* 4th Common European Maritime Heritage Congress in Barcelona 28-29 June 2001
In cooperation with Museu Maritim in Barcelona the 4th Common European Maritime Heritage Congress will be organized as a joint congress together with the EMM (European Maritime Museums) Congress and the ICOM (International Council of Museums) Congress:
27-28 June 2001 - EMM Congress.
28-29 June 2001 - EMH Congress.
29 June 2001 - EMH General Assembly.
30 June 2001 - Social programme: museum visits; sailing on lateen rigged sailing vessels, and more.
1 July 2001 - 8th Forum of the Mediterranean Maritime Museums.
1-6 July 2001 - ICOM Congress.
Museu Maritim under the leadership of its director Ms Elvira Mata i Enrich will organize the congresses. Simultaneous interpretation will be provided in Catalan, Spanish, and English. Invitations will be out soon.
Preliminary Programme 27-29 June 2001
27 June
Session I. Networks & Partnerships in Europe.
UNESCO's Mediterranean Programme; Museu Maritim; Baltic.
Session II. Diffusion and Education.
Scholar education; activities as a tool; EMH.
28 June
Session III. From Research to Operation.
The role of research; preservation techniques; safety on board historical ships.
Session IV. Preservation & Conservation.
Classification and recording of floating maritime heritage throughout Europe.
29 June
Session V. Promotion of Maritime Heritage and its diverted public benefits.
Maritime spectacles and festivals. Viewpoints of ship owners, journalists, and museum people.
Session VI. Management and finance of large maritime spectacles.
Inpact on local ecomomies. Merchandise.
* Gajeta Falkusa - Wooden Heritage of the Boat
by Dr. Ingo Heidbrink
UNESCO-Workshop in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Although most of the floating monuments in Europe are operated in the northern parts of the continent there are also wide spread activities in the Mediterranean. As Anders Berg, president of the EMH, pointed out in issue No. 6 of this newsletter it is one of the main tasks for the future development of EMH to make the contacts to the south broader and deeper.
An ideal opportunity to start this work just a few months before the 4th EMH Congress in Barcelona was a workshop organized by the Croatian UNESCO Commission and Ars Halieutica in the autumn of 2000 in Dubrovnik. Participants from nine countries all over Europe enjoyed the impressive atmosphere of the city as a part of the World Heritage, and they got an idea of a very special approach to maritime heritage as a part of it.
Ars Halieutica, a Croatian maritime heritage organisation, has rebuilt a few traditional watercrafts during last years. They operate these boats, mainly Gajeta's, all along the Croatian coast, and they take part in some events abroad like forrinstens the EXPO in Lisbon. Because the Gajeta is a real small open boat there are only limited possibilities to use the boat itself for passing the idea of maritime heritage to interested visitors or especially to young people, such as it is common in the northern parts of Europe. They had to search for another solution of this task and they found one.
As we all know, maritime heritage is much more than preserving and operating ships or boats. It is nearly the whole heritage of any coastal region. Harbours and buildings, folksongs and fairy tales, poems and language, traditional food and drink, customs and traditions - all this is maritime heritage.
The main idea of the workshop was to involve the foreign participants in evaluating this approach by participating in the programmes.
After an introducing session in which the foreign participants presented some national approaches to maritime heritage and the relation to education systems Ars Halieutica presented their baby boat programme.
Children should get an idea of the boat by building their own boats - no precision-models but simple ships out of easy handling materials that represents the main elements needed for handling the ship.
The baby boats built by the participants of the workshop showed clearly that this could be a way to explain and preserve national maritime identities. A Norwegian fishing boat was as well built like one from the Mediterranean or a hanseatic cog. But the real high point of the workshop was the following performance in the old harbour. Actors from the National Theatre in Zagreb presented a stage production on the building of the Gajeta. With great spontaneity and empathy they explained the way of the boat from laying down the keel up to launching. Deeply impressing was the second staging of the performance because it was done for children of a primary school. The actors used the chance to integrate the children in the performance. As a result the children did not only see a performance but they built the boat really in their own minds. When some of them sailed a few minutes with the real boat at the end of the performance all of them might have felt they sailed with the boat they had built.
