BOATS OF THE ESSEX COAST.
267
ironclads soon appeared—the Thunderer was begun a short
distance from here in 1863—and dry rot ceased to be a scourge
to the Royal Navy.
BOATS OF THE ESSEX COAST.
By LAURENCE S. HARLEY, B.Sc., &c.
[Read 27th February, 1937.]
(With 2 Plates.)
MANY members of this Club spend pleasant hours on the
sea-walls, beaches, and quaysides of Essex and with
frequent glances seaward or over the river, encounter the
coastwise shipping.
Not all this shipping is typical of Essex; much is common
to any water-highway of Britain (for example, the tugs, cargo-
steamers and general traffic far out to sea), but there are boats
so often seen and so intimately connected with Essex trade
and agriculture that their types may with reason be claimed
by this County.
Boats are as various in type as the reasons for their being,
but Cargo-carrying, Pleasure, and Fishing give rise to the
majority of Essex boats to-day.
The Thames Sailing Barge is chief in importance of all
cargo-carriers which can claim our County for their own. Indeed,
except for an occasional and ever diminishing use of ferry-boats
for short-distance transport, it is the only Essex vessel now in
the coastwise trade. These fine, graceful craft (for all the unkind
associations connected with the name of Barge) are distinguish-
able from all other English sailing boats likely to be seen off
Essex by the long stout "sprit," or spar of timber, which extends
from the peak of the mainsail to the heel of the mast diagonally
extending the sail away from the mainmast.
The ungainly appearance of Dumb-barges, or lighters, which
are the only barges familiar to many, is certainly not character-
istic of the Thames Sailing Barge.
The larger seagoing Barges, which are quite capable of long
voyages to the coasts of Holland, Belgium, and France, usually
have bowsprits and carry two sails before the mainmast (jib
and foresail) in addition to mainsail, topsail and mizzen. This