February 2007 – intheboatshed.net

A 12ft boat in a car boot

This interesting and unusual little boat caught my eye at the Newson’s website. A label says it’s a 12-ft flat bottomed canoe, though I imagine our American cousins would call it a pirogue.

It’s not exactly traditional, but it has been around for quite a while: an old licence plate suggests it was last used on the Thames in 1962. Now cleaned up and re-varnished its ready to be used again.

Can anyone say whether the builders are still around, and has anyone else got anything like it?

See the Packboat at Newson’s website here; also, while you’re there take a peek at the Maurice Griffiths Golden Hind they’ve begun to offer after buying the moulds last year here.

Search at Intheboatshed.net

Fed up with searching using Google, only to have to deal with a huge, messy list of irrelevant results?

So am I. To solve this problem I’ve set up a customised search facility aimed at traditional boats, boatbuilding and restoration, primarily with a UK emphasis.

Try it out now! It’s only at the very beginning at the moment, but I think it’s already producing interesting results. For example, try searching on the term ‘schooner’ using the standard Google search engine, and then try the same search here:

Over the months, I’m planning to develop it by adding each relevant web address I come across, and by excluding irrelevant pages.

And if you’d like to add sites, or help eliminate the rubbish, please either let me know or volunteer via the homepage.

Email me at gmatkin@gmail.com .

Weblogs about traditional boats, restoration and boatbuilding

Tonight, I thought I should take a cue from Chine bLog and others, and write a little about some of the other weblogs that I link to in one of the panels on the right-hand side of intheboatshed.net.

I’m going to do this partly out of politeness, as some of them have kindly linked to these pages, and I’m always grateful for any help I get in preventing my weblog sink into WWW anonymity. More than that, however, I’m hoping to show you some material of genuine interest out there.