Island 2000 Trust Blog

As part of our work for Yarmouth Harbour on all things Yarmouth Pier, we were asked to put together a show to celebrate the pier and mark its re-opening. The Not-The-End-Of-The-Pier Show was born. A certain member of staff who shall remain nameless decided it would be a good idea to claim we could light up the pier as part of the show. We calculated we had around £1,000 to illuminate the 609ft long pier. A quick bit of online research turned up various projects to light piers. Saltburn Pier had been lit, but permanently. Cost? £380,000. hmm… New Brighton Pier came in for a more modest $50,000NZ. Nowhere I looked had a budget of less than £25K, even for temporary installations. Oh dear. The Island 2000 team kicked around various ideas, including illuminated balloons, which would have looked beautiful but gave us too many issues of reliability, safety and marine environmental risk. Out of this however was developed a simple, low cost idea.  Post event we had enquiries from people wanting to replicate the idea, and I thought it might prove helpful to others looking to light large structures to blog details on how we did it.

We bought tiny LED packages designed to insert into balloons from Ebay and threaded them together with garden wire in groups of 3. Each group of 3 was then strapped to the enormous handrail with 4 long cable ties linked together at 4ft intervals (or 4 plank widths - it was the easiest way to measure, even if you look rather silly tiptoeing down the pier counting!). The local community helped light the pier, collecting a set of lights each from the bottom of the pier, then strapping them on where we had put out the cable ties. It was still light when we started, and we hadn’t tested the concept on the pier (only testing had been strapping LEDs on the back of my car one rainy night and running halfway down the street to check they were visible) so it was a nerve racking half hour as the sun set. As it got darker though it became clear that the effect was working. Once the lights were in place we deployed the last stage of our lighting, floodlighting the timber roundhouse at the end of the pier. We used a Ring PowerPack - a handy combination of heavy duty battery and inverter in one box, providing 300W of mains power to supply power to 4 low energy site lamps from screwfix.

The approximate cost breakdown was:

600 LEDs - £300
4 work lamps £160
Powerpack £100
Garden wire £3
Cable ties £50
Experimentation along the way £200

The end result was captured beautifully by Julian Winslow. Because of the angle of the shot (aimed at capturing the fireworks - not included in the budget!) you can’t see the lights close in to shore that well, but the ones at the end 600+ft away can be clearly seen.  Click on the picture for a larger version.

Saturday saw the re-opening of Yarmouth Pier after months of work replacing piles and improving the look of the pier. Alan Titchmarsh officially opened the pier, and unveiled a plaque listing donors to the pier appeal. Meanwhile Island 2000 provided all manor of excitement in Pier Square and at the end of the pier, including arts and craft activities, a Gribble hunt, pier wildlife safari and a display of the New Pier Archive including an audio-visual presentation. In the evening an estimated 500+ people returned to light the pier and enjoy a fantastic fireworks display.

Some pictures below courtesy of Cat James

No Ian, Alan Titchmarsh is opening the pier, get down!

The second sexiest man on TV charms the crowds by discussing piles before opening the pier.

and then unveils a plaque, assisted by Richard Gribble, who is very proud of his curtains. A member of Island 2000’s crack security detail hovers to the right, hiding behind a silly grin…

…while another guards the image of Roger Herbert. Don’t let the smile fool you, this man is SAS trained you know.

On Monday, Island 2000’s bio-tech department reported the results of the latest stage of its GM trials. A joint investigation with Yarmouth Harbour Commission is seeking to establish whether splicing DNA extracted from the gribble (Limnoria lignorum) into the human genome can impart the ability to breathe under water.

Samantha Buck, who has been running the trial said “There’s nothing unusual about breathing in an aquatic environment. Lots of species do it. We just need to make some minor adjustments to the way our bodies function. If we can crack this one, it could provide a significant boost to the Island’s tourist industry and would be the perfect accompaniment to the launch of our Isle of Wight snorkelling guide. Although results up to now have been disappointing, we must remember that this study was very small and we cannot be sure that the results are statistically significant.”

The trial recently ran into controversy when three volunteers were admitted to St Mary’s A&E suffering from water on the lung and two others developed an uncharachteristic urge to gnaw wooden objects.

I had the pleasure of meeting Marine Archaeologist Paola Palma today (pictured left, with pier project manager Richard Gribble on the right). No, she wasn’t boring, far from it. The Piddocks were boring. We were inspecting some of the sections of old pile retrieved from Yarmouth Pier. They show damage from Gribbles and Piddocks. Ship Worm are suspects in the whole affair too, though possibly not in this section of pile. Boring though the Piddocks may be, along with the Gribbles they were credited by Paola as intelligent creatures, and that was immediately obvious to me as they have carefully mapped the Isle of Wight in the pile. Clever stuff.

