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