Club to launch skiff for the first time

The skiff, built by Bamburgh and Beadnell Community Rowing Club.

The rowing boat, which has taken a year to build, will be launched near to Beadnell harbour at high tide, at about 3.30pm.

Members of the public are welcome to attend the launch. The prosecco will be flowing and shortbread will be available.

Village of the Year judge Alex Langlands with members of Bamburgh and Beadnell Community Rowing Club. Picture courtesy of Channel 4

The smart-looking boat is the club’s first skiff and it is appropriately called Grace Darling, after the famous Northumberland heroine who helped rescue survivors from the shipwrecked Forfarshire, which ran aground on the Farne Islands in 1838.

The club has about 30 members and now the vessel is complete, the team will be able to compete with other boats along the Northumberland coast and further afield.

The skiff has already been blessed, at Bamburgh’s Christmas lights switch-on ceremony.

It was developed in a barn in Bamburgh, and for club members, it provided an opportunity to build a wooden boat for the first time.

In what has been a whirlwind 12 months for the community boat-building project, the club featured on TV earlier this year, appearing on Channel 4 programme, Village of the Year, with Penelope Keith.

One of the show’s judges, Alex Langlands, went to Bamburgh to meet some of the builders and learn more about the skiff scheme.

Bamburgh made it through to the programme’s final, but lost out to Broughshane in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

The club is the latest group in north Northumberland to launch a skiff. Others include Craster, Alnmouth and Amble.