wooden boats – intheboatshed.net

The Beale Park Boat Show part II – various boats from around the show

These photos are from Friday at the Beale Park Boat Sho and to my mind represent some of the best things I say. I’ll put up individual posts explaining one or two of them at some point.

More photos to follow in a day or two, depending on our Internet connection, which is flaky again thanks to BT or PlusNet, or someone…

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Chris Partridge in his aunt’s Thames lock-keeper’s punt

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Wooden boats: PBO columnist Dave Selby lays on the irony

https://soundcloud.com/boating-podcasts/dave-selbys-mad-about-the-boat-april-2015

I don’t mind admitting that Dave Selby’s latest offering in the plastic boat magazine PBO makes me laugh – it’s laden with table-spoonfuls of irony and yet familiar and nearly true.

Happily, though, in the end it is bollocks. I say that, because most folks I know who make a living building or maintaining other people’s traditionally-built boats add to their burden by keeping one or more of their own… And I can’t think of too many who have the look of a person who wishes they were doing something else.

I guess you could draw a parallel with the bloke who edits and writes stuff for a living, and then gets up in the morning and writes a bloody weblog. It’s about the boating, the people and the boats, you understand…

Matthew Atkin photographs the working boats of Thailand

My globe-trotting photography enthusiast brother Matthew Atkin visited Thailand recently and came back with hundreds of shots of fishing and pleasure boats (the pleasure boats are the ones that have something to protect tourists from the sun).

This collection , which is just a sample, includes many of the famous colourful long-tailed boats, as well as little paddlers, and some other activities associated with fishing.

I must say that long-tailed engine arrangement continues to seem pretty scary, at least to me. All that weight high up is one thing that no boater will warm to, but another is the wide sweep of that propeller on the end of that long shaft.

Imagine how it could be in a man-overboard situation – or just with a number of boats at close quarters.

Thanks Matt! For more of my bruv’s fabulous photos, click here.