An apprentice at Banbury’s historic Tooley’s Boatyard has become one of the first people in the country to qualify as a heritage engineering marine technician, marking a nationally significant milestone in the safeguarding of endangered marine and inland waterways skills.
JACOB Beak has successfully completed the Level 3 Heritage Engineering Marine Technician apprenticeship, a new qualification created to address the critical loss of traditional boatbuilding, dockyard, and marine engineering skills.
His achievement places him among the very first cohort of just three apprentices nationally to complete the qualification and represents one of the earliest examples of the full heritage skills pathway being delivered successfully within a live working boatyard rather than a project or simulated training environment.
Jacob’s training at Tooley’s Boatyard has spanned five years in total, including about two years focused specifically on the heritage qualification. He has trained across the full operational range of an historic inland waterways dockyard, including wooden and steel boat repair, dock operation, marine and mechanical engineering, heritage-aware working practices, and professional responsibility within an active industrial site. In 2024, he was a finalist in the British Marine’s Apprentice of the Year.
Unlike narrow or single-skill training routes, the apprenticeship reflects the traditional ‘whole yard’ approach through which boatyard skills have historically been passed down.
Today, Jacob works across the full operational life of vessels within Tooley’s historic dry dock. His role includes docking boats, managing vessels through repair programmes, and carrying out mechanical, electrical, and traditional woodwork repairs. He has also recently become chief instructor at Tooley’s RYA Boat Handling School, teaching practical boating and safety skills.
He said: “I’ve learned an incredible amount – and I reckon I still have double that to learn in the future!”
Traditional wooden boatbuilding and repair are currently listed as endangered crafts within national heritage frameworks, and specialist inland waterways dockyards are widely recognised as being at risk of skills loss. Tooley’s Boatyard remains a fully operational historic dockyard rather than just a museum or training centre, making the successful transmission of skills both more demanding and more significant.
As one of the first completions of a new national heritage engineering qualification, Jacob’s apprenticeship provides a practical and replicable model for how endangered craft skills can be sustained through real employment, training, and working heritage environments.
Matthew Armitage, manager of Tooley’s Boatyard since 2002, said: “We are immensely proud of Jacob’s achievement. This qualification recognises not just technical competence, but also the depth of understanding required to work responsibly within a historic industrial site. Seeing someone complete this pathway and take on a leadership role within the boatyard is exactly what safeguarding heritage skills should look like in practice.”
Richard Guard, chair of Tooley’s Boatyard Trust, the charity which cares for and promotes the heritage of the yard, added: “It’s been an amazing pleasure and a thrill to see Jacobs growing confidence and skill over the period of his course. His graduation really just confirms what we have always known.
“Jacob is a wonderful young fellow with a great future in traditional boat building which we hope to utilise over the coming years here at Tooley’s.”
Jacob is joined by fellow apprentices Dan Brown and Dylan Watson in this achievement.
