High on heritage
On 2 December 1949 a British naval fireboat towed the 150-year-old HMS Implacable out into deep water to the east of the Isle of Wight, where an explosive charge aboard sent her to the seabed. Implacable was a survivor of the Battle of Trafalgar and, at the time, the second oldest vessel in the Royal Navy. She was scuttled by the Admiralty in preference to footing the £200,000 restoration bill, yet ironically the public outcry is said to have led directly to the saving of the Cutty Sark ‘for the nation’ – a process that began four years later.
Fast-forward 72 years and there are over 1,300 vessels on the National Historic Ships register supported by hundreds of charities and thousands of volunteers. Power, sail, steam and horse-drawn; rivers, canals, lakes and coastal; rowing barges, gunboats, lifeboats and fishing boats; bronze-age, medieval, industrial and Victorian… there is no system of simple classification that can comprehend the depth and breadth of British maritime heritage efforts.
But what is it about the country’s floating heritage that attracts so many volunteers and so much enthusiasm and what impact will Covid-19 have?
History or boats?
The passion for traditional boatbuilding and the spirit that catches fire around a new project is immortalised quite brilliantly by the author Bill Jones in his. Set in a fictionalised Bridlington in the 1960s, the eponymous hero is inexorably drawn to building boats – one of which is a traditional coble – without regard for the consequences to his family life or even the outcome: sinkings, boatyard fires… and a dramatic finale – none of it matters.