Another interesting aspect of the workshop was the integrating force of the Gajeta. Modern people who are interested in the language and the poems of the seafaring people of the Croatian coast - the Lingua Franca - joined the boat as a meeting point, and so did a group of young men performing traditional folk-songs. The participants of the workshop suddenly got an idea of the Mediterranean culture, of the special way of living along the coasts of Croatia.
Traditional food and drink offered on the boat together with the poems and folk-songs in the impressive surrounding of the old port of Dubrovnik created an atmosphere very unusual for the people from the north of Europe but with the specific touch of maritime heritage of the Mediterranean.
Maybe it could be the main result of the workshop that there is another way of preserving maritime heritage beside the one that is common sense in the northern countries - a way which is much more complex, because it is a way of preserving a specific kind of living that is characteristic for the coastal regions. The Croatian Ars Halieutica do not need to organize a big festival like one of the sail events; they only need one boat and a few people with the same idea of maritime heritage. As a result they created an authentic little event and not the big things where nobody knows if they are pure commercial or if there is any cultural aspects remaining.
Maybe we should think about, if the big events are really a good way to preserve maritime heritage or if we should try to pass an authentic maritime heritage to children with some more smaller activities - activities that are not only concentrated on operating ships but which integrates more aspects of the maritime heritage than only the ships.
* Lilian and the EMH Lambeth Reception
by Mr. Scott Pereira
On the frontpage of EMH Newsletter no. 5 (July 2000) one can read about the first meeting between EMH representatives and representatives of the maritime administrations of Europe in order to start the process of mutual recognition of national rules and regulations for traditional ships. The meeting took place at Lambeth Pier in London on board the Lilian of Stockholm - a pleasant and natural setting for such an event. However, there is always a story behind, and Lilian's owner, Mr. Scott Pereira told this story to the Heritage Afloat Newsletter from where we reproduce it:
We volunteered Lilian for a role as host boat for the EMH meeting in London in very good time for the event (i.e. the year before). As the date got closer we realised that it was going to be our usual close-run thing. Not only was one engine out of action, we were going into dry-dock the week before. Thinking positively, we reckoned that the week after the dry-dock paint job she would still be looking really smart; and the trip would be a good opportunity for routine engine trials. Besides, we'd promised; it was an important meeting; and Lilian has hardly ever let us down.
In the event, it was possibly the riskiest trip we have ever done. The prot engine was out of action still, so we were reliant on starbord. We've often run on one engine on the tidal Thames - it's more sedate, quieter, less smoky. Since the diesel injector pumps were replaced in the 1940s. the idling speed (450 rpm) and full speed (500 rpm) are almost identical - something to do with unadjustable governors. This means that within seconds of engaging gear, she's doing 5 knots, or 8 knots with both engines. The gear boxes are very much prototypes - said to be the earliest marine gear boxes extant in working order - and there are massive bronze signal box-style gear levers. Engaging or changing gear is not undertaken lightly. So one engine in gear is quite sufficiently exciting for a gentle run down the busy tideway. However, it's unnerving to have no back up if the engine fails, and manoeuvering is much easier with two propellers running. Although we have a discreetly installed bow thruster (guilty secret), it's not very powerful.
Lambeth Pier has stunning views of the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Bridge and Big Ben. We've moored there before for a while, but it's noisy with river traffic and that clock striking all night. As Westminster Pier is currently being rebuilt and is inaccessible, trip boats have been temporarily displaced, and use Lambeth Pier instead. This meant that our visit was going to have to fit in somehow with all their schedules. We checked with the Piermaster, and went down to have a look. As long as we arrived at mid-afternoon low water, and were prepared to move off the pier at midnight when the party boats returned to base, there was a window. The EMH reception was to be early evening, so we had a bit of time to arrive and get organised - raise our masts, dress overall, polish the brass and generally put on the style.
It also looked as though we were going to be shorthanded. Our usual friends and relations were away or working mid-week. Our daughter Penny could help us down-river first thing as long as she could jump ship in Chelsea to get to work. That left us two on our own. OK, we're both Yacht masters and have at least 60 years of inland waters experience between us, but the London Tideway is a notoriously difficult navigation and Lilian is 100 feet long and nearly 100 tons; and there was this slight awkwardness about the engine.
