intheboatshed.net

And it’s here:
http://intheboatshed.net/phpbb/ 

Have fun, boat nuts…

Gav

Here are some hugely informative chapters from an old book by James Hornell describing the curraghs of Ireland. It’s a most impressive piece of work, and covers rowing and sailing curraghs, coracles and a kind of long paddling curragh variant I wasn’t previously aware of. If you want to get into curragh building, this book must represent the very large majority of what you’ll need to know.

I’d love to hear from curragh and coracle builders and to be able to publish photos reports and the rest, by the way - if this is you please let me know at gmatkin@gmail.com.

http://www.thisbetterworld.org/…/British_Coracles_and_Irish_Curraghs.pdf

This link is taken from the curragh enthusiasts’ page:

http://www.thisbetterworld.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Currachs/WebHome

Check the extract from J M Synge linked near the top of the homepage. It’s the kind of thing that needs to be read out loud with all the family gathered around.

Finally, there are some great contemporary curragh photos at http://www.westclarecurrachs.com/

The name says it all, really. Rallies, races and socials for gaff rig enthusiasts, and jolly good stuff too. Their site has some great photos, as you might expect, and some of the best are on their photo competition page. There’s also a calendar of events for 2007.
http://www.oldgaffersassociation.org

The nice folks of the Classic Motor Boat Association suggested I should link to the Motorboat Museum near Basildon:
http://www.motorboatmuseum.org.uk

There are some stunning exhibits (see El Zonco below), but as a father of kids of ten and twelve, I must say that judging by the website one of the nicest things about the museum is that its staff seem to have given a lot of thought to entertaining children who visit.