The Chair of North East Maritime Trust wrote in mid November 2023 in his Twitter, now X, page:-
“Dear All, Please note that our old NEMT and nemaritimetrust.co.uk website has unexpectedly stopped working. We apologise for this but hope to have our new website using the following: nemaritimetrust.org.uk up and running as soon as possible.”
I had added the comment on that page on: 17-Nov-23:- “Looks like it stopped working because NEMT Trustees stopped paying TSO Hosting for their services.”
He did not like that so he deleted my comment and rewrote the post as:-
Apologies, but our http://nemaritimetrust.co.uk website has unexpectedly stopped working. We hope to have it up and running again soon. We will also update the site and include links to our new, more appropriate .org.uk Web address.
The subscription nemaritimetrust.co.uk was renewed as it was back in the public domain by the 15th December:-
We are happy to say that our original Website is up and running again after some hard work, fixing of scammers, etc, and inevitable costs involved. Our new and more appropriate .org.uk Website will soon be available.
He had already removed much of the history of both NEMT and NFHT in late 2019 and while the site was temporarily removed from the public domain I started to save what I could in a temporary site posted in another domain.
He had been planning to set up nemaritimetrust.org.uk in www.123-reg.co.uk for over a year now, the 14th October 2022 to be exact, and thought all he had to do was to wait till the subscription to nemaritimetrust.co.uk expired and not renew it but what he had not foreseen was that all the history of his favourite project, the rebuild of the Henry Frederick Swan would be lost as well all of that of the both NEMT and NFHT.
There are a number of sites over which the Chair of NEMT has no control and they will illustrate what he wishes to hide by rewriting the history of the Trust of which he is the Chair:-
- South Tyneside Council:- The Trust was set up to educate people about the UK’s maritime heritage, especially its place in the history of the North East, and to support conservation, restoration, repair and public display of historic vessels and maritime artefacts.
- The Charities Commission:- The support of maritime heritage including conservation, restoration and construction of replicas.
- National Historic Ships UK:- NEMT’s focus is on traditional (wooden) and their objectives are, principally: To educate the public in relation to the maritime heritage of the United Kingdom, especially the North East of England and to encourage and facilitate the restoration, repair, maintenance, conservation and public display of historic working vessels and maritime craft, as well as maritime artefacts of all kinds.
- Facebook Page – The Henry Frederick Swan, 26 November 2019: – Busy week so far: slipped the Seine-netter ‘Favourite’ yesterday (now on display at Newcastle quayside); and brought ‘Glad Tidings’ into the boathouse this morning for a couple of weeks clean and assessment.
- The Requiem for a Foghorn, 22 June 2013:- The Rachel Douglas, The Trust is participating in the Foghorn Requiem with six beautifully restored vessels, including the seine net fishing vessel Rachel Douglas was built in 1947 for Seahouses fishermen, later working from St Abbs until North East Maritime Trust members saved her for restoration in 2002. The others were the Sovereign, the Royal Diadem II, the Favourite, the Peggy and the Irene Patricia.*
It should be noted that the Henry Frederick Swan was not relaunched until 20 April 2019.
M Dawson, 1-Dec-23
* The first three were pictured but not Favourite, Peggy nor the sixth vessel which I assumed was the Irene Patricia.