Tag: Traditional Boats and Tall Ships

A Celebration of Life

CDB Order of Service

CDB Order of Service, Picture of leaflet by Matt Care

Thank you very much, Boss of Volunteers, Basil who posts me a copy of the ‘Order of Service’ for the recent Celebration of Life for Catherine De Bont. This contains some lovely pictures of Catherine and looks like it was a fine and dignified, appropriate service. It featured my favourite hymn, “Eternal Father, strong to save”. I am a Hastings lad, and we grew up knowing the sounds of the lifeboat launch maroons. If ever they had been heard and the lifeboat launched we would sing this hymn in School Assembly. Ah well. Well done to all those involved in the service and the Celebration of Life. She was a wonderful lady and will be much missed.

Readers may not be so aware that Catherine was a good Friend of Cambria going back years; certainly to well before I became involved in 2007. She was an expert journalist and wrote regularly for the magazine “Traditional Boats and Tall Ships” and it was in one of these pieces, also posted to me by Basil, that she covered the forced move of Cambria, in her lighter, from the Dolphin Yard in Sittingbourne, to the Sheerness Docks (“Cambria on the Move” by Catherine De Bont, Trad Boats and Tall Ships, March 2006).

Cambria in lighter on tow

Cambria in lighter on tow from Traditional Boats and Tall Ships, March 2006, Article by Catherine De Bont

It’s a lovely piece again with plenty of nice pictures which I am guessing are also by Catherine – she was certainly handy with a camera. One of my few person to person memories of Catherine actually involves a camera – we were at a lecture in Rochester by Jim Lawrence and she spotted that I was nipping about with my reasonably priced Canon EOS digital camera. She passed me her own top-of-the-range camera and asked me to take a few for her from the back while I was moving about. She was already a ‘celeb’ to me – beginner barge-fan that I was, so I was a bit star-struck, but I hope I got some nice pics for her. I never did find out.

Ah well. Rest in Peace, Catherine. Fiddler’s Green?

SB Decima

SB Decima

SB Decima; Photograph (and copyright) by Catherine De Bont. Published with permission.

Today’s picture is a superb one of Tim Goldsack’s ‘iron pot’ barge SB Decima taken by Catherine De Bont. Tim, Catherine and Decima all have long and deep associations with Faversham and with Cambria. Tim, of course is our Master Shipwright who managed, and personally did much of, the rebuild of the barge. He has also skippered her in racing, notably when all we volunteers were allowed ‘out to play’ last year. Tim owns the Decima, a ‘tin pot’. I was always curious as to why a shipwright so skilled at working in wood, would own a metal hulled barge but he tells me with a wry grin that it’s all down to the costs of maintenance. Decima has long been associated with Faversham, being previously owned by Faversham resident (and something of a local celebrity), ‘Beefy’ Wildish, still remembered by many of the locals now of ‘more mature years’. Bit of a character, by all accounts. The trophy for the Stays’l Class in the Swale match is named after him (real name Percy Wildish) and, to quote Tricia Gurnett in her Barge Blog (http://sailingbarges.wordpress.com/tag/percy-wildish-cup/) “In the Staysail Class Niagara and Repertor were neck and neck at the finish, with Repertor one second ahead.  After a protest on the matter of something earlier in the match, Repertor was given a 5 minute time penalty, giving Niagara the victory.   Decima was 3rd, getting the Percy Wildish Cup which was fittingly presented by “Beefy” Wildish’s son.”

 

Catherine herself has, of course, a huge association with Cambria and barges (and sailing craft generally of course) not only from her “Barge and Smack News” and other articles in the glossy mag “Traditional Boats and Tall Ships” (http://tallship.typepad.com/my_weblog/wild_news/). She was on board as they brought the old Cambria into Faversham on Hop Festival Day 2007 and it is she who slings the mooring rope ashore in all the videos of this event, including the clip used by Mike Maloney in the “Red Sails” film (http://www.cwideprods.co.uk/red-sails/). She is a major contributor of barge related news and snippets and photographs on the Facebook networking site. Thanks for the photo, Catherine and may your lens never get smeared with salty water.

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