91Èȱ¬

In the Bristol episode of Sea Cities, we get a glimpse of work and play around the city's port and harbour.

For the first time in their 600-year history the city’s dock workers, known as the ‘Pill Hobblers’, allow Sea Cities to film them. 

The ‘Hobblers’ are the only people allowed to moor all the ships passing through the commercial Port of Bristol. 

Today there are just 18 men all from the village of Pill, seven miles from Bristol, who carry this out. 

We meet their newest recruit Matthew Stephen, or Boff as he’s known, as he gets to grips with the job’s unsociable hours.

Meanwhile, inspirational Alix De Mauney is getting ready to take on the Bristol Harbourside Triathlon to raise money for research into Parkinson’s disease. 

Both her mum and aunt have the disease, and her father died whilst suffering from it. But first she has to learn how to swim. 

Can she master the front-crawl in time to compete in this gruelling sporting challenge which involves a 750-metre course in the City Docks?

In 1497 the explorer John Cabot set sail from Bristol to Newfoundland in The Matthew. More than five centuries later there’s a replica ship in the historic harbour, and it’s skippered by Rik Wakeham. 

We join him as his young son Billy has a go on the helm on a trip up the Avon Gorge.

A technical problem proves to be a challenge for an £8m cargo of Airbus A300M wings, heading by lorry to the port. 

Electronic tags are supposed to guarantee green traffic lights for the hauliers while they drive a wide and long convoy of vehicles to Avonmouth through the city at night. 

But the tags fail to work, risking both safety and a missed deadline to deliver the wings in time for shipping on the 2am tide.

Take a journey around England's sea cities in this interactive TouchCast video.

Visit the cities of Bristol, Brighton and Sunderland, get a bird's eye aerial view and meet the people who make these bustling ports and seaside cities tick.

Take a trip with the crew of the historic ship, The Matthew, along Bristol's waterways.

Or fly high above the sea cities and get a remarkable bird's eye view of Sunderland, Brighton and Bristol by drone and airplane.