Q J & J
a unique hoveller with an important history to be displayed in her home in Cromer, Norfolk, UK

The town of Cromer, Norfolk, located on the North Sea and East Coast of Britain, has a rich tradition of inshore fishing and life-saving.  These activities have laid the foundations for a unique collection of maritime museums and sites.  Soon to be added is Henry Blogg’s fishing boat Q J & J, a hoveller named after his daughter, Queenie, and nephews Jimmy and Jack (National Small Boat Register no. 1531).  

Henry Blogg
Henry Blogg, born into a fishing family, is arguably the most famous of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s Coxswains.  Along with his gallant crew, he saved numerous lives, many during the treacherous times of World War II, when E-boats stalked the North Sea off Cromer.  He was awarded several medals including the George Cross.  When not volunteering for the RNLI, Henry was a fisherman, catching Cromer crabs, cod, and herring, using Q J & J for his day-to-day work.      

A unique hoveller
Q J & J is the last known surviving wooden clinker-style crab fishing boat to work from Cromer beach.  At 3 tons, she is 24 feet long with a 9 foot beam.  She was built for Henry’s relative James Davies, in 1915 by Robert “Calla” Emery.  The Emerys of Sheringham were well-known for building hovellers and crab boats from around 1860 to the late 1950s. A hoveller was a small coastal craft, often launched off the beach, which would take people and provisions to larger ships and boats offshore: they quite often got involved in inshore rescues and attending wrecks. Q J & J exemplifies the traditional fishing boat and boat-building methods especially since modern fishing and economic pressures have resulted in the disappearance of the traditional wooden boats, with replacement by one-man fibreglass skiffs.  Q J & J also has special value to Britain’s maritime heritage as she sailed for the Dunkirk Evacuation, although only reaching Ramsgate before the evacuation was complete. 

Preservation
Q J & J had a varied life after Henry, first moving to Wells-on-the-Sea for fishing, and then on to several private owners who made some small alterations such as an added cabin.  Now she is being restored to her original condition at the International Boatbuilding Training College, Lowestoft, U.K. 

The Gangway, Cromer
Q J & J will be permanently displayed on The Gangway, behind the original RNLI lifeboat house, adjacent to the new RNLI Henry Blogg Museum, and not far from both the current RNLI Lifeboat station at the end of the pier and Cromer Museum adjacent to the Church.  Interpretation boards by the boat will detail her story from building, fishing with Henry, to restoration; as well as local crab boat-building and the local fishing industry at Cromer.  The listed Gangway site was once a thriving hub of fishing activity, where many wooden crab boats and hovellers, such as Q J & J, were located.  Horses and carts also transported coal up The Gangway from coal boats that were able to land on the shallow shoreline.  Q J & J has strong connections to Cromer’s heritage and her presence on The Gangway will serve as a focal point for Cromer’s past and present lifesaving, fishing and tourism activities, increasing awareness of the local connection between our fishing and lifesaving service and to our country’s rich maritime history. 

Learn more:    
Henry Blogg of Cromer, Cyril Jolly, published by Poppyland Press
RNLI Henry Blogg Museum: www.rnli.org.uk/who_we_are/the_heritage_trust/henry_blogg_museum
Cromer Royal National Lifeboat Institute: http://www.cromerlifeboats.org.uk
International Boatbuilding Training College: http://www.ibtc.co.uk/
Cromer Museum: http://www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk/default.asp?Document=200.60

Farewell to Sails – remembering the last days of the sailing ships

To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the last voyage around Cape Horn by a cargo carrying sailing ship, the Åland Maritime Museum is producing an exhibition called Farewell to Sails. The exhibition follows the four-masted barques Passat and Pamir on their final voyages from South Australia to Falmouth, UK and Queenstown, Ireland.

The exhibition will open at the Åland Maritime Museum on May 28th 2009 and closes on October 2nd. Those dates correlate with the Pamir’s departure from Port Victoria and arrival in Falmouth. The Passat departed Port Victoria on June 1st and arrived in Queenstown on September 19th.

These ships, owned by the Gustaf Erikson shipping company of the Åland Islands in Finland, were to be the last of the windjammers to make the infamous voyage around Cape Horn. Gustaf Erikson himself had passed away in 1947, leaving the company in the hands of his son Edgar.

The exhibition is produced by the Åland Maritime Museum together with artist Rita Jokiranta. It will be conveyed as a race and the exhibition will trace the two ships as they make their way across the oceans. The main medium will be banners with texts and photos, focusing on personal experiences and specific occasions. Each banner deals with something that happened to the ship or the crew at a particular date and on the bottom of each banner is a map with the ships’ positions plotted on that particular date. In that way the ships’ progress and their position to each other can be seen.

The idea is to make this exhibition widely accessible and to display it simultaneously in many different locations. To make that possible, the exhibition will be delivered digitally to each participating museum. The contents will be ready-for-print material for ten exhibition banners and one title banner. Currently, the following museums have confirmed their intention to show the exhibition: the South Australian Maritime Museum, the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, New Zealand National Maritime Museum, Bergen Maritime Museum, Hong Kong Maritime Museum, Suomenlinna, Helsinki as well as the Åland Maritime Museum. We are hoping to receive more confirmations in the near future and if anyone reading this is interested in taking part in the commemoration, please get in touch with the Åland Maritime Museum.

For more information, contact Dr Hanna Hagmark-Cooper, director of the Åland Maritime Museum, by e-mail hanna@sjofartsmuseum.ax

In May 2009 it was announced that 11 Museums around the world would show the Exhibition. See list on the poster from the Hong Kong Maritime Museum below (click on poster for a larger version)

The West Coast of Europe – a photographic journey from Skagen to Gibraltar.

An exhibition by Jens Fink Jensen - in co-operation with the Fisheries and Maritime Museum in Esbjerg, Denmark

For the first time ever the entire west coast of mainland Europe is presented in just one ex-hibition. The writer and photographer Jens Fink-Jensen has travelled along the 10,000 kilometre-long west coast of Europe from Skagen to Gibraltar and described the frontier between land and sea in words and pictures

This exhibition is available for sale at a special price for ICMM Members.
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NEW BEDFORD WHALING MUSEUM - CLASSIC WHALING PRINTS

The Classic Whaling Prints show, organized and written by Dr. Stuart M. Frank, Senior Curator at the Whaling Museum, traces highlights of the genre from Dutch and German foundations in the 17th century to French, British and American masterworks of the 19th century, and a few examples from Japan and the American 20th century.

Exhibited alongside the prints are the original oil paintings, drawings and watercolors on which some of the prints were based, along with related historic book and magazine illustrations, banknotes, scrimshaw and ceramics - all drawn from the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s permanent collection, the world’s largest and most comprehensive.

Of special interest in the section “The French Are the Lads” (the title is quoted from Moby-Dick) are the four prints that Melville found especially praiseworthy. One of these is unique to the Whaling Museum collection – the only known specimen in the world. Other sections include “The Dutch Golden Age”; “The British Go Whaling”; “Marine Painter to His Majesty, the Sailor King,” which examines the work of the great W.J. Huggins; “The American Century”; and “Along the Pacific Rim.”

The exhibition opens on February 27, 2009 and runs through the end of the year.

Of the many whaling prints Herman Melville mentions in Moby-Dick, he reserves his highest praise for two scenes in particular that show the vigorous action and some of the dangers of whaling, as well as the customarily diverse composition of whaleboat crews: “two large French engravings, well executed, and taken from paintings by one Garneray. Respectively, they represent attacks on the Sperm and Right Whale.” Melville calls them “by far the finest, though in some details not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes.”