intheboatshed.net

Cooking on board Ben Crawshaw’s Onawind Blue

I don’t know about you, but I find just looking at this photo of Ben’s dinner cooking on board his Light Trow named Onawind Blue sets my senses off. I’m sure I can smell this dish as it cooks.

To quote Ben:

‘According to the great Catalan writer Josep Pla (1897-1981) fish stew as cooked and eaten by fishermen is the most ancient of Mediterranean dishes. Regardless of the religion, the rulers or the nationality of the neighbouring shores fish stew has been a constant.

‘A simple dish with a long history that, marrying fish, onion, garlic, tomato and potato in the pot, produces sustaining, sumptuous yet delicate fare. From this fundamental marriage the Provencal bouillabaisse was born and also the less elaborate suquet of Catalonia, a dish that has attained an almost legendary status (at least on its home shores) and one that usually carries a price tag to match.’

Find out how to cook it – the recipe is simple and you’ll find it at Ben’s excellent weblog The Invisible Workshop.

For more on trows in general and the Light Trow in particular, including boatbuilding plans etc, click here.

Photo by Kathy Mansfield

The harbour at the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival, Portsoy

This year the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival at Portsoy has been extended by two days this year to include a symposium of fascinating speakers from around the world, in addition to the boating programme.

Special seminars on shanty singing, boat design, sail weaving and gansey knitting will take place around the harbour, and the renovated Salmon Bothy opened last year will host exhibitions, demonstrations and entertainments, and there will even be a genealogical research facility for those wishing to explore their roots.

The Bothy, which opened at last year’s festival, is now a fully fledged museum of Portsoy’s history and the salmon fishery.

The programme of music, song and dance will feature internationally renowned shanty expert and singer Bob Walser. Bob is a hugely experienced performer, speaker and tutor, and is currently researching sea shanties and sailors’ songs as part of an international team preparing a heavyweight critical edition of the James Madison Carpenter folklore collection, funded by the British Academy and the National Endowment for the Humanities (USA) with the cooperation of the Library of Congress, the American Folklore Society and the Elphinstone Institute at the University of Aberdeen.

Click on this earlier intheboatshed.net post on James Madison Carpenter to hear some sailor’s voices from the past.

In fact, the more I look at the various bits of information available, the more I realise that Bob is just one of a stellar collection of speakers at Portsoy this year. Son of Aberdeen and now resident in the US, singer, knitter and weaver Noman Kennedy will demonstrate and perform.

Singer-demonstrators Bjorn Lunde and Johanne Tvedten from Norway will teach and demonstrate boatbuilding skills to children, while Fair Isle boatbuilder Ian Best will speak on the origins of Norwegian and Scottish traditional boat building.

Aberdeen Maritime Museum keeper John Edwards will discuss the great clipper ship traditions of the North East, while world-renowned yacht designer Nigel Irens will describe current and future development in boat design.

Wooden Boat magazine editor Matt Murphy will speak on the great classic yacht designs and small boat design legend Iain Oughtred will talk about the influences that create the best boat designs.

Read all about it at the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival website.

Ice yachting in Holland

Dominic von Stösser has emailed to point out another intriguing YouTube clip, this time showing ice yachting in Holland:

‘Hi Gavin!

‘Seems USians aren’t the only ones sailing on ‘hard water’ — I found a YouTube clip of ice sailing in Holland:

‘http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3FM1gTTmws

I’t looks like they’ve just strapped their gaff-rigged ’soft water’ skiffs onto runners!

‘I can’t help but wonder what a Bolger Light Schooner would be like on ice…

‘Cheers -

‘Dominic’

Many thanks Dominic! I doubt the boat-shaped ice yacht fuselages could possibly sail with those huge rigs, but it’s fun to imagine.

Dominic’s email piqued my interest in what else might be around on YouTube, and searching revealed this sequence, which includes graphic evidence of what happens when one of these ice yachts falls through the ice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvpNIkFtMEE

Accident on the ice

PS Jaap in Holland has made some interesting comments – see the comments link below – and included some splendid links. If you’ve interestede in ice sailing in particular, you definitely should not miss this one in particular: http://www.ijsschuiten.nl/ and http://www.icesailing.nl/robbenvloot.html – amazingly, they’ve got a ice yacht that goes back to the 1830s.

Now, I have a historical question: was it the Dutch who taught New Yorkers to sail on ice?