The people's project sets sail

After a year of painstaking artistry and craftsmanship, Collective Spirit, a 30-ft sailing boat constructed as part of the Cultural Olympiad with hundreds of donated wooden objects. Andrew Hubbard speaks to the team behind The Boat Project.

“The most amazing thing about this project is the number of people it has engaged with on a very personal and social level,” explained Catherine Baxendale, project manager on The Boat Project.

“From donors who have handed over extraordinary pieces of their lives and history, and volunteers who have worked with us for over a year, to the crewmembers who had never set foot on a boat that are learning to become accomplished sailors, and to those who are now discovering the boat and the power she has as a storyteller.”

It is essentially a floating collage of memories created by artistic performance company Lone Twin. And since setting sail on its maiden voyage in early May, The Boat Project has been increasingly acknowledged as a true people’s project.

The brainchild of Gary Winters and Gregg Whelan, artistic directors at Lone Twin, The Boat Project forms one of the South East region’s contributions to the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

It was funded by a £500,000 grant that the team secured as a winner of the Arts Council England’s Artists’ Taking the Lead project, which commissioned 12 public art projects across the country, one in each nation and region of the UK.
[SUBHEAD] Collective Spirit
“We sent out appeals for donations of all shapes and sizes,” explained Gwen Van Spijk, executive director of Lone Twin.

“Between February and August 2011, we visited 20 locations across the South East and also invited the public to come to a boatshed on the Hampshire/West Sussex border to hand over wooden items that would form the entire boat.”

Donations of all shapes and sizes were accepted with just two conditions – the items needed to be wooden and come with a story.

In all, the team collected 1,200 pieces, including a shaving of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, a tiny piece of the Mary Rose, a plank from the new London 2012 Velodrome, and a Victorian policeman’s truncheon.

The largest object was an 8ft long plank from a felled yew tree and the smallest a cocktail stick. There are even two security boxes which were used to carry thousands of pounds worth of gold to Canada for safe-keeping when Britain was under threat of invasion in 1940.

Once the collection was completed the team of boat builders sifted through the wooden items and selected parts of each of them to fit on the boat. They then painstakingly handcrafted the exterior of the vessel using the donated pieces.

The boat was named Collective Spirit, which was selected following a public vote, and unveiled for the first time as part of the launch day. Gary Winters said: “It was originally a suggestion from British yachtsman Pete Goss, but it was overwhelmingly the public’s favourite when put to the vote. It really does capture what the whole project is about – and will continue to be about.

“At the beginning there were just four of us – and although we had the idea, we were just a small part of this as people have taken the boat to their hearts and shown real dedication and effort in making all this happen. It’s the perfect name really.”

A celebratory launch event took place at Thornham Marina, Emsworth near Chichester, uniting for the first time the thousands of people who’ve come together to create the boat.

In keeping with the people project theme, after Collective Spirit completes her trip to Weymouth she will be gifted back to the region as a permanent resource for the public.

Sailing against the tide
Many of the challenges that confronted the project team echoed those faced by many other project management professionals involved in Olympic projects.

Catherine said: “We were working in a very small team and to a deadline that simply could not be extended no matter how big the interest and expectation grew.”

Another factor was that Lone Twin is an arts organisation that has never undertaken a project like this before. Getting the right mix of experience, knowledge and passion was key in overcoming the known unknowns.

Executive director Gwen explained: “One of the very first things we did was to appoint Mark Cavell, an acclaimed Olympic sailor and boat-builder, to be our team lead and designer. Our architect Simon Rodgers came aboard and we then began to bring together the wider team of boat builders.

“Without the right experience and knowledge in place we simply would not have been able to complete this project. Mark and Simon brought traditional wooden boat-building techniques together with 21st century technology to construct a yacht capable of reaching speeds in excess of 20 knots.”

Legacy - the 2012 maiden voyage
As with all of the Olympic projects, Collective Spirit has a lasting legacy, something that was integral in securing the funding.

More than 100 people worked on the scheme including volunteers, and it created 22 jobs. Two of the employees involved were taken on as apprentice boat builders and have continued in the profession.

The Boat Project’s maiden voyage is currently underway with six members of the public without previous experience having been trained to sail the boat.
The voyage has been built around five main ports of call where a festival of events will take place celebrating the arrival.

Project manager Catherine added: “We didn't put up our feet after the ship set sail. For us the maiden voyage is really when the hard work began. We had to pull together a programme for the boat that included five festivals and more than 20 stop offs.”

They voyage also features short interim stop offs and sightings along the entire route will be scheduled, allowing as many people as possible to experience the journey as it takes place.

Boat building
It took 1,200 wooden donations to make Collective Spirit, with each item coming with its own unique story. Here are some of the public contributions that helped to make a true people’s project a success.

Donation number 159 from Graham Johnston – Branches from Juniper bush from Cemetery Hill where The Good The Bad and The Ugly was filmed. His daughter lives near to the site in Spain.

Donation number 194 from Liddy Davidson – A book entitled Home was a Grand Hotel by Pamela Sydney Wilson, Liddy's mother, who was the first baby born in the Grand Hotel Brighton. It includes tales of celebrity guests, details of IRA bombing her bedroom and wartime tales.

Donation number 210 from Oliver Evans – A piece of track from Olympic Velodrome. The wood was left over from the construction of the Velodrome at the Olympic Park.

Donation number 323 from Eric Hinkley – A scout woggle with a compass that he wore to the opening ceremony of the 1948 Olympic Games. As a scout his job was to release pigeons at the side of the track.

Donation number 413 Fred Cole – Section of motor torpedo boat and German mine sweeper. Fred took part in D Day 1946, and was one of the first boats to arrive at Dunkirk. He lived on the boat for 30 years.

Map of the voyage

1) 7 May 2012 – The Launch – Thornham Marina, Emsworth
2) 9 May 2012 – Emsworth Quay
3) 18 May – Inaugural sail from Hayling Island
4) 18-19 May - Shoreham
5) Sat 19 – Sun 27 May – first port of call Brighton
6) 2-5 June – Passage to Portland
7) 5-6 June – Lymington
8) 6 June – Isle of Wight
9) 23 June-1 July – second port of call Portsmouth
10) 2-3 July – Littlehampton
11) 5 July - Eastbourne
12) 6 July – Sighting from Bexhill-on-Sea
13) 6-8 July – third port of call Hastings
14) 9-10 July – Dover
15) 10 July – Folkestone
16) 10-12 July – Ramsgate
17) 13–16 July – fourth port of call Margate
18) 18 July – Gravesend
19) 20-29 July – fifth port of call Milton Keynes
20) 30 July – Barford St Michael
21) 1-11 August – Weymouth