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The Royal Navy’s small sailing craft of 1937

Seamanship

Naval 30ft gig – the RN’s fastest service boat under sail in 1937

These pages describing the Navy’s small sailing craft and how to sail them come from the Admiralty’s Manual of Seamanship, dated 1937. Many of them will be familiar to ex-Naval personnel, and to those who worked in boat and ship building in years gone by.

There’s some fascinating stuff here, including the information that the lugger was the fastest small sailing boat that the Navy had in those days – and that its rig was pretty well identical to Cornish luggers from up to 100 years before. There’s also some sail dimension information that people who work with traditional boats might find useful and interesting today, and instructions on sailing that still seem relevant, at least to me.

There are other chapters on the construction and the naming of parts of small boats, so if this post proves popular, I’ll put that material up at some point.

Seamanship Seamanship Seamanship

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The Light Trow goes to sea

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Light Trow

Light Trow Light Trow

Ben Crawshaw’s Light Trow Onawind Blue

Once again Ben has come up trumps with some delicious photos – can’t you just smell the sea? – and some more interesting weblog entries.

I’m glad to say that he has fixed the problems he’s had with his rudder and the thwart supporting the daggerboard, and that he continues to be very happy with his new boat.

As the designer, I can’t wait to see it sailing with something like the two-stick rig I originally intended, but no doubt that will come.

See Ben’s weblog here: The Invisible Workshop

More Light Trow posts:

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A rare Uffa Fox Flying 10 at Beale Park

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Flying 10

Flying 10 Flying 10 Flying 10

Flying 10
Uffa Fox’s Flying 10

I’ve managed to recover my photos from the Beale Park Boat Show a few weeks ago, and to celebrate this small miracle I thought I’d show you these shots of a sweet little Flying 10 racing keelboat designed by Uffa Fox.

Curiously for such a rare and precious craft, there was nothing to say what it was and its history, and nothing at all to indicate who owned her of who had brought her to the show. It’s probably a blessing for the person concerned, for if I’d been able to find them, they would probably have been subjected to a blizzard of questions. Nevertheless, if anyone can add some more information I’d be very grateful to hear from them please!

The little boat’s dimensions are striking: length overall 14ft; beam 3ft 11in; draught 1ft 6in; waterline length 10ft. My guess is that he intended her as a teenager’s racer, but I fear the cost of making a keelboat like this would have been too high to create a large market, and so this sweet little boat remains a rarity.

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