Month: November 2008

Pictures from an exhibition – part 2

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Slipper launch Wishbone, a Baby Greyhound model built by Andrews
in 1931 and restored in 2004 by Stewart Marine of Hart’s Boatyard.
For more on this boat see our earlier post

Today we have some more photos from the Sail, Power & Watersports Show at Earl’s Court – I gather the weather’s going to be foul this weekend, so I’d guess many people will be taking the opportunity to shirk gardening duties in favour of a few hours under Earl’s Court’s roof.


A striking mahogany runabout from Marine Classics

Whisp, built by the Slipway Coop folks


Adrian Noyes’ 10ft skiff – contact Adrian at craftsman.craft@btopenworld.com.
Sadly, I didn’t manage to get to speak to anyone one the Wooden Boatbuilding  Trade
Association Stand, so have noto brought back any news

North Quay 19 from North Quay of Conyer, at http://www.northquaymarine.net

This Bay Raider from Swalllow Boats has splendid dining and
chart table arrangements

And, as a bonus – a plaque In commemoration of the grand opening of
Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show at Earl’s Court in 1887. It hasn’t got
much to do with boats, but it always makes me smile!

Pictures from an exhibition – part 1

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The replica James Caird at the Sail, Power & Watersports Show. For more in this project click here

The Sail, Power & Watersports Show is on now at Earl’s Court, and so last night I dropped in to meet a few people and take some photos.

Here’s a small sample of them, including a number of both the new replica of Shackleton’s famous boat the James Caird being built by students at the International Boatbuilding Training College, and a pretty New York-style Whitehall built by ex-IBTC student Adrian Donovan. Come back for some more in a day or two, as I’ll put the rest up shortly.

It was particularly good to meet Gill and Nat Wilson from the college, and hopefully we’ll be able to carry more material from the college itself, and from its ex-students over time. Just to reiterate the point I make when I think anyone in traditional boatbuilding is listening – please send me photos of your projects and a little story, and I will be pleased to publish them complete with contact details. All I ask is some nice clear images (I typically use them at 1280 pixels across) a little information about the history about the boat type or detail of building it, preferably including the odd nugget of information that most readers won’t know, and something human about how the builder or the owner feels about the boat. It’s easy-peasy, there are no strings and it’s free!

Adrian Donovan’s very pretty Whitehall. That seat-back might be a
little de trop for some tastes, but I guess it’s an  optional  feature.
Adrian’s at http://www.adriandonovan.co.uk

Two excellent free boat calculators

Sailcalc in operation

Boating enthusiasts love to fiddle with things – for many of us it’s part of the joy of owning and using boats. Some, like me, go further and start to create actual new boat designs, even if we do keep our creations on the small and simple side of the street.

If you’ve tried designing or re-designing a rig, you’ll know that the arithmetic can be tiresome and if you have you’ll be interested in these two calculators developed by one of my friends from the Yahoogroup Boatdesign, Peter Vanderwaart.

The first is Boatcalc, a handy calculator for use with boat hulls modelled using Gregg Carlson’s very useful Chine Hull Developer. See the Boatcalc_documentation. Even if you’re not working on a boat designed using this software, it may be worth reverse-modelling an existing hull in order to make your calculations, and to study its hydrostatics, wetted area and so on.

The second is Sailcalc, a fabulously useful rig calculator that works out centres of effort, sizes and dimensions – from experience, I can tell you that it’s a boon when you’re trying to balanace up the hull of a boat, its skeg and centreboard, and a mast that can only be in one place and a variety of sail options.