Turk’s auction – are you missing the small wooden boat bargains of the year?

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These photos come from a viewing of the items being auctioned at Turk’s Boatyard at Chatham on Saturday.

Julie and I went over in the company of a clutch of other boating enthusiasts, and a pleasant, sociable and productive time we had, as you may gather from Chris Partridge’s post about the outing at his Rowing for Pleasure weblog. And yes I did manage to snap up a nice pair of oars and a sign from a hire boat business – as Chris observes, Turk’s are disposing of generations-worth of old-style hardware, models, rigs and who knows what else.

By now, I’d hope that most trad boat enthusiasts who use the Internet regularly are probably aware of the astonishing auction of equipment and craft belonging to the Turk’s business. If not, I’d advise you to quickly take a look at this earlier intheboatshed.net post about the sale, which closes on the 14th April.

Jolly outing though it was, however, I was a little saddened and surprised by how few other people were looking at the lots on Saturday. If this was close to indicating the level of interest in the auction, I thought, the sad end to all this could be that a number of interesting, even historic, craft will be disposed of in some other way, possibly even burned for all I know. But looking at the prices at least some of the boats are attracting that doesn’t now seem so likely – though after seeing the lots I can say for certain that there are still some real bargains to be had.