Governor Richard Tauwhare sailing during 2007 Conch Festival

Re-introducing Gemelemi Model Sloop Building to Grand Turk

The Gemelemi or Gumbo Limbo model sloop is an offshoot of a method of yacht or boat design that has its roots in time immemorial. The concept of carving a model of a vessel in order to keep a specific image while constructing a life sized vessel is the origin of the blueprint or for boatbuilders, the lofting of the lines.

The 17th Century Bermudian boatbuilders of the Salt Islands were Europeans who had been utilising this method of vessel design preservation during the commissioning of vessels by investors as a guarantee of a design agreement. They would carve the design and cut the model in half, giving one half to the entity commissioning and keeping one half to take the scaled lines to build the craft. That way a comparison of the design was in both hands. Those were half models and usually were solid wood.

On Grand Turk and Salt Cay as the population grew so did the need for small craft for subsistence fishing, better transhipment lighter design and eventually inter-island commerce. It is possible to build a vessel without a model or a half-model, as is witnessed by today’s boatbuilders who do not rely upon lines on paper nor models but design while form constructing by eye.

I am conjecturing that the model and the discarded model, at some stage, became a toy that was used to compete in the shallows of the salt ponds on the Salt Islands and then the Caicos shallows. The easily carved, lightweight and corklike Gemelemi would seem a perfect choice for whittling models and even in the 1970s there was a supply of Gemelemi trees on Grand Turk Island to use for this purpose. But, the supply dwindled to naught and the tradition of carving Gemelemi models faded to only a few of the old timers like Captain Jamesie Simmons’s peers still persist when they can import Gemelemi from the Caicos Islands where Gemelemi models are still built.

It has only been in the last generation that Gemelemi model construction has faded on Bluehills (or Providenciales) and North Caicos. Parents are simply buying toys from the stores these days and are cautious about allowing their children to use a hatchet, knife, saw or most cutting tools necessary for carving models of any sort.

The Federation Sail Our Sloops, SOS Programme rekindled the enjoyment of building Gemelemi Model Sloops at Enid Capron and Ianthe Pratt Primary Schools last year, producing several models with gaff sloop rigs by sixth graders. They were carefully supervised and used as close to traditional tools as can be obtained locally: the hatchet, knife, saw, chisel and sandpaper. Nobody hurt themselves amongst the sixty or so students participating. Several students went on to merchandise small models for retail sales.

When David Bowen, Managing Director of the Cultural and Arts Commission, asked Federation Governor J. H. (JJ) Parker, from Bluehills, to demonstrate Gemelemi model building on Grand Turk, JJ found the students not only interested but they showed such enthusiasm that JJ (who won the A Class Jamesie Simmons Model Sloop Regatta this year) was and is still taken aback at the lack of knowledge but thirst for that knowledge of Turks and Caicos Islands boat building traditions amongst these primary school students. He has been bugging the Federation to do something about it ever since.

JJ’s usual statement is, “If we are supposed to be passing maritime traditions on and not losing them, then why aren’t we doing that in Grand Turk with Gemelemi sloop models?”

Our overall plan is to build sailing models in solid and planked versions,  that are replications of concepts of real Sloops from around the archipelago, as well as racing models and static display models. These will be researched, documented, marketed and sold, as well as displayed in several locations around the Islands. The proceeds to go to the model museum administration and the students to foster the knowledge that heritage combined with imagination can earn a living.

Valley Stream in front of Sailing Paradise at 2007 Conch Festival in Blue Hills

Conch Festival Sailing

I don’t know what to say about our Lobster Festival and Conch Festival attempt.  There was a staring in the face lack of participation in the sailing aspect of the Lobster Festival with those who said they would show up and assist kids racing not showing. What a disappointment…

This year’s 4th Annual Conch Festival Sloop Race became a very complicated affair and pointed directly at our need for a Regatta Commission to organize the functioning of waterbourne competition.

The best part of this great sailing day on the water was the angles it gave for photography. It was a perfect day for sailing with 15-25 knots of wind and a short, very dramatic chop to the turquoise to light blue seas. The four Sloops who sailed in front of the record crowd at the Conch Festival were in their element.

The event caused hull damage to two Sloops and a broken mast but the irksome part was the lack of crews to sail the boats. There were three Sloops left at anchor off 3 Queens Restaurant, one off Sailing Paradise, two in Turtle Cove and four on the Dean’s Beach. Five Sloops participated, with a dismasting seeing only four out at one time.

