Cambria and Sailing Barges - Mademoiselle d'Armentieres

January 2010 Update

A nice view of the aft end of things as seen from the main mast deck. Here you're looking down into the main aft hold which will be, ultimately, the main class room. The barge when complete will be a floating educational facility, intended in part to be sailable between locations where local students and school children will be given access to a wealth of knowledge about the history of trade, the coasts and the London River. My next few pics show a bit more detail up into the aft end-space just for'd of the (red painted) transom. You can see that this area is now completely beamed out and that deck planking has been started.

Happy New Year

Well, here we are on January 1st 2010, start of the New Year. If all goes to schedule, as I understand it, this is Year-3, so the year in which the hull rebuild is completed by Tim Goldsack and his team of shipwrights and apprentices, and presumably gets re-floated. There is then all the fun and games of fitting her out with masts, spars, rigging, winches and interior stuff, and I'm not sure what the schedule for all that looks like.

You can see from this pic of the stern and Transom (red paint - top) that the planking is starting to work its way out from the centre line "dead-wood", and round the "chine" (corner where bottom meets sides), and so on up the sides. Some of these manouvres involve some serious twists in the planks, which means steaming, so it takes a while and progress can appear to be a bit slow, but I'm told it's all on schedule.

So - into 2010 with excitement and anticipation. Have a great one and don't make any silly resolutions you just know you'll not keep.

Happy Christmas, Cambria

Hi, Perhaps you have to be a bit sad to play on your computer on Christmas Day itself, but here I was at a loose end. I have been posting regular blogs on the official Cambria website for a couple of months, but I am currently taking a break from that, so I may stick a few catch-ups on this one. The pic is the current state of the build, and you can see that the deck structure is coming along really well. All the beams are in place, spanning the full width (23') of the barge, as are the "knee" pieces between beams and the "partner" baulks between others. Running fore-aft are the two very long margin planks which make up the edges of the hatch openings, and support the coamings.

This has meant that the shipwrights can now start to plank out the decks, and they've started in the section between the hatches, an area which will form the base of the main mast.

This means that soon visitors will start to see a lot less of the structure. They can see the whole "skeleton" at present, but soon they'll be looking at the exterior of a barge, which is nothing like so exciting.

Ah well, meanwhile, I'll wish everyone who has any interest in Cambria Season's greetings and a very happy and prosperous New Year

Official Blogger

Hey hey - moving up in the world. I have been invited to continue this blog on the official Cambria Trust website. Find me there in the news pages as "Volunteer's Views" Not sure what to do now, whether to discontinue this one, or do both. As you'll see from the Mademoiselle blog, which is only there because the 2CVGB webiste corrupted on me and lost me 100 nice postings telling the story of our restoration of the car just before I managed to save copies down to the desk-top. Not that I'm saying that the host site for Cambria Trust will die in similar circumstances, but if it does, then I'd like a back up.

Google is Your Friend

As ever, when presented with a new word (Partners) we have a quick nip onto Google

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VnoW5YpDN7sC&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=boat+building+partners&source=bl&ots=dTrFeL53Oc&sig=sOqbI2yfAO9fhnZ4o7vq11yN_qo&hl=en&ei=uDPKSqOPAoKx4Qa4jKHHAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7#v=onepage&q=boat%20building%20partners&f=false

So now you know. It's a bit that fits between the deck beams and/or carlings and supports the mast.
...-ish

Tell you what. If you really want to know, part of this project is the launching of a ship-wrighting apprentice scheme.
Sorry - being facetious now. I'll shut up and leave you in peace.

Carlings in position - Oct 2009

October 2009, and some of the carlings are now in position. You can see how they in-fill the gaps between the main full-length deck beams, and span the gap from wale to margin-plank. I learned a new word today - there are slots in these carlings to take the "partners" - presumably another ship-wright-ish wood working word but when I know what I'm talking about I'll tell you more. Meanwhile, rather excitingly, I've been asked would I transfer this blog to the actual official Cambria website. Not entirely sure how this will work, or whether it'll be an "in addition" thing or a total replacement, but it's nice to be asked. Watch this space - I may soon post that I'm upping sticks and moving but anyway, feel free to go check out the official Cambria website on

www.CambriaTrust.org.uk

Look after yourselves.

The aft end (port side) new and old planking

Under the stern

Down Under

A view you'd not normally have access to unless you owned the barge and had it out of the water to scrape barnacles off the bottom. Here we are lying under the port bow and looking aft along the barge's length, between the many blocks and baulks of timber holding her up and in shape. Top centre you can just see the new bow plank's aft end (with tar-felt hanging off it). The pale grey painted boards are all that will remain of the original wood of the Cambria. Pickled in salty mud their whole lives, these are at least as old as 1970 and almost certainly much older, possibly original 1903 woodwork.
All these barges were worked hard and sustained damage, and were periodically repaired and/or "doubled" (had extra layers of planking fixed to the outside) through their lives. We know that through the later years of her life, Bob Roberts had little or no money for such niceties, but when the barge was young and in her prime, Everard's were famous for their maintenance and standards, so it is possible that the grey painted planks are not original. We will probably never know.

