Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
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Here’s an interesting glimpse into the distant past – a collection of tunes from a book kept by a fiddle player called William Litton while he served aboard two merchant ships in the years 1800-2. The tunes here are played by a fiddler called Garrisson Frolick, and were recorded several decades ago.
My thanks to Chris Brady for pointing out this link.
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The new Tideway in build at Good Wood Boat – click on the thumbnails for a larger photo
Traditionally built 12ft Tideway dinghies are available to order after a gap of ten years – and the new version of the boat will be on show at the RYA Volvo Dinghy Show.
The new Tideways are being built by Good Wooden Boat Company after the company’s Stephen Beresford met the Tideway Owners Association (TOA) at last year’s show and was impressed by the boat itself, and by the association’s activities and enthusiasm. Good Wood Boat specialises in building boats using Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certified approved sources. (The company also builds Uffa Fox’s Redwing sailing dinghy, of which more later.)
The TOA says that the new boat has already been bought by an existing Tideway owner and its members are very excited by the prospect of the new boat joining the fleet.
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The latest Water Craft will be with us any day
It’s almost time for the next edition of Water Craft magazine to land on our doormats – so what’s in store this time around? Lots of boating goodies as usual – including the first of two big features by our friend Ben Crawshaw in which he reports on his adventures sailing his Light Trow named Onawind Blue. That feels like a real privilege, I must say, even though I’d prefer to seem my design used for rather less extreme adventures…
Here’s what Water Craft editor Pete Greenfield has to say about the upcoming issue:
So – how has boat craftsmanship, amateur and professional, fared through the long hard winter and the much longer and harder recession? In W80, we seem to have some of the answers.
Interestingly, for many professional wooden boat builders, the answer seems to be they are managing rather nicely thank you… though mostly with repairs rather than new builds.
At Peter Freebody & Co, for example, spiritual home of so many traditional Thames craft, Melanie Freebody tells Kathy Mansfield there may be snow on the roof but the boatshops beneath have rarely been busier.
Giving up the well-paid but stressful job in IT to learn to build wooden boats is a good idea for some. Certainly, on a dark dank morning in December when the students of 2009 launched the fascinating variety of craft they’d built at the Boat Building Academy at Lyme Regis, our Dick Phillips detected little stress… though maybe the champagne helped.
No nerves on the part of our tame amateur boatbuilder Peter Goad either, when Messrs Phillips and Chesworth turned up to sail the Cape Henry 21. Perhaps, as Peter explains in his final fit-out article, a five-year project encourages a relaxed and patient frame of mind.
Watch, on YouTube.com, Ben Crawshaw’s reports on sailing a small boat in the Med and you’ll see rather more evident anxiety. And reading about how he built his first boat, a slender lugger called a Light Trow intended for more sedate waters, in a public garden in Spain, you’ll encounter few manyana moments.
More sail than oar but definitely a craft to cope with exhilarating sea sailing, we think Paul Gartside’s free plans, complete with lines and offsets, for his 20ft (6m) lugger will persuade many a putative backyard boatbuilder to stop saying manyana and take the plunge.
As may the editor’s outdoor boat….
But outdoors, as Colin Henwood of Henwood & Dean Boatbuilders explains in his masterclass on painting and varnishing is not the ideal place to give your boat the finest finish for the new season. You need a big tent, kind-of like Water Craft itself.
Buy a subscription now (see the link in our right-hand column here at intheboatshed.net and pay with your credit card via PayPal) or find the March-April Water Craft in your local newsagents – to find a stockist in the UK see http://availability.mmcltd.co.uk
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