There were more than 2,000 sailing barges carrying cargo on the River Thames at the beginning of the 20th century. By the time Jim Lawrence got his first command in 1951, that number was down to around 160. Jim was then 18 and the youngest sailing barge skipper on the Thames. It was a dying trade, however, and when he carried his last cargo in 1963 there were only six barges still working under sail alone. The last sailing cargo-carrier on the Thames, the mighty Cambria, finally packed up in 1970.
A passionate believer in the beauty and importance of traditional sail, Jim, who has died aged 90, switched to charter work, taking punters out on Thames barges and other British working boats around the east coast of England.
Then, in 1971, he opened his own sail loft, making bespoke traditional sails out of flax and later combining modern materials with traditional sailmaking techniques. It was both a retrograde and revolutionary approach, and Jim was soon being sought out by owners of traditional boats around the world. His sails featured in TV programmes such as The Onedin Line, Shackleton and Scott of the Antarctic – and a long-running Beck’s lager ad campaign.
In this way, Jim served his passion for sail in three ways: keeping sailing barges working and economically viable for as long as possible, then introducing landlubbers to the pleasures of sailing on these magnificent vessels, and finally by physically making hundreds, if not thousands, of sails for boats of all sizes. He also sang about sailing, while playing his banjo or accordion.
Born in Colchester, Essex, the son of Beatrice and Walter, Jim learned to sail at a young age. His first “boat” was the garden gate, which he unscrewed and carried a mile to float on a nearby stream. It sank as soon as he stepped on it, which taught him an important lesson in form stability.
His first “barge” was made in 1944 from a pair of aircraft fuel tanks lashed together to make a simple catamaran. In a sure sign of the times, Jim made the boat’s sails from old barrage balloons and parachute cloth acquired from the local dump. He and his friends picked blackberries, which they transported on their makeshift vessel two miles down the River Colne to Rowhedge, where Mrs Maudesley paid 4½d per pound for them and turned them into jam to sell in her grocery store. Aged 11, Jim had found his vocation.
As he wrote in his 2018 memoir London Light, Jim and his friends at Wilson Marriage school in Colchester were determined “not to let school interfere with our education” and spent all their spare time helping out on the sailing barges that moored on the town quay, known as the Hythe.
He got his first job on a barge called Gladys at 15, and the moment he stepped on board was given a test: to climb the mast and attach a new flag to the topmast, some 100ft in the air. If he failed or refused to do it, he would be deemed unsuitable for the job and sent home. Jim succeeded, of course, and was soon swinging around the rigging like a barge monkey.
Gladys was the first of at least nine barges Jim would serve on during his 15-year career in working sail. The Thames barges were unique vessels: between 80ft and 95ft long, 20ft wide, capable of setting a spectacular 3,000sqft of sail (bigger than a tennis court) and carrying up to 170 tons of cargo (the equivalent of four articulated lorries). Flat out on a beam reach, they could fly along at 12 knots (about the same speed as an America’s Cup yacht of the era). Not only that, but they could be sailed, famously, by “one man, a boy and a dog” – though, as Jim said, it would have to be “a bloody good dog”. It was a phenomenally efficient means of transport, and all without expending a drop of fuel.
Like all working boats, the barges’ income related closely not just to volume but to speed. For Jim, this concern with performance translated into an interest in sail design. Even while he was working as skipper, he would use the winter months to repair and improve his and other boats’ sails. When the market for sail cargo eventually died in the 1960s, Jim already had a reputation as a fine sailmaker who made sails in a traditional way that also performed well. No one wants to sail a slow boat.
Jim opened his first sail loft in a former baby clothes shop in Brightlingsea. When he outgrew those premises, he moved to the former Foresters’ Hall. As well as making sails for the remaining sail barges – now all owned by large companies and used for charter work – Jim became the sailmaker of choice for all manner of traditional craft, from small dinghies to square riggers. His biggest commission, the four-masted cruise ship Sea Cloud, set 30 sails totalling 32,000sqft of canvas.
His historically accurate sails for TV series and films included the 140ft brigantine Søren Larsen, which featured in The Onedin Line. Even the bottle-green suit of sails he made for the German sail training ship Alexander von Humboldt, which featured in the Beck’s beer ads from 1984 until 2007, were made in the traditional manner.
As well as running a successful business, Jim was a hugely popular character on the east coast boating scene. Never seen without his trademark red neckerchief, he had a bosun’s locker full of sailing stories and amusing anecdotes. He was, as the local paper put it, the sort of person “with whom a chance meeting never failed to brighten your day”. I met him only a couple of times, but I can vouch for his sunny demeanour.
Jim retired in 1997, handing over the business to his son-in-law Mark Butler, who himself retired in 2021, and the James Lawrence sail loft is now closed.
Jim married Pauline (nee Rouse) in 1961. She died in 2018. He is survived by their three daughters, Sara, Diana and Rachel.
• James Lawrence, barge skipper and sailmaker, born 5 August 1933; died 20 January 2024
