intheboatshed.net

Probable mezzotint postcard showing Abbotsford on the Tweed

Jeff Cole has sent us this image of an old postcard of Abbotsford on the River Tweed. Here’s what he says about it:

‘This rather rough looking dinghy on the Tweed is probably the photographers’ transport. Originally from the patchy quality I suspect a photomezotype.

‘Note the broad stern and gunwale level thwart, single thole pins and basic oars made from a virtually flat blade attatched to a round pole. Seems to be a pad and cord to attach to thole pin, muffled oars?. Interesting lines forward and a quite heavy piece of chain. Maybe it’s a hire boat?’

Thanks Jeff. The boat is a salmon coble from rivers and estuaries of the far North East of England and the East Coast of Scotland. They’re curious looking boats with wide, flat-cut sterns, I guess to support salmon fishermen working over their sterns, and I think their odd shape may be the reason there hasn’t been a huge amount of interest interest in them. See the picture on this page: http://www.salmonboats.co.uk. It’s interesting to take a look at what the Wikipedia says about these boats compared with what it has to say about cobles in general - to my mind it rather reflects attitudes to these boats generally.

The house is author Sir Walter Scott’s impressive pile near Melrose.

There are some nice photos here at Shorpy - 100-year old photo weblog. Thanks for the tipoff Peter Vanderwaart, moderator of the Yahoogroups boatdesign forum!

John Harris with his Tammie Norrie, built while attending the
Boat Building Academy at Lyme Regis

Yvonne Green, principal of the Boat Building Academy at Lyme Regis has kindly sent us some photos and details of boatbuilding projects by recent students - and here’s the second in the series.

While still working in his career as a consulting engineering geologist John Harris made a kit boat with oars and spars, and attended a basic clinker boat building and repair short course at the Academy. When he retired, however, he fulfilled a life-long ambition and, as he puts it, came to the Academy to learn how to build boats properly.

While on the course he built a glued-clinker Tammie Norrie yawl with a balanced lug foresail designed by Iain Oughtred. The plans are available from Classic Marine.

See an earlier post about Ian Thomson’s Nestaway dinghy.