Tag: anti-foul

‘2CV Pete’; Highly Commended.

November 7, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Just a quick announcement! Cathy Chapman tells me that the 2013 Calendars are SELLING OUT FAST so you need to get your orders in a bit quick if you don’t want to miss out. Details are on the shop pages in the black bar at the top of this page.

2CV Pete’s Highly Commended certificate for the adult section of the National Historic Ships Volunteer Awards.

I have not mentioned this before now as we thought that maybe our entry had fallen through the cracks and been lost, but at the same time we entered the National Historic Ships Volunteer Awards on behalf of our heroic teenage volunteer girls, Hannah and Bethany Pihama, we also sneaked an entry into the ‘grown-ups’ category on behalf of 2CV Pete. Readers from back in the day of the painting project will recall that 2CV Pete was very much part of our regular crew, making the long run in from Ramsgate every weekend in his lovely old car, donning his overalls and getting down and dirty (and cold and wet) with the best of them, taking a lion’s share of the anti-foul painting down in the bowels of the lighter, helping and even leading on some of the more engineering style stuff (moving crab winches around etc) and always being a happy, chatty, bantering member of our little community.

When we heard about the awards competition organised by the Marsh Christian Trust (for National Historic Ships) we dug out some nice pics of Pete in action (some of which we have published on here) and wrote a glowing description of his heroics, and posted it the same day as the girls’ entry. Given how fast we heard back about the girls and knew that they’d been invited to attend the awards ceremony on HMS Belfast (although we didn’t know then whether they’d won anything), we were concerned when we got no word back about the Pete entry. Hence we decided not to publish that we’d applied and contacted the competition organisers to see what the score was.

Well, now it has all been sorted out and we have, for Pete, a beautiful “Highly Commended” certificate (see picture) and a very nice covering letter noting his “significant contribution to Maritime Heritage and to the vessel Cambria”. So, thank you for those, Marsh Christian Trust and the National Historic Ships Register. 2CV Pete will be delighted although I know he doesn’t “do the internet” and will not have any idea yet that we entered him and that this is on the way to him to stick up on his wall.

Thanks, Pete and look after yourself.

Painting Volunteers Needed

October 17, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Webbing; Picture by Matt Care

It’s that time of year again. Now that the barge is back in Faversham for the winter we have a need again for pairs of hands to do a bit of painting. Please if you have an hour or so free on any weekends through the winter, join our happy crew and come down to help get the barge ready for the next season. You can contact us via the email address (CambriaTrustSecretary@live.co.uk) or, if you’re in the area, come down to Standard Quay and hail somebody aboard (“Oy! Cambria!” generally works!). There’s generally a small group of happy chatty folk at it and some breaks for tea and cake. This can be ruffty-tuffty painting, outdoors in the cold wind, or it can be more like house decorating down below decks gliding a nice coat of gloss onto a galley wall. For a week or so we will also be in the dry dock so there will be a chance of some barnacle scraping and anti-foul slapping down below on the flat bottom, if you’re feeling more extreme, but nobody will insist you do anything you are not comfortable with. We can also cope with sessions outside of the weekend under some circumstances. Give it a go! The Cambria thrives on Volunteer help and you would know that you had been there and done that!

What about the Workers?

July 27, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Now here’s the thing!

I am creating a new page in this website – find it from the top black menu bar, via ‘About’ then ‘Restoration’ then ‘Shipwrights and The Team’

My intention is to honour and recognise all those who physically built, or helped build, the barge; anyone who sawed a timber beam, shaped a carling, chiseled, hammered, adzed or wielded a screw driver. I want shipwrights, riggers, the sail maker, caulkers, painters (including the volunteers), the metal work engineers, the Sparks, Plumbers, graphics makers, anyone who shoveled sawdust out from the bilges, squished anti-foul up into bolt-holes underneath, hefted a winch body on deck or welded a leeboard.

The Rival? SB Thalatta off Queenborough. Photo by Dave Brooks.

What I would like to produce here is a complete list of their names, nicknames if appropriate and a short description of their part in the almighty task we have completed here. These guys (and girls) have done a fantastic job and their efforts are not recognised anywhere else in one list. I can recall a lot of them, although sometimes only forenames or nicknames, so I will start the ball rolling. Please pile in through the comments section or by emailing in on CambraTrustSecretary@live.co.uk for anybody you know about or can think of, or whose details you can furnish us with. On the other hand, also please tell us if we have included ‘you’ up here and you do not wish to be so mentioned. The last thing I want to do is offend anyone by including them when this is not their cup of tea. I am bound to have forgotten somebody. I appreciate that a lot of people did other stuff voluntarily (man the Visitor Centre, shop, photo’s, video, exhibitions in Fleur de Lis etc, and their turn will come. This page is about the physical, hands-on creation of the barge.

Meanwhile, a lovely shot from Dave Brooks of SB Thalatta off Queenborough in the sunset. I have used the same shot as a front page slider on this site, too. Thalatta is a big, recently restored mulie-rigged lady and, as such, is quickening a few pulses as a possible race-within-a-race on Saturday’s Thames Match. Exciting stuff. The Rivals?

Barnacles

July 25, 2012 / / 0 Comments

In the latest “Cambria Watch” from Hilary Halajko and the Youth Trainees of the Sea Change Sailing Trust, Hilary writes,

“Cambria Watch; update from the spitway: We were on the blocks at Pin Mill for 2 nights. There was a fair covering of barnacles on Cambria’s bottom but the pressure washer soon put paid to them! We have scraped and painted the topsides, anti fouled and painted the leeboards grey as they used to be. Getting the line correct was a team effort so no one can be blamed if it’s wonky!! Saturday night we were able to sample the food at the Butt and Oyster as no water means no generator which means no cooker! Sunday had a pull away from the blocks just before high water and a fast sail with several tacks down to Harwich Harbour and few more tacks to clear Walton Pier and a lovely fetch all the way to wymarks in the Blackwater. A lovely sunny sail and the captain was wearing shorts so summer must have arrived at last!! We fetched up in a beautiful sunset, hopefully photos to follow. Underway this morning at 7.00 again with the sun and shorts currently fetching through the spitway, better go now as we are going to set the jib topsail for the first time in 16 days!!

The busy quayside at Faversham Nautical Festival. Photo by Basil Brambleby

Dave Brooks adds that, “Cambria is due in Gravesend Wednesday to deliver beer to the Rum Puncheon pub. Then will remain on the Thames for the match on Saturday. She will then be going on the pier for a series of talks etc until Sea Change return to do the re-run of her last official cargo from Tilbury to Ipswich”.

Today’s picture is by Boss of Volunteers, Basil and shows the busy quayside down by TS Hazard in the Faversham Nautical Festival.