A Cornish maritime Trust film showing the history and restoration of Barnabas, a 19th century 39 foot St Ives dipping lugger is to be shown in Falmouth on Saturday. As an important piece of Cornish maritime heritage Barnabas is one of the few remaining boats of a once vast fishing fleet.

The film will be at the WI Hall in Webber Street, Falmouth on Saturday, January 31 at 7.30pm tickets at the door. After the film there will be a short question and answere period with the film makers.

Barnabas is the only unaltered survivor from St Ives of the thousand strong fleet of lug rigged seine and drift net fishing boats registered at Cornish ports at the turn of the 19th century.

At 40ft Barnabas is the largest of The Cornish Maritime Trust’s boats and also the oldest.

She was built in 1881 for Barnabas Thomas by Henry Trevorrow at his boat yard above Porthgwidden beach in St Ives and launched in the traditional way off the beach.

She is a dipping lug rigged mackerel driver so called as the boats were driven by the effect of the tide on their nets.

The drift nets were like a curtain hanging in the water with floats at the top. The fish swam into them and were caught by their gills. As the nets were pulled in and restowed in the net room the fish were shaken out into the hold.The drift nets were made up of sections joined together verticall, their total length extending for up to a mile and a quarter.

Barnabas is known as a dipping lugger because of the way in which the lug sail on her foremast is partly lowered to tack and the whole of the foresail passed around the front of the mast. The sheet (rope) on the new tack is attached to the sail and the lug from which the sail hangs (the size of a telegraph pole) is raised on the appropriate side of the mast.

This method means that the foresail sets efficiently on both tacks for faster sailing.

Barnabas continued to fish from St Ives until 1954 when she was sold as a yacht. In the 70s she was given to the National Maritime Trust and in 1985 was restored to her original state thanks to the generosity of Peter Cadbury whose family had her in the 1950s.

In 1994 the Cornish Maritime Trust was formed from the Cornish Friends of the Maritime Trust,who had been looking after Barnabas and she was bought from the National Maritime Trust for £1.

Since then she has taken numerous parties of school children from the Cornwall Outdoors Centre on introductory sailing trips up the Fal and in the Carrick Roads. She has also appeared in several TV documentaries and films.