A Sense of Scale

Here, my colleague Richard strolls around in the hold to give you a sense of the scale of the barge. Directly above the camera, the starb'd margin plank (we are at starb'd bow looking aft) and over to the right of the pic (port side) the other make up the sides of the main hold hatch. they are, I'd guess, at least 3 inches thick and the 90' runs are made up of joined sections.

The stem from right above

Sept 2009. Wide Angle

Below the port bow

It's good now and then to get down and around the barge with the wide angle lens, in this case a 19-35 mm. That lets you appear to retreat further into the corners of the lighter and get a wider shot of the structure. It still involves lying on your back among the wood shavings with bits of metal stabbing you between the shoulder blades and no room for your left foot, but heh. Here, then are a succession of such pics and views you will not have seen before

Margin Planks

Margin planks

Many thanks to Project Manager Will Collard at this point, who furnishes me with this fine photo of the huge long joined-in-three-sections "Margin planks". These run from stem to stern and form the first planks on which the coamings will stand. They will also support the carlings below. More pics of these when in situ.

Old Women

And on with the story. These bright pale coloured beams are "Carlings" - short beams athwartships for example from beam to the hatch coaming to give extra support to the deck planking around more solid areas such as under winches and round mast cases. We loved the fact that the word "Carling" comes from the old Norse "Kerling" meaning "old woman".

A Nice Contrast

This pic shows a nice contrast between the old skin iof the Cambria, and the new. At the top of the pic, now wedged up with battens of wood, you can see the old 3-layer grey painted skin under the transom (bright red paint), and down at the bottom you can see the 2 new skins of steamed planks painted white and flaring out into the vertical plane against the oak of the stern frames.

The hull from aft to bow Aug 2009

First Planks at the Bow

It's obviously a month for land mark stages. Here the first (pair of - one port one starb'd) steamed curved planks under the stem. Top of the picture are the foremost main frames and bottom is the (red painted, but now streaked with the pitch mixture) bow dead-wood. The plank has an impressive twist in it as it copes with the 90 degree alignment change from bottom to stem-post.

Aug 09 Keelson ends

Another significant stage. This picture shows the shaped end of the keelson, as it runs from the keelson itself, up to the apron at the bow. This is a major structural member giving the barge fore/aft strength, and is bolted down to the main deadwoods and frames. This allowed effectively a keel and plenty of ballast mid-ships without needing a keel protruding down through what needs to be a flat bottom (and shallow draught) for access up shallow creeks and tidal inlets. A similar arrangement joins the aft end of the keelson to the transom (stern).

August 2009 Stem Post

With our turns on the volunteer rota coming only every 5 weeks, and the shipwrights now steaming along, you get to see quite a few changes at each visit. Photographed here is a landmark stage, the Stem Post, now shaped (painted white) and bolted to the (red painted) "Apron". These two massive baulks of timber make up the vertical bow member, and the side planking of the barge is let into a groove rebated between the two. Here you are high up on the port bow looking down the height of the stem post to the end metal of the dry-dock lighter in which we sit. The white frame work bottom right in the pic will be the front of the deck effectively, although mounted above this will be the decorated bow-boards and what I beleive are called "bow-badges".

In The Hold

These two pics are from July 2009. Below, with the first deck beams now in place you can begin to see the shape of the inside of the hold. Up till now the poly-tunnel has given the false impression of a high arching roof and lots of head room. Now you can see that she really is only going to be 6-7 feet "tall". In the picture left, you can see progress on the plank-steaming around the stern, with these big planks being bent to go from a horizontal plane at their for'd ends, where they butt up against the flat (original wood) old bottom of the barge, till they must end in a vertical plane against the stern post. Impressive, I think you'll agree

Jimmy Lawrence Lecture

Jimmy Lawrence Lecture 3rd April 2009, in the Cambria Room at the Rochester Gainsborough Centre

“If you missed the Talk by Jimmy Lawrence on the 3rd April, at the Gainsborough centre in Rochester, then you missed an absolutely delicious treat.

I’ve come to barges only late in life, when I moved to Faversham 13 years ago, and caught the bug even more so, since the Cambria pitched up here in 2007. I have read and started collecting books, explored the internet, watched the DVD of Bob Roberts in the 1950’s BBC programme, read Jim Uglow, Frank Carr, Bob himself. I have taken thousands of photo’s and struggled to get to grips with rigging and tackle. I have signed on as a volunteer and bullied my wife into making my birthday presents sailing days on Greta. I have latched onto any barge-savvy visitors who come to the visitor centre or step onto the Cambria’s viewing platform and pestered them for facts, stories and anecdotes.

