St. Anthony Wooden Boat Building Project

The St Anthony wooden boat building heritage workshop days are part of a larger project to restore the St Anthony a traditional 1/2 deck fishing boat built in Sherkin Island in 1926. The aims of the workshop days are to introduce people to the maritime heritage of the Island which has a long history of ship building going back to the early 1830's at least. During the workshop days traditional boat building skills will be demonstrated and people will be given the chance to practices these skills themselves on the St Anthony. There will be talks on the history of boat building on the islands and the history of the project boat and it's long association with Sherkin.

The 19th century vessels built in the dock on Sherkin Island and owned by Islanders traded through out Europe and sometimes as far as Morocco and Canada. The influence of these wide ranging trading patterns on the culture and maritime heritage of this otherwise isolated community has been profound but little recognized. Through these conversations we hope to bring this to a wider audience.

The traditional skills of wooden boat building are in danger of being lost through theses workshop days we hope to shown case them and preserve them for the next generation. Sherkin Island has a 200 year history of ship building which is little know about we hope to change that.