Good Words For Committees

The Research and Education Committee has some people who can’t wait to get started, so we are not letting them wait. Before the Committee is started, Ethlyn Gibbs-Williams, Managing Director of the TCI National Trust, who has accepted a position on the Committee, has been on the phone with questions about the organisation of the Committee and suggestions about how to coordinate our efforts.

Honourable Dr. Carlton Mills is waiting for me to bring him some stuff, so he can get started with something nautical. Dr. Ed Williams comes to the office to raise his eyebrows at my slowness. E. Jay Saunders keeps reiterating that he is a researcher; that his first love is research…

So, in response to all this pressure and to those who are interested:
An Idyll Research and Education Committee

The Research and Education Committee sort of explains the intention in its name, so what we are trying to do is to separate the categories within each title then put them back together again as a unit.

 
First, the Research aspect has a lot of components such as:
Period
Venue
Subject Focus
Reference 
Communications
Coordination & Storage
Networking and Interchange of Information
Lectures
Continuity or information
Documentation
Bibliography
Indexing
Writing
Editing
Publishing
Motion Picture Production

And each of these has its own direction, such as 
Venue
 The seafront activities at South Caicos during the late 19th Century
Reference
 UK, Bermuda, Margarita Island, etc.
Subject Focus
 Vessel cooking arrangements and recipes
Publishing
 Books, magazines, magazine articles, pamphlets, booklets, etc

Everything will open to new things and we should be able to keep all the new ideas with the coordinator while continuing to focus on our particular component. The new ideas, of course, are to be posted to inspire more thought and newer ideas.

We will need an archives soon if that keeps up…which would come under coordination and storage…

It makes no sense for somebody to work on something they do not enjoy doing, so the more components we come up with, the more choices for somebody to enjoy the activity.

The concept of the committee is to assist the other members and to get others interested in our projects. We are support and set policies for the gathering and dispersing of information for the Federation. In that preliminary list we have access to editing, the most important aspect of what we do in our recording work, while having sources who know who to contact to get another piece of information that none of the others here have.

With Education we have the most responsible task of passing on information to those directly or indirectly interested in receiving information on the maritime heritage of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

To educate we need to:
Create texts from researched materials
Network with other maritime preservation organisations
Organize school programmes
Organize lectures and seminars
Set up hands-on traditional and non-traditional programmes
Send those really interested to specific academic and skills institutions 
Instruct instructors
Create exchange programmes
Promote cultural experiential educational expeditions

Of course this is not an overnight timetable I am putting out here, merely a suggestive grouping of concepts to start off a conversation, selection and addition. You have a lifetime to accomplish these and/or whatever we decide to mandate, but we must start something now to establish a foundation upon which to build.

We are the only country in the Caribbean Basin with the will to create a centre for Caribbean Maritime Heritage studies at this point in time, but in the near future somebody, like Bermuda or Cayman will see the benefits recurrent from such a creation and they will use our guidelines to move ahead with organizing this type of concept. We are perfectly placed geographically with the Windward Passage as our portal and leading edge.

Now, all I have to do is get the research I have into a sort of concise form to distribute to the Committee members of the Committee that hasn’t even met yet.

Mobile Enforcer competes at the 2007 Conch Festival

How Culture Works and HIV/AIDS

Tonight at 9PM on How Culture Works we will continue the second portion of a mini-telethon from Bill Clare’s show, TCI Today on the maxi-telethon to be held this Saturday at the Gustavus Lightbourne Sports Complex from 10AM-8PM.

We will discuss what HIV is and how much of it is here and the likelihood of more infection. Did you know that of the 14,000 new infections every day more than half are between the ages of 15 and 24 years, a whole generation.

2007 Conch Festival - Lick'em is Lick'off

Pirates of the Turks and Caicos Is Getting Sold Out

5th through the 15th seems like a lot of time to get your tickets but that time longer than rope sentiment might not hold true for this popular musical comedy. You had better get your tickets now because they already have sold out performances at Brayton Hall.

“More gags, funnier lines, more elaborate sets, flashier costumes and more song and dance numbers.” is how they are producing Pirates of the Turks and Caicos for you.

Go to www.tcfaf.com for more information. Tickets range from $45 to $5…