The Southampton Based sailing Charity, the Jubilee Sailing Trust (JST) is refitting their tall ship Lord Nelson this winter and is delighted to announce they are being supported by Associated British Ports (ABP) and also Pentalver, the UK's leading provider of container services.
Lord Nelson will be based at Dock Gate 10 for the duration of the work, which will be carried out between December 2008 and March 2009.
ABP, which is the UK's largest and leading ports group are relieving the JST of a huge financial burden by providing free berthing for Lord Nelson during the four month refit. Steven Young, Deputy Port Manager said, “The Jubilee Sailing Trust does an outstanding job mixing disabled and able bodied people in a challenging environment and we are delighted to continue our support for marine charities including the JST by providing Lord Nelson with a home for the winter refit. There are few more uplifting and motivational experiences than sail training and they deserve all the help they can get”.
On hearing the ship was at Dock Gate 10, Pentalver stepped in to offer the Trust secure container storage for the refit period, Sam Baggley container sales manager said, “We were only too happy to help, its not often we get the chance to support a maritime charity on our doorstep; this was the perfect opportunity.”
Delighted with the support, Andy Spark, Ship Operations Manager at the JST was keen to point out, “Our ships are our most important assets, without this kind support we simply couldn’t maintain them to the high standards we demand - it would be too expensive”.
Lord Nelson and the JST’s second tall ship, Tenacious are groundbreaking in their unique design which enables able bodied and disabled people to sail together on as equals.
Both ships are the only ships of their type in the world which have special facilities aboard to allow the mixed ability crew to play a full and active role in every aspect of running a ship from helming and setting sails to cleaning the ship, known as ‘happy hour’.
Since her maiden voyage in 1986, the Lord Nelson has taken almost 24,000 people on voyages. 9,305 of these people have had a physical disability and of these 3,611 were wheelchair users.
The JST is still looking for local people to come down and help throughout the refit period. They particularly want to hear from people with specialist skills such as carpenters, electricians, plumbers, riggers and engineers, although anyone who can swing a paintbrush is also welcome!
To find out more about how you can help visit the maintainace pages of our website.