Industrial And Transport

Swale from the water

Raybel Charters is a maritime heritage community company. Our work is based around themes of water, trade, transport, heritage, nature and people. We undertook the restoration of Sailing Barge Raybel on Milton Creek, where she was built in 1920. The restoration won the 2025 National Historic Ships Award for Conservation Excellence. Approaching our second sailing season, this project will test a new idea of ‘themed sails’ as a core part of our community offer. We want to provide these at very low cost, so as not to restrict access for people on lower incomes, and to encourage as much uptake as possible. This will help us establish levels of demand and learn more about the offer we need to be providing long term. The communities we are targeting, close to Milton Creek and on the Isle of Sheppey, are amongst the 10% most deprived in Kent, and nationally.