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''Thalatta'' is a Thames sailing barge, built in Harwich, Essex, in 1906 and rebuilt in St Osyth in 2012. She is long and across the widest part of the deck. Like all Thames barges, she is flat-bottomed and has leeboards instead of a keel. She spent some of her life ketch-rigged and some of it spritsail-rigged. She is now permanently spritsail rigged, and has a mainmast and topmast that, together, are about high, and a mizzen mast. ''Thalatta'' has had two periods with an auxiliary engine and two without. She carried cargo for sixty years and was then converted for use as a sail training ship in 1966. She was completely rebuilt between 2006 and 2012 at St Osyth with assistance from lottery funds. ==History== ''Thalatta'' was built by McLearon's shipyard in Harwich. She was bought from McLearon's by Fred Horlock of Mistley, who gave her a spritsail rig suitable for sailing in the smooth waters of the Thames estuary. She was registered on 6 February 1906 and her first skipper was James Alliston of Mistley.〔Kemp, John: ''A Fair Wind For London''. Sailtrust Ltd, 1983.〕 ''Thalattas first freight was from London to Lowestoft, and from there they went to Hull and then back to Mistley. On 24 March, they sailed to Ipswich to load beans for Nieuwpoort in Belgium and there they loaded a cargo for Antwerp. During that first year of trading, ''Thalatta'' visited Hull again and also Dunkirk and Rotterdam.〔 The spritsail rig isn't a good rig for the rough waters of the North Sea, and at some point, early in her life, ''Thalatta'' was re-rigged as a ketch, with a boom and gaff mainsail〔 Between 1908 and 1914 the barge made frequent passages to the north of England, to Newcastle and Sunderland, and west to Appledore in North Devon, as well as Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford in Ireland with malt from Mistley and Ipswich. She also visited many ports on the European mainland.〔 On 10 November 1908, she was caught in a severe storm between Sunderland and the Thames and, three days later, was towed into Lowestoft with a broken main gaff and a split sail. A couple of months later, on 15 January 1909, under way in the Thames's Blackwall reach, and loaded with maize, ''Thalatta'' was in collision with a steamer, which did considerable damage to her starboard side. Such a collision was not an unusual occurrence in the Thames at that time.〔 In 1915, the first world war brought a change in ''Thalatta''s use and she was put to work as a lighter in the Thames for a year. The following year, she ran between Shoreham and Dieppe, loaded with pig iron to feed the French war machine.〔 In 1917 the barge was bought by the Wynnfield Shipping Company of Grimsby, who installed a two-cycle vertical oil engine, built by Plenty & Sons of Newbury. She was used as a supply vessel to the Humber boom defences skippered by Percy Richmond (who had previously been mate).〔 At the end of the war, Herbert John Body of Southend took over as skipper and ''Thalatta'' had a regular run into war-torn Flanders with materials for postwar rebuilding. Between 1919 and 1921 she also went to Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, and Rotterdam.〔 After that, she carried cement to Torquay, china clay from Fowey to Greenhithe, and granite chippings from the Channel Islands.〔 Then in 1923, she was sold to Captain Body and, for reasons now long forgotten, her engine was taken out. She was converted back to a spritsail rig and continued carrying cargoes between the north of England and the Channel, as well as to mainland Europe.〔 After ten years, Body sold her to maltsters R & W Paul of Ipswich and her cargoes then were malt and occasionally flour to London, barley or wheat to Ipswich, animal feed to Colchester and Faversham, and occasional runs across the North Sea. Her skipper was Bob Ruffles and, after him, there were Lucas, Wells, and Webb. Pauls looked after the barge well and she was found to be unusually sound and well-preserved when her last Board of Trade loadline inspection was carried out in 1964.〔 After the second world war, her skipper, Joe Lucas, sailed her to Lowestoft where she was again fitted with an auxiliary engine - a war surplus Ruston and Hornsby marine diesel - at Richards' yard.〔 In 1966 ''Thalatta'' was sold to John Kemp of Maldon who converted her for use as a school ship. She was contracted to take school children from the London Borough of Redbridge sailing for five day trips between April and October.〔 The barge was later taken over by the East Coast Sail Trust and continued to work as a schoolship skippered by John Kemp with Jane Benham as the mate. John Kemp died at the wheel in September 1987, near Mersea Island in the Blackwater estuary. In 2006, the East Coast Sail Trust received a grant of £527,500 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the restoration of ''Thalatta''.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Lottery Heritage Fund - East Coast sailing boost )〕 In March, skipper Gary Diddams and mate Roger Davies sailed to the St Osyth boatyard for refurbishment.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Thalatta Newsletter winter 2006 )〕 The original intention was to just replace the outer planking and the worst of the frames, but it became apparent that most of the frames were rotted beyond repair and only the floors (the bottom sections of the frame) and the relatively new transom were fit to be retained.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Thalatta Newsletter Winter 2007 )〕 It was decided that the old barge should be rebuilt and East Coast Sail Trust began to raise funds to carry out this very expensive job. The rebuilding process was completed in 2012 and ''Thalatta'' was able to resume her work as a sail training ship that year. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Thalatta (Thames barge)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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