About Raybel Charters
Raybel Charters is a maritime heritage community company. Their work is based around the themes of water, trade, transport, nature, heritage and people. They aim to work collaboratively, inclusively and creatively, on a global and a local scale. Their home is the Thames estuary, from central London to the coast of Kent, but from here they extend out, from estuary to ocean, from creek to canal.
Conserving Raybel
Raybel Charters was originally formed in 2018 with the single aim of conserving the 100-year-old Thames Sailing Barge, Raybel. They received funding for the restoration in 2019 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Swale Borough Council, Kent County Council, the Transport Trust and a host of individual crowdfund supporters. Further funding, from the Heritage Fund, Swires Trust, Queenborough Fisheries Trust and Kent Community Fund was secured. The work has taken place at Lloyd’s Wharf, Milton Creek, Sittingbourne, just a few hundred yards from where Raybel was built and launched in 1920, and is nearing completion. As of March 2025, the final stages of re-rigging are taking place, and a basic internal fit out is underway. The expectation is that Raybel will return to sailing later in 2025.
Training, skills and creativity
As part of the restoration, Raybel Charters has provided shipwright training, work experience and hands-on volunteering with the barge work. They regularly run a diverse range of community arts and heritage events and activities. They host schools and college visits for all age groups and are always keen to hear from training providers who would like to link with them.
Wharfside regeneration
At Lloyd’s Wharf, Raybel Charters are bringing together local residents, artists, designers and architects to create a new cultural heritage hub for Sittingbourne. They have employed a community gardener and an artist-in-residence, and host monthly Drop In Days. Part of Raybel’s future purpose, once the conservation work is completed, will be as a new cultural venue for Sittingbourne. They have set up a Citizen Science project, regularly collecting data about the water quality of Milton Creek, with the long-term aim of initiating a programme of ecological restoration.
Sail Cargo
On the global scale, Raybel Charters are part of a cross-ocean network, bringing back the ethos and wonder of transporting cargo by the power of wind and tide alone. They import produce to London and Kent, from small-scale community producers and family farms in Colombia, the Caribbean, Portugal and France, and market these as Sail Cargo London and Kent. Once restored, Raybel will be brought into this growing sail shipping network, bringing goods from Ramsgate into London and calling at ports all along the Thames estuary.
LATEST NEWS
January 2025 Raybel Charters CIC received a grant from Heritage Crafts to help save endangered crafts Full story
October 2024 Raybel Charters has published their report 'A Sail Cargo Network for London and the Thames Estuary' Full story
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