dropping the dog shore: transformation series

Exhibited 2024, Royal Society of Marine Artists.

Having just dropped the ‘dog shore’ workers on the Strand Slipway at the John Crown & Sons Sunderland shipyard on 29th May 1930 anxiously watch the coaler Bovey Tracey begin to move down the ways.

For generations shipwrights had relied on the heavy dog shore to hold the ship, preventing her running away once the other shores, stays, bilge and keel blocks were removed in preparation for launch. For the shipwright every second between the dog shore being dropped and the ship entering the water safely was said to feel like an hour.

 2024. Pen and ink on paper. 60 x 38 cm