The Blake Museum chose a painting of the last ship built in Bridgwater, The Irene. It offered lots of opportunity to look at local industries, maritime history, the physics of shipbuilding and sailing, oral history, archive film footage and social history links.

The schools that took part in the project explored the painting in different ways. One class worked on a project based around water and another a local history project on the importance of the port. Work included a boat design and launch, an assembly to parents and a sailing day with knots, rigging and painting. The children also visited the docks, a local Brick and Tile Museum and the local sea cadet centre.

A local arts centre created a performance piece based on the picture of The Irene with a youth theatre. The group developed a story about the life of a family who may have worked on a boat such as The Irene.

The museum created a website of resources to accompany this project which can be found here.