intheboatshed.net

Seamew, built by Stebbings of Burnham on Crouch in 1953, and repaired and restored in Bob Hinks’ workshop

Clea Rawinsky has been busy fulfilling a long-held ambition to own and sail a Burnham Scow, with the help of boatbuilder Bob Hinks (link one, link two) and their mutual friend Mark. Here’s the story as she tells it:

I first saw Seamew, dusty and forgotten, in a boat shed near my home years ago. I recognised the class easily: she was a Burnham Scow: an 11ft 3in clinker-built sailing dinghy.

One of the local yacht clubs, the Royal Burnham, adopted the class for their cadet section some 50 years ago, and a small number of them continue to grace the River Crouch. However, Burnham Scows are very rarely found for sale and tend to be passed down through families.

Seamew had split planks, a bashed-in gunwhale and had obviously enjoyed a great history – but she also looked like she hadn’t been touched in decades. She needed more work than I was capable of, but just knowing she existed allowed me to dream.

Then, last year, I was introduced to Bob Hinks. He and our mutual friend, Mark, had a cracking day out sailing Cirrus, Bob’s strip-plank built 20ft day-sailer with an electric inboard motor. Bob was clearly a craftsman and I was intrigued by his modest view of his obviously outstanding talent as a boat builder.

One day I was showing Mark and Bob my own boat, a 26ft Polaris. She was in storage awaiting a new owner and by chance happened to be chocked off right next to Seamew. Both guys saw, as I had, the potential in the little elm-on-oak relic. As if by magic, Bob was heard to say how he’d been looking for a winter project.

That was last autumn. There and then the three of us tacitly agreed we’d be sailing her next summer. It has been a whirlwind time making it happen.

Seamew went to Bob’s workshop in London, a perfect, centrally-heated space at the bottom of his garden. We all chipped in but it was Bob’s skill that defined the project. He stripped out the damaged wood and made up the list of materials required to rebuild her.

The new timber arrived just before Christmas and Bob set-to, teaming planks and making up fittings that we couldn’t buy, sometimes using the workshop in his former company, Asylum. He used his own bandsaw to cut notches in a bronze bar that was destined to become our bespoke centre-plate handle.

He kept us up-to-date on the progress by regularly emailing new images, showing the skeleton of the boat, fresh copper fastenings, the next new plank, the new thwart knees and a sumptuously rich finish on the mahogany rudder cheeks.

As if the project wasn’t rolling along quickly enough, Bob moved up a gear when I mentioned there was an opportunity to have the boat at the RYA Volvo Dinghy Show. It was a bit of a long shot: the Royal Burnham had space booked at the show at the Alexandra Palace show in early March, but didn’t have a boat to put on the stand. Bob was more than willing and the club was too, as it turned out.

In the end she looked fantastic on the stand, and drew a lot of attention. I found myself thinking of her shipwrights, back in 1950s Burnham in the old Chapel Road boatshed… I fancy they may have smiled to see her, almost a lifetime later, under the bright lights, on show, up in the big smoke. In fact, it wasn’t her first experience of brief fame – she was put on show at the Earls Court Boat Show, 57 years ago.

Roll on the warmer weather and a champagne launch some time in May.

Thanks Clea – that’s a very cheering story. It’s particularly nice that you managed to get some history on the boat itself as well as the class.

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Johnson & Jago-built 2 1/2 tonner Dzorbha

Marinestore at Maldon sent an email to me (and probably many others) appealing for someone to take on this 1936 Johnson & Jago-built 2 1/2 tonner.

More details and photos can be found at the Marinestore weblog, but the basic information is as follows:

Dzorbha has been abandoned by her owner. Her planking and ribs are pitch pine on oak in good condition. She has no sails and her mast is long past its sell by date. Overall, she will need a lot of work by a true enthusiast. She can be viewed at Shipways Yard, North St, Maldon CM9 5HQ, in the back row against the fence.

Marinestore says it will accept any reasonable offer (the owner she goes to is more important than what we get). There will be a lifting charge to load her on to transport if required and we will allow a week for the new owner to get things organised. Please email any queries that you may have to chandlery@marinestore.co.uk – all offers by email must be in by 12pm on the 31st July.

I’ve emailed to ask for more photos and some history, but haven’t had a reply – but maybe you’ll be more lucky!

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One of the treats of the Beale Park Thames Boat Show was seeing one of John Macaulay’s traditional Hebridean skiffs full of old-fashioned boatbuilding features.

Note the short floors and ribs, for example – they’re very much what one sees in a Viking ship or Viking canoe. What’s more, the oarlocks and oars obviously belong to a time before the fashion for adopting rowing racing practice brought in round oars in round oarlocks capable of being rotated.

For an earlier post on Macaulay, click here.

This interesting article sheds light on the man himself: John Mcaulay Boatbuilder. Of the virtues of wooden boats he says: ‘There is only one boat worth having and that is a wooden boat. They are unique; one off and beautiful. How anyone with any sensitivity could choose a plastic hull over a wooden one made by hand, I will never know.’

Here’s another newspaper piece in the Stornaway Gazette describing the restoration of a Western Isles boat.

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