A Whaleboat On The Thames

Warships, tall ships, eel barges, oyster smackers … and a NZ whaleboat

Mayor Alistair Sowman was amongst the supporters to farewell Marlborough’s schoolboy crew who are to join the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Flotilla, rowing a whaleboat down the Thames River later this month.

The boys will crew the Swiftsure, the 9.7 metre replica whaleboat built by Ron Perano of the Marlborough whaling dynasty. The boys will row in a muster of more than one thousand vessels, one of the largest flotillas ever assembled on the Thames.

Marlborough’s whaling industry drew to close in 1964 when the Perano whaling station in the Marlborough Sounds shut down and Ron has modelled his whaleboat on the original vessel, which is now housed at the Canterbury Museum.

Ron and the Marlborough Boys’ College raised the $100,000 cost of the trip with the support of the Marlborough Museum and the local community.

The boys, with their rowing coach Bill Campbell, will also get the chance to visit Marlborough College, UK, during this trip.