Category: Barges and wherries

Barges and wherries and other working boats originally for carrying cargoes

Please fill out the Wooden Boatbuilders Trade Association’s survey – it only takes a moment

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

The WBTA has decided to find out about the kinds of people who buy and own traditional boats, where they  go and where they get their information – and it has engaged an independent market research firm to run a survey.

I was very pleased to be asked to put up this link to the short survey questionnaire, as it’s potentially an excellent step, and hopefully will elicit some really useful answers.

I’d be most grateful if as many of you as possible fill it in – it really won’t take long, you might win one of Kathy Mansfield’s very nice calendars, and you will be contributing to keeping wooden boatbuilders afloat business-wise during the hard times to come.

Yes – you heard right. There are PRIZES to be won!

It would be an added bonus if you could also please find somewhere to say that you came from intheboatshed.net – there’s at least one little window you can use to convey this essential piece of information, and I’m sure we’d all like to see the WBTA making more use of intheboatshed.net’s ability to communicate with the big wide world.

Finally please pass this on to your friends – all you have to do is to email them the link for this site (http://intheboatshed.net of course!), as I’ll leave this post at the top of the pile for a few days.

Don’t miss something good – subscribe to intheboatshed.net

The story of Collar’s, the Whitstable boatyard

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

Gamecock, built at Collar’s boatyard, Whitstable, in 1907. I took these
photos in Faversham Creek last weekend from the decks of Dorma, a
1923 Hillyard – thanks for the trip Steve!

I was charmed this week to find the story of Collar’s boatyard told by the Simply Whitstable website.

The yard remained for many years in he same family, and among their famous smacks are Rose and Ada, Gamecock and Emeline.

Simply Whitstable also has sections on sailing barges and on the town’s fishing industry, including material about the famous local oyster beds, spratting, whelking, various rescues – and tales of old boats.

For more on smacks generally, see the Sailing Smacks website and the Wikipedia.

Don’t miss something good – subscribe to intheboatshed.net

Boats of the Humber Estuary

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

Humber dusters – click on the image for more

The Humber blobber – click on the image for more

The striking Paull shrimper – click on the image for more

Some intriguing gems this morning from Goole on the Web. I grew up on the southern side of the Humber Estuary, and I’m always interested in the bits of information about the area’s boats that occasionally come my way.

The Goole on the Web folks have put up a series of pages on each of several important boat types, including the Humber duster,  the blobber, the Paull shrimper and the Humber trawler, as well as the better known billyboy, Humber keel and Humber sloop.

I can’t begin to guess why some of them have such intriguingly unfamiliar names!

It seems the area also had crab boats borrowed from Cromer on the Norfolk coast, and of course its own packet boats.

If the Hull-type duster looks familiar, this might be the reason! I gather the maritime museum in Hull has an example of a duster, by the way, but can find no pictures on the web, which seems a shame – I think both the duster and blobber have potential as the basis of modern-day small cruising boats.

PS The musuem at Hull has interesting links to pages and pictures of the ancient Ferriby boats, the Hasholme boat, and the impressive and even older Brigg log boat.

PPS – I’ve just learned that the illustrations that Goole on the Web have put up are likely to be the work of George Holmes, which would make sense. I’ll add more later when I know more, but in the meantime here are some samples of his artistic work from the Albert Strange Association weblog.

[ad name=”link-unit-post-bottom”]