Tag: SB Westmoreland

Fine Detail

February 4, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Model as at 4 Feb

Dave and Tony Brooks are soldiering on with ‘our’ model of Westmoreland and Dave has sent me a couple of pics. I was so impressed by some of the fine detailing I have actually cropped a couple more pics out of one of these so that you can see the clever work which has gone in around the windlass and main mast case and, again, around the crab winches and steering gear.

Dave says in his email, “All the deck furniture is now finished. The two crab winches and the brail winch are now soldered together and stuck in place. All metal work for pinning the lee-boards is complete with the boards themselves temporarily hung. The paint scheme is roughly that of Eastwoods working colours but will need fine tuning if we can find some good colour pictures. We are now ready to start going upwards. We messed around with a bit of wire to form the stayfall, but we are still undecided as to how we will do this”.

: Model as at 4 Feb

It’s looking good, Dave.

340 to 152!

January 8, 2013 / / 1 Comment

I usually shy away from blogging anything controversial or political as I am always shy of anyone thinking that it is Cambria Trust policy or opinion I am quoting. I am definitely not – these opinions in here are purely personal and I am speaking for myself only, all be it they will sometimes coincide.

SB Westmoreland is rescued from the mud in Faversham in April 2011; pic by MC

I am, however, very happy to report a bit of news from the long running saga of the Lower Halstow Dock and the ‘will she / won’t she’ drama of whether the semi-derelict brickie barge SB Westmoreland might be allowed to moor there while she is restored. Since her rescue and disinterment from Faversham’s tidal mud in April 2011, she has languished in Colin Frake’s own lighter / dry-dock without a proper home to go to and I know attempts have been made to secure funding for a major restoration along the lines of Cambria’s. The local council have been in debate about whether the Lower Halstow Dock is appropriate for such ‘working boatyard’ activities or whether this might despoil the picture post-card scene. Major stake-holders the Gransdens, whose barge Edith May already ‘lives’ in this dock have reported regularly on progress via Facebook.

Tonight, though, big news from Tricia Gurnett writing in Facebook on behalf of the Society for Sailing Barge Research says,

“After an eternal wait – the results of the poll are in!

There was a 53% turnout out of 913 potential voters.

340 people voted in favour.
152 voted against.

Delighted to announce that the large majority of the village wish to protect Lower Halstow’s heritage and see the Westmoreland return to her home port to be restored.

The parish council will now have a meeting to discuss the planning and licencing restrictions on the restoration.

Here’s hoping they get right behind the project and all villagers can work together to get this famous barge up and running again.

Updates will be posted as the project should move rapidly along now”.

The Edith May camp says, “Lower Halstow villagers have voted in favour (340 to 152) to return the Westmoreland to Lower Halstow dock to be restored – looks like Edith May is going to get a stable mate!

Still a way to go yet, as the parish council decide the terms and conditions, but it is a positive step along the way.”

Good News for the Barge World I say (in my own opinion; I cannot speak for the Cambria Trust)

A Miniature Chaff-Cutter

December 3, 2012 / / 1 Comment

With the hull and major components now in place, our in-house modelling team of Dave and Tony Brooks are now getting down to details of deck furniture and so on. Dave takes up the story from the 22nd November. ”

Chaff cutter wheel in miniature. Model by Tony and Dave Brooks, Picture by DB

When we had finished last week Dad suggested that he would attempt to create a chaff cutter wheel. I knew he wasn’t really looking forward to it and had resigned myself to using one of the watch cogs as a wheel, which would have looked wrong. I was amazed to see the result of his efforts. We have a genuine mini Westmoreland size chaff cutter wheel.

So if we have a wheel we will need something for it to turn. Time to look at the rudder and how we are going to fit it to the barge. The main post is made from balsa wood and the blade from pine. We opted for four small pieces of drilled brass, two inserted in the stern post and two in the rudder post. Getting the gudgeon pin to line up was a task and it reminded me of when we put Cambria’s rudder on for the first time. Indeed we were thwarted that day until some adjustments were made to the hinges.

Model Rudder; Westmoreland model by Tony and Dave Brooks; Picture by DB

One of Westmoreland’s distinctive features is her rubbing bands on her bow and to finish off last night we fitted them in readiness to give our hull its first coat of black paint. During the week a little more cleaning up will be taking place and who knows we may get that coat of black on next session.”

I’m impressed you guys!

Incidentally, Dave also tells me that there is now a nice video of the Medway Match 2012 available as a DVD through the Edith May website. You will recall that Cambria won her class in that race and Dave tells me that there is some nice footage of Cambria in the film. The DVD is £12.50 from the merchandise section of the Edith May website at http://www.edithmaybargecharter.co.uk/shop/category/merchandise/ . Nice Christmas present idea?

Update on the Model

November 1, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Dave Brooks sends me an update on the model of Westmoreland currently being built by him self and his Father, Tony Brooks.

‘Our’ SB Westmoreland model as at 1st Nov; Picture by Dave Brooks.

“With the 31st Oct passed and all holiday and family commitments completed,” he says, “we were back on with the model. Our rails were nicely glued down and positioned. A piece of veneer has been stuck over the transom in order to cover the end grain and give us a better painting surface.Also a stern post has been added in readiness to mount a rudder at a later stage. We have also completed the rails around the bow and the saddle chock and they are currently pinned and waiting for the glue to dry. Four tiny frames made from brass have been fashioned for our lee-board winches and offered up to the hull for sizing and look quite good. Cogs have been selected to finish them off later this week we hope.

