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

Peter Radclyffe’s recent projects

Radclyffe Dilston Class 2

Radclyffe Dilston Class Radclyffe Design no 97 50m schooner

These striking drawings come from Peter Radclyffe Design – if that name seems familiar, it’s because he went public in Classic Boat with some drawings for a new J Class yacht last summer, and that he was responsible for rebuilding the Lulworth some years ago.

Peter tells me that the Dilston Class (top and above left) is named after the village of Dilston near  Corbridge, Northumberland, which is where his  family hails from. He adds that he learned a lot about the design of boats of this kind  from studying the work of John Leather – in the early 70s he lived in the same nearby to Leather’s home at Fingringhoe.

Design no 77, a 50m schooner, is based on the Vera Mary designed by JM Soper and launched in 1932. I think I’d want to take a photograph or 500 if she passed anywhere near me – if I could collect myself long enough to remember where I’d put my camera.

BBA students build and launch a clinker Paul Gartside Skylark dinghy

Skylark - Jim Higginson. Photo - Emma Brice Skylark - Jim Higginson at centre. Photo by Becky Joseph

This 14ft Paul Gartside-designed Skylark traditional clinker-built dinghy made by Boat Building Academy student Jim Higginson with help from fellow students Paddy Uniacke and Mark Bestford is planked in slow-grown Douglas fir, which was also used to construct its birdsmouth-style mast.

A similar 12ft Gartside-designed dinghy built by an earlier student caught Jim’s eye on a visit to the academy, and chose to build the boat partly for its looks and partly because of the range of skills it required to build. The boat is named Amethyst – the moniker was chosen by Jim’s grandfather, who kindly paid for the materials and got to take her out with Jim on board on student launch day.

See a photo log of the build of Amethyst here.

Not many students part with their first built boat, but Jim intends to sell the dinghy. (If any reader is interested in the boat, please send me an email at gmatkin@gmail.com and I’ll forward it on.)

Having graduated, Jim is now looking for opportunities to develop his skills, preferably through working with a traditional boat yard. [PS – I learn today – the 22nd – that Jim has now got a trial job at a traditional boat yard in Gloucester. Good luck Jim!]

Paddy successfully graduated as a seckhand on a Tallships Youth Trust voyage in 2007 and has since spent time working in Australia and New Zealand – one of his many and varied jobs included a stint at Freshwater Bay Shipwrights in Perth.

Like a couple of others in the same student cohort, Paddy left the BBA with a job lined up in a yard at Ipswich, working on the restoration of a Dragon. A keen traveller, Paddy eventually aims to take his skills to Canada and find boat building employment there.

Mark returned to England two years ago after serving in the Merchant Navy followed by 22 years in the Royal Navy.

On leaving the Navy, Mark worked in various roles including yacht skipper, sailing instructor and private charter skipper. He’s now setting up a business at Chesterfield, Derbyshire, that will offer offer boat management, and mobile maintenance, repairs, and support services for private owners and marine businesses covering the inland waterways, reservoirs and coastal areas of the UK.

As he says, there are many boat owners who do not have the time or facilities, or are physically unable to maintain their boats through the seasons, and the new company’s aim is effrectively to bring the boatyard to the customer’s boat.

To be called Boatwork, the business is also to have an artistic dimension, creating wall art made from reclaimed wood, including what he calls ‘Boathearts’ – elegant boat cross sections designed for use as wall decorations or sailing trophies, and made from offcuts left over following boat building work.

In addition, Mark is supporting a British Mini 6.50 Transat campaign, and has a website at www.boatwork.co.uk.

3. Boatheart - Photo by Mark Bestford

A regatta to celebrate 100 years of the International 12 Foot Dinghy Class

World Cup Venice_2

Sylvia - built 1920 hanneke gilissen big

Main photo: the 2011 International 12 Foot World Cup racing at Venice, attracted over 100 entries from 10 (photo: James Robinson Taylor); Sylvia, built in Switzerland in the 1920s; recent Dutch championships (photo: Hanneke Gilissen)

West Kirby Sailing Club and the International 12 Foot Dinghy Class are expecting 30 or so boats to take part in a special regatta this summer to celebrate the centenary of the class’s first regatta in 1913.

There is information about the event here.

The first recorded regatta took place on the Marine Lake at West Kirby, Merseyside, on the 4th October 1913. The club had just taken delivery of a fleet of six 12 Foot Dinghies, and decided to publicise the class by inviting representatives of twelve sailing clubs from the north west of England to take part in an inaugural regatta.

The winner was Thunderer, which represented 12 Foot Dinghy designer George Cockshott’s own sailing club, the Southport Corinthians.

Cockshott himself was present and crewed in the boat representing Rhyl Sailing Club. One of the original 12 Footers, the recently restored Royal Oak, is still at West Kirby.

Elsewhere in the UK, a number of old boats are being restored for the event and several new boats are under construction.

This summer’s regatta takes place on on the 28th-30th June 2013. Most boats will be travelling from the Netherlands, but there will also be competitor boats from Germany, Switzerland, France and Ireland. Racing will take place on the Dee Estuary and on the Marine Lake – the scene of the 1913 event.

Several members of the Cockshott family will be present as guests.

The Merseyside club is also home to another of George Cockshott’s designs, the West Kirby Star class.