From Australia, yes. And too, from closer to home, less than 100 miles across the North Sea!
An ‘old’ Leigh man contacted me recently from far off Australia. The chap, Derek Ellard now lives down under having settled in He was endeavouring to make contact with an old friend who had once owned the barge-yacht Nancy Grey.
I knew of the past owner having met a few times over in Faversham, Kent. Ironically, his old barge-yacht is owned in that fabulous old barging port and I was able to put two old friends into contact with one another…
‘Another friend’s father commissioned the smack yacht “Secret” from Paglesham in the thirties. I named our production gaffer “Secret” for him because he was so upset to sell her. Better late than never. Classic Boat did a feature on the Secret 20 https://scruffie.com/pdf/classic-boat-secret-20.pdf
Gleefully following the Blue Mermaid’s progress – wonderful.
Our new boat, we call the Secret Trader, has Barge/Bawley features and is designed to comply with the US Jones Act regulations. She’ll take a container but only 15 tonnes or less. Also we’re getting close to sales with our Clipper 100, so it’s very exciting.’
Interesting stuff.
The boat is designed to carry a mere 15 tonnes, but that was a pretty normal cargo carried by large smacks in coastal work.
It set me to looking at the links sent to me. The ‘group’ are also fully aware of the progress with the Sea Change Trust’s Blue Mermaid.
Derek is personally responsible for a range of small craft designs under the ‘Scruffie’ badge – read the stuff.
Nice! Make a fantastic cruising vessel…
See: https://www.scruffie.com/index.html
Go Sail – this site has a range of coastal craft which bring to mind the coastal spritsail barge, boomie barge (similar to the west country trading ketches, but retaining the traditional spritsail barge’s flat bottom and leeboards) or west country schooner and trading ketch types.
Again, very interesting.
See: www.gosailcargo.com
Moving on from the smaller coastal traders an international group which work under the name ‘Ecoclipper’ have a range of vessels which are well on their way to fruition.
Many ‘east coasters’ will have heard about the sail trader Gallant which berthed in Queenborough during last year’s Covid-19 summer.
Cargo was transferred to the spritsail barge Dawn and taken, first up Milton Creek and secondly up to Faversham – on separate tides.
Cargo was small, but a point was made. The Gallant operates a regular run across the Atlantic. See her web site.
See: https://sailtraininginternational.org/vessel/de-gallant
As will have been seen from Derek’s comments, the group are nearing reality in what has been called the Ecoclipper100.
The concept is heavily influenced by the Dutch who have been very pro-active in the running of sail training and similar type vessels for many years.
The design basis harks back to a Dutch clipper the Noach, built in 1857.
I found reading these web sites quite fascinating and very satisfying.
Sail cargo will probably not oust modern commercial ships but some cargo could be carried by sailing vessels. The Sea Change Sailing Trust plan to start cargo carrying during 2021.
Surely, something cleaner and less polluting must evolve…