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

Building the Colin Archer Emma

There’s plenty to read and pictures to see at the Emma website – but as it’s in Dutch, I suspect many Intheboatshed.net readers won’t understand it too readily. If Nederlands isn’t your favourite language, happily all is not entirely lost – it’s possible to make sense of quite a lot of it using Google Translate and I gather an English version of the site is in the works.

However, there is no Google app that can help you get over the urge to acquire a similar vessel from somewhere and go sailing forever…

The Wikipedia has quite a lot more information about Colin Archer (1832–1921), shipbuilder and designer of more than 200 boats including the design used for building the Emma.

Archer was famous for his durable and safe vessels, and his output included a distinctive double-ended design for the Norwegian Lifeboat institution.

The class of boat remained in service for many years, and some original boats and later builds have been adapted for use as cruising yachts – Emma is an example of a recent build by Tom Pollman from Holland, and is based on drawings of lifeboat RS22, Vardo.

556px-Colin_Archer_Statue

Colin Archer monument erected in his home town of Larvik, photo by Stig Andersen from Wikimedia Commons

BBA student builds striking retro speed boat

Photos by Janine Cashin, Paul Dyer, Becky Jacobs, and Jenny Steer

Boat Building Academy student Brian Reford built this jet ski powered speed boat during the course of his 35 week course, and launched it during the college’s big student launch in December. (Click here for more posts about BBA launchings and news.)

After some vigorous champagne popping Brian and his brother slowly steered the boat, built in just six months, out of the harbour. As the boat passed through the narrow channel leading out past the Cobb, the rest of the newly launched boats fell in line behind and followed Brian out to sea.

Then, Brian put his foot down. A Western Morning News article described the boat as a ‘bullet-shaped’ and her performance matched her looks – the crowd moved to the harbour wall to see her perform watched as she shot across the bay.

Some 16ft in length and built using three layers of marine ply on western red cedar frames, she was built from plans based on a classic American power boat, the Donzi Sweet 16, from plans obtainable from the website Classic Wooden Boat Plans.

The design appealed to Brian because of the exaggerated shape and its spaciousness comparative to its size. He added a 130 hp engine for a touch of excitement via a jet ski engine bought from an online auction site.

Brian has been interested in making things for as long as he can remember, learning woodworking skills from his late father and building his first Land Rover at just 13 years old. After school he went on to work for a haulage company mending lorries, but a period of school work experience at Henwood & Dean inspired him, and he joined the Academy to learn to build boats.

As a way of remembering his father, who at one time was a gunsmith in Kenya, Brian named his speedboat Bunduki, the Swahili word for ‘rifle’ and also the name of the gun shop his father used to run.

Colin Henwood, who came to the launch, has offered Brian a job at the Henwood & Dean yard.

News about the Julie skiff design

A Julie skiff has been built in Russia from the free plans available on this website. It’s pretty close the the plans, though the builder left off the corner pieces at the stern and decided against the neat draining foredeck I’d intended as a good place to put a small anchor and line, or a painter. Oh well…

I know nothing of the language, but the chap seems pretty positive about it all! See the boat in action here:

Also, Mick Webb in Queensland, Australia, has started building a Julie using a more traditional strongback-and–frames approach. Photos of his frames are below.

I think the result will be rather appealing – I have a set of frame heights, if anyone wants to build a Julie skiff in the same way.

Free plans for building a stitch and glue Julie skiff are available from the Plans page of this website.