Cobles and Ganseys

 Bridlington Sailing Coble Festival is an annual event to celebrate the history of these small boats.

This year was slightly different for me as whilst Ian was out sailing in the bay, I was spinning and talking about British Sheep Breeds alongside Deb from Propergansey who had a selection of old and new ganseys as well as a wealth of knowledge about them.

We spent five nights on the campsite so we could have some time together before things got busy.

I enjoy the walk from the campsite to the town, depending on the time I sometime break it at the model village cafe.

Competitive bunting hanging for the best dressed coble.

all watched over by some of the commercial fishing fleet

The main fishing here is lobster

The cobles are somewhat smaller.

The festval was based around the boat shed which contained displays about the historic boats along

 with examples of lobster pot making, lobster and crabs, seaglass crafts and coastal paintings. 

This lovely small coble is called Covid as it was built during the lockdown in contrast to some of the boats that are more than one hundred years old.

As Ian was out sailing on Gratitude most of the weekend, I was a coble widow haha, however Deb from Propagansey based in Whitby suggested that I join her on her stall with my spinning and knitting.

a small display as it had to fit into my backpack whilst travelling.

I may have spent some money! I now have a fishermans smock to slip on over my jumper when it cools down and a wool gansey (machine knit)

Deb is a walking encyclopaedia about ganseys and several people bought in old ones to show her, amazingly she can often tell who had knitted them from individual patterns and construction.

I must admit that knitting a full size gansey would be a challenge, I've got as far as the shoulder straps on the sample gansey.

It was a good, busy weekend and after five nights we made a move south to our next destination, unaware of quite how hot it was going to get.