The spectacular Sailing Coble Festival is being staged at Bridlington over the weekend.
This unique maritime attraction will not only showcase 18 traditionally rigged craft from the North East coast of England, built by some of the renowned coble builders, but also the 40ft ex Tynemouth motor/sailing lifeboat Henry Frederick Swan.
Live music on stage at Clough Hole car park and around the harbourside will include; the Ramshackle Shantymen, the Headlanders, Black Dog Folk, the Hornsea Shanty Lasses and local favourite Jim Eldon (the Brid Fiddler). The Flamborough Junior Long Sword Dance Team will perform on the Sunday.
Various stands and stalls will be in the VMF Exhibition Hall along with the trade stand of Teal and Mackrill, the Teamac brand marine paint specialists. Tea and coffee will be available and chairs to relax in to listen to the music. Sailing is scheduled for both days of the Festival, subject to weather conditions, and when not at sea the cobles will moor alongside Harbour Road. Bridlington is the sailing coble capital of Great Britain and there is nowhere other than the port to see such a large gathering of traditional cobles under sail.
As Festival Publicity Officer Paul Arro attests:
" Yeah it's the only place you can see so many sailing cobles in one spot. This year we've also got an historic lifeboat really that's just arrived from the Tyne.
There's stands and stalls in what we call the exhibition hall, which is the big boatshed down near the Cliff Hall car park.
[There's] continuous music throughout the two days on a dedicated stage, so providing the weather plays ball, I think it'll be a lovely weekend for everyone to enjoy."
Paul adds the reason why the festival takes place in Bridlington:
"Bridlington, at one time, had a large fleet of sailing cobles, most of them built locally in the town, but some built at Flamborough also. Sadly, there's no working cobles at all now in the ports. There's no whitefish landed at all. It's all shellfish. And Bridlington is of course known as the shellfish landing port of Great Britain.
Sad reflection, I think, on how things are going with, in shellfish in particular, well, fishing in general, really, when you think of the large sort of deep sea fleets that worked out of Hull and Grimsby on this side of the coast."
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