Tidbits of Maritime History. Spritty Barges Hufflers and More.

TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I think it is time for a little light relief.

So I thought I would tell you a little of the commercial barging history of England's South East and East coast.

The sprit rigged barges of this region are among the oldest commercial vessels in history.



Above is a picture of the Cambria, the last spritty riged barge to carry commercial cargo, that ended commercial barging in 1963.

The above picture of Cambria under sale in the Thames estuary was painted by my late father.

They were called spritty barges because of the sail above the main sail called the spit sail.

They were side keelers to give them a shallow draft. They carried 180 tons of cargo. They carried a lot of sale, and were crewed by the skipper and his mate. They had no engine.

One of these barges the Edith May used to be moored at lower Upnor on the Medway below our house.

This recent article was in Kent on Line, and details her current service.

These barges were still operating commercially when I was a kid.

One interesting regular event used to occur getting these barges under Rochester Bridge to allow barges to get up river.



The job of getting the barges under the bridge was given to a Huffler. I would love to put the question of what a Huffler did into a Jeopardy question!

The Huffler would go out the the barge in a boat like this.



The Huffler would go aboard the barge, and line the barge up, rapidly drop sails and mast and hope the barge went under the bridge without incident. The mast and sails had to be quickly raised to get control back of the vessel. Then the Huffler left the barge. The Huffler had a "grace and favor" house right by Rochester Bridge.

This was really skilled and fraught operation.

These sailing barges were replaced by motor barges, like this one built right below our house in Frindsbury.

With the advent of container freight, these motor barges were replaced by road transport, resulting in pretty much 24 hour traffic gridlock.

Changing topics a little, the ministry of defense has now decided they do need to remove a huge cache of explosives from the wreck of the Robert Montgomery. This was an American built Liberty ship, packed with explosives, that foundered on a sandbar off the Isle of Sheppey and broke her back. She is in a really dangerous place right close to the shipping lanes in and out of the River Medway. The debate about removing the explosives has raged for the whole of my life.

I nearly fetched up on that wreck in bad weather when I was sixteen or seventeen.

I was in our launch Tuscan, and an intense wind and rain storm suddenly blew up with a very rough sea. I could not see a thing and quickly had no idea where I was. All of a sudden I heard the ghostly clang of the bell in one of the green wreck buoys. All of a sudden I could see the masts of the wreck. I turned about pronto.

However, I now knew were I was. So I quickly got out the navigation chart, and worked out a compass bearing to Garrison point.

I was really relieved when I saw the radar rotating on top of the old fort at Garrison point. I passed safely back into the Medway estuary and was 14 miles from home.
 
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