intheboatshed.net

16ft gentleman’s runabout Lola, built to a design by C G Petterson, and photographed at the Boatbuilding Academy’s student launch day in December

Lars Herfeldt built this very pretty motorboat during his Boatbuilding Academy course at Lyme using plans by the Swedish designer CG Pettersson.

Academy principle Yvonne Green reports that Lola, which is named after one of Lars’ grandchildren, is a 16ft cold moulded motorboat made from two layers of 3mm plywood with a final layer of mahogany veneer laid fore and aft to simulate a more traditional carvel planking construction.

While on the course Lars wrote a weblog that includes the boat build but also of his life while living at the Academy on the course – it’s in German but includes many excellent photos including a series showing one of the famous Beer luggers going about. He also played Father Christmas at the Academy Christmas dinner, at which Yvonne says he managed to look as if he’d stepped out of a Norman Rockwell illustration.

For more photos from the student launch, check out Edward Pearson’s Picasa photo set of the event.

Intheboatshed.net readers may be interested to know that Lars is returning to the Academy in September to instruct a residential course on building West Greenland kayaks in September, at which up to eight students will build a traditional kayak over ten days – course members will stay at nearby Trill Farm and build the boats in the farm’s  magnificent old barn.

Many thanks for the story Yvonne – and don’t forget to tell us more about the kayak course, as I think there will be some interest from readers!

Relieving the shift on Bishop Rock Lighthouse 1969 (thanks to Gibsons of Scilly); Portland Bill Lighthouse, Dorset (thanks to Trinity House); a storm lashes Longships Lighthouse (thanks to Tim Stevens, image courtesy of Trinity House)

Happy New Year! Lighthouses: Life on the Rocks is the title of a major new exhibition at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall from February 2010.

For centuries the men who operated these iconic beacons of light protected our seas in a very hands-on way, but the UK’s last manned lighthouse was converted to automatic operation in November 1998. This exhibition will therefore explore the lives of the last of the lighthouse keepers before their histories slip out of living memory, and explain the feats of engineering that lie behind the building of the lighthouses themselves.

It will feature a large array of objects including a massive four tonne optic, and there will also be a reconstruction of a lighthouse’s living quarters featuring original curved furniture from Godrevy Lighthouse.

The keepers lived a life of strict routine and isolation, and to fill their time would engage in all sorts of interests including poetry, crafting ships in light bulbs, and supplementing their limited supplies using surprising techniques such as kite fishing.

The exhibition is supported by Trinity House and the General Lighthouse Authority, which is lending a large number of artefacts to the exhibition, which complements the authority’s own heritage centre at the Lizard, and by grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Couta boats racing in the Australian sun

Dale Appleton sent us these photos of some almost absurdly good looking Couta boats racing in the warmth of the Australian summer off Queenscliff, Victoria.

(By the way, let me assure anyone who may be wondering – up here in deepest, darkest rural Kent we’ve been snowed in good and proper for the first time in years.)

He says that the Coutas are now highly sought after as a pleasure and racing boat, and even as a status symbol to some, and adds that there is a traditional builder making them to order. I think that’s seriously good news. See the class website.

Dale also pointed out that there’s a hidden treasure on the Couta Boat Club’s website, by the way. Readers may remember that Pete Goss’s Spirit of Mystery expedition recently had a nasty experience when their recreated Cornish fishing lugger suffered a knockdown as they approached Australia. One crew member on deck at the time broke his leg and their boat lost its clinker-built dinghy made from off-cuts from the Mystery herself.

Well, in an amazing coincidence it seems that dinghy has turned up on a beach at King Island, part way between mainland Australia and Tasmania, and I gather it is being fixed up by local boatbuilder Jeremy Clowes, who sailed with the Mystery crew after she reached King Island – I gather he has replaced the upper planks and various other bits and pieces using parts donated by local wooden boat enthusiasts. As Dale says, it’s a story to warm any boat builder’s heart. See the story here.

Surrounded by unaccustomed ice, I’ve been reflecting on how grateful I am that people like Dale and many others are so willing to send in their photos and stories. Thanks Dale and the rest – your efforts are greatly appreciated, and I hope you know how much you add to the sum of human happiness in the boating world.