intheboatshed.net

Thumbnail from Loch Broom Lives

Chris Perkins got in touch from the far North a few days ago to alert me to the existence of a website presenting old photos of life around Loch Broom in Scotland. The photos include many images of boats and ships, some of them quite old. Well worth a look, I’d say - Loch Broom Lives Image Library.

Thanks Chris!

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Motor launch drawings from an old book

These lines and construction drawings for a stylish motor launch come from a pre-WW II copy of the MotorBoat Manual. After all these years I trust no-one will be offended that I photographed them and made them available, and hope that others will find them as interesting as I do - the alternative, I guess, is that they become forgotten.

The forward section is fairly traditional and the central section seems conventional enough - but the aft half of the boat goes somewhere quite different, with styling that seems to me to have been borrowed from much faster boats meant to hydroplane. Yet this is a displacement hull with a small 3-4hp engine, and so I’d guess that the tumblehome in the stern is simply a matter of fashion, and that makes her a period piece.

I love the claim that this boat can be built by amateurs - I know some who could, but I fear most of us, myself included, would be well advised to steer clear of it for fear of wasting a lot of expensive timber!

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Tom Hill’s 14ft Babson Island skiff

Views vary about the boat plans that have appeared in Woodenboat magazine, but I’m rather in favour of the trend. Boat plans that appear in magazines add to the sum total of happiness in the world, they help to make the case that real people can build boats and they provide beginning boatbuilders with a new way into building small boats.

And, as a long-serving magazine and newspaper journalist,  I think it’s welcome evidence of magazine publishers coming to grips with the age of the Internet.

So here’s a link to plans and instructions for building the Babson Island 14 skiff designed by well known author, expert builder and small boat designer Tom Hill,  and presented by Woodenboat. I can’t see anything extreme or strange about it, and it’s full of craftsman-like detail.

PS - I’d like to remind readers that about 18 months ago Woodenboat plugged intheboatshed.net - see the story.

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