to Exeter sawn off in order to fit into the Jock while bound up to Exeter in 1938. We squeezed past a small outwardbound tanker outside the lock , grateful to be meeting her here rather than in the narrow "one lane" body of the canal. This sludge boat and an occasional tiny oil tanker were then the only regular users of the canal, apart from the odd yacht. We motored along the canal proper, passing through miles of flat meadowland . The only spectators were herds of fat dairy cows and a few indignant anglers, although the lockmaster, pedalling along the towpatch on his bicycle, managed to pass us. And then followed the finest stretch of all along the canal-a sea path through green fields and trees leading to the heart of Exeter. We watched as the ancient city rose on its hillside ahead. There were tall masts in sight and above them, shops and houses spilling down past the old Roman walls. The skyline was crowned by a magnificent medieval cathedral. We rounded a bend, and arrived at Exeter Basin. The quayside was ringed by tall 19th century warehouses and its banks were lined with the queerest collection of craft we had yet encountered-everything from a super-streamlined racing yacht to a weather-stained Arab pearling dhow. Promising ourselves a closer look at this maritime menagerie when time permitted, we fired two of our iron cannon in salute and came alongside the quay wall astern of the dhow. Over the next few days we explored the Exeter Maritime Museum , in whose precincts we lay and by whose initiative this remarkable fleet of working craft had been brought together. The museum had opened just over a month before, yet already its collections were impressive. A
large stone warehouse on the quay held most of the smaller craft. There was a room full of Arab boats complete with their gear, even down to the traditional brass cooking pots. In other rooms we found reed boats, coracles, dugouts, and dinghies-a whole United Nations of boats, from Irish curraghs to Polynesian proas. The scene was dominated by the noble schooner Result. She was not on exhibit, but sadly laid up here after the death of her master and owner Peter Welch, two years before. A stalwart of the sailing coasters since her launch in 1893, she had even survived a stint as a "Q" ship in the First World War. When we saw her she had been much reduced in rig for the sake of economy, but in the next year she was sold for restoration to her original glory at the Ulster Folk Museum in Carrickfergus, where she was built. AlongsidetheResu/twas the St. Canutea snub-nosed steam tug built in Denmark in 1931. She had been working out of Fowey in Cornwall until the year before and was still in full seagoing order from the top of her lofty funnel to the depths of her stoke hold. The pearling dhow ahead of us hailed from Bahrein, and she, too, was kept ready for sea. We marvelled at her construction-the frames were twisted , unsquared limbs from some ironhard desert tree and the planks simply nailed on where they touched. Her lines, however, were sheer poetry. Nearby lay a fine little gaff cutter named Moonraker. She had been built as a Looe fishing lugger in 1896 but since her conversion to a cruising yacht had notched up half a dozen transatlantic passages. Her sturdy, typically Cornish build contrasted with the sweeping sheer and light clinker construction of the vessel next ahead-an opulent State Barge built
A Nigerian sailing dugout (above) and a nimble Fijian proa (below) are actively sailed today. 7hese vessels were built for the Museum in their places of origin in order to preserve the type.
A variety of craft (left) , driven by paddling, rowing, punting and quanting are carefully studied and preserved. 7he bladeless oars of the Irish curragh in the foreground testify to the easily driven quality of the light, flexible hull-and to the harshness of the seas she is born to swim. 7he Venetian gondola (right) is usually rowed from one side and has a lopsided hull to compensate.
SEA HIS1DRY, FALL 1984
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