The Derelict

Why are sunken boats so haunting? Big or small, they feel exciting and melancholic. They are reminders of past voyages and forgotten adventures. If you like stories about pirates – and let’s face it, who doesn’t? – they call to mind lost treasure on distant islands.

It’s unlikely the boat in the image above ever carried any pirate plunder, seeing as how it has rested for many years in the Leeds-Liverpool canal. It’s a fragment of the city’s industrial past, close to an old cotton mill and landing stage. All the same, it speaks of other times and now, of altered states.

Damian Mark Whittle