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Bridlington Coble Preservation project - what we achieved
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Bridlington Coble Preservation project - what we achieved
Location: East Riding of Yorkshire
What was achieved by the successfully completed Bridlington Coble Preservation project, and the lasting effects it has had in the community.
This project enabled the Bridlington Coble Preservation Society to restore the 100-year-old Three Brothers sailing coble to a seaworthy condition, to develop their harbourside museum base, and to recruit and train more volunteers.
An experienced boat builder supervised the restoration and, together with a former joinery teacher, trained the ten volunteers who assisted with the skilled work on the boat. The process of stripping the boat down to its timbers, ready to be measured and built back up, enabled one member of the society, a draughtsman, to draw up detailed plans which had not been part of the original building process in 1912. Another member created a 1:12 scale model of the Three Brothers, to be displayed in the museum alongside the framed plans.
The project enabled the society to establish a greater range and number of exhibits in the museum, which had been a small aquarium and harbour display on the verge of closing down when they took it over as a base for the boat. Access was improved for people with disabilities by replacing steps with a ramp, a TV monitor for the museum’s audio visual educational display was installed, and a better stage and costumes provided for drama presentations given to school parties by arrangement.
Free Spirit Writers, two of the 30 volunteers who run the museum, provided these performances focusing on a local fisherman known as the Lifeboat Hero, the Great Gale, and other aspects of the history of Bridlington harbour at the turn of the 20th century.
Volunteers from the museum also visited schools to give talks on harbour history, using a video and a CD archive produced by the project. Included on the CD was a PowerPoint presentation which was used at public events to promote the activities of the society, to recruit new members and to raise funds for continued maintenance and future refurbishment.
Several volunteers took Day Skipper courses at the local college, and the society was keen to encourage more people to gain offshore and sailing qualifications to enable them to take school parties on board the Three Brothers.
Having restored the coble, the Society hoped to be able to purchase their own small tow boat to bring the coble, which has no engine, safely in and out of the busy harbour and to act as a safety boat out at sea.
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