intheboatshed.net

From the top: three photos of the 2004 Whitstable Smack and Barge Race,
the rest are from 2008. Smacks Gamecock and Emeline appear in
several photos, as do the barges Greta and Repertor

Neil Baker takes many photos for use in promoting Whitstable, and he has kindly sent us a bundle of excellent shots from the town’s Smack and Barge Race for our entertainment.

To see more please go to his site http://www.inct5.co.uk/. Here are 25 from this year’s Whitstable Smack and Barge Race held on the 2nd August, and here are a further 17 from the 2004 event.

Many thanks Neil! Any time you have more photos of old-style boating and maritime subjects to share, please get in touch.

One thing that intrigues me is that Gamecock is well reefed down, while most of the rest of the boats have most if not all of their sails up. Does anyone know why? Was she light on ballast, perhaps to reduce stresses?

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The WBTA has decided to find out about the kinds of people who buy and own traditional boats, where they  go and where they get their information - and it has engaged an independent market research firm to run a survey.

I was very pleased to be asked to put up this link to the short survey questionnaire, as it’s potentially an excellent step, and hopefully will elicit some really useful answers.

I’d be most grateful if as many of you as possible fill it in - it really won’t take long, you might win one of Kathy Mansfield’s very nice calendars, and you will be contributing to keeping wooden boatbuilders afloat business-wise during the hard times to come.

Yes - you heard right. There are PRIZES to be won!

It would be an added bonus if you could also please find somewhere to say that you came from intheboatshed.net - there’s at least one little window you can use to convey this essential piece of information, and I’m sure we’d all like to see the WBTA making more use of intheboatshed.net’s ability to communicate with the big wide world.

Finally please pass this on to your friends - all you have to do is to email them the link for this site (http://intheboatshed.net of course!), as I’ll leave this post at the top of the pile for a few days.

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Gamecock, built at Collar’s boatyard, Whitstable, in 1907. I took these
photos in Faversham Creek last weekend from the decks of Dorma, a
1923 Hillyard - thanks for the trip Steve!

I was charmed this week to find the story of Collar’s boatyard told by the Simply Whitstable website.

The yard remained for many years in he same family, and among their famous smacks are Rose and Ada, Gamecock and Emeline.

Simply Whitstable also has sections on sailing barges and on the town’s fishing industry, including material about the famous local oyster beds, spratting, whelking, various rescues - and tales of old boats.

For more on smacks generally, see the Sailing Smacks website and the Wikipedia.

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