• President’s Report 1998

by Mr. Anders Berg, President of the EMH

The year 1998 must be considered a very important year for the development of the EMH, even if our progress is a bit limping. We are in fact standing on two legs. One is our cultural and historical identity. That explains why private owned ships and crafts have a common, general and public interest and value. The other is our firm opinion that the best way to save our ships is to sail them. The proper way to do this leads us to the question about safety on board traditional ships.

Unfortunately we have been limping on our first “cultural” leg. That is, we have been to week in explaining our cultural importance and value “upwards” to EU politicians and EU civil servants, and “downwards” to the public. This is particularly regrettable since the cultural identity is our only basis for creating special rules for safety on board traditional ships. One main reason for this situation is that we did not succeed to publish any EMH Newsletter in 1998. Furthermore we do indeed hope that our old MEP contacts and new contacts within the ”Coastal Group” in the European Parliament and other contacts inside the European Commision will survive the big ongoing changes on the Brussels scene.

Since its inaugurative meeting in August 1998 the EMH Safety Council has grown into our strongest leg. From now on the EMH Safety Council is the only body which have the complete information about national safety standards for “our” ships. The European responsibility is widened by cooperation with Register Holland and the International Sail Training Association. There is furthermore a plan for mutual acceptance of national regulations by the nations involved in connection with the World Exhibition in Hannover/Wilhelmshaven in September 2000.  

Even referring to memberships we have to realize a limping situation. Although having 6 “full” national members and 4 associated members, as well as 7 maritime museums registered as advisory members, we are too concentrated on the northwestern part of Europe. We have no Mediterranean members yet. Our contacts with the just established Association of the Mediterranean Maritime Museums seems to be a way to broaden the EMH to the south.  

The most successful event during 1998 was the Third EMH Congress, held in Helsingør August 21st-23rd and connected to the Baltic Sail Festival 98. The Congress was organized by the Træskibs Sammenslutningen (TS - The Danish Wooden Ship’s Association) in cooperation with Danish Schooner Charter. The Congress was held under the Patronage of His Royal Highness the Price Consort of Denmark. A total of 75 delegates from 11 European countries were present, representing owners and operators of traditional ships, maritime museums, national maritime administrations and authorities, tourism- and cultural organizations, and parliamentarians. The EU was represented by the Director of the EU Commission in Denmark, Mr. Peter Stub Jørgensen, who opened the Congress on behalf of the EU Commissioner for Culture Mr. Marcelino Oreja. The EU Commissioner Mr. Neil Kinnock (Directorate General VII) was represented by Mr. Johan Renders who delivered a paper on the EU view on safety on board historical ships. The EU Parliament was represented by MEP Ms. Brigitte Langenhagen who had kindly accepted to be chairing the first congress session. 

Additional to the Congress the General Assembly was held on Sunday 23rd of August at the office of Danish Schooner Charter. Previously Mr. Jacques-Henri Chauveau had declared that he wanted to resign from his seat in the Executive Committee. Due to his great contributions to the EMH, especially in EU matters, Mr. Jacques-Henri Chauveau was unanimously elected Président d’Honneur of the EMH. A new executive committee was elected for the next three years: Mr. Anders Berg (Sweden), President; Mr. Thedo Fruithof (the Netherlands), Secretary; and Mr. Michael vom Baur (Germany), Treasurer. Captain Jan Fock (Germany) was elected chairman of the EMH Safety Council. 

• 3rd Common European Maritime Heritage Congress

by Mr. Anders Berg, President of the EMH 

All traditional ships are always welcome in our harbour! With these appreciating words the Mayor of Helsingør, Mr. Per Tærsbøl, left his mark on the whole congress. A stamp which very well describes the improving situation for our operating traditional ships and our organizations.  

Thanks to a good job done by the Danish organizers, TræskibsSammenslutningen and Danish Schooner Charter, our third congress turned out to be a most successful one in many aspects of our working fields.

The two representatives from the European Commission, Culture respectively Transport, expressed their interest in finding programmes that would support us as an European umbrella organisation, taking care of the mobile part of the cultural heritage, two qualities which up until now have excluded us from existing programmes. 

