Dead boat installed in National Maritime Museum foyer

A small yacht that was left to rot in a Helford creek has been given a second life as a museum exhibit. The ‘Hurley Burley’ was installed in the foyer of the National Maritime Museum Cornwall to raise awareness of the growing problem of abandoned end of life boats. The exhibit marks the launch of the Wreck Free Fal and Helford initiative which is seeking to tackle the problem on the Fal and Helford estuaries, where hundreds of mostly GRP boats have been abandoned.

A 'dead boat TV' has been installed into the hull of the Hurley Burley showing images of 150 abandoned boats that have been logged on the Fal and Helford Wreck Map, which is displayed on a touch screen next to the boat.

Steve Green of Clean Ocean Sailing had the messy task of dragging the Hurley Burley out of Anna Maria creek with the help of his trusty million mile VW camper Cecil. “She had been used as rubbish bin and was full of silt. We think she had been abandoned some 20 years ago and would have sat there for many more. In her prime she would have been a great little weekender."

"Boats get beyond viable repair for many reasons. Their owners run out of money, they run out of time, they find another hobby, they buy another boat, they move away, they get ill or they die. We can’t change that. But we can stop boats getting abandoned by providing a viable alternative with free at use scrappage.”

Steve Green hopes the Hurley Burley will give thousands of visitors to the Maritime Museum over the next few months a prompt to stop and think about what happens to boats at the end of their life. A short film about the Hurley Burley has already received over 50,000 views and lots of positive comments.

You can support Clean Ocean Sailing’s work clearing abandoned boats and marine plastics from around our foreshores by donating to their crowdfunder.

Wreck Free Fal and Helford are enormously grateful for support from Cornwall Community Foundation’s Marine Environment Fund and to the National Maritime Museum Cornwall for hosting the installation.