Nothing, though, could compare to the sheer blissful delight of sitting back and listening to Jimmy Lawrence’s yarns and stories. His voice, the authentic seafaring Essex and a natural story-teller, sounded like his blood must run with salt, and his huge experience of barge trading and barge folk came through in a natural style which washed over us. I could have sat and listened all night – it was priceless. Those words I’d only read came to life – his stories laced with “leeb’ds” and “tops’ls”, windl’sses and pawls.

The talk, with many excellent slides ranged across the ice and frozen seas and beaches of the early 1960’s (It wasn’t always summer), went on to “travelogue” a typical barge-trip collecting a load in the London River for delivery to Yarmouth, and then evolved into a series of anecdotes and stories of barge folk and barging experiences – helping themselves to so much coal they grounded the lifeboat and needed towing off by passing River Police, dealing with “know-it-all” sailing students who had read it all in a book, stealing the turn from our own Bob Roberts, and helpfully suggesting to a lady charter customer who asked what to do if they sank, as she couldn’t swim – “Wait till we hit the bottom and run like hell!”

I wasn’t the only one suggesting to our hosts that Mr Lawrence be sound-recorded. I’d certainly pay for the CD if it appears.

What a lovely venue, too, The Gainsborough Conference Centre in Rochester. Brilliant facilities, pictures of barges everywhere and each room named after a barge – Wyvenhoe, Cygnet, Orinoco.

Thank you Cambria Trust for a superb evening and thank you Jimmy Lawrence for sharing all those memories with us.”

Paragraph.

Memorabilia

I love that as the restoration proceeds, every now and then, items of "junk" are offered for sale to we volunteers (and the public). Not everyone's cup of tea, maybe, but here on my terrace table is one of Cambria's genuine dead-eyes. There is a 20p coin placed on the metal part for scale. To the left here is a scanned in pic of the base of the shrouds, from which this dead eye would have come. The pic is actually of SB Will Everard and is from Dennis J Davis's excellent book "The Thames Sailing Barge, her gear and rigging"(ISBN 0 7153 4887 6) - out of print at the moment but Amazon is your friend. Will Everard had the same 4-shround, 16 dead eye arrangement as Cambria

Boil in the Bag

In days of old, shipwrights used to steam the big thick planks in great steam-boxes to make them bendy enough to press into position round the curves of the hull. This is the up to date version. A boiler generates steam but now it's not a whole room or box that gets filled. The pipe from the top brings the steam to one end of the plastic bag (sleeve) enclosing only the one plank, and this is left running till the plank is soft.

While the plank is still all hot and sweaty and wrapped in it's sleeve, it is forced into the right shape with jacks and clamps, and then the whole lot allowed to cool. This sets the plank into the required shape, whereupon it can be lifted out, unwrapped, and then offered back up to the hull frames.

Cunning huh?

First Deck Beams

Last Sunday, a landmark stage is reached, when the shipwrights have installed the first of the new deck beams. This one, about 10 feet back from the bow is shown from outside the boat, looking from the starboard quarter end (so the bow is to your right). I will upload a 2nd pic, of the beam seen from midships, looking toward the bow. It is really staring to feel like we have done framing and are now starting to cover the frame over.

March 2009 - New High Viewpoint

A cracking photo, this one, I thought, made possible by the shipwrights having had to remove the old stairway which nipped you up the outside of the stem (bow) and down into the most for'd part of the hull. There is now a much more serious scaffolding arrangement which still lifts you up over the stem. but now brings you along a catwalk to about 20 feet back from the stem before allowing you back down. This means your head, as you walk, is right up in the top of the poly-tunnel - a new , lovely high viewpoint for photographing the hull as a whole. The new scaffold allows more space for working in the bow area, for the installation of the outer "stem-post" (the big red baulk of timber we have is called the "apron" - more photo's of this soon). I love this shot down on the main hold, from port-bow towards the stern. In the centre-right of the pic are the 2 big main deck beams described below, and in the centre left various new delivered planking. We are seriously into planking out soon, having finished the main frame of the barge, so it's good to get these pics of the structure and detail before it all gets covered up in planking.

Main Deck Beams

Also new in March 2009, delivery of these superb, 23 feet long curved oak beams, which are the main deck beams, spanning the width of the topsides from wale to wale, at either end of the main hold hatch. Well, actually where the hatch would be if this were to be a trading vessel; In fact this old girl's holds are to be training and classroom areas, so the project team now think the hatch covers will need to be permanent rather than remove-able. It's a bit sad, as all of us were vaguely dreaming of at least being able to move a token pallet or box, just so that we could say, hand on heart, that she was still "trading". The needs of the modern classroom, with it's technology and specialised lighting, however, rather preclude us occasionally whipping the roof off and craning in several tonnes of dirty old palletised cargo. Heh ho.

