Month: December 2010

Tom Dunderdale sailing dinghy launched by 2010 Boat Building Academy students

Boat Building Academy launch December 2010

Boat Building Academy launch December 2010 Boat Building Academy launch December 2010 Boat Building Academy launch December 2010

Boat Building Academy launch December 2010

‘Proud builder’ and ‘thumbs-up’ photo featuring Ian Davidson’s wife Liddy were taken by Chelsea Davine and James Bird respectively; the last two were taken by Derek Thompson LRPS. Many thanks to you all for permission to use these shots

Emma Brice of the Boat Building Academy at Lyme has sent me the first of five instalments showcasing the boats built by the Academy’s class of March 2010.

Ian Davidson’s 18ft strip planked gaff rigged daysailer Annie, designed by Tom Dunderdale, is the first of its kind to be built. After a lot of thought, Ian invented the name Kisuli after the three women in his life, daughters Kimberley and Susy and wife Linda.  Then he found out Kisuli means dizzy in Swahili – apparently the women in question have have forgiven him.

The 18ft boat built by Ian and Keian Gillett, among others, has a shallow draft and will be used for sailing outings on Chichester Harbour – it is big enough for Ian to take his family out. It’s a pretty craft, and it would be great to hear how it sails.

Ian’s a keen sailor, and boats and the sea have always been part of his life and describes himself as a fixer with a thing about wood. After serving in the army for 37 years, Ian joined the Academy to learn a skill that he could practice and be proud of.

In the New Year Ian will tackle a house fit out, and afterwards will look for work as a marine carpenter in Hampshire.

Keian, who was Ian’s main partner on the build is a chef who gained a reputation on the course for making excellent bacon sandwiches. From London, he also loves sailing and is now off to Singapore to help a friend with the complete refit of a 43ft strip-planked boat, and from there will join another friend in the Sailing for Sustainability community project in Fiji, building wooden catamarans.

150 years of Falmouth Docks exhibition at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall

150 years of Falmouth Docks exhibition

The Cutty Sark under repair in Falmouth Docks in about 1930

150 years of Falmouth Docks exhibition 150 years of Falmouth Docks exhibition 150 years of Falmouth Docks exhibition

150 years of Falmouth Docks exhibition 150 years of Falmouth Docks exhibition 150 years of Falmouth Docks exhibition

British Realm, the first vessel to enter No 2 dry dock (Queen Elizabeth Dock) in May 1958; construction of No 4 dry dock 1928; dockyard worker cleaning sections of a tanker engine circa 1960; dockyard workers fitting new boiler tubes; major repairs to tanker circa 1950; workers removing the propeller from the 100,000 ton tanker British Admiral circa 1970. All photos courtesy of the David Barnicoat collection

A new exhibition celebrating the 150th anniversary of Falmouth Docks opened some days ago at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.

Falmouth has been used as a harbour for over 2,000 years and the docks have been an industrial hub since their creation in the mid-19th century, and Falmouth senior pilot David Barnicoat and museum staff have worked together for months to create an exhibition including models, films, objects, paintings and photography.

Museum exhibitions development manager Milly Newman is particularly pleased to include a model of the docks. ‘In the heart of our exhibition is a beautiful model showing their scale and impact. It’s a real jewel amongst the many objects we have supporting the exhibition,’ she said.

‘Five generations of my family have worked at the docks. My great-grandfather helped build them, I worked in the fitting shop from the 1950s and my son works there today. You could say it’s in our blood,’ retired dock employee  Frank Eva said proudly. ‘This exhibition not only tells the story of the docks but in some ways tells a part of my family’s and other family’s histories and I’m very proud it’s being celebrated.’

The exhibition will remain on show until the 30th March 2011.

Windermere in the Great Frost of 1895

Ice yacht on Windermere in the Great Frost of 1895

We Brits have all been talking about the snow this week. We never tire of discussing this kind of thing, partly because our climate’s very changeable and fond of playing tricks both on us and our often wildly inaccurate weathermen, partly because floods, droughts, strong winds and ice each bring different practical problems that we never adequately prepare for.

Heck, this time I had to abandon my car in a lane somewhere in remote, hilly Sussex. I blame the government, naturally, as is the duty of every proper Englishman.

So I’m entertained by the coincidence some finds made by Stuart Jenkins in a junk shop in Melbourne just this week. They’re a small collection of of lantern slides depicting Windermere during the Great Frost of 1895 – several of them are of skaters, curling and lake scenes, but the splendid one above shows an ice yacht. See the rest of his collection here.

Stuart points out that Arthur Ransome remembered the Great Frost and used it in his fictional children’s work Winter Holiday, which featured ice yachts, and sent over a link to a page on the allthingsransome.net website, which includes some splendid background taken from a local newspaper. A correspondent from Manchester wrote with particular enthusiasm:

”The office must manage its own affairs today,’ we said, as we read the telegraphic report that Windermere was one sheet of black ice and that the thermometer was registering 22 degrees of frost. We will not be cheated of a chance of 20 square miles of black ice, and we were soon steaming away from the blackened city into the clear country-side and its fields of spotless white…

‘Windermere Station was reached at last, and we were soon spinning cheerily down on the top of a well-loaded omnibus… As we descended towards the village that clusters round St Martin’s Church we saw people like black ants moving hurriedly to and fro upon the frozen level of the lake. Then the landings were reached, and such a scene presented itself as can only be seen in some old Dutch city in mid-winter. The whole interspace between the land and the island was powdered white from the innumerable iron heels of the skaters. Here a pony with its jangling sleigh bells dashed along; there fond fathers pushed their little ones in perambulators. A hurdy-gurdy man made music here, and yonder, on St Mary’s Holme, a brass band blew its best, and risked frozen lips and frost-bitten fingers in the process.

‘Presently a great boat-sail was seen to belly to the wind and an iceboat slid past. Big people, little people, middle-sized people panted against the wind, or turned and opened their coats and spun past without effort. Paterfamilias toddled past without skates, and screamed his threatenings to venturesome youngsters. Aged men puffed their pipes and solemnly talked of the frost of forty years ago… Ah, how one’s heart went back with pain to the Manchester slum! And how one could have desired an enchanter’s wand to bring the artisan for one short hour from the factory room and give him heels of iron and the wings of the wind, and let him know what a six mile stretch of black ice could do to drive dull care away!’

Many thanks Stuart – your images and links are great fun!

There’s more on ice yachting at intheboatshed.net here and here. Has anyone seen any ice-yachting in the UK this winter? This year will be a great opportunity, it seems!