A new Community Boat for Swansea
After many years of raising funds, in 2010 Swansea Community Boat Trust (SCBT) took delivery of The Black Prince. Between 2011 and 2013, the Black Prince had carried over 15,000 passengers along the ever changing River Tawe between Swansea Marina and Liberty Stadium. However, with ever increasing maintenance being required to the boat, and with the flat-bottomed design resulting in many sailing being cancelled (due to high winds), SCBT took the decision to sell the Black Prince and commission a new boat to be built.
In 2013, SCBT initiated a new project to replace the Black Prince with a new, purpose built vessel to operate within Swansea Marina and along the River Tawe navigation. After reviewing a number of boat builders, we finally chose a British firm with over 40 years of experience in designing and building boats for the inland waterways – Colecraft Boats. With the requirements to ensure the new boat met the rigorous and exacting standards of the Maritime Coastguard Agency (MCA), we were pleased to see that Colecraft had a proven track record of not only building boats for private use, but had built over 20 inland waterways commercial trip boats in the past 6 years that met MCA certification.
The following pictures show the progress of the new build from basic shell through to finishing touches…
Copper Jack – The hull is starting to take shape
Copper Jack – Bow design
Copper Jack – Buoyancy tanks with protective paint
Copper Jack – Sealing the buoyancy tanks
Copper Jack – Underfloor buoyancy tanks
Copper Jack – Building the passenger cabin
Copper Jack – Stern view leaving fabrication en-route to finishing shop
Copper Jack – Inspection by some of the SCBT board members
Copper Jack – Starting the internal fit out
Copper Jack – First coats of paint
Copper Jack – Hull blacking
Copper Jack – First coats of paint