This film was made by Walter Cass of Selby and is part of a collection of home movies which predominantly focus on his family, local events, and the surrounding community.  Test Film is the first film made by Cass who worked as a shipbuilder in Selby and contains various shots of factories and shipyards on the River Ouse. A major feature of the film is Cochrane’s shipyard, a mainstay of Selby’s riverside. Cochrane’s had been around since 1884, moving to Selby in 1898 and developing a...

This film was made by Walter Cass of Selby and is part of a collection of home movies which predominantly focus on his family, local events, and the surrounding community.  Test Film is the first film made by Cass who worked as a shipbuilder in Selby and contains various shots of factories and shipyards on the River Ouse.

A major feature of the film is Cochrane’s shipyard, a mainstay of Selby’s riverside. Cochrane’s had been around since 1884, moving to Selby in 1898 and developing a reputation as a quality builder of trawlers and coasters.  During the First World War, production increased as the shipbuilders made trawlers for the Admiralty, and in the inter wars years the shipyards saw steady growth as they continued to make trawlers. The shipyard arguably came into its own during the Second World War, again producing ships for the Admiralty, but also continued filling private orders for trawlers and even managed to fulfil a tender for a lighthouse. In the immediate post-war years, the company remained relatively successful, with construction on various fishing vessels, ferries and coasters meaning the yard gave employment to around 400 skilled workers. The 1960s however brought new challenges and is seen by many as the start of the shipyards decline, as control of the yard switched from the Cochrane family to the Ross Group in 1965 who then sold it to the Drypool group in 1969. Whilst ship production continued to expand, in the 1990s the group which owned the shipyard at the time (Howard Smith Group) decided it did not want be a part of shipbuilding, closing the yard in 1992. To this day the shipyard is still derelict.

Another feature of the film is the Ross Valiant. Seen in the film moored by the factory side, the light-blue and red trawler was made at the aforementioned Cochrane shipyard. The Ross Valiant features far more prominently in another of the YFA’s films, Boxer at Sea (Trawler Captain), in which the film follows the work of the Trawler’s captain.

The ship was built in 1963 weighing around 1156 tonnes; the Ross Valiant like a lot of Cochrane ships was originally built for Ross Freezer Trawlers Ltd of Grimsby, hence the name. In 1975 however the ship was sold to a Faroese captain who used the ship to fish for shrimp off the coast of Greenland. Over the years the Ross Valiant has changed its name many times, being known as ‘’Avoq’’ and ‘’Nerpilik’’, most recently however it is known as ‘Zalif Korva’ and sails under the Russian flag.

Of course, Selby enjoys a long history with shipbuilding, with much of its wealth coming from the River Ouse. Ships built in Selby, like the Ross Valiant, had to be launched rather unorthodoxly, that being sideways into the river, rather than the traditional bow or stern first route. These ship launches were often large events, with crowds gathering round to see the boat being dropped into the river.

Another ship launched in this manner was the Ross Tiger, again made by Cochrane & Sons, the Tiger was a successful fishing trawler, but as of 1992, the ship has been a museum ship at National Fishing Heritage Centre in Grimsby, an important reminder of the role fishing played in the city’s history. Arguably one of the most famous children of Selby’s shipbuilders is the Rainbow Warrior II, the former flagship of Greenpeace.  The Rainbow Warrior took part in several activist campaigns over the course of her career, from blocking Russian whaling fleets, protesting French nuclear testing and giving humanitarian relief to survivors of the Indian tsunami in 2004 and most recently, monitoring radiation levels off the coast of Japan following the Fukushima incident. The ship was recently refitted and decommissioned by Greenpeace, giving it to a Bangladeshi NGO who has turned it into a hospital ship. The captain, Mick Finken said this of his ship before it was refitted, "This ship has stood as an icon of hope over pessimism and as an emblem of action over complacency,".  Cochrane’s ships evidently stand as an icon of Selby’s ship building heritage.

References

Stern Trawlers, Vessel Details

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Cochrane_and_Sons

Selby Civic Society, Cochrane

Syed Zayn Al-Mahmood, Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior begins refit as Bangladesh hospital ship