The Pioneer Sailing Trust has been awarded over £2.3m by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The Trust will use the money to enhance its Harker’s Yard facilities on the Brightlingsea Shipyard Estate, create a new apprenticeship scheme and continue its restorations of historic vessels – one of which will see the oyster skiff Jinnie fitted with an electric engine.
The Trust is named after its sail training vessel, Pioneer, the only surviving ‘skillinger’ – so called because it used to dredge for oysters off Terschelling in the Netherlands – and a familiar sight sailing from its mooring off Bateman’s Tower.
Shipwrights and apprentices at the Trust have also built the rowing skiffs used by the Brightlingsea Coastal Rowing Club and many others around Essex.
