The Boat Building Academy is inviting everyone to celebrate the launch of seven boats built by students on the internationally recognised 38-week boat building course. The launch is at 9:30am on Thursday 31 May at Lyme Regis harbour.
The 18 students are launching seven boats:
- 17ft ply-on-frame Glen-L Ski King with 57hp inboard diesel engine
- 16ft 6in Mill Creek two-seater kayak of foam-cored composite construction
- 16ft6in Mill Creek two-seater kayak with a marine ply hull and a yellow cedar and sapele deck
- a 19ft 7in Atkin-designed Utility Sea Skiff named Scamp. Her hull strip planked in yellow cedar, two layers of mahogany veneers cold moulded & sheathed, sapele back bone. The design has been adapted to accept an outboard motor, rather than an inboard engine. It has a sweet chestnut deck and fit out
- 14ft Stirling & Son daysailer in glued clinker construction, using plywood and mahogany, with an oak keel and deck
- 14ft Paul Gartside Skylark lug-rigged sailing dinghy in traditional clinker construction, in mahogany on an an oak keel and timbers
- 18ft 2in Iain Oughtred Artic Tern, in glued clinker construction, with a mahogany ply hull, sapele well deck & trim, and iroko soles
The class of August 2017 come from all over the world, including Spain and the USA and locally, and their backgrounds are just as varied: they include musicians, lawyers, construction designers, teachers and a 17-year-old school leaver, who at home in the Scillies, has already worked with more boats than most students.
Students join the course for a variety of reasons, some join to retrain for a new career in the marine industry or to take a sabbatical from an intensive job. Others, like husband and wife Ros and David, both naval architects whose projects included aircraft carriers and warships, joined to build on their skillset so that they can maintain their 40-year-old wooden Osprey sailing dinghy.
Students graduate from the Academy with the industry=recognised City & Guilds level 3 diploma in marine construction, systems engineering and maintenance.
For further details and to see a preview of the boats see www.boatbuildingacademy.com.