Back to Amble

Just back from a month of storms in the North Sea some of the worst I can remember, but that is a different story! Back home it was good to see all was safe with the Morning Star.

 I have in previous postings promised to give you more history of coble building in this town and the man who has this information came to our home on Wednesday with a folder of great photos including some of the Morning Star being built not in a boat yard but in a rear garden in the next street to us. This was the garden of  Victor Henderson the builder who lived beside his bother, also a fisherman. With a shortage of space they knocked down the wall between their gardens and there  surrounded by houses, lobster pots and sometimes washing, she was built.

She was built over two years from the finest of local larch and seasoned oak. The tree which Victor used was from AJ Scotts Timber Yard in Wooller and had been kept for just such a purpose by the owner Andy Scott. None of the timbers were steamed but fashioned over time using clamps adjusted daily. Without the conditions and equipment of a boat yard it must have meant a lot of  work to produce such a fine  boat.       When it came to the launch she had to be shoe horned out of the garden and winched onto a wagon for the short journey to the shore. 

                                                                                          

She was named 'Serenity' and in 1985 joined her sister coble 'Lady Diana' in Amble Harbour.

In his 52 years of boat building Victor has produced 5 full sized cobles 2 steel fishing vessels (one of which  he is still working on) and his first work boat a double ended salmon boat 'The Provident'

(seen above with Victor in the summer 2010) 

Victor first went to sea in 1939 in a coble. She carried a sail but only as a precaution as by then they  had fitted  6/7 horse power petrol engines which switched to paraffin. He is still building boats and salmon fishing in the summer season. Here is one of  his early photos of my coble as 'The Serenity'. Pleasingly the colours resemble the ones she is now!

We were treated to a fine evening of the history of cobles how Amble became a major centre for coble boat building mainly thanks to Harrison's Yard and the renowned skills of Hector Handyside who as Victor put it is the 'Cassius Clay of Coble building . He built better cobles than anyone else in the world'. The traditional centre for building  prior to Hector's production had been Hartlepool. Boats were built and used from Seahouses to Hartlepool as all this part of the coast is well know for coble fishing.

Victor had some more fine photos connected to the history of the town and its time as a coal exporting  port as well as early life boat fitting station. Here are some more of his photos. Thank you Victor for these!