intheboatshed.net

It’s peaceful as I write at 7.30 in the evening – but you should see it during the day!

Giacomo de Stefano is building one of Iain Oughtred’s Ness Yawls online this week – but you may have to be quick to catch it judging by the speed he and his friends were working working at when I looked earlier today. Click on the image to see what’s going on.

I should explain that Mr de Stefano plans to row and sail this boat from London (he’s leaving on the 15th April by the way) to Istanbul in a kind of new-age bid to forge a new relationship between man and nature. It’s a big ask, but then so is his target of sailing and rowing his way to Istanbul in the space of six months with little or no financial backing.

Anyway, he plans to have his boat built in four weeks, and from what I’ve seen he’s likely to make that target. Click on the photo above to catch a little of the action. See his Man on the River project website here: http://www.manontheriver.com

For many more intheboatshed.net posts about boats built from Iain Oughtred’s plans, click here.

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Jim Vandenbos’s mobile phone photos of the 2009 inaugural Thames Festival Classic Rally. If anyone else has photos they’d like to share, please email me at gmatkin@gmail.com

The first Thames Festival Classic Rally at St Katharine Docks, London last weekend was a success and seems likely to be be repeated next year.

I couldn’t make it for reasons not unconnected with my broken ankle, but my pal Jim Vandenbos dropped by to see Lord Boris’s Thames’ Festival after the cricket at Lords finished early.

Among other things he was keen to see the rally at St Katharine’s Dock and beetled over to take a look. When pressed for numbers he guessed that there were something over 30 classic boats in the dock, including Arthur Ransomes’ Nancy Blackett as seen in the novel We didn’t mean to go to Sea, and a very nice Uffa Fox Fairey Marine yacht. He also says there were a good number of visitors strolling around the dock.

If Jim’s right, I’d say 30 boats was a good, healthy number.

Event organiser Ian Welsh told intheboatshed that the rally had been a success. ‘It went very well indeed, the entrants loved it and so it seems did the St Katharine’s people – so fingers crossed we’ll do it next year again. We already have lots of ideas for next year.’

More photos have been posted by the organisers on their website.

The rally also made The Times – see the story here.

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London Whalers at rest

The London Whalers have put up a page explaining how to row, and I like what they say. Feathering is optional but regarded as helpful in a headwind! Well, I do it sometimes, and sometimes I don’t. Either way, the site’s well worth a look.

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