NEWLYN AND THE KETCHES: A NEW POEM...

Newlyn And The Ketches

Moored bow to harbour wall

The Lowestoft ketches crowd like locusts

inside a tank, 

Their masts and spars awry like spiky umbrellas abandoned in a gale;

Each registration identity marks its rank,

As vessels huddle like cattle in a milking stall… 

Roped to mooring posts taut,

Their funnels spew steam, like mist on a morning sea,

Their halyards and rigging angled in geometrical confusion,

Each straining seaward to tear itself free,

As vessels are stripped of their catch in Newlyn’s port… 

LT 1021, the Sarepta, though, would have a different tale to tell,

Entering war service in January 1915;

For as an anti-submarine vessel with a six pounder anti-aircraft gun,

It survived the U-boat menace and nautical hell

Then returned to peacetime fishing duty in 1919…

Pete Ray

February 2019 

I really like this image…

After seeing Newlyn’s current vessels lined up alongside the quay in December last year, it was strange to see so many old Lowestoft boats clamouring against the sea-wall…

I managed to discover that LT 643 was called ‘Welland’ and was a steam screw ketch, as were ‘Torbay II' (LT 677) and the most unusual, LT 1021, which was ‘Sarepta’ and that one was indeed used in World War One.

It was eventually sold to Yarmouth in 1932, becoming YH 222 but it was scrapped a couple of years later…