Summer 2023

It’s been a great summer! I have been to the high Arctic with Ocean Warrior and there are some new photos of the trip in “Black and White”.. I am beginning to learn how this camera works and have had a great deal of encouragement to stop faffing and take photographs! So once you can put away the functions and just concentrate on the subject the old film method is really enjoyable and I can easily lose an hour wherever I am just looking around and snapping.

The tender Piety has been out a couple of times on trial this year and she is certainly a handful on the Helford estuary. We’ve found a rowing position aft and stabilised the motor… the Stuart Turner is really very good and she can steam at 5 – 6 knots. The problem was the water pump and the engine was often producing steam so that’s been replaced and it pumps well now…in fact I did a trial at home with the garden hose pipe feeding water to the pump and all was spot on..but I left the hose on overnight and the entire boat was full with water and not a single leak..Piety has a very strong hull..! The ST engine is used to getting wet from heavy rain and the gear box takes in water requiring a flush out and oil change; so this winter the engine box will be built as well as finishing the sole boards etc. I visited Morgan Giles original boat in Falmouth Maritime Museum recently called “Schh” and will follow some of its internal structures in due course. See below

Margarita in the Byzantine Ikon section has been struggling with the “Palm Sunday” Ikon for 2023 as the paint is coming away slightly and she wants to redo this entirely… its interesting to see how durable traditional Ikons are as they often suffered extreme conditions in unheated Churches so getting it right is a great skill as they need to last centuries. More to follow!

The real challenge this summer has been the rebuild programme of the Rose of Devon…(shall I rename her Havet?!) This has involved enormous work from Simon, David and recently Sean…see below

We have had the vessel in a workshop in Gweek to carry out the backbone and re-planking works and this has involved David working on site for a month at a time with Simon and Sean – wonders never cease as they put this old girl together again..

For much more details look through the menus.

Richard