[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]
Beer beach boat Steadfast at sea off North-West Scotland
Beer beach boat Steadfast on launch day
Another craft launched in July by Boat Building Academy students was a 16ft 5in Beer beach boat, built to lines taken from a boat on the beach at Beer, Devon, by one of the students, Alasdair Grant.
The youngest student in the Boat Building Academy’s Class of September 2009, Alasdair first contacted the academy when he was 14. Four years later at the end of his course he was given a special BBA award in recognition of his outstanding dedication and hard-work during the build of his aptly-named boat Steadfast.
The award was a brass plaque reading ‘Made in England’. Alasdair, it should be understood, is a proud Scot – so I hope he appreciated the well meant joke…
Alasdair is from a fishing family in Aultbea in the North West Scotland, and wanted to build a working boat. After seeing and taking the lines from the Beer beach boat, Alasdair brought some his own Scottish influence to the construction, including very heavy framing. He and another student building the boat, Jim Walsh, went on to include seven big frames in the build and the finishing touch, and Scottish-style tyres for fenders.
Steadfast is now being used by his family as their water taxi to and fro the Scottish mainland and the Isle of Ewe, and is said to have coped well in recent gales.
Since graduating in June, Alasdair has began work with Cockwells in Cornwall.
A classic work on the beach boats of Britain is this book: Beach Boats of Britain.