The 'Story Boat', Marine Parade, Lyme Regis

Image: © John Stephen Taken: 15 Mar 2018

The 'Story Boat' was constructed by Lyme Regis boat builder Gail McGarva. Gail, who has previously built three pilot gigs for Lyme Regis Gig Club, has named her latest Arts Council-supported project the Story Boat. It follows on from a scholarship she won a few years back to build a fishing boat, called a Lerret, which had since the 17th century been wholly native to Lyme Bay. Researching the Lerret, Gail began collecting stories from fishing families about their past and their relationship to the sea, and she also became the guardian of ‘Vera’, one of two remaining seaworthy Lerrets, which was built in 1923 and fished from Langton Herring. In 2011, Gail received Heritage Lottery Fund support to travel around the Dorset coast with her own Lerret, ‘Littlesea’, modelled on ‘Vera’, so that local people could learn about and enjoy the stories of this unique vessel and the Dorset fishing communities. Six years later, Gail has worked with local wheelwrights Rowland & Son, based in Colyton, to give a new lease of life to ‘Vera’ by transforming her into the Story Boat, an enchanting space for oral history recording and exhibitions. The Story Boat is supported by the Arts Council, West Dorset District Council, The Trusthouse Charitable Foundation, G.F Eyre Trust and local sponsors. As an aside, Langton Herring derives its name from the 13th century landowners called Harang, not from the more well known fish.

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