intheboatshed.net

Claude Worth’s book Yacht Cruising includes many
charming pen and ink drawings

Claude Worth became a legendary cruising yachtsman, but everyone has to start somewhere – and Worth’s description of sailing his first yacht in his legendary book Yacht Cruising is highly entertaining. Click on the thumbnails below for readable scans.

‘We who adventure on the sea, however humbly, cannot but feel that we are more fortunate than ordinary people, and that we have something which we could not tell nor they understand.’

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16ft traditional West Country motor launch Lisa receives her engine

Hampshire-based boatbuilder Nick Smith has just sent me these photos of his current motor launch building project Louise as she has her engine put in place.

Here’s what he says:

‘Louise now has her engine fitted, her decks laid and her middle thwart in place. The next jobs are fitting coamings, gun’l cappings, bulkheads, side seats, rudder and tiller, engine controls, exhaust, fuel lines, sole boards and a list of smaller finishing off bits. Luckily for me, the customer is going to do the majority of the varnishing.

‘She may look like identical to the last build Lisa, but at 16 foot Louise is a foot shorter and less beamy at six foot, and her sheer is much flatter – you can see from the photos of Lisa on the water at Noss Mayo that she has quite a high bow for coastal tripping and fishing. [See the link below - ed]

‘So Louise is less ‘cocky’. I have built her smaller, lighter and finer, because the owners will dry sail her and need to be able to launch and recover easily.

‘The engine is a Vetus twin cylinder diesel rated at 11 hp , plenty of power for a boat of this size.

‘Thats it for now! Regards,

‘Nick’

Thanks Nick! For more photos of Louise during her build click here.

For photos of the previous build Lisa click here.

Nick comes from Devon, learned boatbuilding the traditional way and specialises in new builds in clinker and carvel for sail, motor and rowing power from 8ft to 28ft with a special emphasis on West Country style and design, and also takes on repairs and refits from 25ft to 50ft. These days he’s based in Hampshire, and can be contacted by email at nick_smith_boatbuilder@yahoo.com and by phone on phone on 07786 693370.

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Onawind Blue with her new sails back in April. Hopefully we’ll be able to replace this with a shot from Ibiza shortly!

I’ve just heard that Ben Crawshaw sailing his Light Trow named Onawind Blue has arrived in Ibiza after leaving Javea on the Spanish mainland at 1am on Monday morning.

With favourable southerly winds she covered the 68 nautical miles from Javea to to Talamanca Bay on the east side of the island in 19 hours. I seem to remember I originally designed this little boat for sheltered waters, but Ben’s steady progress in adapting it to his purposes has been impressive. Well done Ben!

For more and to leave your congratulations in his comments, go to Ben’s weblog The Invisible Workshop.