We set off at high water at sunrise on a nice sunny morning, and at first all ran smoothly - we extricated ourselves from our mooring with our one engine without hitting any of the trees or islands that surround us. However, after an hour or so, we realised that once the engine warmed up, the gear-box was starting to slip. It's done this before, and adjustment involves dismantling the gear-box case and tightening a massive spring that loads the clutch plates. The alternative to this prolonged and very oily job is to run slowly and stop occasionally. We'd managed to turn across the tide to drop off Penny at Chelsea Harbour, but now we had a few hours to kill before we could approach Lambeth. We found a midstream mooring opposite the Chelsea Flower Show, and spent the next couple of sunny hours tinkering with the gear-box without much effect, except to get black oil up to the elbows. Eventually we gritted our teeth and set off on the last of the ebb hoping to get to Lambeth at slack water to make manoeuvering easier. The Pier lies just below Lambeth Bridge, and tides and trip boats run hard in that stretch, so we needed to calculate to arrive as the tidal flow started upstream so as to face into it when approaching the pier to tie up, rather than attempt to swing round in those congested waters below the bridge. Happily, our friendly Piermaster took our ropes and springs, disturbing a painter who had set up his easel on the pontoon and dropped his brushes to help.
It started to rain. Rather unexpectedly, we were almost immediately boarded by a crew of very smartly peak-capped and blazered helpers from the EMH meeting, who were probably slightly disconcerted to discover how dishevelled we looked. They were very polite though, and we had an entertaining time raising the masts, with various winching problems in what was rapidly becoming a downpour.
Up went the flags, including a courtesy flag for each nation participating, the brass was polished, the champagne and catering arrived, and we changed from sea-going mode into smart mode.
The meeting has been described elsewhere, and the photograph of Lilian's saloon gives some idea of the atmosphere, with standing room only and large numbers crammed in to get out of the rain. The saloon was designed for about eight dining around the mahogany table, and there was a bit of a squash with thirty, but it seems to have worked even if only because it was so difficult to get out without agreeing with Dr. Steinicke and the group. Those of us indirectly involved could sense that the meeting was going on longer than expected, and hoped it was progressing rather than stalled. we kept glasses charged and sent through the trays of canapés. Meanwhile we had a long discussion with Lord Greenaway, whom we had last met in somewhat similar circumstances when we were trying to get a bill to protect residential boats introduced in the Lords, and heard a lot about the campaigns including the fireboat Massey Shaw's continual refurbishment and attendance at Dunkirk (the fire-boat pier was just above the bridge). The rain occasionally stopped, and the numerous vintage trip boats that still operate (safely) on this classic tourist honey pot route were very encouraging to watch.
Finally, the meeting broke up and there was general back-slapping and toasting. We showed a lot of participants round Lilian, and hope they appreciated that most of the boat was in original, usable and safe state, and worth preserving. We skated over the engine problems, and hope they were reassured. They retrieved their umbrellas and disembarked into a warm but wet typical English summer evening.
Luckily we were allowed to overstay a little while we lowered the masts and tidied up, as we had talked nicely to the Piermaster and had tried to help him with advice on legal enquiries (the Marchioness had been based there).
However, there was no way we could persuade the tide to delay, and at midnight we had to start the engine and claw back against the tide in the pitch dark and pouring rain onto a dumb barge lying further down the reach, so three 100 foot trip boats could lie abreast where we had been on the pier. Even in daylight with both engines the two of us would have found this challenging, but there was nothing else for it and luckily the barge was slap sided, and we had enough fenders and long warps.
Another very early morning start on the rising tide, and we idled up-stream to Richmond, where we reattached our umbilical cord (electricity/phones/cables/water/sewage) and steel hawser mooring lines, and changed into suits for a normal working day.
I've re-read our ship's log, and it's professionally terse, but between the lines we were grateful that Lilian was on her best behaviour and a credit to Heritage Afloat.
EMH Newsletter nr 7
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