March 2009 : First Steamed Planks

This was a new one on me. I knew that in former times many planks on the hulls of wooden boats were steamed in huge steam boxes to soften them enough to force them into the twists and bends needed to make the curves of the hull. However, I was assuming that this technique was no longer possible or used, and that complex shapes would be made by laminating thinner planks, as has been done on the inner wale planks. Nice surprise then to be sent down under the stern to photograph these 2 inch thick oak planks steamed to run round the double twist up against the stern "deadwood" (red longways baulk) from the flat bottomed hold to the stern post.

Keelson; Feb 2009

After the shutdown over Christmas for the volunteers (not the shipwrights!) it's good to be able to get back on board and catch up with progress which is, to say the least, impressive. The framing is all complete now which means the big steel (RSJ) "Keelson" can go in. It's craned on board as a series of 20 foot lengths (or there-abouts) and welded together before being bolted down. That gives the hull its regidity as well as helping with ballasting and stability.

The old outer chines (effectively rubbing strips at the bottom of the hull sides) can come off and chine planking (bottom planking) is well under way. The inner wales (laminated planks along the tops inside of each hull side) are 2/3 complete (stern is complete).

The meetings of the Cambria Trust now turn their attention to more detailed stuff around equipping the erstwhile "hold" as an educational facility, deciding the layout of the cabins, stores and locker rooms, and even choosing between samples of possible sail cloths. This is fascinating to me - not having much knowledge of such niceties, it is exciting to think I was there when those decisions were being made!

Interior December 2008. Merry Christmas, Old Girl!

December 2008, just before we volunteers shut up shop at the Visitor Centre till after Christmas, so excellent progress by Tim Goldsack and his team. Framing is completed to the stern (transom) and almost to the bow - just 2 frames left at the sharp end. The new "apron" (vertical member which carries the stem post) is in place - a massive timber! The first planking has now been delivered, and the new steel keelson has been loaded ready for installation and joining into one long girder.

Interior

Pictures taken today (9th Nov). This view for'd down the starboard side shows the new "Chine Keelson" (longways timber at edge of "floor" (actually called, confusingly, the "ceiling") against the side uprights. This member is actually made by laminating 5 3" thick shaped planks into one roughly 8" by 15" piece).

A new Transom for Cambria

Things are progressing well with the old girl, and we now have a new transom (stern panel) here still in its red protective paint and contrasting with the pitch-pine planking which has yet to be removed and replaced

Thames Sailing Barge, SB Cambria

Always worth a look - the website of the Cambria Trust http://www.cambriatrust.org.uk/ , current owners of the Thames Sailing Barge, S.B.Cambria undergoing full restoration at the Standard Quay in Faversham, Kent, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Cambria was the last Thames Barge trading solely under sail (up to 1970) skippered by the late Bob Roberts

Pied Wagtails on the Starboard Bow

Tough birds these Pied Wagtails. Despite all the noise of sawing, banging, hammering and general ship-wrighting, a family of pied wagtails have nested between the inner and outer skins of the barge's starboard bow "topsides" and produced, as you can see, 5 hatchlings. I will update you with progress soon

- July 23rd, the nest is empty, and looks well trampled down and guano'd up by growing babies, so we trust all the babies have fledged. They were lucky. They were rather close under the viewing platform and we were concerned that the number of comings and goings might leave insufficient time slots for parents to nip in and out with food.

Cambria in trade, and racing

A thought occurred - all this talk of Thames Sailing Barges and pictures only of the hull being bebuilt, readers may not know what all the fuss is about. I have therefore blagged a pic of the old girl when still in trade (or in this case, with a full racing set of sails in the 1930's) from the Cambria Trust website. Many barges were raced, with proud owners and freight companies vying with one another to win the triumphant pennants. In some cases barges were built as extra-fast racers and then had to go hauling freight around out of season.

Some barge and smack races have been kept up or re-instated around the Thames, Medway and the Essex Coast - search the Faversham website or just google Sailing Barge Racing for details

Visitor Centre, Standard Quay, Creekside, Faversham

As you can see - now open and welcoming visitors. our Vistor Centre, housing the museum of old Cambria stuff - bits removed from the barge, old photo's, stories, Bills of Lading, a model of the barge and volunteers from the Cambria Trust on hand to answer questions and show you around if you choose. It's open weekends all through the Summer and has been incuded in the recent faversham "Open Houses" festival.

Stern timbers

As the shipwrights approach the stern of the barge, the shapes of timbers get interesting, and the sourcing of appropriate size shape oak gets more problematic. These bits of oak have to have grown like that, so that the grain runs round the curves of the stern, for strength. You can see here where the straight angles of the main hold give way to the U shaped quarters,before finally becoming double-convex shapes at the stern post and transom.