The representatives from the European Parliament declared that our view on safety regulations for traditional ships very well correspond with the opinion of the Parliament, and that the politicians will support our work to achieve a common European system through mutual acceptance on national level. 

This congress has shown that is has become more obvious for the society, and ourselves, that the former cargo and fishing vessels even today play an important social role. Not only as museum specimen but even as an instrument for social and educational purposes. “Ships bring quality to tourism” is affirmed even by the UNESCO. 

The very active participation of national and regional maritime museums guarantees the necessary ongoing discussion about how to combine antiquarian ambitions with modern safety regulations and other practical demands. Today it is quite obvious that the responsibility for taking care of the cultural heritage as a whole cannot be carried by any government and its institutions by themselves. The activities of devoted amateurs are of fundamental importance. The EMH is forming a body which allows professional specialists and idealistic amateurs to meet, help each other, and accept the separate roles they play. 

• Maritime Heritage:   Our Common European Culture

We share a maritime cultural heritage in which a single artefact, skill, or person could have multiple influences linking communities from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

Through the ages, the peoples of Europe used ships to trade, to feed themselves, and to wage wars. Our maritime history is therefore an essential part of our collective past. Rich in its diversity, our ships continue today as living expressions of our regional cultures. Our European nautical traditions are still maintaining, building, expanding, and offering substantial commercial, cultural, and economic benefits. 

Kept alive in day-to-day practice, our maritime heritage involves a wide variety of people in a shared and positive experience. Traditional maritime events, both “tall” and small, attracts tens of thousands of spectators. Year round, the sights and smells of traditional ships and their crews going about their humble business and pleasure awaken youthful curiosities and reawaken the menories and dreams of so many. Preserving traditional ships by keeping them in operation is an obvious success, anchored in flourishing local and regional initiatives. 

Looking beyond home waters, the situation is of a different nature. With the progressive unification of Europe, international legislation and regulations are steadily gaining precedence over national law. However, due to the absence of any formal advisory body for the maritime heritage sector as a whole, issues affecting artefacts, individuals, and organisations have been decided without the representation or input from the sector itself.

In order to protect and pass on our precious inheritance for future generations, the informal networking structures of maritime museums, associations of private owners, and other related organisations were linked to create a European association for traditional ships in operation in 1995. The Common European Maritime Heritage Congress (EMH) includes representatives of all aspects of traditional maritime practice today. 

The purpose of the EMH is to protect and to promote the interests of owners of traditional craft, maritime museums, and organisations which keep traditional European vessels in operation. EMH provides regulators and users of Europe’s maritime heritage with consultancy services, based on a common approach and a mutual understanding between all parties involved. The representative competence of the EMH is rooted in the organisation’s international network. 

The EMH’s activities stimulate the mutual flow of assistance. Where appropriate, EMH also takes a role in the decision making processes which affect the maritime heritage sector and its users. The network and services benefit communities, governments, European and international level bodies, private ship owners, museums, commercial operators of traditional ships, preservation associations, and many others involved with traditional ships and related maritime interests.

• Steam Tug back in Service

A steam tug built in 1931 and equipped for firefighting in the Danish port of Odense recently set out from Dartmouth to return to Scandinavia after spending more than half her life in the West of England. Built of rivetted steel at Frederikshavn, the »St. Knud« served the Odense Harbour Commisioners for 29 years before being bought by Fowey Harbour to supplement the existing flotilla of steam harbour tugs that handled china-clay ships in that busy Cornish port.

Her name was anglicised to »St. Canute«, but it turned out that there was hardly enough work to keep her constantly in steam. Intermittent steaming was both extravagant in fuel, and harmful to her boiler, and the Fowey Harbour commissioners reluctantly offered her for sale. A small group of enthusiasts acquired her in 1968 at a preferential price, and with some difficulty delivered her to the recently-opened Exeter Maritime Museum; her draught of 10½ ft was the maximum permissable in the Exeter Ship Canal, whose locks are less than 2’’ wider than the tug’s maximum beam of 25’10’’.

