Memorandum submitted by M R C Parr
Further to our conversation, I wish to submit
the following observations in response to the above inquiry, based
on my personal experiences, and not as a representative of any
of the Organisations with whom I am connected:
RECOMMENDATIONS OF
THE SELECT
COMMITTEE
In the Fifth Special Report HC 387, The Preservation
of HMS Cavalier: Government Response to the Second Report from
the Culture Media and Sport Committee, Session 1998-99, the Government's
Conclusions and Recommendations include:
(iv) Select Committee intervention is
no substitute for a coherent public policy on ship preservation.
It is arguable that left to their own arbitrary and tunnel vision
criteria and judgements, of which this is not the only one, the
Heritage Lottery Fund would have left the Cavalier to be turned
into scrap (paragraph 9).
(v) "The delivery of a coherent policy
framework is finally a responsibility of the Government rather
than the Heritage Lottery Fund (paragraph 10).
It is the policy of the Government to preserve
the best of the industrial and maritime heritage, and the Government
seeks to pursue this policy with the various partners, including
importantly, the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The Trustees of the Heritage Lottery Fund
have drawn up a Strategic Plan which seeks to address the needs
of all sectors of the heritage, and to establish priorities which
should be attached to each element of each sector according to
relative merit. The Department for Culture Media and Sport is
consulting with the Heritage Lottery fund with a view to ensuring
that this Strategic Plan reflects the requirements of its policy
directions.
The project currently being undertaken by
the National Historic Ships Committee will be completed soon and
the results from this study will provide an overall view of the
needs of historic vessel preservation. This will assist the Heritage
Lottery Fund in the difficult task of prioritising the needs of
the industrial and maritime heritage sectors."
OBSERVATIONS ON
THE RECOMMENDATIONS
1. I am not aware of any "coherent
policy framework", which has been produced so far. The Department
for Culture, Media and Sport are about to publish the results
of their consultation paper "Ships for the Nation",
with their proposals for the formation of a "National Historic
Ships Unit", which may be the beginning of such a framework.
2. I gather that the Heritage Lottery Fund
did produce a "Strategic Plan", but it has been superseded.
I have not seen it.
3. The project undertaken by the National
Historic Ships Committee produced the National Register of Historic
Ships, over 40 feet in length, with a system for quantifying the
historic merit, and some other factors of each ship, and grouping
them into three categories of importance. It has not provided
an overall view of the needs of historic vessels, or recorded
vessels under 40 feet length.
REQUIREMENTS OF
HISTORIC SHIPS
From my experience of working with Historic
Ships, I would define the requirements of the industry as follows:
1. Establishing an overall National policy
for Historic Ships, and boats, and representing them at all levels
of government, nationally, and internationally.
2. Providing strategic assistance to owners,
advising on how vessels could be restored, conserved, and operated,
and assisting in preparing Conservation Plans, Surveys, Specifications
for work, and obtaining grants and other funding.
3. Establishing standards of restoration,
conservation, and operation, which would cover all types of vessels,
in all areas.
4. Providing and maintaining data base of
techniques, which have been proved by practical application, for
historic vessels, and provide guidance on which techniques could
be used for the restoration, conservation, and operation of a
vessel, and lists of possible consultants and contractors. There
is also a need to encourage, and guide academic and practical
research in areas, which would be advantageous for Historic Ships.
5. Assisting owners, who are unable to manage
a vessel, either to find alternative applications, or if all else
fails, to arrange for it to be properly recorded and dismantled.
This would also include advice to organisations or people looking
for Historic Ships.
6. Additional funding should be made available
for the long term support. No Historic ship in UK has earned its
long term upkeep.
NATIONAL CO
-ORDINATING BODY
Historic Ships require a National coordinating
body. Over the last three decades there have been several organisations
providing different services to them, none provided a complete
service; some have suffered from changes in the environment, in
which they have operated, but most of their services, and all
their experience, and expertise, are still valid, and are required
today, and will be in the future. None of them had national status
at governmental level. The urgency to do something should not
override getting the organisation right. The initial organisation
should have the flexibility to enable it to evolve and change,
as the industry develops.
