intheboatshed.net

Heard of a traditional boat type called the Wexford cot? Or seen footage of a gun punt in use? Neither had I until I caught up with Monday’s episode of Coast, a BBC-Open University series about our coasts that has been fascinating many people in this country for several years now.

The cot is a fairly basic double-ended flattie with rounded clinker sides developed for the shallow water of Wexford Harbour. These days they seem to be made with a small transom, presumably to take an outboard, but they’re traditionally rowed by two men with an oar each. I was strongly reminded of the Weston flatner, which is another flat-bottomed and round-sided boat type, and struck by the thought that Wexford and Weston aren’t so very far apart.

The gun punt footage mercifully saves squeamish people like me from having to look at any carnage in detail but it’s interesting to see the boats, which have just 10in of freeboard, being propelled and steered using a quant. More, it’s astonishing to see how little recoil the boats exhibit when the big gun mounted on their foredeck is fired.

The episode includes a nice interview with Larry Duggan, whose family has been building these boats for generations. Over at the Rowing for Pleasure weblog, Chris Partridge has picked up a Flickr photo set put up by Alan Duggan, which is well worth looking at.

If you’re in the UK and have access to the Internet, do try and catch it on the BBC iPlayer before it’s replaced by this coming Monday’s episode.

For a post about gun punts in the East of England including a splendid quotation from Victorian scholar and man of the cloth Sabine Baring-Gould, click here.

A Thames barge in the Swin, by Frank Mason. Click on the
picture for a bigger image

I’ve put this drawing of a Thames barge up this morning in honour of a group of pals who as I write are holidaying off the Essex Coast in the Thames barge named Centaur.

The sun’s shining and there’s a good breeze this morning, and needless to say, I’m envious, not least because in addition to sailing I know that there will be some great singing and music-making on board and ashore!

The scan comes from Vanishing Craft, written by F G G Carr and illustrated by Frank Mason. Writing nearly 90 years ago, Carr says this of barges: ‘It is hard to find a picture of the Thames without one or more of these beautiful vessels lending a touch of grace and colour to the scene. One cannot even think of the lower river without the barges, some under way, with their reddish brown canvas full and drawing and carrying them smoothly about their business, while others of their class lie at anchor with sails brailed up and waiting for the tide that sluices past their sides to turn in their favour.’

How times have changed. These days there are just a few barges still sailing compared with two thousand or more in Carr’s time. Still, I’m glad to report that we usually see at least one each time we sail on the North Kent Coast.

For more intheboatshed.net posts relating to barges click here.

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Heir Island lobster boat Rose and Galway hooker An Faoilean

Heir Island lobster boat Saoirse Muireann owned byhistorian and
author Cormac Levis

The two gaffers in the upper photo are Rose an Heir Island lobster boat on the left and An Faoilean a Galway hooker on the right. The Saoirse Muireann below is another Heir Island lobster boat, and is owned by historian Cormac Levis author of the well known and highly regarded book Towelsail Yawls describing the sailing lobsterboats of Heir Island and Roaringwater Bay.

The photos have been sent in by Tiernan Roe, boatbuilder and weblogger based at Ballydehob, West Cork.

From the 1870s to the 1950s, sailing boats dominated the lobster fishery of Ireland’s south coast, and the lobstermen lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle over a hundred hundred nautical mile stretch of coastline in the small open boats, yet it’s said that until Levis did his research and wrote Towelsail Yawls, their way of life had been in danger of passing unrecorded. I should add that although it was published as recently as 2002, the book already seems difficult to find – which seems to suggest that he did an excellent job.

As a bonus, here are three photos of a John Atkin Ninigret 22ft outboard boat that Tiernan’s currently building being turned over at his Ballydehob workshop. Follow his weblog Roeboats at http://roeboats.wordpress.com/.

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