The Ownership of the Coble: Peggy

Posted on September 9, 2026 by Mick Dawson

1: Original Missing Archives post was about the years, 2011-2019, and I have managed to fill some of the gaps in them since the post about them was was made and I now wish to review the earlier gap of 6 years, Nov 2002 to Jun 2008. The post of November 2002 gives the reader the main reason for the existence of NEMT and I was one of the early volunteers helping to restore first the Rachel Doulas then the Favourite and during that time that I became a major party to the restoration of historic fishing vessels by the acquisition of Glad Tidings in 2003. It was not long after the purchase that I was told her original name was Peggy so when she was repainted and anti-fouled she was given back her original name and at the same time my name as her owner was painted on her port aft quarter:-

2: The name, M Dawson as the owner of Peggy remained on her port quarter while she was in the care of the South Shields Angling Boat Club and she sat on quayside at the Angling Boat Club for a good while before she could to put into the care of the only wooden boat restorer on the Tyne, Fred Crowell. In the meantime, I had to wait to put her into what I knew as Fred’s Shed because she had to join a queue because he had been asked, by more senior members of NEMT than I, to modify the seine-netters, Rachel Douglas and Favourite to make them more suitable for pleasure use and I made myself useful by helping with their restoration during that time.
I found after some research, mostly by looking at what had been done to put other cobles back into sail that it was relatively easy to determine how long the mast and yard to be compared to her length and while Fred made them out of old telegraph poles, a sailmaker was found to make the sails to fit them.

While Fred goes into some detail about how cobles are built, in his tale about the saving of Peggy, it is not until the 23rd page of The Saving of The Peggy that see much about the mast and yard and more importantly, we also see that the ownership now includes Tim Dawson and that’s him helping to remove the mast from storage so that it could be put back in her prior to the launch,i.e. leave the shed.

3. It appears that some of the wood used to replace some of Peggy’s planks had not all been properly seasoned but this was of no import for nearly all of her new planks were to be well painted, including the ones directly supporting the gunnels.

The gunnels have to be fixed by bolting them to the stempeice, then the knees connecting them to the thwarts and finally bolting them the plank across the stern which supports the rudder and is known as the scut.

The top plank and the gunnel are then rounded off to make them comfortable to sit on and care should have been protect them from the weather. Sadly, this was not done, either on my watch or when I sold her to the NFHT and she needed a major repaint and while that was being done the owner’s name was changed again – to Charlie Lowdon.

It was a good while before I discovered the lie that Charlie had ever owned Peggy by painting his name on the port quarter and was rather annoyed that both Tim and I had been written out of the history of her preservation by a sleight of hand. If I’d been asked by the NEMT member(s) who commissioned the change of ownership to Charlie they would have been given short shrift and I would have told them that as Charlie had done so much more to help with the preservation of the Henry Frederick Swan than he had with the preservation of Peggy.

I also felt that it would have been more honest to make a plaque for him to go on the aft cabin of the HFS next to the one awarded to J Dudman than to falsely claim that he was ever an owner of Peggy.

If the author of the lie that Charlie had ever owned Peggy had asked me for permission to write Tim and myself out of the history of Peggy’s preservation, it would have been denied as I knew there was a more honest way of honouring Charlie Lowden’s work for the NE Maritime Trust.

Mick Dawson
09-September-2026

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Description of the coble Peggy by the NFHT in 2017.

