Month: August 2010

A new site for canoe yawl enthusiasts

canoe yawl, dick wynne, george holmes, eel, canoeyawl, humber yawl

George Holmes’ influential canoe yawl Eel

The canoe yawl deserves more prominence, and so Dick Wynne and friends have set up a website devoted to this type of boat at www.canoeyawl.org. I hope it’s a great success!

Here’s what Dick and co say about their venture:

We want to draw attention to today’s and tomorrow’s canoe yawl designs and not be seen as a purely historical group. But fear not, we love the pioneers too — one of the CYA ringleaders sails a 19th century design. Our aim is to represent all known canoe yawl designs, past and present, on these pages — it’ll take us a while to flesh out the design archive, with more designs, and more words to those already present.

  • If you have designed a canoe yawl, we want to hear from you and to give you some free advertising.
  • If you own a canoe yawl we want to hear from you with your experiences of it.
  • If you’re selling or buying a canoe yawl, we want to help you.
  • If you are none of the above and just like canoe yawls, we want to hear from you anyway!

The folks behind canoeyawl.org have a magazine in the pipeline that we hope will appear twice a year, and some interesting practical initiatives to discuss. I hope it’s all a great success.

PS – if you’re interested in canoe yawls, you may want to check out one of the seriously good reads of the year: Holmes of the Humber.

Boat Building Academy students launch a 14ft rowing skiff with wooden fit-out

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Boat Building Academy, Jon Palmer, Ben Larcombe, Justin Adkin, glass-fibre construction, wooden fit-out, Atlantic Rowing Race, Beale Park, Thames Boat Show, BBA, David Johnson, Wessex Resins, Sliced Bread, Ian Thomson, Nestaway, sectional dinghies

Boat Building Academy, Jon Palmer, Ben Larcombe, Justin Adkin, glass-fibre construction, wooden fit-out, Atlantic Rowing Race, Beale Park, Thames Boat Show, BBA, David Johnson, Wessex Resins, Sliced Bread, Ian Thomson, Nestaway, sectional dinghies Boat Building Academy, Jon Palmer, Ben Larcombe, Justin Adkin, glass-fibre construction, wooden fit-out, Atlantic Rowing Race, Beale Park, Thames Boat Show, BBA, David Johnson, Wessex Resins, Sliced Bread, Ian Thomson, Nestaway, sectional dinghies

Built by Boat Building Academy class of September 2009 students Jon Palmer and Ben Larcombe, this 14ft rowing skiff was designed by Justin Adkin.

Justin’s design gave Jon and Ben an opportunity to explore glass-fibre construction with a wooden fit-out.

Before the course Jon worked as a product designer, and Ben held down a variety of jobs ranging from snowboarding instructor to pattern-making apprentice. Both were looking to learn practical skills that would broaden their horizons in woodworking and boat building.

Unfortunately for Jon and Ben, rowing athlete Justin (he won the 05-06 Atlantic Rowing Race) broke the foot-rest while testing the boat at the Beale Park Thames Boat Show just before the BBA student launch day – but  Ben and John were back in the workshop working on the boat by Sunday evening after the show, and the boat was ready in time for the big launch.

I gather Justin hopes his new design will provide the basis for a new rowing racing class – but more generally says that it’s designed for short- to medium-length coastal regatta rowing races. The design was carved from a block, lines taken and lofted, and is loosely based on Whitehalls and flashboats, but with fuller forward sections to help it to lift when rowing on the open sea. The result is not as tippy as a flashboat, say the BBA folks, but still a test to row. Justin has recently built a fixed-seat version, which he says is very quick.

Visiting the Boat Building Academy David Johnson of Wessex Resins commented on the excellent design and told Justing he should call her Sliced Bread because, he said, ‘it had to be the best thing since’. The name may have stuck.

Since finishing the course Ben and Jon are setting up a workshop working with Ian Thomson (BBA graduate in June 2008) whose company’s Nestaway sectional dinghies have taken off.  Meanwhile, Ben and Jon have been asked to quote for building a traditional rowing boat and another of the Sliced Bread skiffs.

Where is Erik the Red?

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donald ridler, erik the red, dory, boat plans, eventide owners, dory, boatbuilding, transatlantic voyage, sailing boat

donald ridler, erik the red, dory, boat plans, eventide owners, dory, boatbuilding, transatlantic voyage, sailing boat

Cover and illustration from Erik the Red

Nick Duffy of Paget, Bermuda is travelling to the UK shortly and wishes to see Donald Ridler’s home-built dory  Erik the Red, as immortalised in the epic book describing how he constructed the boat in his paerents’ garden and then sailed it across the Atlantic.

Erik the Red was last heard of at the Exeter Maritime Museum, which closed some years ago. Does anyone know the whereabouts of this boat and whether it will be possible for Nick to see her?  I would guess that she’s likely to be in store somewhere, but if any reader has information please contact me at gmatkin@gmail.com and I will pass it on.

By the way, the Eventide Owner’s Group, which sells the Mouette plans from with Erik was built, has its own story about what happened to the boat, and this small snippet of information about a larger boat built using the same plans.

A number of Amazon sellers have copies of the Donald Ridler’s original book Erik the Red.