A CHARITY is £200,000 away from building a replica of the last steel sailing barge, so that it can take people with learning difficulties out to sea.
Mayland-based Sea-Change Sailing Trust has already raised £400,000 of the £600,000 required for the Blue Mermaid project.
The charity works with young people with learning difficulties as well as vulnerable adults, providing them with the opportunity to learn crucial life skills in a team environment on the open water.
However, the board of seven trustees decided in 2010 that to reach more people they would need to buy their own boat.
Trust administrator Don Ramsay said: "Several years ago we decided we needed to have our own vessel, as it would be far more economical than renting other barges.
"We usually take ten young people at a time with two or three carers. We go out to sea for five days at a time as we've found that is enough time to embed change in someone.
"Most people discover that they can be more than who they are and return full of confidence. But if we have our own barge to accompany the ones we rent, we can help out more people."
More than 200 young people use the charity each season, with a skipper and a skipper's mate encouraging the team to handle and anchor the barge as well as cook meals and wash up below deck.
The boat they want to base their designs on is the 1930 Blue Mermaid, the last River Thames sailing barge ever built. It was sunk by a mine in the Second World War.
Cornish boatyard C Toms and Son has won the contract to build the hull and deck of the vessel, with construction due to start next month.
And once the charity has raised the remaining £200,000 to complete the project, the barge's shell will be towed along the coast and into Maldon for rigging and fitting out.
Mr Ramsay, a 60-year-old father-of-two, continued: "We've got the exact blueprint so she will sail without an engine, but we will have to make slight modifications to fit modern regulations. She'll be ready by the middle of 2016 but after sea trials and so on she will be ready, formally, for the 2017 season.
"It's exciting because it will expand the work we do quite considerably. We will be able to provide more seamanship training which in turn can lead to formal accreditation."
For more information or to donate to the barge project, log on to www.seachangesailingtrust.org.uk or call 01621 744196.
