Conservation enthusiasts finish their first project
By JAYNE OLIVER
A GROUP of maritime enthusiasts has just finished restoring its first old boat to its former glory. North East Maritime Trust volunteers puttingthe finishing touches to their National Lottery-funded coblerestoration project. (IRN 497410)
Trust director David Parker:It has been a wonderful experience – much enthusiasm and interest.
And it’ll be riding the crest of a wave next month when the Royal Diadem II returns to the Tyne.
Over the last year, 20 volunteers from the South Shields-based North East Maritime Trust have been working on the restoration of the old Northumbrian sailing coble.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
Jeff burns 5th April 2011 at 3:13 pm Hi Lads. It’s Jeff Burns of South Shields a well known friend of David Parker & Fred Crowell, I am currently at work offshore and have just heard that the “Sovereign” has been put back in the water if possible could you email me some photos of this occasion. Regards…Jeff.
Cal Boal 25th November 2011 at 11:11 pm I’m researching my family tree and I have traced a long line of Crowells living in south shields who were connected to boat building. Is Fred Crowell from the area
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.
Fred Crowell
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.
