A brand new exhibition telling the story of the much-loved Dunkirk little ship Skylark IX has opened on the Denny Tank Museum in Dumbarton.
Hope Floats, which has been curated by the Skylark IX Restoration Challenge which cares for Skylark IX, charts Skylark’s story from launching as a pleasure boat in 1934 by her wartime service and her sinking in 2010.
The story culminates along with her new function inspiring and altering the lives of individuals recovering from addictions throughout West Dunbartonshire.
Skylark saved greater than 600 allied troopers throughout World Struggle Two, transporting them from seashores in Dunkirk to the protection of bigger vessels while below heavy hearth.
She then returned to Loch Lomond and the Leven, working as a vacationer boat for Sweeney’s for greater than 30 years earlier than sinking in June 2010.
After two years below water Skylark herself was rescued, with the Skylark Restoration Belief working in partnership with native dependancy restoration charity Alternate options to revive her to her former glory.
Skylark is at the moment present process restoration on the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine while the Skylark IX Restoration Challenge shapes plans for her future on the coronary heart of the Spirit of Skylark Centre.
Funding allowing, the proposed £3m heritage attraction, group hub and boatbuilding workshop might be situated on the Scottish Maritime Museum’s web site in Dumbarton – and can allow the challenge to achieve and assist extra individuals throughout the realm. Within the meantime the brand new exhibition, made doable by a Nationwide Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) award in 2018, will permit guests to the Denny Tank to search out out extra about Skylark’s fascinating story.
The NLHF award has enabled the Skylark IX Restoration Challenge to plan very important work to assist stabilise Skylark’s situation and ship boatbuilding coaching for Alternate options’ community-based restoration service and Dumbarton Space Council on Alcohol purchasers. The challenge additionally delivers therapeutic arts and heritage tasks for individuals throughout the group.
Claire McDade, challenge supervisor on the Skylark IX Restoration Challenge, stated: “The Skylark IX Restoration Challenge was fashioned out of hope and a perception in the opportunity of change and restoration.
“Skylark took half in Operation Dynamo and, in the present day, our indomitable Dunkirk Little Ship is as soon as once more a beacon of hope and inspiration for these on their very own journey of restoration and people in want inside our communities.”
Guests to Hope Floats can even see the Skylark IX Lockdown Group Patchwork Quilt which remembers Skylark’s function in occasions of warfare and peace and celebrates hope.
The quilt was created by 50 individuals throughout West Dunbartonshire connecting with the Challenge in the course of the first Lockdown.
The exhibition additionally options an Echo Bay Dory mannequin skiff.
The 50cm lengthy rowing boat was crafted by a Skylark Volunteer Trainee when the Skylark IX Boatbuilding Workshop on the Scottish Maritime Museum in Dumbarton needed to shut throughout each Lockdowns and coaching moved onto Zoom.
Entry to Hope Floats is included in Museum Admission.
As much as three kids go free with every grownup or concession.