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Ferret


mark99

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Thanks. Couple of people were interested the the <not brilliant> model which we found in an antiques centre (did not buy). However a bit of research (ta Tim) reveals it's a model that is not unique and available on line for a price 0.33 of what antique centre wanted (£55 quid).

Edited by mark99
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2 hours ago, Laurence Hogg said:

I agree Andy far too tidy. Is this the result of the £free money" running out (HLF etc?). Their trainees seem to have flown too. Maybe the "friends" of CRT could get involved..........

If it is a result of the funding running out it is shocking, I dont believe they should have deconstructed an historic boat in this manner unless they had the funding in place to ensure a complete rebuild. Dont get me wrong it looks as if the work done so far has been done well she looks very neat and as you say tidy but it will cost a lot more to get her back on the water than a piece meal restoration with funding in place for each stage over a period of time would have done.

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Funding didn't run out, they raised £27k, what happened is CRT are a bunch of ******.

Our (trainees) scheme was only ever 18 months and paid for by the heritage lottery foundation. Started off fantastically with Dave Linney at the helm and we had done a number of recording exercises with Ferret, deconstruction etc all in accordance with the national historic ships guideline (and pressed upon them that Ferret wasn't the boat we should have been doing being fairly ununique). Rebuilding Ferret was going to give us the opportunity to get experience in a number of different skills.

It is a fairly long winded story, but to cut to the chase, a fairly horrendous member of staff decided he didn't much like Dave or the liability of the boatyard and spent a few months trying to push him out with aborhant bullying tactics and then took us off working on Ferret and told us we would instead be learning woodwork by hanging new gates around the museum. As I objected to this as I had signed up to learn historic boat restoration, the bullying tactics also turned to me. They eventually pushed Dave out and gave him a final written notice for smoking a cigarette whilst sat on a bench in the top basin at 7 o'clock at night after he had started working at 6am to crane a number of boats around.

After Dave left, we were permanently pulled off Ferret as due to health and safety regs we couldn't needlegun and could only do 1 rivet a day due to vibration. 

After we the trainees left, Ferret sat doing nothing until they shot blasted her to within an inch of her life (despite EVERYONE telling them not to) and then threw her in a shed.

I could go on, but I'm currently on holiday in Turkey and just thinking about it makes me shake with anger and sadness. It took me a long time to get over the way I was treated there and I didn't experience half Dave did. Thankfully I am working with Dave again at a proper boatyard and now doing a proper restoration job on my own boat, Canis Major.

None of the £27k was spent by the way. Most of it came from the People's Postcode lottery which was donated to CRT in general. A friend of mine donated £1k and after many complaints, he got his money back and donated it to a more worthy cause

Edited by Tiggers
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31 minutes ago, Tiggers said:

Funding didn't run out, they raised £27k, what happened is CRT are a bunch of ******.

Our (trainees) scheme was only ever 18 months and paid for by the heritage lottery foundation. Started off fantastically with Dave Linney at the helm and we had done a number of recording exercises with Ferret, deconstruction etc all in accordance with the national historic ships guideline (and pressed upon them that Ferret wasn't the boat we should have been doing being fairly ununique). Rebuilding Ferret was going to give us the opportunity to get experience in a number of different skills.

It is a fairly long winded story, but to cut to the chase, a fairly horrendous member of staff decided he didn't much like Dave or the liability of the boatyard and spent a few months trying to push him out with aborhant bullying tactics and then took us off working on Ferret and told us we would instead be learning woodwork by hanging new gates around the museum. As I objected to this as I had signed up to learn historic boat restoration, the bullying tactics also turned to me. They eventually pushed Dave out and gave him a final written notice for smoking a cigarette whilst sat on a bench in the top basin at 7 o'clock at night after he had started working at 6 to crane a number of boats around.

After Dave left, we were permanently pulled off Ferret as due to health and safety regs we couldn't needlegun and could only do 1 rivet a day due to vibration. 

After we the trainees left, Ferret sat doing nothing until they shot blasted her to within an inch of her life (despite EVERYONE telling them not to) and then threw her in a shed.

I could go on, but I'm currently on holiday in Turkey and just thinking about it makes me shake with anger and sadness. It took me a long time to get over the way I was treated there and I didn't experience half Dave did. Thankfully I am working with Dave again at a proper boatyard and now doing a proper restoration job on my own boat, Canis Major.

None of the £27k was spent by the way. Most of it came from the People's Postcode lottery which was donated to CRT in general. A friend of mine donated £1k and after many complaints, he got his money back and donated it to a more worthy cause

Thanks Tigger, sounds like a catalogue of horrors. As I said she looks very tidy my only gripe was the failure to put her back together. Enjoy your holiday, sounds like you are still recovering from that ordeal.

Edited by AMModels
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Congratulations for saying it like it is. Dave himself I know was never going to say in  a public forum  what had happened but I know how upset he was. However remember one thing with what he can teach the skills are maintained and people who he teaches can carry the standard forward when the current generation of skilled artisans stop. And that won't be long.....

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Unlike the railways and the locomotives that ran on them carrying millions to their destinations over the years, narrow boats and wide boats never created the same attraction, nor do ordinary folk have recollections of being conveyed to anywhere, save maybe an odd Sunday school outing so the romance is not there. Further, Ex working boats attract a clique society that today has little to connect with the boating families that worked them, and more to do with the owners of fairground stalls vying for comments on how nice their boats/paintwork/brass look. So those boat museums have an uphill struggle to pull in the punters, and are not helped by a 'traditionally' myopic controlling organisation that cares more for the balance sheet than history itself.

 

Edited by Derek R.
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Relating to the wrecks at Elsmere Port, I have always been curious as to the identity of the boat sunk below the bottom lock in to the basin.Its red funnel is showing above water? Several times i have moored near to Combermere?(Have I got the right name) and moored on top of sunk boats, Very odd feeling.

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3 hours ago, nebulae said:

Relating to the wrecks at Elsmere Port, I have always been curious as to the identity of the boat sunk below the bottom lock in to the basin.Its red funnel is showing above water? Several times i have moored near to Combermere?(Have I got the right name) and moored on top of sunk boats, Very odd feeling.

If  you mean the one at the far end of the basin near the bottom lock, it's a Harbour Defence Launch. When I  first saw it  sunk there it looked fairly intact, the brass telegraph in the wheelhouse was dangling by cables and the engine(s) just visible. I think  they were 6 cylinder Foden or Gardner engines. There is a similar vessel in the Albert Dock at Liverpool, obviously in much better condition. I believe their  original purpose was to drag anti-submarine nets across harbour entrances or move them to allow shipping through.

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