Posted on September 8, 2026 by Mick Dawson

PEGGY – Built 1924. 93 years.
Believed to be the oldest fully restored Northumbrian coble.
SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT – National Maritime Museum; small boat register
1. What is the vessel’s ability to demonstrate her physical fabric?
Peggy has not been compromised by alteration from her original build specification. Overall dimensions are 28′ long, 7′ 6″ beam and 2′ draft, though the rudder reaches 4′ below water level. Repairs and restoration have been undertaken to maintain original standards and materials. Framing is 60% original, planking 60%, masts and spars are replacements. Engine and gearbox have been replaced and the present engine is a Lister of uncertain age but probably dating from the 1950s.
The paintwork replicates that typically carried by this type of coble on the coast of Northumberland throughout the twentieth century. It has not been possible to obtain archive photographs or other evidence for the painting of this boat during her period of use in the fishing industry.
2. What are the vessel’s associational links for which there is no physical evidence?
Peggy, was built by the Harrison yard at Amble in 1924 “on spec” during a slack period. Unusually (for a coble) she was sold for pleasure use, the purchaser being a Mr Hall, resident of Beadnell in Northumberland. For this purpose Harrison’s fitted a cabin but it was not long before she lost her pleasure boat fittings, when sold on for fishing to Robert Rutter of Seahouses, as a typical coble with engine and auxiliary sail and registered BK7. She later worked back at Beadnell, then at Amble where she became BH177 and renamed Glad Tidings. Later in her history Peggy moved to Sunderland.
As a fishing coble she worked long lines, salmon nets and pots for crab and lobster. Upon leaving the fishing industry Peggy was used as a pleasure boat at Hartlepool, before being bought in poor condition by an NFHT enthusiast in 2007. Restoration was undertaken in 2008 at the boatyard then owned by Fred Crowell, at South Shields. Further comprehensive restoration led by Dave Parker was completed in 2017 by NFHT and NEMT volunteers at the same boatyard. Now kept on the river Tyne and in almost original condition she is in the ownership of Northumbrian Fishing Heritage Trust.
3. How does the vessel’s shape or form combine and contribute to her function?
Peggy is a typical Northumbrian coble of the kind used and built until the 1950s, to traditional specification similar to the sailing vessels of previous centuries. The design gradually evolved as engines became more efficient and fishermen sought cobles of greater proportions and versatility. These later cobles were built until the 1980s. The type, of which Peggy is representative, was built in large numbers and at one time several ports on the east coast had many such boats. Originally beach boats, their shape reflects many of the design and construction methods common in previous centuries. It is important to note that the hull design contains build elements of wooden North Sea craft of the sixth century and of British hide covered craft. – although such origins require further research.
There is no centre keel as such, though a part keel commences at the forefoot and extends almost to a point amidships. For the aft two thirds of the boat – which is largely flat bottomed – there are two droughts or bilge keels upon which the vessel rests on the beach. Lack of a keel is compensated by the stability afforded by a very deep forefoot and a deep detachable rudder. The rudder is mounted outside a transom that rakes at 45 degrees. Peggy’s old rig was carefully surveyed from photographs and drawings of similar cobles and faithfully reproduced. The mast is stepped forward in the boat and rakes aft so that the dipping lug sail is hung centrally. The mast therefore does not take up valuable space amidships. On beaching, cobles were usually floated onto a pair of wheels on a low slung axle to be led off the beach to a place of refuge. Peggy normally resides at St Peter’s Marina and is used for training in traditional coble sailing skills, gatherings and visits to other ports.

Footnote: Peggy is now one hundred and two years old.

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Update on the Missing Archives.

Posted on September 1, 2026 by Mick Dawson

The Post about the missing archives made on 12th September 2024, was about the alteration to the history of the North East Maritime Trust prior to December 2019, made by the deletion most of the posts made to the website nemaritimetrust.co.uk by NEMT’s Chair or one of his accomplices during the few years prior to the spring of 2024.

I had given him editorial rights to the website while it was being hosted by TSOHost but he had betrayed my trust by gaining total control of my website by misinforming one of their agents and lying about it to some of the Trustees of the two Trusts, NEMT and NFHT.

I discovered on March the 15th 2024 that I could no longer log into the website that I had maintained for about a decade and a half I had and when I asked for control to be passed back to myself I was sold by one of TSOHost’s administrators that I would have to talk with Mr Renwick to before they would resolve the and it was only when I regained control of my website by passing it to another provider that I was able to progress and start to fill the gaps made in the history of the NE Maritime Trust by Mr A Renwick or one of his accomplices.

In the post about about the missing posts made on September the 12th I only mentioned the 8 years from 2011 but there was an earlier period which dealt with the restoration of the traditional fishing vessels the Rachel Douglas, Favourite and Peggy in the years 2002-2008. The first two boats were mainly the concern of the NEMT Volunteers including myself, who had taken them over after they had finished commercial fishing and Peggy was acquired by me as a project for my retirement.

She had been in the care of two sea anglers from Hartlepool for some years and they were definitely not commercial fishermen and her first moorings on the Tyne were with the South Shields Boat Angling Club of which I was a member for a few years. It was just a hundred yards along the road from the slipway known a Fred’s shed before it was acquired by NEMT.

Mick Dawson
1st September 2026

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Offer to Talk

Posted on August 30, 2026 by Mick Dawson

On Wednesday the 29th May 2024 I received the following from the Chairman of NEMT:-

Michael
As you know I offered to talk to you sometime, but you refused.
You also stated in passing “that I would know why” 
While I understand your reticence about this, I certainly don’t know why.
Except to say that with past experience, email communications can be dangerous in cases like this and difficult to control. That is why my offer to discuss face to face was made in the best way possible manner.
I’m always available for that.
Regards
Alec

He had interrupted a conversation I was having with one of the NEMT Volunteers about a former Trustee, Keith Barnard and I turned round and told him told him to put what he wanted to say to me in writing, then returned to the conversation with the Volunteer without adding anything to the simple request that he put what he wanted to say to me in writing and went on to discover that Mr Barnard had gone to ground and was no longer considered to be one of the Trustees.

