Funeral for gig revivalist Bird

Advertisement

Gig rowers used paddles to form a guard of honour

A funeral has been held for Cornish boat builder Ralph Bird, who helped start a revival in pilot gig racing in the south-west of England.

Mr Bird, 67, died on 2 November at his home in Devoran after a long illness.

About 800 people attended a service at Truro Cathedral. His coffin, draped in the St Piran's flag, was brought on a gig he built, the William Peters.

Gig rowers used paddles to form a guard of honour. He was later laid to rest at Penmount Crematorium.

He was a son of Cornwall, he was a legend of the 21st Century Bruce Bellingham, Devoran Gig Club

Mr Bird built a total of 29 gigs during a 21-year period and he is credited with playing a key role in making gig racing a popular sport.

Gigs were originally built at the end of the 18th Century in Cornwall to take harbour pilots out to sailing ships.

They were also used as tenders to ferry crews and cargo to and from vessels which were too big to moor in harbours.

Although gig racing was taking place in Newquay and in the Isles of Scilly, it was a race on the River Fal in 1981 organised by Mr Bird and a group of friends which started the current revival.

Now more than 130 gigs race every weekend throughout the summer and thousands of people are involved.

The coffin was brought to the cathedral on the gig William Peters

The life-long boat builder - and life member of the Cornish Pilot Gig Association - had a sign in his workshop saying: "If God wanted fibreglass boats, there would be fibreglass trees".

Although the sign was regarded as a joke, friends said it showed how passionate and uncompromising he was about working on boats.

He constructed his first gig, Buller, at his workshop in Devoran in 1986.

He completed his last vessel, which was named after him by its Welsh owners, in 2007 before retiring.

Bruce Bellingham from Devoran Gig Club said the cathedral service was a proper and fitting way to say goodbye.

He said: "I don't think there would have been any other way.

"He was a son of Cornwall, he was a legend of the 21st Century, so it was entirely appropriate that we celebrated his life here."