intheboatshed.net

Boatbuilding on Tristan da Cunha

My researches have led me to this wonderful collection of photos of Tristan da Cunha from the 60s, 70s and 80s taken by Swedish explorer and painter Roland Svensson - I’ve been thinking about remote islands quite a bit this week following my post about South Georgia a few days ago.

Do please take a look at this collection - many show the local canvas-covered longboats being built, rowed and sailed, and, in one case, used as a home.

If you look carefully, you’ll also spot one of Sven Yrvind’s Bris boats. For more intheboatshed.net posts on Yrvind, click here.

For much more on Tristan da Cunha longboats, click here.

For more on Tristan da Cunha at the Wikipedia, click here.

The Rob Roy canoe, from Practical Boat Building for Amateurs

‘To be able to build a boat well, and to his own ideas and plans, requires that the amateur should be both a designer and builder, which, in their turn require that he should be an efficient draughtsman and carpenter. No one can hope to succeed in building a boat to his own plan, unless he is fully able to design and lay down the lines and body plan of the proposed craft, and added to this in many kinds of boats, such as a small sailing boat, or a steam launch, it is necessary that he should be able to calculate the displacement and the position of the centre of buoyancy. With this knowledge at his command, an unlimited field is opened to the amateur boat-builder, as he will be able to build after his own ideas.’

Ken Hanson is about to publish a new edition of Adrian Neison’s famous book Practical Boat Building for Amateurs - as he says,  he has scanned the book, cleaned up the illustrations and then did some editing to catch the odd mistake and to re-paragraph some of the overly-Victorian sections to make them easier to read. The new layout has larger type for the same reason.

I’m delighted to say that he’s also made a pdf file of the new edition available for download from intheboatshed.net: click here to receive it.

I should warn you that this is about 10megs in size, and even with a broadband connection it’s likely to take some moments to arrive safely on your computer!

The new PBBA will be available at Amazon or through special order at any booksellers (distribution from Ingram and Blackwells) at the most attractive, Christmas stocking-filler price of $9.99 (US) and  £5.37 (UK). Click here for the book details.

For earlier posts including a full set of scans of my personal copy of Practical Boat Building for Amateurs, click here.

Stromness from the pass - the point where Shackleton, Crean
and Worsley first saw safety

Stromness Bay

Jeff Cole has kindly sent us some photos taken by ‘Bill‘, a friend of his father-in-law, showing scenes from South Georgia, the South Atlantic island where Sir Ernest Shackleton and his escaping polar explorer crew landed in the original James Caird, a small ship’s boat adapted to make the journey from Elephant Island.

Having landed, a big task still faced them, as they they then had to cross the mountainous island to reach safety at Stromness. If anyone has any doubt about the scale of the task, these stark photos should make it clear. This page describes the geography and history of the place.

Thanks Jeff - there’s something great about these photos. For more photos that Jeff has provided over the last 18 months or so, click here.

For more posts on the James Caird, the replica of the original boat being built by the IBTC for a new expedition to repeat the voyage led by Tim Jarvis, click here.

A whaler’s graveyard, a desolate beach,
and an abandoned whaler

Plaque in commemoration of the Shackleton expedition’s
arrival at the manager’s villa, Stromness

The Wikipedia has much more good stuff on Shackleton, but I think the quote from early in expedition member Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s wonderful book The Worst Journey in the World is perhaps the expedition leader’s best memorial: ‘For a joint scientific and geographical piece of organization, give me Scott; for a Winter Journey, Wilson; for a dash to the Pole and nothing else, Amundsen: and if I am in the devil of a hole and want to get out of it, give me Shackleton every time.’