The reason I has asked him to put what he wanted to say to me in writing was because it had become clear to me that by 2024 he had been two-faced about his business deals after he had assumed the chairmanship of NEMT.

On my last visit to NEMT, a couple of weekends ago, I achieved very little because I fell foul of Alec Renwick’s repeated demand that he wanted to speak to me again and I lost my cool by calling him worse than a hypocrite and leaving the site before getting true assessment of the condition of the Henry Frederick Swan and the cobles Golden Gleam and Friarage.

Mick Dawson
30-Aug-26

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Airing Peggy’s Sails.

Posted on August 25, 2026 by Mick Dawson

To tighten the luff, the yard had to be hauled up as far as it would go and the downhaul tightened up hard, which left to foot of mainsail about four inches or 10 cm clear of the gunnel. Peggy’s name is partly hidden by the rolled up jib of the yacht, the Port of Tyne number is 479 and the owners are shown as myself and my son, T Dawson, known to all who had anything to the repair of boats in the care of NEMT as Mick and Tim Dawson.

The mast and yard were made by Fred Crowell. He used to run boat yard on the slipway next to the North East Maritime Trust until he retired and it was handed over to NEMT by to South Tyneside Council in 2008.

Tim, helping to lift Peggy’s mast out of storage so it could be put in her prior to the launch in 2007.

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NEMT: Key Milestones: Aug-2026

Posted on August 20, 2026 by Mick Dawson

Key Milestones of the North East Maritime Trust

Updated, 20-Aug-26

2002 Founder members of NEMT visit Seahouses with their recent purchase.

2002 Coble and Keelboat Society discusses proposal for a maritime restoration workshop.

2003 C&KS considers means of creating a restoration workshop at Corporation Quay, South Shields.

2003, August A committee is formed to develop the proposed establishment of the South Shields workshop.

2003, 19th August C&KS meets South Tyneside Council to discuss take over of the former Eurostag workshop at Unit 2/3 Wapping Street for establishment of NEMT.

2004 NEMT operating autonomously as an unincorporated trust.

2005, 13th September NEMT incorporated as a limited liability company.

2005, 1st November NEMT granted licence to occupy Unit 2/3 Wapping Street for one year.

2006, 7th September Feasibility study commissioned at the request of STC as a prerequisite for being granted security of tenure; such secure tenure being necessary to obtain funds for development.

2007, 6th February Charitable status awarded to NEMT.

2007, March Feasibility study (Preliminary Options Appraisal) published and forwarded to STC.

2007, 2nd April The lifeboat Henry Frederick Swan given to NEMT by members of the trust who had purchased it in 2005.

2008, 9th April Twenty Five Year Lease offered by STC but without security of tenure as STC would have a break option at twelve months notice. The “Council would not wish to prejudice any future regeneration scheme in the area”.

2013, October Lease for the workshop (Fisherman’s units 2/3) commenced. For 30 years to 30th September 2043.

2016, March Lease commenced for the Boatyard (former Fred Crowell workshop). Date of termination 30th September 2043.

2019, April 22nd Henry Frederick Swan Restoration.

When someone told Tony Henderson the author of an article in the Newcastle Chronicle “The Henry Frederick Swan was the first restoration project undertaken by the trust when it was established in 2005 to keep alive traditional wooden boat building and repair skills.” they were being economical with the truth as anyone who has been following my website can check for themselves by viewing the posts up to and including the one for September 2011.
The post for September 2011 shows the fleet of vessels belonging the North East Maritime Trust minus the coble, Peggy.
Peggy was the first boat to be cast off by NEMT, i.e. denied that they had any part in her restoration, and it was not long before the Rachel Douglas, Favourite, and the Sovereign followed her. Pease note the denial that NEMT had anything to do with the restoration of any of those boats began as Mr A Renwick assumed the Chairmanship of NEMT on the death of his predecessor.

