News

Boleh has certainly had a stormy passage through 2016 but we are delighted to say our plans for the New Year look set fair for some plain sailing. We are working closely with organisations and charities in the South East and expect this to provide Boleh with a varied sailing programme throughout 2017.

As always, we are extremely grateful for the support we have received throughout the year. To support the 2017 programme, we will need more volunteer skippers and mates so if you can help, please contact George Middleton 07545 769421. We are also aiming to provide Boleh sailing bursaries for those at a disadvantage. If you would like to donate towards this then please go to our ‘Supporting Boleh’ page and select the ‘Donate’ option from the side menu.

Once again, many thanks to all our supporters past, present, and future and we wish you all a very Merry Christmas!”

Boleh has been busy renewing her connections with Portsmouth. After a swift passage from Chichester to Gunwharf Quays we welcomed a steady flow of visitors onboard Boleh while she lay alongside in bright sunshine over the weekend of 14 October.

This is the first time since returning from Falmouth that the public has been shown this beautiful historic vessel, now fully restored thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund. Among the Boleh guides were our former apprentice, Jason Rankin and former Project Manager, Tim Gallier.

At the end of the weekend we were also proud to offer passage back to Chichester for the prizewinners of Sussex University Royal Naval Unit’s auction in aid of maritime charities. Picture shows Boleh returning to her berth in Chichester after her weekend away with lucky prizewinners Tom Meineck and his father among the crew.

We are delighted to announce that Boleh will be open to the public at Gunwharf Quays during the weekend of 14 October.

Having recently returned from Falmouth, she is now based in Chichester and re-establishing her links with the local area. Boleh’s main purpose is to sail those with a challenge in their lives but, when her programme allows, she can also be hired commercially.

Boleh will be open to the public at Gunwharf on Saturday 15 October from 10.30 to 4 pm. She will also be alongside Gunwharf on the Friday and Sunday and can be visited by prior appointment. We hope to see you there!

Welcome to the latest Boleh Trust Newsletter – our late summer 2016 edition. As you will read in the attached, there has been a huge amount of activity, change and achievement in the life of the Project since the last newsletter in early 2015.

We are delighted to announce that Sophia Mirchandani has been appointed a Trustee of the Boleh Trust. Sophia has worked for 25 years in the museum and cultural sectors and helped put in our original bid for Heritage Lottery funding. Her experience with communities and young people will be invaluable in developing programmes which use Boleh (pictured here off Chichester entrance) to inspire those with a challenge in their lives.

We take the idea of providing opportunities for young people seriously in the Boleh Team. The picture shows local trainee ‘sailors’ Isabelle, Alfred and Aksel learning the ropes onboard Boleh during the summer. Boleh is still in Chichester where we hope it won’t be long before she is once again the centre of attention in the local area.

After what turned out to be a disappointing 6 months in Falmouth, Boleh is now happy to be back in the Solent area. Of course it is always a shame when plans don’t quite come together but we remain very positive about Boleh’s future and her role as a sail training vessel. Indeed, Skipper Louis Abbot, describing his crew’s enjoyment of the trip back to the Solent, said “It’s always a pleasure to sail a yacht which is so different in every sense – everywhere you go Boleh provokes so much interest.”

Boleh is now back in Chichester Marina in the beautiful sunshine (as seen in the photograph) and people will have the opportunity to see her and hear her story at an Open Day planned for later this year (more details will follow).

We are very sorry to have to report that our Partner organisation, Sea Sanctuary, has decided that Boleh will not be suitable for the charity’s sail training operation. This is a judgement our Charter Agreement allows for during the initial trial year and we respect that decision – disappointing though it is for all concerned.

The challenge now for Boleh is to find a new home where her unique and complex design, sailing rig and power system can be put to work for the benefit of young people. This has certainly not proved straightforward to date.

In 1950 Boleh’s designer, Robin Kilroy (pictured) wrote of an apparently impossible task to realign her keel bolts: ‘When we did in fact achieve the impossible, I felt that, however difficult the problems and situations ahead of us, somehow we should find a way of getting over them.’ We intend to tackle the current set back in the same spirit.

With the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in the background, 2 veteran Boleh Skippers pose alongside her in Falmouth. Next to Boleh is John Maddock, Skipper in the early 1960’s, with another past Skipper and Chairman of the Boleh Trust, George Middleton. John, who is visiting from Australia, trained Junior Leaders from the Royal Engineers in Dover when Boleh was their sail training vessel.

If you would like to see our collection of pictures and articles, including Skippers Notes, related to the Junior Leaders Regiment, Royal Engineers then please go to the ‘Catalogue’ section of this website and click on ‘Boleh Photographic Archive’. You will see the link to the collection towards the bottom on the left. We would be very grateful for further contributions to this collection and would also welcome the contact details of those who sailed in Boleh with the Sappers. Please send any information to projectboleh@gmail.com.