Working Sail is a collection of scenes from the recent past in the East coast and Humber region.
Two sloop-rigged boats on the Humber , each running before a gentle southerly breeze. One is a laden Humber sloop, a once common cargo-carrying vessel, making passage from Barton to the river Hull. The other is a little 'One Design' yacht, pleasure sailing just off Victoria pier. The Humber has been a venue for yachting since the early nineteenth century.
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The Humber Sloop Phyllis was built of iron in 1907 by Warren’s shipyard at New Holland for James Barraclough of Barton. He kept her all her working life. She was sold along with all the rest of the fleet in 1974.
She has recently been restored at Barton on Humber.
Ha’penny Bridge was the colloquial name for the South Bridge which spanned the river Hull’s ‘Old Harbour’ region near its junction with the Humber.
Phyllis is seen here c1940, towards the end of working sail in the region.
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In the Morning Mist is an atmospheric, tranquil scene of a Humber keel and Humber sloop. The square keel rig and the fore and aft sloop rig was common on barges working in the Humber estuary in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The keels also worked the inland waterways, sometimes spending their whole working lives carrying specialized cargoes such as coal. Sloops were known to make coastal passages to the north towards Newcastle and south to the Wash and beyond.
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This painting is of a sloop-rigged barge on the Humber, circa 1920, passing the 'black mill' near the quarry known as Hessle Cliff on the north bank. It is clearly unladen and on its way to collect cargo from the port of Hull to the east.
The jetty seen beyond the mill is now the site of the Humber bridge which crosses the estuary and connects East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
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The Humber Sloop is a fore and aft rigged barge, shown fully laden with mainsheet loosed to catch the following wind, making passage on its home river on this overcast day. Barges with this rig frequently made coastal passages as far to the south as the Thames , unlike the square rigged keels which rarely left the Humber estuary.
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