentry before and particularly remembers the impression made on him by Jim, Pioneer's skipper, with his extreme carefulness and attention to detail. That's a quality Ben recognises in himself and it was a very good moment when Felicity called him into the office and said “We'd like you to stay.”

Now Ben is nearing the end of his time as an apprentice at Harker's Yard. He still sees himself as likely to be working in something like mechanics or agriculture or anything connected with his beloved sport of shooting but he has learning some important things that he knows will help in the future, whatever he does. He has discovered that he likes learning – of all the apprentices he is the first to compile his NVQ folder and he's proud of that. He knows he likes working with other people, being part of a project, and earning respect. He doesn't like blame culture; he likes finding a problem and suggesting a way to fix it. He likes the sense of community at Harker's Yard “There are no strangers here.” While he's ready to “flee the nest” he knows he'll miss Pioneer – and he hopes that the others will miss him too. “I tell them, they'll never find anything once I'm gone. I'm organised. I know where things are kept.”  

Transferable skills - Ben has been making a new stock for a family heirloom shotgun.
Here he explains different sizes.

Meeting Charlie 25.2.2015 by Julia Jones

Charlie on Pioneer (under her winter cover)

“She's so big. It's amazing. I haven't been on board since I was in primary school. I'd forgotten how big she is...” Charlie first met Pioneer when he was at Brightlingsea Junior School. He was probably in year 5 or 6 when he and his class gathered at the Colne Yacht Club  to split up into groups and take turns going on board the half dozen or so vessels that had been collected for them. He can't now remember the other boats that were there that day – it was Pioneer who made the lasting 

impression.

Looking aft

Quite often when you revisit something as an adult, which you first encountered as a child, you're surprised how small it is – but Charlie was completely right: Pioneer in winter, standing proud out of the water, with her decks completely clear under her head-high cover, is impressive in an entirely new way. You see her lines and her shapeliness, feel the strength of her construction – that gorgeous long keel...

I asked Charlie whether he was looking forward to sailing Pioneer this summer and wasn't at all surprised by the enthusiasm of his response. I also admired the fact that he'd already volunteered to work as an extra hand on board the smack when the Brightlingsea youth club offers some local youngsters a chance of a few days away. When Charlie was younger it was the youth club that first took him fishing. Now he sees a chance to help others in return.

Personally, I've never been all that keen on fishing (scared of the hooks, I think) but it was a real pleasure listening to Charlie talk about the sport, especially when he was describing the peacefulness of reservoir carp fishing when you've got to relax and stay quiet for the sake of all the other people who are fishing there. And the great moment if you catch something big, weigh it, photograph it, then put it back into the water, holding it carefully in your arms while it regains breath. Then you watch as it swims away. Charlie also fishes off Bateman's with a float and ragworms; he goes out after bass with his step-dad in a fibreglass boat with an outboard motor and he made me laugh with his account of fishing for mackerel with his dad in Scotland and the seal who lurks ready to grab the fishermen's catches as they're hauling in their lines.

Charlie is the newest apprentice at Harkers Yard. After Brightlingsea Junior he moved on to secondary school and hated it. It wasn't his sort of learning. He hated sitting behind a desk all day listening to people talk. School improved a bit when he took resistant materials as one of his options but still he was glad to leave at 16 and wasn't all that surprised that none of his GCSEs achieved more than a C.

Charlie with Aiden, looking at the
mock steaming device Aiden has made
for the Eastern Angles production Oysters

Now it's perfectly obvious, when talking to Charlie, that he's a thoughtful chap with a lot to offer and quite capable of learning when it's approached in the way that suits him. After he left school he worked for a flooring company and a scrap yard and a carpet fitting firm. Last summer he gave education another try, signing up for a plumbing course at the local FE college. But it was just like school again and Charlie found he was having real trouble motivating himself to get out of bed to catch the bus and go into Colchester to sit behind a desk all day …

Fortunately he met Abbey, who'll soon be completing her apprenticeship at Harkers Yard, and she persuaded him to get in touch with operations manager Felicity. Charlie had a chat, came down for an interview, passed the aptitude tests, did a couple of days work experience before Christmas and started full-time on Jan 12th. So far he's made his tool box and a paddle, helped with scraping out one of the gigs and got involved in the regular yard pranks and banter (see Abbey's blogpost). On Monday of this week (Feb 23rd) he competed his six week's probation and PST tutor John told him he'd been accepted for the next two years.

