Tag: alasdair grant

Alasdair Grant’s motor launch build Lewenie is on the water!

North Western coast of Scotlandboatbuilder Alasdair Grant’s recent build Lewenie has been launched.

She was built to his customer’s specification on a hull of Alasdair’s design, and the proprieter of Isle Ewe Boats is clearly very pleased. Here’s what he has to say:

‘Lewenie was launched a month early on Friday the 19th. All went well and she didn’t leak a drop – all she needed was a little fine tuning with some ballast.

‘She has a top speed of 7 knots but cruises along nicely at 6 knots with very little wake. She’s due to head south on a lorry on the 17th of July, which gives me plenty time to check her over and hopefully get her out in a gale to really see what she’s about in those conditions.

‘I emailed Steve (owner) on Friday night with a few photos and he replied “Superb , Can’t wait to get my hands on her”.’

Alasdair completed the long course at the Boat Building Academy in Lyme Regis in 2009 after building a Beer beach boat, and went on to work at Cockwells , repairing yachts and completing new builds.

He then moved back to Scotland to work in the Mallaig Boatyard repairing fishing boats, and is now back on his home island of to Isle Ewe, where he has set up a boat building business.

See the Isle Ewe Facebook page, and contact Alasdair at
alasdairgrant@hotmail.co.uk .

 

Alasdair Grant builds a 21ft carvel built motor launch

Lewenie is a 21ft carvel-built launch with larch on oak frames  currently being built by Alasdair Grant of Isle Ewe Boats, based at Isle Ewe on the North Western coast of Scotland.

Alasdair completed the long course at the Boat Building Academy in Lyme Regis in 2009, after building a Beer Beach Boat, and went on to work at Cockwells , repairing yachts and completing new builds. He then moved back to Scotland to work in the Mallaig Boatyard repairing fishing boats, and has now moved home to Isle Ewe where he’s started out in boat building on his own.

Here’s what Alasdair has to say about the project:

‘Lewenie’s hull is finished and I’m beginning the fit out ahead of her launch in July. ‘She’s to have a forward cuddy/wheelhouse with traditioinal laid decks fore and aft, and is to be powered by a 30hp Beta diesel. She will be based in Chichester.

‘I designed the boat when I was working in Cornwall. At the end of the summer last year I left my job in Mallaig Boat Yard to come to Ewe Isle and build the boat .

‘I had planned to fit it out with a couple of berths as a kind of gentleman’s launch when it was finished. But while I was building the hull friend suggested I advertise it so could have the finished boat tailor-made for them.

‘So that’s what I did. A few peope got in touch , one of which was Stephen Comley, a project manager working in Canada.

‘Steve sent his brother and a surveyor to look at the hull and bought it. He plans to retire this year to the English South Coast, where he plans to enjoy fishing in Lewenie.’

See the Isle Ewe Facebook page, and contact Alasdair at
alasdairgrant@hotmail.co.uk .

BBA Academy students build and launch a Beer beach boat

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Beer lugger 'Steadfast' at sea off North-West Scotland Alasdair Grant

Beer beach boat Steadfast at sea off North-West Scotland

Beer beach boat Steadfast Beer beach boat Steadfast

Beer beach boat Steadfast Beer beach boat Steadfast

Beer beach boat Steadfast on launch day

Another craft launched in July by Boat Building Academy students was a 16ft 5in Beer beach boat, built to lines taken from a boat on the beach at Beer, Devon, by one of the students, Alasdair Grant.

The youngest student in the Boat Building Academy’s Class of September 2009, Alasdair first contacted the academy when he was 14. Four years later at the end of his course he was given a special BBA award in recognition of his outstanding dedication and hard-work during the build of his aptly-named boat Steadfast.

The award was a brass plaque reading ‘Made in England’. Alasdair, it should be understood, is a proud Scot – so I hope he appreciated the well meant joke…

Alasdair is from a fishing family in Aultbea in the North West Scotland, and wanted to build a working boat. After seeing and taking the lines from the Beer beach boat, Alasdair brought some his own Scottish influence to the construction, including very heavy framing.  He and another student building the boat, Jim Walsh, went on to include seven big frames in the build and the finishing touch, and Scottish-style tyres for fenders.

Steadfast is now being used by his family as their water taxi to and fro the Scottish mainland and the Isle of Ewe, and is said to have coped well in recent gales.

Since graduating in June, Alasdair has began work with Cockwells in Cornwall.

A classic work on the beach boats of Britain is this book: Beach Boats of Britain.