An item of history

The Northumbrian Coble is part of local coastal heritage and of interest to boat builders, fishermen and historians alike, The traditional coble building skills are about to be lost together with the skills of handling the craft.

Traditionally rowed and sailed from ports reaching from Berwick to the Humber estuary it is unique to this coastline. Her distinctive shape is recognisable from 19 century painting of Grace Darling's sea vessel of sea rescue.. The characteristic flat bottomed and high bowed shape can cope with the local seas.
It was my good fortune to acquire a coble here in Amble in 2009. The builder of this coble was also a near neighbour and the story of how she was built in 1978 soon became known to me....
The coble was built by Victor Henderson , a local fisherman and boat builder using Northumberland larch on English oak. Her characteristic shape is down to the builder's eye, skills and experience. It was built to suit the needs of the user. Victor was building this with no customer in mind taking his time. Instead of steaming the timber into shape he painstakingly shaped and clamped the timbers daily over two years to fashion this fine vessel. It turned out to be one of his last cobles he was to build but by no means his last fishing vessel he is constructing a steel vessel now as I write this blog!
Unusually the idea for building this coble came from Andy Scott who owned the Wooller based saw mill  AJ Scott Ltd. Andy had come across a particularly fine larch tree which 'would make a very fine coble' and he managed to persuade Victor to make just one more.

Many local fishermen has learnt their craft and living on this coble and when I bought her she was a recently decommissioned fishing boat berthed in the Dock Amble with the name  Dawn Marie owned by fisherman Davy Bell
So my adventures began........First the handover notes

There were some dry dock tasks to take place. She is a 9.75 metres in length weighing in at 3.93 tons with a Ford 4D engine and Borg Warner 2/1 reduction gear box. After some hull painting, replacement of decking and

with the sign writing by Paul Robinson in place she became The Morning Star

Her choice of name owes its origins to the name of my Grandfather's boat which he used for fishing in the Belfast lough in the early 1900s...
The engine was given an overhaul by Mike and Neville Mac Kay in their workshop and then all was ready for the launch from Amble Boat Yard in April 2009...

She was ready to work again........

This time the crew were family and friends but the fishing has been good!

And sometimes even surprised the fisherman!

This is Michael's first time on a coble and second time in his life to go  fishing! His new name on the street is 'King Cod'
 Or fisher woman...

We got ready for all weathers! 'Finger Major' local wood carver and cabinet maker enjoys time on the boat,...but fish can bite!

As for the weather you never can tell with The Northumbrian coast!

When the weather is right we can get the pots out and see if we get lucky.  At first the crabs seemed to like the bait and most of these had to go back!

Of course we did get lucky and nothing tastes sweeter than your own fresh caught lobster!

With fresh vegetables from our allotment!