Traditional Marine Skills project launch

Built by Cornish wooden boatbuilder Marcus Lewis, the 14’ Mayflower dinghy, which revives a classic gunter rigged design, was seen on the Wooden Boatbuilders Association stand.

TMS captured every stage of the build on video and on a time lapse camera and the footage will form part of a virtual learning tool for future generations of wooden boat builders.

The £1m TMS project is being lead in the UK by Cornwall Marine Network, with partners in the Netherlands and Belgium recording similar skills. Material collated will be used to create an online learning tool, including movie clips, interviews, photography, CAD drawings and course frameworks.

The Traditional Maritime Skills project aims to preserve traditional boatbuilding skills and use their potential for strengthening competitiveness and employment of the ‘2 Seas’ area, which includes the North Sea and Channel coastal areas in Belgium (Flanders), England, France and the Netherlands. This cross border approach is essential to enlarge the pool of skills to preserve by documenting them, and to tap into the experience of other groups in recording skills, developing training and promoting them to both businesses and individuals.

Marcus Lewis spent the summer painstakingly replicating the original designs at his Fowey boatyard and he is delighted with the result. His Mayflower has a steel centreplate and is skilfully crafted in mahogany and cedar, with Canadian spruce planing and steamed oak ribs. The Mayflower fleet, of which there were only about 100 produced, were originally built by Skentelbery’s in Plymouth.

Marcus Lewis said, “Unfortunately all the patterns and templates were destroyed in a fire in the nineties. I had been looking for a boat of this size to build for a while. They are an ideal size for teaching the grandchildren to sail.”

“I am not a big enough entity to take on an apprentice, so this project is a way of passing on skills and techniques through a different channel.”