Ben Bradley on Boatbuilding
This here is just one of the jobs which we did, was lashing deck cargoes.
Ships which had their own cranes didn’t want to go into Southampton Docks, so to avoid the fees, they would anchor in Cowes Roads to avoid the Southampton Harbour fees … of course they’ve got their own cranes on board and we would lift … actually on this particular, we made the slings as well.
We’d make these slings, and we tow, get the boat and tow that alongside, and then we lowered into its cradle and then we would do all the deck lashings all the way round the ship.
That’s the crew to keep it in position bearing in mind it could roll through 30 degrees when it’s at sea, so we used to go out to Cowes Roads and sometimes off Lymington and places like that, and mainly we did hundreds of hovercrafts. Lashing hovercraft as a deck cargo.
So, that’s just one of the aspects of Spencer Rigging.