Consulting The Coracle

In a quest to learn more about Britain’s traditional boats, Mary-Ann Ochota attempts to master an ancient craft on a wild Welsh river

- Mary-Ann

Below the village of Cilgerran in Pembrokeshire, the River Teifi surges noiselessly through a steep, tree-covered valley. It’s a dark night, the moon is yet to rise and the thick sky blankets us. “Look at that,” Mark Dellar murmurs, at the haze forming above the black water. “The old men used to call that ‘Salmon Mist’. It’s a good sign, it means the fish might be running.”

I flick my headtorch on, step gingerly into my coracle, and we push off from the bank into the velvet night. Mark is a Teifi netsman, entitled to fish the river for salmon and sea trout (known as sewin), using handmade nets trawled between two coracles. It’s the way it has been done for generations. Tonight, I’m joining him as a helper, or ‘gwas’, Welsh for ‘servant’.

With the rough net in one hand and a smooth wooden paddle in the other, floating on a dark river waiting for the tug of a fish, I can’t help thinking that I could have travelled in time and wouldn’t know it.

Along with timber log boats, the coracle – a small, rounded craft made from a wooden or wickerwork frame covered with animal hide – is the most ancient type of boat in human history. It’s certainly played a role in Britain since the Bronze Age, around 2,500BC, and probably earlier.

Nowadays, most coraclers have swapped animal hides for stretched fabric waterproofed with tar, or the 21st-century innovation, pond-liner fabric. The coracle I’m in is pretty traditional – a willow lath frame with a twisted hazel rim, and a calico ‘hull’ stretched taut and hardened with bitumen paint.

TRICKY TECHNIQUE

Earlier that day, Mark had coached me in the art of coracling. The boat may be simple, but mastering the manoeuvring is fiendish.