Month: November 2008

American maritime artist John P Benson celebrated in a new book

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Paintings by John P Benson – click on each for a larger photo.
The images that were here earlier are now linked to thumbnails below

John Prentis Benson – American Marine Artist, which comes out early in the New Year, will be the first sizeable book about an important artist who has only recently become recognised or even collectable.

The lack of interest in John P Benson is perhaps surprising, as he was the brother of the renowned American Impressionist, Frank Benson.

Overshadowed in his youth by his highly talented brother, John P Benson practised as an architect for many years before finally becoming a full-time working artist in his 50s.

Once established in his studio at Kittery, Maine, however, he was prolific and painted over 750 works between 1925 and his death in 1947.

Of these, only about 300 are known, which leaves 450 or so either in private hands and yet to be located, or destroyed. Many of Benson’s paintings are still to be found, and possible owners should know that they sell for up to $50,000 when they appear at auction.

Experts say that despite the family connection, Benson’s style was only moderately Impressionistic, and that his work also incorporated elements of Realism and Romanticism.

Benson was born in 1865 in Salem, Massachusetts and grew up a few streets away from the town’s seaport, which is said to have fascinated the young artist. Later in life he painted mainly contemporary and historical ships and boats, and seascapes, and his boats and ships are noted for their detail and accuracy, and his work is said to have influenced  current marine artists such as Geoff Hunt, who illustrated the covers of Patrick O’Brian’s well known novels.

I’d like to thank Bob Holtzman for sending me this story – many readers will know him as the editor of the weblog Indigenous Boats, but he’s also a freelance PR consultant, writer and editor. He’s clearly a diligent operator who understands his media, for he has clearly recognised that intheboatshed.net is very fond of a good painting!

For more on the artist and book, visit http://www.johnpbenson.org/


Faithful James Caird replica to sail from Elephant to South Georgia

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Adventurer Tim Jarvis and the Hon Alexandra Shackleton
with the original James Caird at last year’s Earl’s Court
Sail, Power & Watersports Show

A replica of Shackleton’s famous boat the James Caird built at the the Sail, Power & Watersports Show at Earl’s Court will be used to re-enact Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1916 voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia.

The boat to be built at the show from the 26th to the 30th November is to be completed by the International Boat Building Training College (IBTC) by the end of 2009, when she will go to Antarctica to follow in the wake of the original James Caird under the leadership of adventurer Tim Jarvis.

Show sales director Caroline Evans and the Hon Alexandra Shackleton last year asked the IBTC to consider building a replica of the James Caird suitable for a re-enactment. The college then met expedition leader Tim, and the build was agreed.

Extensive help from both Dulwich College (where the original James Caird is housed) and Greenwich Maritime Museum has enabled the IBTC to build a boat that is faithful to the original.

I’ve read original expedition member Frank Worsley’s 1933 account of the original voyage Shackleton’s Boat Journey,  and all I can say is that Jarvis must be a very brave man, even if he will presumably have modern equipment to help him and his crew.

The International Boatbuilding Training College (IBTC) trains people of all ages from all over the world in the skills and techniques required to build and restore traditional wooden boats. The teaching ‘tools’ are a range of 30 boats from 9ft dinghies to 44ft blue water cruisers, all of which are completed to a professional standard.

The IBTC always runs an ‘active’ stand with work on various projects going on from building small boats to steaming mast hoops etc. The team is always happy to answer the boating public’s questions where it can, and people are welcome to ‘have a go’ where appropriate even down to such basics as sharpening a chisel.

PS – While you’re at the show, do drop in on the Wooden Boatbuilders Trade Association stand, where we’re told craftsmen will be only too happy to show you their latest work, and answer questions on restorations.

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Restoration work on Conor O’Brien’s coastal trader AK Ilen begins in Ireland

Photos from the first Big Boat Workshop working
on the Ilen restoration


The loss of Conor O’Brien’s famous Saoirse is long in the past, but another boat commissioned by the round-the-world voyager from Ireland is very much alive and is being restored at Hegarty’s Boatyard, in Oldcourt, Ireland.

She is being refitted in a series of week-long workshops under the expert guidance of three of the few remaining traditional shipwrights in Ireland today, Liam Hegarty, his brother John Hegarty and Fachtna O’Sullivan.

The Ilen was built by the Fisheries School in Baltimore – Ireland’s first vocational school – in the mid-1920s, and when she was launched in 1926, O’Brien and two Cadogan brothers from Cape Clear Island sailed her to the Falkland Islands, where she was delivered to the Falkland Island Company for inter-island trading.

For the next seventy years, Ilen served in the South Atlantic until the mid-1990s, when Limerick man Gary McMahon located her abandoned in the Falklands and brough her back to Baltimore in 1998.

McMahon hopes that the Ilen could help to lead the way to a new era of sustainable development through demonstrating that trading under sail is still viable.

The project has attracted a lot of interest in Ireland – recently a small crowd of celebrities turned up to see work start on her, including film producer Lord David Putnam and award-winning actor Jeremy Irons.

The refitting of the Ilen is now being used as an opportunity for people to experience first-hand the skills of wooden boat building through a series of five-day workshops in which anyone can apply to take part. The first, which took place at the beginning of November began with a talk by Glenstal Abbey forester Brother Anthony Keane on the types of timber used in boat building, and an introduction to wooden boat construction by Liam Hegarty and McMahon.

Further five-day workshops are planned for next year – see the project websites http://www.bigboatbuild.com and http://www.ilen.ie/. Gary can be reached at gary@ilen.ie or (Eire) 086 2640479.