Scottish Coastal Rowing Project grows to 19 St Ayles skiff boatbuilding projects

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Rowers trying out the original St Ayles skiff at Eyemouth last weekend

Alec Jordan of the Scottish Coastal Rowing Project tells me that he received the 19th order for a St Ayles skiff kit this week.

Nineteen St Ayles skiff building projects in less than a year reflects a fantastic explosion of interest in the SCRP project since it began. See my post about legendary small boat designer Iain Oughtred drawing the plans for the St Ayles skiff for the Scottish Coastal Rowers here: Iain Oughtred draws the boat that will bring coastal rowing races back to Scotland. It appeared only in July last year!

Alec, whose business Jordan Boats makes up the kits, says that planning is well underway for the first regatta at Anstruther on 29 May, and that seven or eight completed boats are expected to be ready and on the water for the event.

He’s careful to observe that some of the teams won’t have had much time to practise rowing by that time and  however, and suggests the standard of the rowing should be a little bit higher by the time of the Portsoy Festival four weeks later, when there may be even more of the new boats competing.

Other news this week is that the first official women’s crew from Anstruther will have had its first practice.

A particularly striking development is that I gather there have even been expressions of interest in the SCRP from south of the border with England

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Light Trow Mk 2 – drawings for making a model


Light Trow model package plywood boat Gavin Atkin boat plan

Here’s a jolly little project for Easter – making a model of the Light Trow Mk 2. The drawings are here: Light Trow Mk 2 model, and they’re in the form of a zip file containing no less than 18 pdfs.

Almost all you need to do is print out each pdf in the zip package on the same-sized paper, stick it to card, model-maker’s plastic sheet or balsa, and cut it out and assemble as shown in the drawings… However, you’ll need some extra bits of balsa and nice white paper or cloth to make a sail and – Hey Presto! – you’ll have your own table-top Light Trow to play with. Have fun everyone! (Drawings now corrected to include the hole on the aft deck for the mizzen mast!)

For more on the Light Trow and trows generally, click here.

POST-SCRIPT The drawings for the full-sized Light Trow Mk2 are now close to complete. If you’reinterested in building this boat email me at gmatkin@gmail.com, and I’ll send you them – but only if you promise not to share them without my permission!

More old photos of Scoter

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Doug Grierson has sent in some more old photographs that will no doubt delight the large numbers of people who have been following the Scoter story. Thanks Doug!

For more on this famous old bawley-derived yacht that was so admired by Maurice Griffiths and which passed through a long line of owners including artist Colin Grierson and son Doug, click here.

The first image is from a postcard sent by an earlier owner of Scoter to a recipient in Essex in 1907; Doug doesn’t know how or when it was passed to his mother.

The two photos of Scoter from 1994-5 at Woodbridge and Maldon show later coach roof and original windlass and circular fore-hatch; the final item is a scanned image of a water-colour by Colin Grierson dated 1932 showing the rig she had when he bought her in late 1930.