At the museum »St. Canute« was occasionally steamed until 1980, when work on her Scotch boiler would have been necessary to permit further steaming. Being privately-owned, the tug was not moved to Lowestoft like other exhibits when the Exeter Maritime Museum closed in 1996. In March 1999, her boilers and bunkers empty to reduce her draught, the elderly tug was towed down the Ship Canal to be prepared for a new life in Sweden. In order to pass under the M5 motorway bridge erected several years after the tug went up to Exeter, she embarked extra water ballast, but 3 ft had to be cut from the top of her lofty funnel to get her under the bridge.

Now renamed »Stockvik« for the small port near Sundsvall where she is to work, the tug proceeded to Philip’s Shipyard at Dartmouth; thanks to the heavy ice-breaker construction of her hull, only a few plates needed to be doubled. Once the Swedish ship surveyors were satisfied with her condition, this remarkable tug set off for Stockholm. Her new duties there will include towing coal-lighters from the north of Sweden, so finding fuel for »Stockvik« should be less of a problem than it was during her sojourn of more than 25 years at Exeter.

• Books: Traditional Fishing Boats of Britain and Ireland

With his read beard, black beret and smoked-herring stall, Mike Smylie is a familiar figure at traditional boat events througout Britain and Western France, where he publicises and opposes the mindless destruction of sound fishing vessels in conformity with EU decommissioning quotas. From a lifetime of involvement in Britain’s sea fishery, Smylie has distilled a concise and authoritative survey of the evolution and current role of fishing boats around the British Isles, explaining clearly why and how local rigs vary. Place-names, boat types and personalities are separately indexed, while maps show the locations of principal British and Irish fishing harbours. Historic photographs and Smylie’s own sketches illustrate many small fishing vessels now driven to extinction by overexploitation of fish stocks. In the wealth of this historical evidence, this lively study provides a powerful manifesto for preserving representative examples, where these survive, of traditional boat types now threatened with deliberate destruction. The 40+ Fishing Boat Association was co-founded by Mike Smylie to campaign for this objective. Sadly it came too late to save some types such as mumble bees and Peter boats, now disappeared for ever, but this record helps to remind us of the contribution they made to our maritime life in the days before huge marine diesel engines and suction pumps introduced mass slaughter onto our fishing grounds.  

Traditional Fishing Boats of Britain and Ireland. Design, History and Evolution.

by Mike Smylie. 256 pp.

ISBN 184037 035 1

Waterline Books, 101 Longden Road, Shrewsbury SY3 9EB, England. £ 24.95

• The Place of Yachting in Maritime Heritage Opinion

Pleasure boating is probably as ancient as poetry or songs or dance. The Egyptians went on the water for their enjoyment, as did the Romans or these much underestimated seamen, the Chinese. As often, pleasure was given a religious twist, and the oldest recurrent pleasure boating activity I know of was a floating pilgrimage which started around 1370 from Bordeaux (France) to the church of Plassac, down the Gironde estuary, and back with the tide. It happened annually for over four centuries, being first of all an opportunity of earthian and nautical pleasure, and ending around 1785 because some pilgrims, warmed by the sun, the wine and the charms of a local wench, abused her on the steps of Plassac church (in Catholic France, this was deemed a very untasty spot for such otherwise harmless activity).

Meanwhile, the burghers of Cork (Ireland) had started their nautical displays around 1704 in a more orderly manner, helped by a rule specifying how many bottles and hams each Water Club member could bring with him.

Racing appeared as soon as the XVIIth century in Holland, and was taken seriously enough for a gentleman of the Isle of Man to go all the way to lake Windermere to match his boat with a local opponent's. That was in 1796, and both boats are still in existence 203 years later. Who would contest that the two oldest pleasure boats involved in a sailing match are part of our maritime heritage? 

A pleasure boat has been pleasantly described as "a hole in the water, surrounded by wood, into which you pour money"; such an uneconomic activity can only be explained by a disinterested love of the sea, and of boats. Boating is the "love" side of seafaring, and what would remain of our arts if one was to substract their love side? Therefore, pleasure boats are not just one of many parts of maritime patrimony, but an important one. 