Mick Dawson
20th August 2026

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Key Milestones of the North East Maritime Trust

Posted on August 14, 2026 by Mick Dawson
  • 2003: Set up informally by a group of local people to preserve maritime heritage.
  • 2004: Operated as an autonomous, unincorporated trust.
  • 2005: Formally incorporated on September 13 and granted premises on Wapping Street in South Shields.
  • 2007 : Awarded official charitable status on February 6. [NEMT, NFHT]
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Review of NE Maritime Trust, August 2026

Posted on August 9, 2026 by Mick Dawson

Originally published on the 9th August, as Views of nemaritimetrust.co.uk pass 187,000 today, this update has been made to emphasise something that ought not to have been glossed over last week and that is the distance between what the Chairman of Trust was telling his readers about the North East Maritime Trust and the truth.

The post had began “Compiling some facts about the two websites, this one and a later site developed by the self appointed Chair of the NE Maritime Trust.

Of the six boats described on his site:
1 – the Friarage appears to have so much work needed to be done to make her seaworthy, that NEMT will not be able to return her to Hartlepool for few years.
2 – the Kernic is no longer in the workshop, it appears that she has been delivered to the Sea Cadets.
3 – the Viking was not restored by NEMT volunteers.
4 – Bedford is in storage, but the Tyne which was given a good tidy by the North East Maritime Trust a good few years ago.
5 – the Royal Diadem II was acquired by the Northumbrian Fisheries Heritage Trust and restored by NEMT volunteers in 2010.
6 – the Henry Frederick Swan is in such a sorry state that she will be occupying the slipway for a good number of years.

There was a commentary on six boats to be found on nemaritimetrust.org.uk but the original commentary of a week or so back has now been filled out with the pictures of the six vessels and what was said about them, as has the commentary made on the original Post.

1 – https://nemaritimetrust.org.uk/boats/the-friarage-hartlepool/
2 – https://nemaritimetrust.org.uk/boats/the-kernic-a-boat-building-project/
3 – https://nemaritimetrust.org.uk/boats/viking-c1908/
4 – https://nemaritimetrust.org.uk/boats/the-bedford-lifeboat-carriage/
5 – https://nemaritimetrust.org.uk/boats/royal-diadem-ii/
6 – https://nemaritimetrust.org.uk/boats/henry-frederick-swan/

I visited NEMT on the 25th July I saw that the Henry Frederick Swan was in a very sorry state but that Dave Parker must have been working on her and was rather upset to see, when space had been made in the main workshop by the Sea Cadet’s new boat apparently having been delivered, that the coble Golden Gleam had not been put back into the workshop to protect her from the sun.

I knew from experience that when I was not able to get the coble Peggy onto the slipway for well over a year, there were more lucrative jobs to be done on vessels like the Rachel D, Favourite and some none NEMT boats, that she dried out so much that there were so many gaping cracks in her planks timbers that she nearly sank when being moved less than 50 meters from South Shield Boat Angling Club onto the slipway.

On Saturday 25th, I had been hoping to see Dave Parker and was grumbling about the condition of the Hartlepool coble, Number 1, on the list above, to a NEMT Volunteer, when I was accosted by Mr Alec Renwick saying he wanted a word with me and I am rather ashamed to say I somewhat lost my temper with him and called him worse than a hypocrite.

While he deserves to be called a hypocrite by anyone’s standards, there was no way I could then raise any issue with him, especially that of the continued neglect of the coble Golden Gleam, and I was not in a reasonable mood to chat to Dave Parker about the Henry Frederick Swan so I made my exit.

Mick Dawson
14th August 2026

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Improper Conduct

Posted on June 20, 2026 by Mick Dawson

To those who follow the Website nemaritimetrust.co.uk, here is a criticism of the conduct of the current Chair of NEMT, Mr A Renwick.

Dear All

I received a copy of the NEMT Newsletter for the Autumn of 2024 but unfortunately filed it under Publication rather than Newsletter and discovered my error just a few weeks ago and anyone who has any concerns about the conduct of the Trust’s Chairman can now view a copy.

Before we look into any detail I maintain it was misfiled because it was seen by looking up the last newsletter posted in his website nemaritimetrust.org.uk.

One or two things one must bear in mind when reading this copy and the first was that Mr Renwick falsely claimed in a broken promise that the coble Golden Gleam lay rotting St Peters. In his words of the 15th February, 2024:-
“This inaction was repeated many times, especially regarding the hoped for restoration of your very historic coble Golden Gleam; now rotting away at St Peters. A very poor reflection on any so called Heritage Trust.

Four months later, acting as the Chair of NEMT, he accused me of stealing my own website, nemaritimetrust.co.uk, to drive a wedge between the trustees of NFHT and NEMT by threatening me on the 18th of June 2024 in an email which he had copied to six others besides myself:-

I simply ask all at NFHT to make Mick Dawson see sense and transfer our nemaritimetrust.co.uk website back to NEMT where it belongs.
As ever, I’m always available to talk in an attempt to end with a satisfactory conclusion.
Unfortunatly until that happens NEMT will not be in a position to discuss any future NFHT collaboration or plan vessel repairs on these premises.

