A season or so back I visited and wrote about the work being carried out at Harwich’s old Town Station goods yard. At the time the project were engaged in converting a building into a useable space creating work experience and training programmes in sundry trades in the process.: many of these are directly transferable into the marine boating industry. Things have moved on somewhat since.

The mate and I dropped into Halfpenny Pier earlier this week during the fine weather then being experienced. In strong winds this is not a place to loiter! Walking round towards the project centre I quickly spotted the signs of ‘shipyard activity’ for the new ship’s stern post stood erect, angled to her keel and held in place by a temporary support whilst the stern knee is readied for fitting. A visit was called for…

Keel and stern post in place…

I was met by Sean Day, a project team member. Sean then spent a not insignificant mount of his precious time in talking about where they were now, what was happening with the vessel and about the numbers of people who have been trained or retrained in various allied skills, that is apart from those actually needed to achieve the main aim: train new shipwrights in the skills required for major wooden ship construction. They have been helped in this by taking on board a shipwright who was closely involved with the Pioneer Project – the rebuild of the Skillinger Smack based at Brightlingsea.

Looking across the yard to the wood stack.

First I went across the old goods yard to take a look at the vessel. Sean said that there wasn’t much to see… On the way I talked to Sean about my own life aboard the May Flower, spritsail barge. And of my thirty years as a marine engineer officer … so although there’s only a keel, some deadwood and a stern post, the ship was rising up before my minds eye, stout and beautiful.

Next we visited the cutting/shaping shed where a ‘chunk’ of the new ship’s structure was in preparation. The project attended the Tendring Show recently and won a prize for traditional crafting – they took a chunk of ship along and adzed it into shape…

This was followed by a visit to a section set up to bring locals into the project. Currently this is based around a series of community art projects to create murals about Harwich, the ship and what she achieved. It was all very interesting with some exciting designs were on display and currently being worked upon.

Mural depicting the original journey…

Then things moved more n my direction – ship structure – the lofting floor! The original building when taken over was an open windowless shell. Project training renewed windows, put in a floor, screen walls and outfitting. The upstairs now has two rooms for projects and a large lofting floor. Upon that floor parts of the ship were drawn out; frames, knees and stem parts. This was exciting stuff…

Half model of hull.

The lofting floor – stem can be seen to RHS.

At this point the mate re-joined me: she had beetled off to do something whilst I… Well yes. It had taken an hour and we found her sitting quietly on a bench by the main office!

The ship has been designed to UK Maritime & Coast Authority statutes and will be fully compliant. The design has been drawn up by a leading British yacht designer, fully conversant with the rules and specialists in large yacht design: essentially this project is small in comparison to many craft now being built.

If you don’t know of this amazing project then look it up, go and visit. Two Americans walked in as we were finishing … the One Show are visiting at some point soon too. Even Essex County Council are beginning to show a little interest, mainly because both Plymouth City Council and Southampton have. The latter made a publicised visit recently…

An interesting blog can be viewed, written by James, one of the team. this is www.theshipsblog.co.uk

The replica ship centre out in the United States of America can be visited too … easier to visit their web site:

http://www.plimoth.org/what-see-do/visitor-center

The 1957 ship has recently won a major monetary award to allow a major rebuild programme to bring her up to scratch, this can be viewed at http://www.patriotledger.com/article/20140714/News/140718140

Harwich project web site: http://www.harwichmayflower.com/joomla/