I’ve spent the past three months distracted from Nero as I’ve helped get this 1912 Yacht ready for launch after my sailing club tracked her down in Essex and with the help of a Heritage Lottery grant, purchase her and transport up to my village where she started life in 1912. Built by Crossfields of Arnside, a well known builder of Morecambe Bay Prawner or Lancashire Nobbies as they were also known as, it is one of 12 ordered by the Royal Liverpool Yacht Club for class racing.....the boats being Rivers Class, this one named Severn. Sadly it was broached in its first race and sank, discovered a couple of decades later, refloated and restored.
It is gaff rigged and being a smaller 23 ft copy of a Prawner, was open cockpit, the cabin being added in the 1930s.
Crossfields boatyard or rather its remains are just down from my house. When I was a lad here it was still building boats which fascinated me. The family also built the two houses in the village that I was brought up in!
The boat was successfully launched at high tide on Friday. It can only really sail in the estuary on the highest tides as sadly its silted up a lot since the old days. We have work to do to get the engine set up properly and learn about the sails but it is huge fun and it’s great to have a traditional boat back moored in the village.
Floating her off the trailer....me flashing my legs😉
At rest this evening.
