Under full rig, the Thames barge Reminder on which the SHTP trainees are having their group sail. Departing Maldon in Essex not long after 6 in the morning (oww), we make our way out onto the estuary of the Blackwater and head for the River Colne. Why Reminder? Well, when she was built in 1929 her owner – who’d had a good few barges on his books – wanted to “remind” one and all that his barges were the quickest on the water! And big though she is, once she gets the wind in her magnificent great red spritsail, Reminder fairly lives up to her name and cracks along the water, with her crew handling her completely handraulically – not a power winch in sight. Big and solid as she is, she takes wing like a swan of the seas…
No end of a Reminder
21 December 2015
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About Rob
Rob is a TV producer, reporter and camera operator with 30 years’ experience at the BBC, Channel 4 and ITN, in news, factual and documentary production. He is a four times award winner, whose awards include a coveted Royal Television Society award for his work on Channel 4 News. His association with The Maritime Foundation goes back to 1995, when he won the first Desmond Wettern Maritime Media Award for a series of reports that led to a major documentary on the loss of the bulk carrier Derbyshire.