Warm welcome aboard pilot cutter Amelie Rose with free tours for Buckler’s Hard visitors

July 15, 2024

Step on board the beautiful pilot cutter Amelie Rose for a tour and chat with her crew as part of your visit to Buckler’s Hard on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st July.
See the 2009 replica in all her newly refurbished glory, alongside her home berth at the bottom of the High Street in the historic maritime village.

Find out more about the unique boat, with a personal invitation from her skipper owner Nicola Beck. As many as 46 pilot cutters worked out of Scilly in the 19th century but all were broken up within a century. Boatbuilder Luke Powell renewed this line of powerful and sturdy cutters with their trademark lute sterns and heavy scantlings.

Nicola commissioned the Amelie Rose and has been sailing her as a charter boat ever since. During this time, the vessel has starred in TV’s The Hungry Sailors as Dick Strawbridge and his son James completed a ‘Clean Seas Odyssey’ to combat plastic pollution, as well as featuring in the recent BBC adaptation of Great Expectations with filming at Buckler’s Hard.

Buckler’s Hard was the boatyard of Henry and then his son Balthazar Adams, who built warships for the Royal Navy, then revenue cutters at the turn of the 19th century – which would have been very similar in design to the Amelie Rose.

The Amelie Rose will be open for Buckler’s Hard visitors to step on board for free tours, from 1-3pm on July 20 – 21.

The pilot cutter is accessible via a jetty with a ramp and due to the tides, the ramp will be less steep earlier in the sessions. Amelie Rose is sadly not wheelchair accessible and you will need some mobility to climb aboard and go below deck – the ability to climb a one-metre ladder is required to get on board, with a two-metre ladder to get below deck. The crew will be on hand to lend assistance, if needed.

As the Amelie Rose will not be sailing, enjoy a boat trip on the River Cruise running daily from 11am – 4.30pm from the same pontoon. Tickets can be bought on board. For details and prices, click here.

Visitors can now enter Buckler’s Hard village for free and enjoy free access to the original Shipwright’s Cottage and HMS Agamemnon – Navigating the Legend in the Shipwrights Workshop.

New paintings have also been added to the free exhibition The Art of Buckler’s Hard, with artworks from the Montagu family collection and Landscape Artist of the Year semi-finalists’ pictures of Buckler’s Hard in the Shipyard Office.

More artworks can be seen around the rest of the village, including St Mary’s Chapel where Belinda, Lady Montagu’s altar frontal features the Tree of Life which represents the New Forest oaks used for shipbuilding at Buckler’s Hard.

With an admission ticket to Buckler’s Hard Museum, discover more about the maritime history of the village and follow residents’ stories in the exhibition of village life.

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