Thanks to the virtual ranger, diligent microscopist Cat and the wonders of YouTube you can now see a genuine Isle of Wight gribble in action, just play the clip below! (if you’re viewing this in a blog reader, you might need to visit our website to see the clip)

In connection with the project to replace Yarmouth Pier’s piles we are creating an archive of materials relating to Yarmouth Pier.

It is hoped that the archive will be a resource that continues to remind people of how special the pier has been and can continue to be in the lives of Yarmouth residents and visitors. The archive will contain photos of the pier through its life and documents concerning the eventful history of the pier. We also want to record memories of the pier from Yarmouth residents, cataloguing the great things that have happened on, along and even under the pier.

We will be running a series of drop in sessions, where you can take a look at some of the material collected so far, and bring your own photos, documents etc. for us to add to the physical archive or we can scan or photograph them to include in the electronic archive.

Some of the most important things for us to collect are peoples memories of the pier. We are particularly keen for people to sit and talk to us about their memories while we record the
conversation. This first hand information will form a really useful part of the archive, and will save some fantastic stories from being lost forever. Don’t think your memories aren’t important
- we are interested in the small things too - a first kiss or memorable fishing trip, your recollection of working on the pier or landing there. We can record you at any of the drop in sessions, or you can come along to one of our special memory events.

The drop in sessions in Yarmouth are scheduled as follows:

Sat 3rd November 11am-3pm - Town Hall
Thursday 29th November 11.30am-2.30pm - Town Hall
Thursday 6th December 11.30am-2.30pm - Town Hall
Thursday 13th December 11.30am-2.30pm - Town Hall
Sat 26th April 12pm-3pm - Town Hall

In addition we will be running some “pier memories” recording sessions. We will be booking a comfortable venue with tea and coffee provided while you sit and chat about your memories of the pier with us, while we record for the archive. If you want to know more, have any concerns about the process (it’s painless - honest) or would like to arrange a time slot, give Martin or Sam a call on 298098 or email yarmouth.pier@island2000.org.uk You can come with a friend or a small group and chat together if you prefer. This sessions are scheduled for the following dates:

Thursday 28th February 12pm-3pm - venue TBC
Tuesday 4th March 6.30pm-8.30pm - venue TBC
Sat 8th March 11.30am-2pm - venue TBC

Finally, if you have any memories of the pier, photographs etc. you can email them to us at yarmouth.pier@island2000.org.uk or send them to:
Not-The-End-Of-The-Pier
Island 2000 Trust
Venture Quays
Castle Street
East Cowes
Isle of Wight
PO32 6EZ

or you can add a comment to this post using the link below.

You may remember Nibbler the Gribble (see earlier March blog) - the extraordinary Pier-eating (that’s pier-eating not pie-eating) crustacean so dear to our hearts and so very relevant to some of our current work in Yarmouth. Well, sadly he got squashed. But, our grief has been lessened by the arrival of the magnificent Nibbler 2 - a harder, tougher and more durable specimen all round. Thanks to Nigel George of Ecclestone George once again for his marvellous modelling skills. Nibbler 2 is off to Yarmouth Primary School to be painted and will live out the rest of his days as an educational icon and inspiration to the young people of the Island. The only thing is that, presumably as a response to the sad fate of its predecessor (see Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of Morphic Resonance for the science behind this phenomenon) Nibbler 2 is now a lot fiercer and has to be kept in a sealed box at the moment. We’re hoping he might mellow.

We’re working at present with the Yarmouth Harbour Commissioners, the Isle of Wight Estuaries project and other groups in the town, to save the pier. It’s been eaten from below by The Gribble! These are truly minute crustaceans (to be more precise they’re marine isopods of the family Limnoriidae) that just chew up driftwood, ships, sea-defences and piers. Yarmouth Pier is the longest wooden pier of its kind left in UK and there’s a great deal of support for a major scheme to repair and renovate later this year if possible. Here’s a really nice poster from Yarmouth Primary School on the subject.

And here’s a rather splendid model of the Gribble itself made for the school by Island sculptor Nigel George. There’s a certain amount of artistic licence gone into this representation ,they don’t really have quite such unsettling grins. This one’s been aptly named Nibbler by the children and we feel is set to become something of an iconic bete-noir for Yarmouth and perhaps for those rescuing Piers across the world, (there’s actually a Gribble species that’s resistant to creosote - somehow you can’t help admiring their determination to eat wood come what may.)
And here’s what the little munchkins really look like:

Hopefully we’ll all be busy with a programme of engineering works and assorted community and educational projects celebrating the Pier and its story for the town and indeed for the Island.