Old Fishing Boat

Looking a bit out of place amongst the expensive yachts and snazzy powerboats this old trawler, Mariner 1, is having a makeover into a genteel houseboat.

Playing with boats

HMS Explorer, often to be found moored in the marina, is a patrol and training vessel of the British Royal Navy at least that's what Wikipedia tells me. It's really a fancy recruiting toy to get university students interested in taking the Queen's shilling or whatever the going rate is these days. Used to be they pressed ganged 'em now its flash motorboats...

The Minerva

In the thirty or so years I've lived in Hull the Minerva has been written off at least half a dozens times. The last time was 3 or 4 years ago when a mock funeral was held to 'celebrate' its 'final' closure. But you can't keep a good pub shut for long and it reopened to all fine ale enthusiasts delight. At one time the pub brewed its own beer but that has now stopped, the sign saying Minerva Brewery is all that remains. The pub is right next to the Marina on the riverside. It has the smallest snug in the land, fits two people!

Keep Out!

This starburst security featutre adds to the attractions of Hull's marina; well it's better than a plain fence anyway.

Side Elevation

Here is 'One Humber Quays'; an office block built with taxpayers' money as part of a £17 million pound development in 2006. It stood half empty for five years whilst it housed a branch of the World Trade Centre. Earlier this year the WTC decamped to smaller premises. Under the new government's policy of dismantling anything and everything the old government did the place was sold, in what can only be called a depressed market, for considerably less than cost. This is what happens when you have a 'build it and they'll come' approach to redevelopment; you build it and they come and they take it for a song. It goes without saying that no politician or official was hurt during the making of this flim flam.

Tight squeeze

Somebody's expensive toy makes its way into the marina.

You can call me Al

Window frame

Flags of the marina reflect in this restaurant window. 

One Hull

Pictured earlier this year, the yacht One Hull is quite a controversial item in these parts. NHS Hull the primary health care trust for the area "invested" £400,000 in a yacht in the belief this purchase would improve standards of public health in the area, which included the constituency of the then Health Secretary, Alan Johnson.
The plan involved other local wastes of public money such as One Hull and Cat Zero taking young wastrels who would otherwise have spent their time enjoying themselves doing whatever young thugs do and, instead of incarcerating them for a long time, putting them on this boat for so many weeks to "mobilise"  and "help them to maximise their potential". Clearly  it's a prize cruise for deliquency; decent law abiding young people need not apply. Quite how it improves public health escapes me.
All this was before the recent election and subsequent "deficit reduction measures". Personally I think its one of the craziest of a long series of crazy ideas for dealing with unacceptable behaviour in young people. The Chancellor's shiny new axe could usefully chop this scheme down to size.

South

Looking south over the Marina and the redeveloped dockside. The road is Castle Street, often busy, regularly snarled up and scheduled for a serious rethink except there's no money. The horizon shows where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.

Spurned

This is the light of the old Spurn Point lightship, now moored up and a tourist attraction at the Marina.

Round the World

The Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race ended on Saturday at Hull's Marina. Ten identical 68 foot boats were involved, each one sponsored by a city, region or country. I believe the winner was Spirit of Australia with the local boat Hull & Humber coming fourth. However; the event was less about a race than advertising the region's business development and making commercial contacts. Whether the results merited the cost of this somewhat strange way of touting for business remains to be seen.  

It was estimated that between fifty to eighty thousand  people thronged the Marina area to welcome them back and to have a good time with entertainments and food stalls and so on. 

Big Gun

This imposing old gun stands at the entrance to Hull Marina. A local diving club rescued it in 1984. It was recovered from the SS Greltoria, which was sunk on its maiden voyage in 1917 by a German submarine off Flamborough Head. The irony is that it is an anti-submarine gun. There's more about the wreck here.

Trade: old and new

This is the entrance to what is now Hull's Marina but what used to be a busy trading dock. During the nineteenth century hundreds of thousands of emigrants from Europe passed through this dock on their way to the train for Liverpool and the boats to America. The tide is out showing a gloriously muddy basin.

The glass construction is a World Trade Centre; a different sort of trading goes on in there.

Flagging Interest

This is Castle Street which runs between the main shopping area on the left and the Marina on the right. It doesn't look it but this road is one of the busiest in the area and there are plans to build a tunnel and bury the road. The Marina and the Riverside development are meant to attract new and vibrant companies to poor old Hull. This is the "build it and they'll come" approach to economic revival. We still await their arrival.

Anyhow the flags were colourful and it was a nice sunny day.