About Blyth Tall Ship
Blyth Tall Ship is a life changing ‘Gangway To The Sea’, that brings hope and aspiration to Blyth and the surrounding region, through skills training and individual engagement, supported by a family of over 400 volunteers and trusted collaborative partnerships.
We are inspired by Captain William Smith’s discovery of the Antarctic landmass from Blyth in 1819, on the Brig Williams, and live this out through:
— A maritime cultural centre, linking the Town to the Port, that includes a volunteer port archive, a Gansey knitting co-operative, museums, events, schools curriculum engagement, skills learning and wellbeing activities.
— A unique heritage boatyard, training people for work, further education or to improve wellbeing, from taster experiences in wood working through to NVQ Level 3 in Marine Engineering and specialist shipwright skills.
— A 100 year old Tall Ship and other traditional vessels, sailing for short experiences, corporate team building and extended expeditions, enabling people to improve their skills, confidence and resilience.
— As a person-centred learning community, we are passionate about engaging with our shared maritime heritage because it improves wellbeing, resilience and pride in place, to transform our future.
Learn to Build Boats!
There is a huge renewed interest in our local maritime culture across the UK. At Blyth, in the North East of England, the team are supporting people to learn traditional boat building and shipwright skills. Blyth has been a busy port for many hundreds of years and boats and ships that were built here traded across the world’s oceans. Indeed, a ship from Blyth discovered Antarctica. The team want to continue that tradition and encourage a whole new generation into traditional boat building. We are even building a Zulu Offshore Herring Trawler form keel up. An undertaking that hasn’t (as far as we are aware) been undertaken in 100 years.
We offer a free Level 1 NVQ marine engineering courses (using heritage skills) in our heritage boat yard to local unemployed people, and the opportunity to work up to level 2 and 3 NVQ.
With the support of a National Lottery Heritage Grant we are now developing and launching a number of commercial 2 and 3 day courses in traditional woodworking and shipwright skills that make great Birthday and Christmas gifts or short break holidays.
‘Learn The Ropes’ - Community Wellbeing and Volunteering In Heritage Maritime Skills
We offer a range of shore-based wellbeing courses to local people that feed into regular volunteering groups, many of which are led by volunteers:
— Navigating the Archives - working with the Port of Blyth Archive in our own archive centre;
— Sea Shanty Singing - this feeds in to a choir which sings at many local events;
— Introduction to Woodworking - that leads into NVQ’s and helping in the workshop;
— Gansey Knitting - this ultimately supports our Blyth Gansey design to be knitted for sailing and shore-based volunteers as well as blankets, cushions and hot water bottles for the ship;
— Sail Cloth Working and Knots and Lashings - Creating a display and supporting our ship maintenance and crew development.
Williams Expeditions - Tall Ship Sailing
We charter out the Williams II, a 100 year old gaff-rigged 24m on deck Baltic Trader, for charitable, community wellbeing, and commercial sailing trips, training up volunteer crew to support us. We have sailed around Britain twice and work mainly on the NE and NW coasts. You can book day, 3-day, and week-long expeditions and we frequently get charitable finding to support local people to sail, for their own wellbeing.
Blyth Tall Ship was awarded the National Lottery’s Award for Heritage in 2022 for its community leadership and development work and is working with a NLHF ’Sustainability’ grant over 2025/26 to develop a shore based tourist offer including courses and eventually an immersive visitor experience, the revenue from which will support our core charitable activities around wellbeing and employability for the community.
Latest News
November 2024 Blyth Tall Ship received a National Lottery Heritage Grant to help create a sustainable shore-based tourist offer Full story
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