Tag: punting

Hannu Vartiala’s website changes address

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Hannu’s coracle. His site offers plans for a range of
small boats derived from traditional types

Hannu Vartiala has just let me know that he has moved his website to a new address – so I’d like to take this opportunity to direct intheboatshed.net readers over there for a happy few minutes.

It’s true that Hannu’s chosen boatbuilding material isn’t mainstream for intheboatshed.net, but those of you who yearn to build a small boat and are happy to do so in plywood may well find his plans interesting, for as well as the coracle pictured above, he has included some interesting boatbuilding plans and material on flat-bottomed swamp boats, drawings for a useful-looking 12ft flat-bottomed skiff, various variants on the Auray punt theme including Chapman’s Ekstock boat, and a couple of light-weight plywood dories. Well worth a look, I’d say.

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The Wikipedia on punts and punting

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Punt builder\'s workshop, photo from the Wikimedia Commons, taken by Thruston

Punt in boatbuilder’s workshop, photo from the
Wikimedia Commons, taken by Thruston

I really can’t add anything to this excellent Wikipedia entry on the punt – one day all its entries will be like this.

Do you know there are still people out there, particularly in publishing, who think the Wikipedia is useless? I once had a rancourous argument with a senior director for a magazine and events company when I dared to suggest that the model was a good and useful one. No doubt sour grapes can grow almost anywhere…

The names of a punt\'s various parts

The names of a punt’s component parts, image from the
Wikimedia, drawn by Thruston

See also:

•Henry Taunt’s 19th Century photos of the Thames

•Punts galore at Oxford

•Free online boatbuilding plans for a racing punt

The Beale Park Thames Boat Show – and another shed

I was thinking today about the Beale Park Boat Show of 2005, and it occurred to me that some of you might be interested in some of the photos I brought back. Chuck Leinweber posted some of them on his excellent Duckworks e-magazine for small boat enthusiasts.

Here are my shots from 2005:

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/05/gatherings/beale1/index.cfm

Here are my friend Chris Partridge’s from the same year. His eye was caught as much as mine was by Mike Smylie’s River Severn salmon punt :

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/05/gatherings/beale2/index.cfm

And here’s Chris’s set from this year:

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/06/gatherings/beale/index.htm

Back in 2005, why the photo of a shed at a show full of elegant boats? It’s Mike Smylie’s shed for smoking fish in his role as The Kipperman, his alter ego on a mission to convert us all to eating hand-smoked fish. They taste so good he might even win the battle one day.

I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s no ordinary shed. And don’t miss the coracle in the background casually trying to upstage it…

Mike’s website is at:
www.kipperland.org.uk

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