The History of Trinovante

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 (and current skipper), 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. Wivenhoe has a 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.


Trinovante 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 our schooner has exceeded expectations and the only major change has been the conversion of the forward hold into accommodation for the crew.

Since 2005 SchoonerSail has been offering hands on sailing holidays onboard Trinovante. She has made several round Britain voyages, often via Norway clocking up tens of thousands of sea miles and in the last few years has been sailing to the Arctic circle and competing in Tall Ships races.

In the photo, sailing off Southend near the pier. you can just see the forward fisherman topsail set behind the jib.