To some extent every boat starts with a dream or inspiration. The inspiration for Trinovante
came one sparkling September day in Lisbon during
1983.
John Shores, Trinovante's designer,
was walking down the steep city streets towards
the river. Unexpectedly the Portuguese Schooner Creoula
came into view riding to her moorings,
just 100ft from the river bank. John there and then decided he wanted a schooner.
Trinovante was inspired by Creoula that day but
is not in any way a copy or a miniature version
of her. The design brief was simply for a three
masted traditionally rigged schooner of less than
24m long with a maximum draught of seven feet and
a cargo hold forward. She needed to be strong,
seaworthy and easy to handle by a small crew, but
with the ability to carry lots of sail with a
stronger crew. She also had to be economical to
build and maintain.
John spent a year working on the design before
the keel was laid in Wivenhoe in Essex, a village
on the banks of the river Colne. its a village with
a long history of shipbuilding, fishing and sailing.
The last big sailing vessel built there was the
Jubilee Sailing Trusts ship the Lord Nelson
, launched in 1986.
Trinovate was launched in 1994 and has now become
a familiar sight sailing around her home waters
of the Thames estuary and much further afield.
Design wise Trinovante has exceeded expectations and
the only major change has been the conversion
of the forward hold into accommodation
for the crew.
Since 2005 Trinovante has been offering hands on sailing holidays. She has sailed several round Britain voyages, often via Norway clocking up tens of thousands of sea miles. In the last two years the boat has been sailing to the Arctic circle and competing in Tall Ships races.
The photo above, taken off the coast of Cornwall in 2007, shows Trinovante with only two topmasts and one fishermans top sail. She now has her full rig up and carries three topmasts and two fishermans sails to create what is a very powerful and exciting rig.
