Category: Designs and designers, boat plans,books of plans

Plans for boats, sailing yachts, motor yachts, rowing boats, sailing boats, dinghies, dories, canoes, skiffs, oars, sails – may be free or paid-for

Watchet Boat Museum acquires ropery equipment

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Watchet Boat Museum acquires a ropery

Watchet Boat Museum acquires a ropery

Watchet Boat Museum acquires a ropery

Watchet Boat Museum acquires a ropery

The ropery equipment at its old home at Edenfield.
Click on the photos to see larger images

Watchet Boat Museum has acquired some interesting old rope-making equipment and plans to use it to show the process to the public.

The museum at Watchet in Somerset has acquired the equipment from the former Britannia Rope & Twine Ltd factory in Edenfield in Lancashire, which closed its doors in 2001.

The old factory used to be one of the area’s biggest employers, manufacturing products ranging from skipping ropes to ropes for boxing rings; it even made hangman’s nooses and the rope-pulls for toilets used in Butlin’s Holiday Camps.

Honorary curator John Nash told me that when he first saw rope-making equipment being shown by rope and knot expert Des Pawson, he felt strongly that the Boat Museum would benefit from having some similar equipment, not least because he noticed that demonstrations of the the machinery in use were very popular with the public.

‘We had a machine made at great expense and that worked well,’ he told me, ‘but now we have the real thing, and it’s even better.’

Thanks for the information John!

To visit the museum’s website to learn about the Somerset flatner boats and to buy plans, follow this link: Watchet Boat Museum.

And click here for more intheboatshed.net posts on the on Watchet museum.

Des Pawson’s is available at Amazon.co.uk Des Pawson’s Knot Craft and at Amazon.com Des Pawson’s Knot Craft .

Light Trow Onawind Blue gets her new wings

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Light Trow Onawind Blue gets new lugsails

Light Trow Onawind Blue has a new set of standing lugsails

Ben Crawshaw has given his Light Trow some new standing lugsails made especially for her. They’re obviously not the spritsails I originally drew, but he seems very happy with the result and the boat looks just right – and charmingly picturesque too. I’m very happy with the change.

Read all about it at Ben’s excellent weblog The Invisible Workshop, which describes the story of how he originally built the beach cruiser from my free plans, and how he’s been adapting her to his needs for cruising on the Spanish coast.

There’s no doubt Ben’s going to enjoy her new turn of speed combined with the ability to reef well down – as the picture shows, he’s got two good-sized reefs in each sail.

For more links related to the Light Trow design and to trows in general, follow this link.

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John Welsford’s micro cruiser Fafnir sparks the imagination

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John Welsford micro-cruiser Fafnir

John Welsford micro-cruiser Fafnir

John Welsford’s interesting Fafnir design. Click on the images for larger drawings

John Welsford tells me that the level of interest in his new Fafnir pocket cruiser design is exceeding all expectations.

It’s certainly an interesting boat – a blue-water cruiser capable of being build in a typical garage, and there’s a good case for saying that it’s the best choice available for someone who wants to sail alone in a small, easily handled boat.

Its crucial dimensions are:
•Length on deck 13ft 1in (4.00m),
•Beam 6ft 2in (1.90m)
•Draft 2ft 7in (0.800m)
•Sail area 139sqft (14.9sqm)
•Dry weight estimated 1430lbs (650kg)
•Ballast 550lbs (250kg)
•Maximum sailing weight 2420lbs (1100kg)

John describes Fafnir as a tough little cruiser for one or two, and tells a story about how the design came about at his website.
It seems a customer wanted to build a 10ft boat in which to circumnavigate, so John worked out a route, the amount of current assist that was possible, the weather windows and the climatic and stores consumption issues – and decided the voyage wasn’t practical.

But he went on to draw the minimum boat he considered workable – and Fafnir is the result.

Go to John Welsford’s site to learn more!