We are 50 this year
We're celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Golden Hinde's launch with a fundraising campaign to raise funds to maintain the ship and continue educating schools and visitors.
The Golden Hinde requires essential maintenance work on the rigging in order to remain open. We urgently need your support as preparation for the project has already started.
The rig; the masts, spars, standing and running rigging, are vital elements of a sailing ship at sea. When we travelled around the world, the maintenance of the rig was a daily task. Simple jobs such as whipping the end of sail gasket through to very occasionally 'sending everything down' when in port, were critical for the safety of both crew and ship.
Today, The Golden Hinde no longer sails the oceans, and many of these tasks can be undertaken less frequently, but they are still needed to ensure the safety of our visitors.
The last time we sent down all the spars and un-stepped the masts was in 2012 and now the time has come to carry out a thorough overhaul. There can be no further delay.
To this end we have been preparing for this work since the easing of Covid restrictions. It is important that the rig is down for the shortest time, so our Refit Team has been busy sourcing materials and building replacement items such as new fighting tops, those platforms half-way up the fore and main masts.
Those preparations are now complete and the time has come to 'get on with the job'.
We are fortunate to have many of the skills we will need in our Refit Team. However this is not just a matter of fixing broken or rotting rigging, all work has to be historically correct in line with our ethos for The Golden Hinde, so this requires an even more specific skillset.
For this reason, a crew member from 1989 when we were visiting ports in the Gulf of Mexico is joining us to oversee the work. After several years with our ship, Matt Otto went on to become the leading authority on the rigging of period ships, recently masterminding the refit of Mayflower 2 for Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts.
The rig is part of what we offer. Apart from ensuring total safety for all, this rig refit is our moment to further underwrite the historical integrity of this little ship.
The Golden Hinde is an independent museum. We are not a registered charity but reinvest all profits back into our organisation. We've not paid dividends in 30 years.