Ahoy there. Here it comes.

Sailing on the Kent Estuary at Arnside is not easy. It is really restricted to the few hours each day when the tide is fully in and even then boats needed a shallow draft.

But that did not prevent the development of a very successful boat building company by the well known local Crossfield family. The Crossfields moved to Arnside in 1818 and their first boat was built in 1838.

The family built boats in the village right through to the 1950s after which it was run by other owners finally closing in the 1980s. Boats built there included prawners, racing yachts, rowing boats, day boats and steam launches. The prawners could be 35ft. long with a 10ft.6 beam and a 5 foot draft. They also built the famous “Swallow” for Arthur Ransome. ( I am grateful to Andy Pringle for this information.)
Now the Arnside Sailing Club has successfully won a Heritage Lottery grant to buy a Crossfield yacht built in 1912.
It wil be fully restored and sailed on the estuary. And it will be on display in the village as a symbol of our boatbuilding history.

My photo shows it coming home to Arnside this morning on a trailer. Many people turned out to film it and to watch it being unloaded.

As a postscript I discovered that much of the life of professional photographers is spent waiting. I was one of several photographers asked to record its arrival in the village. Because of trouble on the M6 it was over two and a half hours late. It was a long wait to get 15 seconds of video. But lots of fun.
The extra shows the Severn being backed into its temporary storage area.