About Raybel Charters
Raybel Charters is a maritime heritage social enterprise—part business, part campaign, part arts project—born from a desire to inspire and create change towards a climate conscious and socially just system of trade. Their work is based around the themes of water, trade, transport, nature, heritage and people. They aim to work collaboratively, inclusively and creatively, on a global and a local scale. Their home is the Thames estuary, from central London to the coast of Kent, but from here they extend out, from estuary to ocean, from creek to canal.
Restoring Raybel
Raybel Charters was originally formed in 2018 with the single aim of restoring the 100-year-old Thames Sailing Barge, Raybel. They received funding for the restoration in 2019 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Swale Borough Council, Kent County Council, the Transport Trust and a host of individual crowdfund supporters. The work is now taking place at Lloyd’s Wharf, Milton Creek, Sittingbourne, just a few hundred yards from where Raybel was built and launched in 1920. As of June 2023, conservation work has comprised the bow, topsides and hull. Further funding, from the Heritage Fund, Swires Trust and Kent Community Fund has been secured to complete the work, with the expectation that the full restoration will be completed by Spring 2024.
Watch the latest video on the Raybel restoration (March 2023).
Training, skills and creativity
As part of the restoration, Raybel Charters are providing shipwright training, work experience and hands-on volunteering with the barge work. They regularly run a diverse range of community arts and heritage events and activities – shipwright skills, oral history recording, natural dye and print making, ecology surveys, archive research, puppetry, photography and more. They can host schools and college visits for all age groups and are always keen to hear from training providers who would like to link with them.
Wharfside regeneration
At Lloyd’s Wharf, Raybel Charters are bringing together local residents, artists, designers and architects to create a new cultural heritage hub for Sittingbourne. They employ a community gardener and an artist-in-residence and host regular events and Open Days, including the very successful Spring Creekside Festival in April 2023. The team are looking forward to presenting a new programme of community activities and events for 2023 – and starting to use Raybel as a venue again.
Sail Cargo
On the global scale, Raybel Charters are part of a cross-ocean network, bringing back the ethos and wonder of transporting cargo by the power of wind and tide alone. They import produce to London and Kent, from small-scale community producers and family farms in Colombia, the Caribbean, Portugal and France, and market these as Sail Cargo London, Kent Sail Cargo and Southend-on-sea Sail Cargo. The cargo is sailed to Kent by French ship De Gallant, with the onward journey to London made by Thames sailing barge. Once restored, Raybel will be brought into this growing sail shipping network.
LATEST NEWS
October 2024 Raybel Charters has published their report 'A Sail Cargo Network for London and the Thames Estuary' Full story
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