As in all love affairs, this one is unpredictable. Yachts can't be rammed into categories like commercial watercrafts. A fishing boat is predestined at birth to fish with a specific technique in specific waters; it won't do as a cargo ship; and all working boats are specialised designs, easily recognizable, and easy to classify. It is not so for pleasure boats, whose use is defined, not so much by their design than by the whims of their owners. The first three men to round the globe single-handed (Slocum, Pidgeon, Gerbault) did so on boats not designed at all with such venture in mind; and somebody can see in a familial freshwater dinghy a vehicle to cross the North Sea from Britain to Norway, and use her accordingly. While working boats are created by the needs of their function, pleasure boats are made alive by the eyes of the beholder… 

While the firsts are witnesses of a professional activity (like oyster fishing, or smuggling, or…), the latter are mainly testimonials of what people did with them. Yachts rarely enter into history by themselves: history making yachtsmen lead them there. Take a sturdy little ketch named Suhaili: her design was unexceptional, and she needed Robin Knox-Johnston (now Sir Robin) to become the first boat to round the world non-stop single-handed. 

Yachts are not only yachtsmen's mounts: they are also the cradle of ideas and technologies. Because their design is unadulterated by economical or commercial constraints, but strained only by the exacting demands of physical and nautical laws, pleasure boats ride the brainwaves too. They are ideal test benches for ideas as far-fetched (at the time) as fore-and-aft rigs or multihulls or composites construction or planing hulls. So a yacht may be historically significant for her design or her technology alone. 

Whether floating laboratories or expression of endurance, boldness or skills, yachts are unadorned testimonies of people and ideas. And how could we do without those?

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 Daniel Charles, 50, a Belgian established in France, is one of the two experts in maritime patrimony recognized by the French Ministry of Culture. A writer specialized in yachting history, three of his seventeen books (including the latest two) have been awarded the title of Best Maritime Book of the Year (in 1980, 1995 and 1998).

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• L’Associazione Vela al Terzo di Venezia .   

Lug Sail Association - Venice

by Mr. Ole Vistrup 

The Lug Sail Association of Venice includes over eighty boat owners, keeping alive the more than a thousand years old tradition of sailing on the two hundred square miles large Venice Lagoon. 

During the centuries - and on a basis of everyday use - the shapes of hulls and sails have undergone continuous improvement, but - as in many other places in Europe - the traditional boat building skills in Venice almost became extinct with the appearance of the outboard motor which called for other shapes of hulls, and with the discovery of new materials, less expensive than wood and easier in terms of maintenance.

However - in the 1950s one could still find a small group of owners of traditional boats on the Venice Lagoon, who resisted the changing trends and passed on their knowledge of boat building to friends and devoted enthusiasts. This core group of lug rig enthusiasts had by 1988 grown so big, that it was possible to found the Lug Rig Association, whose purpose it is to keep the old tradition alive. The association’s members build and own their own boats which are of different types: the “noble topo” (a fully decked fishing boat), the “pleasance topo”, the “sampierota”, the “topetta”, the light “sandolo”, and the “mascareta”. Due to the large areas of shallow water in the Venice Lagoon the boats are - not surprisingly - without keel, and with removable rudders. 

The Lug Sail Association maintain a high activity level together with its members. Nine regattas for lug rigged boats are organized annually as well as several social, non-competitive outings. In terms of spreading the knowledge of the lug rig the association takes part in the teaching on lug sail initiation courses, which are becoming frequent around the lagoon, and it offers a steady point of reference for those, who intend to approach to world of lug sailing.

In order to keep in contact with the maritime heritage environment the association organizes - or takes part in the organization of - exhibitions and seminars related to traditional sailing boats.

In terms of documentation the association collects and maintain file cards on all the traditional boats still sailing the Venice Lagoon.

Last but not least  in order to spread the knowlegde of the lug rigged boats the association twice a year publishes the “Andar al Terzo” a small magazine for lovers of small, traditional sailing boats. 

