Maritime Trust latest Window Museum

The IMT Museum Window exhibition just off Albion Quay currently features a display entitled A celebration of local yacht and boat-building which includes fascinating ship, boat and yacht building facts in the Ipswich area from ancient times to James Bond.

IMT window museum

The reputation of Ipswich shipwrights for quality and skilled shipbuilding was well established in past centuries and many of the Admiralty commissioned ships were built here until the supply of oak became depleted. Stuart Grimwade, a Director of the Trust: "What is perhaps not so well appreciated is that since the early days of yachting for pleasure, this same tradition for invention and world beating revolutionary design flourished and continues to flourish in local boatyards today."

How many local people know that the very first folding pram dinghy was developed by local designer Austin Farrar of Woolverstone Shipyard in 1958? The same man designed the wing sail used around the world today and in the Americas Cup. How many people have enjoyed watching Daniel Craig as James Bond aboard his yacht in Venice and realised that 007's yacht was built by Spirit Yachts in Ipswich Wet Dock? How many people remember rowing on the River Gipping where they could hire a boat from Wright and Sons, boat builders on Cullingham Road (the same yard that developed and built the "Twinkle" sailing dinghy), and row up to Bramford?

The display is well worth a visit. IMT change their Museum Window exhibition with a different local maritime theme every six months and eventually hope to have five museum windows on Albion Quay when the Waterfront development is completed.

Tim Leggett