intheboatshed.net

Water Craft’s latest issue marks the beginning of the boatbuilding season, which editor Pete Greenfield says begins when the sailing season ends.

It has pretty well ended here in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere, but I’m not so sure that the boat building starts quite yet. But I do think November and the run up to Christmas is a time when many of us get into some serious boat-dreaming and boat noodling – my name for the delicious process of thinking through what kind of boat we want, what we’re capable of building and what would use it for?

As usual, the latest Water Craft is full of interesting crumbs to feed our obsession.

Designer Paul Gartside presents the first of a series of complete plans, including offsets, for boats you can build; this time it’s a shapely double-ended 12ft  rowing boat for traditional carvel (or clinker) construction.

Fancy strip planking? Read how Nick Paull built the Canadian canoe that won him Water Craft’s special prize for the most professional-loooking home-built boat at the Beale Park Thames Boat Show.

More, Patrick Curry explains how he made hollow wooden spars for his traditional Dutch yacht, Bob Lloyd shows how to make a razee.

Pete  is still working on his Phil Bolger-designed Chebacco boat in the outdoors (brrr! – rather him than me!) and Dick Phillips has been sailing a Chebacco built by Connie Mense that many of us saw on show at Beale. (For an intheboatshed.net post on this boat click here.)

Jo Moran has been sailing another boat we saw at Beale, the electric day-sailer Cirrus and Kathy Mansfield has been to Portsoy’s Traditional Boat Festival.

Subscribe to Water Craft now – the drawings for that Gartside pulling  boat alone will make your investment worthwhile!

Strip built Peterborough canoe built by Alexander Threipland and Russell Gale at the Boatbuilding Academy, Lyme

Boat Building Academy students Alexander Threipland and Russell Gale built this strip built 16ft Peterborough canoe, and launched it along with their fellow students’ projects back in June.

Alexander and Russell built their canoe in glass-sheathed western red cedar, with wicker seats, a cherry thwart and fore and aft decks with ebony detail. Since leaving the course Alexander has started a business, Wilton Woodworks, with Will Reed, a former student and instructor whose boat was first launched at the Beale Park Thames Boat Show this year. Hopefully we’ll hear more from them in the near future.

My thanks once again to Academy principal Yvonne Green for the photos.

For more on student launches at the Boat Building Academy, click here.

Don’t miss something good – start receiving the free weekly intheboatshed.net email newsletter now!

Cirrus

Bob Hinks, who graduated from the Boat Building Academy a little while ago, is looking for commissions to build up-market day-sailors along the lines of his widely admired Cirrus.

He explains:

‘Cirrus was conceived as a classic gentleman’s daysailer, designed to be fast, sail beautifully and look a picture. A miniature J class yacht is what we set out to achieve, and I think we got pretty close.

‘She was designed with a particular sailor in mind – someone who might have a larger boat but who wants to get back to the fun and excitement of sailing a smaller boat on offshore and inland waters. She is unashamedly a luxury item built to exacting standards in everything from her teak decks to her purpose built fittings.

‘I think her market is Poole, Mylor and Chichester Harbours, the Norfolk Broads, the Solent, Western Isles of Scotland, the Caledonian Canal, Lake Windermere and many other beautiful locations worldwide. With a lifting keel and rudder, and a minimum draft of only 500 mm, she can easily be moved on her trailer from one sailing area to another.

‘The price of £40,000 might seem high – but she cost £20,000 in materials alone, and took 2400 hours to build. If I took the drive system out of the equation she would be £7000 cheaper – but it is such great thing I don’t want to. The electric motor just makes the boat very easy to control. Getting in and out of a harbour is quick simple and nearly silent. When motoring up a creek to the pub there’s no smelly fuel or exhaust, and the quiet engine is blissful.

‘I enclose some pictures of Cirrus at the Beale Park Boat Show, which was a great success. She was sailing most of the time and looked wonderful – we had as many as five and a dog on board at one point. The pond is only just over a meter deep so we had to sail with the board and rudder up but she still performed like a dream. She was described as the belle of the ball, and I spent my time doing interviews and sailing, and dealing with many interested enquiries.

‘There are various changes I plan to make on the next boat, including a slightly heavier keel with an electric winch, repositioned bilge pumps and a modified rudder lift device. If the orders come in, I’d like to build two or three boats, one of which would be similar but a bit longer and with a small cuddy.

‘I hope to sail the boat in the South of England this summer starting with Mylor harbour in a couple of weeks – if anyone is interested in the boat and would like an opportunity to sail have a go at sailing her, I’m sure we can arrange it.’

Bob can be reached by phone at 07785 346072 and by email at bobhinks@btinternet.com.

Cirrus publicity material