The recovered Newsletter of August 2024 was the first newsletter to express a personal grudge against a fellow member of NE Maritime Trust and could be found in Mr A Renwick’s Newsletter of Summer 2024 which was published about the same time as the email of 18th June, in which he declared:-

Headline News – Due to unforeseen circumstances our Website is currently still offline. We apologise if you have been affected by this or for any inconvenience caused. But be assured that we are trying to sort this out, in the meantime please be patient. However, our new Website below will replace and be much better than the original which was very unreliable anyway.
Once this horrible little gremlin has been removed we hope to be back on-line very soon with our new improved Website address as follows – www.nemaritimetrust.org.uk

‘Our Website’ was neither his nor offline by the time that Newsletter was published and to say it was unreliable was more than just an opinion, it was an outright lie. I discovered in March 2024 that my removal as the administrator of nemaritimetrust.co.uk was by Mr Renwick who had misinformed TSOHost, the website provider, in order to replace its actual owner, with himself.

Fortunately I had a copy of what remained of the Website on my PC after much of it had been removed by whom I now think of as the ‘True Gremlin’ and together with many of the records I had kept since about the time I had created the nemaritimetrust.co.uk so that the site one sees today much resembles the historical site with a few gaps. This reconstructed site was the one sent to another provider with myself as its administrator, by the end of April 2024.

A good while before the reconstruction of my old site and the reason it had to be done was that Mr Renwick had been given some editorial control of the original site but he abused the privilege to delete many of the posts that referred to the restoration by NEMT of what I consider to be the Northumbrian Fishing Fleet. It consisted the Rachel Douglas, the Favourite, the Sovereign and the Cobles Peggy and Royal Diadem. The Royal Diadem is included because when first restored, she was in the care of the Northumbrian Fishing Heritage Trust.

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HL80: Friarage, a Hartlepool Coble

Posted on May 16, 2026 by Mick Dawson

In December 2025 the North East Maritime Trust took on the task of repairing and making the Hartlepool Museum’s Coble Friarage, seaworthy again:-

In April 2026 a visit to the workshop in Wapping Street showed that NEMT had taken on a job with HL80 that would require considerable resources in terms of materials and manpower to make her seaworthy again and one only has to look at the likes of the Henry Frederick Swan in the National Historic Ships Register to get some idea of this.

There is a similar post in the Register for the Rachel Douglas and while it says in her ‘History’. “The vessel is in excellent sea going state of repair and is subject to annual survey and maintenance” it does not tell you that until 2019, the excellent sea going sate of repair, had either been commissioned or completed by those in charge of NEMT.1

Much of that work being done on the Friarage would be better done on the slipway run by NEMT rather than in their workshop and while a coble would not be finished to the same standard that was given to the Henry Frederick Swan, she would not be given back to the Hartlepool Museum without a good paint job!

It is entirely possible in the agreement between the Hartlepool Museum and NEMT that there was no requirement to make her river or seaworthy and that would mean that to use the slipway she would need to be craned both onto and off the slipway cradle to get any extensive work done on her.

NEMT could make a replica cradle to sit in their workshop which would mean that the Henry Frederick Swan could be left on the slipway cradle have her forward cabin like top repaired much as the aft cabin, on which the steering gear is fitted, was done over 6 years ago and prior to her launch in 2019 which attracted quite a crowd on the day she left the slipway:-

I hope that those in charge find a way round the problem of three vessels requiring a lot of work and do not forget the Golden Gleam which has been left out in the cold again but I’m sure it will be all explained in the 2026 NEMT Newsletter and I am looking forward seeing to how they propose manage things so that the Golden Gleam is not forgotten again.

Mick Dawson
June 2026

1. On Tuesday 3rd December 2019 I gave Alec Renwick the right to make corrections to any of the posts to that I had made to nemaritimetrust.co.uk over many years but soon discovered that no corrections had been made but many of the posts, the ones that referred mostly to the Rachel Douglas, Favourite, Peggy and Royal Diadem, were missing and as a precaution I removed all the rights that he had been given.

2. Subsequent actions by Mr A Renwick regarding the missing posts have shown that they had been deliberately deleted but what concerned me more was that he gained control of my website by misleading one of TSOHost’s advocates. When I discovered this fact in mid March 2024 I had no option but to transfer nemaritimetrust.co.uk to a new provider: Ionos.

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