Month: February 2008

Shipwright in Training makes a long garboard

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Shipwright in training makes a long garboard Shipwright in training makes a long garboard Shipwright in training makes a long garboard

Shipwright in Training is one of the most informative weblogs for old boat enthusiasts to be found anywhere. In this post, our hero makes a long garboard, and explains how he does it. It’s handsome, impressive stuff.

I’ve only one quibble – while I like the thought of his advice about doing one thing at a time and can see it working in the workshop, it’s surely impossible elsewhere. I speak, of course, as a parent, freelance journalist, house-holder, event organiser, amateur cook, musician, weblogger and…

Subscribe to comments – intheboatshed.net is now a little more social

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We’d love to have more comments and discussion here at intheboatshed.net – social networking is now such a big part of many people’s daily life, that we think regular intheboatshedders should also have better ways of communicating with each other.

A small step in that direction today is a gizmo that allows readers to subscribe to comments – when you make a comment now, you will be able to subscribe to particular comment streams, so that you know when comments are added to a post of particular interest. I’d guess this will be useful to anyone interested in knowing about responses to a comment they’ve made.

Another innovation that many will find easy to follow is the Recent comments box in the left-hand column. So get commenting, and come back to see what the others are saying!

And still another is the introduction of Gravatars – little 80 by 80 pixel images that you can use to represent yourself when you comment. It could be a photo or drawing of yourself, or your boat, or whatever – but please play nicely children! Go to http://gravatar.com to set yours up.

Why not tell us what you think of all this using the comments link below? Is it a step in the right direction – or is it pants?

Gavin

Albert Strange’s Blue Jay falls into the right hands at last

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Albert Strange Blue Jay

Bill Hitchins has big plans for Albert Strange’s Blue Jay,
despite the slight hogging in her sheer

People who care for old boats are a special breed – each one I’ve met has seemed to me to have been a mix of several key ingredients.

Along with a big helping of the romantic, they have to have a large dollop of the perfectionist craftsman about them, they must enjoy getting thoroughly dirty, and they have to be happy to take on large long-term projects that will probably seem less than sensible to most of their family and friends.

In my experience there’s usually also a sense that the boat and its inevitable problems are a kind of cross the traditional boat enthusiast is bound to bear by some law of God. After a talk about what’s going wrong, how it all has to be fixed and how it’s much simpler for owners of plastic boats, the phrase I’ve heard many times is: ‘Well, you’ve got to, haven’t you?’

I hope that Bill Hitchins, who has just bought Albert Strange’s lovely Blue Jay, won’t mind my saying it’s clear from his write up and photographs that he’s got the romance, love of dirty, practical work, craftsmanship and long-term projects bits of the mix in spades. Just take a look at the photos in this post at the Albert Strange Association website, for they show exactly what he’s taking on. Good luck to him and the boat, I say.

I think many intheboatshed.net readers will want to wish him well by adding a comment at the bottom of his post. Where would all the old boats be if it wasn’t for heroes like Bill? I think we know the answer.

For more on Albert Strange and the Albert Strange Association, follow this link.

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