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
Ocean Racers looks like a great account of clipper ship racing by the poet Cicely Fox Smith. I don’t know when I’ll find time to read it all (there’s far too much in my in-tray just now) but some of you might!
My thanks to reader Brian Smith for letting me know of this book’s existence.
For more posts relating to Cicely Fox Smith, click here.
The Faversham Creek Trust’s apprentice scheme for training young shipwrights is to begin in August, when two apprentices will begin their 18 months of intensive training at the Trust’s Purifier Building.
The scheme is part of the FCT’s aim of regenerating Faversham Creek as a working waterway, and is expected to be expanded in future years.
Read about the scheme here.
The apprentices will begin by working on the 1908 Kent-built wooden yacht Mayhi, photographed above at the Purifier Building by Richard Fleury. Later in their training, they will experience commercial repair and restoration of larger vessels moored downstream.
The teaching programme will be contracted to a company formed by Brian Pain, managed by master shipwright Simon Grillett, and accredited by Rochester College.
PS – Readers may also be interested to know that the well known comedian, presenter and TV producer Griff Rhys Jones recently visited the FCT during a tour of Kent’s civic society’s as part of his role as the president of Civic Voice. I gather he showed a good knowledge of the issues facing campaigners seeking to protect Faversham’s buildings and to ensure the Creek once again becomes a working waterway. So the word is getting round…
My brother Matt has been taking more fabulous photos in the Far East – this time of rafting activities in the Chinese county of Yangshou. The photos are his copyright, naturally.
Perhaps the most striking images here are those of fishermen on narrow bamboo rafts working with cormorants at night.
Matt was told by locals that the fishermen tie the birds’ beaks during the day to make them hungry, and take them out at night, this time with their necks loosely tied. Once the cormorants dive down and catch the fish they can only swallow the small ones – the large ones they take back to the fisherman and the birds voluntarily stay with their masters.
It’s a strikingly strange way of making a living and seems very harsh on the birds, which are of course prevented from pursuing their natural behaviours. But it you’d have to say that it’s very inventive.
The rest of the photos are largely of tourist rafting – the holidaymakers are largely Chinese, says Matt – but there is one fascinating photo of a boat that’s clearly an ancient prototype of the Mouseboat. This Googlewhack may give you some idea, and there are various plans at the Duckworksmagazine website. You can even a book from Amazon, Ultrasimple Boat Building: 17 Plywood Boats Anyone Can Build, that includes plans for several of them…
For more of Matt Atkin’s photos, click here.
