The Restoration
In the dying days of 1998, in a bitter December wind, the Pioneer was raised from the mud and floated to Wyatt’s Hard, West Mersea, from there transported temporarily by low loader to Goldhanger . There she was carefully cleaned, blocked up, shored and plumbed. A three dimensional digital survey by laser assured the accuracy of her recorded lines. Finally laid up in a barn at Great Totham her restoration began.
In 2003, she emerged, restored, drawn across the waterlogged fields by five tractors, on her low loader artic, to the hard Colchester road. Manoeuvred overnight by the narrowest of margins past Colchester Castle she eventually arrived at Brightlingsea. On May the 17th 2003, she was re-launched bearing her original Colchester registration CK18. She was, and is, the very pride of Essex and our county’s great Maritime tradition.
The Restoration Gallery
A selection of photographs taken by Mervyn Maggs, cataloguing the restoration of Pioneer, click on an image to see a larger version.