Jake and Charlie, showing
part of the scenery made by
Jake for Eastern Angles Oysters

This does, of course, mean he'll be taking lessons again – Monday and Wednesday mornings with John (alongside fellow apprentices Tyler and Tariq) and then weekly to Colchester Institute for foundation skills – but he doesn't seem too worried about the prospect. He had me enthralled telling me what PST tutor John had told him about the number of oak trees that had been felled to build HMS Victory. He's moved away from home and into lodgings and is getting to grips with the regular routine of getting to work promptly at 8am without anyone else needing to nag him.

Within the next week or two Charlie will begin to learn how to lay up the next gig and it'll be Tyler will helping him while Tariq joins the oar-makers. There are deadlines to be met in the yard and there are the fundamental patterns of activity – laying up a gig, lifting it off its plug, fitting it out and sending it on – just as there are the seasonal patterns of laying up, fitting out and crew-carrying for Pioneer herself. But within that overall working structure, Charlie finds that every day is different. 

That's certainly true at the moment. Ivan Cutting, founder and artistic director of the Eastern Angles Theatre company has written a new play, Oysters, based on oral history interviews and the 'Land and Sea' work of the Pioneer Sailing Trust, particularly the current restoration of the smack Priscilla. Oysters is currently in rehearsal ready for its opening on March 11th and then its three month spring tour of East Anglia. At the moment Jake is busy making scenery to Rosie Alabaster's design. Aiden has produced a mock-up of a steamer and Pioneer's skipper, Jim, has fashioned a replica tiller.

Oysters will come to Harker's Yard on May 7th.

Rosie Alabaster's design

Jake's construction

Two years on - Aiden Lateward 28.1.2015

Pioneer in winter - with an on-board workshop

A bitter wind was whipping down the creek bringing scatters of rain and the threat of worse weather to come. Pioneer was standing high above the mud under her winter covers and I took several several exhilarating breaths of the sharp winter air before retreating into Harkers Yard to curl my hands round a warm cup of tea and talk to Aiden Lateward about his two years as an apprentice here.

Aiden studied cabinet making at college after he left school. That convinced him that he loved working with his hands and specifically working with wood but the jobs available in the furniture industry were mainly machine based. He spent two years restoring donated furniture for the charity Emmaeus until someone gave him a 'kick up the arse' (his words) and convinced hm to carry on developing his skills. Boats are wood, boats have curves (unlike most modern furniture) – learning to build boats offered a possible way forward.

Bleak view at Brightlingsea

After a false start with the Mayflower Project in Harwich (then only at the workshop-building stage) Aiden found his way to Brightlingsea and Harker's Yard. He fell for the place and the work and the atmosphere immediately “I need to be here,” he thought. Aiden was interviewed and accepted, then found himself spending his first fortnight on board Pioneer scraping her decks. This was two years ago in February 2013. It should have been enough to put anybody off. There was snow and a bitter wind, whipping down the creek ….

Aiden filled his big boots with socks – four pairs, he recalls + two pairs trousers, T-shirt, jumpers, two coats, hat, scarf, gloves – and carried on scraping,. He met John Yarr, then first mate and Jim, the skipper. He asked them whether there was any chance he could try a sail sometime. As soon as the smack was ready to go back in commission they got Aiden setting up her rigging with them. He'd never sailed before but was often out on Pioneer during that first summer, and also sailed on board the smaller Brightlingsea Smack, Iris Mary, CK105. It was an extraordinary moment when his mother suddenly discovered that his fifth great uncle, Joseph Alexander, had been master and owner of Pioneer sometime in the late c19th. 

 Aiden is using one of Liam's oars
as his model (3rd from left)

In August 2013 Aiden was one of a group of apprentices who brought Pioneer back from Gosport (where a group of young carers had been taking part in the Round the Island race) to Ipswich Maritime Festival. He volunteered to stay on board over the festival (with the help of a free beer voucher). When the smack left to take a family group to the Walton Backwaters Aiden went with her as volunteer relief bosun. He's since been working towards his watch leader's qualification and dreams of sailing on board a tall ship one day.

Aiden at work

Meanwhile, back in the workshop, Aiden was laying up the plug for the next gig. He describes this as a job which tests your mettle; it's so repetitive and technically undemanding yet the quality is vital. It was summer and the glue was stickier than ever. He got glue on his arms and legs, on his new Pioneer t-shirt, in his hair, up his nose. Then the gig had to be taken off the plug and placed in the cradle ready for fitting out – and Aiden's task was to scrape out all the glue residue, the classic newcomer's job in the workshop. The heat gun burned his fingers but all the time he was enjoying learning the different curves of the gig, how they worked together, how the idea of the gig had been developed and designed. Aiden likes wood, likes feeling its tolerances, practising his skills until they become an instinctive part of him.

