Lockdown Diaries - part 1
Super volunteers Roger (right) and Rod wading in on dry dock arrival day.
An e-mail came from Gareth, “can you write a blog for the website"? Well, I've never done one before, so I googled it. A shortened version of ‘weblog' it said. OK a log, I think I can manage that!
It started for me one morning late last September when my wife called, “Roger there's a sailing barge coming to Sittingbourne!". Right enough, the Raybel, currently laying at Heybridge Basin was coming home to Milton Creek to be restored nearly 100 years after being built here. Having a passion for sailing barges and the waters of the east coast I quickly found the website, signed up to the newsletters, and readily volunteered.
Raybel was built in one of the many boatyards operating on Milton Creek in the early 1900's. Wills and Packham were the shipwrights, and when we came to live here 50 years ago they were still here trading as builders' merchants, and now as Erith Building Supplies.
Raybel arrived in late November, 2019 and a party was called to celebrate. Volunteering began for me in the early New Year, and since then we have completed many tasks on site. These included making a hole in the floor of the new museum so that an electrical cable can be run to the wharf side. We dug out the old blocked drains that run across and drain the wharf, bringing them back to life, and created a gateway in the perimeter fence to provide access to the dry dock mooring.
The dry dock arrived on the high tide of an afternoon in mid March. The diesel pumps that had accompanied her on the journey needed to be removed, together with some of the clutter on board, ready for the removal of the sad carcass of the Sailing Barge Westmoreland.
In the meantime two shipping containers had been delivered. They were set facing each other some 6 metres apart. Before the shipwrights arrived a roof would be needed between them to create a covered work area, so a design for the roof was needed (Roger volunteered for that one too! - ed).
Then as another 'Beast from the East' arrived in the UK the wharf stalled silent. All work days suspended for the foreseeable. I'm on lockdown with the rest of you, but I will be back at the wharf when the dreaded virus allows it. Maybe to start construction of that roof, or help remove the last remains of SB Westmoorland.I don't have a clue how long it will take, but I want to see Raybel repaired, refitted, rerigged and seaworthy once again. And maybe to sail on her up the east coast.
Roger