Tag: SB Niagara

David Rye and Niagara

August 15, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Niagara under construction at Hoo. Picture by David Rye.

As well as the Dave Brooks stuff on the newly restored barge Niagara, I received some nice picture of her under construction in Hoo Marina. As David says, “My cousin took me to Hoo (and other places of barge interest) last summer.

As you may know the ‘Marina’ is interesting to say the least including the rather rickety structures.

After insisting to speak to the owner personally he eventually allowed us in ‘at own risk.’

I managed to get the attached photos of Niagara (and others) and thought you might be interested?

Amazing what we saw is now sailing again – wonderful.”

Yes, David, we know Hoo well. My best visit was to go and see a Galway Hooker (Traditional gaff rigged sailing vessel from the West coast of Ireland) being restored by barge expert and friend of Cambria, Ray Rush. Unfortunately I left for Ireland before Ray had managed to get the boat surveyed and back into the water, but I understand she (The Wren or “An Dreoilín”) is now back afloat. She is actually a 1980’s copy of an 1899 (or so) boat taken from the lines of a hulk and then built (says Ray) on a farm “Half way up Bray Head”. If any of you have been watching the olympics, the homecoming for Irish boxer gold medalist, Katie Taylor happened in Bray, her home town. It’s just south of Dublin on the East coast, so about as far from Galway Hooker territory as you can get!

Nick Ardley’s Swale

August 12, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Barge and sailing book author and friend of the Cambria, Nick Ardley is first off the marks this time with his report and some superb pictures of the Swale Match yesterday. I publish here a love photo of Repertor and the newly restored barge Niagara crossing the line, borrowed from Nicks’s lovely website http://www.nickardley.com/ but I’ll leave it to you to nip across there and ‘read all about it’ and look through the excellent pictures. Nick generally takes his own sloop, Whimbrel out to go look at these matches, so he can position himself exactly where he wants and can get pictures you would never get from shore-based viewpoints. Nick grew up on the barge May Flower and has a life long love for and interest in all things barge and Suffolk/Essex/Kent sailing (he refers to it rather tongue-in-cheek, as ‘mud-larking’ and ‘ditch-crawling’) and if you’ve not yet caught up with his various books, they are well worth hunting down. Start your hunt on the website above.

Repertor and Niagara cross the line in the Swale Match 2012, picture from Nick Ardley’s website.

Meanwhile, Nick also chips in on the subject of the ‘stone heaps’ with a comment “The barge anchorage was not over the shingle spit running out from Shotley, but further into the Orwell close into the Shotley shore – almost opposite the Fagbury buoy. Unfortunately since the extension to the huge port on the Felixstowe shore the ‘mud’ has gone or been diminished by the channel running harder into what was a fine anchorage. I have seen barges using the ‘dead’ gound upstream of the port…
Th spit is not the Stone Heaps as far as I am aware, it is a natural geographical feature due to the run of two rivers. The name did refer to areas where ballast was dumped though – however ballast was mostly, latterly, landed ashore for re-use before ships had ballast water tanks…” Thanks for that clarification, Nick.

Niagara’s back!

August 8, 2012 / / 1 Comment

Eagle eyed roving reporter, Dave Brooks spots the SB Niagara back on the water and sailing again after a complete restoration after 70 years laid up. As Frank Spice (snr) puts it, “Its nice to see some of the old girls coming back after all these years” and Martin Phillipd says “Welcome Back!”. Thanks too, to Dave B for this nice picture of her out there doing her stuff. In the latest from ‘Cambria Watch’ by Hilary Halajko, she writes “We locked out of Tibury docks at 7 this morning bound for Brightlingsea. We hove to off Southend to row Dick Durham ashore and are now underway again. It’s 14.00 and we’ve just reached the spitway so with a lovely fair wind have decided to carry on to Harwich. Crews ETAs vary between 17.00 and 19.00 we shall see!

Niagara sails again after 70 years. Picture by Dave Brooks.

Niagara’s back….

July 16, 2012 /

On “Cambria Watch” today with Hilary Halajko as ‘Kate Humble’, Hilary reports that Cambria left Brightlingsea bound for Harwich fine, but the pub were not ready for the delivery as they were awaiting a horse and cart. Therefore the crew had to sail Cambria back to the Colne and Pyfleet. This was a cracking sail in which Hilary described the Cambria as “going like a train”. Our Generator room is proving to be a useful drying area after a very wet day. Tomorrow we have a short sail up the Colne to Arlesford to await a tow to Rowhedge on Tuesday for a delivery to the Albion Pub. The Crew are all enjoying a curry this (Sunday) evening”.

I love that a Sailing barge struggles in to make the tide and then gets held up because there are no horse and carts available to unload! As Dave Brooks suggested wryly, “It might be taking authenticity too far”

Dave notes that he “ may have missed all the Cambria fun in Maldon but I did see a first for many a long year. Sails set on the Niagara. Fores’l and Main getting an airing. Niagara will be underway this season”. Dave supplies today’s picture. Tomorrow he will attempt to better his current world record number of barges seen and mentioned in a single blog post as well as attempting at the same time to out-do us all in number of barges in one photograph. Will he make it? A whole readership holds its breath……..`