A hollowing plane

Currently Aiden's making his second set of oars and is confident that they are better than his first set (something to do with the size of the handles). He's enjoyed being part of an apprentices' team, rowing the Harker's Yard gig, Matchless and he spoke with real feeling about the pleasure of making something, using it and also seeing it being used by the local communities. The gig-rowing and racing bring so many people together. Aiden's here until December. By then he'll have his watch leader's qualification and his NVQ level 3 in marine engineering and yacht building. He already has level 3 in cabinet-making. So what will he do then – look for a job locally? Work in a boatyard abroad? Join the Merchant Navy? Sail a tall ship? He knows now that he he likes working with wood, working on the water, working with people. That should give him plenty of options. 

So Who's the Boss of the Backbone? asks Jake Anderson (with Julia Jones)

(JJ) I was warned when I first visited Harker's Yard that there was a certain amount of 'banter' between the apprentices. I began to get a flavour of that in The Great Oar Race (Liam's blog) so when I went to interview his rival, Jake, I wasn't entirely surprised when Jake pointed out that the final photo of oars on Liam's blog were actually HIS oars and also Liam hasn't yet finished (because he's making an entire extra set). 

So I'd better get these photo captions right....

Liam's oars -
with their varnish drying in the winter sun
(and a little bit of help from the central heating?)

Jake's oars -
a complete set destined for the gig 'Mehalah'

Jake is making yet more oars but is also hard at work on the backbone for the next gig - number 14, I think. Even there all is not peace. I asked him to explain...

Jake, pointing to the stem, apron and forward knee,
 three of the nine components of the backbone

Jake: Making the backbone is a fun, yet slightly challenging, job. There are nine components to the full backbone. Each has to be made separately and then it has to be put together like a big jigsaw puzzle – with only one piece being fitted at a time.

Jake begins to explain how it will all fit together

Jake: It also does help that I'm currently making a whole new set of oars whilst Aiden, who is working with me on the backbone, is repairing a broken oar from a previous set. I say he is working with me – actually there is an amusing dispute between me and Aiden about who is leading the operation to make the backbone. Aiden believes that he’s leading it as he started the job and made the keel. I believe that I am leading it as I have already made one backbone. Dunstan, the gig manager, has backed me up – much to Aiden's disgust.

Aiden, who made the keel,
tells Jake he's doing it wrong

(Don't worry Aiden – it's your turn to be interviewed for the blog next month – JJ).

Jake: The backbone, for those of you who don't know, has nine different components: the stem, apron, forward knee, keel, hog, aft knee, deadwood, stern post and transom. The stem, forward knee and aft knee are all made from laminated mahogany, glued together on a jig. This is because they all have a large curve in them that would be hard to achieve from solid timber.

Layers of mahogany

Jake: The apron, keel, deadwood, stern post and transom are all made from Iroko. This is the main wood that we use for making and fitting out the rowing gigs. Lastly the hog is made from Douglas Fir. The hog is the component that nearly all of the mahogany planks which we use in the gig hull are attached to. It's an important part to make correctly as it ensures that the shape of the hull is true.

Jake ignores Aiden
 and fits the stern post, deadwood and aft knee to the keel

JJ You  come from Dorking. You'd never done any sailing so how did you arrive at Harker's Yard?

Jake: I'm in my second year of my apprenticeship here at Pioneer and I arrived in an odd sort of way. I left school after GCSEs and was at a college in Surrey doing carpentry and joinery at levels one and two. I wasn't really enjoying it very much as the teaching wasn't very good so I didn't want to stay for level three. I was looking around for alternatives but I wasn't having any luck.

Suddenly my Nanny found an article in one of her women's magazines for a boat-building course in Devon. I got in touch with them but I found I wasn't eligible for some reason that I can't remember – I think it was that I didn't have my own boat. However they told me to get in touch with the Pioneer Sailing Trust which I did.

I was invited for an interview, which just happened to be on the day I arrived back from a holiday in Turkey and soon after I heard back from them saying they would take me. I was extremely nervous at first. I'd been living inland in Surrey and I'd never even really thought about boats. After the first month of starting I knew I'd made an extremely good choice and I've learned more there that I ever did – or would ever have done – in college.

JJ: What Next? 

Jake: I'll be finished at Pioneer in July and that's beginning to feel rather soon. I asked the owner of a boatyard in Turkey for advice on my next move and he told me to travel and get jobs in boatyards throughout the world.

