Cornish Maritime Trust

Preserving Cornwall's working boats by sailing them

The Cornish Maritime Trust is a volunteer-run registered charity based at Newlyn Harbour's Old Quay, with community groups also active in Falmouth, Penzance and Mousehole. Rather than restoring historic Cornish vessels to sit in a static display, the Trust's approach is to keep them genuinely working - sailed, maintained and crewed much as they always were, taking part in maritime festivals and community sailing days around Cornwall and further afield.

The flagship of the fleet is Barnabas, an 1881 St Ives dipping lugger and the sole survivor of a St Ives fishing fleet that once numbered close to a thousand boats. Barnabas was named National Historic Ships UK's Flagship for 2025 and won Centenarian of the Year at the Classic Boat Awards 2025, having already taken the oldest-vessel prize at France's Morbihan Semaine du Golfe festival in 2019 - and she logs more than 300 sailing days a year, an extraordinary amount of active use for a boat approaching 150 years old.

The rest of the fleet spans different corners of Cornwall's fishing history: Ellen (1882), a Gorran Haven crabber; Soft Wing (1900), an oyster dredger from the Truro River; and Silver Stream (2004), a faithfully built replica of a 1890s dipping lugger. Together they represent a working cross-section of the small boats that once made up Cornwall's inshore fishing industry, kept alive rather than preserved behind glass.

Get Involved

The Trust welcomes new members, crew and volunteers of all experience levels, and runs sailing days and training opportunities aboard its historic boats. It also appears at maritime festivals in the UK and France throughout the sailing season, including community fundraising events such as "Boats on the Beach" in support of a planned Maritime Heritage Community Hub - the best way to see the fleet under sail without joining as crew.