The old trade

King's Lynn was first and foremost a port, exporting grain, salt and wool to Europe and importing wood and pitch from Scandinavia and wine from our friends in France. While the import side may not be so grand exporting grain is still big business as witnessed the huge grain silos I  posted yesterday. This ship, the Arklow Castle, was bound for Bayonne and arrived there a few days after this picture was taken. The church in the background is St Margaret's.

You don't need a weatherman...

I came across this weather vane the other day; it's on top of the old dock offices on High Street. It's new to me but looks as though it could have been there for years in which case how did I miss it when I posted the building a few years back. This little ship must be one of the few that can sail close to the wind without coming about and all that tacking nonsense beloved of nautical folk. (I admit I get all my sailing jargon from a childhood spent reading Swallows and Amazons ... 'Better drowned than duffers, if not duffers won't drown.' is still the soundest piece of dereliction of paternal  responsibility I've come across).

A trip round the bay

Though Pirates grow old

And their beards go grey

It's never too cold

For a trip round the bay.

OK I'll give up the doggerel and stick to the day job...

A pretty Pickle

Came across this little ship in the Marina today. This is the schooner Pickle and it claims to be a replica or reconstruction of HMS Pickle which brought the first news of the Battle of  Trafalgar back to Falmouth in 1805. In fact this ship was built in 1995 in Russia along with several other similar craft to commemorate the creation of Peter the Great's navy some 300 years ago. Back then it was known as the Alevtina Tuy. Then in 2004 or thereabouts it was further altered to take on a role as HM Schooner Pickle to commemorate the 200^th anniversary of Trafalgar. It was left going to rot in Gibraltar until it was recently bought and rescued by a local businessman. Anyhow for the moment it is now sitting in Hull Marina and you can have a guided trip round it for a fiver should you wish.

Here's a link to a video which is part of a BBC program Boats that Built Britain showing just what a craft like this could do.

Blade runner

Apologies if this is not the finest quality shot but this cargo ship was nearly two miles away across the old Humber. The odd looking items are wind turbine blades heading to some assembly plant upstream. These may not match the world's longest blades (75m!) but they're still a fair size. News came only last week of yet another big deal for the wind powered industry with Dong from Denmark (I kid you not) signing to build an offshore turbine complex near Grimsby on the south bank, so we should expect to see more cargoes like this.