Further information:

Associazione Vela al Terzo

San Marco 556

I30124 Venezia

Italia 

and/or:

Mr. Paolo Lanapoppi

Castello 2869

I30122 Venezia

Italia

• Scrapping in Germany

by Mr. Ingo Heidbrink, Deutsches Schiffahrtmuseum

Scrapping of traditional commercial ships is one of the most discussed problems concerning European maritime history. Deep sea and inshore fishing vessels are in the focus of scrapping programmes as well as cargo vessels for the inland waterways. A special problem for the preservation of heritage afloat in Germany may be some cargo vessels that survived all scrapping programmes. 

In 1969 there was a first programme with financial support for scrapping small cargo vessels used for inland navigation. Especially ships of less than 650 tdw and barges in tow should be put out of service. The grans for scrapping were financed by all inland shipping companies - not by the government. Scrapping was meant as a kind of self-help of an industrial sector in a deep structural crisis. A first interim balance sheet in 1973 showed that there would be an overcapacity in the following years although scrapping was an effective instrument for capacity adaptation. Other scrapping programmes followed, and since 1980 scrapping became a task of the EU. 

Although most of the ships that were scrapped were old ships without nearly any historical value, a few ships had a high historical importance for the history of inland navigation. The owners of these ships often knew this importance, but they needed the grants paid for scrapping. This discrepancy may be the reason for the actual difficulties concerning old cargo vessels for inland navigation. Maritime museums and maritime heritage societies began to become aware of these ships. In most cases the solution was to destroy all ships documents but not to scrap the ship itself. Without the documents it was impossible to use the ship for navigation on the inland waterways, but it could be used as a moored museum ship. From a formal point of view the ships were no longer ships, but floating constructions like a pontoon bridge. It seemed to be a perfect solution. The owners got their grant, and the ships remained as a part of maritime heritage. It was not a wide spread system but at least ten ships were scrapped from a formal point of view and in the same time remained as floating monuments. 

At the end of the 1980s there was a change of interest concerning museum ships in Germany. On one hand there was the traditional moored ship with an exhibition in its hold, and on the other hand some ships remained in active service. These ships formed a new type of maritime museum or exhibition, because they not only preserved the ship as an artefact, but they preserved as well historical trade. Professional maritime historians as well as wide sections of the society supported this new idea. Nearly every new museum ship should be an active ship. But as a consequence of the former scrapping programmes there were only a few ships available as active museum ships. Most of the traditional cargo ships had been scrapped, and those preserved for the documentation of the history of inland navigation were moored ships without documents. 

The upcome was that a lot of ships, which were nearly wrecks, were rebuilt, because they had some historic value, and because they had not been scrapped with grants for scrapping. From the point of view of a maritime historian it seems nearly perverse. Although there exists original traditional cargo vessels for inland navigation, it is necessary to built replicas because the originals can not be reactivated. Therefore it must be one of the main tasks concerning maritime heritage in Germany to find a legal way to put the scrapped ships in an active historic service. This service can not be an unregulated service, as it can not be in the interest of the museums and societies, who own the ships today, to take part in commercial cargo transport. But it should be made possible to use the ships for demonstration of traditional trade. 

Maybe it would be a solution to reactivate the ships with a special term in their documents. It should be possible to note the type of ship for e.g. “cargo vessel” and the additional term “historical vessel”. conditions conducted with the term “historical vessel” must be the exclusion from every commercial use. But the ships may be used for an active museum service and demonstration of historical trade. such a solution will bear in mind both sides. On one hand the objective of the scrapping programmes, and on the other hand the interests of a modern presentation of maritime history. 

Of course there will remain some special problems, i.e. a historical tug with a historical barge in tow. One may say that a commercial tug could do the same job, but it will not be a market for the commercial tugs, as the historical barges would not be towed if they had to pay full prices for towing. So it should be the solution for all the historical vessels that every kind of reactivating a scrapped ship outside of commercial use is allowed. 

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EMH Newsletter nr 1