Mark Shiner, head of maritime studies at UHI Orkney, provides an insight into his recent trip to teach traditional sailmaking to staff at America’s largest Maritime Museum.
I have been making and repairing sails in Orkney for around 20 years now. I was originally trained and mentored by the Orkney sailmaker, Margaret Crawford. In 2012, we secured funds from the Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership to develop UHI Orkney’s sailmaking course – the only one of its kind in Scotland.
Launched in 2013, the course aims to keep traditional methods alive while also embracing modern practices. It includes online study followed by a week at our Maritime Campus in Stromness each April.
Earlier this year I was surprised to get an email from America’s foremost maritime museum asking about our sailmaking course. Based in Connecticut, Mystic Seaport has an international reputation, so I was excited to hear from them. The museum occupies a 19-acre site of historic buildings and a collection of over 500 boats (including several tall-ships) moored in piers and docks.
The museum’s interpretation supervisor, Elizabeth Kristian, wanted to find some training for her team so that they could demonstrate sailmaking and the skills involved. An internet search led her to information about our course at UHI Orkney.
We had initially discussed welcoming the group to Orkney, but it was less expensive to take the course to the museum using an academic exchange fund.
The staff came from a number of museum disciplines including costume making, sail-training, rigging and various crafts, so the participants brought a lot of useful practical skills with them. They are a very competent and knowledgeable group of people. We covered everything from how to design a sail to tailoring its curves on a lofting floor, sewing it all together and applying corner fixings and even taking our work out on the water.
The group built two sails for the sailing dinghies used at the museum’s sailing centre. One was a contemporary sail in modern synthetic sailcloth so that staff can replace and repair the fleet’s existing sails.
The second sail was made from traditional cotton canvas with equally traditional fittings with intriguing names such as cringles, thimbles, nettles and rat-tails. This means the team will now be able to demonstrate traditional sailmaking skills to the public.
And they have the perfect location too. The Charles Mallory Sail Loft is an impressive three-story wooden building situated on Mystic Seaport’s waterfront. It has been a static exhibit for many years but will now be brought to life again.
Sailmakers traditionally occupied lofts or roof spaces because the floor was not interrupted by supporting pillars. People would haul huge tall-ship sails up on davits for repair or servicing. After work had been carried out, the sails were packed into barrels and returned to be stored in the hold. Mystic’s sail loft today is a wonderfully atmospheric place, its old walls hung with rope, canvas and sail hardware.
Elizabeth from the museum was delighted with the training we provided, saying: “The Mallory Sail Loft is a local building with a local story and has a lot of potential to draw the public into the maritime world. Having an abstract idea of a trade is a good start, but skills like sailmaking are really maintained through a chain of knowledge passed from mentor to student. I’m extremely grateful that Mark and UHI Orkney were able to serve as our mentor, and to reconnect us to that chain.”
Although I’ve now returned from the USA, I hope to stay in touch with the Mystic Seaport team and support their next steps in sailmaking.
I am also continuing to run our sailmaking course at UHI Orkney. Interest in the course has been increasing so we’re exploring the possibility of running it more frequently or expanding its scope to provide a larger academic offering.
To find out more about UHI Orkney’s sailmaking course, visit www.orkney.uhi.ac.uk/studying-at-oc/departments/maritime-studies/sailmaking
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