The North East Maritime Trust fleet, minus the coble Peggy, in September 2011.
There was nowhere to moor up, as the floating pontoon that was to become NE1 Marina and the access to it, was incomplete at that time and we had to turn around and sail back downriver before they lowered the Millenium Bridge.
The crane being used to build the pontoon is at the foot of the Tyne Bridge in the third picture.
The fourth of April saw the launch of Sovereign from Fred Crowell’s South Shields slipway, after ten months of extensive rebuilding.
It had been a tremendous task getting the rotten vessel transformed into a smart and seaworthy museum piece. Over 5000 hours of work were needed to restore the boat after the ravages suffered in seventy three years of continuous work. Sovereign was so bad, it was amazing that she had not sunk.
Work included straightening and reinforcing the keel, replacement of 2000 4” spikes, new planking in several areas, recaulking, repair of rotten frames, overhaul of mechanical equipment (pumps, steering gear, pipe work, replacement engine etc.), deck repairs, almost complete new wheelhouse (only the windows and door survived), new capping rails, new masts etc. etc. Apart from the boat suffering from the usual wood rot, there were several areas suffering from infestation by wood boring beetles, many of them still happily munching away until the last ones (we hope) were discovered in March.
Fred Crowell has done most of the work, with the assistance of three regular volunteers. His patience has been sorely tried at times by the seemingly endless problems but he never lost his interest in the project, and was very understanding of the financial difficulties that developed after an expected grant fell through. He made every possible move to save money, scouring the area for good second-hand materials and finding new methods of working to save expense, but he would not compromise on quality.
Sovereign has been restored to her 1950s condition. Her pre-war condition as a varnished vessel would have been beautiful but the heavily bruised condition of the external woodwork made this impossible to achieve. The only shortcoming in the presentation the vessel is that she has a trawl winch rather than a proper seine net winch with rope coilers. Perhaps an authentic winch will be found some day and fitted, to complete appearance of this classic fishing vessel.
A little outfitting work is still needed to complete the vessel: the crew accommodation in the forecastle is yet to be finished and a couple of spars need to be fitted.
Sovereign now spends most of her time in St Peters Basin but we expect she will be seen up and down the coast in the near future.
Contributed by Peter Weightman
From: Alec Renwick <alec.renwick@gmail.com>
Sent: 23 March 2011 08:39
To: Michael Dawson <daw50nmdj@hotmail.co.uk>
Subject: Re: RE: Domain Renewals
Mick, Thanks for your reply and explan’t’n which sounds like it makes sense to continue with Daily. Unfortunately I’m not in a position to help at the moment due to work commitments, which has also led to my recent lack of contact with NEMT.
Keep up the good work.
Alec
On 22 Mar 2011 23:47, “Michael Dawson” <daw50nmdj@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
Alec,
I bought nemaritimetrust.co.uk and registered it with Daily because they were fairly cheap and were very helpful. I thought that this was the best way to develop a site without messing up the nemt.co.uk site that you had registered with Freeparking.
When we went live I had a lot of trouble linking the two names and getting them recognised by the search engines Google, Yahoo etc. and the only way out of this, as far as I could see, was to switch nemt.co.uk from Freeparking to Daily. I apologise again for not asking for your permission or at least letting you know what I was doing.
Nemt.co.uk is directed to nemaritimetrust.co.uk which is in turn directed to the server at ns1.ukhost4u.com where we are hosted for free, please see attached docs from Nominet Whois.
I would appreciate someone else taking the sites over and if you set up a user on Daily * I can willingly pass both the NEMT sites over to you. I have a user on daily where I manage the sites along with one of my own and would like to separate this from the NEMT ones and this would be a simple way to do it. If this was done before May when the domain names are up for renewal it would be useful as well especially if one of them was to be done away with. It is only a bit of extravagance but I think both should be kept.
cheers Mick
As the Rachel Douglas filled the shed she had to have her cabin freed from the deck and hoisted up to clear the deck furniture, mainly the net winch, so that she could be sent down the slipway to allow a crane borrowed from a neighbouring yard to lower the engine safely into place.
On one of the trips to the Scottish East Coast we hit rough weather crossing the Forth and the cabin suffered much damage a decision was taken to get it re-panelled and while it was being done the engine was lifted out and serviced/replaced.
Posted on 2nd December 2010
An infestation of beetle grubs was found in the upper forward frames, decking and bow planking of Sovereign.
Fred Crowell was able to remove the infected areas of timber and replace with new, a difficult task involving awkward scarfing of new timbers to old in very confined spaces.
The forward area is now free of grub problems and in sound condition.
Repairs to the Sovereign have been given support by the National Historic Ships Committee who have awarded an emergency sustainability grant. This enabled Fred Crowell to start repairs to the seriously deteriorated hull.
Once on Fred’s slipway, it was found that the spikes holding the planking onto the frames were badly corroded. Some had rusted away entirely leaving nothing to hold planks in place other than water pressure and the caulking. Several planks have now been entirely replaced, about 2000 spikes replaced, re-caulking undertaken and a lot of filling carried out, making Sovereign secure below the waterline.
Many thanks to National Historic Ships for contributing.
2 Responses to National Historic Ships supports Sovereign
Favourite has been in Fred Crowell’s boat shed for attention to a few defects and is back in prime condition, being launched again on 10th May. She has had attention to hull caulking, a damaged deck beam, a little new decking and repairs to her stem. Before leaving the slip a full external repaint was undertaken. A last little detail improvement has been the making and fitting of new nameboards by Fred. These followed the style of the boat’s builder, Walter Reekie.
