Traditional Wooden Boat Building Skills Symposium

Heritage Crafts and the Wooden Boat Builders Trade Association are bringing a group of experts and stakeholders together to ask this question and to consider the case for traditional wooden boat building being added to the Red List of Endangered Crafts, with the generous support of the Pilgrim Trust.

We will be joined by a panel of industry experts who will give presentations, participate in a panel discussion and be on hand for questions during the day. The aim for the day is to engage attendees in discussion and to actively consult with all participants. You will be asked to complete a survey when booking in order to gather boat building data to inform our discussion.

Speakers

• Gail McGarva is a traditional wooden boat builder. Her specialist area is the building of replicas, or as she prefers to call them ‘daughterboats’, breathing life into a new generation of traditional boats. Gail integrates her work as a traditional boat builder with her work as a speaker and workshop facilitator, bringing to life the stories all boats have to tell about their communities and their shores.
• Colin Henwood is a boat builder with 40 years of experience in building, restoring and caring for wooden boats on the Thames. He is the current Chair of the Wooden Boat Builders Trade Association. He also writes, teaches practical boat building skills and provides consultancy on traditional wooden boats.
• Eivind Falk is Director of Håndverksinstituttet the Norwegian Crafts Institute. In 2019 he was instrumental in supporting the nomination of Nordic clinker boat traditions for inscription on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, an international acknowledgement that the building and use of Nordic clinker-built boats should be preserved for the future.
• Stephen Beresford is Senior Conservator, Chartered Engineer and Maritime Heritage Consultant at Windermere Jetty Museum. He is also a skilled traditional boat builder with a passion for conserving historic vessels.
• Will Reed is Principal of the Boat Building Academy Lyme Regis. Will is a passionate maker and has spent many years working professionally as a furniture designer/maker and boat builder. Teaching has always been an important part of life and through the BBA Will helps to pass on the knowledge through first class training.
• Hallvard Heide is a scholarship student of boatbuilding with the Norwegian Crafts Institute.
• Dave Cockwell is the Founder and Managing Director of Cockwell's Modern & Classic Boatbuilding in Cornwall, where he designs and builds beautiful bespoke boats for a discerning clientele, and commercial vessels for the modern world.
  From ‘the kid who could fix boats’ at Bristol Docks to the leader of a reputable brand that is globally respected in the boatbuilding industry, Dave Cockwell’s passion for the artisan skills of the shipwright and technological innovation shines through, and this is what sets him and his company apart in the highly competitive marine sector.

There will also be a tour of Underfall Yard and an opportunity to visit the maritime businesses that are based in the historic site.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Create Centre, Smeaton Road, Bristol, United Kingdom