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HBBR’s raiders on the Thames

I’m grateful to UK Home Built Boat Rally stalwart and top class lapstrake boatbuilder Chris Perkins for sending me these photos of fellow members on their raid, making their way from Lechlade to Beale Park for the Beale Park Thames Boat Show. The shots include one of Chris Partridge of Rowing for Pleasure – see if you can spot him – and one of Chris Waite in his excellent self-designed rowing skiff Octavia. See this post for more on Octavia.

The boats are all home-made (of course!) and the river is not a prime sailing area for small boats (it’s better with a tall rig), so they bravely paddled and rowed all the way. A distance of 60 miles is a significant trip if you’re not an athlete, so hats off to them, I say.

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Nick Paull’s Hazy Days, winner of the ‘most professional’ category of the 2009 Water Craft boatbuilding competition. It was built to Steve Killing’s Prospector Canadian canoe. Click on the photos for much larger images

Mike Wooldridge’s Puddle Duck, victor in the ‘home made boat most likely to encourage beginners’ category’. It was built to the Selway Fisher Drake sharpie plans

Chris Waite’s ingenious and effective home designed rowing skiff Octavia, winner of the ‘most innovative home made boat’ section

This year’s Water Craft magazine amateur boatbuilding competition at the Beale Park Thames Boat Show was better than ever, despite the rain. Editor Pete Greenfield’s idea of opening up the competition by offering three categories of home made boats – most professional-looking, most likely to encourage beginners and most innovative – was clearly a big hit.

Hazy Days is undeniably very smart and won a tightly contested section, but I very much enjoyed seeing Puddle Duck, which chimed nicely with my view that people should be encouraged to feel that they can build small, simple and low cost boats that they can be proud of and which are effective on the water.

However, my favourite this year was Chris’s Octavia, which must count as one of the cleverest designs I’ve seen in a long time. Yes, those scraps of ply in the plastic bag are all that was left from the three sheets of plywood he used to make the boat, but that’s only the half of it – when Chris wants to transport it, the boat divides in two to fit in the back of his car, and when reassembled the undersides of the riggers include a system of pegs that neatly hold the boat together.

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A traditional ‘Welsh woman’ style wherry burgee on a shed at Barton Turf
catches the evening sun. Click on the images for larger shots

HBBR member Wayne Oliver’s boat built to Conrad Natzio’s Oystercatcher
design and fitted with deadeyes, shrouds and other entertaining features

Chris Perkins perfect little Stangarra built to Iain Oughtred’s Stickleback plans
was deservedly very popular – here it is paddled by Ewan Ryan-Atkin and
HBBR member Peter Nobes

Tim O’Connor’s Iain Oughtred designed Acorn skiff named Ardilla

Mark Harvey sails his father’s Goat Island skiff built to plans from Michael Storer

Nearly two weeks ago now we finally met the Home Built Boat Rally folks at their annual meet at the Barton Turf Adventure Centre. The images above are just a small selection of photos – so I’m sorry if anyone’s upset at being left out!

I’ll say a little more about the Barton Centre in a moment, but first I’d like to talk about the HBBR and its members. I’ve been a member of its Yahoo Group and publicised its website and events almost since Alec Jordan of Jordan Boats first floated the idea, but life’s usual complications have prevented us from attending any of their events.

Having met the HBBR group, I’m glad to be able to report that in real life they turn out to be a jolly bunch whose members cover the spectrum that ranges from boating enthusiasts who happen to have made their own boat at one end to perfectionist boatbuilding enthusiasts who are only now getting into boating – or maybe never will. The HBBR is a broad church, but it’s also one that has fun.

Julie and I rolled up together with my two teenagers Ella and Ewan, played with the boats and took photos – and my kids enjoyed themselves so much that they want to attend again next year, even though teens are usually allergic to any group  made up mainly of blokes of their father’s age.

As I write many of the Home Built Boat Rally folks are currently making their way from Lechlade in Oxfordshire down to Pangbourne for the Beale Park Thames Boat Show. I hope the weather holds for them, and that their nights are reasonably comfortable!

On the Barton Turf Adventure Centre, I’d like to say that Ella and Ewan had a superb week’s sailing tuition on Barton Broad while we stayed in our caravan and tents on the site, and Julie and I alternately sailed and went sight-seeing. The fact that we could camp made the cost of the course affordable, and the Fishwick family who largely run the place couldn’t have been more kind and helpful during our stay.

As well as sailing tuition, the Barton Centre caters for groups involved in boating, ecology and nature study and it’s difficult to imagine a better place for these activities. It’s certainly an excellent base for small boat sailing. Click here to get to the BTAC website.

Two happy teens: Ewan and Ella Ryan Atkin at the end of a busy
week’s sailing tuition at Barton Turf Adventure Centre

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