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Bristol Young Shipwrights - Junior Learning Ships

Added 26th April 2014

Pupils from Bristol Primary Schools Explore their City's Maritime Heritage and Build Functional Models Boats to race at the Habour Festival

"......the whole day was great. There was a good balance/variety of activities and the children learnt a lot of new and useful information. It was great to see and talk to people in their work places. It was great to have the business volunteers building the boats with us and I thought the way the team work was set up was great".

Judith Bickley Fair Furlong Primary School

Underfall Yard -

Locks, dams, tides, rivers, canals, trade. Where are we- why are we here?

Schools can use this video link before and after the event to help pupils understand how fantastic Bristol's Floating Harbour is.

A shipwright explains the total restoration of a Bristol Pilot Cutter. One of Bristol's famous historic wooden sailing boats. Children will build a metre long fictional model of this boat later in the day.

Caulking-

Blacksmiths or engineers or designers?

Children meet men and women who cut and shape metal and ponder the purpose of their different job roles

Wires, ropes, strands, threads, fibers, twists, knots with Jay from Tradition Rigging Co.

Children have to explain the slipway and winch at Underfall Yard

Bristol Ferry Boat Company takes the children to sites in and along the Floating Harbour. The journey explains how the lock gates, sluices, canals, tides, shipbuilders, cranes and railways built the economy of Bristol.

What is the reach of the tides? What are the lock gates for? What are the flood gates for?

Exploring the locks at either end of the Floating Harbour. Understanding how the docks engineers maintain the levels of water, monitor the flow and scour the mud from the bottom of the Floating Harbour.

They see how Bristol is linked the sea and to the rest of the UK by inland waterways and railways. Understanding Brunel's vision to link London to New York by going under Brunel's Railway Bridge at Temple Meads and visiting Brunel's Board Room at Engine Shed.

Children sail from Underfall Yard to Temple Quay and then on to Temple Meads Railway Station - At the Engine Shed,Business Enterprise Zone children meet business and industry volunteers and then work with Warwick Moreton, the shipwright to build functioning models of the Bristol Pilot Cutter, The Mathew or the SS Great Britain.

Children quiz the volunteers and teachers about the skills they need for different jobs and go on to make their own passport as a profile for their future to add to their boat before it is launched in the Harbour Festival boat race.