Traditional boat builder Gail McGarva has won the fifth annual President’s Award for Endangered Crafts at the 2024 Heritage Crafts Awards, which were presented at a prestigious Winners’ Reception at Eltham Palace on 26 November 2023, supported by headline sponsor The Royal Mint and venue sponsor English Heritage.
The award, supported by the King Charles III Charitable Fund, was one of 25 revealed at the ceremony introduced by Natasha Kaplinsky OBE.
The President’s Award for Endangered Crafts, supported by the King Charles III Charitable Fund, and selected from a shortlist by His Majesty, was won by Gail McGarva BEM. Gail is a builder of boats, teller of stories and keeper of memories. As a traditional wooden boat-builder, she is passionate about preserving working boats in danger of extinction. Her specialism is the building of replicas or as she prefers to call them ‘daughter-boats’, breathing life into a new generation of these traditional craft. Gail plans to use the prize to build a traditionally-constructed St Ayles Skiff and pass on the skills to the next generation through the process of the build.
Gail McGarva is one of National Historic Ships UK's Shipshape Network Scotland projects.
Source: Heritage Crafts website
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Scotland