Three keen young N. W. M. trainees are to learn narrow boat repair & restoration skills to help the fight to save the museum’s historic boats from dereliction.
They are working at the Canal & River Trust’s Heritage Boatyard in the National Waterway Museum at Ellesmere Port, part of Keeping History Afloat, a Heritage Lottery Skills for the Future Fund project run by the Trust working closely with National Historic Ships UK. The trainees are supported by £100,600 of lottery funding, bringing the total funding for the project to £210,800.
The new trainees will work in the boatyard for 18 months, gaining experience of the skills needed to maintain and restore historic canal narrowboats, including woodworking, metalworking and the traditional Roses and Castles style of painting. They will work on vessels in the museum collection as well as visiting commercial yards to gain an insight into other traditional boatbuilding techniques.
The three trainees, Alex, Dawn and Millie (right), all have a great interest in canal boats, even owning several between them.
Alex de Leie is already a familiar face at the museum having volunteered at the National Waterways Museum for over two years and being an active member of the Boat Activity Group. Alex is currently completing a Level 2 NVQ in Engineering at West Cheshire College and already owns two narrowboats, Bewitched and Jester.
Dawn Tigwell has also been a regular visitor to the Museum and heard about the trainee placements during the Easter Boat Gathering event. She has previously run a boat fitting company, is chairperson of the Young Waterways and Boating Society and also has her own boat, Canis Major, a BCN Tug.
Millie Leith is new to the North West and is looking forward to the challenges of working in the boatyard. She has recently restored Kishti, a 56 ft narrowboat and, with her father being an engineer, has been welding since the age of 9.
Museum General Manager, John Inch said: “We’re delighted to get the new trainees on board and they have already been hard at work on Box Boat 337, the current restoration project in the boatyard. It is vital for the future of our collections that we work to pass on the skills and knowledge we already have in the boatyard and this scheme will help us achieve this.”
The Heritage Boatyard is a project working with a range of partners and funders that aims to preserve traditional boat building skills relating to inland waterways craft and pass on these skills to a new generation. The Heritage Boatyard is working to restore and maintain the museum’s collection of historic craft and in time develop into a commercial restoration boatyard.
From Canal and River Trust Press Release June 14th 2013.