Derek Smith
13th September 2010 at 10:09 pm
Favourite made a fine sight in the intro to “A Journey back to Newcastle” on BBC4 9.30 Sunday 12/09/2010.
Note to admin – put the photos back in
Admin cannot put the photo back because his original copy of the August newsletter is missing.
Welcome to our August newsletter which is packed with NEMT’s latest information. Also please check the new headings of Soundings which looks at current and Waypoints for future developments.
It is always a pleasure to write about the progress and hard work made by our band of Friends and supporters who are so important to NEMT, without you, we would not exist.
Soundings – Boomerang Boat Museum
NEMT is proud to be associated with Australia and Norway, aiPotu and the unusual sight and shape of the boomerang boat which is now on show at Wapping Street. The Boomerang Boat was made at the 16th biennale of Sydney 2008 by artist duo aiPotu and consisting of the two Norwegian artists Andreas Siqueland and Anders Kjellesvik, who restored the boat and searched for a suitable home in Scotland, Wales and England including the Newcastle area. South Shields became a natural point of departure for them. Going by coast, a series of possibilities were investigated. But they just kept on coming back to North East Maritime Trust, a place ‘where we just love old boats’ and did not need much time before the Trust decided to take on the responsibility of creating a new home for the stranded vessel.
For more information about aiPotu, please visit www.aipotu.org
While the boat is definitely very unusual, it has a more serious, relevant history and build using traditional skills now in decline, even down-under.
Off to Hartlepool’s Tall Ships Festival, 6thAugust.
RD II has successfully undergone full restoration over the last year and looks wonderful in her traditional colours.
This Heritage Lottery funded project was also supported by International Paints with open days and public donations also helping to raise the crucial finance required. We wish to express thanks to everyone concerned.
A booklet outlining RD II’s full history and restoration is also available, just ask.
Funding for the trip to Hartlepool was provided by the Community Area Forum South Tyneside.
Shown from right to left; Rachel Douglas, Favourite and Royal Diadem II on their way to Hartlepool.
The North Shields Lowlights and Highlights are clearly shown almost in line and just above Royal Diadem II.
Tide and weather conditions created a very ‘interesting’ trip with a reasonable swell proving the value of well made traditional boats.
NEMT vessels were the only traditional working boats to represent Tyneside and Northumberland at this festival.
Royal Diadem II looking her best (Click on image to enlarge)
The festival was a great showcase for NEMT and we made full use of our position which was located at the marina near shops, cafes and a pub too. It is estimated that over five hundred people came along to admire our boats, ask questions and make donations. Royal Diadem created a great deal of interest with everyone including fishermen young and old, who gave us the benefit of their memories and history of local fishing traditions.
Our outward and return journey were each completed in about four hours with rather unsettled conditions to contend with. Rain and a big swell helped the tall ships away and us too, but that was no problem for our hardy sailors who took it all in their stride, after finding the end of rope!
Many thanks go to our Chairman Mr Peter Weightman and friends, for the inclusion of our associate boats
Favourite and Rachel Douglas at the festival (Click on image to enlarge) .
Waypoints
Education for young and not so young is a very important part of what we are doing at NEMT.
To take this forward, Tim West has approached over seventy local schools leaving booklets which give an overview of North East Maritime heritage and lifestyles. It also explains what we are about while emphasising the Royal Diadem11 and Henry Frederick Swan restoration projects.
Lifeboat ‘Henry Frederick Swan’ is about to take centre stage in our restoration program. This National Historic Ships registered vessel, which is included in the Historic Fleet Register number 2047 is important to our local maritime history. She is also recognised as the longest serving UK registered lifeboat and was one of the first self righting, sailing, pulling (rowing) and motor driven lifeboats of her time when put into service in 1917.
Work started before our current restoration projects and included the careful cataloguing, photographing and removal of hundreds of items, engine, fabric floatation boxes and fittings etc.
Internal and external cleaning of the hull which also included the removal of nearly 100 years worth of paint and grime was also essential, to allow Fred Crowell access for the preparation of a full condition survey. This has now been completed, ready for a costing survey to start in August.
Friends are central to NEMT’s success and very important to our healthy future. Progress, a busy workload and change of administration have all helped to delay our request for membership renewals this year. Therefore, we are changing the membership renewal date for Friends to the 1st October each year. This will be pro-rota for new members who join NEMT throughout the following year. The new ‘Friends’ secretary will be writing to all members in the near future.
For example, someone who joins NEMT Friends in April will pay just £5.00 until 1st October when the full £10 annual fee will apply.
We hope this new and simplified membership will help to streamline the membership scheme.
Also note that all Friends benefit from unrestricted access to events (with consideration to any health and safety issues being paramount) Learning to work with wood, special low cost workshop facilities (with agreement from NEMT board members) Newsletter, sail training and availability of certain craft, with agreement. You can also be confident that NEMT is promoting and maintaining the Northeast’s valuable maritime heritage, because “We Just Love Old Boats”
20th July 2020
We have learned today that our NEMT Facebook page has been deleted without our consent. The administrator is a former member of NEMT who has repeatedly refused to give up his administration rights. Therefore we currently have no Facebook page. We know this is a valuable way of keeping in touch with our members and so many supporters around the world. Please accept our apologies, but we can assure you that action is being taken. We do hope to re establish our page very soon.
Alec Renwick. NEMT Chairman.