So that's my plan. When I finish here I'm going to apply to boatyards in a variety of locations and stay maybe six months in each. I plan to do that for about three years. I think I might start in Oz....

The Harker's Yard gig, Matchless,
showing off her pretty transom in her winter cover

Meeting Tariq 5.11.2014

The view from the apprentices'
workroom

My name is Tariq Abdel-Rahim but in the month that I have been at Harker's Yard I have acquired a number of different aliases of which Darius seems to have stuck. (Don't ask!) Joining the team was rather spontaneous for me and came about very luckily. I was starting my gap year and scrolling on the internet looking for a job when I noticed the apprenticeship space. Then, when I was building a box to bring with me to the interview, I found that woodwork appealed to me more than I'd ever had the chance to know.

For me this apprenticeship is everything I need and it just seemed to fall into place. There is the perfect mix of independent and team work and a brilliant sense of satisfaction. I think some people are put off by the sound of an apprenticeship because the pay is lower and it sounds like a perfect opportunity to be ripped of by an employer. But here at Pioneer they have been very professional in terms of my training, arranging what I will be doing in a such way that there is maximum benefit to me as well as to them.

Tariq, posing with his file

I do eight hours of lessons a week with John: two morning and two afternoon sessions, half theory and half practical. I find that these take away any feeling of monotony in the laying-up (cold-moulding) work which can be a little repetitive if there's nothing in between. The challenge of the cold-moulding is fitting each plank to the right size, not covering myself with glue and then finding my way around all the different tools and machinery and such like. The lessons are the other side which might feel irrelevant until a certain moment and then every thing you've learned intertwines to make the job a whole lot easier.

The team here have made me feel very welcome and I have already made good friends. This type of work allows you to choose whether you want to socialise or stick some earplugs in and ignore the world (as long as you get the work done). I agree with what Abbey said about 'healthy banter'. It's never unkind and people will soon lay off if they see that you're not in the mood. Personally I enjoy it. The workshop atmosphere makes it really easy to get to know one another and it never feels awkward to ask for help.

Battening applied to hold down the
second skin while the glue dries

They are very keen on their health and safety here, which is good. I have found that most things anyway are just part of a series of small mistakes that I hope I'll only make once – like running my finger across the sharp edge of a plane and then wondering why I'm bleeding. However leaving all little things like that aside I feel very safe using the machinery and tools as it's been explained so thoroughly what I should and shouldn't do.

Progress on the gig

All in all I'm happy to be here. I've learned a lot already – though I'm not saying I don't have a long way to go – and each day seems to offer a new challenge, so that there will be nothing to get bored about any time soon. I look forward to my first sail on Pioneer and all the fun stuff that the crew seem to get up to every now and then. There's been rumours of clay pigeon shooting over Christmas so that will be exciting. And then I just happened to look at the view out of the window from the apprentices' workshop and I thought – yes!

Tariq is 18. He took A levels in Economics, Sociology and Psychology and was all set to continue on the academic path and study Osteopathy at university after taking a gap year. He has no background in boats though he'd often wondered what it would be like to go sailing. It was the experience of building his tool box to bring to the interview that first made him realise how much he enjoys working with his hands. (JJ)

Tariq's tool box -
only a saw and a sledgehammer so far

Harker's Yard – first impressions – 8.9.2014 by Julia Jones

"That windlass needs seeing to," remarked Abbey as we stood on the foredeck of Pioneer, CK18, the last of the Skillingers. The Skillingers were big, deep sea, sailing smacks, built on the River Colne in Essex in the c19th and sufficiently robust to cross the North Sea in winter to dredge for oysters in the stormy waters off Terschelling.  Pioneer was built by Peter Harris in Rowhedge in 1864 and is therefore 150 years old this year – though very little remains of her original construction. She was pulled from the West Mersea mud in 1999 and almost completely restored in a breathtaking demonstration of ingenuity, determination and the shipwrights' skill. Pioneer is now sailing the East Coast and the North Sea once again but her cargoes are people and not crustaceans. She’s a sail training ship, in beautiful condition – and her connections are clearly determined that she's going to stay that way.