The pictures show the rails all round, the lee-board winch frames are being drilled and also offered up to the hull”.

Thanks for that Dave and Tony. It’s looking good.

SB Glenmore

October 7, 2012 / / 0 Comments

SB Glenmore model by Tony Brooks, Picture by Matt Care

On my recent trip over to the UK to stay on Cambria, I was in Hoo with Dave B tracking down Ray Rush’s now restored and back-in-the-water Galway Hooker and I had the pleasure of being invited back to Dave’s Dad’s place to see the model that they are currently making of SB Westmoreland but also an older, completed model of SB Glenmore. Regular readers will know that Dave’s Great Granddad was Barge Master on the SM Glenmore, the famous George “Navvy” Brooks. Dave’s Father Tony built this model originally as a working model sail boat (obviously with a lot less detail) but then fell in love with it and was anxious that the fun and games on the pond in the park were causing it damage. He decided to change it into a display model, so added all the detail of rigging etc and now has it nicely on display in the living room in this glass case with a lovely brass plaque naming the barge and an old black and white photo of ‘Navvy’ himself hanging above it on the wall. It is a beautiful thing to have and to admire and especially given the family connection.

Thank you to Dave B and to Tony for allowing me to see it, photograph it and share it with the surfers on here.

Too Rough for the Wall

September 24, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Hull Model for the Brooks father and son modelling project, Picture by Dave Brooks.

They tell me there’s been a small delay on getting the barge onto the wall and open to the public. You are ‘enjoying’ some rough ol’ weather at present, apparently and the crew returning the barge to Gravesend after the last charter were obliged to come alongside at the floating pontoon which would at least be going up and down at the same rate as they were, rather than the unforgiving concrete wall of St Andrew’s Wharf. There the barge stayed overnight and I understand that Skipper Ian Ruffles and Mate Ryan Dale found all the facilities on the pontoon shut up and gone away due to the bad weather and effectively had to ‘break’ out of the place (don’t worry, only in a good and non-damaging way) to go buy their dinner in town before ‘breaking’ back in to eat it. Apparently the barge may be moved and become open to the public Tuesday, weather permitting.

So meanwhile here is another picture of the barge model currently being rendered Westmoreland shaped by Dave Brooks and his Father, Tony Brooks.

Man with a Plan

September 21, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Dave B continues his tale of modelling SB Westmoreland using a part complete model hull scavenged from Baltic House.

“Ok”, he writes, “so we have a plan and I was duly despatched to search the charity shops for old travel clock to dismantle for cogs to make a mast case, crab winches,main brail winch and a windlass. (Meanwhile Thank You Roger Newlyn and the Thames Barge Sailing Trust for the use of the sail plan image attached)

14^thSept 2012 I arrived with barge hull and a few clock parts for our first session of turning our hull into a rigged barge. It was now we decided that if we going to use the plans of the Westmoreland we would make her look as much like it as we could. At this point all we had to go on was the plan pictured. It was clear that some work needed to be done on the hatches. The main hatch needed to be shortened and the foreward hatch extended. We also wanted a more realistic looking mast case so we set about cutting the main hatch back to make the mast deck bigger, removing the existing spars and mast case and making an insert for the foreward hatch. After this we sorted through the cogs and selected what we wanted for our mast case. Out came the soldering iron and work began on the mast case itself. This was proving to be quite a challenge as its size was extremely small and it was time to retire and rethink the soldering policy.

Westmoreland Plan, picture of plan is by Dave Brooks, plan itself is from a Thames Barge Sailing Club (now TBS Trust) publication.

By the end of the evening we had managed to alter hatches and start the mast case.

13^th Sept 2012. Since our last session Dad had managed to produce a neat looking mast case and this session would be to finish it off. Out came the soldering iron and watch cogs were fitted to the case. My task was to clean up the glued forward hatch, though I did carve out two of the wooden drums on the gear winch. The session finished with me instructed to find more cogs and a desire to have a deck plan of the Westmoreland. I decided to look on ebay for the cogs and to my amazement I found job lots of watch parts being sold for the purpose of making jewellery. I googled Deck Plan of Westmoreland and stuck luck as there was reference to a deck plan in the book Spritsail Bargeman by Derek Coombe. I scanned it an emailed it to my Dad in order for him to resize it to fit our model. Also whilst on a weekend away watching the Colne Barge Match I managed to find an old shirt in a charity shop that would be ideal for making our sails with.

19^th Sept 2012. Armed with our newly acquired deck plan we had a total rethink about our hull. It was clear now that our hatches were completely the wrong width and we would have to alter them.

I had to pop out for a short while and by the time I had come back serious saw cuts had been made in the hull in order to get a more Westmoreland type shape. Also Dad wasn’t happy with the bow and wanted a more rounded shape. I was amazed to watch him carve away until he achieved the shape he was looking for. To get this shape the hatches and rails had to be removed. After finishing carving and sanding the hull we made new hatches and the cabin top and focs’le hatch way. The Westmoreland starts to take shape.”

We look forward to more on this story as it happens. Thanks Dave.

The Thames Barge Sailing Trust are on http://www.bargetrust.org/