PROPOSED NATIONAL
HISTORIC SHIPS
UNIT
A. Structure
While I have not had the opportunity to examine
the new proposals, arising from "Ships for The Nation"
paper I would like to confirm that while I totally approved the
principle of a National Historic Ship Unit, I have several serious
concerns over the details of the proposals:
1. The scope of activities of the proposed
Unit would not cover all the requirements, which I detail below
from my experience in the field.
2. I do not believe that the Unit could be
manned by five full time experts, as no five experts could cover
the whole field in sufficient depth, and if they could their costs
would not be economic.
3. It should not be located at NMM, Greenwich.
I believe that the proposed NHSU should have
a central core of three or four people, including a very diplomatic
Secretary/Director, with practical experience of historic ship
restoration, and successful operation, who has the confidence
of the owners to coordinate the different groups, and know who
in the industry can best answer any particular question. It also
requires an IT expert, to run the databases, with a secretary,
with maritime experience. It could have separate Committees for
each of its areas of responsibility, each responsible to the Main
Board. The Unit would co-ordinate or encompass several existing
bodies, which would have to be properly funded for the work which
they do.
B. Responsibilities
I would divide the responsibilities of the Unit
in three sections, National, Strategic, and Tactical.
1. National
This sector would cover item 1 of my "Requirements"
above, including the work currently covered by the NHSC, maintaining
and evolving the existing Register, but would also cover liaison
in the National and International Governmental, and HLF fields.
Their responsibilities would include dealing with regulating authorities,
and negotiating exemptions from, or equivalents to potentially
restrictive legislation. It would also help in obtaining materials,
which are not available on the normal market, such as long lengths
of Teak, and ensuring that other shipbuilding timbers are replanted,
and reclassified as "from reproducible sources".
It should compile the Register for "vessels
under 40 feet". While the NHSC sub-contracted most of the
preparation of "the over 40 feet Register" to St Andrews
University, I believe that it would be more appropriate for this
to be done by an organisation, with more practical experience
of small boats, like that which is taking over the National Small
Boat Collection from the National Maritime Museum, and who have
already done work on this field.
2. Strategic
This would cover item 2, and part of 3, of my
"Requirements" above, and how to retain and restore
Heritage, sources from where funding could be obtained, and how
to get it. This would be provided by one or more panels of people
with maritime, ship repair, and business management experience,
drawn from, encompassing, or incorporating such groups as the
Ship's Committee of the Maritime Trust, the Mary Rose Trust, and
the Big Ships Forum, Heritage Afloat, the Inland Waterways Association,
and others. The people giving this assistance should be paid,
but the advice should not be charged for. This group would also
encourage research into the economics of the operation, and manning
of Historic Ships, which is another urgent requirement.
This area would also include the clarifying,
and standardising a range of Conservation, Maintenance, Business,
and Education Plans, for different sizes, and types, of vessels,
and volunteer management.
At present there are no standards of conservation
for living, or operating ships or boats. Registered Museums who
own boats have to apply Museum conservation standards, which were
drawn up without consideration of their application in the live
maritime field; they are intended for artefacts, like an Egyptian
Mummy, or a Dead Sea Scroll.
While these are undoubtedly appropriate for
the "Mary Rose", they are not appropriate for vessels
such as the PS Waverley, or the Sailing Drifter "Reaper".
If these rules were applied to vessels like these, they would
not be able to carry passengers, and earn the cost of their maintenance.
They would lose the heritage of the operation of the vessels,
and they would soon be scrapped like the John W Mackay.
A set of practical standards for operational
vessels, is now very urgently required. There should be an English
equivalent of the American "Green Book".
A database should be established to give guidance
on costings for work on Historic Ships, and lists of consultants,
surveyors, contractors, and suppliers, who have worked to approved
standards.
3. Tactical
This would cover part of item 3, and all item
4 of my "Requirements" above. The advice on restoration,
conservation, and operation would be provided from a series of
integrated "Centres of Excellence", like the "Navigation
De Savoir", in the Mediterranean, and those which are being
considered now in Europe by the EU, they would also be the regional
centres of the whole Unit.
