HMS Bounty

HMS Bounty, Image from news website.

There can not be many of my readers here who do not know by now that replica ship HMS Bounty, built for the filming of the Brando movie “Mutiny on the Bounty” was unfortunately sunk and lost in the recent storm “Hurricane Sandy” which hit the Eastern seaboard of the USA.  Our friend David Rye, though, has found a rather nice video about the ship on the National Geographic website at http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/ which includes, among other footage, pictures of shipwrights using mauls and adzes. Thank you for that link, David. Incidentally, go grab a look sooner rather than later because this link is to NG’s ‘front page story’ rather than the Bounty piece, so as Bounty falls off the front page it may disappear from this link.

 

Meanwhile, Rebuild Project Manager, William Collard provides some more detail on the Cory’s slipway and SB Rathbale, which story we featured a few days ago. William says, “I may be able to give you a little information about Cory’s Slipway.

In Ken Keenan’s excellent book ‘ The Fires of London’ – A History of the Thames lighterage operations of William Cory & Son Ltd, he quotes that on the 15th October 1896 William Cory & Son amalgamated with seven other coal handing companies and become a limited liability company.  In so doing it became the biggest fuel handling company in the Britain and quite possibly in the world.
Two of the companies in the formation were Lambert Bros and Beadle Brothers Ltd.   Ken notes that with Beadle Brothers came Charles Beadle and Mr J C Hamilton Creig together with the thriving business at Erith where the wharf rivalled Cory’s Victoria Dock premises in throughput. The same aerial picture of Erith is shown in the book and is attributed to the 1920s and was originally published in the Cory house magazine ‘Black Diamond’
Francis Lambert of Lambert Brothers personally owned the sailing barges Giralda, Surf (sure you are fast) and Surge (sure you are Giralda’s equal)  and raced them all successfully in the annual barge races, though Giralda was notably the best.
SB Rathbale is noted in both Racing Sailormen and Spritsail barges of the Thames and Medway where details of the 1896 Thames race say the barge was one of the first steel barges to race but proved a disappointment in finishing sixth.  However, she struck a fresh note in colour schemes being resplendent in a light blue hull and dark blue wale!”
So now you know. Thank you very much for that, William.