On the fore deck of Pioneer

This was my first visit to Pioneer and my first direct encounter with the PioneerSailing Trust, the charity which oversaw her restoration and which is now based in Harker's Yard, Brightlingsea. So much experience, expertise, enthusiasm had been accumulated during the six years of salvage and rebuilding. It couldn't have been allowed to go to waste. Today Harker's Yard is home to a varying number of shipwrights, volunteers, apprentices and work-experience students. They undertake a variety of restoration projects and build the Harker's Yard gigs – of which more another time. Pioneer herself remains the heart of the enterprise. It was a beautiful day in early September and I was on board in the company of John Lane, tutor at the Pioneer Sailing Trust, Abbey, one of the eight current apprentices and George,  a 14 year old currently released from school one day a week for work experience. "I had to keep my foot on it when I was getting the anchor up," Abbey went on, pointing to the beginnings of wear on ridges of the wooden windlass. George nodded in agreement, as one who knew. "That'll be a yard job for this winter, then," said John.

I had nothing to contribute to the conversation. What was I doing here? Firstly I came because I'd been invited by John Lane. He is proud of the PST (Pioneer Sailing Trust) apprentices and believes that the Harker's Yard scheme offers something that is at least unusual and possibly unique in UK wooden boat building. There are currently 8 apprentices, aged between 18 – 24, very different in their educational backgrounds and skill levels, who are all working towards a City and Guilds qualification. Of course the qualification is important but it seemed to me (on this first impression) that it's the working on real projects, the working both individually and alongside experienced shipwrights, that gives real value to this scheme.

John and George in joinery work shop

My youngest son left school this summer, not quite 18. It can be such a difficult time for youngsters  – and worrying for parents too. Some will get their grades and go to university – in which case the difficult moment of finding work may only be postponed, not necessarily avoided. That was my daughter's experience when she left college in her early 20s with a degree that didn't seem to fit her for anything that she actually wanted to do. Others will struggle for a while to see how all those years of school and exams are relevant to the adult world. I had thought my youngest son would be one of them until he had an amazing stroke of luck and was offered an office assistant job in the place he'd done his y10 work experience. As this was Lord's Cricket ground – his idea of heaven on earth – I'm rather hoping he'll be there for years to come. Others of his friends are starting various apprenticeships and it's an area I know very little about – except cringing at the desperate contestants trying to please Lord Sugar on TV.

Pioneer on her mooring

There were two other reasons for accepting John Lane's invitation. One was Pioneer herself. I saw her twice this summer when I was sailing my own boat – once lying at her mooring at the entrance to the Pyefleet (opposite Brightlingsea) in the early morning light and again a couple of weeks later reaching briskly up the Wallet in the sunshine. Her size makes her tremendously impressive close too but what I also love is her shapeliness as a sailing vessel.

My third reason connects with this. I was a child of the mid-c20th. My father was a yacht broker, my uncle a naval architect. My brothers and I spent hours hanging around outside boatyards while Dad disappeared to have long unintelligible conversations from which we were excluded. They were all wooden boats of course – Dad hated fibreglass and sold his business when it became clear that that was what most people wanted. He got involved in other projects including the management and restoration of some Thames sailing barges. I was never much use with my hands but he gave me a part time job one long summer before I went to university chipping rust off SB Lady Daphne at Cook's Yard, Maldon. People were perfectly kind to me and I drunk gallons of boatyard tea but I was very shy and learned absolutely nothing, except to hate the constant feeling of grittiness in my eyes (for some reason I didn't have protective goggles).

On this first visit to Harker's Yard Charlie talked to me about the iroko he was using to build a skylight for a motor launch. Dunstan explained about the cold-moulding process used to build the gigs and showed me the minute holes made by the staples which he was brushing out with filler. Liam had made prototype oars for gigs and Jake showed me the hollow construction which maintains their lightness without compromising strength. When I complimented him (totally sincerely) on his workmanship he didn't exactly answer but looked at John Lane the tutor as if both of them knew what might have been even better. I was impressed by Abbey's proprietorial attitude to Pioneer's windlass and the highlight of my visit was listening to George talk about oyster-dredging under sail on the cockle bawley Dorana MN2. I find it hard to believe that there are many other 14 year olds in this country with piratical experience like that and the ability to explain it to an outsider like me.

It's the beginning of another academic year and the PST have been advertising for 2 or 3 new apprentices. I don't think 60 year old grannies are eligible to apply but I'm hoping that if I hang around for a while and keep a-hold of my notebook, I'm going to learn a great deal from these young people and the others working with them.

Abbey, one of the Harker's Yard apprentices

This is the first in a series of posts from Harker's Yard.  We are planning regular updates over the next twelve months.  If you like what you see, please add us to your list of favourites.  Your comments are welcome and if you would like to get in touch with the Pioneer Sailing Trust, please visit our website: www.pioneersailingtrust.org.uk