They would establish, and promulgate agreed
and proven standards of practice, combining academic research,
with the practical skills, required to establish the value and
limitations of techniques; also they would teach these skills.
These practical standards would be approved by the Main Board
on the advice of the appropriate committees. This area would also
provide students with guidance on fields in which further research
would help to cover the gaps in the database of methods of restoration,
conservation, and operation.
Some people are calling for more conservators
for historic ships, without realising that the actual skills involved
are those exercised by a qualified Shipwright carrying out his
normal "good housekeeping" practices.
I have heard of someone who wished to write
his thesis on the restoration of a boat, but could not do so as
there was no one who could examine him on that subject; I believe
that this indicates that the same problem exists in higher education.
C. Other factors to be considered
I would divide the Heritage of an Historic vessel
into three separate "parts": the fabric, the entity,
and the operation of the vessel as a vessel, combined with the
operations involved with the vessel's trade. It is very unlikely
that all three could be preserved, but normally two can be kept,
or regained, at the expense of the third.
In the case of the "Cutty Sark", some
of the fabric, and all her "entity", can be conserved,
at the cost of her operating. In the case of the "Waverley",
her "entity", and her "operation" have been
conserved, at the price of some of the original fabric, which
has had to be changed to keep her seaworthy, and enable the vessel
to earn her keep, carrying passengers. Some of her lost heritage
has been restored.
The aim, for which ships are restored, must
be "for the benefit of the nation" and part of that
must be, to be experienced by as many people as possible. This
has been done most successfully by taking boats like "Ellen",
built in 1882, to be shown at the Royal Agricultural Show at Stoneleigh,
where she was probably seen by 40,000 people, or Lord St Levan's
Old Ceremonial Barge which was built in 1740, and which I have
sailed, which was rowed in the Great River Race twice, as was
Cutty Sark's Captains Gig, and seen by many thousands. "Waverley"
has carried 157,000 passengers in one year's shortened season.
Demonstrations like these would not be possible under the rules,
which registered museums have to apply to all vessels, as well
as their objects.
None of these boats would, in a glass case,
attract enough visitors to pay for their upkeep in an unsubsidised
environment, and no one would have learnt how difficult it was
to sail the Old Ceremonial Barge with only two crew, how to handle
a Paddle Steamer, or how to tack a "Dipping Lugger".
It is important that having re-learnt these skills, they should
be recorded.
From my experience, I have found that many of
the requirements of the latest safety standards can be incorporated
without any loss of heritage, but others have had to involve compromises;
in these cases the effects can been kept to a minimum. In addition,
in several areas heritage, which had been lost, has been regained.
DIVISIONS
Historic Ships, and Maritime Heritage, are divided
into different camps, by some very deep divisions. In particular,
some of the larger ships, and a few smaller boats are owned by
Museums funded by DCMS, while the remainder, amounting to about
90% of our Historic vessel are owned by smaller Museums, Trusts,
and private individuals, who have to earn, or raise the money
required to maintain their vessels. Unfortunately the direction
of the industry is mainly directed by representatives of the large
Museums, and the private owners feel that they have very little
say in what happens. I believe that this is responsible for some
of the poor attendances at the NHSC road shows.
Unless the NHSU is handing out money its power
will depend solely on its ability to lead with advice, balancing
enthusiasm, and pragmatism, which is seen and proved to be good,
and provide old fashioned leadership.
I am on the Main Board of the NHSC. I have retired
after five years as a Trustee of the National Maritime Museum
Cornwall, and I am now a member of its Advisory Counsel, and its
Museum Committee. I am on the ships Committee of the Maritime
Trust. I was technical Director of the Massey Shaw Trust and of
the Cornish Maritime Trust. I have been involved in 11 of the
projects listed by the HLF in the appendix to "Ships for
the Nation", and a number, which are not listed. I have also
worked on vessels in the Falkland Islands, and on Lake Titicaca.
I am qualified as a Naval Architect, and served an apprenticeship
as a Shipwright and Marine Engineer, I drive my own classic speedboat.
I hope that these comments may be of help, and
I would be pleased answer any questions, on these or any other
points to do with Historic Ships, and Maritime Heritage.
25 January 2005
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