intheboatshed.net

Two of the latest student boats to be launched
at the Boat Building Academy. As usual, click on
the thumbnail for a much larger image

Down at Lyme Regis, the Boat Building Academy’s Class of March 2008 had their big launch day at Lyme a few days ago - and managed to hit on a day of beautiful weather. Lucky devils… as principal Yvonne Green said, ‘One of us must have done a good deed.’

Quite so. These two shots are just a taster - there are more come, and descriptions also. Read about this year’s students and their projects here.

For more intheboatshed.net posts about the Boat Building Academy and its earlier student intakes, click here.

Chris Perkin’s Stangarra, built to Iain
Oughtred’s Stickleback drawings

Chris Perkins has kindly sent me this collection of photos of his beautifully-made Stangarra canoe built to Iain Oughtred’s Stickleback plans. The quality of Chris’s boatbuilding work is widely recognised, and some readers may remember that he won the 2007 Watercraft magazine competition.

Competitive types may be secretly pleased to hear that Chris, who is one of nature’s gentlemen, has forsworn entering any further boatbuilding competitions. But some even more important news is that his Stickleback project is to feature in the next two issues of Watercraft magazine, which will be well worth looking out for on the news stands.

Chris’s message was also a reminder to me that I’ve been meaning to link to Chris’s weblog about his building projects, StrathkanChris’s Little World. The list of boats that have come out of his green shed is becoming more and more impressive. The latest project featured on his weblog is an example of Michael Storer’s solo open cruising boat, the Raid 41 - see the photo pasted below.

See the Iain Oughtred plans catalogue here.

Also, kits to build some of Oughtred’s designs are available here and in the USA from Jordan Boats.

John Welsford cuts out the transom for Pilgrim

It’s always useful to see how the professionals do it, so I’m pleased to link to John Welsford’s diary recording his work on this new cruising dinghy, Pilgrim.

The key points in the latest entry are testing an unknown plywood, including a routine previously unknown to me that involves burying it in mashed potato, marking out using a house-builder’s roofing square (clearly his equivalent of the dry-wall square) and a flexible batten supported by tins of food, and cutting out with an electric saw.

On the latter point, I gather he uses a veneer blade, and I must say the results are impressively free of splintering.

To read the this entry at John’s website, click here.