On Tuesday 17th September, Boathouse 4 emptied as the College’s students went with one of the Instructors to the Southampton Boatshow. There were a few wooden boats, too few one might say, but one wooden ship made up for this, and was the highlight of the show.

The Frigate Shtandart is a reproduction of Tsar Peter the Great’s flagship of 300 years ago. Built over a six year period, with enthusiasm and volunteer labour, and no professional expertise, she is a remarkable vessel. The hyperlink takes you to the account of her build.

She is used for sail training and in films (e.g. Pirates of the Caribbean), and carries seven fully-working canons. One of the students is a Captain on Sail Training ships, and he arranged for us to have a personal tour of the ship with Vlad, her chief builder and Captain.

His next project is to build a replica of the Cutty Sark, and use her for commercial cargo carrying as well as sail training!

Two days later, and we had another personalised ship’s tour, this time of our next-door neighbour, HMS Warrior.

The stern of Warrior has been enclosed in scaffolding and ‘shrink wrap since January. Her rounded aft end has a wooden embellishment, designed to make her look more the part of a traditional warship.

We were taken into that scaffolding-clad area, to look at the work being done, and hear how the Royal Navy Museum shipwrights are having to solve the problems arising from earlier restorations and rebuild the structure without plans. There is a fascinating mix of traditional and modern materials being used, but underlying this is the use of traditional skills – skills learnt in Boathouse 4 by many of those involved.