Steam Tug Cervia, Turner Contemporary 3 megavisitors, local photos, iterativus

As far as I can see iterativus means basically doing it over and over again, either that or it's a contemporary art term that I don't understand. 

As I guess most readers know this is the tug that is now in Ramsgate Harbour that you can take a tour of in the summer months. I came across this picture of her at work in Gravesend.

Cervia has a bit of a chequered history, which includes turning turtle and drowning the crew so an interesting boat which I have blogged about on numerous occasions, here is the link to some of my old posts about her  http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Cervia%20Steam%20Tug

Well the chequered history just goes on, she has been taking on water this week, which a euphemism for leaking badly.

Basically she is still pretty solid most of the plates are as thick as they were at the previous survey which was about ten years ago.

So what are the options for her. Main technical snags in red.

1 Breaking her up where she is and selling the parts.

2 Putting her in an enlarged and walled off dry dock. Dock leaks badly and may collapse completely if enlarged  

3 Keep on patching her up with cement Ongoing issues and poor reliability 

4 Put her on No1 slipway and weld in replacement plates.

5 Put her on No1 slipway and restore here hull completely using the original riveting method. Very noisy   

6 Lifting her out of the water and putting her outside the maritime museum. TDC

7 Towing her off to somewhere else. Not seaworthy enough

Here she is on the slipway in 1959

I guess the main problem here is that a good council would manage Ramsgate's attractions, tunnels, harbour, seafront, etc. Being governed by a county council that has pumped so much into Margate and a district council based there, well it makes things difficult for us.

This weekend, Turner Contemporary welcomed its 3 millionth visit since opening in 2011.

The running costs on the rates during that time are probably in the £9m ballpark, i.e. money from KCC that is and in all honesty in terms of what they could have spent the money on to regenerate Margate, I don't think they could have done much better. Combined with the argument that if it hadn't been built in Margate it would have been in one of the other Kent towns and would have still cost us as much.

Like so much of this sort of thing, what makes sense is not the same as what everyone agrees with.  

I guess for me with this blog Pageviews since 2010 at 3,422,425 it says, then I can partly follow this So about 8 years and open say 300 days a year 2,400 days that would be 1,250 visitors a day, well over 100 per hour, it’s a lot of people.

Statistics are difficult though, I reckon I visit Margate about 40 time a year and during the day perhaps one or two visits to the cafe there, three or four visits to the loos there, a couple of visits to the lockers there (I manage book and other shopping with a shopping trolly which fits in one of the lockers there) and I think I visit the exhibitions in the gallery there about 20 times a year.

The other major Kent tourist attraction I visit regularly is Canterbury Cathedral, this gets 900,000 visits a year a figure I find credible. I sometimes paint in the cathedral this link takes you to pictures showing you what I mean so you see I spend quite a lot of time in there. Shoals of 50 or 100 tourists drift by contributing to the statistics.    

In their press release about 3,000,000 visitors the gallery says

"As one of the UK’s leading examples of cultural regeneration, the gallery has injected over £68million into the Kent economy and led to the opening of over 150 businesses in Margate. Drawing audiences from Kent, London and beyond, thousands of UK and international tourists have visited Thanet as a direct result of the gallery with 35% of visitors stating that they had visited Margate specifically to go to Turner Contemporary in summer 2018. The draw of the gallery as the main motivation is 4% more than the average of other art galleries nationally.

Turner Contemporary has generated over £30million worth of press coverage to date, with a reach of over 1 billion people. This year, features in the New York Times, Lonely Planet, London Evening Standard and Guardian highlighted Margate’s attraction as a weekend destination for visitors with Forbes stressing its “impressive revival” and “transformation”. The gallery’s appeal to audiences from further afield has had an impact on the visitor economy and contributed to a rise in overnight stays, with 66% of these staying in paid for accommodation in summer 2018. Train travel to Margate has increased by 61% since 2011 and this year, the gallery were proud finalists in the Kent Tourism Awards.

At the heart of Turner Contemporary’s activity is its aim to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to connect with world-class art; during the gallery’s summer exhibition this year, Animals & Us, 10% of visitors had never visited a gallery before in their lives.  Offering learning opportunities is a vital element of the gallery’s work. For example, YAASS: Empowered, an exhibition featuring thought provoking artworks, created by young people across thirteen special schools in East Kent is currently on display in the gallery’s Clore Learning Studio. The impact of this activity is significant; research undertaken by Canterbury Christ Church University found that for every £1 invested in the gallery’s formal education programme, £5.15 net social value is created for individuals involved.  

This Christmas, the gallery have brought Joanne Tatham and Tom O'Sullivan's bold and alternative Christmas tree installation, DOES THE ITERATIVE FIT, which was previously displayed in London’s Granary Square, to their terrace. The shop is stocking unique products from local artists, suppliers and makers, with every purchase supporting the gallery’s work as well as the local creative community. As Turner Prize 2019 approaches, they will use this high profile moment to inspire more visits to the local area during autumn, further enhancing the visitor economy outside of the traditional summer tourist season and developing the region’s reputation nationally and internationally."

What this all means however is wosisname to me.

Next the old photos and I have been a bit naughty here and put in a couple which are Kent but not Thanet

 A few out and about photos today 

For the dedicated followers here is the link to the photos of the books we put out in the bookshop today.