If I was having coffee with you this week, I would tell you that I have ticked another item off my Bristol bucket list. Bill and I went for a trip round Bristol harbour aboard the Mathew. The sailing ship is a replica of the boat that John Cabot sailed from Bristol to Newfoundland in 1497. She is permanently based in Bristol harbour between the Great Britain and M shed.

The original Mathew was a commercial trading ship before and after 1497. We know suprisingly little about her. We do not know where she was built. She was described as having a crew 0f 20 and carrying 50 tuns meaning 50 barrels of wine. She was probably a caravel, a type of ship popular for its speed and maneuverability. It is thought that Cabot renamed her Mathew after his wife Matteo.

The first voyage to Newfoundland

The Vikings from Scandanavia probably were the first Europeans to discover North America and fish for cod. By the late 1400’s rumours of a land to the west. had reached England. John Cabot, who was a Venetian, managed to convince Henry VII to help him finance a voyage from Bristol to find new lands and perhaps a route to the east. He set sail in the Mathew with a crew of 18 on the 2nd of May 1497. On 24th June 1497 he landed in North America probably in Newfoundland. He was the first named European to land on the American mainland. After a superb feat of navigation, he returned to Bristol on the 6th of August.

His voyage caused a lot of excitement and in 1498 he set out on another voyage this time with five ships. Unhappily no-one knows what hapened to this expedition. His son Sebastian made his own voyage to Newfoundland.

There has been a lot of controversy in Bristol recently about buildings named after slave traders like Edward Colston. But we still need local heroes and are justly proud of John Cabot. Four of my children attended John Cabot academy. The Cabot tower photo) was built to mark the 400th anniversary of his voyage. It is a much loved landmark overlooking the harbour on Brandon Hill.

The modern Mathew

The Mathew we cruised in is a modern reconstruction. She was built at Redcliffe Quay in Bristol between 1994 and 1996 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Cabot’s voyage. She was designed by Colin Mudie a naval architect who also managed the restoration of the Mary Rose. There were no plans or drawings of the original ship, so instead he used information from shipwrecks and medieval paintings to help him.

Unlike the original ship she has luxuries like a ship’s radio and an engine. She also has to have a lifeboat and other safety features.

The second Voyage to Newfoundland

500 years later to the day, on 2nd May 1997, the Mathew set sail for Newfoundland. On 2nd June she made landfall in Bonavista where she was welcomed by Queen Elizabeth II. When you are on the boat it is difficult to imagine how she battled 50-foot waves.

The Mathew has also crossed the English Channel to attend tall ship festivals in France and has been used in films and television programmes. One of the volunteer crew on our boat trip told us that she crossed the channel on board the Mathew.

A second replica Mathew was built in Newfoundland and forms part of a John Cabot display in Bonavista.

Booking a trip

The Mathew trust is staffed by volunteers who run a program of trips including the very popular cruise down the Avon to Pill which passes under Clifton suspension bridge and boat trips which include fish and chips and sea shanties. They can be booked through their website.

https://matthew.co.uk/book-tickets

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